Resentment

For those who missed Sister Majella’s session today (16.06.2021)

1. First and foremost let me tell you, the topic for the day was a bit of a surprise - ‘Resentment’. It was a deviation of course but never knew why the deviation until the mystery unraveled little by little.

2. It calls for a serious pondering on our inner-self, even after we wound the session up with a lot of personal sharing towards the end of it. In fact, the alarm rang here for me through Sister Chandra’s inquisitiveness of whether we are in a state of resentment or not through the lead the Holy Spirit gave her to clarify herself where she stands, given the context of the issue. At this junction, I realised mine is no different.

3. Again it’s not a topic for the light-hearted and at the same time, a topic, that would have certainly hit the participants of the session, at different quotients. For one, it might be less, for another more. I fit into the latter order.

4. It certainly calls for a lot of amendments, as there is no escape otherwise if we desire to walk hand in hand with God.

5. ‘Resentment’ – why is it an important forerunner for the rest of the capital sins (sins that we are yet to discover)? Sister, very beautifully related the story of the two monks and the drowning women and led us through what resentment is – ‘a thought process’, as simple as it might appear to the human understanding initially, but that becomes our self (our personality) eventually, is what shook me to the core. Being humans in a world of busy schedules, we often forget the main purpose of our life – To love God, who in turn created us to express His love. When we fall short of this requirement, we divulge into a thought process of deception. Deception brings sadness always within us, as we start believing in deceit. This may start as a small reaction but ultimately become our personality. Thus, resentment is a thought process that we need to fight hard against, again something, not easy to go about, if we don’t seek the help of The Holy Spirit. Resentment robs us of the joy, the Lord has put into our hearts.

6. I understood the purpose of her deviation only at this stage when she started revealing the four important things resentment brings in our life, namely,

a) Anger

b) Unforgiveness

c) Ungratefulness

d) Lack of empathy

7. Sister again brought a word of caution, how we need to monitor through our busy life the various alarms that might go off, like for instance, a feeling of hopelessness, detachment from people, holding bitterness, giving importance to the ‘I’ factor in life at all times.

8. The discovery of who was deaf between the couple, through a story narrated by Sister, revealed that we often travel through life, ignorant of the fact that we are a victim of resentment and need to take the first step – The 4 R’s to counter resentment in our lives - Recognise, Realise, Release and Reset.

9. The best way to overcome Resentment is to give our wounds to Jesus to stitch it all together, so that the bleeding stops and peace is restored, avoid areas of bitterness to become a better person, stop self-pity, always seek The Truth, make an honest confession, don’t try to change people, but we need to change (it’s the work of The Holy Spirit), always make forgiveness happen – keep it a mandate of your life (remember that an un-forgiven heart is heavier than an un-forgiving one)

10. The only antidote is forgiveness (Ref.: Mt.11:28 - “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”) Let’s receive the grace to forgive from The Lord.

11. We have had great personalities through the history of The Bible, with whom we can identify ourselves and work out eventually on our means of overcoming resentment.

12. In the words of Sister Majella, “Kill people with your love” should be our main motto in life.