Jesus was the only person in the Bible who restored the sight of blind men. The two blind men called out a simple prayer, known as the Jesus prayer, “Jesus, have mercy on us. And their faith activated a miracle when Christ replied, “According to your faith, be it done to you.” And healed them!The same simple prayer changes things in our lives, too; the transcript of our prayers often becomes the transcript of our lives. However, we live in the “already-not yet” Kingdom. We often see answered prayer but not always, because God often has a happier biography in mind for us than our scripts, which might involve endless scrambling up ladders of striving, success and ever-more. Faith also involves leaving these worries in his hands. My memoir: Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India UK USA Blog: anitamathias.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anitamathiaswriter/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anita.mathias/Twitter : anitamathias1My book of essays: Wandering Between Two Worlds (US) and UK

Simon Peter was a professional fisherman. And Jesus keeps teaching him, again and again, that he, Jesus, has greater mastery over fishing. And over everything else. After fruitless nights of fishing, Jesus tells Peter where to cast his nets, for an astounding catch. Jesus walks on water, calms sea storms.It’s easy to pray in desperation when we feel hard-pressed and incompetent, and, often,Christ rescues us, adds a 1 before our zeroes.However, it’s equally important to turn over our strengths to him, so he can add zeroes after our 1. And the more we can surrender our strengths to his management, the more he blesses them. My memoir: Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India UK USA Blog: anitamathias.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anitamathiaswriter/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anita.mathias/Twitter : anitamathias1My book of essays: Wandering Between Two Worlds (US) and UK

I'm meditating through the Gospel of Matthew."Do not judge," Jesus says, "and you too will escape harsh judgement." And so once again, he reiterates a law of human life and of the natural world—sowing and reaping.  Being an immensely practical human, Jesus realises that we are often most “triggered” when we observe our own faults in other people. And the more we dwell on the horrid traits of people we know in real life, politicians, or the media or internet-famous, the more we risk mirroring their unattractive traits. So, Jesus suggests that, whenever we are intensely annoyed by other people to immediately check if we have the very same fault. And to resolve to change that stumbling block in ourselves. Then, instead of wasting time in fruitless judging, we will experience personal change.And as for us who have been judgey, we still live “under the mercy” in Charles Williams’ phrase. We place the seeds we have sown into the garden of our lives so far into God’s hands, and ask him to let the thistles and thorns wither and the figs and grapes bloom. May it be so! My memoir: Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India UK USA Blog: anitamathias.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anitamathiaswriter/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anita.mathias/Twitter : anitamathias1My book of essays: Wandering Between Two Worlds (US) and UK

Jesus advised his listeners--struggling fishermen, people living on the edge, without enough food for guests, not to worry about what they were going to eat. Which, of course, is still shiningly relevant today for many. However, today, with immense societal pressure to be slender, along with an obesogenic food environment, sugary and carby food everywhere, at every social occasion, Jesus’s counsel about not worrying about what we will eat takes on an additional relevance. Eat what is set about you, he advised his disciples, as they went out to preach the Gospel. In this age of diet culture and weight obsession, Jesus still shows us how to live lightly, offering strategies like fasting (which he promises brings us a reward from God). What would Jesus’s way of getting fitter and healthier be? Fasting? Intuitive spirit-guided eating? Obeying the great commandment to love God by praying as we walk? Listening to Scripture or excellent Christian literature as we walk, thanks to nifty headphones. And what about the second commandment, like the first—to love our neighbour as ourselves? Could we get fitter running an essentialist household? Keeping up with the garden? Walking with friends? Exercising to be fit enough to do what God has called us to do?This meditation explores these concerns. My memoir: Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India UK USA Blog: anitamathias.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anitamathiaswriter/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anita.mathias/Twitter : anitamathias1My book of essays: Wandering Between Two Worlds (US) and UK

Meditating on a “beatitude.”… Happy, makarios, or blessed are the merciful, Jesus says, articulating the laws of sowing and reaping which underlie the universe, and human life. Those who dish out mercy, and go through life gently and kindly, have a happier, less stressful experience of life, though they are not immune from the perils of our broken planet, human greed polluting our environment and our very cells, deceiving and swindling us. The merciless and unkind, however, sooner or later, find the darkness and trouble they dish out, haunting them in turn. Sowing and reaping, is, of course, a terrifying message for us who have not always been kind and merciful! But the Gospel!... the tender Fatherhood of God, the fact that the Lord Christ offered to bear the sentence, the punishment for the sins of the world-proportionate because of his sinlessness.  And in that divine exchange, streams of mercy now flow to us, slowly changing the deep structure of our hearts, minds, and characters. And so, we can go through life gently and mercifully, relying on Jesus and his Holy Spirit to begin and complete the work of transformation in us, as we increasingly become gentle, radiant children of God. My memoir: Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India UK USA Blog: anitamathias.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anitamathiaswriter/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anita.mathias/Twitter : anitamathias1My book of essays: Wandering Between Two Worlds (US) and UK

“Do not be afraid,” is the first sentence the risen Christ says. Because his resurrection frees him from the boundaries of space and time, in each room we enter, Christ is with us--and his Spirit, who helps us change our hearts, our characters, and our lives. The seismic power which raised Christ from the dead is now available to us, for the issues of our lives, helping us conquer addictions, bad habits, and distressing character traits.We access this dynamite power by practising prayer. We need, first of all, to slow down, and bathe and saturate our lives in prayer, praying for wisdom and blessing for, before, and during everything we do. And as God answers, our faith progressively increases, our characters change, and we begin to experience God’s miracles in our lives.And a prayer:Oh God of resurrection, Come with your dynamite power into our lives.We put our old dreams and our new ones into your hands.Bring them to life. Make them glow. Come like a mighty burst of spring into our livesBringing apparently dead relationships, dreams, The things we once loved, And all our dormant potential to radiant life.We put our lives into your hands.Make them beautiful.Come Lord Jesus.Amen.    My memoir: Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India UK USA Blog: anitamathias.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anitamathiaswriter/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anita.mathias/Twitter : anitamathias1My book of essays: Wandering Between Two Worlds (US) and UK

God who is always speaking, calls each of us to a specific, life-long task. The call uses the gifts we have, and new gifts, called an anointing, given to us at the point of call. Our calls are often revealed progressively; hearing a call, alas, does not guarantee success by any worldly metrics. Our calling may be to a few, not many, an audience God sovereignly determines, as in The Parable of Talents.From the day we hear and obey God’s call, it transforms our lives.  It involves both the joy of coming fully alive—and, also, sacrifice. We must re-organise our lives in accordance with this new imperative, accepting the new identity given us by our vocation. There is often a long gap between hearing a call, and seeing its fruits, because while we work towards our vocation, God works on us, developing our characters.And if we haven’t been single-mindedly faithful to the calls we have heard or sensed, the best thing to do is to repent quickly, for the call is for own flourishing, making us fully, blazingly alive—while also contributing to the life of the world.  My memoir: Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India UK USA Blog: anitamathias.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anitamathiaswriter/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anita.mathias/Twitter : anitamathias1My book of essays: Wandering Between Two Worlds (US) and UK

Christ calls us to metanoia, or repentance, literally, thinking differently. Let's view our contemporary bugbears of body shape, diet, exercise & fasting with the energy of the new transformed mind of Christ My memoir: Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India UK USA Blog: anitamathias.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anitamathiaswriter/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anita.mathias/Twitter : anitamathias1My book of essays: Wandering Between Two Worlds (US) and UK

Today's episode looks at the narrow line between acting out of fearfulness--which leads to foolish results, and acting with wisdom and prudence, which leads to excellent results.We look at Jesus's command to be as wise as a serpent, but as blameless as a dove--since we are sheep among wolves, some of which are wolves disguised as sheep! My memoir: Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India UK USA Blog: anitamathias.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anitamathiaswriter/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anita.mathias/Twitter : anitamathias1My book of essays: Wandering Between Two Worlds (US) and UK

Matthew's genealogy of Christ includes many with colourful sexual histories--Rahab, the prostitute, Tamar who tricked her father-in-law into sex, the married Bathsheba who slept with adulterous King David, Solomon of many wives and concubines--from such the Lord Jesus Christ came.And we who  fail, though in less spectacular ways,  we too belong to his lineage by faith. To such as us, he comes. Our failures are the cracks through which his light enters  My memoir: Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India UK USA Blog: anitamathias.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anitamathiaswriter/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anita.mathias/Twitter : anitamathias1My book of essays: Wandering Between Two Worlds (US) and UK

In Isaiah's ecstatic vision, angels surround God singing, "The whole earth is full of God's glory." And it still is. When our hearts are downcast, seeing this earth, bathed in the light of God's glory, fill us again with a little bit of joy, a little bit of hope, and a little bit of peace. My memoir: Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India UK USA Blog: anitamathias.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anitamathiaswriter/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anita.mathias/Twitter : anitamathias1My book of essays: Wandering Between Two Worlds (US) and UK

Mindfulness is slowing down, and becoming aware of the presence of God, our Father, with us in every room we enter. It is remembering Christ, who walks with us. It is awareness of the presence of the Spirit who, on request, guides and teaches us.Check out the podcast transcript athttps://anitamathias.com/2023/02/20/mindfulness-is-remembering-the-presence-of-christ-with-us/ My memoir: Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India UK USA Blog: anitamathias.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anitamathiaswriter/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anita.mathias/Twitter : anitamathias1My book of essays: Wandering Between Two Worlds (US) and UK