The morning of Sunday 2 June 2013 saw a simple and humble believer sitting in the fifth row of the church for the second service. Well dressed and with shining eyes, he was closely observing the service, the people and experiencing the divinity inside the 40 year old St. Gregorios Orthodox Cathedral in Bangalore.
After the main celebration got over Fr Mani Varghese, the Church Vicar requested this visitor, Jiji Thomson IAS to take over and give his sermon on the New Testament reading to the congregation.
Having got up very early in the morning and spent an hour in reading the Bible and prayers, our speaker was well prepared with the sermon for the day. He spoke of how the apostles were asked by God to preach the Gospel (Mathew 10, 6-14). He spoke of three types of evangelism by which this could be done: mass, church and personal. Mass is what we see in huge conventions and over TV and radio. Church evangelism is what happens when on Sundays and other days we go to the church. Personal evangelism is how we interact with our friends, colleagues and peers, how we conduct ourselves. If we love others and lead a very prayerful, humble, simple life we will be able to show to others how it is to live like a Christian. Short and sweet, the first sermon got over in 10 minutes.
The interesting part was the second message " How to lead a Christian life ?" he gave to the elder Sunday school children, MGOCSM and OCYM youth. It was also attended by lot of adults who wished to hear his message for the kids.
He played a very meaningful presentation which asked the youngsters to be prayerful, kind, loving and compassionate to their fellow beings. He exhorted them to have a purpose in life. He showed his all time favourite great persons like Joan of Arc, St Francis of Assisi, St Teresa of Jesus and Parumala Thirmeni. All of them led simple, courageous and prayerful lives. Through a video he exhorted the youngsters how Christ like a very doting father takes care of each of us even when we are in crises. He peppered his speech of 40 minutes with lot of interesting stories and real life incidents, like how he stopped calling others useless was one such touching incident. He also asked the audience to start reading the Bible regularly and make notes in a small notebook. By making such scribblings, their knowledge of the Bible improves besides helping them to give very good speeches on the Bible at short notice too.
 |
| With the MGOCSM members .. |
The question answer session went fine, with the senior members asking how he is able to lead a Christian life in spite of his very busy life schedule of leading the largest sports body in the country and leading the nation to the next Olympics. He gets up every day at 4 AM and after prayers for about an hour starts his daily chores. By 9 AM he is in the office and attending to important work for the day. Prayer gives him the courage and strength to go forward in life. To the question, is there anything like a small sin and a big sin, he was quick to dispel the doubt, no sin is too small to be neglected. Since he was already 10 minutes late for a press meet at Koramangala, he had to cut short the question answer session. He posed for a photo session with the youngsters, achen and seniors and after a cup of tea and biscuits immediately left for Koramangala.
Some
snaps of the meet here ..
Do return to this site for a video of the talk.
The
earlier link ..
Even though he is leading a very busy bureaucratic life, traveling across the country and the globe, he finds time to interact with young people and listen to their aspirations and grievances to bring in quick remedies. The next few weeks will reveal the massive structural change he is effecting in Sports Authority of India, cleaning it of sloth and mediocrity. He believes in motivating his team and help them perform super natural acts by working together as a team.
The nation has so much expectations on Jiji to bring in a massive change and put systems in place to remove corruption, favouritism, nepotism and mediocrity in the Indian Sports scene .. Hope he will rise to the expectation of the people of this country and we pray to God to give him the strength and courage to bring great laurels to the country.
george..
