Sunday 30 August 2015

72 My Monologues & Musings : A Prayer on the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances

72 My Monologues & Musings :A Prayer on the  International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances

Oh, God our loving Creator,
You have made each one of us in your image and likeness.
Sadly,  we your children not only seem to forget it but we often hate each other, kill each other on account of our evil designs and selfish motives. To create terror in the minds of our opponents and to get our demands met we  engage in Enforced Disappearances!  Many thousands of fellow humans are subjected to such a heinous crime.
May we realize this cruelty we keep perpetuating to each.
Many thousands of families grieve over the missing of their lived which is done in very organised way. May a children go to bed without knowing where their moms and dads are?
Whether they will ever see them again?
Many a parents miss their daughters and sons not knowing where 5th look for them.
Oh, God our Creator,
When shall we learn to live in peace and harmony?
When shall we learn to forgive each other  and reconcile with each other?
When shall we learn to see in each other your image and likeness?
Amen
JoAchen
Sunday,  30th August, 2015
Joachenmonologues@gmail.com 

Saturday 29 August 2015

71 My Monologues & Musings : A Prayer on the International Day Against Nuclear Tests

71 My Monologues & Musings :  A Prayer on the International Day Against Nuclear Tests
Oh, Dear Loving God, the Creator of  us, Humans and of this unique Universe,
We your children  pray that we as nations cease to conduct Nuclear Test and stockpile them to use them of massive destruction of each other.
Oh, God of Communication and Dialogue,
May we your children learn to settle our differences through mutual dialogue and reconciliation!
May we learn to coexist with mutual understanding, in peace and harmony!
May we continue to keep in memory the massive human tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki!
May we turn our swords into ploughshares!
Ever since Cain killed Abel, his brother, we have been on a killing spree!
May we realise that we are the keepers rather than the killers of our fellow humans!
Maybe strive for the day when all Nuclear Weapons are done away with.
Oh, God our Creator, guide to create mutual trust and love for one another so as to live in peace and harmony.
Amen
JoAchen
Saturday, August 29th 2016
Joachenmonologues@gmail.com

Friday 28 August 2015

70 My Monologues & Musings : Musings of a Mystic : Santo Vincenzo Pallotti

70 Musings of a Mystic: Santo Vincenzo Pallotti

Dear saintly Padre Vincenzo,
It was per chance I came to know of you and the Society you had established.
Half a century ago, as a teenager I was all set to join the Jesuits. All on a sudden, one of my relatives, who knew about you and about your Society suggested to me and to my father and successfully persuaded me to change my mind and join your Society, the Pallottines.
I didn't have sufficient knowledge to make an informed choice between the Jesuits and Pallottines.
Now I am convinced it was not by chance but by the Divine Providence i chose to become a Pallottine.
In hindsight, I am happy with my decision to join the Pallottines which had led me to know more of you.
It was during the novitiate I read more about you and came to know more:
of your life,
of your activities,
of your charism,
of your ideals and
of your vision for the Church and for the world.
Your saintly life rooted in the deep union with God,
Your life of simplicity and
Your untiring apostolates and activities,
continue to marvel me and
keep challenging me,
inspiring me and even egging me
to emulate you in my life and apostolates.
Oh, saintly Padre Vincenzo,
The mystic in you has always fascinated me and keeps making me wonder about your magic of being a mystic in midst of your manifold apostolates.
Though you neither called yourself a mystic nor claimed yourself to be one,
your very own being and your ways of behaviour and apostolates benevolently betray the mystic in you.
Your constant awareness of the image and likeness of God in you and in the fellow humans and your continuous experience of the same in your personal life is the essence of being a mystic, right?
The mystic in you keeps inviting me to imbibe and embody your deep mystical spirituality with a rare blend of active apostolates.
As I am near seventy I feel drawn to the mystic in you.
According to my ancient, ancestral Indian spiritual heritage every human being, especially the elderly, is strongly recommended to pursue actively, to foster avidly, and embrace gladly the natural yearning of the humans to reduce worldly activities and to begin a life of closer communion with God the Creator. This would ultimately lead to a mystical relation with and an intimate experience of the Divine.
As you know, I have big strides to make and a long way to trudge in imbibing your mystical spirit and emulating your ideals and vision!
Oh, dear saintly Padre Vincenzo,
permit me to peep into your musings:
.........    .......     ......
Santo Vincenzo:
"I consider myself truly blessed to have been gifted with fifty-five years life on earth, and that too right in Rome, the cradle of Catholicism. As you know, I was born and brought up just twenty minutes of walk to Vatican! My pious parents who were devoted and dedicated to Jesus and to the Catholic faith did bring me closer to Jesus and to the Blessed Mother. My mother regularly  took me to the nearby church of Lorenzo in Damaso, our parish church. I loved to kneel before the statue of the Blessed Mother and pray to make me a good boy.
I was rather slow in studies. So I prayed a Novena to the Holy Spirit as was suggested by our parish priest.
Slowly and steadily,
I began to perform better in my studies.
I was and am glad to be guided by the Holy Spirit and protected by the Lord Jesus and by the Blessed Mother.
Though the people used to call me a 'santarello'.
I don't  think I was that holy. I used to have occasional fights with my companions and once I threw a stone at a bullying boy whose face was bruised!
As a pleasant and cheerful young lad, I was a bit quiet, gentle, and reserved. Thus I must have given the impression of being saintly. Just like any other lad of the time I too had my share of struggles. My Mom and Dad were real role models for me. My Dad was an ordinary grocery shop keeper and Mom a very devout house mother. Both of them excelled in their vocation to parenthood. My Dad was a daily church goer and was very active in the parish. My Mom would take me along with other siblings to the many nearby churches in Rome.
From the very childhood on I wanted to be  a Capuchin priest as i was fascinated by St. Francis of Assisi.  But due to my frail health, Don Fazzini, my spiritual mentor dissuaded me becoming a Capuchin priest. So I joined the Roman Seminary.
My seminary days were academically educative and spiritually enriching. I loved to go the chapel and spend as much time as possible in silence in the grace-filled presence of the Eucharistic Jesus!
It is from these moments of silent adoration and encounter with the Lord that I began to savor the bliss of the deeply personal experience of the Lord and of the Blessed Mother. Slowly but steadily the Lord was guiding to a deeper or mystical awareness of the Divine Presence in me and in other humans.
After my ordination to the holy priesthood I wanted to be all things to all..
Everyday I felt the unworthiness of myself to be an anointed one of the Lord. Besides teaching in the university, I did involve myself in various types of apostolates. Hearing confessions, visiting the sick, the prisoners, and caring for the orphans began to be some of my favourite apostolates.  
I wished and wanted:
everyone a Catholic,
every Catholic a good Catholic, and
every good Catholic an Apostle.
They used to call me the apostle of Rome.
Though I feel honoured,
I wonder whether I deserve it!
I wished and wanted to involve the laity with their active participation and enlist everyone's cooperation in reviving faith and rekindling charity.
I always felt:
'Caritas Christi urget nos'
(The love of Christ urges us)
In essence, the love of Christ for us humans and
our love for Christ form the core of mystical spirituality and experience, don't you think so?
God is love and an image and likeness of this love is imprinted in each one of us.
In the computer language of your present age,
it would be something like a 'Microchip' of God's love is implanted on each of us humans, right?
I wanted to dedicate all my apostolates:
'Ad infinitum Dei gloriam'
I tried to see the image and likeness of God in everyone I met.
I looked forward to go up to Camaldoli Monastery in hilly outskirts of Rome.
I loved the serenity and silence of the place and went as often as possible to spent time in silent reflections and prayer and adoration to replenish my zeal for the Lord.
The faithful in Rome used to refer to me as the second Philip Neri.
Once again i felt honoured.
I kept asking myself whether I deserve it?
I consider myself just an instrument in the hands of Jesus.
I had my share of frustrations and humiliation.
The society I had formed was forbidden by the Pope as he was misinformed.
After knowing actual facts the suppression was revoked
The young priests with whom I had shared the rectory  often locked up the sacristy and hid the keys!
Well, it did humble me.
I  gladly took them all as little crosses.
I am convinced every human being has the innate yearning for the Creator.
But sadly this constant yearning goes unnoticed by many of us.
I am also convinced that the basic element in developing a mystical awareness of the Divine Presence consists of recognizing and fostering this innate yearning. The abundance of which the Lord envisions for us consists of this constant awareness of awesome majesty as well as utter simplicity of the Divine.The innate human yearning to be in constant touch with the all-loving God and the yearning for the abundance of life go beyond
any gender or
any age or
any educational qualifications.
The children or the elderly,
the women or men,
the literate or illiterate,  
any and every human being is capable of fostering a mystical awareness and the presence of God.
Be it, Abraham or Elijah,  
be, it Miriam or Moses,
be it, David or Nathan,
be it, the blessed Mother or St. Joseph,
be it, the good old Simeon or Prophetess Anna,
be it, Mary or Martha,
be it, you or me,
everyone of us has this gift to be aware of and to experience the mystical presence of God, right?
It is up to us to develop it by constant practice.
All religions, especially the Religions of the East give much importance to the mystical and devotional awareness and approach to the Divine in our daily lives.
I am glad many of you my spiritual children are trying to be in touch with and interested in developing the constant awareness and the presence of the Divine in their daily lives.
Remember:
In that Silent Night, when the Illiterate Shepherds in Bethlehem
worshiped the innocent Infant Babe in swaddling clothes, they had the mystical experience of the Messiah, didn't they?
Remember :
When the Three Wise Kings from the East came from afar and worshiped the Babe of Bethlehem, didn’t they have the sublime and  mystical experience of the Messiah?
All of them had the instant awareness and experience of the Divine as they gazed at the Babe of Bethlehem!
They were in a sense, little Epiphanies of the mystics who had the awareness and experience of the Divine, weren't they?
Remember :
When the Roman Centurion who was guarding the lifeless body of Jesus, he spontaneously cried out, 'Surely, he was the Son of God.'
Remeber:
When Mary Magdalene bursts out with one of the best and most spontaneous mystical experiences and expressions when she called out the Risen Lord:
'Rabboni.'
Wasn't  this a spontaneous mystical experience of her Master?
Remember :
When Thomas the Apostle cried out in ecstasy,  
'My Lord and my God'
he had the instant and intense mystical awareness and experience of the Lord, right?

How I wish and want that everyone of my spiritual children is able to have this mystical awareness and experience of the Lord!
And have it constantly!
I shall keep holding you all in my prayers from here in heaven!
The Lord brought me into this world on 21st April 1795 in a small apartment on Via Pellegrino, less than half an hour stroll from St.Peter's Basilica. After spending fifty-five years of humble service in the vineyard of the Lord in and around the Eternal City, the Lord called me back from my small little room attached to the Church of San Salvatore in Onda on via Pettinari just less than fifteen minutes stroll from where I was born!
To go from Via Pellegrino to Via Pettinari, It took a good long fifty-five years to cover a mere distance of fifteen minutes on foot.
It was the pilgrimage of my life!
It was a pilgrimage in search of the eternal and everlasting mystical experience of my God, my Creator, and my Redeemer!

By the way,
don't you remember, while on earth I kept telling,
'In heaven we shall rest'?
Sorry, I have to correct myself:
Even in heaven there is no rest as we are happily busy in relishing the blissful and mystical awareness and experience of our Triune God!"
Your Vincenzo.

Dear Santo Padre Vincenzo,
Thank you for sharing your deep conviction and above all thank you for your life which itself is a marvellous Epiphany of the constant mystical awareness and experience of the Lord!
May we your children keep trying to have similar mystical awareness and experience of the Divine.  
As you used to repeat :
'Sempre piu'  - always more
And thus we too, in turn,
be Little Epiphanies of the constant mystical awareness and experience of the Lord.
All for: 'Ad infinitum Dei gloriam.'
And always: Sempre piu!
Amen
JoAchen
Friday, August 28th, 2015
Joachenmonologues@gmail.com



Friday 21 August 2015

69 My Monologues : "you will be a blessing"(Gen12)

69 My Monologues and Musings:
'you will be a blessing' (Gen 12)

"I was over seventy when my aging father and myself were worried about increasingly scarce grazing land for our cattle and sheep. We had been toying with the idea of searching for new pastures for quite some time.
But then I thought:
Why should I go?
For whom should I amass all these wealth?
As i don't have any kids!
Neither any son nor any daughter!
It's highly unlikely my wife and myself will have any progeny of our own.
Because we are far advanced in age especially Sara, my wife.
She has biologically passed the childbearing stage.
No, I am not blessed to have a child, a son!

All on a sudden, the Lord God told me:
'Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that i will show you...
I will make you a great nation..
I will bless you..
You will be a blessing...'

What did I hear?....
What did He tell?
He will make me a great nation?
I will be a blessing!

I thought to myself:
Come on..
Give me a break!
Here I am well over seventy and so is my wife!
And we haven't had any children!
Then how is the Lord God going to make me a great nation?
How will I be a blessing?
As it stands,
I consider myself a curse than a blessing!

After hesitating a bit,
I decided to follow his command and move out.  
I did travel along with my wife, with my aging father and with all the servants and the herd, cattle and sheep.
We have everything:
like riches, land, cattle and what not..
But we have no children!
We are issueless.
My wife seems to be barren.
And biologically she is beyond the childbearing age.
We did travel for an year or so halting in between.
Whenever we found good pastures we pitched our tent and let our huge herd graze there for a while..
Then we kept moving...
As we reached Haran my aging father passed away.
I almost totally felt helpless and abandoned.
My brother had died much earlier.
How could I ever consider myself a blessing?
My father had always been a solid support for me.
Now that he too is gone..
I felt lonely.
I kept thinking:
Am I a blessing?
It seems God is unaware of all that's happening in my life!
It's sad I had to bury my father in a foreign land!
I did debate within myself whether to continue my journey or to go back to the land of Ur from we had started off.
I often kept wondering whether God has forgotten the rosy promises He had made to me!
Yet:
Relying on His promise to make me a great nation I followed his command to go..
I continued my journey without a clear cut destination.
For long twenty-five years I kept on travelling and halting in between..
I was a Hundred year old.
Finally my son Isaac was born!
Oh, boy! Oh, boy!
I was thrilled!
I was grateful to the Lord God!
I just kept gazing at Isaac, my son.
Truly, he is a miracle!
He is a blessing!
Yes, I begin to feel for myself :
I am a blessing!
Finally I began to feel God did mean what promised!
'....you will be a blessing'
Lord, I am grateful indeed!
I am grateful, a thousand times grateful!
I kept thinking:
What more could I do to show my gratitude to Him?
I kept on thanking him and singing His praise!
As I got familiar with the indigenous people I noticed a strange and horror-filled local custom.
In order to give thanks to their gods and to propitiate them the local people used to sacrifice their firstborns as a unique offering to their gods.
They practised child sacrifice!
It was horrendous!
I could never ever understand it!
But then,
Slowly and steadily I too began to entertain the notion of sacrificing my only son.
It was a horrible thought to begin with!
Yet slowly but steadily I began to be possessed of this idea that my God wanted.
I felt within myself God is asking me to offer my one and only son Isaac as a sacrifice.
And He would be pleased..
I thought:
It would be an appropriate gesture of gratitude from my part to offer Isaac, my son as a sacrificial offering.
It is customary for the local people to sacrifice their sons.
As the days passed, I was convinced that the Lord God is asking me to offer my only son as a sacrifice, as a burned offering of thanksgiving!
I became convinced:
Yes God wants my son to be a sacrificial offering!
So I decided..
One day,
I got the firewood needed for the sacrifice,
I got them packed and had bundle of firewood placed on the donkey and took along my son and we climbed up the mount Moriah!
When everything was ready and I got my son tied up on the pile of wood stacks ..
Then the Lord God, at the nick of time stopped me slashing neck of my Isaac!

I told my God:
Oh, my God,
Though with a heavy heart, though I didn't grasp it fully, yet I was willing to offer my only son for you!

This was indeed a traumatic experience for me and all the more for my son!
Thank you! my Lord God!
I am blessed indeed!"

Thank you father Abraham for your heroic life!
You have been through a lot..
Ever since you married your wife,
You had been wishing, wanting and waiting for a son, right?
Even after the promises of God,
You had to wait agonizingly for another twenty five years to have your Isaac born to you!
In between, you thought:
'It may be Eliezer, the child born to me from the slave woman, may be, he is the one through whom I would be a father of a great nation.
At the same time my wife had plans too.
She wanted me to have a son from Hagar, her slave.
Thus Ishmael was born!
But we both got it all messed and  wrong.
It was Isaac who is divinely meant to be the promised child.
How wrong we have been!
Me and my wife had devised our own plans, alternate plans, different from the plan and promise of God!'

Oh, dear Patriarch Abraham,
Me too have devised my own plans and shortcuts in my life.
Me too have deviated from the plan God has for me.
In fact, I keep deviating and devising plans for myself and thus keep making many mistakes!

Oh, my Triune God, 
my Creator, 
my Sustainer, 
my Deliverer, 
my Comforter,
You keep calling me a blessing as you did call Abraham.
In fact, in your eyes, every human is a blessing, right?
As you know fully well I have had my own plans!
I have misinterpreted them as your plans for me.
Thus I have made mistakes big and small.
Thank you! my God, my Creator!
Thank you for creating me in your image and likeness and bringing me into this world through my parents!
Thank you, for giving me yet another birthday in my life.
I
Yes, I am a blessing!

Oh, Jesus, My Lord and My God,
Thank you
for keep loving me,
for keep saving me,
for keep forgiving me,
for keep forbearing with me,
for keep giving me yet another birthday!
Oh, Jesus, My Lord and My God,
Thank you for my parents, through whom I was brought into the world.
My dear parents,
Thank you my loving mother and father,
thank you for cooperating with the Creator and bringing me forth into this world!
Thank for your love!
Thank you for offering your lives for me!
I consider my myself  a blessing!
I want to keep trying to be as worthy as possible of being a blessing in the eyes of my Creator and in your eyes as well.
Thank you!
My dear loving Parents,
I consider you both as best blessings in my life!
And I want to keep trying myself to be a blessing you are proud of.
Oh, my God, my Creator,
I want to spend the rest of my life singing your blessings, the manifold blessings you had been showering on me!
'Bless the Lord my soul!'
Amen
JoAchen
Friday, August 21st, 2015
Joachenmonologues@gmail.com