A gift from heaven

When my dear friend Celine Zuzarte passed away on June 19^th, 2016 I was heartbroken. On my Facebook message I wrote that day, “Move over angels in heaven, Sheila, (that’s what we called her) now joins you. Treat her well, she loved me on earth.  

After the funeral ceremony, her family gave me a bag full of religious items. In it was a Bible which she had purchased on the 24^th of July 2002 which was the second year of my priestly ministry in St Michael’s. Mahim. Perhaps unknowingly, the family passed on the most precious possession of Sheila. For me, this gift became a transforming moment in my life for I began to fall in love with the scriptures which prompted me to write this daily blog, pottypadre.com

This Bible has now become my most valued possession. I believe it was Sheila’s gift to me from heaven. So attached have I been to the Word of God that I have willed that when I die, the Bible be placed in my hand over the more traditional choice of a chalice( a symbol of priestly ministry). I would like this curious, non-conformist request to elicit questions, why a Bible over a chalice?

We are nourished by Jesus our Lord and Saviour by His body and blood AND by His word. But I have come to bemoan the fact that Word of God has not been given its fair share of importance in the Eucharistic service. This ‘fair share’ has not been denied by the Catholic Church, for in the mind and the heart of the Church both are given due importance; it has been denied its due importance by the fact that it is not being BROKEN (like the body of Christ is) for our nourishment as it should.