My beloved ones, there comes a point in life when we realize that we cannot simply remain seated and allow ourselves to become smaller day by day. If we continue shrinking inwardly like that, life itself begins to feel like a burden.
The truth about the Covenant is that we can no longer afford to live without a deeper and more deliberate relationship with God. The times themselves have become demanding. In many places in Europe today, for example, you cannot even see a doctor without insurance. The first thing they ask for is your insurance card. Without it, you may not even receive an appointment. In the same way, the spiritual challenges of our age are such that the old habit of saying a few prayers while continuing to live however we please will not sustain us. The Covenant calls us to something much more serious.
Take the testimony of Johnson Joseph from Faridabad. When I went to preach in Delhi, he was a parishioner there. What struck me was the firmness of the stance he took. His spirituality was not that of a person who merely recited prayers casually. When a serious issue arose, he placed God first and tried to face the situation biblically. No matter what sacrifice was involved, he chose to stand firmly upon the Word of God.
His wife told him, "You should not write down a six-figure salary." But Johnson replied, "What other choice do we have? We have been without a job for a year. How many people have we borrowed money from? Haven't they all begun asking for it back? I know I may not have the qualifications for this. But haven't we taken the Covenant? We did not take the Covenant based on our qualifications. We took it through the intercession of the Blessed Mother. Therefore, I will confidently ask for a six-figure salary."
He knew very well that he had been out of the field for some time. He knew there were people more qualified than he was. There was competition and challenge. A person in such a situation might naturally think, "Just give me a small salary. Ten thousand, fifty thousand, anything is enough. I only need a job. I need money for milk, food, rent, and basic necessities." But Johnson did not think that way.
He said, "I need a six-figure salary. Who else will help me settle these debts? Why am I asking for this amount? Because I have taken the Covenant."
What does this mean? If we remain faithful to the Covenant, there is a certain spiritual claim we can place before God. I do not mean bargaining with God. Rather, the Covenant gives us a standing before Him because it is a real relationship of commitment. A Covenant is a claim made within a relationship. If we take God's side, live faithfully, and sincerely work for the Gospel, we become capable of giving testimonies of a much higher spiritual standard.
My beloved ones, what was the Word the Holy Spirit first placed before us as one of the great Covenant promises?
Isaiah 43:4 says, "Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life."
Imagine 2,400 people applying for a position and one person being chosen. Humanly speaking, there may be thousands who seem equally or even more qualified. Yet the Word says, "I give peoples in exchange for your life."
My brethren, we must rise into this spiritual status. A fundamental truth of the Covenant is that it works not merely by merit, but by grace. It is not only by our own ability, but through His grace. And who receives this grace? The one who becomes precious before God. The one who becomes honored. The one who becomes beloved. How do we become precious and honorable before God? By honoring what God honors. If we deeply value the Word of God, we ourselves become valuable in His holy presence.
Look again at Johnson Joseph. He asked the company for a six-figure salary. His wife asked him, "Is that really necessary? Isn't getting the job itself the most important thing?" But the Holy Spirit prompted him inwardly to proceed. An ordinary person begins to change in the holy presence of God. According to Isaiah 43:4, he becomes honorable. Then beloved. Then precious. How does that happen in practice?
One day Johnson was traveling through Delhi and saw a Punjabi community and a Burmese community. What rose in his heart? "I must tell them about the Blessed Mother's apparition." The path of an ordinary believer and the path of an anointed Covenant believer begin to separate there. When he saw Punjabi people, he thought, "I must give them the message in a language they can understand." So he arranged for the Punjabi edition of the Kreupasanam newspaper. When he saw the Burmese community, he thought of giving them the English edition. This is what it means to obey the Lord's command: "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to all creation."
If you truly belong to God, when you see people from another language or culture, the Holy Spirit begins to prompt you: "Your Malayalam paper will not help them. Get them one they can read."
But the Holy Spirit speaks like this only when He knows we will obey.
I always tell you: maintain at least a minimum living relationship with the Holy Spirit. For some people, the Holy Spirit has not spoken for years because their hearts have not become a place that welcomes His direction. If the Holy Spirit is to speak, He must find in us a willingness to listen and obey. The Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Holy Trinity. In the Old Testament, Scripture often refers to Him as the Spirit of God or the Spirit of the Lord. In the New Testament, another emphasis appears: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you." The Person is the same, but the mission is revealed with greater clarity.
Consider creation. Genesis tells us that the earth was formless and darkness covered the abyss, while the Spirit of God hovered over the waters. The Spirit moved where there was formlessness and brought forth life. Then consider Ezekiel. The prophet is taken to the valley of dry bones. The Lord asks, "Son of man, can these bones live?" Ezekiel replies, "O Lord God, You know." The Spirit breathes upon what is dead, scattered, and disordered, and the bones rise as a great army. Here the Spirit is revealed as the One who restores and reorganizes what has been shattered.
Then we come to the Blessed Mother in the New Testament. She asks, "How can this be, since I do not know man?" In other words, "I have no natural way to understand how this can happen."
What is the answer? "The Holy Spirit will come upon you." Again, the Spirit enters what human beings cannot solve. But now the mission is even greater. This is not merely the creation of human life. This is the Incarnation of the Son of God, who will offer Himself upon the Cross for the redemption of humanity. Therefore, holiness becomes central.
The Holy Spirit comes in opposition to the unclean spirit. He sanctifies. He consecrates. He makes possible a work that cannot be carried out through human strength alone. The same update must happen in us. You may be working hard. That is good. But the true question is whether you are working in holiness. In the Covenant, only the Holy Spirit can truly bring this about, because the Covenant is a bilateral agreement with the Holy God. If we are making a Covenant with the Most Holy God, what is the foundational demand? "Be holy, for I am holy."
Matthew 5:48 says, "So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect."
Genesis 17:1 gives the same demand at the beginning of the Covenant with Abraham: "When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, 'I am God Almighty; walk in my presence and be blameless.'" Some may ask, "Can a human being really be blameless? Do human beings not make mistakes?" Of course human beings make mistakes. But the problem is that we often think from within a sinful environment and assume that holiness is impossible. Isaiah himself cried out before God:
Isaiah 6:5 says, "Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts."
What happened then?
Isaiah 6:6-7 says that one of the seraphim flew to him with a live coal taken from the altar, touched his mouth, and said: "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."
Isaiah acknowledged his condition, and God acted. Now look at Jeremiah. The Lord touched his mouth and placed His Word there.
Jeremiah 1:7-10 says, "Do not say, 'I am too young.' You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you," declares the Lord. Then the Lord reached out His hand and touched Jeremiah's mouth and said: "I have put my words in your mouth."
Do you notice something? In Isaiah, a burning coal touched the mouth. In Jeremiah, the Word touched the mouth. What does that reveal? The burning coal signifies the Word that purifies. This changes the way we think about sin. They say, "I must stop this sin. I must stop that weakness. I must fight this habit." But if you want to conquer sin, do not stare only at the sin. Target the Word.
John 15:3 says, "You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you."
This is exactly what the Covenant teaches us. To "do whatever He tells you" means restructuring our lives according to the Word of God and refusing ways of life that contradict it. When we do that, holiness begins to grow naturally. This is the deeper meaning of the burning coal touching Isaiah's lips and the Lord touching Jeremiah's mouth. When a person reorders life according to the Word, sanctification begins.
So what is the practical conclusion? Do not make sin itself the centre of your spirituality. Make God and His Word the centre. When the Word becomes our target, sin begins to lose its power. And as we honor the Word of God, we become honorable before God. Scripture repeatedly gives this principle: those who honor God will be honored by Him. Those who love Him will be loved by Him.
Romans 4:8 says, "Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account."
This is a serious verse. Instead of building a spirituality that is constantly obsessed with failure, we must build a spirituality of relationship. We must learn to live blameless before God by remaining close to Him. The declaration we seek from God is not merely, "You have avoided this sin." It is: "You are beloved to Me. You are precious to Me. You are honored by Me."
Now let us return to Johnson Joseph and see how this theology became practical in his life.
He said, "When I lost my first job, one month passed, then many months, and eventually a year. Around that time, our second child was conceived. During a medical checkup, the doctor told us, 'This baby has Down syndrome.' My heart was crushed. And that very evening, I lost my job." Two tremendous sorrows came upon him almost at the same time. His wife was six months pregnant, he had just been told that the child might have Down syndrome, and then he lost his job.
How does a person bear such a thing? This is where Covenant spirituality is tested. Some people respond by becoming more mechanical. They light the green candle and the blue candle together, even when that has never been taught, thinking that if one practice is good, two at once must be better. But the Covenant is not magic. It is not about doing more rituals in order to force God to respond.
Johnson did something different. He said, "I went and made a good Confession." He did not simply collapse into despair. He even fasted for a day and examined himself before God. The Holy Spirit then revealed to him an inner problem. While he and his family were staying at his mother's house and depending on others, difficulties had arisen. He had begun to think, "My mother is the root cause of all the problems in this house." The Holy Spirit corrected him: "Your mother is not the cause of the problem. Your misunderstanding is the problem." That is sanctification. When we sincerely come before God, He reveals not only the sins we already know, but the misunderstandings, prejudices, and inner judgments that need healing.
Johnson also recognized another false belief within himself. He had begun to think, "If we have more children, my career will suffer." Since the second child had been conceived around the time he lost his job, resentment had begun to form before the child was even born. He had started connecting the child with the loss of his career. But the Holy Spirit corrected him again. "That perspective is wrong." He confessed these misunderstandings and surrendered them to the Lord.
Then an interview call came. It was an online interview conducted through his phone. During the interview, his wife was not nearby. Suddenly, his older child woke up and began crying loudly.
At once the old thought returned: "Children are going to ruin my career." But Johnson immediately recognized it. "That is exactly the mindset I confessed. I cannot return to it now." So, while the interview was still in progress, he picked up the crying child with one arm, held the child to his chest, and continued answering the interview questions with the other hand. The child continued crying. Johnson thought, "They are not even hearing my answers. They are only hearing my child cry. They will think I cannot manage my home and work. I have certainly lost this job."
But later that night, he received the news that he had been selected. He was overwhelmed. He understood something very clearly: "I thought my child would cause me to lose the job. But the Covenant is not by merit, but by grace." He testified, "As a father, I did what was right. I took my crying child into my arms. The child cried loudly, yet the Blessed Mother did not allow the company to treat that as a demerit. Not by my merit, but by grace, the Lord gave me the job."
My children, this is how a person begins to live every situation through the Covenant. We should not reshape our entire lives merely according to material concerns or the opinions of worldly people. In every circumstance, first place must belong to the God who loves us, honors us, and makes us precious.
There was another beautiful part of Johnson Joseph's testimony. One winter in Delhi, a "blanket challenge" was announced. The cold there can become severe. In some regions of North India, temperatures fall close to freezing, and many poor elderly people have little protection from the cold. An organization began collecting blankets for those who had none. Johnson heard about it and immediately participated. He bought several blankets with his own money and donated them.
That night he had a dream. He saw a very tall building. He saw himself entering an elevator and moving upward through several floors. The next day, he had an interview with a company. He was selected. When he later arrived at the company office, he realized that the building and the elevator were exactly like the ones he had seen in his dream. The Covenant is a great and mysterious thing. But what is required? People who invest themselves sincerely.
When Johnson heard about the blanket challenge, he did not say, "This is not my responsibility. I am not from here. I have my own problems." He remembered the Gospel: "I was sick and you visited Me. I was in prison and you came to Me." Through that act of mercy, he became honorable in the sight of God.
My children, if someone asks you why you take the Covenant, there should be one answer: "To become honorable in the holy presence of God and to become His beloved." How do we do that? By honoring the Word of the Lord. When we honor His Word, God honors us.
John 12:26 says, "Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me."
This reveals the meaning of Isaiah 43:4. How do we become "precious and honored" in His sight? Through service. Not merely by sitting idle and reciting prayers.
One great weakness of the present generation is that many people refuse to do anything for God. They reduce spirituality to prayer, prayer, and more prayer, while their actual way of living remains unchanged. That is where we go wrong. Jesus says, "My Father will honor the one who serves Me." He also says, "The one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and reveal Myself to him." So divine revelation, the movement of the Holy Spirit, and deeper spiritual understanding flow from love and service. That is why I always ask: why are you taking the Covenant? To love God more deeply.
Now look at forgiveness. There are people we may feel we can never forgive because of the terrible things they have done to us. We may feel that cutting them off permanently and refusing any relationship with them is itself a righteous act. But the Gospel asks more from us. It commands us to love our enemies. That means superficial morality has no value in Christianity. You cannot bribe your way into heaven by performing a few religious rituals while refusing the demands of the Gospel. The Gospel requires honesty. That is why we call it the Word of Truth. When we live according to that Word, our personal prejudices lose their authority. This also applies to the fellowships and groups in which we participate.
If you are in a place where people constantly speak about the faults and sins of others, do not join them merely to please them. Remain silent. If they are people you cannot avoid because they are in your own household, do not participate in the sinful conversation. Step aside inwardly. Pray for them. Do not create factions. Some people are always group people. I am not talking about political groups. There are groups even inside families. A father and daughter may form one group. A mother and son may form another. Secrets are shared selectively. Favoritism develops. Injustice follows. If you behave unjustly, you may preserve the favor of one child, but will you remain precious in the eyes of God? Will you remain honorable before Him?
Older generations sometimes lived this way because they did not know the Word deeply. They knew the Rosary and the Angelus, but many did not have access to Scripture in the way we do now. But this generation knows the Word. Why have we received the Word? Not merely to read it, but to live according to it. The Word teaches us how to conduct ourselves with God. If you came to the Covenant while living in factions, prejudice, deceit, and hidden injustice, then the Covenant retreat itself must become a place of purification for you. Before renewing the Covenant, become more worthy to renew it. I meet some people who are fifty-five or sixty-five years old, still pushing, fighting, complaining, and bringing endless household quarrels before me. Looking at their lives, you can sometimes tell that the Covenant has not truly been accepted within them.
You must strive for faithfulness. What does faithfulness mean? It means your spiritual bond with God, your love for God, daily growth in that love, listening to the Word each day, rejecting evil, maintaining holiness, and becoming a competent and worthy partner before God. If you move in this direction, your intentions are not the difficult part. God can fulfill them in seconds. And it does not depend merely on your merit.
Some people will not even come for family prayer. They say, "Let me study a little more. Let me study more." But sometimes what you study may not even appear in the examination. To rely on God requires humility. It means saying, "Lord, it is not only my ability. It is Your grace. I have studied as much as I can. I have sacrificed sleep and worked hard. Now I depend on You." What a grace it is to live with God.
I become upset when people treat the Covenant lightly. Through the Covenant, we have received a blessing suited for this age. For those who genuinely seek God and desire to live with Him, the Covenant is an extraordinary gift.
There was another testimony recently, from Antony Varghese of Angamaly. Like Johnson Joseph, he also worked in the IT field. His mother had taken the Covenant first. Afterward, she told him, "Son, I have placed your job in the Covenant." She lived the Covenant carefully and faithfully. Antony did receive a job. But after only three months, on the ninetieth day, HR called him for a review. They asked, "How is the job going?"
He answered honestly, "I am not able to cover all the tasks. I cannot manage everything being given to me." Then HR asked, "If you had not received this job, what kind of work would you have tried for?" He replied, "I would probably have gone into banking." They said, very politely, "Then why don't you do that now?" He had been dismissed, but in the most diplomatic way possible. Only afterward did the full reality hit him. "My God, I have lost a good job."
His mother then said, "Son, I was the one who took the Covenant. Now you go and take it yourself." He understood.He came with his mother to take the Covenant personally. When he came to Kreupasanam, he saw a rainbow over the place. In his heart he understood, "Mother intends for me to take the Covenant."
Some people are extraordinarily sincere when they enter the Covenant. They understand its essence and live it with love for God. After taking the Covenant, Antony formed a personal bond with the Blessed Mother. One night he prayed:
"Mother, I have been without a job for three months. If You have accepted this Covenant, tonight You must come and stand beneath the consecrated picture in my house." Now, do not all go home and threaten the Blessed Mother, saying, "You must appear in my kitchen tonight." I am speaking about what happens in the lives of people who deal with God in deep sincerity. If you possess that level of relationship, you may speak with such openness. Otherwise, it becomes empty presumption.
Antony testified, "That night I did not sleep. Even before I had fallen asleep, I saw Mother come and stand exactly where I had asked." The rainbow had already been a sign. Now came a more personal confirmation. If God sees honesty, God responds. That is the truth. Even when you step onto the bus to come here, God already knows whether you are genuine. If you are sincere, He has no difficulty giving a dream, a sign, a vision, or a word.
The Lord Himself says in John 14:21, "The one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I too will love them and show Myself to them."
Revelation comes from love. Sometimes it comes through dreams. Sometimes through visions. Sometimes through an external sign such as a rainbow. God's presence can be confirmed in many ways. Antony said, "Mother loves me. If I am to be placed in a job soon, Mother must come today to the place I have asked." Before he had even fully fallen asleep, he saw the vision. By the very next week, he received a job. But that is not the main point. The greater testimony is what happened to his life afterward. He said, "I wake up at 5:30 in the morning and attend Father's Daily Bread service. Earlier, I used to go to church only on Saturdays and Sundays. Now I go to Holy Mass every day. After Mass, I remain there and pray a Rosary. Only after that do I return home, eat, and go to work." Look at his life. God Himself will be pleased by such a transformation.
When I criticized empty prayer earlier, I was speaking about people who pray without living a true Christian life, people who put on a show before God with their lips. But those who are sincere toward God are the ones who truly need prayer. Their prayer becomes relationship.
The reason many prayers remain fruitless is not because God is reluctant to answer, but because we have not yet become people who can stand before Him with honesty and spiritual credibility.
When I say this, I am not trying to belittle anyone.
What I mean is that those who pray must grow into the spiritual maturity to pray in truth. Once that maturity is present, God has no hesitation in guiding us, revealing things to us, and helping us in the details of life.
Because the Covenant is bilateral, there is no shortage of grace in that relationship. Visions, dreams, convictions, guidance, and revelation may come abundantly. But first, we must correct ourselves. We must become beloved and honorable before God. This is the heart of Covenant life: A divine calling to honor God, obey His Word, grow in holiness, serve Him with love, and become precious in His sight.
Disclaimer: All content in this article is credited to Dr. Fr. V.P. Joseph Valiyaveettil of Kreupasanam Marian Shrine, Kerala, India. This English adaptation has been prepared as a humble effort to make Father’s Malayalam YouTube sharings more accessible to a wider audience, with the assistance of translation and editorial resources.
Many of Father’s teachings were originally shared within the context of the Kreupasanam Covenant and may therefore include references or practices specific to that spiritual journey. Nevertheless, this blog is intended for everyone. Whether or not you are a Covenant member, it is my hope that these reflections, biblical teachings, and testimonies will encourage you in your own walk with God.
I warmly encourage everyone to share this website with others who may benefit from these reflections. May all who visit this page be blessed and drawn closer to God.
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