my Articulate Heart

One who desires a superior life goes through the process of purification until he becomes the "true" bride of Christ, that is to say, one body with him. Christ, the perfect bridegroom gifted [sacrificed] his "whole self" in order that we too might become pure as he is - through him. On our own, we are incapable of purifying ourselves and no action of ours can contribute to this process. We are to freely embrace this gift of salvation [redemption and sanctification] and persevere. Jesus invites us to believe in Him and "mature" in this faith. This process of transformation of ones inner self [maturing in faith] is much like the process of the purification of silver in the furnace. This demands certain conscious choices to be made against our own nature. When we persevere in the love of Christ, beyond our comfort levels, vices give way to virtues. Yet we will be weekend by our own nature [manipulated meticulously by the devil] and be tempted like Chri

When I'm being extorted, abused and misunderstood, If I'm not being able to increase in intimacy with Jesus, It would simply mean that I still haven't conquered the biggest hurdle - "my self".

Pride is like a “bubble castle” inflated out of proportion around me, by a phony air of superiority, falsely assuming others and the supreme God to be inferior. If I'm not mindful of this deceptive growth, it will soon be fatally large enough to burst into shambles. My inflated "self" violently crashes down to where it took off, inflicted. There in midst of the rubble, I find my poor soul, crying helplessly out for mercy. I must carry with me a pin to prick this castle down to size as soon as I realize I'm blowing the foul air. The bigger the castle gets, harder is the fall and the aftermath. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. [Philippians 2:3] How happy I am to see myself imperfect and be in need of God's mercy.  [St Therese of the Child Jesus]

Mortification is the disciplining of the body and it's appetites by self-denial. It is a conscious effort to free our “will” from the natural inclinations of the body & mind in order to align it with the "supreme will of God". It is not an act of doing penance; seeking to “justify”ourselves, for no work of ours is sufficient to repair the inequities we have committed against God, except the perfect sacrifice offered on the cross by Jesus. We repeat with great desire “thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven” many times a day. Yet it remains just a desire, unless we act with “deeds” to prove our sincerity to that desire. As a young soldier submitting himself to rigorous training before being put into combat, we must train ourselves, cooperating with the work of the Holy Spirit with in us, to rise above our fallen nature. These deeds are not to be flaunted in the presence of men but to remain exposed only to us and to our Lord. God supplies unlimite

Deliver us God, from the intoxication of knowledge for we know even at the peak of great learning, there is room for us to die to what we have learned and be open to a much greater knowledge. Yet, oh God, greatest of our knowledge remains a tiny little drop in the ocean of thy omniscience. The Holy Scriptures lead us into the hidden mysteries of God. Yet not all who diligently study them are lead into the fullness of Truth. It is because the written word [scriptures] does not exhaust the reality of the Word of God [Christ]. John in his gospel quotes Jesus saying "You search the scriptures, thinking that in them you will find life; yet scripture bears witness to me. Yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life"  [5:39-40] We must approach the scriptures in the light of the same experience of those who witnessed Jesus one-to-one [Body, blood, soul and divinity]. In his first epistle, John narrates his experience “That which was from the beginning, which we have he

How beautiful it would be if all of us wore cloths such a way that the "gaze of the onlooker" remains naturally on our face. One who gazes the face is able to see  and  recognize  far more than what meets the eye. Face is the window into the whole inner reality of a person . On the contrary, if cloths make the onlooker gaze everywhere else [except the face], it tragically limits his perception "skin deep" and is being tripped into the vice of commoditizing (utilizing) the  person for the gratification of lust and sensual entertainment. Lust is the chewed up residue of "man's innate desire to give himself as a gift to the other" devoid of Love [God] or in other words, it is Eros minus Agape. How unaware we are of the imminent danger of immodest dressing. The ready-made garment industry has  literally robbed us of our freedom to wear cloths of our choice. In the name of convenience we are forced to wear cloths that are designed with no moral obl

Jesus came not only to save us but also to make us children of God. It is a comforting "status" any human can rightly assume or be. But the danger of limiting God-Man relationship to only father-child dimension” truncates the expanse we are capable of treading as children into the reality of God the father. It is so because we reduce this relationship to our own understanding of a father-child relationship. In a typical human experience, the father [biological father] does not have the right, capacity or the gift to decide the destiny of his child [heaven or hell] however intimate their relationship may be. In our relationship with God as our father, we must not forget that God the father also is our judge who will decide our eternal destiny.[Mathew 10:28] In the movie “Chronicles of Narnia” Jesus is portrayed as an untamed lion [Lion of Judah]. Yet we see the children grow into a relationship with the Lion [Jesus] as intimate as that of a child to the father. This father