Change topic

Someone said that if you enter a room, and join a group of people in a table, and they suddenly become silent, or change the topic of their conversation, maybe you were their topic!

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Lent is the time to change the topic of our lives. What do we think about, what do we talk about, what do we take along in our journey through life? Is God a topic in your life? Is He an item in your life-agenda at all?

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In today’s Gospel (John 2:13-25), Jesus cleansed the temple of vendors and money changers to stop them from making His Father’s house a marketplace, and this He did with anger, and with authority. His zeal for His Father’s house should remind us also to do some clearing operations in our own thoughts, words, and deeds.

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THINK GOD. Many of us are always thinking about ourselves, and hardly think of God. All too often, our thoughts of God sprout when we are in need, when we are beset with sickness, problems, or anxieties. God is thinking of us all the time, and we hardly think of Him. He is so thoughtful of us, and we often are so thoughtless of Him. Is He a topic in our thoughts? Does He, at least, cross your mind from time to time?

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TALK GOD. How often do you talk of God? How often do you bring Him in your conversations? Is He a topic in your family or your circle of friends, or your workplace? Many of us are over-talking about so many fleeting and useless things, and we hardly talk about our journey with God, the presence of God. Yes, may we be cleansed of useless talk and endless chatter about things or people that do not really matter. Let’s make Him a topic. He matters!

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TAKE GOD. What do you take along in your journey? Many of us take along our phone, our gadgets, our provisions, and whatever protection we need as we journey on, and often, we forget to take God along. Let’s take God with us! Let us allow Him to lead us, guide us, provide for us, and strengthen us! “Trust the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5). Whatever we do, let it be done, with God, for God, and because of God. We are not mercenaries; we are not lone rangers. We are disciples, and servants, with a Master!

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What do you watch, and what do you skip in your daily scrolling of your gadget? What is your favorite topic in traditional media (print, radio, TV) and in social media? Let’s give God a chance to be heard, seen, and felt. He is with us always, and in all ways. And we evade Him always, and in all ways.

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Fr. Dennis Flynn, SVD, was given his final “Taps” at the age of 90. He was a man who thought God, talked God, and took God with him for 63 years as a missionary priest, most of which were spent working with and for the Mangyans in Mindoro. He was a character, tough in speech, but a man with a big heart, a warrior who was a child. Till we meet again Father Flynn, dear confrère and friend.

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For Lent, you might want to do some cleansing, clearing your cabinets of many things you have accumulated through the years that could be of good use to many deprived people around you. Yes, let go, give, and share. May we be cleansed of our idols, our worldly attachments and selfish orientation.

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We are doing some missionary leg work starting March 5 in Tabuk, then Isabela, Bayombong, and Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija (5:30 p.m. Mass at the Cathedral). In any way we can, let us all continue our mission to take God wherever we go, whatever we do.

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A moment with the Lord:Lord, may You become more and more the topic of our lives, in our thoughts, in our words, and in our deeds. Amen.

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