Wednesday, July 29, 2020

We need to sit down to separate what is good and what is Evil :The unexamined life is not worth living

GOSPEL THOUGHTS

17th Week – Thursday

Gospel – Matthew 13: 47-53

 

*We need to sit down to separate what is good and what is Evil*

*The unexamined life is not worth living*

*1) Unhealthy speed of Growth*

Today we are having unimaginable speed of growth of the various things 

From 2G to 3G, 4G 5G and in near future we may have 6G 7G 8G

From Duel core processor, we have moved to I3, I5, I7,

From 1GB Ram to 2GB 4GB 6GB 8GB 16GB

From 80GB, to 12OGB 500GB 1000GB 

From single storey building to 100 storey building

From Thousands to lakhs, cores and millions 

All these above few examples show us the speed of growth in various fields. All these changes are happening in the span of 25 or 35 years 

*2) Unhealthy speed of some aspects of Human life*

The above unhealthy speed of growth has caused some unhealthy  growth in Human life. Some of the examples 

Human being have become more selfish 

Unhealthy competition to amass weath and money 

Big financial scams and scandals are on rise 

Degraded moral life and value system 

The lesser value of Human life 

Self centered and indifferent way of life 

Materialist outlook of life 

Increased greed for wealth, power, authority, money and possessions

All these are on rise and they are increasing in an unhealthy speed 

*3) Unhealthy Speed of growth and Busy way of life*

The above speed of growth in the material world and also in human life has made us our life 'Busy' in every aspect of our life 

Today we are so busy running from piller to the post, we have no time to sit and relax 

We have 101 things to do, as a result we too are running all the time and we get exhausted with in no time 

When life becomes so busy we have no time to reflect about what is going on in our life. 

*The unexamined life is not worth Living* - Socrates

*4)The need of Sitting down*

In order to evaluate our life, we need to reflect. To reflect we need to sit in solitude. To do this we need to slow down, we need to decrease our speed 

The Gospel of the day clearly tells us the need of sitting down for segregating the good from the evil 

The fishermen sat down and segregated good from the bad ones 

Unless they sit they could not separate the good from the bad ones. So the need of sitting down is very much necessary to separate good from the evil one. 

*5) Our life is like a fish net*

The fish net collects everything. It does not leave anything. 

Our life has all the qualities of a net. It is able to collect all good things and bad as well

In other words we can say our life is influenced by good as well as bad. So in order to find out what is good and what is evil we need to sit and separate good from evil 

*6) Good is collected in buckets and bad is thrown out*

This is also very important. Unless we know something is bad we will not throw it out. 

At times because of our busy schedule we fail to evaluate what is good and what is evil. In the bargain we throw good out and retain bad with us 

In such a situation, we ourselves are the losers and finally only the bad remains with us 

*7)Various ways to segregate good from the Evil*

  • Personal prayer life 
  • Examination of the -conscience
  • Retreats and meditation on the word of God
  • Spending time in silence 
  • Celebration of the sacraments 
  • Regularly receiving the sacrament of reconciliation
  • Praying Rosary 
  • Evaluating ones own life, regularly
  • Listening others and taking their suggestions
  • Accepting the faults when others correct us 
  • Asking for an open evaluation from others 
  • Strong spiritual life 

*8) Unhealthy speed always causes accident and destruction*

So the need of slowing down and going at the healthy speed is necessary. 

Once the things are set right we can increase speed for some time. Then once again we need to slow down to check the things and to put them in order 

*9) COVID19 is a time to sit down and separate the good from evil*

Reflect about it and use this time to evaluate your own life

 God bless you and your family. Praying for you and your dear ones.

Fr Maxim D’Souza

Jeppu Seminary

Mangalore


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