A man built a double storied mansion and Jesus came one day and knocked at the door to the entrance of his mansion. The man opened the door for Jesus and welcomed him. He showed him around and before long gave him the best room in the 2nd storey for stay and said “please stay here with me”. The man now felt secure with Jesus having taken possession of his favorite room in the 2nd storey.
Before long he heard another knock and went to open the door. Even before he could open the door properly, he felt somebody sneaking in. He was totally disturbed when he realized that it was Satan who had sneaked in. Satan made a mess of every other room in the building except the one in which Jesus stayed. All the while our man thought that Jesus would come to his aid but when Jesus did not turn up, the man, unable to stand the commotion went to Jesus and sought his help. The moment Satan saw Jesus coming out of the room he ran away. The man asked Jesus “why did you not come to my help?”Pointing to the room in which he stayed Jesus said, “Son you gave me only this room to stay, how do you expect me to interfere with what is happening in the other rooms.”
The man realized his mistake and promptly gave Jesus the whole of the 2nd storey to use. The next morning he heard a knock on the door. Thinking that it might be Jesus calling him he ventured to open the door. Even before he could open the door wide Satan sneaked in and started playing havoc in the rooms on the ground floor. The man tried his best to rid Satan but could not. After a while he lost his patience and stormed upstairs. Everything was calm and quite upstairs.
“Lord, how could Satan come in this time with you upstairs” quizzed the man. Jesus smiled and answered “Son you only surrendered the rooms upstairs to me. You put me in charge of the rooms upstairs and look there is absolutely no problem here. As for the rooms downstairs, I have already told you that I never interfere in anything that is not surrendered to me.” Saying this Jesus put his arms around the person and walked downstairs. Seeing Jesus coming Satan fled the scene. The man now realized what Jesus wanted him to do and promptly gave Jesus the keys to the entire building.
Early next morning he heard a knock at the door. This time though, even before he could answer the door, Jesus answered the door. As usual it was Satan. The man leaned against the door of his bedroom as he overheard Satan saying “Sorry, I didn’t expect you here. How did the OWNERSHIP of this building change?” Jesus answered “The building is my property now it has been surrendered to me; I am in charge, so better get going”. The man was never troubled again by Satan.
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In 1 Peter 5:6-7 St. Peter the apostle says “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that in due time he may exalt you. Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you.” Very often we behave like the man who surrendered one room at a time to Jesus only to find problems in the others. However we never think twice before entrusting our life to total strangers.
In our anxiety to reach the office on time, we are prepared to trust the bus or taxi driver, a total stranger with our life. We are sure that he will take us to our destination safe and sound where as the fact is that being a human he is equally likely to commit a mistake and get us involved in an accident. On the other hand we have Christ who is so sure of everything he speaks and does, and will never get us into any trouble, but, we are hesitant to trust him. What an irony.
Each time you partake of the Holy Mass, offer yourself up to Jesus at the consecration of the bread and wine and listen to him in the person of the priest acknowledging your surrender with the words “This is MY BODY”. You have given yourself up to Christ and Christ has now acknowledged your body symbolizing your life as his own. What has taken place here is a change in ownership. Your body is no longer yours but Christ’s.
What happens a few minutes after the consecration confirms this truth. Your body (read your life with all its problems) has now been accepted and transfigured by Christ into his own body. Just believe that this is the body you receive in communion and you will feel sense and see a world of difference in your day and all that you do that day.
- – - written by Lajan Miranda
What is God's plan for you? To know his plan for you, you need to ask him what the rich young man once asked him – Luke 18:18 - 'Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' God's plan for you or rather his ultimate objective for you is eternal life. It is to lead you to eternal life that God plans every aspect of your life. He plans everything - right from the kind of skills you require to your vocation, family, environment and even your flaws and failures. God blessed Saul with tremendous oratory skills so that Saul, after becoming Paul, could use this skill to proclaim Christ to the Gentiles and thereby gain eternal life. Zacchaeus the chief tax collector was given a flaw to contend with in his earthly life so that he could gain entry to eternal life. The flaw was that God created him as a man of short stature. Had he not been of short stature he would not have climbed the sycamore tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus and subsequently not have had Jesus come to his house. The Patriarch Abraham was given a failure in life by giving him no child. Ultimately it is this failure that increased his faith in God to such an extent that led him to be called as the Father of Faith and consequently to eternal life. David's vocation was transformed from that of a Shepherd to a King. This was God's way of calling David into a fellowship with him and thereby leading King David to eternal life. Moses was ordained by God to live in the family of the Pharaoh despite being a Hebrew. Had he not been found by the Pharaoh's daughter he would have been slaughtered. In the case of Moses it was the Pharaoh's family that triggers his path to eternal life. Later on the family that he was born into becomes the cause of his flight to the desert where he encounters God and is commissioned for the mission of leading the Israelites to the land of milk and honey. John 17:3 gives us the definition of eternal life as taught by Jesus - 'And this is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.' In a nutshell, eternal life is nothing but a personal relationship with the Trinitarian God - The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit. One person who experienced eternal life right here on earth was the Blessed Mother. She was the obedient daughter of The Father, the mother of The Son and before being the mother of the Son, the Spouse of the Holy Spirit. The most prominent sentiment that the word Mother brings to mind is Love and the sentiment that the word Spouse brings to mind is Sharing. Therefore, if one were to device a 3 point formula practiced by the Blessed Mother for eternal life it would be -Obedience to the will of God, Love for God and sharing, which is nothing but giving your neighbour what he deserves or in other words love for the neighbour.Since we haven't attained the spiritual maturity that the Blessed Mother had attained when she became the mother of Christ through her detachment with the world and its objects of comfort, the barriers to eternal life as far as we are concerned are the world and our own short- comings. This experience is very evident in the life of a number of people who pursued Christ. Mark 10:46-48 'And they came to Jericho; and as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great multitude, Bartimae'us, a blind beggar, the son of Timae'us, was sitting by the roadside. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, 'Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!' And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent; but he cried out all the more, 'Son of David, have mercy on me!' 
Here we see the crowd following Jesus trying to prevent Bartimae'us from calling him for help. This is what the world or the people around us always try to do. They will always prevent us from approaching Jesus for help. In such a situation, it is for us to swim against the tide and say NO to the world around. Imagine what would have happened to Bartimae'us had he listened to the crowd? It was because Bartimae'us dealt appropriately with the crowd that he came to know Jesus (eternal life). St. Augustine, one of the greatest leaders of the church had to say NO to his carnal passions so that God's plan for him could materialize. It was only after he dealt with this serious short- coming of his that God's plan for him materialized. Zacchae'us the chief tax collector had to deal with his greed for wealth enroute to eternal life. The woman who suffered from haemorrhage for twelve years had to deal with the crowd before approaching Jesus. Saul after his Damascus experience and before he was commissioned to be the apostle of the Gentiles, had to deal with his pride and ignorance concerning Jesus before God could use him. Therefore, being Sin conscious and dealing with our sins is just as essential a step in the direction of the revelation of God's plan for us as is breaking away from the crowd and practicing detachment with the world. We need to identify which of the seven cardinal sins viz. anger, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy and gluttony or a combination of them is/are ruling us and systematically eliminate them before we can think of practicing detachment.Ephesians 1:9-10 has this to say 'For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ. 10 As a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth'. To know more about the will of God, practice 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 16-18 - 'Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.' Let us pray: 'May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give us a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of our hearts enlightened, that we may know what is the hope to which he has called us what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe, according to the working of his great might Amen.'
