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by Rev. Fr. V.V. Paulose, Toronto, Canada
"Should we pull out the weeds?", they asked. "No", Jesus replied, "You will uproot the wheat if you do. Let the good seeds and weeds grow together until the harvest." (Mathew 13:28,29)
Are you struggling to correct your loved ones?
We are destined to live, work, and die with good and bad people, and hostile
circumstances. It is the real challenge of each individual born with flesh and
blood. Otherwise, we should go to the mountains of Greece or to the deserts of
Egypt or to the hills of Himalayas to live as monks seeking solitude. It is the
easiest way to escape the harsh realities of life. But the fact is that we share
this planet with other people. Interacting with others, whether they share our
goal of living or not, can be the most difficult and the most important work we
do. We get angry and argue, fight, and even kill those who are not in our lines.
At last, we lose our mental peace and happiness.
John and Mercy are a 80 plus couple. They began their first day of marriage with
arguments and counter arguments regarding how incompatible they were. Both
wanted to correct each other. They adopted all tools available but failed to
correct an inch of their conditioned lives. They tried to separate a number of
times but pulled on with their lives for the sake of their five children, fear
of society, and the lack of courage to do so. Counselling, pilgrimages, fasting
and prayers did not work in their favor. As a last resort, Mercy decided to stop
herself from correcting her husband. Instead, she decided to accept her husband
as he is with all his shortcomings. She even started to love him. This worked
out very well. Soon, John too slowly stopped correcting his wife. With this
strategy in place, they could now live peacefully together. John feels that a
great tempest has been removed from their lives by their simple act of accepting
each other's shortcomings, and now they love each other for who they are.
"Let me not look for what I can get, but for what I can give. Let me not seek so
much to be loved as to love, to be consoled as to console" - St. Francis of
Assisi.
Jesus, let us learn how to love instead of finding faults and correcting them. Let us have the mind of accepting the reality of good and evil. Let family members live under one roof with all their shortcomings. Let us correct ourselves first. We pray that all families in turmoil may find peace and happiness. All we ask in the name of Jesus. Amen
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