PEACE-LENT 2023 - Peace is loving!

The WORD in LENT - Third week, Friday

March 17, 2023: Hosea 14: 2-10; Mark 12: 28-34

The twofold love that Jesus speaks of today is a message that we are used to hearing so much - Love of God and love of the neighbour. But what makes the difference here is the first reading which provides a slightly different context in which we read the commandments from the Lord. What is the context: Hosea speaks of returning to the Lord, to the True God.

The whole of Lent is a time we reflect on returning to the Lord, repentance of our ways and reforming our lives. Jesus seems to suggest, be truly loving in your ways and you would have returned to the Lord much faster than you imagined! Loving God and loving neighbours is the Christian lifestyle and it provides the fundamental way to reach the Lord. 

Here we can make two statements and that will explicate the teaching clearer:

You make all your sacrifices, gives all the alms that you can, spend all the time that you find in prayer and adoration, speak about God and are passionate about your religious duties... but if you do not love your brother and sister, beginning with those in your family - you are far from a truly Christian life.

Instead, you find it so hard to fast or so difficult to mortify yourself, you find it difficult to find even half an hour together to sit in front of the Lord and you find it so difficult to go to Church... but you love your brother or your sister wholeheartedly, with a sincere heart, genuine spirt and a godly sense...you are so close to the Lord and the Lord's way of life!

This is an undoubtable, indisputable means to peace: Be loving!... being loving in one's thought, word and deed; loving everyone whom we meet, offering it up to the Lord consciously, as a true and living sacrifice.  

PEACE-LENT 2023 - Peace is Listening

The WORD in LENT - Third week, Thursday

March 16, 2023: Jeremiah 7: 23-28; Luke 11: 14-23

One of the prominent dangers that we run into in our day to day life is, taking the goodness of the Lord for granted. The Mercy of the Lord is endless and immeasurable. Yet there is every chance that I may deprive myself of this boundless mercy - yes, it is I who deprives myself of it! The first step towards that is refusing to listen! Yes, it is true... not just incapacity to listen, but refusing to listen!

Every one of us is made capable of listening to the Lord and we are offered innumerable opportunities to listen, in fact we need not make any exaggerated effort to listen! Remaining calm, recollecting within, staying still is enough for us to listen to the Word, listen to what the Lord wants to communicated and reveal. But the problem begins when we make ourselves incapable of it, by our choices and priorities. 

In these priorities and choices, we relegate the aspect of listening to the Lord, to such a despicable position that we go far far away from God and we wish to establish our own existence, independent of God. The fact is that we cannot go too far, for wherever we go, the Lord is with us. Yet, we take that presence, that love and that mercy for granted. Such a painful experience of rejection, that we give the Lord. Is this not what the Lord shared already through Hosea (in chapter 11), 'the more I called them, the more they went from me'; 'my people are bent on turning away from me'...what an expression of pain from the Lord!

Precisely this fact, that God has made us for a life of union with the Lord, makes me lose my peace of mind or peace in the world, when we drift away from God and from God's voice. The call is simple but challenging - don't harden you hearts and your ears, listen and change, and through that you would have worked on your part of the Reign - that you yould have done your lot for peace. 

Peace is listening - listening to the voice of the Lord who instructs us, listening to the cries of those around who give us the opportunity to live the mercy we have received from God, listening to everything that is happening around me to know what is expected of me here and now... listening leads to peace!

PEACE-LENT 2023 - Peace is Relationship

The WORD in LENT - Third week, Wednesday

March 15, 2023: Deuteronomy 4: 1,5-9; Matthew 5: 17-19

The Word today speaks to us of the Commandments - what were they but the expressed wish of the Lord who brought the people up to their status of God's people.  This was indeed the way that the Lord taught them to be real people of God. The Old Testament people felt assured that when they walked in the path of the commandments, they were on the right track. At times this assurance and the anxiety to hold on to this assurance made them even highly legalistic. 

On his part, Jesus, though he stood tooth and nail against legalism, respected the commands of the Lord and taught his disciples how to make it humanly possible to abide by those commandments. The expressed wish of the Father, was something sacred and holy to Jesus and he declared that they are never changing, eternal and foundational for our faith. 

Now therefore comes the central question - how to understand the law, the commandments and their significance, without falling into the trap of legalism? That is the mind of Christ, the way of Christ, the Christian approach to law! To understand the commandments, the law, as an expression of our faith, a manifestation of our rapport with the Lord, our faithfulness to the love that God has towards us, and never considering it as an oblgation or a burden or an instrument to judge the other. 

It is fundamentally the relationship that we have with God - that which determines the value and the right place of every other aspect in our life. It is this relationship that will fill us with peace - in our hearts, in our families, in our society and for the entire humanity. The right relationship that is never failing and all illumining. We are called to obey these, and teach generations to do the same! We are called to realise its value and remind and instruct each other about it. Whoever obeys and teaches these, will be in peace and will fill their world with peace! 

PEACE-LENT 2023 - Peace is mercy

The WORD in LENT - Third week, Tuesday

March 14, 2023: Daniel 3: 25, 34-43; Matthew 18: 21-35 

The Word today invites us to understand the identity of the Lord as "mercy". The Lord gives and forgives with an abundance of mercy; if not, we would die and perish. When the Lord offered us the greatest of all gifts, God's own image and likeness, God gave us the very nature that God beholds. We were made like God, hardly less than the angels!  God gives and so we are called to give. God forgives and so we are called to forgive. God is merciful, and so we are called to be merciful too!

When we are not merciful, we become alien to ourselves - for two reasons! Firstly because we deny the very nature in which we were created, the mercy of our Creator. Secondly, because we deny the limitless mercy that we have received from God. In acting without mercy, we deny the mercy that we have received. Do we really deserve then to be called children of God, created in the image of God?

In refusing to be merciful, we turn not only ungodly but even inhuman! We ruin our peace, the peace of those around us and the peace of the humanity at large! A simple and single merciless act can be certainly correlated to the lost of world peace at the international and global level. When we are absolutely dedicated to being merciful in our limited and particular context, we have done our part in bringing peace to this world. 

What matters is that we realise the image that we bear and strive to live up to that image! Let us forgive, not just a few times or just when it is convenient to us, but all the time, amidst whatever tribulations we might be in. That seems a needed message for the present times and that is the only way to peace, because peace is mercy!

PEACE-LENT 2023 - Peace is thirsting

The WORD in LENT - Third week, Monday

March 13, 2023: 2 Kings 5: 1-5; Luke 4: 24-30

The theme introduced by the Word yesterday, the third Sunday, carries on today! We see that in the responsorial psalm that we prayed, which connects the Word to the liturgy. Peace is thirsting - thirsting for God, thirsting for God experience, thirsting for the spiritual wellbeing. How is spiritual thirst and spiritual wellbeing correlated - that is what is explained by the readings today! 

There can be three categories of persons based on the three typologies of attitudes that they manifest, regarding a spiritual good that they are proposed with.  The first category are those who have actually no thirst! They feel fulfilled, complete, saturated and self-sufficient. Like those who have no thirst, even if they have a bottle of purest water they can imagine, would only look and stare at it, so would these! This is the complaint of Jesus against his own people: they were so used to him that they could not see the Son of God in him!

The second category is of those persons who have a thirst, but it is not the most essential need at the moment. They can manage their thirst, or stifle their need for a drink, because they have many other things that matter more to them. It refers to persons to whom the other things like the ego, the success, the need to show themselves as powerful before the world, the selfish and childish interests, matter much more than any spiritual need! They can pass by a spiritual need offered to them, until a point when they would realise what they missed and then they would regret about it. Naman was one such, but luckily his servant girl saved him from the folly. 

The third category is of those persons who have an overwhelming thirst for the Spirit. They value this thirst as the uppermost in their life and they would do anything to address that need! These are persons of the Reign who would prioritise their spiritual thirst and thus have that spiritual experience of God, that peace that God alone can give! There is no stopping them... they will have their peace, because peace is thirsting, thirsting for God, for God-experience.

PEACE IS THIRSTING FOR GOD

PEACE-LENT 2023: Third Sunday of Lent

March 12: Exodus 17: 3-7; Romas 5: 1-2,5-8; John 4: 5-42

Life is beautiful, no doubt; but it never lacks its share of problems, difficulties, confusions, traps and temptations. The beauty lies precisely in the manner in which a person lives these peculiar moments more than the happier ones. Especially, anyone claiming to be a person of faith, has to manifest a level of maturity that shows him or her capable of living with a constant thirst. Although this thirst itself is a lack of internal peace, true and wholesome peace can come only from a thirst, a thirst for God. The liturgy today invites us to reflect on this aspect of one's faith life: thirsting for God, as a way to peace!

Life has its own patches of dryness and no one's life is an exception to it. The dryness could be more severe in some, when compared to the others. What matters is not actually how much more or how much less, but how a person handles one's own share of dryness in his or her life. Handling aridity in life is a faith-skill. In the first reading today, we see the people of Israel in their driest patch of their history - the sojourn in the desert. They are brought forth from slavery across the Red Sea, with great and mighty signs and wonders. But once in the desert, they complain for every little thing, lacking patience to the core. They long for the onions and the garlic of Egypt, they long for the flesh and meat they once had in plenty, they fret that they are without a drop of water! It is easy to laugh at them or judge their impatience, but we will do well before that to think of ourselves and our lives. 

Issues in the family, the employment issues, the financial crisis, the relationship issues, sickness, misunderstanding... as soon as a problem begins in our lives don't we begin to complain too? The Lord teaches us - to TURN TO THE ROCK, when struggling to handle aridity in life. Dying without water, the people get water from the least expected source... in the dry parched desert and worse still, a dry boulder of a rock in that desert. If we turn to the Lord, our Rock... we will see solutions to our problems, clarity to our confusions, help in our difficulties, from the least expected quarters. Let us turn to the Rock.

The second reading instructs us how to comport ourselves while feeling the thirst. When in the thick of a problem or in the eye of the storm, where do we fix our gaze? There could be varied ways of interpreting one's problem and seeking a way out of it. One way is to fix our minds on the problem, but that will only magnify the problem. Another way is to fix our eyes on ourselves, but that will only make us more and more depressed in self pity. Yet another way is shift our attention to something else in life, but beware, the problem will continue to be there only to return at another opportune moment to torment us. 

St. Paul invites us to fix our gaze on Christ, on the Lord who, even while we were undeserving sinners, was ready to lay down his life for us. Such is the love of God for us and should we fret when we are in a crisis? We are invited to TURN TO THE SPRING, to the saving grace that loves without measure, the love that has been "poured" into our hearts from that Spring. It is from this spring that we shall fill ourselves, our hearts and our being with that peace we are thirsting for.

In the Gospel, Jesus speaks of a thirst with which we should all live! It is not the thirst for a material good, not a thirst for a interim peace, not a thirst for a breath of temporary relief but a thirst for eternal life, a thirst for perennial peace, a thirst for fullness of life - a life-giving thirst. He offers to give us the living water, the spring "gushing up to eternal life" (Jn 4:14). "All who are thirsty, come to me and drink" he declared elsewhere (Jn 7:37). We are called to live with that thirst, constantly longing for God, looking for that peace that can come from God alone. 

Like that deer that yearns for running streams, like the parched land that longs for rain, our soul should thirst for God, teaches the psalm (42). Let us thirst for God, let us thirst for a deeper and stronger relationship with God. Let us thirst for the Spirit, let us thirst for the fruits of the Spirit, let us thirst for a life that is united with God, let us thirst for a life that is filled with God. Let nothing disturb us... let nothing separate us from God... neither hardships nor distress nor persecution nor famine nor perils nor sword, not even death; let nothing separate us from God. Let these days of lent help us to TURN TO LIFE IN GOD.

True peace is a thirst, a thirst for lasting good in life, a thirst for the only unchanging aspect of our life, yes, it is a unending thirst for God. The more we thirst for God, the more shall we seek peace and the more shall we be disposed to true peace. Peace be with you! Shalom!

PEACE-LENT 2023 - Peace is belonging

The WORD in LENT - Second week, Saturday

March 11, 2023: Micah 7:14-15,18-20; Luke 15: 1-3,11-32

Yesterday we reflected on the assurance that God loves us... to say the Lord loves me is to trust in the goodness of the Lord; and to say I love the Lord is to dare to belong to the Lord. The former is far more easier than the latter which requires a great effort on my part to be true.

In the first reading today, Micah speaks to God with a right of a child who belonged to the Lord, though he acknowledges his own shortcomings. In the parable that Jesus narrates we have the younger son who fell short of perfection but soon realised that he belonged to his father. They both dare to declare to the Lord that they loved the Lord. It is from that sense of belonging to the Lord that true peace can be born. 

It was indeed very daring of the younger son to declare his sense of belonging to the father, which the elder son dared not do. He did not feel that sense of belonging to the father, though he lived all the time with the father. He was there right beside the father and had everything at his disposal, but did he have peace within! Was he capable of celebrating that moment? 

What a lesson to learn - it is not to be taken for granted that I belong to the Lord, just because I am most of the time around him. Even if I were to stray a bit away from the Lord occasionally, it is important to feel that strong sense of belonging to the Lord, only that will bring me back to him. Only that will bring peace back to my heart. 

Only in a strong sense of belonging to the Lord, can I have and celebrate the peace that the Lord alone can give! 

PEACE-LENT 2023 - Peace is assurance

The WORD in LENT - Second week, Friday

March 10, 2023: Genesis 37:3-4,12-13,17-28; Matthew 21:33-43,45-46

"Come let us kill him" - that is the common phrase in the two readings today. There are always persons and situations which are against us, no matter where or when. And life itself is full of such varied episodes - there are ups and there are downs, there are moments of exuberance and there are moments of dullness, there are moments of strength and there are moments of trials, there are moments of grace and there are moments of crisis... how we face these varied moments, depends on the perspective we choose.

If we choose to believe that we are loved - as did Joseph and as did Jesus - whether we are in situations of want or in situations of plenty, we would have that peace that every one longs for. Peace comes from assurance! The greatest of all assurances that we have is that God loves us. The Word seems to tell us today: Be calm; you are Loved!

When we know and we are convinced that the Lord loves us, then we have peace in our hearts. And the vice versa is true too - when we learn to be calm and to surrender, we would see that the Lord loves us with an immense love and that we are called to recompense that love, pay back in fruits.

Instead, when we are not mindful of that fact - we get anxious and make irreparable mistakes. What matters is to be calm and see not only the fact that we are loved but also the fruit we need to bear: that is, to love in return and to love each other. Our life, its meaning and its peace, comes from the assurance that we are loved. And our love becomes an assurance of further peace!

PEACE-LENT 2023 - Peace is Lord-centered

The WORD in LENT - Second week, Thursday

March 9, 2023: Jeremiah 17: 5-10; Luke 16: 19-31

Happy the one who has placed one's trust in the Lord. The Word today draws home to us an important consideration regarding peace of mind and heart, in our daily life. Let us reflect on it in three steps.

One. Peace first of all cannot be achieved, much less can it be achieved by a self centered way of life. "Me, myself and mine" can never allow me to think of the others and of their good. What matters to me would be the absolute for me: my career, my personal wishes and desires, my personal dreams etc.! The one who lives his life just at my doorstep would matter nothing to me for it is never within my perspective. Whatever peace is there, is really precarious!

Two. Not even an other centered life would lead me to true peace, because it would make me dependent on the other, the other's choices and idiosyncracies! My values would be warped and influenced greatly by the goodness or the wiles of the other. I would relativise everything because of the other and I would have no absolute reference point to guide myself. Would that make my life truly peaceful, guess it won't.

Three. The right way to true peace is, to live a Lord-centered life. This kind of a life, Jeremiah compares it to a tree planted on the banks of a river! Maybe we can think of another imagery too - a forest of trees, each of their planted and stuck in their places, but underneath, beneath the soil, all their roots point towards, strive towards, stretch towards one direction, the same direction, the direction where there is a source of water! That is nature! That is true peace - when we stretch towards the Lord, when our life is centered on the Lord.  Here the Lord shall be the absolute reference point and nothing would be relativised. There would be absolute peace. 

It is a Lord-centered life that can take me to true peace. Let us check if we are engaged in a Lord centered life, and peace would find its place without much difficulty!

PEACE-LENT 2023 - Peace is Courage

The WORD in LENT - Second week, Wednesday

March 8, 2023: Jeremiah 18: 18-20; Matthew 20: 17-28

We have two persons today who are well aware of their imminent death - not just death, but a killing. Jeremiah and Jesus, both of them know that people are plotting against them. But they are not in a panic, although they could be perturbed a bit in their hearts. Jeremiah expresses that in his prayer and Jesus expresses that in his further teaching! They both become for us a great illustration of the fact that peace consists of courage!

Without courage we cannot think of peace - peace is not an escapism from problems and conflicts, it is not a hide and seek! It is the capacity to face the conflicts, not in the sense of avenging the trespasser, nor in the sense of retalliating with force. It is taking on the conflicts with the faith that God is our strength, with hope that everything is within God's divine plan and with love that I would continue to serve come what may! 

Courage in terms of the Reign is not the bravery that the world advocates, where I prove myself, establish my supremacy and tell everyone that I am in control of everything. It is remaining firm in the Lord, never losing hope in the love of God and never ceasing to exude that same love in my service to my fellow brothers and sisters. Peace is born there - in that courage! 

When I see Jesus, even at the face of death, insisting on the fact that he has come to serve and shall serve without any hesitation; when I see Jeremiah, at the face of hatred, still appealing to the loving protection of God without agitation, I am given to understand that peace is born out of courage, out of the courage of the Reign - which is undoubtedly filled with faith, hope and love.