Greetings to all in the matchless name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ!

As we have entered into a Mid Lenten season, it's time for some introspection!

How was this 25 days of my life?
Did I spend time to...

1) Pray

2) Go to Church

3) Repent/Confess

4) Read the Bible

5) Fast

6) Give

Don't worry!

I would like to encourage you to observe lent now.

It's never too late

SIGNIFICANCE OF MID-LENT!

1) Golgotha Cross

• Answering Moses’ prayer, the Lord commanded him to make a serpent of bronze, and to hang it down from the flag pole. 
• Any one looks at the bronze serpent after having bitten by the fiery serpents was to live and not to die. This is the primary text that the Church has decided to highlight for the Mid Lent.

It also reminds us of our fallen nature and the hope of eternal life in the shelter of the Holy Cross.

2) Festival of Salvation.

• As we read in the Old Testament, when the Israelites were tired of their journey to reach the promised land they started murmuring and cursing.

It also reminds us of our struggle in observing Lent and all the difficulties we faced till now. As we are about to reach the festival of salvation, Easter, let us also not murmur or curse, but in hope and faith, let us pray that we may be able to enjoy our Promise land!

3) Bronze

• As we all know bronze is an alloy made up of copper and zinc.
• copper is known for its delicacy and purity, whereas zinc is known for its dullness and brittle property.

It reminds us of our dullness and inflexibility towards righteousness (purity) but God formed an alloy, a mixture of contrasting metals (DIVINE-HUMAN) as a way for our salvation.

 It is for looking into the Son of Man and believing in Him that the cross is elevated in the midst of the Church during the Mid Lent!

so don't be like the five foolish women.

ask yourself,

is my spiritual candle still lit?

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Greetings to all in the matchless name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

As we read third chapter of Jonah, we see Jonah's calling to the service.

1) God neither reproached Jonah nor Ninevites.

 "And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time."

• God did not hurt his feelings in any way for his running away from his first mission.
• God, in His anger, didn't punish him or harden the mission for him.
• It was the same mission which He planned the first time.

"God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them, and he did it not."

• Thus, God does not insist on fulfillment of the sentence but rather He announces the sentence so that people would stop their evil and He would forgive them.

St. John Chrysostom says: In the days of Jonah if God had not threatened destruction, they would not have been spared from destruction. If God had not threatened us with hell, we would have all fallen in it. A threat of danger results in escaping that same danger.

2) NINEVEH’S FAITH AND REPENTANCE 

Jonah did not give them any glimmer of hope, nor did he talk to them about God’s love and mercy, nor did he teach them anything about repentance. 

Hence Nineveh became a living, beautiful example of true repentance. 

Let us also have Faith in Christ. We have hope in Jesus.

Repent for the Kingdom of God is near!

 

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Greetings to all in the matchless name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

We meditated about Jonah's reluctance to deliver God's message, but we see a drastic change in His speech and approach in the next chapter.

1) Pray Ceaselessly

St. John Chrysostom says: We should not be obsessed with a certain place, but we should think more of the Lord of the place. Jonah was in the whale’s belly and God heard his prayer. Pray, wherever you are, pray, do not demand a place to pray in, because your spirit is a temple.

2) Pray Believing

Isn't it strange that from the belly of the fish, Jonah is offering a Prayer of Thanksgiving and Praise! Jonah was in a terrific situation, but he sings a Psalm."In my distress, O Lord, I called to you, and you answered me."When God saved him from death by drowning, he isn't complaining about his discomfort in the belly of the fish but he is thankful to the God for delivering him from death. Thus in faith he sees a pledge of further deliverance.

3) O Lord, My God

When Jonah was asked about his identity he replied, "I am an Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven" but soon he feels a personal relationship with God as he prays,"I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God".

4) Salvation is of the Lord.

Jesus Christ who was persecuted gave Himself as a song of praise and a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Father. If Jonah offered a sacrifice of praise inside the whale, it was but a symbol of Christ, the Lord.

5) The Living Jonah

"So the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah into dry land” 

St. John Chrysostom says that God taught Jonah several consecutive lessons about having pity on people. The whale had swallowed him, then threw him out without any harm, so should not he have compassion on his fellow humans even if they were Gentiles? 

May God Bless You!

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Greetings to all in the matchless name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

Often when we read Bible stories, we are amazed at how God helps us to understand His true nature through the character, heroism and failures of Biblical heroes.

But what I like, about the book Jonah, is God's eternal love and faithfulness. God’s perfect work through imperfect people. 

1) God of Israel saving Israel's deadliest enemy.

• God sends Jonah to the people of Nineveh.
• The People were Gentiles, but it shows God’s desire to save all mankind. 
• Nineveh, The great city, was the deadliest enemy of Israel. 
• Yet God of Israel wants them to repent and be saved.
• "He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. (Psalms 103-10)"
• Our Lord isn't a Lord of destruction but God of Blessings. 
• He does not believe in the eradication but in Edification.

2) Jonah disobeys God.

"But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa".

• What made Jonah disobey God's word? 
• Jonah was a person whose facts were so clear and who had a firm faith in God's existence and in His true nature. How? Let's see.

* "I fear the Lord, the God of Heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land. (Jonah 1:9)"

* "For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the LORD because he had told them. (Jonah 1:10)"

* "Take me up and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you. (Jonah 1:12)"

• We know we worship Lord, The Creator. 
• We know we flee from Lord's presence because we want to stick to our own terms.
• We also know that part of our affliction and sorrows is a consequence of our sin and we need to repent.

But like Jonah, we would rather sink in the depths of the ocean than to cry out to the Lord!

3) God teaches Jonah obedience.

"The Lord detests all the proud of heart... (Proverbs 16:5)".

"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. (Philippians 2:3)"

• Jonah might have a desire to be a great prophet. 
• He might have thought,”what if I just cry out against Nineveh, they repent, God forgives...then???
• What about me? 

What if one out of the 1,20,000 people in Nineveh think that he is not a good prophet? 

But here we see our Lord's love!

He not only forgives Nineveh-the ignorant! but also Jonah-the reluctant.

4) God saves Mariners.

"Then the men feared the LORD exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the LORD, and made vows. (Jonah 1:16)".

• Mariners, here, are portrayed as good people. 
• They pray to their gods. 
• They don't want to kill Jonah.
• They offered prayer before throwing him.
• And the most important part, the moment God revealed His Glory to them; they received it and worshiped him."
• These men were also Gentiles, but we can see that they were men seeking the Lord:

5) God uses the whale to save Jonah

He did not prepare it to destroy him but to preserve him. The great fish was not a punishment but a shelter. Jonah was safer and more comfortable in the belly of the whale than if he were still in the ship struggling against the waves and the sea, and against fatigue, cold and the wind. This whale was sent by God to carry out the Divine will entrust to it-HH Pope Shenouda III

Let us put ourselves before our Lord, as humble obedient and faithful servants of the One True God, seeking to hear the message that He desires to give to the world through us.

Lovely greetings to all in the matchless name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

By the immense Grace of our Lord, we were able to meditate about the qualities which we should learn from St. John- The Baptist! Today we are going to end our series. What would the last and off course not the least?

Greetings to all in the precious name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

Another beautiful lesson which we can learn from St. John-The Baptist is, "Humility."

GREETINGS TO ALL IN THE PRECIOUS NAME OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST!

• We meditated on this wonderful mystery last time that how wonderfully and fearfully I am made!

Greetings to all in the precious name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

Greetings to all in the matchless name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

Just because of the immense Grace and Mercy of our Lord, Jesus Christ, we have been set into yet another promising year, 2015!

Greetings to all in the matchless name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

Another Year

will bring lots of fear

Come to me, Oh weary

Come to me, Oh tired

You are my dear

You are my beloved

When its January


I tell you, do not worry

By the time its December

you will thank me in wonder:)