Don’t be afraid to protect what’s near and dear to your heart. Do it with courage, do it with respect.


“When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned”. 
(Galatians 2:11).
In today’s reading, we see Paul condemning Peter (aka Cephas) for the inconsistency of his actions. There were issues pertaining to the practice of faith in the newly formed church in Antioch that needed to settle. Paul confronted Peter with courage and boldness and he called him out for hypocrisy. He did not go behind Peter’s back nor did he go to other people to complain about Peter (triangulation –which never solves any problem).
Paul teaches us to be straight forward and never avoid having those difficult conversations with family members, work counterparts or friends. We may face challenging situations where we need to have some difficult conversations. Don’t be afraid to protect what’s near and dear to your heart. Do it with courage, do it with respect.
Yours,
Fr. Nareg
Read the Word of God: Today's readings are Galatians 2:11-20; Mark 13:14-23

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

… for the least among all of you is the greatest (Luke 9:48).

Image
  … for the least among all of you is the greatest. Jesus predicts his passion and crucifixion. His disciples could not perceive it and fear prevents them from asking Jesus any questions. To deflect the conversation they start arguing as to which one of them was the greatest. The disciples haven’t yet learned the lesson of reversal expressed in the Magnificat (1:46-55) and the beatitudes (6:20-49). Jesus corrects them with an illustration, as he places a child next to him. The one who receives such lowly and weak members of the society receives Jesus and the Father who sent Him. Moreover, becoming the least through service of others is the true indicator of who is greatest.  Becoming the least makes us  rely not on our own resources but it’s a deep spiritual insight of our ultimate dependency on God. Only when we recognize this dependency we can open ourselves to hear the call of God.
Read more

Then and Now

Image
Today we read the parable of the sower. This is one of the parables of Jesus that has been imprinted in my mind since early childhood. And sometimes when you know something then you think you know it. There is no need to revisit right? Not always! Let's look at the biblical text:  “A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell on the path and was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. Some fell on the rock; and as it grew up, it withered for lack of moisture. Some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it. Some fell into good soil, and when it grew, it produced a hundredfold.”  (Luke 8: 5-8) It is clear that Jesus creates 4 categories in this parable. My first way of internalizing the message of this parable was creating categories: The Word of God grows depending on the kind of soil your heart is. and those categories are almost permanent. My more mature sense of spirituality helped me shift my focus from "t...
Read more

Feelings are not Facts

Image
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control" . (Galatians 5:23-24) I n his letter to the Galatians, St. Paul teaches that when we walk by the Holy Spirit, our life changes. The result of that transformation is a life of “joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control”. As followers of Christ, we have received the Holy Spirit at our baptism and therefore the seeds of the fruit of the Spirit have been sown in our hearts. Well-known theologians and Christian thinkers have written volumes on the “fruit of the Spirit”. We can study each attribute individually to grow in our spiritual life. Today I want us to focus on the last attribute - self-control. The gifts of the Spirit are infused in us but if we want to grow spiritually we ought to have a discipline in our life. Discipline may have a negative connotation but if you examine the word you se...
Read more