THE GREAT ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE

The touchstone of Sanctity

October 13, 2019: 28th Sunday in Ordinary time

2 Kings 5:14-17; 2 Timothy 2:8-13; Luke 17: 11-19

Spiritual life is made of a set of attitudes that make up who we are! The touchstone of an authentically spiritual person lies in the virtue that the Word of God speaks to us of today: the great attitude of Gratitude... gratitude for every goodness that one experiences, gratitude to the Source of all that one has and one is: God! "What do you have that you did not receive?" asks St. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 4:7)... hence, the very touchstone of sanctity can easily be true sense of gratitude.

Gratitude is born of a Humble Recognition of God! Namaan was asked to dip in river Jordan and he felt offended because his pride ruled his will. But when he listens to that word from the Man of God, humbling himself for that moment, he recognised the presence of the Mighty God. It is only when I am humble, I recognise God and that recognition of God makes me more humble in turn! 

Gratitude is expressed in Grateful Submission to God! An authentic outcome of immense gratitude is total submission to God for the marvels that God has done to us. We see the man in the Gospel, just one out of the ten of them - "he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks" (v.16). What happened to the rest? Either they did not realise they were healed or they did not realise that the healing was a gift! This Samaritan heart realised the gratuitous miracle and recognised the hand of God - and the result was, a grateful submission at the feet of Jesus.

Gratitude leads to a Faithful Perseverance in God's ways! "Rise and go your way, your faith has made you well" (v.19) says Jesus, commissioning him to be an apostle to the World. That is the commission we receive every time we experience the grace of God in our personal lives - to go into the world and share the Word of God, 'that the word of God may not be fettered' (cf. 2 Tim 2:9). It is the gratitude for the goodness that we have experienced in the Lord that makes us persevere, amidst all troubles and trials we might face. Our perseverance is not so much because we are faithful to the Lord, as because the Lord is faithful to us, reminds St. Paul in the second reading (2 Tim 2:13). 

A grateful heart is a humble heart and a humble person will ever be a God-filled person and a God-filled person is marked by his or her courage and strength to persevere. That is why gratitude, a true sense of gratitude can be considered the touchstone of sanctity! Today, the Church invites us to recognise this sanctity as lived by five persons... as they are canonised as saints, that is persons who have lived their virtues to an heroic level and have become our models and intercessors.

Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890), lived half of his life as an Anglican before he converted to Catholicism in October 1845. In his humility he recognised the truth and was strong enough to go after it and he becomes a giant of sanctity from the 19th Century.

Mother Mariam Thresia (1876-1926), was an Indian mystic and founder of the Congregation of the Holy Family. In her faithful perseverance as an apostle of God's merciful love and compassion, she shines out as a model of true Christian living.

Ms. Marguerite Bays (1815-1879), was a Swiss lay woman who belonged to the Secular Franciscan Order, working as a seamstress. She was an ardent catechist who in her grateful and total submission to the Lord received the grace of the stigmata and united herself to the sufferings of the Lord from 1854 right up to her death.

Mother Giuseppina Vannini (1859-1911), was a Sister from Rome who founded the Congregation of the Daughters of St. Camillus. In her faithful perseverance she endured her health conditions and sought to serve others in sickness, even at the risk of her own life. 

Sister Dulce Lopes (1914-1992), was a Sister from Salvador, Brazil, belonging to the Congregation of the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God. Despite her humble life style, due to her dedication and commitment, she was nominated for a Nobel Prize! In 2010, when her body was exhumed for beatification, it was found intact and her grateful submission to the Lord and suffering people of God, has taken her evermore closer to God.

Learning to look deeper into our daily life and recognise the miracles that happen in abundance; putting up with daily crosses with the image of the Crucified Saviour in our hearts; placing ourselves each day at the feet of Jesus to be sent into the world as messengers of his loving Word - that is growing into Spiritual persons, Saintly persons. Certainly, gratitude for all the goodness we experience is the touchstone of this spirituality, of this sanctity. 

Let us heed the call of the Word today, increase our sense of gratitude and grow into authentic spiritual persons, in other words, saints! 

The call to be Blessed

WORD 2day: Saturday, 27th week in Ordinary time

October 12, 2019: Joel 4: 12-21; Luke 11: 27-28

"To hear the word of God and keep it," invites the Liturgy. Today, with the Synod of the Pan-Amazonian Bishops underway, there are so many within and outside the Church, raising doubts and criticism against a lot of issues. Holy Father Pope Francis is being, at times even unduly, criticised from various sides... the anti-religious or anti-Catholic media is making the most of the time. There are some journals and dailies that are constantly spewing calumny and mongering lies, spreading false rumours in the name of interpretations which make things difficult for the ordinary faithful and worse still for those who are weak and already in crisis.

The times are bad - this would be true to say any day! Because, at all times in history there have been people who wished to have their way, capable of raking up issues that were really not there, create confusions and in those moments achieve their ends of dividing and impoverishing humanity. Are we going to give in to their wiles? Or are we, amidst all confusions, remain firm in that unwavering foundation of what God wants from us: the Word from the Lord? It is here that the theme of the day speaks so clearly to us: hear the word of God and keep it.

'Henceforth all generations will call me blessed', sang Mary when she heard the Word of God and said 'yes' to it. And Jesus reiterated it, that Mary was 'Blessed' not merely for having borne him physically and nursed him, but more for having heard the Word of God and unconditionally submitted herself to it. And thus Jesus opens the invitation to all - it is possible for anyone, just like Mary, to become 'Blessed'. All that you need to do, to be blessed is: hear the Word of God and keep it.

The days of the Lord!!!

WORD 2day: Friday, 27th week in Ordinary time

October 11, 2019: Joel 1:13-15,2:1-2; Luke 11: 15-26

The Day of the Lord - in the history of the people of God - has had quite a few interpretations. The most common of those during the Old Testament times, was what we find in the first reading today - a day of doom, a day of destruction, a day of final judgement! We know it has inspired dreams, theories, churches, stories, movies and what not.

Jesus, spoke of not just the day of the Lord, but the days of the Lord, the coming of the Reign of God! The idea of judgement persisted, but the fear of destruction or doom gave way to the need to take a stand, the urgency to make a choice - for God or against God!

The day or the moment that we make a choice for God becomes for us the day of the Lord! The moment when we stand by the poor, the oppressed, the righteous, the honest, the just and the godly, we make a choice for God - for when you do it for the least of these, you do unto me, the Lord has promised.

When that choice for God becomes persistent and absolute, that is the Reign of God. Reign of God is not some Utopia or an otherworldly phenomenon that would descend on us one fine day. We need to evoke it, from amidst us by making right personal choices and by making those choices a culture, a mode of life, a life style.

The question is... am I ready to choose God, and choose God alone? Am I prepared to stand up for God? If yes, I become a son or a daughter of the Reign and these days in which we live shall become, the days of the Lord.

God first and God-trust...

WORD 2day: Thursday, 27th week in Ordinary time

October 10, 2019: Malachi 3: 13-20; Luke 11: 5-13

'Why do the just suffer and why do the evildoers prosper?' - this has always been an unresolved question in history. We read from Prophet Malachi, "now we have reached the point when we call the arrogant blessed." It looks really and so drastically prophetic! It seems to be reflecting what we see today, in our present context - with all the importance given to money, power, possession, pleasure and comfort, the arrogant seem to be the most blessed!

There is yet another fundamental question, that is subtler and more crucial and that is: what is good and what is evil; what it means to be righteous and what it means to be wicked. Confusion reigns in the world today, in the name of rights and liberty, in the cover of broad-mindedness and lateral thinking, in the pretext of respect for the individual and promoting self-actualisation, there are so many fundamental values being compromised these days. 

Both these grand queries are reflected upon in the Word today which, perhaps provides us with the criteria to be acceptable in the eyes of God: To give the first place to God and things that pertain to God and to trust in God with no doubts whatsoever!  

When these criteria are lived in our daily life, there will indeed be no necessity for the questions we referred to a while ago! The first criterion will take care of the greed and manipulation that governs the world today; and the second will make us humble to receive everything from the hands of God, so that we look at ourselves and at each other as brothers and sisters of the One Father and Mother! 

The bewilderingly absurd Love of God

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 27th week in Ordinary time

October 9, 2019: Jonah 4:1-11; Luke 11:1-4

The readings today call our attention to how bewilderingly gracious God is! Even in the Old Testament times when people thought of God in terms of one who punishes the wrongdoers, the theology that we see in the first reading today was quite strong: 'thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love' (Jonah 4:2). 

To our human minds, as was the case with Jonah, it can appear sometimes to be undeserving, confusing and sometimes even absurd! A personification of that absurdity is Jesus himself - God's only son whom God did not spare, because "God so loved the world" (Jn 3:16)! And "while we were still sinners Christ died for us" (Rom 5:8). 

The simple and fundamental fact we are given to understand here is that we cannot understand everything, within the short span that we have and with the limited knowledge we have of the whole truth. But one thing we need to fix our minds on and make our point of view: that God is good, all the time, beyond measure and without conditions! 

That was the crux of Jesus' words, teachings, prayer and his very life. With him everything was aimed at just one thing: to reveal the goodness, the graciousness and the bewildering and 'absurd' love of God for God's children! Once we understand that, we would understand two basic facts: God is in perfect control and we are in God's hands!

Not just Receive, but Respond

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 27th week in Ordinary time

October 8, 2019: Jonah 3: 1-10; Luke 10: 38-42

To be receptive, is the call today! The people of Nineveh received the message from the Lord, Mary sat mesmerised by the Word of the Lord and Martha received the Lord himself with such love into her house. Going further, the readings have a warning too. Just receiving the message or receiving the Lord is not all. To receive would mean nothing if we do not take to heart the message of the Lord. Jonah does it - he changes, and inspires change! 

Receiving, showing honour and adoration to the Lord, should culminate in an attentive drinking-in of the Word from the Lord and not just that, but putting it into practice. That we are ready for any number of practices of piety, offerings of things and valuables, programmes, performances and rituals, amounts to nothing, if we are not ready to change everyday for the better, in our lives!

The relationship we have with God, if it is real, has to be seen in its manifestations - our humble and dignified perception of ourselves, our respectful demeanour towards the other, our awe-filled embrace of the creation, our uncompromising stand against injustices or any inauthenticity and our longing for the fullness of life for all. That is true hospitality to the Lord, in its holistic sense. 

Elsewhere the Lord clarifies, not all who call 'Lord! Lord!' will be saved, but those who listen to the Word and live it in their daily life (Mt 7:21; Lk 6:46). All our practices of piety are indeed acts of giving glory to the Lord, but the Lord looks out for our daily living, our concrete relationships, our ordinary interactions, our day to day commitments and our priorities! 

She joins us... on our way!

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

October  7, 2019: Celebrating our Blessed Mother of the Holy Rosary

Acts 1:12-14; Luke 1: 26-38

The Apostles joined in continuous prayer, together with several women, including Mary the mother of Jesus... that is exactly what happens even today, when we pray the Holy Rosary... we are joined by our Blessed Mother, the Blessed among women, full of Grace!

The feast of Our Blessed Mother of the Holy Rosary, was initially known as the feast of Our Lady of Victory, in thanksgiving for the victory in a battle at Muret (in England) in the year 1213. After a winding history of changes and developments, it was in the year 1913 that Pope Pius X fixed the feast on October 7th and invited the Church to celebrate it as the feast of the Holy Rosary. 

Every time we pray the Rosary, we repeat the words from the Word of God...the Gospel today reminds us of this fact! "Full of Grace", the Angel addressed Mary, and that is what she was! And that is what she is, to each of us today - a channel of grace! As the apostles found in her a source of strength and direction to remain united, until the Spirit anointed them, we are called too, to unite ourselves in prayer with her.

In various accounts of Our Blessed Mother's apparitions with a rosary in hand, we are given to listen to the fact that as those who receive the apparitions prayed, Mary was seen rolling the beads of the rosary. I would wonder in the beginning what it meant : what is she saying... also, hailing herself, calling herself blessed? But in deeper recollection, I humbly understood the message is very different here: Mary prays with us! Mary joins us in prayer! She is not just a model and an intercessor for us, she also accompanies us in all moments of our life - be it dark or bright.

Let us thank God for this lovely form of contemplating God's salvific design, the Rosary. And let us seek our Blessed Mother's company and guidance in order that we may walk the way traced by her Son and our Lord, Jesus Christ.

GROWING IN FAITH

Lord, Increase our Faith!

27th Sunday in Ordinary time: October 6, 2019

Habakkuk 1:2-3, 2:2-4; 2 Timothy 2: 6-8,13-14; Luke 17: 5-10

It is a familiar story said of the old lady who heard the gospel passage of today and challenged the young parish priest of its practicality! And they agreed she would pray for the tree outside her window to move a bit away after a novena. Nine prayerful days passed and on the 9th day asked the parish priest, 'so what about the tree?' The lady said with a wry smile, 'I knew from day one, nothing would happen! The tree stands right there.'

The Word of God this Sunday, invites us to grow in faith! "Increase our faith", pray the disciples. We would do good to make it our prayer too, asking the Lord to increase our faith. But what is faith? "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" explains the epistle to the Hebrews(Heb 11:1). Where does this assurance and this conviction come from? From a relationship, a rapport on which our whole life is based and thus even things not seen and things hoped for, do not ever seem an impossibility. That is why our tradition defines faith as our personal response to a self-revealing God. Lumen Fidei the encyclical that came out in the year of faith, explains faith as our response to the Word which engages us personally (n.8).

At times we look at faith as a set of truths to be accepted and believed in - whether we understand or not, whether we are convinced or not, whether we have a possibility to prove it to others or experience it for ourselves...at times in the name of religion we are ready to judge those who seek to question these, even if it were to understand them better! But have we shown that readiness in deepening our own relationship with God, our experience of the Divine who accompanies us every moment of our lives. Yes, faith being a relationship, is matter of daily experience and not just of extraordinary moments. It is easier for us, to look within ourselves and identify when this faith runs short, than to see it when it is there! 

Today's readings give us three indications of the lack of faith... in order to educate us towards growing in faith.

One of the familiar indications of lack of faith is Pessimism. The world today is flooded with pessimism - words like crisis, conflict, melt-down, inflation, decadence, terrorism, fundamentalism, authoritarianism, fascism are most commonly heard terms these days. The first reading too presents a situation similar to today's -Violence, destruction, troubles, strife, contention -but it ends with that assurance: 'the righteous shall live by faith!' (Hab 2:4). Growing in faith is to fight against any pessimism creeping into our thoughts, our spirit and our outlook.

The second indication that the readings point to, is Panic. 'God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline' (2 Tim 1:7). Where there is faith there will be power, if faith is a love relationship with God, there can be no fear, 'for there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear' (1 Jn 4:18). When I begin to fear a situation or a person or a consequence, it is an indication that my faith needs nurturing.

The third indication is the reason for both the preceding ones. It is Pride. The perfect contrast to faith is human pride! If faith is surrender, pride inspires resistance. If faith is to relate, pride creates rebellion. If faith aids perseverance, pride instigates me to quit. Both pessimism and panic are in a way fruits of pride within. Humility is a fruit of faith; it is a realisation of who oneself is - a humble servant of God, with all the capabilities and limitations, working one's way towards building up the Reign of God here and now. It is Lumen Fidei again which beautifully states, 'Faith is God's gift, which calls for humility and courage to trust and to entrust' (n.14).

Pessimism, Panic and Pride - are contrary to faith! Pessimism creates despair, panic destroys peace and pride makes me inhuman. May my prayer, 'Increase my faith' be accompanied by my personal efforts to trust, love and surrender myself unconditionally to the One who loves me so unconditionally!

Lord, increase our faith! Amen.

To see, to hear and to return.

WORD 2day: Saturday, 26th week in Ordinary time

October 5, 2019: Baruch 4:5-12,27-29; Luke 10: 17-24

'For just as you proposed to go astray from God, return with tenfold zeal to seek him' (Baruch 4:28), instructs the first reading today. The key to understand the so-called discrepancy between the Old Testament thinking and the New Testament theology lies here. 

While we can be surprised at a 'punishing' and a 'revengeful' God that the people of the Old Testament thought of, we understand from the verses like the above that we are responsible for all the calamities that we bring on ourselves, by our priorities and choices, not only individually but also collectively - it is unfortunate that some who are innocent too face the brunt due to the rest! But there is another element that is reiterated in that very statement - returning to God! That is what Mercy is all about, the Lord awaiting to embrace us when we return to God.

There is yet another return that is spoken of in the Word today - the return of the sent, the disciples who were sent. The Lord rejoices in their feats as God-sent people. However, what is underlined is the truth that the glory rests not so much in the great things done, as in the fact that they were sent by the Lord, and they responded to that commission. They were blessed!

Yes, it is a call for us to realise too, that 'blessed are those eyes that see what we see, and the ears that hear what we hear'... if only we can take the cue from things that happen around us, we will readily return to the Lord, with tenfold zeal! The requirement is that we see, and that we hear - and true faith alone makes it possible!

EXTRAORDINARY MISSIONARY MONTH - 4 OCTOBER 2019

COURTESY: Don Bosco Network - South Asia - Mission Office, Delhi