Praying with the Bible 3

Slides-show on the top right hand corner of the page................................./^ A Fire that kindles other Fires... -------------------------------------------- Make an act of faith in the loving presence of the Triune God... Father, Son and the Holy Spirit... Be aware of where you are and what you are feeling just now... joy, sorrow, anxiety, doubt, anger, restlessness,... Look at the above picture... spend a few moments looking at it... Be quiet... Let every negative experience flow away from you... The Triune God is present and active in you here and now... Let us pray the following verses from the Book of Genesis line by line with lots of hope and experience its inner meaning... And God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw that light was good; And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. (Genesis 1: 3-5) _____________________________ Contact E-Mail: vmalpan@gmail.com Thank you. Do visit again.

ILAH Experience

ILAH - Experience & Community Life (Intimacy, loneliness, alienation and hostility) Community is not so much a place, as it is a way, a journey, a pilgrimage… Jn 15:1-15; 1Cor 13:4-7; Gal 5:22-23; Ps: 2;,103; 111; 102; 69; 70; 109 The Four Words: a) Intimacy, b) Loneliness, c) Alienation and d) Hostility can summarize our (my) experience of Being Friends in the Lord in Communities… All these experiences are spiritual experiences which are open to me only because I am an embodied spirit… INTIMACY : an inward state of being positively affected by an experience. It may be an interpersonal relationship of being accepted, loved, encouraged, care-fronted, forgiven etc… The relationship can be between God and my own person, between other human persons and my own person… Intimacy seems to me to be a moment of being with another and enjoying it… Solitude = being alone but in a positive way… [I am alone with the ALONE] LONELINESS: being conscious of being alone in an uncomfortable/painful way… loneliness seems like a moment of being separated from others when I would like to be with them. Can we really believe that loneliness is good, even necessary? ALIENATION: State of being separated from the other/s… It may be an active experience (I alienate myself from the other); it may be a passive experience (the other alienates me in some way: I am alienated) HOSTILITY: Experience of enmity, unfriendliness and resistance… Hostility seems like moments of being against others and some way enjoying it, or of experiencing others being against me and not enjoying it( active and passive) I have to recognize that my life has moments of intimacy and moments of loneliness. I have experienced moments of hostility and alienation. Loneliness and intimacy seem like unavoidable moments of life for normal people. Hostility and alienation seem like unproductive human experiences, even though we may experience them often in our lives. The realization that my life has revelatory moments of intimacy and moments of loneliness and moments of alienation and moments of hostility leads me to the discovery of what it means to be human. My experience of finding God concrete is linked with entering fully and vulnerably into such moments of loneliness and intimacy, alienation and hostility. All these experiences can be creative and growth producing provided we take them to the Lord in prayer, surrender them to Him and allow ourselves to be touched and healed by the Lord. AMDG +++++++++++++ vmalpan@gmail.com

Face of God

(Photo: Jim Strzok, S.J.) ****************** "As a hart longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for thee, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?" (Ps 42: 1-2) ------------------------ vmalpan@gmail.com

Grace of a New Day

Blessed be God in His Creation!

"We give thanks to thee, O God; we give thanks; we call on thy name and recount thy wondrous deeds." (Psalm 75:1)

"O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!' (Psalm 107:1)

"Be still and know that I am God. I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth." (Psal 46:10)

God is present and active in your life today.

Listen to the whispers of His Spirit in you!

Just discover the message God has for you today!

Glory be the Father and to the Son and to the Hooly Spirit. As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be for ever and ever.Amen!

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Thank you!

vmalpan@gmail.com

Kenya: A Testimony

KENYA : A missionary’s testimony from Korogocho, the fourth largest Nairobi slum that is home to 120,000 people Nairobi (Agenzia Fides) "Calling to mind the shantytowns of Korogocho – Nairobi (Kenya), its people, and reinterpreting the experience I have had over the course of the many years in which I have lived here, always brings with it important emotions, sentiments, and memories charged with meaning. This has been a great blessing that I have received from the Lord, from the poor, from the people who have taught me so much," commented Fr. Daniele Moschetti, a Combonian missionary who has been working for years in Kenya, in writing to Agenzia Fides. Fr. Moschetti explained: "Korogocho is one of the 200 slums in Nairobi. Nairobi has a population of over 4 million, 2.5 million of whom live in the slums (in less than 5% of the city’s territory). 80% pay rent on a shack that they did not build themselves. There is an economic and social apartheid and an absurd injustice where inhumane exploitation infringes on human dignity, in various aspects of the lives of those who live in these illegal infernal habitats that have been ‘legalized’ by popular indifference." This was the missionary’s description of life in Korogocho, which has some 120,000 inhabitants living in one square kilometer: "the area is formed by seven ‘towns’ named: Highridge, Grogan, Ngomongo, Ngunyumu, Korogocho, Githaturu, and Kisumu NdogoNyayo. It is the fourth largest of the slums of city, after Kibera, Mathare, and Mukuru Kwa Njenga. It is an illegal establishment that arose in the late 1970s. More than half of the land is property of the State, or individual persons. The slum is multi-ethnic, with nearly 30 different ethnic groups. The two official languages are Kiswahili and English. The slum is also home to the Nairobi city dump, where literally tons of refuse is deposited each day. Thousands of people in Korogocho and its surrounding area earn a living by working in dumps or in related activities, including illegal operations and small organized crime, which rules the roost in a marginalized reality such as this one. The smoke and toxic gases of the dump slowly claim the lives of the people and there are thousands of people who are being treated in nearby clinics for lung problems, breathing complications, eye problems, and cancer. In the long list of victims is lay missionary Gino Filippini, who lived with us for 15 years in our slum and left a great testimony of life and faith.""Prostitution, unemployment, alcoholism, theft, crime, and domestic violence are the largest and most relevant problems," Fr. Moschetti said. There are also many children living in the street that now, in order to flee city police, take refuge in the slums. Many illegal firearms are also easy to find in the area and are another contributing factor in the crime, making Nairobi one of the most violent cities not only in Africa, but in the whole world.It is a desperate situation in which the Christian faith offers a light of hope: "The fight for the dignity and rights of the people, and the interests of small lobbying groups, land rights, education, and being considered full citizens with all the rights that blend in with the passion that our missionary community of Saint John, with its 21 small Christian communities, manifests in the Christian, Biblical, and liturgical formation, as well as the projects of rehabilitation for alcoholics and drug addicts, street children and prostitutes, and an effort to respond to the challenges, implying the entire population of the shantytown." - www.fides.org vamalpan@gmail.com

Prayer

Prayer of Luis Espinal, S.J. (Bolivian Martyr)

[Jesus has said:

"He who wants to save his life, will lose it, and he who spends it for me, will gain eternal life." But we feel frightened to spend our life, and give it out completely, without keeping anything for ourselves. A very powerful instinct of preservation leads to egoism, and enslaves us when we want to give out our life. Everywhere we find hooks and pegs to prevent losing it. Above all, we are downright cowards.

Lord Jesus, we feel frightened to spend our life. But you have given it to us in order to spend it. We cannot keep it save in sterile egoism.

To spend one's life means to work for others, even if they do not pay us back; to do a favour to him who will not reciprocate. To spend one's life is to expose oneself to failure, if necessary, without any false prudence. It is to burn one's boats for the sake of the neighbour.

We are torches meant to be burnt. Only then we give out light. Free us from the cowardly prudence that makes us avoid the sacrifice and seek for security.

We can spend our life without fanfare and false popularity. One gives one's life most simply, without any publicity, like the water in the spring, like the mother who gives her breast to the baby, like the plain sweat of the farmer.

Teach us, Lord, to plunge ourselves into the impossible, because behind the impossible lies your grace and your perseverance. We shall not fall into a vacuum.

The future is a mystery, our path gets lost in the mist. But we want to continue giving ourselves, because you are awaiting in the night, with a thousand eyes, shedding tears. "]

Courtsy:

Hedwig Lewis, S.J., At Home with God (Anand, India, Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, 1991), p.228.

My E-Mail id: vmalpan@gmail.com