participation in the full life of the church is enhanced. The theme is: Look up at the stars.

Transcription

1 Wednesday meeting 17 th February 2016 Look up at the stars Last Sunday in Hanwella we had the first deanery night vigil. Four priests who also do prayer services Fr. Darrel Coonghe, Fr. Terrence Bodiyabaduge, Fr. Terrence Perera and Fr. Kalana Peiris and the CRL. We did this prayer from 3:30pm 9pm in the Kaluaggala grounds. The beauty is close to 5,000 people attended and in those areas that is a major number. The entire deanery of priests came, confessions went on, and there was adoration and then the mass. It was really beautiful because the entire deanery parishioners had joined in and it was so blessed and anointed by the Lord. So we are really grateful. This Friday we are having the same thing in Negombo. The negombo deanery is one of the most populated deaneries and it will be from 4pm 10:30pm. Next month we are having it in Kotte from 8pm 4am. Pass the word around. These are breakthroughs that only the Holy Spirit can give us. For many years, more doors were closed to us than opened but today the breakthrough is unbelievable. It is the year of mercy and the pope has asked people to have prayer before the Blessed Sacrament and our Cardinal has given a response to that and invited us to do this programme and that is what we are doing all over, and we are truly grateful. I want to remind you about the 40 days. 6am, get up, don't be lazy. Once you get into the momentum, it becomes effortless. To get into the momentum is the thing. It's difficult for me as well because I'm not a morning person and I sleep only after 12 midnight everyday not because of everyday but because all our meetings finish late and when we come home it is after 11. But entering this momentum leads us into the inner experience. So many come up to testify to say that they followed the 40 days and many people's lives have been changed by it. Over the 40 days we will get some of them to come and testify how their lives have been changed by joining into the 40 days. Today the reflection is next Sunday's readings. During lent we do the Sunday readings so that our participation in the full life of the church is enhanced. The theme is: Look up at the stars. The first reading is about Abraham. Geesis 15:5 He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars if indeed you can count them." Then He said to him, "So shall your offspring be." This verse is fabulous though it looks innocuous. Abraham by now was getting to be about 100 years old. While he was coming close to this age, the problem was that he was not having any children yet. God

2 had promised him children, but he was not having them and he was having serious doubts about God's promises. Abraham was doing something that most of us commonly do: 1. We look inside Most of us look inside. When he looked inside the prognosis was not very good. Inside he realized is a 100 year old man who has no capability of having children, and the promise seems to fail. When we have a problem the first place we look is inside. The moment you look inside, you only see the resources you have, the brokenness you have, the problem you have. When we look inside what we see is not too encouraging. We have fears, anxieties, tensions, temptations, lust, addictions and so many other stuff inside us. The first thing we do is look inside. The second thing we do is: 1. We look outside We look at other people and what's happening around us. For Abraham that was equally discouraging. When he looked outside, he saw his wife Sarah. She was also about 75 and passed child bearing age and it confirmed for him what he was seeing inside. Looking inside he was discouraged and looking outside, his discouragement was confirmed. Most of us live our lives like that either looking in or looking around. What's outside is creating havoc inside us and what is inside us is creating havoc outside. So we complement each other beautifully and we make our lives miserable and other people's lives also miserable. But there is a third way the verse is telling us about; 1. Look up at God In a crisis, the first casualty is God. We lose Him. We think our resources are only what we have, that the answers to our problems are only what we have at the moment. We can't see how God can open a way and a door and a resource that we can't even imagine. Because of that we pay a heavy price: Anxiety, tension, stress, sometimes nervous breakdowns because we are looking inside and we are looking outside. When we pray we are doing the same thing. We are going before God to pray but actually we are looking inside and outside. So you went okay and by the time you've finished praying you've become depressed, because you have examined your problem minutely. When you did that now it looks worse than when you started. So a lot of people stop praying, but God is giving Abraham the eternal solution: Don't look in, don't look out but look up at God and His promises.

3 For Abraham it was the stars, for us, every star represents a promise of God. Unfortunately, most of us don't know many promises from God. All we know are some good prayers that we think if said properly, God will give us an answer we don't even listen to the prayer we are saying. Do it for 9 weeks, 10 weeks, 15 weeks we Catholics are used to a pattern but what did you pray? The day the papers disappear you're gone. This lent we are called to another dimension. Look at the stars. When you have a problem within you and a problem around you stop looking around in that circle and start looking around at what God has promised you because His promises are faithful. So in these readings he is referred to as Abram. Until Genesis 15 he is Abram because he is one personality. When God gets a hold of him, after some time he becomes Abraham. Saul becomes Paul. It is a change in personality. People who have a relationship with God are continuously being changed from slavery, from fear, from darkness into a new person. But looking at some of us, we can't say that because we are expert complainers. We say all the prayers, we are pillars of the church but expert complainers about everything. There is no growth into freedom and transformation. I am convinced that that is because we are not looking at the promises. Genesis 15:6 Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness. Instead of listening to himself and listening to what was around him, Abraham decided to accept what God said. When does a person become righteous in the world? When they have done something right. You were a sinner and you become a holy person, you did something right. You stole something and you returned it, you did something right. You were bad and you became good, you did something right. You helped the poor, you did something right. You served people, you did something right. This is righteousness in the world. Look at this righteousness. What is the right thing Abraham did? He didn't do anything right but he had a right shift in his attitude: Instead of believing

4 in himself and believing in the things that happened around him, he believed in God and it looks as if God was really happy with that attitude. How do you please God? A lot of people think we please God by doing something good for other people, by serving and giving up something. Of course you can please God by doing that, but all those things will have no connection to God if you don't do the first thing: Instead of believing in yourself or the things around you you choose to believe what God has promised. Let me reverse it. How can you make God unhappy? By unbelief. In the gospel, what is it that annoyed Jesus the most? Did the sinners annoy him? Did the lost annoy him? Those who had unbelief annoyed him. We have learnt Christianity but live in unbelief. Today, why don't we start the journey of belief? Every reading of the mass for the rest of lent is an invitation to another facet of faith, another revelation of God. The first thing we need to do is: Instead of believing in ourselves and the things outside, we unconditionally believe what God has revealed. St. Paul says, "A just man shall live by faith." Then you become right with God, not first of all by being a good person, but by believing what God has promised. Once you believe it that must be reflected back in right living. If someone says they believe in God but live a bad life that means you have actually not believed. If you look at the saints, they had a holy life. But people think they had a holy life because they practiced holiness. Their holy life is first of all a result of believing what God has told them in their life. It has become so real that it was translated into holiness in their life. We were taught something else. When you practice good things and when you are good God will be happy with your behaviour and bless you. We think that God is looking for good behaviour, God is looking for good people, God is looking for good servants to bless. So we are trying to be good by our own efforts in order to be blessed by God. That ends up in frustration, despair, loss because nobody can please God by their own strength. If all of us can please God by our own strength, then we don't need a Saviour. All we need is w bit of fortitude, some positive thinking and we can find all the answers. Let's break this. First believe what God has revealed instead of trying to find out what you can and can't do. Many people's discernment of truth is within themselves. We discern truth according to how we

5 think. So one says, "I feel that God is like this." You are free to have your opinion, but Christians can't have opinions we have to have faith in what God has revealed. Let's get off the high horses. "I am intellectually developed therefore I don't believe like you do." Best of luck to you, in the end you're in depression, sadness, stress, fear and dread and living a defeated life because we didn't do the fundamental look at God and believe what He has said. So what did God do? Genesis 15:7 He also said to him, "I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it." God gives him an assurance and says, "So far I have been leading you." Then He goes on: Genesis 15:8 But Abram said, "O Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?" Abraham was an ordinary man like us. He said, "You can give me these high flown promises, but I don't know who you are and what you're capable of." Many people can't trust God because they don't know who God is and what He is capable of. Genesis 15:9 12 So the Lord said to him, "Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon." Abram brought all these to Him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away. As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. At Duthika's wedding, Bishop Raymond have a brilliant sermon. In that sermon he said how God made Adam helpless and then took the rib and made the woman. Then he quoted Abraham and said God made Abraham helpless and then gave him the covenant. We hate to be helpless at least I do. When the situation comes, you fight it with all your might and all your internal defenses come out. Look at what He did to Abraham. To give him the next level, He makes him helpless.

6 Isn't that what He is doing to all of us? Through a sickness, through a crisis, through a financial problem, through the loss of a job, He gives us a pause. In this pause, He is preparing us for His promises. Most of us are too busy fighting the pause. So God says He has to wait some more. That's why He had to wait until Abraham was a 100 so that He could really do something with him. It is here that God established the covenant. In the English language, we have made a bit of an error. When the bible was put together they called it the testament but it is actually the covenant. What is a covenant? God gave a promise to Abraham and signed it. We do it all the time with deeds. You sell a land, then you sign the document and say, "From now on it's yours." The other person signs the document and we agree. It is called a deed but in the Old Testament it was called a covenant. When God asked them to bring the animals, through the blood of the animal sacrifice, He confirmed the covenant. He said, "By this blood I certify that what I have promised to you, I will fulfill." The first reading tells you how exactly it was done. Genesis 15:17 When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. The covenant was being ratified. God Himself was confirming it. Genesis 15:18 On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, "To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates..." When you say covenant, even if you and I break it, God will never break it. Many people don't have a clue about the covenants of God. This is God's covenant Himself. When the Jews left the Promised Land, for 2000 years they weren't there. But people kept on saying, "God will bring his people back because that is the covenant He made." Today we have the land of Israel, the Jews are back there again 2000 years later. I checked on google if there is any other record in history of a people losing a land and discovering it again 2000 years later. No such record ever exists not even after 500 years has it happened. This

7 happened because this is an agreement signed by God. Abraham had nothing to do with it he was sleeping. This covenant is given while Abraham is sleeping and helpless. God says, "This is on my part. I will do it for you." There is a New Testament covenant as well. The New covenant is also signed by blood. If you listen to the words of the mass carefully, it says, "The blood of the covenant " It is not an animal anymore but it is the son of God, sacrificed on the cross that God's promise may be fulfilled for all of us. He didn't ask us for the agreement, He didn't ask us if we like it or want it He gave it like He gave it to Abraham. Now, God has given us a promise and I'm thinking, "I don't know if it's true or not." The Lord says, "You worm! I gave you the promise. I didn't ask you. If you don't believe it you pay the price." That's why you're made righteous by faith and not by any other means. What is the covenant? The forgiveness of sin. By the blood of the covenant on the cross, we have been given the gift of the forgiveness of sin as a blessing, just like Abraham was given the blessing of children. Many will be forgiven their sins. We are thinking, "I don't know if God can forgive my sins." We are worms! Go to sleep and accept what God has done. "I don't feel that I can be forgiven." Who are you? God has come down to earth, He has offered Himself in sacrifice and I am doing analysis on my part, wondering if it is acceptable or not. That's why only by faith can you satisfy God. You believe what God has done. In the 4 step retreat, I give this example. In 1977 I was in the Philip Neri's church seated before the Blessed Sacrament and praying. There was a young man who was crying on the side. He looked so distressed and my heart went out to him. I went and sat next to him and asked him why he was crying. He said, "I am addicted to a sexual sing and God will never forgive me." I said, "No! God will forgive you because that is His nature." He said, "Scripture says: Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect." That is the journey of a little knowledge. You take one little verse and you get stuck with it. He said, "God wants me to be perfect and I'm addicted to this sin. I'll never come out of it and God has rejected me; I will go to hell." I kept saying no but he wouldn't listen to me because he was listening to himself. 20 years later I was preaching in another church and I saw this guy. He looked like a man in a lot of sorrow and pain. I suspected it was the same guy I spoke to in the church. When I finished my sermon I went from behind and sat next to him and I asked him if he was that same person. He said he was. I asked him what happened. He said, "Nothing happened. I am still the same. I am still addicted, I am still in sin, I never married, my life is in ruins, I will never be forgiven by God." What a price he is paying for thinking that he understands better than what God has promised.

8 Get off the high horse, we are worms. That's why He had to make us helpless. The blood of the covenant was shed for the forgiveness of sin. But the covenant extends even further: The assurance that we will live forever with God. We are body, soul and spirit. Our body grows old, our soul the mental faculties, our emotions, our subconscious and unconscious nature gets faulted. You get things like dementia. When people get dementia it is a horrible thing. My mother got dementia and in the last 5 years she didn't even know who we were. It is like you die because your soul is gone, but you have a spirit. The spirit of man that God has put inside us that no other animal has. This spirit will not grow old, will not grow tired, will not die but live after we die. The assurance of this is the death, the resurrection and the baptism of the Holy Spirit that Jesus has brought through the new covenant. We need to live the truths of the gospel and not just have petty devotion and lose it at the slightest crisis of our life. We don't even understand the fundamentals of the faith. There is an old covenant and a new covenant. How do you make God happy? Believe what God has said. That's why, every single mass is a celebration and reenactment of the new covenant of God on that table. The blood is shed for us, the body is given up for us and He comes to live inside us so that we can be free of sin, our spirit can come alive and we can live forever. If someone says they don't need the mass, they have not understood the fundamentals of the covenant and the gift that God has given us. This is the new covenant given to you. Celebrate it and live in the power of the new covenant. That's why in these 40 days we have mass at 6:00am, prayer at 6:30 where we awaken the spirit. Many don't even have a concept of the spirit. I was talking to a priest last week and at a young age he developed a heart attack, and he showed me the picture of the kind of clot he got in his heart and he was actually dead for a few minutes. He was telling me what happened. He said he was in such pain that he couldn't imagine it because the block was so big. But then he says, "Suddenly all the pain ceased and he became perfectly rested." Then he looked around and he was on the roof and looking down at his Hindu. He was seeing the doctors working on him. Where did he get eyes to see this? Where did he get ears to hear this? How did he see all this? It is because his spirit was released from the body. For many, the first time they realize they have a spirit is the day they die. Our spirits are victims and slaves of our soul and our body and we are living in these two dimensions. He says, "I felt such perfect health and freedom." Then he said the time came for him to go back to his body and he didn't want to because he was so free. When he fell back into the body, all the pain returned. God miraculously healed

9 him and in the next ECG the clot had disappeared. God took him through this experience so that he realizes that there is something called the spirit. You and I have a spirit but unfortunately it is a victim of our nature. So that's what we do every morning. Through prayer we awaken the spirit hear, speak and connect with the realities of God. In the gospel we can see the awakening of the spirit and the covenant experience of Jesus himself in the transfiguration. Luke 9:28 About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray. Abraham was told to look up and Jesus goes up. If you don't have this connection, you'll only live in the soul and the body on this earth and that's all you'll have for your whole life and anybody has that, Muslims, Buddhists, anyone. We need the awakening of the spirit. We have a clue: It is in prayer that this spirit is awakened. That's why the body and soul of Abraham was silenced before the covenant could be given. Luke 9:29 As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. When Jesus was communing with God in the spirit the experience of his spirit is moving through his soul, his body and then his very clothes. That's our spiritual journey. It is not to get this and get that, to ask for this and that, get revenge on this one, "Thank God I was glorified and all of them were put to shame and my children were first." See how selfish we are! The purpose of prayer is the awakening of our spirit. The realities of God begins to commune with your spirit. That communication, that intimacy, and that relationship flows out from you. First to your soul mind, emotions and your subconscious and then to your very body and it glows from your life into others. Isn't that what happened with the saints? Incorruptibility of bodies. They have taken Padre Pio's body to Rome because it is so perfectly preserved, because that body was the home of a spirit that was in communion with God. Actually, he had tuberculosis and a hernia and they couldn't get him to general anesthesia because of the tuberculosis so they had to do the procedure under local anesthesia. He had sicknesses in the body but the soul, connected to the spirit was so alive that when he died, his very body contained the

10 presence. We have enough saints like that. Padre Pio is a 20th century Saint but you get them from the 10th century onwards, where the spirit has been awakened. When the spirit is awakened, when they speak, they burst through the objections of human beings, burst into their life and bring them to a touch of God. So people are looking for their skills because they are looking at the body and soul understanding. We think they are skilled. St. Anthony was a great orator. When he preached people were stunned and they were touched, but they resisted him. He went to the fish and he preached and all the fish gathered because he was a man of the spirit. His spirit was alive and he was in commune with God. It was running into his intellect, his emotions, his subconscious and when he spoke through his voice the world of the spirit was visiting the world of human beings. Jesus is the word of God. God visiting our world. Today's reading show us the sad tragedy. People listened to Jonah because they didn't know who Jonah was. But they never listened to the word of God because they knew his parents, they knew his ancestry, they were busy checking him out they were busy looking in, looking out and they were not looking at the revelation He was giving the world. An awakened spirit is what Jesus had. Luke 9:30 31 Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendour, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem. Moses and Elijah are two great men of the Old Testament. Moses was the man of the law and Elijah was the man of miracles. Many scripture scholars tell us that this was the midpoint of the ministry of Jesus Christ. He had healed the sick, preached the gospel, told people all he had to tell but people tended to remain the same. Isn't that what happens all over the world? You tell people beautiful thoughts, one year they come and listen to you and next year they are the same. Jesus may have had an internal crisis because he may not have known how to fulfill the mission of the Father. So the Father sends Elijah and Moses to explain that preaching alone is not enough, doing miracles alone is not enough you have to die on the cross to establish the new covenant. All of us like to preach because you get a kick out of it. You like to see a miracle take place. Day before yesterday someone came and said how a non Christian had by accident got on our website and listened to the four step retreat and is now completely converted and given his life to Jesus. When you listen to

11 that you're really happy. Preaching and miracles are great, but ultimately you have to share in the suffering of Jesus Christ. So we ask the Lord if we can't do it another way. But Jesus was told what to do. "You have to walk to Jerusalem and shed your blood on the cross." Isn't that what the martyrs have done all across the earth? In Korea, in South America men and women have shed blood and established the faith in the lives of people. Isn't that the power of the church? Mannar is 100% Catholic and when you talk to people in Mannar they will always refer you to the experience of the martyrs who died in that place. You go to India and you meet the disciples of Thomas who faced persecutions and were massacred by the Muslims, but yet held their faith. Today we are having the crisis of Christians who want God to do all the good things and protect them from all the bad ones. When it doesn't happen, the first question we ask is, "Where is God? Who is God? What is the use of God?" That day someone asked me, "How can you believe in God when there is suffering?" I said, "What's the alternative you have? You can reject God and die alone. Is that what you want?" We have not found the covenant. God has called us with an eternal spirit inside us that we live with Him forever. The blood of the covenant gives us the assurance that we will live with Him forever. Luke 9:32 Peter and his companions were very sleepy Who was sleepy in the first reading? Abraham. This is the connection. Peter and his companions were also sleepy and inactive. Luke 9:32 33 but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, "Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah." (He did not know what he was saying.) He was hit by the power of God. He not a man of the spirit, but he was a man of the soul and he was dealing with a transcendent experience and he couldn't handle it and was shaken. People say you can't live on a mountain and you have to come down. The sad thing is they are telling people to come down from a mountain they have never climbed. Many have never gone up the mountain and many have never touched the transcendent. First you climb the mountain and then you offer your life. Luke 9:34

12 When he was speaking, a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. To those who live in the soul and until we die, most of us will live in the soul there will always be a cloud. We will never fully know God, unless He gives us the grace and reveals it to us. Luke 9:35 A voice from the cloud, saying, "This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to Him." God loves everybody, including every sinner but God is pleased with only a very few number of people. When Jesus said, "I will agree to the blood of the covenant, I will agree to be the Lamb of God, I will agree to save the world and I will accept my mission," it made God really happy. God will love you unconditionally but you can also make God happy. How? By saying yes to His mission in your life. First believe what God has said, second agree to His mission. In that mission, will be sacrifice, death and pain but through it all our spirit is being awakened. Abraham looked up, Jesus looked up, now it is our turn: Philippians 3:20 But our citizenship is in heaven Look up, prepare for that, get your passport ready, get your tickets right, and get your life in order because the flight is coming sooner or later. The airport is in the cemetery. Philippians 3:20 continued And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ Every day we meet him in the mass, we meet him in the adoration of the Holy Eucharist, we meet him in our personal prayer, we meet him in the scripture and we are waiting to take this trip to the citizenship of our true home. Death is no more a fearful thing for us. It fills us with anticipation and peace because your citizenship is in heaven. We are not even afraid to suffer. Many saints were not afraid to suffer because their citizenship was in heaven. Philippians 3:21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. Padre Pio is a prophetic sign that we have a life after death and the power of God is protecting it for us.

13 Not only will the power enable us to face any situation in life but it also gives us the assurance that our citizenship and our place is assured in eternity. So when we go on trips, when there are little discomforts in the form of sleep patterns. When we go to Australia and other places they make us as comfortable as possible, they make sacrifices and give their own beds so that we can be comfortable. The discomfort of the changes in time and sleep. When I sit to pray I remind myself that in another 10 days I'm going home to my own bed and environment. Then it brings a happiness to my heart. The Lord is telling me, "If your spirit is open I'll tell you, in some time, you're coming back to your real home, the place I have prepared for you, which is the home of eternity and everything is ready for you." Because we don't know that we don't want to die. We give it such a fight and if we can send someone else in our place we will. That's what the pharaohs did. They don't want to die because their spirit is not awakened and their reality is only here. All of us have to admit that we are caught here. Why don't we allow fasting and prayer to take us to that other place? True freedom from the blindness of this world to the spiritual sight that will show us a new way into eternity.