21-Feb-2017 Dear Friend, If there is one common denominator for us all, it is that we are worriers! According to a survey, the most common worries people have are: money (45%), other people (39%), personal health (32%), exams (29%), job security (15%). Worry ruins our health and kills us, yet we worry! Worry is an insult to God! We are saying to God, ‘I don’t believe you are taking care of me so I have to take over!’ Let go! Put yourself in His hands! Have a ‘surrendering’ weekend! -Fr. Jude Sun Ref. Eighth Sunday: ‘Do not be worried or be anxious! Trust in God!’ 26-Feb-2017Isaiah 49: 14-15; 1 Cor. 4: 1-5; Matt. 6: 24-34;
During the exile the Israelites felt abandoned by God. It was then that the Prophet Isaiah reminded them that God loved them with an unconditional love and He could not stop loving them. He compares God’s love to that of a mother for her child. Can a woman forget her nursing child? Even if she can, God cannot and will not forget us. You do the worrying for me!Two business executives met for lunch. Gene asks Ed: “How’s your health?” Ed said, “I feel great! My ulcers are gone. I feel great!” Gene says, “How did that happen?” Ed said, “Well, you know my doctor told me my ulcers were caused by worrying. So, I hired myself a professional worrier. Whenever something worrisome comes up, I turn it over to him, and he does all the worrying for me!” Gene says, “Wow, I’d like to hire someone like that! How much does he charge?” Ed says “One hundred thousand dollars!” Gene asked, “How in the world can you afford $100,000?” Ed says, “I don’t know. I let him worry about that!”John Pichappilly in ‘The Table of the Word’ Today’s gospel invites us to trust in God because God alone takes care of us. If God takes care of the birds of the air and the lilies in the field, he surely will take care of us. Our worries and preoccupations are predominantly about material things. We worry about what we will eat and what we will drink. We worry about our health. We worry about our future. Anxiety and worry are an insult to God. We do not believe that God is taking care of us and our every need and so we are anxious about these transient things. Jesus warns us: You cannot serve two masters.” Consequently, not money, but God alone must be the centre of my life. When Jesus says, “Do not worry about tomorrow” he is not condemning human resourcefulness. We have to plan for tomorrow. What he is condemning is the fretting and worrying that keeps us from lifting up our gaze beyond material values and the cares of this world. We are in constant danger of becoming immersed in the values of this world and of becoming enslaved to material things. Jesus reminds us that we are God’s precious children, and that only in God can we find security. We must put our future in the hands of God and pray only for the modest needs of today. Jesus invites us to set our hearts on the kingdom of God first, and on his righteousness, and all these other things will be given to you. Yet we worry about so many things! But worry is not caused only by external circumstances but also by our internal dispossession. Worry kills. Worry is banished when we place our trust in God, when we place ourselves in the loving hands of our caring Father. Compulsive worriersThere was a town in which the people were terrible worriers. They called a meeting to see what they could do about the problem of worry. One person suggested that the town should have a park where people could relax. A second suggested that it should have a golf course. A third suggested that it should have a cinema. And so it went on. Finally a man got up and said, “I just thought of a much simpler solution. Why don’t we ask David, the town cobbler to do our worrying for us.” “Wait a minute,” said David. “Why pick on me?” “Because if you agree, we’ll make it worth your while. We’ll pay you $500 a week.” “Well in that case, why not me?” David exclaimed. Everybody agreed that the idea was a good one. However, just as the motion was about to be put to the vote, this fellow got up and said, “Wait a minute! If David earned $500 a week, what would he have to worry about?” A good question. But since he was a worrier just like the rest of them, I’m sure he would have found something. Worriers always do.Flor McCarthy in ‘New Sunday & Holy Day Liturgies’ Can a mother forget her child?A poor woman in a Dublin parish had a son who was ruining her life. He wouldn’t work. He spent his time drinking and hanging around with troublemakers. He robbed everything she had of value in the house. Again and again she pleaded with him to change his life, but he refused to do so. He broke her heart and made her life a misery. Eventually he ended up in prison. Surely now she would leave him to his fate? Not at all. She visited him without fail every week, carrying cigarettes and other things to him in a little carrier bag. One day one of the priests from the parish met her as she was on her way to prison. “This son has ruined your life”, the priest said. He’ll never change. Why don’t you just forget him?” “How can I?” she replied. “I don’t like what he’s done, but he’s still my son.” You could say that that mother was foolish. Yet she was only doing what any mother worthy of the name can’t help doing and that is, loving her child through thick and thin. For most of us, the love of a mother is the most reliable kind of human love we will experience. It is no wonder that the Bible uses a mother’s love as an image of God’s love for us.Flor McCarthy in ‘New Sunday and Holy Day Liturgies’ “I want to thank you for tomorrow!”Benjamin Reaves tells about a little fellow whose mother had died. His father was trying hard to be both mom and Dad under difficult circumstances. His father had scheduled a picnic for the two of them. The little fellow had never been on a picnic. He was excited – so excited that he could not sleep. Soon there was a patter of little feet down the hall to where his father was sleeping. He shook his dad who could have responded gruffly except he saw the expression on his little son’s face. “What’s the matter son?” he asked. The little fellow said, “Oh Daddy, tomorrow’s going to be so wonderful. I just can’t sleep I’m so excited.” The father laughed and said, “Son, it won’t be wonderful if we don’t get some sleep. Now go back to your bedroom and try to get some sleep.” A while later the ritual was repeated. The father was already sleeping soundly, when the boy placed his excited hand on his shoulder. “What do you want now?” his father asked. “Daddy,” said the boy, “I just wanted to thank you for tomorrow.” –Do we trust our Father in heaven to take care of us ‘for tomorrow’? Do we thank God in advance for doing so?Gerard Fuller in ‘Stories for all Seasons’ One day at a time!Sir William Orsler was a Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford –the highest honor that could be bestowed upon any medical man in the British Empire. The King of England also knighted him. He organized the famous John Hopkins School of Medicine. As a medical student he was worried about passing the final examinations; he was worried about his life, what to do, where to go, how to make a living? His life profoundly changed and he led a life free from worry because of the twenty-one words of Thomas Carlyle. These are those words; “Our main business is not to see what lies dimly ahead at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.” What made him great in life was his principle-‘living in day-tight compartment.’ He said to the students, “Shut the past –the dead yesterdays; shut off the future- the unborn tomorrows… the load of tomorrows, add to that of yesterdays, carried today, makes the strongest falter. Shut of the tomorrows as tightly as the past…. The future is today. There is no tomorrow. The day of man’s salvation is Now. Waste of energy, mental distress dogs the step of a man who is anxious about the future.”John Rose in ‘John’s Sunday Homilies’ Let’s not insult our God by worrying!! Let him carry your burden. He cares for you! Fr. Jude Botelho botelhoj...@gmail.com PS. The stories, incidents and anecdotes used in the reflections have been collected over the years from books as well as from sources over the net and from e-mails received. Every effort is made to acknowledge authors whenever possible. If you send in stories or illustrations I would be grateful if you could quote the source as well so that they can be acknowledged if used in these reflections. These reflections are also available on my Web site www.NetForLife.net Thank you.
