By Fr Antony Christy. SDB –
Feel, live and make that difference!
August 1, 2021: 18th Sunday in Ordinary time
Exodus 16: 2-4,12-15; Ephesians 4: 17, 20-24; John 6: 24-35
Feel the Difference – the Lord is around! The Lord with you makes all the difference for you. How important it is to feel the difference. The famous reminder of Pope St. Leo the Great says it all: O Christian, Realise your dignity! How important it is for me to know the dignity and the greatness that the Lord has invested in me. That I have been given life, is the first gift given to me. That I am given human life, is a greater gift, knowing the image and the likeness in which I am created. And that I am called to live a Christian life, is such a great treasure that is placed within me, however undeserving or incapable I am! That is the difference that the Lord is making and with the never ceasing presence of the Lord, the Lord continues to strengthen and empower me towards living this call, with a difference!
Live the Difference – let them see who are around! If you truly feel the difference, you will live it, and the world around you will see it. Is it not the best mode of proclamation – to let the world see the difference, that you feel within? As they say, a flower does not bear a placard to invite the bee in search of honey, nor do the ants need a google map to reach the source of their sweet feed. It is seen; it is felt; it is sensed; it is obvious. Your daily life has to hold out to the world the difference that you feel within! That is what the great saint from Assisi meant when he said, ‘preach unceasingly; use words only when necessary!’ Our life has to manifest the difference that we feel within, due to the Lord’s presence with us. If we fall into the same category as the rest of the world, if our lifestyle has nothing much different from what the rest of the world has to offer, if our priorities are nothing different from what the consumeristic world holds on to, then I don’t live any difference! It is unfortunately a sign that I really feel no difference within me, being with the Lord and belonging to the Lord. But if I really be with and belong to the Lord, it will be seen in my life!
Make a Difference – wherever you are around! The Word today invites us to make a difference wherever we are, in the lives of whoever we are with and in the world at large! The Reign of God is all about difference, the difference that we make in other’s lives, the difference we make in the humanity at large and the difference we make specially for those who are suffering and are oppressed by various forces of the power centred systems. Making a difference would happen through our words, through our deeds and through our commitments – but at the foundation of all these, difference will happen when we have the Lord in our lives! Making a difference without really feeling the difference within us, would become an empty promise given to others and would prove short-lived. Making a difference without living the difference in my own life would be so artificial and meaningless that it would soon be resented by others and resound the emptiness within us.
We have a call this Sunday from the Word to feel, live and make a difference, the difference of the Reign of God here on earth. And the Word gives us three important injunctions to achieve the task:
- If you wish to make a difference, Stop Complaining… and start feeling the presence of God says the first reading.
- If you wish to make a difference, Stop Running after passing things… and prioritise God in your life says the Gospel!
- If you wish to make a difference, Stop following the crowd… and as a Christian, make the crowd turn to follow you, says St. Paul.
We need to feel the presence of the Lord who makes a difference for us! We need to start living that difference in our life, on a daily basis, by showing to the world that our value systems are different, that our priorities are different and that our foundation is different. We will then surely make a difference, wherever we are!
The Difference is God! Make God felt, in and through all that you are, and you will certainly make a difference!
Fr Antony Christy is a Salesian Priest from 2005, who has a Masters in Philosophy (specialisation in Religion) and a Masters in Theology (Specialisation in Catechetics). He is currently pursuing his doctoral research in Theology at Salesian Pontifical University, Rome. Walking with the Young towards a World of Peace and Dialogue is the passion that fires him.