Spiritual Heart Attacks by Fr Nelson Lobo OFM Cap

 

WONDERING GURU

22^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year B-1 September 2024

(Deut 4: 1-2, 6-8; Ps 15: 2-5; James 1: 17-18, 21b-22, 27; Mk 7: 1-8, 14-15,21-23)

 

The Problem: There is a war being fought in the world today. It’s not a military war rather it’s a supernatural war. A war fought between God and Satan, between heaven and hell. That war is being fought for the hearts of men and women.  One side wants to protect our hearts-the other side wants to attack our hearts. Every heart is vulnerable to attack.

Why this war?

Proverbs 27:19 says “As the water reflects a face, so a man’s heart reflects the man”. Proverbs 16:9 says “In his heart a man plans his course”. The course our lives take will be determined by the condition of our hearts. It’s in our hearts that we determine who we will live for, who we will serve, who we will love. Will it be the God of heaven or the God of this world? That’s why the Bible mentions the heart 779 times!

Solution: We need to imitate the man who was close to God’s heart. In Psalm 86:11-12 King David prayed “Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart…”. But many of us would struggle and therefore say what the psalmist said in Psalm 25:17 “The troubles of my heart have multiplied; free me from my anguish”. Psalm 40:12 “For troubles without number surround me; my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails within me”.

Why Is an Unhealthy Heart So Dangerous? Mark 7:20-23: ‘‘What comes out of a man is what makes him ‘unclean.’ For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly…’” That’s why Solomon said …..Proverbs 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.  If we are not careful spiritual heart attacks has the power to make people grow spiritually weak and eventually spiritually sick. They become spiritual patients for the rest of their lives-they never become “healthy Christians”. This spiritual sickness is caused by countless little things that slowly eat away at a person’s heart over time. Things like bad attitudes, wrong relationships, poor choice of priorities, little compromises. Too often those things go unnoticed until it’s too late. Then people end up with; Guilty hearts, diseased hearts, hardened hearts, distracted hearts or numb hearts.  When such hearts surface in a Christian life you stop feeling the things you should feel such as love and gratitude for God; care and concern for others, compassion for hurting people; anger over injustice; conviction over your own sin; frustration over other people’s apathy.

What is the treatment?

It’s important to understand that there is no human cure. You can’t fix your own heart. Pure motives and good intentions are not enough. We need God. He does not repair hearts. He does not do heart surgery.  He does transplant and gives you a brand new heart “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; i will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 11:19). But even after transplants, hearts are vulnerable. That’s why there needs to be a change in a person’s lifestyle after surgery. A daily dose of the holy spirit; a steady diet of the scriptures and a regular routine of spiritual activities.

The Psychology of the Crowd That Followed Jesus by Fr Nelson Lobo OFM Cap

 

WONDERING GURU

21^st Sunday in Ordinary Time

(Do we also behave like the crowd?)

                    (Joshua 24: 1-2a, 15-17, 18b; Psalm 34; Eph 5: 21-32; John 6: 60-69).

Introduction-In John 6 a large number of people begin a journey with Jesus. They have experienced His goodness. They are among the 5000 men plus women and children who enjoyed being with Jesus and witnessing miracles.  But their feelings and beliefs oscillate like the pendulum of the clock in no time. At the beginning they are excited with Jesus but their excitement soon turns into grumbling and disappointment. So, they walk off.  Let’s find out more about the crowd psychology.  Do we also behave like the crowd?

I. The Excited Crowd-They are so excited they want to make Jesus their king. Surely, Jesus will free us from the tyranny of Rome, just like Moses freed Israel from the tyranny of Egypt they assumed (Deut 18:15). Unfortunately, their excitement was based upon some false assumptions about Jesus—the assumption that Jesus has come to be their political leader, the assumption that Jesus has come to make life easy for them, the assumption that Jesus has come to give them what they want. How does Jesus respond to their excitement? First, he sent His disciples away. Why? Because they are vulnerable to the influence of the crowd. Like the crowd they too wanted Jesus to be a political revolutionary. They too wanted the earthly power and influence after upsetting the mighty Romans. This mind looks evident when the mother of James and John makes her request that each of her boys sit on the right and on the left of Jesus.  Therefore, Jesus sends them across the lake away from all this excitement and false assumptions.  When Jesus accused them of seeking Him for all the wrong reasons, when Jesus began to address their false assumptions, they became the grumbling crowd.

II. The Grumbling Crowd-We want you to be our king. That is what the crowd told Jesus. They were believing in the Messiah they had conceived, not the One the Father has sent.  The Messiah they were expecting is actually standing before them revealing Himself as He truly is. If they will accept Him as He really is, if they will abandon their own agenda and allow Him to truly lead, everything else will fall into place.

The crowd was not convinced. They asked: “What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? Moses gave our forefathers manna in the wilderness! Can you do something similar?” They have just experienced one of the greatest miracles ever recorded in human history but that was not enough. They want something more from Jesus. It was commonly assumed by the Jews at that time that when Messiah would come, he would give manna like Moses did.  So, Jesus corrects these people on a couple of crucial points: First, God was the one who gave the manna, not Moses. Second, God, has now sent the true bread from heaven. Instead of trying to understand they start grumbling.  They grumble because he said that He came down from heaven. So they said to each other: “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can He say, “I came down from heaven?” Again, they are operating out of false assumptions about Jesus. They are beginning to draw back from Jesus. The grumbling crowd becomes the offended crowd.

III. The Offended Crowd-They begin to argue among themselves. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”  In verse 52, they are no longer calling him Rabbi, and they are certainly not calling him Lord. They call him: “this man”. This is not what these people wanted to hear. They are repulsed by the very thought. Their law forbids the drinking of blood. So, many left Jesus. Jesus turned to the disciples in verse 67 and asked a question, “You do not want to leave too, do you?” He anticipated their answer but the question had to be asked. When the going really get rough, Peter’s answer is a powerful truth to remember. When our faith has been most shaken, we need to hold to those words, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

Close: We may not understand the circumstances we are experiencing. We may not understand why God is allowing us to go through what we’re going through. We may be tempted to toss in the towel and give up. But the truth is there is no place else to go. Jesus alone has the words of eternal life. If I turn to the world, I will come up empty. If I turn to material gain I will not be satisfied in my soul. If I turn to sensuality and pleasure, I may enjoy it for a season but it will only lead me into addictions. Where can I go but to the Lord. There is no place else to go.

"JESUS IS ALL THAT WE NEED"

To the LOST, He is the WAY

To the THIRSTY, He is the WATER OF LIFE

To the HUNGRY, He is the MANNA from Heaven

To the SINNER, He is the AUTHOR OF SALVATION

To the HEAVY LADEN, He is the REST

To the DISCOURAGED, He is HOPE

To the LONELY, He is COMPANY

To the IGNORANT, He is KNOWLEDGE

To those in DARKNESS, He is the LIGHT

To those CONFUSED, He is the COUNSELOR

To those who are SICK, He is the DOCTOR

To those who are WEAK, He is our STRENGTH

Jesus The Bread of Life Fr Nelson Lobo OFM Cap

 WONDERING GURU

20^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

18^th August 2024

(Proverbs 9: 1-6; Psalm 34; Ephesians 5: 15-20; John 6: 51-58)

 

Story: In his book entitled God’s Psychiatry, Charles Allen tells this story: As World War II was drawing to a close, the Allied armies gathered up many hungry orphans. They were placed in camps where they were well-fed. Despite excellent care, they slept poorly. They seemed nervous and afraid. Finally, a psychologist came up with the solution. Each child was given a piece of bread to hold after he was put to bed. This particular piece of bread was just to be held—not eaten. The piece of bread produced wonderful results. The children went to bed knowing instinctively they would have food to eat the next day. That guarantee gave the children a restful and contented sleep.

Today Jesus speaks of Bread.  His one among the famous 7 I AM sayings: I am the bread of life. 

In Germany there is a Christmas bread called S-T-O-L-L-E-N. It was first prepared in 1545 for the Council of Trent.  And since then, has been the standard traditional Christmas bread baked and consumed by German folks around the world.

In Poland, Eastern Europe, there is another Christmas bread called oplatki, launched in the tenth century.  And it’s still being prepared every Christmas.

In Italy there is a bread called Panettone.  Panettone comes from two words, the Italian word for bread is “panne” and “Tony” name of a person. Back in the 15th century, the 1400s, there was a baker by the name of Tony.  That’s where it came from.  And he wanted to impress the king because he wanted to marry his daughter, so he baked some bread.  Hence, Panettone bread.  I don’t really think that’s the best way to impress a king however Tony made a mark on history because if you go into any Italian market, you find a section with Panettone.

If you go to the Holy land “Bethlehem” in Hebrew means “house of bread”.  “Jesus then said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven.  For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.’ Then they said to Him, ‘Lord, always give us this bread.’” “Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst. 

This crowd is under the misapprehension that Moses and not God was ultimately responsible for the manna; and this crowd is following Jesus now not because they want to hear the words of eternal life, but because they think they’ve found in Him a never-ending supply of bread. So, we have three types of people in the crowd who heard him but went away.

·      Materialists- They only want goodies not God.  Missionaries in the third world would speak about ‘rice Christians’. Only if you give them goodies they come to the church otherwise no.

·      Legalists- Some people want only a set of rules to follow.  We call it the sin of legalism.  For them the rules are more important than relationships.  They want the Law but not the giver of the Law.

·      Sensationalists-What sign will you give us?  Jesus had fed 5000 people just the previous day.  Yesterday’s miracle was not enough for tomorrow.  Some people crave for spiritual excitement regularly.  They want only mountain top experiences without any valleys in between. 

Modern Crowd-Russian sociologists wrote that some of the contributing failures of Soviet communism were widespread despair and alcoholism among the Russian people. Replacing God with the state and illusory hopes of a utopian worker’s paradise cannot ever satisfy the human heart.

 St. Augustine spoke about God-shaped vacuum in every soul. We can attempt to fill that vacuum in our hearts with a host of irrelevant things to satiate our hunger for significance except Jesus. You are all familiar with the old saying:  Money can buy you a house, but not a home; money can buy you an education, but not wisdom; money can buy you a bed, but not restful sleep; money can buy you influence, but not respect; it can buy you medicine, but not health; a spouse, but not love; quiet, but not tranquility.  Despite the failure of money, power, pleasure, drink, drugs, or many other glittering distractions that promise peace and fulfillment but cannot deliver, we still scramble and claw to find our meaning in everything except our maker and His purpose for us.