GOD’S WORD FOR THE DAY (based on Catholic Liturgical Readings)
DATE: 22ND MAY 2017
MONDAY OF THE SIXTH WEEK OF EASTER
FIRST READING: Acts 16:11-15
PSALM: Psalm 149: 1-6, 9
GOSPEL: John 15:26 – 16:4
THEME: THE LORD OPENED HER HEART
It is not beautiful sermons and homilies, important though they are, that bring about conversion. Conversion is purely the work of God. A preacher is only an instrument in the hand of God during a spiritual surgery of the heart. This means that before we set out to preach to anybody or counsel anybody, we must first and foremost ask the Lord in prayer to open the heart of that person.
In our First Reading for today, Lydia listened to Paul preach but it took the action of the Lord for her heart to be opened in order to accept the message that Paul was proclaiming. Subsequently, she was baptized, together with her household. The transformation that came upon this woman must have been so deep that she insisted that Paul and his companions stay with them.
I have seen parents trying so hard to change their wayward children, husbands seeking to change their wives and wives seeking to change their husbands. We often, consciously or unconsciously seek to change one friend or the other. The truth is that it takes the grace of God for the human heart to change. It is only God who is capable of opening the spiritual heart of a person in order to enact a process of conversion; and there is no heart that the grace of God cannot open.
PRAYER: Come Holy Spirit. Hover over every human heart needing a change today. Cause conversions in our families, neighbourhoods and nations. Bring about conversion in situations where peace talks have failed and animosity reigns. Let your transforming light shine in the hearts of persons and places where darkness hold sway and may the heart of Jesus live in the hearts of all people.
Andrews Obeng, svd
DIVINE WORD MISSIONARIES
BIBLICAL PASTORAL MINISTRY
(Ghana Province)
“May the darkness of sin and the night of unbelief vanish before the light of the Word and the Spirit of grace. And may the heart of Jesus live in the hearts of all people” (St. Arnold Janssen).