FROM YOUR BROTHER…
ONENESS IN NEWNESS
In our Mother MaryDear Fathers in Babe Jesus,
The month of January reminds us newness and oneness. God is the source of newness and oneness in the universe. Our beloved founder says that, “God is a symbol of newness and oneness.” The Sacred Scripture reveals that God is a God of newness. He is eternal and ancient. He is the unique source and factor of newness in the universe. He makes or creates all things new. Newness always makes us a bit fearful because we feel more secure if we have everything under control in accordance with our own ideas, comfort and preferences. This is also the case when it comes to God. Often we follow him, we accept him but only up to a certain point. It is hard to abandon ourselves to him with complete trust, allowing the Holy Spirit to be the guide of our lives in our every decision. We feel that God may force us to strike out on new paths and leave behind our narrow, closed and selfish horizons in order to become open to his own. Yet throughout the history of salvation, whenever God reveals himself, he brings newness and demands our complete trust to actualize oneness with the Lord and fellow brethren. The newness that God brings actually brings fulfilment, true joy and true serenity, because God loves us and care for us.
The Sacred Scripture also reveals that God is a factor of oneness. In His being, God is Triune: Father, Son and Spirit. Althoughthere is plurality in God, He is a factor of oneness for God is one. The latest encyclical of Pope Francis Fratelli Tutti calls for human oneness and interdependence in the background of the global pandemic caused by COVID-19 and the subsequent social, economic and political turmoil. Recalling the exemplary life of St. Francis of Assisi, He urges us to create and sustain human fraternity and social friendship across all sections of society regardless of race, religion, creed, gender, including other living and non- living beings. Hence my dear fathers let us not be closed to the newness that God wants to bring into our lives. Are we often weary, disheartened and sad? Do we feel weighed down by our sins? Do we think that we won’t be able to cope? Let us not close our hearts, let us not lose confidence, let us never give up: there are no situations which God cannot change, there is no sin which he cannot forgive if only we open ourselves to him. On this radiant New Year let us invoke the intercession of Mary, who treasured all the events in her heart and ask the lord to give us a share in his Newness and Oneness. Let the spirit of oneness in newness aglow in this New Year 2021.
Rev. Fr. Antonysamy Savarimuthu SDM