The General Electric Company is a multinational conglomerate company, which caters to the needs of home appliances, financial services, medical devices, life sciences, pharmaceutical etc.

>> Every year, this company uses more than one and a half million sapphires for bearings in meters and other delicate apparatus.

However, it is highly necessary that there should be a detection to separate the synthetic gems from the natural ones.

Towards this end, a cathode ray tube has been developed by a team of researchers.

>> If, in a dark room, the rays from this tube are thrown for a few seconds on a tray of stones, they all glow.

>> However, when the rays are turned off, the artificial sapphires continue to glow and may be picked out of the tray, while the natural sapphires cannot be seen.

This is an easy way of picking up the artificial ones from those which are natural.

Is not something similar that happens to our Christian lives?

The authenticity of our life is exposed and revealed when the rays of Christ’s teaching are made to fall on us!

> Some of us may be seen shining brightly and appearing to have dazzling lustre
> Some of us may be seen to be apparently very good and being seen to be externally righteous.

But when the rays of Christ’s teaching fall on us, will our hypocrisy and duplicity get exposed… ?
… or do I have the credibility and integrity, in my life, to be recognised as an authentic follower of God and an ardent missionary of the Kingdom?

The Gospel of the Day is an exposition on the attitudes of duplicity and being double-standard that can cram our Christian lives.

Jesus gives an illustration…  of “children sitting in the market place and calling to one another, ‘We piped to you and you did not dance; we wailed and you did not weep'” (Lk 7: 32) 

It was a tragedy of that generation…
… that two of the great leaders – John and Jesus – though came with apparently contrasting, found themselves rejected!
… that these two great messengers of the Kingdom, met with a tragic end – one beheaded, the other crucified!

And it shows an important philosophy that underlies many lives: an attitude of indifference to the truth and an attitude of rejection of those who challenge our lives!

This tragedy affects our generation too…
We wrap ourselves often in the garment of hard-heartedness and arrogance…
… and fail to allow the message of the Truth to bring a transformation in our lives

We neatly hide ourselves in the dark shadows of indifference and apathy…
… and remain unconcerned with the workings of God’s power and grace in our hearts

But the Lord today renders a wake-up call to shake off the dusts of apathy, hypocrisy and indifference from our lives.

In the power of the rays of Christ’s teaching,  our hypocrisy and duplicity will get exposed…
… But can I seek to mould my life to possess  credibility and integrity, in order to be recognised as an authentic follower of God and an ardent missionary of the Kingdom?

May we seek the intercession of St Cyprian and St Cornelius, whose feast we celebrate today.

>> They offered their lives in defence of their Faith in Christ and for the sake of the Kingdom.

May the words of St Cyprian inspire and ring the bells of true repentance and honest contrition in us:

“When once you have departed this life, there is no longer any place for repentance, no way of making satisfaction.

> Here, life is either lost or kept.
> Here, by the worship of God and by the fruit of faith, provision is made for eternal salvation.

Let no one be kept back either by his sins or by his years from coming to obtain salvation.
To him who still remains in this world, there is no repentance that is too late.”

God Bless! Live Jesus!