Sowing and Growing

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

August 10, 2024 - Celebrating Deacon St. Lawrence

2 Corinthians 9: 6-10; John 12: 24-26

The Deacon Martyr St. Lawrence gives us the occasion to hear yet another time this classical lesson that the Lord wishes to give us: what you sow you reap; what you are, you grow to be! It is important here to notice that the crucial element is not what we do or what we become, but what we are! This is what St. Paul calls, becoming a new person in Christ. To be so transformed in Christ and into Christ, that we would be seen as Christ, as another Christ, as alter christus! 

Every Martyr gives us this lesson: to die for Christ's sake. It does not mean only dying in the sense of losing one's life, but dying to oneself, dying to one's ego, dying to one's undue attachments, dying to one's fixed ideas, dying to one's weaknesses and fixations. That is martyrdom too... a martyrdom of a totally different nature, a martyrdom that is required of everyone. A martyrdom that has to be undertaken with a sense of gratitude and cheerfulness, inspite of the inconveniences it can cause. 

What have we sown around us? What are we growing into? Let us become aware of our sensibilities and check if we are cheerful givers, who are ready to give up, in order to grow up!

The true blessedness from God

WORD 2day: Friday, 18th week in Ordinary time

August 09, 2024 - Nahum 2:1-3, 3:1-3, 6,7; Matthew 16: 24-28

Today we hear the hope giving words of Nahum. But just a few days earlier we heard from Jeremiah a sharp criticism of the self proclaimed prophet Hananiah, saying the prophecies of prosperity can be accepted as such only after the things prophesied come to pass. However the words of Hananiah were soon proved to be mere search for popular acceptance!

Nahum's promise of the restoration of God's people comes combined with a call to be prepared, alert and girded. Jesus takes that a step forward to say, it takes a ready acceptance of the daily cross and a loving preparedness to walk in the ways of the Lord, to experience the true "blessedness" from God.

Prosperity, fame, popularity, joy, sense of fulfilment, peace and a sense of being loved... these are ofcourse signs of God's blessings...but they cannot be our focus in our daily life, instructs Jesus. When we strive to live acceptable in the eyes of God, all the rest will follow. What matters thus is... the true "blessedness" in the sight of God!

A heart worthy of the Covenant

WORD 2day: Thursday,  18th week in Ordinary time 

August 08, 2024: Jeremiah 31: 31-34; Matthew 16: 13-23

The day will come when you will not have to teach your loved ones to know God...for every one will know God in those days, promises the Lord. Jesus applauds Peter, saying his knowledge of Christ was exceptional, because it was God given! The day has come when Peter know who the Lord was, as we read in Jeremiah.

The reality is that, though God reveals Godself to us and we get to know God so intimately, our memories are so very fickle and short lived. We give into our human tendencies so easily and readily as if there were nothing so great between us and God! Our memories may be thus short, but not God's. God forgives, waits and readily renews the covenant that God has made with us.

The Lord promises to give us a new heart, a heart of flesh, a heart that takes after the sensibilities of God, a heart that sees as God does, a heart that hears as God does, a heart that feels as God does, a heart that loves as God loves... a heart that is worthy of the covenant that God has made with us.

The Remnant and the Rest

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 18th week in Ordinary Time

August 07, 2024: Jeremiah 31: 1-7; Matthew 15: 21-28

The Lord renews the covenant with the people inspite of their failures because the Lord had always loved them with an everlasting love. Today the Word warns us that those who will finally taste the fruits of God's faithfulness are the remnant and the rest of the people who come by and stick to the Lord.

The remnant are those who choose to differ from the mainstream inspired by a genuine conviction and sincere effort to be integral.

The rest are those who are least expected to be favoured in the eyes of the Lord. The world has its own criteria of judgement but the Lord has a totally different set of criteria... single minded dedication to the Lord, genuine love for God's people and authentic life after the mind of God.

Don't conform to the world; instead be transformed in Christ into new beings!

Called to burn, until consumed!

THE WORD AND THE FEAST 

August 6, 2024 - The Transfiguration of the Lord 
Daniel 7: 9-10, 13-14 (or) 2 Peter 1: 16-19; Matthew 17: 1-9

"A lamp shining in a dark place until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts" - a wonderful comparison that St. Peter presents to us. It would apply to our faith, our life of witness, our trust, our commitment to the Reign of God and every bit of our faith and its expression here and now, all leading us towards that eternal glory that awaits us as children of God (Jn 1:12), co-heirs with Christ (Rom 8:17), people meant for the future glory (Rom 8:18).

Our Christian life is rich and its richness will be lost if we lose the sense of mystery in understanding it. Mystery is not merely something that is unknown and incomprehensible, but it is something that is beyond all our rational calculations and empirical conditions; yet it is not totally alien from our experience; it is part of our lived experience, an experience we live on a daily basis, an experience that sustains our faith and offers meaning to our life.

The feast of Transfiguration is a symbol, a prefigurement and a surety of the glory that rests within us, as children of God. However, we are warned not to lose our grip on our daily living, on our concrete initiatives towards ushering in the Reign of God in the pretext of dreaming about a future that is glorious and splendid.

In practical terms, to be people transfigured is to live our lives with our eyes fixed on heaven and our feet planted firm on ground, to never lose the hope that the Lord offer in Himself and to never rest from our efforts to build the Reign of God here on earth. It is a call to burn until we are totally consumed, totally consumed for the sake of the mission that the Lord entrusts to us, consumed living our daily life to the full, empowering every person to live it to their full.

Being True Prophets

WORD 2day: Monday, 18th week in Ordinary time

August 5, 2024 - Jeremiah 28:1-17; Matthew 14: 13-21

The Word today reminds us of our call to be prophets... by the way, don't we really know that each of us baptised in the Spirit is called to be a priest, a prophet and a prince (or princess)? Of course, knowing is one thing, but being convinced of it is totally another thing.

Being a prophet is not speaking things that others would love to hear from us -like the so called fortune tellers and prediction prodigies do, to woo more and more customers. Jeremiah warns Hananiah today in the first reading against his false sense of prophecy! And we read the sad end of Hananiah. The Gospel has a symbolic message in the same lines.

Jesus chides his disciples for their lack of faith. It might look a bit too demanding on Jesus' part to expect the disciples to remain unperturbed when they are almost sinking. But the point that the Master makes is that his disciples should be perturbed by nothing, absolutely nothing!  "Let nothing disturb you", he would say. In today's world so immersed in numerous kinds of concerns, wouldn't it be prophetic to live a life so unperturbed! That would be indeed, being true prophets to this world.

Focus, Detachment and Fearlessnes

WORD 2day: Saturday, 17the week in Ordiary time

August 03, 2024 - Jeremiah 26: 1-11,16 ; Matthew 14: 1-12

Constant threat to life, drastic insecurities of life, total unacceptance from the rest of the so called normal people, pressures of helplessness... these form part of the usual plight of a prophet, not just in the days of Jeremiah and John the Baptist but even today. That explains why real prophets are a rare phenomenon. However, it is an undeniable and precarious fact that the difference between a true prophet and a self-righteous egoist is very thin and dangerously subtle.

The first element that can demarcate the two is the FOCUS. When Jeremiah spoke to the people and the princes, he never looked for support or people who can come to his defence. His focus was determinantly on what God wanted him to say and do, and nothing else. 

The second element is DETACHMENT from the result. Though the message is definitely pointed towards a change or a result, the prophet is not excessively anxious about it. At times a self righteous person can be on a ego trip claiming credits and proving his point. A true prophet desists this tendency naturally.

The third element is absolute FEARLESSNESS. A fearlessness that makes them hard people to handle for the authorities and the hierarchy. But that fearlessness comes from their unwavering trust, confidence and hope in the never failing presence of the Lord!

Hearing what I want to hear

WORD 2day: Friday, 17th week in Ordinary time

August 2, 2024 - Jeremiah 26: 1-9; Matthew 13: 54-58

An untoward development led me to read a bit about hearing and loss of hearing. The technicians explain that there are different kinds of hearing loss (deafness)... mild hearing loss, moderate hearing loss, moderately severe hearing loss, severe hearing loss and profound hearing loss! At times spiritually too these hearing losses can be calculated in a similar fashion, but we need to add one more crucial type of hearing challenge. That is, Selective Hearing Loss! Hearing only what I want to hear, or refusing to hear what I do not want to hear merely because it causes me inconvenience. This is the syndrome that we see prevalent in the people, in both the first reading and the Gospel.

When Jeremiah spoke to them about the impending danger and their need to return to the Lord, they deemed him liable to death. When Jesus spoke to them on issues that really challenged their daily life, they looked at him with suspicion and despised him for the "ordinariness" from which he hailed. They wanted to do away with him too!

The Word of God keeps rushing into our hearts. It would cleanse it, refresh it and fill it with life, if only we allow it to. If we are guarded, biased and suspicious, we would break no ground towards perfection. On this first friday of the month, let us allow the words from the Sacred Heart to fill us and challenge us, so that we may not fall prey to the syndrome of 'hearing merely what we want to hear'!

Living life in God's way

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

August 01, 2024 - Remembering St. Alphonsus Liguori

Jeremiah 18: 1-6; Matthew 13: 47-53

Have thine own way Lord, have thine own way

Thou art the potter, I am the clay

Mould me and make me, after thy will

while I am waiting yielded and still.

What a beautiful prayer it could be for us to make this day, inspired by the reading from Jeremiah and by the life of the saints we celebrate these days - St. Ignatius of Loyola yesterday and Alphonsus di Liguori today! Docility to the will of God is a sure way to sanctity that they propose.

In the parable that Jesus tells us today about the Reign of God, he brings out a fundamental element of either belonging to the Reign or not belonging to it. The angels will separate the good from the bad; the wicked from the righteous; the docile from the obstinate; the obedient from the rebellious; the discerning from the naive. 

It is said the hymn in heaven is, "I did it God's way"; while in hell it is, "I did it my way." The secret is here: doing it God's way! Living our life in God's way! 

Clarity amidst all confusions

THE WORD AND THE SAINT 

July 31, 2024 - Remembering St. Ignatius of Loyola

Jeremiah 15:10, 20-21; Matthew 13: 44-46

The first reading pictures to us Jeremiah as a person totally lost, confused, demoralised a bit and to an extent even at his wit's end. He speaks of how miserable he is and how he is surrounded by the evil doers and God-haters. However, amidst all these confusions, there is a constant clarity that is visible: the clarity that God is for him. He was convinced, whoever be against him, God was for him. As St. Paul puts it, "if God is for us, who can be against us?" (Rom 8:31). That clarity is the lesson today, also from the saint we celebrate, St. Ignatius of Loyola.

Once again falling back to the first reading we see that, Jeremiah endures all pain and suffering, all persecution and injustice for the sake of the mission entrusted to him, because he was confident that it was God who has entrusted it to him. Like the treasure hidden in the field and that exceptional pearl sighted among the rest, he had the promises of God well fixed in his mind. That was enough a reason for him to risk everything, even his life. Just as Ignatius who risked everything, because he found the Lord!

Not just Ignatius whom we celebrate today, but we have had great saints in history who have lived this life of prophecy, who have lived their lives in the midst of utter confusions and endless tribulations. All of them were ready to give up anything in life, or even give up their life, because they had unearthed an unbelievable treasure in the midst of that barren land, because they had sighted the most precious stone in the midst of all the deceiving glitters. 

If we find the Lord and encounter the Lord face to face, if we become aware of what the Lord has to offer us, we shall have that enviable clarity amidst confusion, which Ignatius had; and that alone would be enough for a meaningful living!