We Are Not Pre-Programmed Robots

A LENTEN PILGRIMAGE

                                           Rev. Fr. K M George  

 'instrumental'-

On the third Sunday of the Lent, after the Holy Qurbana, when I was about to leave the sanctuary, one of the altar boys brought to me a small bundle of ball pens.

He requested me to bless them on the altar because the exams were to start that week. Upon my enquiring about who owned those pens he said they were some ten boys and girls who waited outside the church.

 

Slightly amused by the 'instrumental' faith of those young students I invited them all to assemble inside the church and had a friendly chat.

 To my question, 

'Who writes the exam, you or your pen?”,

 their answer was a shy, suppressed smile..... They put aside their pens, and we had a special prayer for strength and blessings, as they appeared to be rather stressed about the impending exams.

We deal with all sorts of instruments every day.

 But there is a difference between living human beings who are created in God's image and the various instruments we use as means to fulfill our daily needs of food, clothing, shelter, transportation, communication, learning, entertainment and so on. We human beings are supposed to be masters of the instruments that we design and fabricate, not the other way round as it happens so often today in our technology- dominated society. 

We are God's children, not instruments, though we are to carry out the will of God in this world.

We are not pre-programmed robots, however efficient and endowed with artificial intelligence they are, but beings with freedom and creativity gifted to us by our Creator.

Jesus was vehemently critical of the public demonstration of fasting, prayer and other expressions of piety and charity.  Many people in His time considered them to be instruments with saving power.

Lent is a time for us to discern the key difference between instruments we use and the human persons we are. Unless we undergo the process of conversion and become new human persons there is no value in the precision and efficacy of instruments we fashion.

They might most likely turn against us as deadly weapons like in nuclear and missile technology, in chemical and bacterial warfare etc.

"I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of God."

(Matthew 5:20)