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pls note: DONT MISUSE or EDIT OUR ARTICLES AND PHOTOS.......
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FROM PRINCIPAL'S DESK
Greetings to you all on behalf of the Mar Thoma Theological Seminary, Kottayam. It is really a great privilege to be in touch with the Alumni and friends of the Seminary through ‘Chalanam’ every year. We are grateful to God for the way in which He has led us over the years and also for the significant progress that we have made through your prayerful support and co-operation.Our Seminary has grown as one of the important post-graduate theological institutions affiliated to the Serampore University. We are happy that we could start a website to make available necessary informations regarding our academic and community life. We were also able to start publishing ‘Mar Thoma Seminary Journal of Theology’, to share our biblical and
theological scholarship with others. The construction of the New Gate, and the renovation of the Heritage building were really a blessing we had by the grace of God. We have digitalized all our important documents and materials in the Archives this year. We are deeply indebted to His Grace the most Rev. Dr. Joseph Mar Thoma Metropolitan chairman of the Governing Board for his able leadership and guidance. We are grateful to the members of the Governing Board, Construction Committee, Faculty, student community and office staff for their selfless and sacrificial services. The theme of this year’s Chalanam is Prayer, Paradigms and Practices. Prayer is a vital element in our life as God intended. It is heart’s conversation with God (David Pawson). Prayer is essentially our communication with God. Through prayer we are drawing closer to God.
Prayer is often referred to as one of the spiritual disciplines. Discipline certainly involves practice. It is the regular engagement in an activity that helps us to become proficient in that activity.Very often we understand prayer as asking God for certain things. There is also a wrong tendency to change God through our prayers.
But as Soren Kierkegaard has said, prayer does not change God, but it changes and transforms the one who prays. In that sense prayer is transformative. Prayer is not an act of leaving everything to God but it requires commitment to do things on behalf of God. Bible contains a great many prayer texts besides those preserved in the Psalter. Turning to God in prayer, either in a situation of difficulty or at a time of great perplexity or simply in order to praise God, is an entirely normal action. In the Bible prayer is not the monopoly of priests or prophets even though they are professionally qualified to do so. R. E. Clements has said, “Prayer is in a large measure theology moving into action and testing out its own understanding of the divine nature of reality.” Claus Westermann sums up the theology of the Psalms as “Praise of God”. It is through praise that we come to a true and proper understanding of our place in the world and of the infinite possibilities which God has set before us.
May this volume enlighten our hearts and minds to open our ears to listen to the voice of God and to see new visions to move in to the world to fulfill His mission.
Rev. Dr. Geevarughese Mathew
Principal