The Divine Assurances

WORD 2day: Friday, 6th week in Easter time

May 22, 2020: Acts 18: 9-18; John 16: 20-23

Today's readings have two of the most repeated and most affirmed promises of the Lord: Do not be afraid, for I am with you (Acts 18:9,10) and Your sorrow will turn into joy (Jn 16:20). For both these, the provision given is: go on speaking and endure the griefs.  What an assurance and a what a challenge!

Though what is expected of us -that is to go on speaking and to endure suffering- might seem a bit too demanding, the consequence of it justifies everything! The promised presence of the Lord and the promised joy in the Lord are incomparably filled with assurances that can brighten up our todays and our tomorrows. Look at the metaphor that Jesus offers - the childbirth. Can there be a better one at that? It is a matter of life and death for the mother; but at the climax of it all, when she holds the baby in her hand, it is a whole new life, a whole new world, a whole new reality not only for her, but for all those who are connected to her, for the entire family.

The strengthening presence of the Lord and the awaiting joy in the Lord: we are called to claim these promises in our daily life and more importantly, we are called be the fulfillment of these promises for those around us who are needy, the real poor, the suffering and the troubled in spirit. Instead of questioning how the Lord is present amidst sorrows, can I strive to be God's strengthening presence to the weak and the suffering? Instead of being critical about a future joy promised, can I be the source of simple joys for those around me?

The Ascension of the Lord which we intend to celebrate this weekend carries precisely this message for us: the continued and unceasing presence of the Risen Lord, more often than not, in the form of our presence with the others. Let the Spirit help us today to feel the presence of the Lord with each of us and within each of us, leading us to be the joyful, strengthening presence of the Lord for everyone we encounter today.

To Leave... it is a missionary challenge!

WORD 2day: Thursday, sixth week in Easter time

May 21, 2020: Acts 18: 1-8; John 16: 16-20

Today is the Ascension day! But in many places (not all certainly), in order to celebrate the Solemnity on Sunday, they continue till the end of the week, as weekdays of the sixth week in the Easter time. So here too, we shall reflect on today's Word.

Paul leaves; he leaves Athens for Corinth, he leaves the Jews for the Gentiles. Jesus leaves; he leaves his earthly life and his friend disciples and prepares to go to his Father and our Father! You should glad that I leave, because I go to the Father and from there I shall draw you to myself, because where I am, you shall be too: what lovely words of Jesus these were! 

Be it Jesus, the missionary of the Father or Paul, the missionary of Christ the Word from the Father, they were able to 'leave' because their eyes were fixed on the mission that was entrusted to them: nothing that came in between, neither success nor failure, neither helps nor hindrances, neither pains nor pleasures - nothing could keep them back, no affections or no attachments. 

Another point the readings today point to: whenever they left something, something greater awaited. Christ left his worldly stint, to remain with the Father and thus with us for ever, to the end of ages. And Paul leaves place after place, and everywhere there were more and more people being touched by the Lord and won over for the Lord.

Leaving behind is not an easy task. The most challenging of all 'leaving behind' is to leave behind one's own desires and dreams, personal plans and projects, one's loves and longings! At times, if we have to witness to the Lord and the Gospel that the Lord wants us to announce, there is no other choice but to leave... it is indeed a missionary challenge!

In Him...

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 6th week in Easter time

May 20, 2020: Acts 17: 15, 22 - 18:1; John 16: 12-15

In Him we live, move and have our being (Acts 17:28), is one of the most expressive faith statements of St. Paul. Paul has a very special insight into understanding Jesus' mind.  That is why he was able to declare, "It is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me!" (Gal 2:20). Christ lives in me, when I decide to live IN HIM. That decision I can arrive at only in the Spirit.

Jesus  in the Gospel today says, the Counselor, the Holy Spirit will get everything from him and make it known to the believer! "Get from him" would mean 'get from the Father', since Father and the Son are one (cf. Jn 10:30). Jesus invites us to a state where, "On that day you will know that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you" (Jn 14:20). And the way to it is simple: keeping His commandments; that is the secret of living in Him.

When we live in union with the Lord, a union in heart and soul, keeping the Lord's commandments will not be a demanding task but a natural way of life. It is the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of truth who will inspire us to such way of life, a life lived in Him, lived in the Spirit, lived in Christ, lived in the Risen Lord, lived in the very Author of life!

Let us prepare ourselves these days to receive the Spirit, the Spirit of the Risen Lord, the Spirit of Truth and Wisdom, which the Father will send after Christ the Son ascends to the Father's right hand. The crux of Christian perfection is not in anything that we DO, it is in living, moving and having our being, IN HIM.

Welcoming the Advocate!

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 6th week in Easter time

May 19, 2020: Acts 16:22-34; John 16: 5-11

Beaten, bruised and bound, they sang the praises of the Lord... will not the glory of the Lord be revealed there? The act of Paul and Silas in the prison was such a powerful witness that the prison guards expected anything anytime. They were capable of it, because of the Spirit that filled them, fueled them and fired them.

It is the Advocate that Jesus promised to his disciples who makes the entire difference and the difference is enormous. We see this in the very first moment when the apostles come out to speak in public. The frightened band of messengers had been turned into fiercely blazing firebrands. 

Added to this, Jesus says, when the Spirit comes the Spirit will convict the world. Every heart is given the possibility to know what is true, good and just; every human heart has a longing for someone beyond oneself; every person called by the waters of baptism realises at the core of one's being, the need to be a righteous witness. In spite of these, if the person chooses to fall, decides to choose the evil, sides the evil and despises good, ignores the truth and passively permits the untruth...who is to be blamed? Is not a conviction needed there!

Sin, righteousness and judgement - they decide the quality of one's witnessing life. Receiving the Spirit is not merely receiving some magical power but it is facing the truth, encountering the all-knowing Divine, opening yourself completely before the finger of judgement. Are we really prepared to welcome the Advocate who is to come?

On our way to the Reign

WORD 2day: Monday, 6th week in Easter time

May 18, 2020: Acts 16: 11-15; John 15: 26 - 16: 4

Jesus has begun to speak of the Spirit to the apostles, from last week onwards... a sign that there is a different kind of a presence that we have to get prepared for. A different kind of a life style, a new graduated kind of a life and habits and attitudes. The life in the Spirit, is the new existence we need to prepare ourselves for. 

"The Spirit of truth" that Jesus speaks of in the Gospel is witnessed to be at work in the first reading event from the Acts of the Apostles - that of the lady and her household, who accept the Lord and get baptised! While on the one hand there are people who are waiting to take the apostles to task and persecute them in all known ways, there are at the same time a multitude who are ready to protect, help and fend for them.

This discrepancy comes to the fore in our day to day experience too, when we find the Spirit at work within us. We will feel an urge to spread the Word, but will be faced with obstacles and hurdles: it is the Spirit of the Lord who leads us to discern the right way that a believing community should take at a particular point of time. Priorities differ, principles of decision making change, the criteria of choices are update, because we are in a graduated phase, and well on our way to the Reign.

The persecutions may abound, yet the final result will be a 'revival'...and that is what we hope for. Let our hearts, homes and our households be filled with the Spirit of truth, that we may set in motion real journey, always mindful of the fact that we are well on our way to the Reign of God. 

THE CHALLENGE TO GRADUATE

The need to move on, move in and move up!

May 17, 2020: 6th Sunday of Easter

Acts 8:5-8,14-17; 1 Peter 3: 15-18; John 14: 15-21

Our life is a process, a process of continuous growth; so is faith. Our faith is not a static assertion of some facts or some set of information, as we often mistakenly imagine it to be. Faith is a dynamic experience, a rapport within and with persons and realities around based on the relationship we have with God as its foundation. In this progress, we are called to keep moving on! This moving on need not be always moving out, it could also essentially be a moving in. And especially in faith, it is basically a call to move up, ever more closer to the One who has called us, scaling up towards our perfection. We have today from the Risen Lord, the challenge to Graduate in our life our faith!

Jesus seems to be winding up his course... and he challenges his disciples to Graduate. He does the same to us: he challenges us to Graduate, in our life of faith and not remain the same little children we began this journey as. And the challenge can be broken up into three movements - moving on, moving in and moving up!

Move on! says Jesus to his apostles and to us. In a little while the world will no longer see me, tells the Lord. He prepares to bid them farewell, telling them the current phase is getting to a close, and the new phase is round the corner; they need to get ready for it. Move on, don't get stuck - be it to good times or to trying times, don't get stuck. There were glorious times when they went around with the Lord and saw miracles and wonders, healings and resuscitations. There were tough times when they saw the very same Jesus being crucified and buried, hid themselves from the threatening powers. The Risen Lord invites them not to get stuck to any of these, for they were phases of transformation, periods of growth, through which he wanted the disciples to graduate, progress, grow up. The apostles understood this...they moved on! They were all over the place preaching Christ and ushering in the new phase that Jesus had promised them. In the first reading today we see Phillip doing that in the Samaritan quarters, opening up the Jewish world to the rest of the human kind and reaching out with the love of God, a love that was universal - that was a graduation, a moving on!

Today, we are called to move on too... from this experience of fear and anxiety of the lock down to the next phase of opening up our minds and hearts to the next level. We are called to move on too... from our tendency to think only about ourselves and not about the other, the others, the common home, the universe, the entire reality that we are part of. Let us move on, moving on is an essential mark of graduating in our faith life. Let us not get stuck to our individual experiences but look at them as a source of inspiration for progress, for moving on, for graduation!

Move in! clarifies Jesus. As a means and an aid to graduate, Jesus promises an advocate. I shall ask the Father and the Father will give you another advocate, the Spirit of Truth and Jesus goes on to clarify: the Spirit is with you, the Spirit is in you! The Indwelling Spirit is the Spirit of Truth that Jesus promises as the guarantee of graduation. Though graduation is moving on, it may not always mean moving out, it could be more moving in. Moving into oneself. Becoming aware of one's own innermost thoughts, attitudes, tendencies and priorities and working on them with the help of the Spirit who dwells within us to assist us and to strengthen us. St. Peter invites us to exactly this, when he calls us in the second reading to live a life in the spirit, that we may be raised as Jesus was raised in the spirit - and that involves suffering for the right, for truth, for righteousness, for justice and for integrity. 

Quarantine and isolation, need not be always a painful experience. It could well serve as a school of solitude! To enter that interior castle within our self, understanding ourselves at a closer view, analysing ourselves and growing through it... that is moving in, moving in to ourselves, moving in to our conscience, moving in to our interior self, moving in to the core of our being and becoming aware of what and who is at work there! Is it the Indwelling Spirit...that is would be a sign of graduation in faith. 

Move up! invites Jesus. Move up, as an expression means to get closer to a person, in order to say something or do something! And Jesus invites his disciples to move up to the Father and experience in the Father the love that Jesus came to share with them. Jesus is challenging them, and us, to graduate to that experience where "you will understand that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you!" Naturally Jesus seems to be instructing his disciples towards the next level of their encounter. He seems to be telling them: I came in order that I may put you in direct touch with my Father, and here comes the Spirit to sustain that relationship...here you go, grow in that communion! A true graduation of faith life.

Our life of faith is not merely doing something or fulfilling some requisites, it is a relationship, a communion, an integral harmony within and without, where everything dissolves into One, True Bliss (Sat Cit Ananda). There cannot be contrasts and confusions, there cannot be competitions and compromises, there cannot be hatred or indifference... what remains in that graduated faith life is - Oneness, Love and Eternal Happiness! Love each other as a sign of your love for the Divine who loves you so intimately, unconditionally! In that love and harmony, you shall sense the indwelling divine, the Advocate the Father has given you, the presence of God within that you need to become more and more aware of. 

Graduate, is the challenge today! To graduate in our life our faith and move on to the higher plane of living your faith, to move in and find the source of true meaning within you and to move up to the Divine and establish a long lasting relationship. May the Risen Lord, the Spirit of God and the love of the Father help us grow everyday!

They hate you? Don't Worry! Be Happy!

WORD 2day: Saturday, 5th week in Easter time

May 16, 2020: Acts 16: 1-10; John 15: 18-21

Don't worry! Be happy!... these are very familiar words among the younger generation of anytime! With the Bobby McFerrin musical, these lines have become really famous. But is living it as easy as it is said? Life's lessons do not answer in affirmative for that! Life is not easy; life is hard and complicated; life is troublesome and challenging... so what do you do? The Word says today, live it to the full and don't worry; be happy!

People around you find you a pain in the neck, for the right reasons... be happy! 

People call you outdated and impractical and living in a world that does not exist because you stand by values... don't worry!  

People dump you and wish to see you destroyed because you disturb their so-called "peace"... be blessed!

Everyone,  even the worst among the entire lot, seems to be comfortable with you... be careful! 

No one has any problem with your ideas and absolutely every one seems fine with your values... look carefully into yourself! 

There is no opposition at all to what you do and not even those who discourage you have a problem with you... beware!

Yes, it sounds strange! But that is what the Lord says. If you stand by truth and live by values, you are sure to be branded 'problematic', 'unrealistic' and 'utopian.' You shall be kept aside from the so called 'steps forward' or 'the rise in the ladder' or 'the career lift'. 

It is wonderful to be acceptable to all,  but at what cost? Would you choose to be acceptable to all or would you choose to stand by what is true and right? If you choose the latter you would find more trouble in life: don't worry; be happy!

Friends of Christ

WORD 2day: Friday, 5th week in Easter time

May 15, 2020: Acts 15: 22-31; John 15: 12-17

While the readings on the one hand insist on making the burden easy for the new converts to faith, on the other hand we find lofty demands such as even giving one's life for one's neighbours! The point is not merely making life easy, but it one of the right priority!  

Yes, our faith is not a matter of do's and don'ts; it is a matter of relationship. Our faith redefines our relationship with God: from mere creatures we are given the identity of God's beloved; friends of Christ! It is not in circumcision or in any other external signs and costumes that we prove ourselves Christians, but in our intimate relationship with the person of Christ; in our friendship with Christ. 

Being friends of Christ, it is natural that, the demands are high. After all, did not Jesus insist that "from the one to whom much is given, much will be demanded" ? (Lk 12:48) But the demands are not merely to DO something and to AVOID something else, but the demand is about an entire LIFESTYLE. It is to model our life after that of Christ. 

The relationship with Christ, or the friendship with Jesus affects all other relationships of our's too. The friends of our friend, should be our friends too! The love we have for the Lord compels us to be loving persons with every person around us: not just our friends, but even with strangers, people whom we just casually bump into, or even with those who might have offended us. In short, every person is our friend, when we are friends with Christ. Even if we do not lay down our life, are we not expected to lay down at least our ego when it comes to our relationships?

The Twelfth Man

THE WORD AND THE SAINT 

May 14, 2020: Feast of St. Matthias, the Apostle
Acts 1:15-17, 20-26; John 15: 9-17

Feast of any apostle is a reminder to each of us that we are called to be an apostle, sent in the name of the Lord. As my Father sent me, so I send you...said the Lord after his resurrection. Though the event of the election of Mathias is overshadowed by the sorrowful and unfortunate end of Judas, the feast has its usual charm of inviting us to an absolute commitment to the Lord.

There is another dimension that Matthias brings into the Apostleship, in a very specific manner! He was not considered an apostle as long as Jesus moved around with them, in his earthly sojourn. But when Jesus was present amidst them as the Risen Christ he was chosen...as the substitute for the one who lost the way, as the twelfth man! That is both an inspiration and a warning - a warning that we could lose our way any time, be whatever the reason; an inspiration that Jesus is as active as he was when he was around physically - I choose you and I commission you, to go out and bear fruit! The place of that twelfth man is open to each and every one of us! Jesus seems to inspire us telling - even his band of apostles were not the perfect one; we could play our part, however little, to perfect it, complement it and complete it, in our own way!

Besides, the Word today adds a wonderful note to the reflection on our call, as it seems to underline the one objective in being an apostle, or for that matter in being a disciple: in Jesus' own words, "as my Father loves me, so I love you!" The primary aim is to receive in all its fullness the abundant love of the Father, through Jesus our friend! And it is in receiving that love, our joy is made complete! 

Let us rejoice in being loved, and love each other in return!

Happy Feast of Mother Mazzarello