2nd August, 2015 (Sunday)

Reading 2, Ephesians 4:17, 20-24

So this I say to you and attest to you in the Lord, do not go on living the empty-headed life that the gentiles live.

Now that is hardly the way you have learnt Christ,

unless you failed to hear him properly when you were taught what the truth is in Jesus.

You were to put aside your old self, which belongs to your old way of life and is corrupted by following illusory desires.

Your mind was to be renewed in spirit

so that you could put on the New Man that has been created on God's principles, in the uprightness and holiness of the truth.

All alone…

She thought that it was a dream…

Everything around her was so blurred…

She could not understand a single word he was saying. He was saying everything so fast. Nothing was making sense. She wanted to run away from him. She wanted to run away from the students glaring and laughing at her. Her eyes were fixed on the floor. But she knew he looked at her menacingly as he read aloud from the piece of paper in his hand. She could recognize her handwriting. She was in tears. With her teary eyes she was trying to search for the rascal to whom she had written those words. She looked past the students laughing at her. He was nowhere to be seen. How ashamed she was of herself. She was all alone while the rascal whom she had written the letter was probably enjoying in some corner of the school.

She didn’t understand why it was happening to her. She still doesn’t understand why it happened to her…

But it was so mortifying. It was mortifying to face the English teacher read aloud from her letter. It was mortifying to hear the rascal’s classmates giggling behind her back. It was mortifying to enter her own classroom after this incident. It was all the more mortifying to enter the school premises every day. Suddenly from that day onwards all eyes would be upon her. Everyone laughed at her.

Her friends left her. They stopped talking to her as their elder sisters forbade them from talking to her. It killed her. She was all alone. All alone in her misery. She felt miserable.

It was miserable to be all alone – everyone had rejected her. Little did she know that He too was rejected and all alone 2000 years back. Like her, He too was all alone when they crucified Him for no fault of His.

Was it her fault?

Yes, but it was mortifying…The teacher could have dealt with her differently…

How she wished that this all was just a dream…

What laments her…?

3 o’clock. Hour for Christian prayer…

The old neighborhood church was bereft of any souls…

Only one lonely soul could be seen huddled in front of the altar. She would be in this stupor everyday at this hour. Alone. Quiet. Sitting with her eyes closed. Rosary in hand. Tears wetting her peachy complexion. Only the Lord, to whom she cried out, knew what lamented her.

Quietly, she would leave the church by the next hour. Without once looking at the old grandfather church clock, she would come to know the time she had to leave. She would straighten herself from her huddle and with downcast eyes exit from the side door. This was her habit since last six weeks.

She saw no one and no one saw her…

Or so she thought…

But there was another lonely soul who noticed her every afternoon. From the time she had started this afternoon ritual, this lonely gentle soul observed her. He was the owner of the undertaker shop adjacent to the old church. He could see each and every being going in and coming out. But he had eyes only for her. Only her going in and coming out…

He didn’t know her but waited expectantly every afternoon. She didn’t see him and he saw only her. And what he saw was a sad and beautiful countenance bereft of emotions.

Oh, how he loves her. Oh, how he wants to make her his own. But how could he when she didn’t even look up. Oh, how it pains him to see her passing by day after day without even a glance towards him.

Oh, how his soul longs for her…

Oh, what laments her…?