PENTECOST Part 11 JESUS BREATHED ON THEM AND SAID RECIEVE THE HOLY SPIRIT" JOHN 20.23 Incident: Jesus Breathed ... Couples healed of Internetitis!!! Today we will think about " Whoever calls out to the Lord for help will be saved" Acts. 1.21 Acts of the Apostles Chapter 1 Verse 21 says " whoever calls out to the Lord for help will be saved" and this is lifted from the address of Peter on the Pentecost dday quoting prophet Joel. Any family that calls out to the Lord will feel a difference in their family life. I like to share a pentecost experience in a family who called out to the L:ord in their distressing moment and found help. It was some time back. I have finished the evening Mass. I had a telephone call. Sounded Indian accent. A gentleman wanted to see me urgently. He came the same evening with his wife and son. A very good family. Like Holy family. Dad, Mom and son. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. These two young and succesful engineers from the silicon valley were face to face with a live problem. They were heart broken . That day in anger the Dad spank the son and the son who is in the first grade said to the Dad, "wait till I am eighteen and I ... I will beat you in trun". (In America, when you you are no longer a teen ager, you are free to move out of the house. You are not in the protection of your parents. You are free. That is the law. This statement from the son doesnt mean that the children have the right to beat up parents.). The boy learned this sense of freedom from the school. I was surprised why he didn't threaten to call the police. There were incidents where the children did call the p! olice and the parents ( even Indian parents who didn't know how to respond to distress signals from children started spanking children) had to suffer under the law. There were also incidents of spousal abuse ( Physical abuse of spouses where in the police took the husbands and wives into custody and some spouses are from India). Some spouses are jailed and or deported to their home countries. Parents are role models in our lives This young Dad was heart broken and emotional. The Dad loves his son but feels that he is helpless in changing this young boy's attitude. In the course of our conversation the Dad suddenly realized how his parents kept praying for him when he was a young boy. Also it helped him to realize that his son copied his attitudes when he was young. He himself caused a lot of distress to his parents. This incident brought him in touch with some dysfunction in his own lives. He was beaten up by his dad . This kind of physical abuse was in the family for endless number of years as I think and that dysfunction is perpetuated. It is true with most of our Indian families. We don't know how to address the feelings of the children so as to enable them and us to see what type of difference has to happen in the families. This particular insight that his parents prayed for him turned out to be a magic window to a new vision and change in this dad's life of grief and despair. The prayer of this Dad's parents played a major role here and That became the role model for this young Dad. Power of Prayer and change The Dad and Mom came to realize the immense power of prayer in their personal and family life. The young couple realized that "alone they could do nothing", reminiscent of what Jesus taught. This young family had lots of domestic or family problems. There was struggle to establish who is the head of the family. Arguements and anger became the head of the family. The boy had to intervene many times and request this young parents who happened to be from India, not to fight, not to scream at one another. They both didn't have the skill of parenting as I understand the situation. The had little inner strength as they didnt have God in them. Greed and many other forms of sin reigned a satanic influence in their life. The boy became powerful at the powerlessness and incapacity of this young parents who fought at one another for little or no reason at all. At one point the boy told me " I am sad for mom. She always yells at dad and me and I dont know why" and he cried. I held him ! in my arms and hugged him assuring that God loves him and the parents love him. It was difficult for the boy to understand the meaning of the words of love of the parents to him. The Dad was also addicted to some of the evening TV shows other than his internetitis. There was no family prayer, although both these parents were brought up in traditional catholic families in India. They both agreed that they knew their computer lessons but didn't remember their prayers. They were church goers but was only a farmality. God didn't reign in their hearts as they testified. I gave them prayer books and prayed with them. Taught them to pray again. This is one of the satisfying moments in the ministry with the people. This couple who bought many video games for the young boy but didn't pray with him and didn't teach him to pray went through change. They were academically prepared to face ecconomic challenges in life but not to know how to bring up and care for life. Internetitis and some dysfunctions. Prior to effecting changes in their lives, there was very little room for self and or mutual respect in this family to my knowledge. They cared about money and professional satisfaction. Husband and wife both being engineers and from affluent families in India, spend lots of time facing the silverscreen. Their boy had to spend longer time with the baby sitters. They thought that he was only young and in a few years they will be able to spend more time with him as they have more money. They have conveniently forgotten to realize their son's power. They cared less to know what he learned at this time from them stayed with him. This young engineer mother cared less about healhty food. She forgot that or she didn't realize that she held the key to a heallthy family. She didn't want to cook. She didn't know how to cook either. I heard her claim that " I don't know how to cook. We always had helps at home". I think she was blaming her mom for not training her to be a mother and a! good wife. I think that was the message she was saying alound although she didn't verbalize that as such . I think the baby boomer parents are at a loss of promoting restaurant family life style. They care a lot about the acadamic life of their daughters. Recently one of my friends at the Silicon valley told me about the H1 Visa people who had to return to India. ( No hurts please. I like to be honest ). " They ate for the money they earned and many of them went broke, ate mostly junk food and worked hard. Pardon me if I say that these baby boomer mothers train their children especially their daughters for independence rather than for dependence and collaboration which is necessary in family life. A mother is someone who cannot be replaced. I don't say that boys shouldn't learn to cook and or to do house chores. My message is that disabling your daughters from being good house wives and making them only accademically fit for life will add to their dysfunction. There is a new dysfunction in the computer families and I call that computeritis. People are glued to their computers. Many of you might have felt how you are addicted to computers, spending lots of time over the internet. Many of us are suffering from Internetitis another form of addiction like telephonitis. It is a major dysfunction in the tele-families. You know how crazy you are for electronic mails and at times the wives and children have to wait at the dinner table for the Dad to untie himself from the computer. At times the family dinner has to suffer as one of the family member is suffering from internetitis. Internetitis is a newer form of dysfunction afflicting younger families. They cannot get off the internet. The famillies break up. Divorces are reported because of Internetitis. Many other forms of evil cloud the younger generation as they are glued to the internet. There is a lot of evil and addiction to sin causing moral problem! s in the people. If you like to share your insights about the internet related evils, please feel free to share. This young couple in question earns lots of money an year. The son , this young boy is starving for a brother or sister but the parents have no time for another baby. They are refusing God's gift in their life. They want to buy a home and pay off that before they could have another baby. To have a new home in california especially in the Silicon valley is a very expensive proposition. There came a time to own a house in the Silicon valley was mostly for very successful people or shall we say engineers and people in the computer field...( I could be wrong or it is possible that I put it wrongly but there is some truth to this as I live in this valley) in California. LOVE MELTS STONEY HEARTS through pentecost These two super intelligent people, the young parents who are in the Silicon valley felt powerless before the mighty power of God reflected in and through their son. The Dad and Mom changed their attitudes. "we have to re-establish family prayer" and they have resolved to pray for the boy". I was touched at the change this young couple went through just because of their love towards the son. Love changes everything. It is the Love of God towards us that changed the course of events in human history. God became man and saved us through pain and suffering because "God so loved the world that He gave His only Son to die for our sins so that through Him we will have eternal life" This Dad called me recently to relate an in intresting development. "Last night as we were in bed, the son hugged both Mom and Dad and said I hold you both because I love you both". Rarely such a thing had happened in their life. The parents were teary, at this experience. I am glad for them. The parents were able to touch bases with their feelings. Change will happen in us mostly when we are in touch with our feelings and address our feelings. At pentecost, the Holy Spirit touched us with God's feeling of Love. Attitude and priority change in the family helped this young parents to see a new light . A new and Holy Vision occured in their family life. A family where money, arguements, disrespect and sin played a major role has put on God as its priority and aim. Although this young son didn't say the prayers with them, initially, he started to sing church hymns that he learned at the Catholic school. This young Dad and Mom remember gratefully that it was the introduction family prayer that touched the boy and the boy has lesser tantrums. He started to behave properly at school and his grades too improved. A family that started to experience the pentecostal miracle found salvation and joy. God Breathed on the young engineer dad and Mom and healed them of their internetitis and relarted illness. Mom and Dad has more theime for their son. At tleast for the mean time the Mom agreed to stay home and be satisfied being a Mom and a wife. They are expecting a new baby into their family. The boy said last Sunday after the Mass touching Mom's belly " "Father Tom I have a sister in here" I said to him " Isn't it great" He shook head and said " I have become a Chachan" "Thanks be to God" I said and the Dad interjected his humour saying " Mass is ended let us go home" . WHAT A WONDERFUL PENTECOST FOR THIS FAMILY Your commends are welcome Pentecost to be continued Fr.Thomas Mathew May 30/2001. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com ********************************************************************** This mail is generated from JOYnet, a Jesus Youth mailing list. To unsubscribe, send a mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For automatic help, send a mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] In case of any issue related to the mailing list contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] To know more about Jesus Youth, visit http://www.jesusyouth.org **********************************************************************
