Solitary Soul

THE FORGIVENESS AND MERCY OF GOD Mario D'Couto    When I look at Salvation history, I am always intrigued by the fact that in the Bible we see two 'faces' of God. We all believe that God's love is made manifested in the highest form in the personhood of Jesus Christ but yet there seems to be this kind of difference wherein we see that in the Old Testament, God comes across as a 'tyrant' as a strict policeman who is there, ready to punish people when they do wrong. Contrasting this with the personhood of Christ, we see a different picture of God. In Jesus Christ, we see the manifestation of God's unconditional love, a God who loves and cares for us irrespective of who or what we may be. Thus, given this 'duality' in the nature of God, how do we reconcile these two views?    In the first place, we must understand that God is a mystery and hence, we will never fully understand Him. However that does not in any way imply  that all is lost o...

DEALING WITH MISTAKES AND FAILURES - PART 1 Mario D'Couto     As the old dictum goes, "Failures are stepping stones to success."  All through our lives, we experience the so - called 'ups and downs'. It is alright and normal to experience it but what is important is to learn form it.     Mistakes have hidden powers to help us but they fail in their mission of helping us when we blame them on other people. When you use excuses, you give up your power to change and improve. So, "Never mind whom you praise but be careful whom you blame." You can fall down many times but you won't be a failure until you say that someone else pushed you.   Arthur Guiterman would say, "Admitting error clears the score and proves you wiser than before."  Failures are experts at making excuses. You waste time and creative energy thinking up excuses.    The person who really wants to do something finds a way, the other finds an excuse a...

DEALING WITH MISTAKES AND FAILURES - PART 2 Mario D'Couto  Here is something enlightening that I read from the book, "Know your limitations - then ignore them" by John Mason on failure,  Paul Galvin, at the age of 33 had failed twice in business. He attended an auction of his own storage battery business. With his last 750 dollars, he brought back the batter eliminator portion of it. That part became Motorola. Upon his retirement in the 1960s, he said, "Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out." George Bernard would say, "A life spent making mistakes is more useful than a life spent doing nothing." To expect your life to be perfectly tailored to your specifications is to live a life of continual frustration.  David McNally mused, "The mistake - riddled life is much richer more interesting and more stimulating than the life that has never risked or taken a stand on anything." What is the difference be...

DEALING WITH MISTAKES AND FAILURES - PART 3 Mario D'Couto    The irony of life is that the greater the fall, the greater the rise. Failures are like bouncing a ball. The more harder a ball is bounced, the greater will it rise. However, in order to deal with it, it is important first and foremost to be committed to a particular goal, as William Matthews would say, "One well cultivated talent, deepened and enlarged, is worth 100  shallow faculties."    Failures and mistakes can be a bridge, not a barricade to success. Theodore Roosevelt said, "Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in the great twilight that knows not victory or defeat." One of the riskiest things you can do in life is to take too many precautions and never have any failures or mistakes. Failure is the opportunity to start over more...

God's foolishness and man's wisdom Mario D'Couto    When I had seen the movie, "Karol" I was in particular taken up by a dialogue from the movie which goes thus, "The foolishness of God is better than the wisdom of human origin."    It is interesting to see how Jesus tackled those issues where He was tested. In fact, we might just say that His whole life was a test. Right from the experience in the desert to His death on the Cross, He was tested. In this article, we shall see how He did those things. There are 3 instances that come to my mind in this regard,  1) When the woman was caught in adultery, it was done on purpose to trap Jesus. But it is very interesting to see the way Jesus handles the issue. The Gospels tell us that Jesus was writing something on the ground when the Pharisees had brought her to Him. What was He writing? We do not know. But according to some scripture scholars, they are of the opinion that Jesus had already a...

Life as a teacher Mario D' Couto It is said that experience is the best teacher. It is not enough to go through life but we must all strive to grow through life. Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said, "You cannot cross  the same river twice" which is to say that every experience is a passing moment and nothing is permanent. However I would like to add to it and say, "No one can enter a different experience with the same attitude."  Every event and situation is an opportunity in itself. If we approach it with an open mind, we will learn from it. If we, on the other hand, go with our own pre - conceived ideas, it will not help. One cannot fill a jar that is already full.  Quite often we never learn from what happens to us. This happened in the lives of the Israelites as seen in Psalm 106:43, "Over and over God rescued them but they never learned until finally sin destoryed th...

The Power of Isolation Mario D' Couto On looking at the title, it may give one a rather negative impression. In fact the very word 'isolation' carries a negative connotation with it. But there is always two sides to everything and thus, in as much as isolation can be perceived as a negative phenomenon, there is lots to learn from it.  We must be clear about the fact that every great idea and dream must be established within one's self. There will come times when only you will believe it is going to happen. You can't delegate your thinking, dreaming or feeling to others. Thomas Edison once said, "The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil." Don't belong so completely to others that you do not belong to yourself. Know how to get away and separate yourself. Big discoveries are the results of thought and the most fruitful thoughts are born when one is alone.  This fact proves powerful even in our s...

The Power of Choice Mario D'Couto A man with one watch knows what time it is, a man with two is never quite sure. Not to decide is to decide. Weeds grow easily in the soil of indecision. If you hear yourself saying "I have decided," you are on the path towards an exciting and productive life. Making a choice also includes learning to face the consequences that come with it. There may or may not be problems although every choice comes with a consequent, Otherwise it is not a choice. We need to be decisive even if it means  that we could be wrong. A key to our future is that we can still choose, we can still decide. What we commit ourselves to will change us from what we are into what we can be. Decision determines destiny.

HIS CLOAK ………. Mario D’Couto             Someone once defined faith creatively in the following acronym, F – Forsaking A – All I – I T – Trust H – Him             I am always taken up by the incident in the life of our Lord when a woman, who was bleeding for many years, took the courage to touch the edge of Jesus’ cloak.             In the Gospel of St. Luke (8: 40 – 48), we see Jesus being surrounded by a huge crowd of people who were trying to get Him. It is but obvious that there must have been many people who were touching Him but then here was this woman who thought to herself, “If only I could touch His cloak, then I will be healed.”             Being overwhelmed by the crowd, it must have been difficult for her to get past so man...

GOD AND US Mario D’Couto             “To err is human and to forgive is divine,” so the saying goes. As an educator, a person is all out willing the good of his or her students (at least this is what each teacher and educator is called to do). But quite often, it happens that the expectations and demands of the educator on one’s students may not be reciprocated which consequently leads to frustration on the part of the educator.             At times I wonder how God must be thinking about us. Each time He gives us another chance to come back to Him hoping that we may stay on with Him but sadly that does not happen. How much should God be frustrated with us? Yet He continues to give us opportunities and circumstances to come back to Him. That is why He is great and almighty as Benny Hinn once said, “The greatest miracle that Jesus worked was not changing the water i...

JESUS IN EVERYDAY LIFE Mario D’Couto             Sometime back, I had seen a video of Cristiano Ronaldo which amused me while at the same time it brought to my mind a reflection which is what I would like to share in this article.             The video was about how Cristiano disguises himself as a beggar and starts playing with a boy. The boy was innocently playing with the beggar not knowing who he really was. It was only after some time that the beggar took off the disguise and showed the boy who he really was.             As soon as he removed the disguise, the boy was shocked and amazed. He was totally unaware that he was actually playing with the man who was just declared FIFA’s player of the year (this was in January 2015). People then began to crowd around him to take pictures of him.  ...

FROM SEX TO SUPERCONSCIOUNESS  Mario D’Couto              The title of this article comes from one of the works of the great Shri Rajneesh Osho. [1] To be honest, I have not read it but I have borrowed his title to give my stand or my interpretation as to why sex is something divine.             Sex, by and large, in any society is a taboo and not anyone would want to talk about it openly. So the question that comes up is if we believe that sex is a gift from God, why then do we shirk or feel uneasy about it? Dietrich Bonheoffer once said, “Even the Bible could find room for the Song of Songs and could hardly have a more passionate and sensual love than is there portrayed. It is a good thing that, that book is included in the Bible as a protest against those who believe that Christianity stands for the restraint of passion.” We moderns would be better off ...

BE HUMAN BE HOLY – THE RELEVANCE OF DON BOSCO’S SPIRITUALITY FOR TODAY Mario D’Couto             Don Bosco told Dominic Savio that it is easy to be a saint. Unfortunately, Dominic Savio thought that he had to do a lot of hard penances in order to win God’s approval. So he would put hard stones under his bed or wear a hair shirt inside in order to make life tough and challenging for him. This went on for some time until Don Bosco came to know about it.             On coming to know what Dominic Savio was doing, Don Bosco dissuaded him immediately saying that one does not have to do such things in order to please God. God does not want all those things but He certainly wants us to be loving and genuine. It is thus that for Don Bosco everybody is meant to be a saint as he would say, “God wants us to be saints and it is not difficult to be a saint.”   ...

Authentic/Inauthentic mysticism Cl. Mario D’Couto sdb             How do we judge whether a mystical experience is authentic or not? Given the fact that mysticism is a wide phenomenon found in every religion practically, it is certain that there is a wide variety of opinions as to what authentic mysticism is. As a Christian, I would like to share what mysticism means from a Christian standpoint.             In the Christian tradition, there have been many scholars and doctors of the Church who have written about mysticism. Even philosophers like (mostly Christian) have written about mysticism. One thing common that can be  pointed out among all their writings is that it was always a pointer towards something beyond; something beyond this physical world and thus it is because of this that mysticism is a mystery.        ...

CHRISTIAN AND BUDDHIST MYSTICISM Cl. Mario D’Couto sdb           Mysticism is in a way a universal phenomenon which is found in every religion and the understanding of it differs depending on which religion one is talking about. This obviously implies in other words that there is a lot that can be spoken or written about. Yet, I would like to restrict myself to Christian and Buddhist mysticism since this article is a personal reflection that I came up with after I read William Johnston’s book, “The Wounded Stag.”             Mysticism is indeed a universal phenomenon because every religion is a unique pathway to the One who created everything. While in Buddhism, the focus is on self – knowledge where enlightment is achieved by self – effort, Christian mysticism is about God revealing Himself to us. It is for this reason that God’s revelation is considered as a grace and a gi...