FR JOBY KACHAPPILLY
FR JOBY KACHAPPILLY
http://www.frjobypreachings.com/
http://www.frjobypreachings.com/
THEY ARE GODS!
FR.JOBY KACHAPPILLY
“We struggled day and night to make our children reach their present
positions of power and prestige. But in our troubled old age of distresses and
diseases, they don’t even come to have a look at me. When I think how callous
and insensitive our children have become, my heart breaks with sorrow and pain.
Often I wonder why I lived for so long. I do not want to continue living. I
wish that death comes and takes me away to free me from this intolerable pain.”
This is the letter that a mother wrote to Vachanotsavam requesting for prayer
help. She was sharing with us her painful experiences. The letter looked like
one written with the ink of her blood and tears depicting her excruciating
agony caused by the utter neglect by her children, her own flesh and blood.
How soon our children forget the
things they studied at home and in the catechism classes that parents are
visible gods? In the four walls of the Old Age Homes, and at the threshold of
many ‘Homes’, we find hundreds of mothers who can’t even find listeners to
share their tale of woes they faced in their lives. How many fathers are there
who keep their lips tightly shut, their emotions suppressed, their hearts
brimming with sorrow and pain! Indeed, to borrow a
Shelley an phrase “They have fallen upon the thorns of life and they bleed”. But there are no listeners to hear their moans and groans.
Shelley an phrase “They have fallen upon the thorns of life and they bleed”. But there are no listeners to hear their moans and groans.
The invalid man at the Bethzatha
pool, who had been waiting for healing for 38 long years, has only one
complaint, “I have no one…” (Jn
5:7). Behind that embittered statement, there are many stories of refused and
rejected love. That incident is not to be dismissed as a miraculous story of
healing given by Jesus. Friend, this Word should help you in listening to the
lachrymal lamentations of your living parents, who have toiled and moiled,
struggled and sweated, suffered and sacrificed for you to let you reach your
present position and status. Give them seven times over all those joys and
pleasures that they denied themselves for your sake and then your home will
become a dwelling of the blessings of God. “Honour
your father and mother… so that your days may be long and that it may go well
with you” (Deut 5:16).
My eyes often get moist with
compassionate tears when I visit some Old Age Homes. When I see the pain
lurking behind the impassive countenances of the old, I tell them with a ring
of helplessness in my breaking voice, “I will pray…Let’s pray…. The Lord is
there seeing everything.” But remember, the bruises and lacerations they carry
in their hearts are not curable by prayers and reliance on God alone. Those are
wounds that will be healed only when they are looked at lovingly, approached
compassionately with sympathy and understanding and by letting them sleep
peacefully in their own homes. When old parents are bundled away into Old Age
Homes, the very foundation of the family is quaked, causing it to crack and
crumble. “A father’s blessing
strengthens the houses of the children, but a mother’s curse uproots their
foundations” (Sir. 3:9).
We should not forget that we will
be accountable in the court of god for all the tears shed by our parents if
they sit alone and moan and groan because of our lack of love for them, our
neglect for them and our refusal to make available to them any medical
attention they might have needed. If you have been beguiled and hoodwinked into
believing that success in life consists of accumulating wealth and materials,
wounding your parents and rejecting them in the process, it is high time for to
you realize the truth and boring them home back giving their due. If you have
not yet done it, make haste and do it
now!
As we peruse the book of our
obligations and indebtedness, the two words that must strike us as foremost and
paramount are ‘Father and Mother’. We can remember them only with the great
feeling of gratitude. It is their selfless sacrifice carried out on the altar
of life that has nourished and nurtured us. It is from them we imbibed various
virtues of faith, of life, of forgiveness, of accepting suffering, etc. If our
hearts throb with the chimes of paternal and maternal love, let us praise the
Lord for giving us our Father, the giver of our daily bread, and the Mother,
the supplier of our daily milk. Let us place them in the loftiest niches in our
hearts, only just below God, without limiting our bounty to the free use of our
purse on their behalf, feeding them sumptuously as a formal duty and obligation
and visiting them on scheduled dates with limited time. After all, they gave
you birth, you are what you are primarily because of them.
We have so many stories of indebtedness to tell them for
which we are obliged to them, and which we can’t hope to repay in our life
time. Always remember that we carry with us this baggage of indebtedness,
obligation and gratefulness in our journey of life. “Remember that it was of
your parents you were born; how can you repay which they have given you?” (Sir
7:28). They loved us dearer than their lives. They shared with us whatever they
had, including their flesh and blood. They prayed for us with hands raised to
the heavens. Let’s remember all that and say with affection and gratitude
bubbling in our hearts, “They are indeed gods”.
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