Missionaries of the Sacred

In Hinduism, Lord Shiva is known for his dance. Shiva Nataraj’s dance represents both the destruction and the creation of the universe and reveals the cycles of death and birth and rebirth. His Dance of Bliss shows his kindness for the people. In a way, his dance represents the outpouring of his grace and love to the people of the world.

In today’s readings, we hear that David experienced the intense love and kindness of God and danced heartily, which makes us think that great happiness comes out of great love of the self or great love of others. Our hearts are restless until they rest in God, believed St. Augustine. There may be instances in life where we have experienced such moments and felt like children, filled with happiness, where we sang and danced for joy in our family, circle of friends, or even in our offices.

Priests and monks in various parts of the world want to experience this happiness all the time. They go in search of God, away from the world, and live in mountains, caves, forests and deserts. They have their rewards, but we live in this world. We live with society. How do we experience this eternal bliss in our daily life? How do we dance and sing with joy, be cheerful? St. Paul gives us the one and only route to eternal happiness: love.

Though the hearts of the people were as hard as rock towards his message of love, Jesus shows them kindness by not shouting at them but rather, by pointing out what they should see. They succeeded in frustrating God's plan for their lives because they had closed their hearts to the message of John the Baptist and then the message of Jesus. What can make us spiritually dull and slow to hear God's voice?

Love is kindness. Kindness is the overflowing of self upon others. Kindness is our imitation of Divine Providence, as if we open our hearts to the needs of others like God does. A kind deed, a kind word, the mere tone of voice is enough to convey sympathy to the poor, suffering heart. A little kindness goes a long way. A kind action lasts a long time. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves. The kindest persons are generally those who have received the greatest number of kindnesses.

Kindness is one of the ways we experience the heart of God since in kindness we come to realize the value of giving; we realize God’s generosity. Let us pray that we may be kind to our own selves first in accepting the message of love and thus be prepared to show God’s generosity to others. Amen.

by Fr. Antony Lazar, MSC