PREPARING FOR THE MOMENT OF TRUTH

Living the moment in love!

Second Sunday in Advent: 9th December, 2018

Baruch 5: 1-9; Philippians 1: 4-6,8-11; Luke 3: 1-6

'PREPARE' is the call that dominates this season! Every time a natural or social disaster pays us a visit, there is a widespread feeling that we were not prepared enough for it in spite of the warnings we have had. Almost immediately, discussions and finger-pointing fills all news channels and daily pages. The second reading and the Gospel today invite us to prepare, while the first reading and the Gospel tell us how to prepare! Yes, we are preparing to celebrate the coming of the Lord, and we are preparing for the coming of the Lord too, that is the coming of the Reign of God... but what does this preparing truly mean and what is its real end!

Preparing: I remember as young lads, just out of our secondary schooling but in the seminary, once we had a serious discussion (at least we thought it was serious!). It was this: On the 15th of August we would stage every year a 3 act play and that would involve at least two months of preparation, at the end of which we would stage the 2 hour play and everything would end with it. The discussion was that we found it disproportionate that we "waste" two months on something that would just be done and dusted in just two hours: the memorising of the script, the rehearsals, the making of the scenes, the gathering of the props, the publicity, and every thing, just for two hours of a show? And as if we were more serious than our formators in using our time well, we argued that it was a waste of time and a fruitless labour! It is not the argument that I remember as much as the lovely explanation given by our formators. It is not about the play that your are preparing for, the very preparation is a drama that you are learning from! I think of this every time I feel a process gets tedious. We are preparing too: not to celebrate that day, December 25th and forget about it and keep busying ourselves with the next act in the play. This preparation has to become an experience in itself.

The Moment: Whatever we may say, all preparation is towards a moment and it is the depth of that moment that justifies the amount of preparation that goes into it. This is natural. And we are preparing for a moment; not just any moment but a moment of truth. A moment that would redefine entire history and renew every bit of the reality. If we mean preparing is getting ready in advance for the sake of facing a situation, then it involves imagining what that situation is going to be, understanding the various elements that would be involved and habituating oneself towards those situations already now... in short, it is living that moment already now! The Lord has instructed us time and again, to be prepared for the coming of the Lord in glory. The 'Coming' is going to be glorious and demanding too... because we would have to render an account for everything that we were given with and the way we have responded to it. Imagine someone you respect much, is about to visit your personal room: what would you do? You would be pushing dust under the carpet, stuffing clothes into the closet, dumping books into our cupboards and make the room look presentable. But this is not the preparing that we are called to today. Preparing cannot be a cosmetic alteration that stays just skin deep. It is a fundamental transformation because what we are preparing towards is not just a passing event or a momentary experience, it is the ultimate end, the climax towards which everything is going, the Reign which every one and every being is longing for. Hence it is a moment, but a moment of truth that is going to change every other moment that would follow!

Living the moment in love: To prepare, in Reign-terminology would be, to live the moment here and now... that is the task that St. Paul entrusts to himself and to us. The only preparation that is good enough for the coming of the Lord or the only preparation that can truly lead us towards the coming of the Reign of God, is beginning to live the Reign right here and already now. And that is done by growing in true love... love which means giving and not getting, reaching out and not receiving, leveling and not proving oneself; it is straightening and not manipulating, simplifying and not complicating, feeling for and with the other and not feigning sorrow; it is making life better for the other and not making a life out of the other. True love is a forgetfulness... a forgetfulness of harm done or good left undone, a forgetfulness of the struggles one has gone through while coming to face with the present struggles of another, a forgetfulness that does not so much think of repaying as of responding to the present need of a person. 

After all the reflection, what do you think? To prepare - does it not mean, to live the moment in anticipation? Let us heed to the Word. Let us prepare...prepare ourselves for that moment of truth, a moment when our whole world will be transformed in true love. Let us keep growing into God's people, towards being signs of God's Reign here on earth, living the moment, here and now, in love! 

Celebrating the Immaculate Conception

The WORD and the FEAST

8th December, 2018: Genesis 3:9-15,20; Ephesians 1: 3-6, 11-12; Luke 1:26-38

3 Lessons from the Feast of Immaculate Conception of Our Blessed Mother:

- In God there are no Compromises: Mercy of God does not mean compromises. In our normal parlance, God does not make adjustments. God sets things right, expiates and blots of offences in God's mercy but when it comes to being in the presence of the Lord there can be no compromises. I remember in our early seminary days, there used to be a way of saying, going back to Don Bosco's times, that this day Mary will sweep the salesian house. Though we used to poke fun saying we need not do our daily chores, we all understood the point. The purity and integrity of the persons in the house will be put to check by our Blessed Mother - that was the trust. Just to say, this feast is all about an absolute choice for God.

- In God there are no Impossibilities: Giving an unassailable justification a Doctor of the Church would say about Immaculate Conception God could do it and God did it! Keeping a person totally safe from the trace of original sin is purely grace! Mary received this grace for the sake of and by the merits of the Son of God whom she was destined to bear. It was a choice of this person called Mary, as St. Paul puts it, 'before the foundation of the world'.

- In God there are Wonders: God has great wonders in store for us. All that we need to do is give our humble and total assent. How many graces we miss with our stubbornness and selfishness. Though it was grace that kept Mary away from Original Sin, it was Mary's choice of God and God's purposes that kept her pure in her day to day life. That was her 'Yes' to the call of God. 

Mary herself proved the veracity of this truth taught by the Church through the great progress of events. It was in 1850 that the dogma was defined by the Church and Mary made an uneducated, little peasant girl Bernadette use the same words merely four years later - at the series of apparitions in Lourdes in 1858 (that strikes... 160 years). May our Blessed Mother continue to inspire us to remain pure, joyful and grace filled.

The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #6

Open your eyes and truly see

First Friday in Advent: 7th December, 2018
Isaiah 29: 17-24; Matthew 9: 27-31

Living the Reign here and now, requires that we open our eyes and truly see, see what the Lord continuously does for us, see all the goodness that still rests around in spite of, and right in the midst of, all disastrous events that surround us. 

Continuing to speak of our troubles, I cannot forget that moment when I met a family in deep misery after a monstrous flood. They had their house filled with 3 feet water, rendered homeless; they stood with their two children on the street with knee high water flowing past them. I was wondering what sort of bitter experience they would harbour, after all  such scenes of misery and vulnerability. To my surprise they said, even before I spoke: God be praised, for so many things far worse from which we have been spared! They had some special eyes, I felt!

For, he shall see what my hands have done in his midst, says the first reading today. It is a special capacity to be able to see the hand of God in our daily experience. We should be given the vision, healed from our blindness and the Lord alone can enable us in this regard. All that we can do for ourselves, and for those whom we know to be totally blind in this regard, is to pray ardently to the Lord, "Lord that we may see!" Because only when we open our eyes and truly see, can we begin to live the Reign here and now!

The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #5

Place your trust on the Rock

First Thursday in Advent: 6th December,  2018

Isaiah 26: 1-6; Matthew 7: 21, 24-27

Living the Reign here and now, means founding our lives on the Rock, right now and right here! We seem to have two kinds of logic that operate within us simultaneously... one which is a practical logic and the other spiritual logic. The former rules our daily life and the latter only our so-called prayer moments... unfortunately they hardly meet each other.

The way things are done today and the things that practically work today seem to suggest that there are ways and means to get things done rather than trusting them into God's hands. We worry and fret about things as if everything depended on us and as if they are totally within our capacity. We tend to think of God only at the end of it all,  when we feel nothing else had really worked! 

Trust is not having resort to the Lord at the end of everything, but entrusting everything into God's will right from the beginning, right from the time we set about on a task! It is to feel at every moment the ground beneath us, standing strong and prodding us along amidst difficulties. It cannot be a mere crisis-management. 

Trust in the Lord forever, the Lord is the everlasting Rock, says the first reading; while the Gospel challenges us to move from a fake and shallow relationship with God towards founding our lives on the rock! Founding our lives on the Rock,  trusting the Lord our Rock,  does not mean an empty jargon or a figure of speech. It is a concrete dependence on the Lord and the Lord's will on a daily basis, convinced to do just what the Lord wants and whatever the Lord wants. Thus we shall begin to live the Reign here and now!

The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #4

Learn to Hope in God

First Wednesday in Advent: 5th December, 2018

Isaiah 25: 6-10; Matthew 15: 29-37

Living the Reign here and now, needs a tremendous dosage of hope! Moments like those that we have seen recently, like the Gaja cyclone in Tamilnadu-India or the wildfire in California, they keep happening in regualar intervals and these days in greater frequency: people stranded, held up,  locked in, left without anything to eat or nowhere to stay or no livelihood to hold on to... at these moments despair can get the better of us. 

I am looking at where I come from... the whole heated discussion of the rising level of intolerance in India and the debates and demonstrations for and against it, is yet another despair inducing scenario. The increasing conditions of inhumanity and violence in the world and the lack of transparent and righteous coalitions against evil, is an alarming state of affairs! 

I remember once, amidst such kind of an experience, receiving a message from a person explaining all private initiatives and possibilities of disaster management... the person was a non-Christian but the message ended with a quote: 'if God is for us who can be against us'. That is hope! And coming from a non Christian person, it was truly powerful.

Christian living and thinking is all about hope. Waiting for the Lord is all about hope. Hoping in the Lord is not a leap in the dark, it's seeing the light that comes through or being determined to pick up the first streak of light that pierces through, identifying that silver lining however thin and subtle it could be.

Hope makes us authentically Christians... fear strips us of it. We need to learn every day and every moment, to hope in God and doing that we would be able to live the Reign here and now!

The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #3

Get to know the Lord

First Tuesday in Advent: 4th December, 2018

Isaiah 11: 1-10; Luke 10: 21-24

Living the Reign here and now, necessarily requires that we get to know God, get to know God for real! When we know God for real, our attitudes will be different. There will be no harm done to another in the presence of the Lord. 

Just because someone is different from me, I find a reason to hate that person or keep that person away from me - that is the tendency of the world today. It is a clear sign of people having moved far from the real knowledge of God. 

We have become too sophisticated to perceive the Lord, who is revealed precisely in simplicity. Unless we grow to be children, we will not get to know the Lord truly. We would know things, speak of things, explain complicated theology, solve mysteries and metaphysical issues, invent concepts and discover phenomena, but we will never know God for real! Let us grow to be children and we will get to know God!  

Let us not confuse between knowing about God and knowing God - they are two different things and one can never, never become the other. At times, even the most religious of us, are satisfied with knowing about God, reading up, discussing , arguing, defending, convincing and so on...but fall short of knowing God. Knowing God is getting in touch with God, growing in God's mentality, thinking in the way God would want us to think, seeing things that God would want us to see and hearing those that God would want us to hear. It is only then we begin to live the Reign here and now!

The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #2

COME, WALK IN THE LIGHT

First Monday in Advent, December 3, 2018

Isaiah 2: 1-5; Matthew 8: 5-11

Living the Reign here and now, is the call we have this Advent and the first way given to us, to accomplish that is to heed to the call that the Word gives us today: Come, walk in the Light!

Walking in the Light is walking in the presence of Christ, the Light! Isaiah speaks of a people who walk in the Light as the New Jerusalem, the City of God, the promised land... various names for the Reign of God! Reign of God is amidst us when we begin to walk in the light, walk according to the words of the Light! 'You say and it shall be done! You say and my servant shall live! You say and everything shall be new!'

Yes, when the Lord says and we commit to live by what the Lord says, everything shall be new, everyone shall be healed and the humanity shall be whole again! That is the Reign we look forward to, the fullness of life. This is the week of hope, in Advent. A week that invites us to hope in the Lord, await the light of the Lord, the light which is already here, all for us to receive and reflect.

We have a lovely example in St. Francis Xavier whom we celebrate this day: a man like the centurion in the Gospel - who came to know the Lord late - but once he knew him, his commitment was total, absolute, without any compromise whatsoever! That is walking in the Light! 

All that we need to do today is, decide and commit ourselves to walk in the light! And doing so, we shall live the Reign here and now!

STANDING ON THE PROMISES OF THE LORD

Alert, Ready and Firm!

First Sunday in Advent - 2nd December, 2018

Jer 33:14-16; 1 Thess 3:12 - 4:2; Lk 21: 25-28, 34-36

A fresh new liturgical year at hand! 

Let us begin to celebrate it. On the first day of this liturgical year, the reminder from the Word is: we are standing on the promises of the Lord. We begin the season of Advent, which is a call to wait, of course! But it is not a wait that has nothing to do with the present... it is a wait that is filled with hope, which affects that present. We begin to live already here and now, what we await. We are called to live the Reign that we await, right here and right now!

Advent is a season of waiting, waiting on the Lord for the fulfillment of promises. Just as the people of God waited for the centuries, we are called to wait for the Lord. The world however is growing increasingly impatient. 

There was a documentary which went viral a couple of years back... that of an 8 year old boy in Armenia, who was at school when a treacherous earth quake occurred. To the absolute dismay of the father of this boy who rushed to the school premises immediately, the school was nothing but rubbles, piles and piles of stones in a heap. But the father chose a spot and started removing the stones bit by bit... in spite of all the discouragements offered and despair thrown at him, he went on constantly doing it for the next 38 hours! After 38 hours of rummaging, suddenly he heard this voice from the rubble: 'see, didn't I tell you my father will surely not abandon us' and he was stunned to see his son with 12 others trapped under the debris.

Under debris, or boulder blocks, or totally in ruins... the challenge is to remain with HOPE... that we are standing on the promises of the Lord, the Lord our integrity.

1. PROMISES

Promises give meaning to life, they add an element that is not yet but already. A promise to a child will get that child do anything. A promise to a youngster will motivate that youngster into action. A promise to an employee will draw the utmost from the situation. A promise to the polity will gain parties votes. Promise is something that inspires action. We begin with a promise, a promise of a whole year of the Lord's accompaniment. The first reading invites us  to a hope that the Lord is serious about fulfilling the Lord's promises.

2. STANDING

Stand with confidence before the Son of Man, says the Gospel today. We are standing - that takes three dispositions: One, that we are alert. We do not allow people to deceive us, or we do not permit the situation around us to have the better of us. We remain awake and perceive everything that is going on, picking up every sign that the Lord gives towards action. The second disposition, that we are ready and on the move because our liberation is at hand reminds the Gospel again. It is time that we see not only the history but the Lord of history in action, that we perceive the hand of God in things that are happening around us. Thirdly, that we are firm, strong and standing erect! That we are not overcome by fear or trepidation. We are standing, sure of our steps because we have a promise from the Lord and we need not be shaken.

3. THE LORD

The Lord our Integrity... it is the Lord who gives us these promises and we are sure that they will be fulfilled because we are referring to the Lord our integrity: Jehova Tsidkenu, the Righteous one (Jer 23:6). We have a sure foundation because it is the Lord who promises, the Lord who is Integrity, the Lord who is Righteousness. The Lord is faithful forever.

There could be signs of destruction every where, there could be evil seen thriving all over, there could be difficulties multiplying in all directions, there could be traps set all around for the just to fall and rise no more, there could be plotters and plunderers right at our door steps, there could be powers and principalities hatching together plans to destroy truth and seize control over humanity... but nothing shall triumph, nothing that overtake you, for you are standing on the promises of God! The Lord's promise is the eternal covenant: For I shall be your God, you shall be my people!

We are standing on the promises of the Lord; we have nothing to fear however dark and dreary the situation may seem. The Lord our integrity is constantly watching over us and waiting to fulfill all God's promises! 

Alarming or Life-giving; Hyper-action or Inaction?

Last day in the Ordinary time of the Year

December 1, 2018: Revelations 22: 1-7;  Luke 21: 34-36

Behold I am coming soon! At times it annoys when I hear people go hysteric about this statement. It is not a statement to make every one panic, but a gentle reminder as to how one should live one's daily life. St.Paul understood this well and instructed the Thessalonians: "For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. ...But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness" (1 Thess 5:2,4).

We are on the last day of the liturgical year, from tomorrow we begin a whole new cycle. Last day, last days, last chance and last moments... these are words with a bit of alarm inbuilt. Jesus does shake us up a little, warning us of things that will happen in the last days. Alarming yes, but at the same time life giving, says the Word today. 

These words mean that neither inaction nor hyper action is expected of us; neither panic nor drowsiness! It is not a call to live your life on pins and needles, anxious about the next moment; nor is it a call to live our life in mourning and bewailing for the lost moments. The call is to make the best of this moment and live the 'here and now' to the full, conscious and loving. That is the sense that the Gospel presents us: be vigilant at all times! Neither inaction, which is the product of lamentation of the past, nor hyper-action which is a frenetic preparation for an unknown future at the cost of the present, would help us says the Word today. 

If we are prepared, holding on to the Lord and living in perfect communion with the Lord, then we need not be alarmed, we can remain firm with our heads high, we can rest assured whatever time it be, our experience will only be life giving. When there are, or there have been, compromises in our way of life and our choices, then the alarm is natural and eventual.The secret is to live our lives as children of the light, calm and composed, but awake and vigilant!

Signs of the times...

Friday, 34th week in Ordinary time

November 30, 2018: Revelations 20: 1-4, 11- 21;  Lk 21: 29-33

One of the key terms insisted upon by the second Vatican Council is "signs of the times" and the Council itself tried its best to be true to the spirit of that term. The Council challenged the faithful and the church as a whole to learn to read the signs of the times and respond to it.

We think today that signs from the Lord are few and far between. The truth instead is, the signs abound: in our daily lives, through things that happen around us, through persons who live with us, those who live worthy lives, those who suffer for no cause of theirs, those who are oppressed, those who have scores and scores of woes to meet on a daily basis, through the  crisis we see in the nature around us, through the humanity that is pushed into a hue and cry that is so artificial and human made... there are signs aplenty, provided we are ready to perceive them.

Our responsibility is two fold: first to learn to gather these signs, as coming from the Lord! At times even the crises that come all against us will serve its purpose and have a whole lot of meaning, if we have this attitude towards gathering the signs from the Lord, from everything that is and happens around us. 

Secondly to act upon these signs, respond to them, regardless of the risks and the sacrifices that are involved. We are so negligent in this second part that we habituate ourselves to become blind to the signs that are around. We prefer to pacify ourselves saying, 'do not expect extraordinary signs' rather than say, 'be attentive to every sign and diligent in working on them'. 

Whether we gather them or not, respond to them or not, they are there! We would do well as true sons and daughters of the Reign, if we are present to them and through them strive to build the Reign here and now.