Solitary Soul

CHRISTMAS – A TIME FOR INTIMACY WITH THE LORD Mario D’Couto             On looking at the title, one may get the impression that only Christmas is the season for having an intimacy with the Lord. But that was just the beginning. Our Lord Jesus Christ invites us to have a relationship with Him every day.             Last year, I had done a course called the ‘post-critical philosophy of God’ and if I could summarize the whole course in just a phrase, it is just this, “Life is not so much about us seeking God but rather God seeking us” and I think that the season of Christmas brings out this message strongly.             In the past, Christian theologians shaped their concept of God by Greek ideas of complete perfection. Since God was totally complete in His own being, God was absolutely immutable. Whatever happened to creat...

You are YOU! Mario D’Couto SDB             It was once said by Albert Einstein that God does not play dice and applying this in the context of creation, we can say that God has certainly not created junk, especially in the case of the human person. Each of us is unique and we are unique for a purpose. Each one’s purpose is very different from the other. Even if it is the same, it would be executed differently. In this regard, I would like to share a poem by Russell Kelfer which deeply impressed me, You are who you are for a reason You are part of an intricate plan. You are a precious and perfect unique design, Called God’s special woman or man. You look like you for a reason Our God made no mistake He knit you together within the womb, You are just what He wanted to make The parents you had were the ones He chose, And no matter how you may feel, They were custom-designed with God’s plan in mind, And t...

A Soccer Player for Christ! Cl. Mario D’Couto SDB             The 6 th of November 2011 was a red letter day for the community of Divyadaan as it was a day to celebrate the stunning victory in the finals of the Inter Parish Football tournament. From being two nil down to making it 3-2 in just ten minutes was indeed a breath-taking achievement. Being an avid fan of football/soccer, I thought that there are quite a few values that one can pick up from the beautiful game.             For those who do not play football/soccer, it is a game played with 11 players, where there is a goal-keeper, the defenders, the mid-fielders and the strikers. It is a team game where the whole target is about shooting goals and the more goals the team shoots, the better. What is striking about this is that, being a team game, each player needs the other to win; what would the strikers be without the...

TREE By Cl. Mario D’Couto Sdb The strength of the bark   That supports the branches, The subtle beauty that is hidden, Discovering its essence Is an inward journey, To the Ultimate Source who created it. Gentle as it stands, Unperturbed by external influence The serenity it emits Is an example that one cannot forfeit.

SKY   By Cl. Mario D’Couto Sdb When I look at the sky And Marvel at its beauty It ceases me to cry For then I am happy. The magnificent clouds that are there in the sky Is but another ray of hope For those times when I am dry In such moments, I can only look up to the sky and say, “Thank you God for another beautiful day.”

Finding God in troubled times Cl. Mario D’Couto sdb             Serenity is another word for calmness, composure and so on. When I began to reflect on what exactly this virtue was, I began to realize that it is easy to keep calm and cool when everything is going on alright. The challenge comes when we are faced or confronted by difficulties and problems.             In the Church, we have so many saints who have borne witness to this fact like St. Francis of Assisi, Heinrich Suso and others. Among them I would like to highlight one incident that I came across when I read the life of Heinrich Suso. This incident is one which has been cited by many scholars in mysticism. It is known as the “Tower Experience” . Once it so happened that some of his colleagues wanted to find whether Suso was really calm and composed as he seemed. They paid a woman to accuse Suso to his provincial ...

God knows us better than we know ourselves Cl. Mario D’Couto sdb             The original title of this article was ‘Priesthood’ and it was written by a certain Bishop named Tom Burns. This article is one of the many articles found in the book called ‘Priesthood- A life open to Christ’ written by Fr. Daniel P. Cronin. I was taken up by this article when I read it the first time and hence this is something that I would like to share with you.             In the beginning of this article, Bishop Burns shares of his experience where one day he found on the rear window the following note, ‘Be patient with me. God hasn’t finished making me yet’ . This idea was actually taken from one of the earliest Fathers of the Church, Tertullian, who said, ‘Christians are made; they are not born’ .             Applying this in the context...

GOD’S WAYS ARE NOT OUR WAYS Cl. Mario D’Couto sdb           It is interesting to find that sometimes in life, God works in ways that none of us would have imagined. For example if Yahweh Himself could choose a person as King like Saul who would eventually become a disaster morally speaking, no one need be surprised if Bishops or priests who do not have all the prerequisites for sound leadership are chosen by higher authority. The permissive will of God is inscrutable since we now hardly at all the reason for such permissions – such as Jesus choosing Judas. It is also surprising to see that God does not go for those who are already strong to do His work. Perhaps in our time, we could interpret that the Lord calls ordinary people to carry out His command and there are numerous instances that we can give as examples to substantiate this point like God choosing Abel, Jacob, David. All of them were the younger ones and perhaps as we would say t...

TURNING YOUR LIFE INTO A NEW LEAF Cl. Mario D’Couto sdb             The story of Rapunzel is one of the popular stories found among the fairy tale books of children. But it has a value to teach. Just to mention the story in brief, there was a little girl named Rapunzel who was very beautiful. She was captured by a witch, who knew that if she wanted to hold on to the little girl, she had to convince her that she was ugly. If she knew she was beautiful, she would go off with one of the many young men who came to consult the witch. If on the other hand, she knew she was ugly, she would be afraid of being seen by them and would therefore hide when they were around. So the witch gradually convinced Rapunzel that she was ugly and she hid for fear of being seen when anyone who came to the witch’s house.             One day when she was combing her hair in her room, she became consci...

ROSARY AND EUCHARISTIC DEVOTION Mario D’Couto sdb             It could happen that a person could object saying that it is not right to honour Mary during the holy hour when Jesus should be honoured. Such a thing would be true if Jesus and Mary were to be contradictory to each other. However such is not the case.             Jesus and Mary are Son and Mother and therefore theirs is the closest possible relationship at the human, affective and biological levels. The Word that became flesh in Mary’s womb was also in Her heart; She welcomed the Father’s Word and ‘ kept’ it. She is therefore also in the best spiritual relationship with Jesus Her Son, the Word made flesh.             The Rosary is not merely a Marian devotion. It is not right to put Jesus and Mary in isolation from each other. Jesus cannot but be pleased if a...

Is Mary important? -          Mario D’Couto Sdb             In the very first place, we must note that Mary is a human person like us, yet She occupies a special place of honour as She had brought forth Our Lord into this world.             It is interesting to see how some Catholics bow at the statue of Our Lady and forget Our Lord Jesus. Such a thing would be a blasphemy! In fact Mary Herself says in the Gospel of St. John, “Do as He tells you” (John 2:5) not what She tells. Thus, one could raise the question, why should one honour Mary at all as the Mother of God?             To begin with, we should note that when we pray to Our Blessed Mother, it is through Her intercession that we come close to Her Son Jesus. Besides, I suppose that She Herself would not want that to happen a...

COMPASSION: THE IMAGE OF GOD’S LOVE CL. Mario D’Couto SDB             Compassion is one of the trademark virtues of a Christian. In Matthew 5:48, it s written, “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” . In parallel to this is St. Luke’s version, “Be merciful, even as your Heavenly Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36). In doing so, Luke is only clarifying and putting beyond dispute a pint made in Matthew’s Gospel.             The demand “to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” is illustrated by the powerful stress of Jesus on compassion: “Love our enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so   that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:44-45). Here we see with unmatched clarity the characteristic feature of bot...

THE GREATEST PITCHER Cl. Mario D’Couto SDB             A little boy was overheard talking to himself as he shouted through the backyard, wearing his baseball cap and holding his ball and bat. “I am the greatest hitter in the world” , he announced. Then he tossed the ball into the air, swung at it, and missed. “Strike One!” he yelled.             Undaunted, he picked up the ball and said again, “I’m the greatest hitter in the world” He tossed the ball into the air. When it came down he swung again and missed. “Strike two!” he cried.             The boy there paused a movement to examine his bat and ball carefully. He spit on his hands and said once more, “I’m the greatest hitter in the world!” Again, he tossed the ball in the air and swung at it. He missed. “Strike three!” “Wow!” he exclaimed. “I’m the greatest pitcher in ...

PRIESTHOOD AND CELIBACY CL. MARIO D’COUTO SDB             St. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians writes, “I would like you to be free from worry. An unmarried man concerns himself with the Lord’s work, because he is trying to please the Lord. But a married man concerns himself with worldly matters, because he wants to please his wife; and so he is pulled in two directions. An unmarried woman or a virgin concerns herself with the Lord’s work, because she wants to be dedicated both in body and spirit; but a married woman concerns herself with worldly matters, because she wants to please her husband.               I am saying this because I want to help you. I am not trying to put restrictions on you. Instead, I want you to do what is right and proper and to give yourselves completely to the Lord’s service without any reservation.       ...

KEEPING ABREAST WITH THE TIMES Cl. Mario D’Couto SDB           It is quite common to see that when there is stagnant water, it begins to smell and mosquitoes lay their eggs in it. The water gets polluted. Likewise, if our education had to remain the same as it was during the Greek times, what would our world be like? But quite the contrary, things have changed drastically and so has the education system. Yet the point that I want to make is that in order to be an effective educator, it is important to keep abreast with the signs of the times.             One could raise the question as to why is it important to keep in sync with the times? We need to since unless we get into the “shoes” of a student, we will not be able to properly give the right dose of education that is apt for one’s intelligence. Surely, nobody would feed rice and curry to a small baby for the mere fact that such foo...

THINKING Vs DOING Cl. Mario D’Couto SDB           For all of us who have studied philosophy we surely would have at some point of time come across the statement made by Heraclitus, “No one can cross the same river twice” and perhaps   this is reflected in so many of life’s situations. In the field of education, we see that there has been a transition of ideas and consequently, we have different forms of education.             However, amidst the diversity that one finds in the different forms of education, the common element that one could pin-point is that no matter what the education system maybe, ultimately there has to be a teacher and a student. Without these two elements, education will not be possible. Ofcourse, there has been a vast shift from one idea of education to another. In the past, the education system would regard the student as a “tabula-rasa” and the teacher as ...

WORKING UNDER PRESSURE Cl. Mario D’Couto SDB             Today, we have many courses and therapies which deal with how to cope with the pressures and tensions of life. Yet though it may sound a bit ironic, history shows us that people who have lived under the pressures of life bloomed into wonderful personalities.             In this light, I was struck by an insight which was written by John Wijngaards in one of his books called, “How to make sense of God” , “Eight million years ago our ancestors, the apes lived in Africa. Geological upheavals caused the continent to split into two halves: the western half retained lush, tropical forests while the eastern half turned dry and semi-desert. What was the result? The apes in the western part continued in their fixed life style. Today’s chimpanzees in Rwanda and Zaire are their direct descendants. But the apes in the arid savannahs ...

Openness: An important prerequisite to good education Cl. Mario D’Couto SDB             The Roman education consisted of the liberal arts which were basically about rhetoric, literature, philosophy, logic, oratory and arithmetic. At that time, they were not so worried about its particulars as we see in the case of the present day sciences such as physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology and so on. They were concerned about bigger things like “What is life?” “What is the cause of the universe?” and so on. However, with the advent of Christianity, Roman education was slowly wiped away. Infact, Christianity regarded Roman education as pagan and evil. Nevertheless, they still made use of pagan philosophy and fitted it within Christian boundaries. For quite some time, this carried on until the dawn of the Renaissance. With the onslaught of the Renaissance, the particulars were given more importance and the universals were left out. ...

Education and life Cl. Mario D’Couto SDB                         A lot of our education has been based on Greek philosophy and a lot of our Christian teachings have also been taken from the Greek philosophers. We see this in the case of Augustine and Aquinas who have based their philosophies on Plato and Aristotle respectively, beside all other Christian thinkers. What strikes me from Greek education is the fact that whatever was connected to life was considered as education. Infact education was about learning how to cope with life. Sadly, today things are different. True, there is no doubt that education has taught us how to cope with life, but it is about how to make more money. The postmodern human being seeks in terms of results and perhaps that is the reason why today we fail to see the bigger picture. We are caught up with small things. This could also explain why in th...

Finding meaning in education  By Cl. Mario D’Couto SDB              History helps us understand the present. Yet the question that comes up is how does one judge whether which history is true or not? There is no clear-cut answer though we can make an attempt to come to an authentic understanding of whether history is true or not.             In the first place, we should keep in mind that no history is absolutely true. A historian is like a lawyer who uses facts to strengthen his or her standpoint. Hence, in this sense, we can say that a historical account is true when he or she is giving a perspective supported or substantiated by facts. Thus, the more facts, the better. By and large, historians do not wilfully distort historical facts though it could also happen. Nevertheless, the problem lies in the fact that in as much as a person is interpreting history, he or she is interpreting it...

JESUS, THE BREAD OF LIFE -          Cl. Mario D’Couto SDB             St. John, in his Gospel explains the incident of the multiplication of the 5 loaves and 2 fish in Chapter 6. Apparently, many people who came to hear Jesus thought he was crazy since they thought he was promoting cannibalism . But it was far from it. Unlike the time when the Israelites were fed up with manna in the desert, which was to satisfy their hunger, the Body and Blood of Christ had a deeper meaning. It meant listening and keeping His word. True, indeed, there is no doubt that we do receive the Holy Eucharist at Holy Communion. But this would be futile if we did not live our lives in accordance with what Jesus taught us, just as it is written in the first letter of St. John that whoever hears the Word of God and does not keep it in his or her heart, then, he or she is a liar. This is clear from what Jesus said to th...