CCV Editor Congrats Valson Thampu on his article “Protect kids from Priest-craft”
james kottoor
Congrats to Valson Tampu for his thoughtful, instructive and rationally argued article: “Protect kids from Priest-craft”(See CCV March 19, 2019).
Reading Valson’s article on protecting kids from“Priest-craft”, reminded me of “witch-craft” and its vile machinations. It simply opened flood gates of too many wild and mild thoughts as a fitting tribute to the writer. But I decided to present here a historic event: “What happened to someone after listening to the story of Bar Thimeus, the blind man and his prayer: “Lord that I may see!”
Almost by chance some one had gone to Church on a day which happened to be his 60th birthday, not because he was a pious church-goer. Coincidence was accidental and the Gospel reading was that of the blind man and the brief commentary on the text heard in the church made him restless. He discovered he was that blind man and wanted to “see” and prayed thousands of time “Lord I may see” for days and weeks.
During a night prayer at home in the family one day, suddenly a stream of thoughts flowed into his mind like an inspiration from above. Touched by the convincing logic he at once got up from his knees to jot them down, lest he forgets. What he wrote were the following imitating Bartimeus:
LORD THAT I MAY SEE
Lord that I may see today ALL
That YOU want me to see, and ONLY
What you want me to see today;
Lord that I may desire today ALL
That YOU want me to desire and ONLY
What you want me to desire today;
Lord that I may think today ALL
What YOU want me to think today and ONLY
What you want me to think today;
Lord that I may listen today ALL
that YOU want me to listen today and ONLY
what YOU want me to listen today;
Lord that I may speak today ALL
that YOU want me to speak and ONLY
what YOU want me to speak today;
Lord that I may write today ALL
that YOU want me to write and ONLY
what YOU want me to write today;
Lord that I may do today ALL
That YOU want me to do and ONLY
What YOU want me to do today;
Lord that I may be fully docile to YOUR
guidance in seeing,desiring,listening,
speaking,writing and doing all through this day.Amen
Inspirational Quote
The stress in this prayer is on three words: ALL, YOU and ONLY, and so he thought this could be a model for a most unselfish prayer, since what is asked for are ALL that the Lord wants. To spread this idea he published an article on it and seeing it St.Pauls wrote asking for permission to make it a prayer card (most unexpected) with the request if he could write such prayers for their petty pocket monthly, “Inspirational Quote”.
Since the man was not used to writing prayers for sale, he replied he has three other small prayers made for private family use: “1. Waking up to God’s gentle touch; 2. Steer me straight and safe; 3 Use me today Lord,” and sent them with the reply. St.Pauls was happy to accept all three and make all into 4 prayer cards in English, Hindi and Malayalam and print a lakh of copies at no cost to the writer. The one who did all these is this scribe himself. What follows is the inspiration he received during prayer.
The LORD makes it happen
Louis Evely, a famous writer wrote in one of his books: “If you desire something good, earnestly, honestly, constantly, unselfishly, feverishly and for the sake of God(or common good) only it will happen; the LORD will make it happen for you.” It was a dream come true for me when those prayers got printed through inscrutable ways!
In the initial stage when a copy of the prayer typed and distributed reached the Parish Priest, he had suggested I get it printed and I had adamantly refused: “I will not print my own prayers for money.” But they came to be printed and sold through St.Pauls.
When every copy of the printed pryer was sold out, some people approached me – sisters from Bangalore — for a few thousand copies but I had none, so gave them permission to print and take with no payment to me. Since all happened to me, all these are facts that happened over 20 years ago, all of which look totally “kelaidoscopic” as nothing was planned by me.
Still I pray for them every morning.
Those four are still my morning prayers and if you ask me: “What is your reaction to them now?” I have become very skeptical on many things, in the process of growing old and changing and so used to wonder why the one who asks just for one day to live as God alone wants, gets any number of months and years to live and so an insatiable longing to cross the portals of death just to see, touch and believe like the doubting Thomas, what lies beyond this world!
Lead kindly Light!
That is why I refuse tooth and nail to be moved by the trumpeters of Faith brigade but prefer to be led by that light of REASON, even if it is as dim as that of a Fire Fly. In the meantime let the bandwagon of Faith and blind believers have their free run, but only in private, personal domain, that too without resorting to violence.
No objection, if they believe or don’t believe in a living or dead God as Bonhoeffer advocated. But we did not speak of ‘churchless Christianity’ but did say that Christianity is dead and what is alive and kicking today is “Churchianity” or the Constantenian Church busy doing spiritual colonization through export of substitute priests, more correctly “priest-crafts”.
From a mundane point of view, they are a sure and steady source of income for the parent Constantine churches in India, like possessing a ‘Petrol Station’ in America, Europe or Gulf region.
Contact at:jameskottoor@gmail.com; Mob.9446219203
