THE WORD AND THE FEAST

Rosary: a Childlike Prayer

Celebrating the Queen of the Holy Rosary: 7th October, 2017

Celebrating the feast of the Holy Rosary,  we can dwell on three reflections highlighted by the occasion. 

1. The Simplicity of the Prayer:

One of the prominent reasons this prayer has swept the heart of so many down the centuries is the simplicity. Not merely the repetition that is involved, but even the concentration that repetition enables, is a help for those who are not experts in praying to make a reasonable effort to pray. At times, personally I feel the presence of our blessed Mother so mysteriously close as I pray those beads...am certain this is an experience of many.

2. The Profundity of the Prayer:

The simplicity not withstanding the profundity of the prayer draws our attention. Pius V would summarise Rosary as the Synthesis of the Gospels. In fact, in meditating the four mysteries - the joyful, the luminous, the sorrowful and the glorious - we contemplate the entire salvation plan of the Father. The love of the Father comes so overwhelmingly filling our hearts as we contemplate each of those decades.

3. The Prayer of Victories:

The history of the Holy Rosary has a clue for us to understand the prayer better. This feast that celebrates the victory gained over enemies through prayer, was initially celebrated as Our Lady of Victories. Within a short while it was renamed the feast of Our Lady of Holy Rosary. The Holy Rosary is a weapon of victory over the enemies, especially the original enemy the devil, who wishes to win us over from the Eternal Love. 

Blessed Mother of the Holy Rosary, pray for us.

INTEGRITY OR SHAME

WORD 2day: 6th October, 2017

Friday, 26th week in Ordinary Time

Bar 1:15-22; Lk 10:13-16

Anyone has always the choice to make between Integrity and Shame. There is a tendency among people that it is more important to be careful than to be right. People choose to be right not because they are convinced of being right but because they do not want to get into trouble. Be it obeying traffic rules, or paying tax returns, or keeping to the social agreements or carrying out one's assigned duties, in everything people choose to do things in order to avoid consequences than to be true to their selves.

Can we follow the same logic with the Lord who knows our innermost thoughts, our unsaid words and our hidden motivations? Hence comes the whole concept of integrity: being right for the sake of being right, doing something because it is right than because it is acceptable, living out of conviction than in view of convenience. Obeying God has to come out of conviction, that is integrity. If I make use of the name of God and the practices pertaining to God for social acceptability or for my hidden agendas, I am far from integrity and the ultimate consequence will be shame. I live either in constant pressure of pleasing others or in constant fear of shame. Integrity frees me of this because truth will set you free! Look up to the Lord and you will never be put to shame! 

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

The Word Gladdens

Celebrating St.Faustina Kowalska : 5th October, 2017

Neh 8: 1-12; Lk 10: 1-12

The Word gladdens the heart because the Word is the Mercy of God, the Word is the Divine Mercy that revealed itself to St. Faustina Kowalska! When Ezra proclaimed the Word, along with the other levites and the priests, the people cried, not because they were sad but because they were gladdened by the Word. When Jesus sent his disciples to carry the good news to the villages two by two, he commissioned them to cure, heal and exorcise because taking the Word meant taking gladness to the people. 

The Word gladdens one's heart so much that it changes the lives of the one's who hear and understand it. The people heard it and when they understood it they wept, out of joy and gladness for the goodness that the Lord had shown them. The same happened to Sr. Faustina...she was so gladdened by the Word that she left everything and followed the Word. 

Helena Kowalska, who lived in Krakow, was 19 when she had the vision of the Crucified Lord and that was during a dance with her friends! She was transformed and that very night she left everything, her old life, her firends, her family, her place and moved to Warsaw, 85 kms away, because the Word told her. New place, strange circumstances but her heart was full of the vision and finally she landed up with the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy. The reason for the choice: she knew only that she was being led there. Soon the reason was clear too. By 22 she professed in the congregation as Sr. Faustina of the Blessed Sacrament(Faustina meant 'the fortunate one') and in 1931 her visions of Jesus as the King of Mercy began. The devotion to Divine Mercy began with these visions and today we know how profound this devotion has become. 

The Word, listened to and understood, gladdens our heart and changes our lives. How attentive is our listening, how humble is our understanding and how committed is our love for the Word?

The Saint of Peace - Happy Feast!

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

The Marks of Christ: Gentleness and Humility

Celebrating St. Francis of Assisi: 4th October, 2017

Gal 6: 14-18; Mt 11: 28-30

Francis of Assisi is considered a man who managed the maximum resemblance to Christ in his life, not so much due to the marks of the stigmata that he received from the Lord, but more due to the marks of Christ that he lived all his life - that is Gentleness and Humility. Learn from me for I am meek and humble of heart, invites Jesus in the Gospel today. 

Specially today, with the rising fanaticism around the world, we are called to imitate that gentleness and humility of the self emptying Lord. Don't think I am referring only to the fanatic terrorists who are threatening the peace of the world, but more to the fanatics in the garb of Christians, people who are insisting on rules and rubrics, legalities and orthodoxy, the ego and hierarchy, to such an extent that mercy and understanding, dialogue and compassion find no place within the practice of faith and religion. People refuse to see the truth that dialogue is not diluting, compassion is not compromise, instead dialogue and compassion are the ways to bear Christ to the world today, a world that is so torn by fundamentalism and inhumanity. 

Francis came at a time when the  Church was wounded due to various spiritual calamities within the Church in the 10th and the 11th century and he treated those wounds with the compassion of the Lord, the humility of the Son of God and the peace of the Prince of Peace. He showed us that the marks of Christ that all of us can bear in our life, are exactly these: to be instruments of peace, through love, pardon, faith, hope, light, joy, consolation and new life. 

May St. Francis assist us to understand the difference between true holiness and self righteousness, the distance between love and legalism and the need to move from being Christians to becoming Christ ourselves!

KNOWING GOD IS FROM WITHIN

WORD 2day: 3rd October, 2017

Tuesday, 26th week in Ordinary Time

Zech 8: 20-23; Lk 9: 51-56

Though Evangelisation is one great mission that is entrusted to every person who knows God, it is not a means to force anyone to get to know God. One cannot know God by force. In fact, attempting to make people know God by force only works against the very objective. Knowing God has to happen! It should come from within. The concerned person should feel the presence of God in and through the persons around, the situation around and the experiences that happen. Hence evangelisation essentially, is not making people know God but making people see what I have known about God, how I know God and as what I know God! 

Once I really experience God, know God and fall in love with God, people around me see the experience that makes such a difference for me, they wish to get to know God from me and begin to love the One whom I love, on their own. This is true evangelisation, and that comes from within because, without any doubt, knowing God is from within. 

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

God's ever present guidance

Celebrating the Guardian Angel - 2nd October, 2017

Zech 8: 1-8; Mt 18: 1-5,10

The readings today speak to us of God walking with the people, being with the people, walking the people to the new land... these are experiences of God that people have had in history that are explained in terms of the Guardian Angels. God's incessant presence and unfailing guidance is what we celebrate today. Jesus refers to that phenomenon in the Gospel and invites us to believe, accept and respect the presence of God through the Angels with us in our daily life. 

When we stand by the little ones, guide the confused, redirect the faltering, strengthen the tired, hold firm the drooping, uplift the downtrodden, encourage the heart broken, we would be playing Angels to these because we would be doing exactly what the Lord wants to do to them, we would be representing God's presence to them. This is what the Lord wants us to do - to feel the presence of the Lord when we are on a down trip, and to be the presence of the Lord when we notice someone on a losing ground. Let us believe in the Guardian Angels, experience the guardian angels and play the guardian angels!

WELCOME OCTOBER

THE CONTRAST COMMUNITY

True People of the Reign

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 1st October, 2017

Ezek 18:25-28; Phil 2: 1-11; Mt 21: 28-32

Beginning from last week Jesus would narrate to us a series of parables on the Reign of God, calling our attention to the fact of being deserving or not, towards being people of the Reign. Today we have another teaching, the need to choose between the constrasts presented today to be true people of the Reign.

Of what use is it to have been righteous, if we fall from that status in the walk of life. I am painfully reminded of persons in today's scenario who were once upon a time recognised by the whole world as persons of peace and persons dedicated to justice and truth, but today the very same persons joining hands with the evil, either actively or by remaining mysteriously mute. Instead it is better to be sinners but repent from there and reorganise our life in sincerity and grow more and more acceptable to God. This is what Ezekiel presents to us today - it is better to be penitent sinners than to be fallen righteous. 

Being leaders does not make us by default important people. Once again, the leaders we witness in today's scenario are sheer counter witness to the world. One threatening the world like a child playing with fire, the other going non-stop with the insinuations making the other more and more indignant -which of these is better? Aren't they both sailing on the same boat of madness, so self conceited that they care nothing about the common good and world peace? We have today the others around us, who get down to the streets and protest this madness, they put their own life at stake for the good of the common crowd, they don't mind losing time, energy, livelihood, comfort and consolation, provided they can make their choice for good crystal clear in life. They are like Christ who was ready to empty himself of everything for the sake of God's will. The choice is ours today, either to be self conceited leaders or to be self emptied servants - we know which one takes us closer to the Reign in Jesus' vision.

At times we run the risk of speaking too much, promising too much, propagating ourselves too much and justifying ourselves too much by our words and arguments. It would not be long before we realise how hypocritical we can get. Just because we are outspoken, we need not be right. The other day, someone sent me a link to a video. There was someone who was not mentioned by name on stage by another during a talk. When this person, who claims to be a VIP comes to speak, points out in public the fact that the other person did not mention his name. Immediately the latter apologises for it but the so-called VIP goes on to insult the person and attach judgements to the simple act of forgetfulness making the person feel so small on stage! What a hypocritical behaviour, while he goes on repeating sentence after sentence that he does not expect to be praised or respected or acknowledged. It was a sheer show of childishness more than being outspoken. There was someone else who had shared a view - she said, being straight forward does not mean being rude! One is saying the truth in such a way that it can be taken the other is saying the truth in such a way that I wish to establish it that only I know it. Preaching, judging, "filial correcting", all these are fine... but to what end? They are like the first son in the parable who shows off that he is so obedient and trustworthy by his empty words! Empty words and arguments won't take us far. What is important is to convert, to repent, to rethink our lives, look from Jesus' eyes, put on the mind of Christ, think as He would, act as He would, decide as He would and choose as He would, to be Silent and to go on doing the will of the Father - a silent servant rather than an outspoken hypocrite!

We are caught between contrasts today. We need to make up our minds, each of us, to which community we would like to belong? To those persons who are on the side of power and domination or to the community of persons who are still struggling to be heard, who are suffocated due to their hunger and thirst for true justice, who are trying to voice their feeble cry towards true peace and well being. If I have to be truly close to the Reign I need to choose between these contrasts: to be a penitent sinner than to be a fallen righteous, to be a self emptying servant than to be a self conceited leader, and to be a silent convert than to be an outspoken hypocrite!

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

The Glory and the Cross

Celebrating St. Jerome - 30th September, 2017

Zech 2: 5-9,14-15; Lk 9: 43-45

For a true Christian glory and the cross have to coexist constantly. One cannot lose himself or herself in the glory of a moment, being misled into orientations that do not help their ultimate salvation. At times this is seen very much in people who are in a position to claim glory from things that happen around them. Think of the parish priests and other pastors who are so keen on putting up buildings and structures that would speak of their glory, to a detrimental effect on their pastoral care of the people entrusted to them! Don't be carried away, Jesus warns the disciples. He says, beyond this glory and praise, there is suffering which is the only way to salvation. Striving for it, taking control of our passions and inclinations, making choices that are difficult and never losing sight of the ultimate goal towards which we are all traversing, are the essential marks of a true Christian. Even amidst the glories that come along, these orientations should never be lost. 

Looking at the Saint we celebrate today, St. Jerome, was a contemporary of St. Augustine and had written as much as Augustine himself. The first translation of the entire Bible into Latin was by Jerome. A queer fact I was fascinated looking at some of the paintings of Jerome was, that we see a skull all the time around him, either on his bed or on his working table. And what was the reason - that which we are reflecting on from the readings: to never lose sight of the ultimate goal we are moving towards. As a hermit, Jerome often reminded himself of death and that is the symbolism of the skull. He would remind himself that death is always around and he cannot lose his orientation in life. He fixed his eyes on the will of God and fulfilled it to perfection, putting up with numerous difficulties for the sake of the Word and the Will of God.