Dear friends,
Hope you are all doing well with a small break of pleasant weather for the past few days. Pray and hope this pleasant weather continues to keep us happy and comfortable.
There had been too much of a concern about kids using the cellphone and other electronic devices. This concern is really true and should be taken seriously. But at the same time, we need to raise a question: Who is responsible for this situation. Who else can we blame except the parents? Yes! We, the parents are responsible for this situation. This is all about parenting.
Recently there was a video on the social media and on the news too. That video was about small coming out on the roads in Hamburg, Germany, protesting against the parents with the slogan: Play with me, not with your cellphones.  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLaAmfrmmdE)  Yes! This was the message that those kids on the road wanted to convey to all the parents, both in Germany and all over the world. We, the parents are distancing ourselves away from the children, more sadly sometimes even without we knowing it. It is really disastrous for the children. We do it in the pretext of working for the children’s future.
These kids are affected not only by their using the cellphones, they are also affected when the parents use the cellphones and not spending time with the children. There was also another incident where a four-year-old daughter of one particular person wanted to gain her father’s attention and he was meddling with the cellphone. This should have made the girl indignant because of which she grabbed the cellphone from her father and threw it in the sea water. Some had commented that the child was showing her attitude, for which I would blame the father again.
The childhood is a time of extreme feeling of insecurity. The child which has been comfortable in the womb for certain number of months, comes out to the world feeling completely abandoned. That is the time we need to give the child utmost feeling of security. The child needs the nearness of the parents, attention of the parents. Because for a little child only the parents are the world. It takes time for the child to understand that the world is such. So, until the child could understand this we need to take proper care of the child in such a way that the child doesn’t feel insecure in any way. The children who grow with such feeling of insecurity are the ones that become later day anti-social elements. That we should keep in mind.
The better thing would be to think like a child. We should inculcate and develop the mind of a child in our brain. Only then we can understand what the child needs or feels. That way of dealing with the child would make the child feel better and secure. We need to live for the child and live with the child. That is our responsibility. God has entrusted those little ones to us with the hope that we will fulfill the needs of the child and not fail the hope that God has in us. For a child, we need to think with the children’s mind and act with adult’s mind.
God bless.
Yours sincerely in Christ Jesus,
Fr. A. Antony
 

Dear friends,
Hope you are all doing well.
The confirmation mass past week was good and it was a memorable event for the candidates in their life. That was a great time to witness sixty candidates being confirmed, nineteen of them which were from our parishes. The Bishop offered the necessary advice for the candidates who I believe will take that to their hearts and better their spiritual life.
Before the confirmation I had been to the rehearsal. The rehearsal went very well. During the rehearsal the CRE of Rozellville was giving instructions to the candidate as to how to dress themselves. They were told what to wear and what not to wear. No jeans, tank tops, golf shirts, or shirts with any wording, no tennis shoes or sandals for boys and no jeans, low cut tops, spaghetti string tops, or shirts with any wording, no tennis shoes, flip-flops, or sandals for girls. And also, they were told to have no cellphones, they should not chew gum and similar things like these. I was there when these things were told to the candidates.
I was thinking to myself, ‘Okay. Why are all these things told now for a bishop’s mass? Is this in respect to the Bishop or it is in reverence to the church and the inhabitant of the church which is the Lord Jesus? If it was only for the Bishop, how much more reverence we should show the Lord when we give such a respect to the Bishop who is His called and anointed one? If it is for the church and Jesus, why don’t we show the reverence to Him every day or every weekend or whenever we come for the Mass or any other activity in the Church? If we do not do this, do we not make ourselves hypocrites?’ This was the thought going on in my mind.
I happened to see a posting in the Facebook which was in the form of an announcement to the congregation of a church. It went like this: Plans for parish swimming pool scrapped. After much study, our finance committee has determined it would not be feasible to construct an indoor swimming pool in our church.  As a result, we can now announce with certainty that those who have been arriving for Mass as if dressed for the pool need not do so…….’.  You may look up here if you want to.  There were various comments both positive and negative. (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?bid=443226532517086&set=a.15314280485 8795&type=3) I am not sure whether this was done in any church for true. But the point is clear.  The point is that the church and the Lord Jesus in the church should be given proper reverence and the same respect is due to the people of God who come to church with at least a little faith in what they are wanting to do in the church, that is to pray.
We need to keep in mind that we don’t come to church for relaxation by chewing gum, talking with people, meddling with the phone, and doing many other things like this. We have plenty of time to do all these outside the church. Of course, it is a socializing, but in the presence of the Lord. In other words, it is a communion with and in the Lord, which is the Eucharist. The center of the place and the event is the Lord, not the cellphone, not the gum, not the dress like we wear for other places like games or sports. There had been a time when women and men came to church classically dressed in respect and reverence to the place they were going to and the event they were going to participate. But in course of time we were allured by the material beauty and attraction and our behavior in the church also changed a lot to the extent that a pastor should make such an announcement as mentioned above. Is this not something unbecoming of us?
It is true that God loves us as we are, He doesn’t mind what we wear and do, He still loves us. These arguments are right, but that is His generosity and His magnanimity. Are we not obliged to reciprocate that love and magnanimity? Sure, we should. That is basically being human. We have been taking Him for granted which on our part is injustice to Him and His love. Even among human beings, we are ready to pay back to anybody who is good to us. But why is that not possible with God? Is it because He won’t come in person and ask about it? No. We are given the reasoning power to think about this and act accordingly. After all these words this is the single point I would like to make: Give reverence to the church and Jesus in the church by means of your attire, behavior like not chewing gum, not having cellphones, bowing or genuflecting when you enter the church, not indulging in louder conversations inside the church (tolerable in the gathering area) receiving Holy Communion with due reverence and disposition (I have seen people saying ‘Hi’ to people while they are in the line for communion).
God bless. Yours sincerely, Fr. A. Antony.
 

Dear friends,
 
Hope you are all doing well. With the warm weather this past week, life was a little better. Praised be God. Hope good fortunes keep coming our way. At the same time, we need also to remember those affected by the hurricane Florence in the states of South and North Carolina, Virginia and many other East Coast states and more. By the time I write this message, the outcome of the hurricane is estimated to be a bigger disaster. So, let us keep them in our prayers.
 
I happened to watch a tv gameshow. In that game there was a particular time when the team was given a task in which each one was asked to convince someone else to make a sacrifice and would get rewarded. The first player was told privately to convince one other member of the team to make a sacrifice for him, and the first would be rewarded. This first player went to one of the members and told him that he (the other player, not the first player) would be rewarded if he could sacrifice for the first player. The other member of the team trusting the first player’s word accepted to do the sacrifice. When all in the team had completed the task, the team members came to know that the first player had lied to the person in order to convince him to make the sacrifice. All the members of the team became mad at the first player for the cheating game. When asked about it, the player said that it was his strategy to win the game.
 
Lots of foul things that we do have become strategy. To tell lies, to cheat, to steal, to spoil the name of others and anything of this sort has become strategy. We call it intelligence, prudence and being smart. Whatever kind of positive names we may give or positive adjectives we may add, the fact remains unchanged. That is: Lie is a lie. Survival of the fittest is a prominent theory in the animal world. But this theory is creeping into the human society so fast that in few decades or so, even killing someone might be an ‘okay thing’, if it is done for my survival or my benefit. What I say might seem an exaggeration, but for sure this would become true, if the world keeps travelling in the same direction as it is now. There would come a situation where I will be right even if I betray my friend or brother for my survival, I would be right even if I suppress others for my survival, I would be right even if I covet others’ property for my living. We do not need to get into such contaminated and chaotic society and nobody would want that.
 
We have learnt “Honesty is the best policy’. We the Christians are called to be people of exemplary life. To put it in the words of Jesus: You are the salt of the earth (Mt: 5:13) and you are the light of the world (Mt: 5:14). If that is what we believe, let us be true to our heart and true to our call. By being dishonest and insincere, we may win only for a while but we will lose the eternal victory. So, keep the truth in the heart and mind and the Truth will set us free. (Jn: 8:32)
 
God Bless.
 
Sincerely yours in Christ,
 
Fr. A. Antony
 

Dear friends,
   Hope you are all doing well. It seems we are having more rain than we wanted. Thank God we did not get any major catastrophe here in our place like a few other places in the state this past week and the one before (at least I did not hear anything like that). We need to pray for those affected very much by the storms and rain in the past few days. Hope and pray that things will eventually get better for all those affected.
   A few days ago, I got a video clip from the social media. It was about a man named Gary Leon Ridgway, otherwise known as the Green River Killer. This man is called so because he killed many people (almost 49 confirmed, and around 75-80 as he himself claims) and most of those victims he dumped into the Green River in King County, Washington. That video had a scene from one of the trials of that psychotic killer. He was in the court room with a stern face. He was pleading guilty for all the murders he had committed. When he was pleading guilty for all the murders he never showed any sign of remorse or a sense of guilt or shame. To me he seemed proud of his inhuman acts.
   In the courtroom there was a time allotted for the public, mostly relatives of the victims, to speak out. During that time many people gave vent to their anger and cursed him. His response to all these talks seemed very weird as he did not have any reaction on his face. Before the final verdict of the judge, one elderly man with a beard stood up and spoke words similar to these: ‘Sir, you made it very hard to live up to what I believe and it is what God says to do and that is to forgive and He doesn’t say to forgive just certain people, He says to forgive all so you are forgiven sir and I feel sorry for you.’  The man’s voice was broken and at the same time he was strong in what he was saying. The killer broke down as he was gazing at the elderly person who was uttering such unbelievable words right into his eyes and ears. Those words went right into his heart and broke it and as a result  tears started rolling down on his rocky cheeks. (I have given the YouTube link for this in case you want to watch it, see from the 40th minute of the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuokSat3y6o )
   The power of forgiveness is tremendous. It can rend any hard heart. That rend is so pointed that it brings the hardest part of the heart out, and makes the heart so tender that the person feels sorry and ashamed of his act. Those feelings of being sorry and of shamefulness pave the way for conversion in turn. This is the power of forgiveness. But on the other hand, if one tends to take revenge for the wrongdoing of another person, the other one’s heart is made harder and he becomes defensive which makes the situation worse and two people lose the peace of mind and break the relationship.
   We are called to be people of good human values. If we, who are called to be so, but do not commit to be that kind of people, what good can we expect from the ordinary people who may not know the call, or who do not know Him? Only we could and should be the people who render to the world all that is good, in spite of our weaknesses. If not, on what basis we can be called Christians? No way at all. “For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.” (Lk: 6:32) This is what Jesus asks us. We have a couplet in Tamil that goes like this: இன்னாசெய் தார்க்கும் இனியவே செய்யாக்கால் என்ன பயத்ததோ சால்பு. (Thirukkural:987). Its meaning is this: Of what avail is perfect goodness if it cannot do pleasing things even to those who have caused it pain? This is what we need to reflect upon.
   God bless.
Yours sincerely in Christ Jesus, Fr. A. Antony