thegoodfellas/blogset-br huggingface dataset:
in and just let go, saying to herself, 'If that is the worst he thinks of me, let me come up to his expectations or suspicions'.The healing of marriage:That is why it is absolutely necessary that those intending marriage should know both one another and their family backgrounds thoroughly before they 'tie the knot', and plan every detail of their married life with mutual consent in this important decision making process. The engaged encounter or marriage preparation course backed by personal counseling will make their task much easier; while I have always advised those already married to attend a Marriage Encounter weekend. However for those with serious marital problems, often of an emotional nature, an Inner Healing weekend retreat, devised specifically and exclusively for them by the Charismatic Renewal, is often the only and the last solution, precisely because in such a program the couple is helped both to identify the root causes of their problems through the teachings given and to seek a solution to them through prayer and spiritual counseling.Inner Healing Retreats for married couples:It was to one of these retreats that we used to give regularly in Mumbai, India and in very many other countries, which we called 'Couples in Christ' retreats, that a couple, who had already initiated the legal process for divorce, was brought by their friends. While each couple was assigned a room during those three days, this particular couple was obviously given separate rooms quite apart from one another, - without knowing at first that the other partner was also making the retreat. When they realised that they were 'tricked' by their friends, they were so angry that they wanted to leave immediately, but were persuaded to stay on at least for the first introductory teaching and prayer session, which they did, sitting in the front row but at the two far ends. At the next talk I noticed that they had moved one chair closer towards the center, - and towards one another. And finally at the very last session, I could hardly believe my eyes, they were sitting right in front and in the center holding hands. After the retreat they did not return home, but from the retreat itself they proceeded to Bangalore, a hill side resort in South India, for their 'second' honeymoon. A year later I happened to meet the same couple now reunited and filled with joy, also because there was now an addition to the family!
19 Joseph, Mary and Jesus: A Model Family The Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, on 1st May, should take us back to the double Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, on 25th March, (4th April this year), and of his Birth, on 25th December, that commemorates and celebrates the greatest event that ever took place of the Almighty God's intervention in weak humankind: the Nativity, and the greatest mystery that ever was of the Holy God's love for sinful man: the Incarnation (Jn 1:14, 3:16). But a re-reading of the two Infancy Narratives (Mt 1 & 2; Lk 1 & 2) reminds us not just of God's unique gift of his divine Trinitarian self to broken human beings for their healing and deliverance, but also of God's unique gift of a human communitarian family to damaged families for their inspiration and even imitation - the Holy Family of Nazareth. The pattern of Joseph's relationship with Mary and Jesus, of Mary's relationship with Joseph and Jesus, and of Jesus' relationship with Joseph and Mary, described in these two narratives, sets us an extraordinary exemplar of what family relationships could and should be in every Christian home.Mary fully trusted Joseph who in his turn was truly concerned about her:Mary had been engaged to Joseph but, before they came to live together, she was found to be pregnant. Being a righteous man however he did not want to expose her to public disgrace, and instead planned to send her away quietly. He was about to do this, when in a dream an angel told him not to be reluctant to take Mary as his wife, for the child conceived in her was from the Holy Spirit (Mt 1:18-20). Joseph did as the Lord had directed him - he took her as his wife (Mt 1:24). Mathew thus gives the genealogy of Jesus through Joseph, as the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born (Mt 1:16). The very first test of his betrothal was, as the greatest trial of any marriage is, the test and trial of suspicion, - that of being led, contrary to all appearances, to suspect the woman whom he loved and who he was certain loved him too. One can imagine what must have been going on in Joseph's mind and heart. And only when God revealed the divine mystery to him that Joseph, being basically a just man and a loyal husband, knew at last that Mary was faithful to God without being unfaithful to man.Similarly, the very first test of Mary's relationship with Joseph was also that of suspicion, the most painful and very common trial of a wife being suspected by the man whom she truly loves and who she knows loves her too. When the angel Gabriel revealed to her that she would conceive and bear a son to be named Jesus, who will be called the Son of God and will be King forever, Mary was obviously taken aback and asked how could she being a virgin conceive and bear a child (Lk 1:31-34).
If, as a tradition suggests, Joseph and Mary had privately committed themselves to remain virgins even in the married state, Mary's question was that of discerning which was God's will: that she remain a virgin and be childless or marry and be a mother. The angel's answer was that both was God's will: to remain a virgin, though married, and to still bear a child - something humanly impossible becoming divinely possible by the power of the Holy Spirit. Mary's response was an expression both of her submission to God's will and of her faith in his word (Lk 1:38), a submission and faith which are needed not for something difficult but not impossible, as in Zacharias' case, but for something humanly impossible as in Abraham's case too, a submission to God and a faith in him expressing itself in submission to and faith in her husband Joseph (Lk 1:35-48).Jesus proudly looked up to Joseph who cherished and protected him as his own son:Joseph must have been in a very close relationship with God to receive in dreams through the angel divine messages of such great and universal import, upon which he acted instantly and unquestioningly, in two very mysterious and difficult situations. The first message was to take in Mary as his wife in spite of her being pregnant, while still only betrothed to him, because she had conceived by the Holy Spirit, and to accept her child as his own son by giving him the name chosen by God himself (Mt 1:21,25). Mathew thus gives the genealogy of Jesus through Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born (Mt 1:16). (How often adopted children want to know who their real fathers are, forgetting what Jesus taught, that we have only one real Father in heaven, and what Paul repeated, that every fatherhood has its origin in the fatherhood of God himself.) The second message, or rather set of three angelic messages, Joseph received again in dreams that enabled him to protect the child's life from danger. He trusted and followed this divine guidance fully, whether warned to take the child, whose life was threatened by King Herod, and his mother, and flee into Egypt (Mt 2:13), or prompted to bring the child and his mother back to Israel, after Herod's death, or cautioned again, when Archelaus the son of Herod became the new ruler in Judea, to proceed instead to Nazareth in Galilee (Mt 2:19-23).On his part Jesus was identified and looked at as 'the son of Joseph' especially when he began his ministry (Lk:3:23). Even though his teaching dazzled his hearers at the synagogue in his home town, they would not easily forget that he was after all just the son of Joseph the carpenter (Lk:4:22), not realising that Joseph was himself of the lineage of King David (Mt 1:20; Lk 1:32). It was as the son of Joseph from Nazareth, that Jesus was identified by Philip to be the longed for Messias spoken of by Moses and the prophets (Jn 1:45), - Nazareth, an unknown village,
not even mentioned in the Old Testament, of which Nathaniel would then scornfully say, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" (Jn 1:36). And when Jesus proclaimed that he was the bread that had come down from heaven, the Jews remonstrated, "But is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?" (Jn 6:41-42). But I love to think that it was not in spite of being the son of Joseph that Jesus' greatness shone forth, but also because he was the son of Joseph, not biologically as the real son but emotionally as the proud 'son' of a proud 'father', proud of the way his father had brought him up and taught him his trade. (For every true child loves his Mum but boasts of his Dad.) The finest thing then said about Jesus was that he was a son subjected not only to God, but also to the man God had placed over him.Jesus obeyed Mary unequivocally even when she did not fully understand her son:The discovery that Jesus, then twelve years old, was not with them at the end of the first day's return journey from Jerusalem to Nazareth, must have disturbed Mary and Joseph tremendously, because of their seeming lack of responsibility and the possible loss of their only son (Lk 2:31-45). (For the greatest pain a mother goes through is not in the sickness or death of their offspring but in the uncertainty of his ultimate fate - kidnapped or just missing.) But greater than such a distress was first their amazement in finding him three days later in the temple, putting questions to the doctors of the law and giving the answers himself (Lk 2:46-48), and then their bafflement at the behaviour of their otherwise responsible son staying behind in Jerusalem without informing them, "Child, why have you treated us like this?" and so causing them so much fear and pain, "Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety" (Lk 2:43-48). But the greatest anguish was Jesus' enigmatic defense and explanation of his strange action, "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house and about my Father's interests?" (Lk 2:48-49). Like some mothers Mary went through the pain of the possible physical loss of her only son and like all mothers the still greater emotional loss of her baby son now grown up, more knowledgeable and more independent, and the consequent shock of the generation gap. A sword did pierce her heart, as Simeon had prophesied (Lk 2:34,35).Jesus' retort to Mary may therefore sound at first brusque and querulous, - but actions speak louder and clearer than words, - and the episode continues, and ends, - by Jesus going down with them to their home in Nazareth, where he was subject to them (Lk 2:51). (What a contrast is this with the behaviour of two teenage sons of a well-known Catholic family of Mumbai who migrated to London two years ago in order to give them a
better future. They have been coming home very late every night, their mother complained to me recently, and have never spoken to or even greeted her or their father.) Jesus' obedience to his human parents was a training school for his more exacting submission to his heavenly Father, (the Holy Spirit being given only to those who obey him - Acts 5:12), and an augury for his final victory, (the evil one having no power over him because he always obeyed the commands of his Father - Jn 14:30), in becoming obedient even to death, and that too on a cross (Phil 2:8).Conclusion:It is no wonder then that the Lucan Infancy narrative concludes with the double comment: firstly that, though Mary did not understand all these things, she treasured them in her heart, as any mother would do, and secondly that, with the grace of God, his heavenly Father, and under the tutelage of Joseph and Mary, his earthly parents, the child Jesus grew in wisdom and quality, - and was increasingly pleasing to both God and man (Lk 2:19,40, 50-52). May every father then be another Joseph, the upright worker, the respected and trusted head of the family, and every mother another Mary, the devoted homemaker, the warm and caring heart of the family, and every child another Jesus, the dutif
The Lord's Prayer for Unity"Father, I pray that they will be completely one as we are one" (John 17:23)The Need for Unity:About one fifth of the Gospel of John is devoted just to the final, or so called farewell, discourse of Jesus during the last supper with his apostles - now that his 'hour', the most important moment of his life, had come, that would bring redemption to the world. And of these four chapters, one full chapter contains the prayer of Jesus on the very eve of his Paschal Mystery, his last and most important prayer to His Father for his present and future disciples. Twice in that prayer Jesus tells his Father that he is finally coming or returning to him, now that the work entrusted to him is complete, - but still not quite complete. For he now prays that his Father would glorify his name not only by initiating his work of salvation on the cross, as head of the Church, but by completing it in his body the Church, making it one in peace and love. And even today the Church continues that priestly prayer of Jesus, when daily at Mass we pray, "Grant that we who are nourished by his body and blood may be filled with his Spirit and become one body and one spirit in Christ."The Source of Unity:But the unity for which Jesus prayed was not just an outward co-operation with philanthropic people in works of charity or an intellectual dialogue with religious men in matters of doctrine, but something far more fundamental. The mind of Jesus is that we cannot have unity with others unless we first have unity among ourselves as his disciples and, even more basic, we cannot have this unity unless we have unity with God our Father in Christ by his Spirit. That is why the prayer of Jesus to his Father was, "As you are in me and I am in you, I pray that they can also be one in us" (21, Jn 14). The very Trinitarian Life of perfect unity in perfect diversity is to be the source and the model of our own unity. We were baptised in the names of the Triune God to continue living the same Trinitarian life, motivated by it and even imitating it.The Model of Unity:That is why Jesus says so beautifully that by doing this his disciples will be true to and worthy of the name of their Father God, "so that they can and will be one, as you and I are one" (11, 22), just as loving one's enemies makes us true children of our Father, in whose image we have been created, - and no true child would want to spoil or disgrace his father's name. While he was with them, Jesus did all he could to ensure that his apostles who were so diverse would be true to that name in spite of their jealousy and pride, by watching over them carefully, being alert to any signs of disunity among them, and constantly bringing
them back into communion, - an example to his future disciples.The Protection of Unity:As Jesus prays for unity among his disciples, almost in the same breath he prays that they would beprotected from the wiles of the Evil One and the hatred of the 'world', (i.e., his followers), whose strategy, as the Lord warns them, would be to cause dissension, especially among Church and Charismatic leaders, often through a misguided emphasis on mere signs and the more spectacular gifts, and to lead them astray through an attachment to and seeking after pleasure, possessions and power. The Catholic Charismatic Renewal, which began with a prayerful and joyful togetherness, transcending all barriers, is now unfortunately sometimes plagued by bitter divisions at certain levels, by an unholy aggressiveness and a spirit of competitiveness.The Purpose of Unity:After washing their feet Jesus commanded his apostles, "You must love each other as I have loved you" and he concluded at once, "All people will then know that you are my followers if you love each other (Jn 13:35). Now he addresses his Father, "As you are in me and I am in you, I pray that they can also be one in us", and, "I will be in them ... so that they will be completely one. Then the world will believe and know that you sent me and that therefore you have loved them just as much as you loved me" (21,23). He regards his salvific mission as incomplete until his followers are united. They will have to make up for what is missing, in the enigmatic words of Paul, by living in unity, which can be one's greatest cross. But he would thus be glorified in their unity, as one body - his Church, and that would be his greatest joy, just as the greatest joy of parents is to see their children in loving and joyful unity. And that unity would in turn be the radiant glory and crowning joy of his disciples, of his Church.
My Son, You Are Forgiven I was surprised to see this couple, the leaders of a large prayer group in the Archdiocese of Bombay, who had been knocking at my door early that morning at the retreat house in Bandra, a suburb of Mumbai. I was even more amazed by their persistent pleading that I come immediately to pray over their only son in the hospital. On my blank refusal to leave my 200 retreatants and accompany them to the hospital, they began to plead their case.Their son Joseph was sick and had been undergoing medical treatment at home. But after two weeks of medication he was not getting any better. Their family doctor finally acknowledged that he could do nothing more. He was not even able to diagnose the precise nature of his sickness, which baffled him. He recommended him to be admitted to this renowned hospital, where he would be under the care of the topmost specialists of the city. But here too, after he had gone through every diagnostic testing and been administered all kinds of medicine for a further two weeks, those eminent doctors owned up that they too could do nothing more. They too were unable to diagnose the young man's illness and hence did not know how to treat him.After coming to know all this, Joseph felt so disheartened and dejected that he told his parents, "I must see Fr. Rufus today." I made it clear to them, when they approached me, that I could not absent myself from the retreat even for a short time. But they kept coming back again and again, saying that their son would not take no for an answer, and pleading that I come to the hospital - however late the hour. I finally consented to come at the end of the day's program, at about 10.30 pm. Seeing him in the ICU (intensive care unit) surrounded by all those sophisticated medical apparatus, I deduced that he must be very, very sick, and that is why he had called for me. But when I asked him, " What do you want? Why did you call me?" he answered to my great astonishment, "I want to make my confession!"I was taken aback at first by this unusual request, since I had assumed that he had wanted me to come and pray over him for healing. Then I grew somewhat infuriated that he had dragged me all the way from the retreat in Bandra, instead of arranging for a priest in the parish where the hospital was situated to come and hear his routine confession. But on second thoughts, I cooled down and said to myself, "Perhaps, that is what he wants, and more important, what he needs." And when he made his confession - it was a sincere and thorough confession of his whole life - I knew then that that was what he needed and therefore wanted.I was about to leave his ICU private room, when there suddenly flashed into my mind the Gospel narrative of the healing of the
paralyzed man. His friends had brought him to Jesus, not through the door of the house, which was blocked by the immense crowd who had gathered to hear Jesus, but through the opening they had made in the roof, and laid him in front of Jesus. Jesus was so touched by the love and the faith of the friends of the paralytic, that he interrupted his sermon, turned his attention to the sick man and addressed him. What did he say? Did he tell him straightaway, as he often did in other cases, "Be healed"? NO. Why? Presumably Jesus knew, whether under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit or/and from his experience in dealing with the sick and the afflicted, that this so called paralysis was not so much a physical sickness as rather a physical symptom of a more serious problem, - be it spiritual (e.g. sin), or emotional (e.g. guilt) or even diabolical (e.g. occult involvement).Therefore whenever I refer to this Gospel incident during a retreat, I make it a point to ask the participants, "What did Jesus first say to the paralyzed man?" The unanimous answer I receive everywhere is, "Your sins are forgiven!" To their disappointment and chagrin, I tell them that this answer is equally wrong! I repeat the question, and with bated breath they wait for my answer to my own question, "The first thing that Jesus told this sick helpless creature was, 'MY SON'." And after a pause, I resume and tell them, "Then only did Jesus continue saying, 'Your sins are forgiven'" (Mk 2:1-12).For even though Jesus knew that this man was burdened by sin and needed the experience of God's forgiveness, he also knew that he was oppressed by in a way the greater burden of guilt and needed also the assurance of God's forgiving love. For God has sent Jesus to save the world, and NOT to condemn it (Jn 3:17). Remember how the prodigal son began to tell his father on his return, "I no longer deserve to be called your son; rather treat me as one of your hired servants." But the father answered for all to hear, "This SON OF MINE was dead and has come back to life; he was lost and is found" Lk 15;19,23). How much more are we in the sight of God our Father his beloved sons and daughters first, and only then sinners, - and forgiven sinners at that. Jesus has indeed come not just to forgive our sins, but to free us from sin's greatest consequence, the burden of guilt.It was therefore without the previous hesitation and with a new assurance that I returned to the sick bed. Looking up to heaven I prayed, "Lord, after you told the paralyzed man, 'My son, your sins are forgiven', you did not stop there; but you continued and said, 'Get up, take up your bed, and go home'. Lord, you are the same: yesterday, today and forever. And so, in imitation of you, I am not going to stop after telling this modern paralytic,