A WORD FROM THE PASTOR

My dear Parishioners, this weekend I am sharing a good story to meditate well in the Lent and a small reflection on the gospel passage.

Devil Releases the Donkey in Us!

A donkey was tied to a tree. The devil came and untied it. The donkey ran into the fields and started destroying the crop. The farmer's wife saw this and shot the donkey dead. The donkey's owner was upset so he shot the farmer's wife.

The farmer came back to see his wife dead, he went and shot the donkey's owner. The wife of the owner of the donkey asked her sons to go and burn the house of the farmer.

The boys went late evening and carried out their mother's orders happily, assuming that the farmer too would have been burnt with the house. Sadly for them it wasn't that, so the farmer came back and shot the wife and the two sons of the owner of the donkey.

Remorseful, the farmer asked the devil why did all this have to happen? The devil said, "I did nothing, I only released the donkey, but, all of you reacted, overacted and released the inner devil."

So the next time before replying, responding, reporting, rebuking or avenging a revenge, stop and think. Be careful! Many a time what the devil does is that it just releases the donkey in us.

Water is Life!

I don't know how long someone can live without water, but it isn't very long.  A baby who can't keep down fluids will dehydrate and die in just a few days.  Adults last only slightly longer.  The only life-sustaining substance that we need more frequently than water is air.  Water, then, is essential to life.  In one sense, water is life.  Where there is no water, there is no life.  Cactuses and camels and gnarled trees and grasses of the desert can adapt to conditions of low water, but there isn't any living thing on this earth that can adapt to no water.

Water is life.  Lack of water is death.  To be thirsty is to stare death in the eye.  It's no wonder that Jesus turned water and thirst into spiritual teachings as he sat there by Jacob's well, that ancient and sacred place for quenching thirst.  If thirst of the body is the very taste of death, then thirst of the soul is the very picture of spiritual despair.