Jesus Youth Monthly Reflection | Malayalam/മലയാളം

Recently I met a young couple expecting their first child, and during the course of our

conversation they excitedly shared their hopes and dreams for their child and what

they were expecting the child to become in the future. Yet, the mother was just four

weeks pregnant. If such is the case for us humans, how much more must our

heavenly Father plan and dream about each one of us (Jeremiah 1:5; 29: 11). It is

Jesus who reveals that the Father’s plan for us is that we, “may have life, and have it

abundantly” (John 10:10). We were all initiated into this life of God, through the

sacrament of baptism and are expected to journey into its fullness, by becoming more

and more like Christ. St. Paul expresses this truth succinctly when he says, “My little

children, for whom I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you”

(Galatians 4:19). He expresses the deep need for Christ to be formed in us and we

are told such formation requires a regular and challenging journey of obedience

(“teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you” – Mathew 28:20).

How focused and keen are we on the formation of our thoughts, attitudes and value

systems, in accordance with God’s will and design?

November 2021 | Malayalam/മലയാളം

“Every other person who ever came into this world came into it to live.  Christ came into it to die. Death was a stumbling block to Socrates — it  interrupted his teaching. But to Christ, death was the goal and  fulfilment of His life, the gold that He was seeking” (Ven. Fulton J.  Sheen, Life of Christ).

“Every other person who ever came into this world came into it to live. Christ came into it to die. Death was a stumbling block to Socrates — it interrupted his teaching. But to Christ, death was the goal and fulfilment of His life, the gold that He was seeking” (Ven. Fulton J. Sheen, Life of Christ).

The Church gives the faithful an incredible

opportunity to renew their missionary

commitment through World Mission Day, which

falls on the penultimate Sunday of October. “The

World Mission Day itself is not an isolated

moment in the course of the year but rather a

valuable opportunity to pause and reflect on

whether and how we respond to our missionary

vocation…” (Pope Benedict XVI, WMD 2011).

This month, we focus on the verse Pope Francis

has taken as the theme of this year’s World

Mission Day.

October 2021 | Malayalam

For the newly baptized believers of Thessalonica who had converted from paganism

and a culture with loose ethics, the warning of St. Paul would have been hard to

comprehend. “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid

sexual immorality…For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life” (1 Thes

4:3-7). Slowly but steadily, the Gospel of Christ expelled the lax moral standards

prevalent at that time and heralded a new era. Sadly, the decline of Christian influence

is progressively manifested in declining moral standards worldwide. It is no wonder

that there is a growing indifference to the demands of the Gospel among the youth,

who mostly have been brought up in a culture of hedonism and self-centeredness. Yet

it is in this very culture that we, as Jesus Youth, are called to hold aloft the banner of

truth that sets people free.

വിചിന്തനം

സെപ്റ്റംബർ 2021

"അസന്മാർഗികതയിൽനിന്ന് നിങ്ങൾ ഒഴിഞ്ഞുമാറണം........ അശുദ്ധിയിലേക്കല്ല, വിശുദ്ധിയിലേക്കാണ് ദൈവം നമ്മെ വിളിച്ചിരിക്കുന്നത് " (1 തെസ 4,3-7).