CORRECT CONCEPTION

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), the renowned Irish dramatist and prolific writer was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1925. When he was at the peak of his career, a very beautiful and famous actress approached him with a proposal for their marriage. She suggested that they would be very lucky if they got a child with his brains and her beauty. Shaw, who was not particularly handsome, humorously asked her to consider the ridiculous situation of the child getting her brains and his beauty!

An Indian girl child got the idea from her father that good children are born to parents who pray to God for that gift. She prayed for years to get a good child. She gave birth to the greatest ascetic and philosopher of India, Swami Vivekananda.

There is a view that Cain was conceived in sin while Abel was conceived after the repentance of Adam and Eve. This was proposed to explain the contradictory behaviour of the two brothers.

Mother Teresa said that children are to be conceived in the mind long before conception in the womb. Hence even men can conceive children- in their mind. An adopted child later defined adoption as being born in your mothers mind though not conceived in her womb.

It is feared that children born to aged mothers may be defective. But the Bible lists mothers who conceived in their old age after long years of fervent prayer and delivered outstanding children. Abraham and Sarah, Elkanah and Hannah, St. Joachim and St. Anne and St. Zechariah and St. Elizabeth were parents whose prayers were answered by God and were blessed with exceptionally gifted children in their old age. Children are the lovely and living gifts of our loving God.

A saintly woman was praying to God for the gift of an effective remedy for the deadly disease, AIDS. In a vision she was told that God had sent the information for making the medicine through the brain of a gifted child, but the child was ruthlessly aborted by his cruel parents.

Life is a great gift of God and man has no right to end it by suicide or homicide. Abortion is early infanticide and euthanasia is another form of brutal murder. In these evil acts the victim is helpless and unable even to react.

Jesus taught his disciples, And whoever welcomes in my name one such child as this, welcomes me {Matthew 18: 5}.

By: Dr. Babu Philip, Professor, Cochin University of Science & Technology, Fine Arts Avenue, Kochi-682016, Kerala, India.For more moral stories, parables and anecdotes for students, catechists, teachers and preachers, kindly visit the web-site: http://www.moralstorieschristian.blogspot.com

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INNOCENT INQUIRIES

A child complained to his mother that he has severe stomach-ache. She told him, "It is because your belly is empty. Come and have some food." The child obeyed. The next day the mother had a heavy head ache. The child consoled her, saying innocently, "Mommy, it is because your head is empty!"

On another occasion, the curious child asked his mother, "Mommy, why are some of your hairs turning grey?" She tried to use this occasion to reform him. "It is because of you, dear. Every bad action of yours will turn one of my hairs grey!" The child replied innocently, "Now I know why your mother has only grey hairs on her head."

A catechist was explaining in his class the verse 9 from Psalm 51: "Cleanse me with hyssop, that I may be pure; wash me, make me whiter than snow." An inquisitive student asked him, "What is meant by the word, 'hyssop'?" The teacher thought for a moment but could not recollect it. But he was reluctant to expose his ignorance before his students. He posed to be a scholar and explained that hyssop was a type of 'soap' used by King David to cleanse his body. The students were satisfied. But later on, they would have understood what hyssop really is and then they would have mocked at their haughty teacher. The hyssop is a Biblical bushy plant, whose twigs were dipped in sacrificial blood or blessed water and sprinkled on people or door-posts as a Jewish religious ritual for purification.

Parents and teachers often forget that children have the right to learn the truth from them. Children may try to imitate their parents and teachers as the children appreciate, admire and adore them. Children should hear and learn only the truth from their elders. Teachers, preachers and catechists need the humility to admit their ignorance in a particular matter before their students instead of imparting incorrect information, pretending to be scholars.

A true Christian should not tell a lie even if telling the truth may cause loss, suffering or pain. We should not tell a lie even if telling the lie may give us money, power or pleasure. St. Paul advises, "No more lying, then! Everyone must tell the truth to his fellow-believer, because we are all members together in the body of Christ" {Ephesians 4: 25}.

Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free"{John 8: 32}. "Just say 'yes' or 'no' anything else you say comes from the evil one {Matthew 5: 37}.

"You can be sure that on Judgement Day everyone will have to give account of every useless word he has ever spoken. Your words will be used to judge you to declare you either innocent or guilty" {Matthew 12: 36, 37}.

By: Dr. Resmy Susan Babu, M.D, Senior Resident in Medicine, Govt. Medical College, Kottayam, Kerala, India & Dr. Babu Philip, Professor, Cochin University of Science & Technology, Fine Arts Avenue, Kochi-682016, Kerala, India.
For more moral stories, parables and anecdotes for students, catechists, teachers and preachers, kindly visit the web-site: http://www.moralstorieschristian.blogspot.com

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How our inner Ego sometimes misjudges a PERSON

A lady in a faded grey dress and her husband, dressed in a home-spun suit walked in timidly without an appointment into the Harvard University President's outer office. The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods, country hicks had no business at Harvard and probably didn't even deserve to be in Harvard.

"We want to see the President "the man said softly.

"He'll be busy all day "the secretary snapped.

"We'll wait" the lady replied.

For hours the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become discouraged and go away. They didn't and the secretary grew frustrated and finally decided to disturb the president..

"Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they'll leave" she said to him. The President, stern faced and with dignity, strutted toward the couple.

The lady told him "We had a son who attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus."

The president wasn't touched....He was shocked. "Madam "he said, gruffly, " we can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery."

"Oh, no," the lady explained quickly” We don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard."

The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit, and then exclaimed, "A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical buildings here at Harvard."

For a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased. Maybe he could get rid of them now. The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, "Is that all it costs to start a university ? Why don't we just start our own?"

Her husband nodded. The president's face wilted in confusion and bewilderment. Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford got up and walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California where they established the University that bears their name: -StanfordUniversity, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.

Most of the timewe judge people by their outer appearance, which can be misleading. And in this impression, we tend to treat people badly by thinking they can do nothing for us. Thus we tend to lose our potential good friends, employees or customers.

Remember

In our Life, we seldom get people with whom we want to share & grow our thought process. But because of our inner EGO we miss them forever.

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