THE WORD IN LENT -7

Rethink Prayer 

First Week of Lent: Tuesday, 24th Feb, 2015

Is 55:10-11; Mt 6:7-15

Prayer is a fundamental act of a believer. However, the way we understand it can differ quite drastically. Apart from the clarity that prayer cannot be mere favour list made to God and apart from the comprehensive understanding that prayer should essentially include an act of contrition, that of thanksgiving and of praise along with the petitions made, prayer should be understood basically as a relationship with God. I love to share my personal definition of prayer as "living our life with God", every moment of it - joys and sorrows, failures and successes, temptations and threats, difficulties and dreams! All this, with the confidence that the Lord is with me and that God's ways are best that can happen to me at anytime. 

Asking for and clamouring for something is very much like a child's relation to his or her father or mother! But remaining solely at that level would leave us childish. We need to move to the next level of submitting into the hands of the Lord; abandoning ourselves to the eternal Will and the powerful Word of the Lord. This we will be able to do only when we trust the Lord as our Father, as someone who protects us always and rescues us when we are in distress. 

Let us rethink our outlook on prayer - it is not begging God; neither is it making a wishlist to God nor counselling God as to what is best to be done! Prayer is a loving entrustment of ourselves into the hands of God, our loving Father and Mother.

THE WORD IN LENT -4

Choosing God

Saturday after Ash Wednesday: 21st February, 2015

Is 58: 9b-14; Lk 5: 27-32

"Follow Me" - is the loud and clear invitation from the Lord. The choice is ours! The crux of lenten practices is disciplining oneself to choose God.

When we choose the Lord, we follow the Lord. When we choose the Lord, we choose the ways of the Lord. When we choose God, we would choose justice and love. When we choose God, we would choose to love our brothers and sisters with sincerity and commitment. When we choose God, we would choose to stand against all oppression and malice. Killings in the name of God and persecutions in the name of one's spiritual affiliations, are the heights of insincerity and hyprocrisy. When we choose to hurt another, we choose to be opposed to God. When we choose to slander the other, we choose to be contrary to God.

The call today is to choose God...on a daily basis. In our relationships, in our priorities, in all our interactions, we are called to choose God and to make that choice clear and loud for every one to see, be inspired and emulate. 

THE WORD IN LENT -6

Love and be holy

First week of Lent, Monday: 23rd Feb, 2015. 

Lev 19: 1-2, 22-28; Mt 25: 27-31.

Already in the Old Testament with the call to be holy the Lord instructs the people on how to be holy. Notice the criteria presented,  that they are all about relationships and mutual responsibility among persons. Right enough in the Gospel we see Jesus letting us know the terms on which we will judged in the end of days. Again it is of relational nature.

It was unfortunate that at some point of time there had been developed a spirituality that claimed that one's holiness is a matter of private concern. Some times our lenten practices may fall in those lines;  let us beware. Pope Francis has been right in telling us to choose penance in such a way that it benefits the poor. However,  its not merely of the financial part that we are worried about, but mainly the part of the inter personal interaction.

Love,  and do what you like, said St. Augustine. Loving is the only way towards Christ like holiness.

CHOOSING GOD'S WAYS

1st Sunday of Lent: 22nd February, 2015

Gen 9: 8-15; 1 Pet 3: 18-22; Mk 1: 12-15

For the past three days we have been seeing about choices, essential at Lent. Today the readings sum up the list by inviting us to seek the ways of God as a whole! In the recent weeks we have been receiving videos and photos and reports of people being burnt, slain, beaten, and beheaded for the sake of their faith! Even yesterday I saw a clip from someone showing a brutal beating up of a group of men who were distributing pamphlets expressing their faith. What was in the pamphlet? How offensive was that?...to those questions I have no answer. But one thing I know, whatever was there on the pamphlet, the treatment meted out to them was not justified at all. And the way they bore it, was moving and challenging! God bless them for their sacrifices.

Accepting God's ways is not an easy task. When things go well, it is fine! Miracles and great favours are also God's ways. But when it comes to accepting suffering, accepting struggles from the hands of God...the challenge is enormous. It doubles, when we do not really know why we are going through what we are facing and what we are moving towards. We have three imageries for us to understand that anxiety, and still submit to the Lord.

1. Noah's Ark: That is the imagery of a work which seems meaningless and crazy: building an ark on the arid ground! There is a forewarning of something and Noah chooses to act on God's directions. Meaninglessness and Fruitlessness of his activity does not bother him! 

2. The Desert of Temptation: Jesus is driven by the Spirit into the desert, says the Gospel passage we read today. Desert, wilderness, impending temptations, frightening dangers...nothing stops Jesus from walking in God's ways. He knows for sure, that God has appointed God's angels to protect him and keep him from stumbling on the stone that is not within God's design. A perfect submission to the Lord.

3. The Passion of Christ: We are reflecting a lot these days, and preparing ourselves to behold in its gravity the passion that Lord Jesus went through for the sake of God's love for humanity. It seemed to Jesus, at times even to us, that it was an over-doing on God's part. Yes it was! Because, it is the very nature of God's love to over do. Everything is given to us in abundance. And the passion, seemed to lead Jesus into such an obscurity. But he did not resist submitting to that design and that is why we had that invincible light at the end of the tunnel, the single point of our hope: Resurrection.

The call is clear: to choose God's ways. In spite of the struggles that exist in it, we are called to lovingly submit to God's ways and that would be the only sure way to our salvation.

THE WORD IN LENT -3

Choosing Joy

Friday after Ash Wednesday: 20th February, 2015
Is 58: 1-9a; Mt 9: 14-15

What is the purpose of fasting... what do you think? Some one remarked to me, I wish to come down by atleast 10 kilos at the end of the lent! Another one said, the next forty days will help my diabetes! What is your purpose...why do you fast?

What if you fasted the whole day and because of it you get irritated and frown on every one whom you come across? What if you prayed for a long three hours and on coming out you lose your head on the first person you meet! 

Fasting should make us more controlled; it should make us more detached; more calm and serene! It should fill us with joy that comes from the fact that we have participated in the sufferings of the Lord, not proud of it or haughty about it! Fasting cannot be for feeding one's ego and a means of self-justification. Fasting is a choice, a choice for joy, the joy that comes from Christ, the joy that gave the apostles the courage to go on inspite of the threats and dangers. 

THE WORD IN LENT -2

Choosing Life

Thursday after Ash Wednesday: 19th February, 2015

Dt 30: 15-20;Lk 9: 22-25

The Word today invites us to choose life. Choosing life is to choose the author of life, instead of the spices of life. Those which add taste and colour to life are good but not essential to live. We would be highly mistaken if we give them the priority place in our life. Life is all about choices and choices are made at every instance in life... every word that I choose to say, every thought I entertain, every deed that I choose to do should manifest a will and a commitment to promote life, and life to the full of everyone!

IT'S LENT AGAIN

Ash Wednesday: 18th February, 2015

Joel 2: 12-18; 2 Cor 5: 20 - 6:2; Mt 6: 1-6, 16-18

It's the holy season of Lent again: Happy Lent! Don't consider that a strange wish! Lent is meant to be a happy season: it is no season of mourning, but a happy season of a return to home, from all the wandering. If this season has to move towards a fruitful direction, then we have to heed to the four fold call that Lent has...

LISTEN to the Word: the first call is to listen to the Word. Harden not your hearts as at Meribah, says the Lord. We have to make it a habit of listening to the Word of the Lord on a daily basis. Lent can be a training, a tuning into that habit.

ENCOUNTER the Lord: In the Word, in the daily events, in the people whom we meet, in the people whom we don't like to meet, in those whom we avoid on purpose, we are called to encounter the Lord. An encounter is more than just a coming across; it is bouncing into someone, beholding the person in all entirety and building up a positive loving relationship!

NURTURE relationships: We believe that Lord Our God is fundamentally a unity of three persons. The season invites us to come in touch with the Lord, through various means -to nurture the relationships that we have received from the  Lord. By the very image and likeness we bear and by the gift we have received at our baptism, we are called to be people who value and treasure relationships, with God and with others.

TRANSFORM yourself: The ultimate call is transformation. Conversion, Repentance, Return, Reconcile, Change... we would hear these words more often these days. The Lord invites us to pass through this period of reflection and self evaluation, that we may come out with concrete plans of action that would transform our lives. 

May this lent be a blessed moment of Listening to the Word, Encountering the Lord on a daily basis, Nurture our relationship with the Lord and Transform our lives into those which become lovely offerings in the presence of the Lord. May these weeks of prayer and spiritual practices, mould and transform us into more convinced children of God.

WORD 2day: 17th February, 2015

The dangerous leaven
Gen 6: 5-8, 7: 1-5, 10; 1 Mk 8: 14-21

The Lord invites us,  as God's people to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Another significant role the Lord assigns to us is to be the leaven of goodness; the yeast of the Reign. Today he warns us of a danger that we become a leaven of insincerity,  compromises,  mediocrity and hypocrisy. Even though we may not outwardly choose to be blatantly evil,  we may live a life of double or multiple standards,  a life of total discrepancy; that life would not only be unfit for Reign,  it would be dangerously against the Reign.

We begin the the holy season of lent tomorrow and what a time to impress on our minds this concrete message! 

WORD 2day: 16th February, 2015

The True offering: the inner spirit
Gen 4: 1-15, 25; 8: 11-13

I remember from my childhood memories that we heard the story as Cain brought some rotten fruits and leftovers while Abel brought the best of the firstlings from his flock. But notice, there is nothing said in the Word that Cain's offering was rotten;  yes, it was not acceptable, but not because it was not of international standards or of the best known quality. However the question from the Lord gives us the reason Cain's offering was abominable: because of the heart with which it was offered. His heart was probably filled with envy,  pride and malice and that renders even the best of gifts worthless.

The Gospel presents another scene where Jesus is upset with the Pharisees and the Scribes. So many had asked him for healing and miracles...he had no issues with them. But today when they ask for a sign he is worked up. ..the reason is simple: what lay in their heart as they asked for it.  Feelings of animosity, pride,  envy and hypocrisy.

When we come to the presence of the Lord to pray,  let us check our inner disposition first. Are we worthy to behold the presence of the Lord?

LIVE LIFE CHRIST-LIKE : II

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time: 15th February, 2015

Levi 13: 1-2, 44-46; 1 Cor 10:31- 11:1;Mk 1: 40-45

There was a lay missionary, a doctor by profession who passed through a village once. He stayed with the people, treated them for their sicknesses, dealt with them with compassion and after a while he moved on to the next village. The wonderful memories of that doctor never left the minds of that village. After a couple of decades a missionary preacher came to the same village. He began talking to the people in the village squares and market places. All that he asked them was: Do you know Jesus? Many said, 'No' and moved away. One old man stopped and asked him: "alright, tell me what kind of a man is that Jesus you are enquiring about!" The missionary was indeed waiting for that question. He began: Oh, he is kind, he is loving, he is compassionate, he is caring, he deals with the sick with such love...he was intending to go on, but that old man stopped him. "Now, if that is the man you are talking about, we know him! He passed by our village some 20 years back!" 

We are called to reflect on living our life Christ like, for a second consecutive week! The message is same as last week: to live like Christ. And the readings today highlight three attributes to Christ's life.

- Christ lived for Others: Just yesterday the atmosphere was filled with red vibes, as many frenetically celebrated the valentines day! How many messages about love- defining what it is, describing how great it is, demonstrating how much one is immersed in it. Love does not need so many commentaries. It can just be understood in that simple classical definition: Love is wishing the good of the other. Placing the other before myself, genuinely interested in the other's well being...that is love. Christ was love personified. He lived his life for others, entirely.

- Christ lived for the Marginalised: Pope Francis has a concrete, unavoidable point to make, when he repeats : Go to the periphery! He invites us to live life Christ-like. Today's first reading tells us where the persons with leprosy lived: ostracised, in the peripheries, in the obscurity of humanity. If they were able to come to Jesus, it actually means Jesus went to those peripheries, those margins of the society. Jesus reached out to those in need, those in agony, those in the periphery. It is easy to love people who deserve our love; it is easy to love people who will love us in return; but it is Christian to love everyone, even those from whom we will receive nothing, not even the recognition of our love in return.

- Christ lived for God: When a reporter commented to Mother Teresa, looking at the dirtiest tasks that she was involved in, like washing the wounds and wiping the puss: 'Mother, even if they gave me a million dollars I would not be able to do this!', the Blessed of Kolkata seemed to have said: 'Even for a couple of those million dollars, I would not do this. I do this for the Christ whom I see in these faces'. Whether you eat or drink, do everything for the glory of God, invites St. Paul. Christ did all that he did, said all that he said, was all that he was, because it was God's will for him. That is the lesson for us too.

Living our life Christ like is challenging indeed. But if we strive with all our heart, sincerely and humbly, we too will be able to tell the world as did St. Paul: Be imitators of me as I am of Christ! (1 Cor 11:1). Will I ever grow to that level?