MERCILENT 2016 - 12th February

BE INTEGRAL: Mean what you say and do what you believe

Friday after Ash Wednesday

Is 58: 1-9; Mt 9:14-15

Prayer, Penance and Philanthropy... all three are tricky! They can be performed or they can be lived, depending on our personal disposition. What am I aiming at? A personal satisfaction at doing these? A social affirmation in being faithful to these? An appeasing of my conscience in being rigorous with these? In a special manner the Word today deal with Penance - are they means to prove my prowess? 

Isaiah blasts all egocentric motivations for penance: the sense of achieving great feats in fasting and abstinence means nothing when those practices do not lead me to true relationships and compassionate disposition towards others. What would it matter if I fast the whole day but all through the day get frustrated with everyone around me and keep yelling in anger against all? How would it be if I make sacrifices but am all the time conscious of the sacrifice I have made and serious about making it known to everyone around me? Will it really matter if I am doing great things in the name of penance this whole day, but can't spend a loving moment with persons around me who deserve or need it?

By penance, we mean to say: I wish to reduce myself and my needs, that I may encounter the Lord more in and through persons and situations around me! Do I even notice the Lord present around when I am busy telling the world I am making penances this day! Let me notice the bridegroom present with me: let me be integral in my prayer, penance and philanthropy.

The Mercilent Attitude for today: Smile at others from your heart.

MERCILENT 2016 - 11th February

BE PRO-LIFE: Choose Life even if it means Death

Thursday after Ash Wednesday
Dt 30: 15-20; Lk 9: 22-25

One of the pronounced acts of mercy is being pro-life! The readings today give us a precious insight into being pro-life.

Being Pro-life is not merely not killing someone or something. It is promoting life in all its forms, and specially in its fullness. While the first reading says the Lord has set both life and death in front of us, for us to choose, Jesus says he chooses to die! In choosing to die, he infact was choosing to live to the full and give life to all of us, life in all its fullness. 

The message that Jesus offers us is very clear: choose life, even if it means death. Even if you have to die, or sacrifice, or suffer, or be antagonised, be hated, be branded negatively...choose to stand by life, be a pro-lifer! Anything that stops you from living your life to the full, be it your so called situation,or your personal attitude, it needs to challenged. For yourself, for others and for every one around you, wish life in its fullness and work towards ensuring it. 

The Mercilent Attitude for today: Be Pro-life!

MERCILENT 2016

I desire Mercy, not sacrifice!

Ash Wednesday : 10th February, 2016

Wish you a Merciful Lent - Mercilent 2016!

May the season we start today, be a season of mercy! We are invited to receive the Mercy of God, experience it so intimately that we share with it authentically. 

God our Father and Mother declares, 'I desire Mercy and not sacrifice' and our Lord and Saviour invites us to go and learn its true meaning! (cf. Mt 9: 13)

Lent is not all about myself and all what I do for my own sake! It is about others, it is about the Other. It is about growing towards the Father, it is growing to be like the Father.

PRAYER: Prayer is to grow towards the Father: more open and more docile. It is growing out of myself, growing out of my petty plans and enslaving self image!

PENANCE: Penance is to grow to be like the Father... thinking more about the others and the Other. Convinced that I should decrease and He should increase, we grow to be more and more like the Father: merciful, loving, kind and forgiving!

PHILANTHROPY: Love of persons around, is an easy way to grow out of oneself! It is in being sensitive to the needs and struggles of the other, that we learn to perspectivise those that are our own! Every good deed that we do should take us to higher plane of living our Christian life: forgetting our own wants and reaching out to the more needy. 

WORD 2day : 8th February, 2016

To Rest or to Reach out

Fifth Monday in Ordinary Time
1 Kgs 8:1-7,9-13; Mk 6 : 53 -56

The first reading speaks of the first temple built for the Lord... ever since, it had been a point of contention. However, how do we understand the temple for the Lord: a place of rest for God? Would that be a good way to understand?

In contrast to the established temple in the first reading,  we have a wandering Lord in the Gospel. Could anyone stop Jesus from his work... no one could -they only thought he was going out of his mind.

Jesus considers reaching out to people compelling and urgent. There was a constant urge in his heart to move on. He wished to build his resting place amidst the cries and woes of people, sickness and sadness of the afflicted, trials and troubles of their daily lives. Let us learn to see the Lord dwelling in true and sincere encounters.

CALLED

An identity, a mission and a promise...

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time: 7th February, 2016
Is 6: 1-8; 1 Cor 15: 1-11; Lk 5: 1-11

We are called...by our very existence, our choices, our upbringing, our traditions, our context, our experiences, our adventures, our explorations, our convictions and our challenges... we are called! On a daily basis, we need to become aware of this call and respond to it whole heartedly!

Our calling is our identity...not merely a tag! A tag is not our identity, it changes as often as we decide or others decide to! Our call determines our identity, our deep seated understanding of ourselves

Our calling is our mission...not merely a job! Mission is life long, it is a process and not merely a performance. It is our life, its journey, its twists and its turns, its ups and its downs, its ebb and its flow: it is the way we live our life!

Our calling is a promise...not merely the present! There is much to look forward to, there are things that are unexpected, there is a need to put out into the deep and just wait for a surprise! 

The Lord who has called is there all the time, let us adventure in the Spirit!

WORD 2day : 6th February, 2016

The Strange Choices

Remembering St. Gonsalo Garcia
1 Kgs 3: 4-13; Mk 6: 30-34

The choices we make are based on the priorities we hold. We are aware of so many psychological testing based on the types of choices a person makes, leading to the reasons and applications of the same into an analysis.

Today in the Word,  we have some strange choices: Solomon who chooses a less attractive but more divine choice; Jesus who makes a tiring tough choice of being with people; the apostles who have just returned from hectic outing but glad to be with Jesus once again... and another group whom we celebrate today, Paul Miki and companions who chose to die for the sake of the Gospel. Incidentally among this group we have the first proclaimed Indian saint : St. Gonsalo Garcia.

When we are united with the Lord, in heart and mind, our choices will be strange and people will notice it. Don't be alarmed, we do have company!

WORD 2day : 4th February, 2016

The Handing over

Remembering John de Britto
1 Kgs 2:1-4,10-12; Mk 6:7-13

David hands it over to Solomon;  Jesus hands it over to his apostles;  the Apostles have handed it over to us! We have to take it forward! While Jesus gives a long prescription of how to take it forward,  David sums it all up or the Lord sums it all up to David in a phrase: “If your sons are careful how they behave, and walk loyally before me with all their heart and soul"... that's the key!

Persons like John de Britto,  St Thomas and others who had come to India and given up their lives are examples for us to live what is handed over to us. The key that the first reading gives us is absolute. It binds me in my conscience not merely in my external behaviour. Living for God is proclaiming God;  living for God's Reign is establishing God's Reign here and now!

WORD 2day : 3rd February, 2016

Misleading Mentalities

4th Tuesday in Ordinary Time
2 Sam 24:2,8-17; Mk 6: 1-6

I come in the name of the Lord -that was David when he began his adventure with the Lord. Today we see him counting his strength. He seems to be taking stock of what and how much he could achieve, as if all that he had achieved till then were purely because of his own capabilities!

The people who encountered Jesus could not but be amazed...but those who have always seen Jesus growing amidst them refused to be amazed inspite of the great things that happened. They did not believe in their own people being so blessed. Truth had to be told by someone who came from elsewhere! They suspected their own capabilities.

Both these are misleading mentalities: the Lord has blessed us with qualities and capabilities that is for the good of all and we need to put them to use... mindful always of the fact that these came from the Lord and it is for the Lord's purposes they have to be used.

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

2nd February, 2016

Mal 3: 1-4; Heb 2: 14-18; Lk 2: 22-40

The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord
The Closure of the Year of Consecrated Life

The readings of today were offered for our reflection only recently, on the 8th day after Christmas. They are given once more today, but they open a whole new perspective today with all that surrounds it liturgically today!

We celebrate the feast of the presentation of the Lord and the close of the year of Consecrated Life that Holy Father Pope Francis announced from Dec, 2014.

Keeping all of them in perspective, we have one lovely challenge posed: the Challenge of Total Offering to the Lord. Not just persons in Consecrated Life, but every one of us is called to offer ourselves totally to God and that alone can give us true meaning and happiness in life.

From the readings of today, we can pick up three signs of our total offering to the  Lord:

Familiarity: As the Holy Family which enters the Temple with that ease and eagerness to perform their spiritual duty, so are we called to remain always familiar with the Lord.

Flexibility: Performing the duty was not merely a ritual, even for us it shouldn't be so! We are called to be pliable in the hands of God, as malleable as the silver and gold in the hands of the smith, so that we can become what the Lord wants us to.

Filiality: It is towards filiality, we are ultimately invited to, as the letter to the Hebrew reminds us. This filiality inspired and enthused Jesus to belong to God totally and we are called to imitate the same self-giving!

Let us grow more and more, familiar, flexible and filial. 

WORD 2day : 1st February, 2016

The Curse of Compromise

4th Monday in Ordinary Time
2 Samuel 15:13-14,30,16:5-13; Mk 5:1-20

The society today has many issues to sort but if there is something that seems to be having apparently no solution, it is the curse of compromises. It has no solution because one does not see it as a problem,  and  at times we find unlimited justification for such compromises.

Just because Saul was a Benjaminite,  today we see a man cursing David on Saul's account forgetting and justifying all that Saul did against David. How many compromises are made just because someone is on my side,  known to me or related to me!

The people in the Gospel were ready to live with the demoniacs and their troubles... they didn't want too much of disturbance in their cosy lives. They even ask Jesus to leave their neighbourhood because Jesus was making everything new. They were more for compromises.

The world has begun to put up with anything. They compromise on everything for certain gains and calculations. Would Jesus like that?  Or would we give up on Jesus due to this curse of compromise!