”Be completely open”….Wise words indeed

Today at Holy Mass St Luke in his Gospel tells a story about how God appeared to two different people, who were not Jewish and were foreign born….“Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place. Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land. It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon. Again, there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian”…..Jesus was and is God…He walked among his own people and they rejected him…Why?…Jesus did not “fit the mold” of their expectations…So the question today we must ask ourself….What are we looking for?…Or better put…Who are we looking for?…..God can not be put in a box….Yet that is the “god” we like……A “god” we can control…A “god” we can define……In the lives of the saints, if you read about them, you will find that God works through people who can surprise you…What was their secret?….The saints were open…They allowed God to “set the agenda”….They cleared the way of all the “things” that get in the way of the Holy Spirit…..As Mother Teresa would famously say….”I am a pencil in the hand of God”…..This is how we must view our life….God is able to use people who the world disregards….Many times these are the very people that shake the foundations of the world……”The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. By the LORD has this been done; it is wonderful in our eyes……Our God is a God of surprises…..Be open to surprises and trust the process

“Send forth your light and your fidelity; they shall lead me on And bring me to your holy mountain, to your dwelling-place”

I am a firm believer in giving people a chance…Many times because of the opportunity given to people, because they appreciate it, they come through big time!….Solanus Casey was born to a huge Irish American family in Wisconsin in the late 1800’s….He felt called to the priesthood but at that time the seminaries were taught in German and Solanus was not a scholar…While he was able to graduate, his grades were not very good, so while he was ordained a priest, we was not able to administer the Sacrament of Confession..He was also given menial tasks, like working as a door man at the rectory…But Solanus was humble and he accepted his role….As time went on, more and more people would come to the door and wanted to speak to Solanus because of his love for the sick and the poor….As it turns out, through his prayers, God would heal people after they spoke with him…And as word spread about him, the lines at the rectory door would get so long, his superiors would have to move him around the country…And everywhere he went, more and more people would come to him….What was Solanus's secret?…He trusted God and not himself…He could have been discouraged and disappointed when he was not given full faculties as a priest because of his grades in the seminary…Instead, he accept his role…And God used him to do amazing things…This is what we must do as well…..As the saying goes…”You are the potter, we are the clay”…Its in our surrender that God can uses us…..This is easy to say and very hard to do…But that does not mean we should not aspire to do it….When you read the lives of the saints, we will learn that God works through all kinds of people, some of whom are and were very ordinary…The secret is - And this is something most people miss…The saints do not rely on their own gifts…And some of them like St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas were very gifted…The saints rely on God…They abandon all their plans…All their “ideas”…And place themselves in the hands of God completely….A person that does this sets the world on fire......That person is completely free in a way the world only dreams about believe it or not….These are the people who sake the foundations of the earth…You and I can be that person….Let nothing stand in your way of being that person!

“I hope in the LORD, I trust in his word; with him there is kindness and plenteous redemption”

Today at Holy Mass Jesus is rejected once again for telling his people that God does not come in a man-made package of our own choosing….We must be willing to allow God to mold us…To mold our mind and mold most importantly our will….Everyone wants to make an impact - This is a wonderful aspiration to have!….And the key to making the most significant impact is this…God can do more with your life than you can - Allow him too!…..Only when we put down the cup can we grab the jug!…..Do not be afraid….When Mother Teresa was 18 years old, she left home never to see her mother again…Here mother’s last words to her were these as she boarded a ship………”Put your hand into the hand of God and never look back”…..Dare to be such a person!…One of my last times in India, I was speaking to this one nun I knew - A very holy woman - Extraordinarily close to God...…We had a common friend, our friend was from Croatia and she was also considering to become a nun…So I told Sister Andrea about her, that she was considering religious life…This is what Sister told me to tell our friend…”Be completely open”….Wise words indeed