my Articulate Heart

"The foremost is, 'Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' "The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." [Mark 12: 28-31] In the first part of the above commandment, Jesus points us firstly to the need for a 'conscious desire of the heart' for God [to live not according to my will but God's]. Secondly the need for 'conscious choices/decisions of the mind' [as against the natural choices] and thirdly the need for 'conscious actions' of the body [actions that confirm the above desires and choices]. In the second part of the above commandment, Jesus is saying "be concerned about the souls of others as much as you are concerned about your own soul not missing heaven". In other words, loving oneself means that

Am I being selfish by not asking for prayers when faced with tough times? Is not "asking prayers" an attempt to escape the challenges God allows in my life to discipline me and make me Christ-like? Which act is more self-centered?

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