Dear brothers and sisters in Jesus, I have been reading the different mails on vastushastra, horoscopes, science for a christian and the most interesting for me being the image of Jesus and Mary on a burnt up chapathi, the same being enshrined at the RRC, Bangalore for public view.
I haven’t dabbled with vastu much so I don’t know what its all about. But I do hear that there is an occult aspect to it… I’m not too sure ok. Well about horoscopes and zodiacs. I have been blest indeed to have parents who discouraged us kids right from our childhood in believing in palmistry, horoscopes, star signs etc… As devout catholics they taught us to shun such practices. I really thank God for my wonderful parents. None of us kids have an interest in this stuff. I’ve got a number of friends (even some catholics) who wear rings with their birthstones and stuff like that on it. Whenever I get an opportunity I ask them, why they wear these birth stones and stuff, they tell me that they want to attract good luck. And I further enquire “why do u guys limit your good luck to such small stones?…..why not tie a boulder round ure necks? (pun intended) so that ure luck is proportionate to the size of the boulder….. Some of these guys are so bewitched into thinking that they do indeed get good luck by wearing such crap. And instead of keeping quiet about their foolishness they go around broadcasting and thereby other morons also follow suit. I personally feel that these stones or objects have no power on their own. Its when we believe that something has power, our subconscious mind acts on that as though it were a reality and that’s how these lucky stones are floated as charms for good luck. I feel its all in the mind. I remember an incident that occurred some few years back in our family before we were going out on a trip to a place called Panipat for an outing. It’s a bit off the topic but I hope I’m able to illustrate my point with it. All was set for us to go to Panipat, that’s when my mom developed stomach problems, she was having stomach ache and lose motion. So she told us that she’ll stay back and we guys could proceed. I personally felt that it was psychosomatic. So I did a small trick… I told mummy of a good medicine that I had that would give her relief from the problem within 10 minutes. She agreed to take it. I gave her the tablet with a glass of water and went on auto suggesting that her stomach problem is ok. True enough after 10 minutes or so she was feeling better and was ready to accompany us for the journey, believe it or not, throughout the trip mummy never had a problem. And what do u think the super tablet was?….... a lowly button I had picked up from the sewing kit…. Only after a few months did I let her know the truth....…Till about recently, mummy used to go bananas with me whenever I broached up the issue. I narrated this just to substantiate that if we believe in something our mind acts as though it were true… I think this is how these horoscopes, goodluck charms, zodiacs etc work… I’m not a scholar on this issue either its just my viewpoint. And now about the chapathi stuff…I don’t feel it’s a miracle. It is more of an anti witness to sensible people than an aid. This morning it was my turn to prepare breakfast. I made chapathis. I took one and I figured out the map of Andaman Nicobar on it. I took another one and looked at it…it had the image of a maruti 800 with an elephant sitting on its bonnet …I also made out a face similar to osama bin laden…. Tomorrow I’m gonna burn up the toasts to see if I can get the face of the woman of my dreams:):):)!!hahaha. A few years back in delhi there was this claim that ‘ganeshji & hanumanji’ was drinking milk… (those days I was not yet a JY) so I too went to the temple to see this stuff (not out of belief but out of skepticsm)and I put my finger below the marble mouth of hanumanji and the milk was just drooling over my finger, down, below there was a small drain kind of that led to the soil and there the milk was gobbled up by the earth. Becoz there was a shine on the white marble it was not apparent that the milk was flowing down. After the hoax was established a number of those godmen were put in the coolers (jail). I feel very sad at the plight of some of us catholics who believe these things. It only proves our ignorance of Jesus and his word. Some of the most superstitious people I’ve met are catholics… (I’m sad to say this but I feel its true. I still know a catholic family who used to keep candles, salted fish, pickles etc.. saying that the end of the age is near…. they were stocking food stuffs so that they could live a bit longer than the rest at the end of the world.... I’m glad these people have come back to their senses. Thanx to the renewal. Once on a visit to St. Georges church in Muthalakodam in Thodupuzha, Kerala with my dad, I met an old lady praying at the statue of St. George and at the end of the prayer she did something that really hooked my attention… she kissed the statue of st. George and then her hand went slowly onto the dragon….. I was flabbergasted. I nagged daddin to please ask her why she did that… so we went up to her and with my broken Malayalam told her that I could understand her asking St. George to intercede for her. But I didn’t understand why she kissed the image of the dragon also....…… she gave me a very pragmatic answer....…. “see mone (child) I am an old lady, and I’ll be kicking the bucket anytime.... so I want to be in the good books of both the parties..... incase I go To heaven then with St. George otherwise if I go down then with the other chap…. “ Another time I had a religious brother ask me what my Star sign is? I literally got annoyed and I gave him a piece of my mind. He told me he reads all that not becoz he believes it but just for fun…..I tried telling him it was wrong to dabble with these things....……. and as for my star sign it’s the Cross of Jesus! Today he’s a good friend of mine and he doesn’t fool around with that junk. Praise God! This is the plight of many of our beloved catholics. Jesus came on to this world to save us from our sins, as atonement for all the sins each one of us commited right from our birth till this moment. Its painful to see so many catholics living as baptized pagans. I love Jesus and mama Mary a lot. But I don’t think Jesus or mama mary needs to prove themselves to us by appearing on chapathis and stuff like that. True the chapathi may take that kind of image on it, but I feel we shouldn’t attribute things to it. I don’t see any relevance with what Jesus has done for humanity and his appearing on a chapathi… tommorrow people may claim he’s appeared on cow dung and many well meaning catholics will be there to believe it. Our God is not afraid of science or reason. Infact He’s the creator of science and reason. Love you all in Jesus, Mary, Joseph and all the angels and saints of heaven, Josun Jose/New Delhi/India ----------------------------------------- This email was sent using FREE Catholic Online Webmail. 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