Preparing the Destination

Advent 2024: A Pilgrimage of Hope - the Commission of the Journey! 

First Saturday in Advent - December 07, 2024

Isaiah 30:19-21, 23-26; Matthew 9:35 – 10:1,5,6-8 

The journey has been commissioned and we are almost at the end of the first week of our Advent pilgrimage of hope. The entire week has been reminding us of the destination towards which our pilgrimage leads us, not just symbolically this week alone but in our entire life of faith; this is the chief task of the Word.

Reflecting these days on the destination, the journey towards which we are engaged  in… the Word underlined to us the importance of beholding, seeing and visualizing the Reign – the Word today reminds us, about the peculiarity of our call: freely you have received, freely you give. The concrete exercise that the commissioning of this journey, invites us to, is not just to passively await the ‘coming of the Reign’ but to actively prepare it, nurture it, grow it from our hearts.

Isaiah speaks to us of all the privileges that God has for those who belong to God, despite the times of sadness, grief and strife that they may be going through presently. Jesus in the Gospel endorses that, and goes a step forward to instruct us to build the Reign, together as the people of the Reign, that we grow it, that we nourish it and that we give it to this world.

Reaching out to the other is an essential ‘Reign-quality’ that we are given with and we are called today to act in the name of the Lord, on behalf of the people of the Lord, for the labourers are few and the harvest is abundance. We are called not to just wait for the Reign, instead we are sent to seek the Reign, prepare the Reign, usher in the Reign by our words and deeds of witness. 

Visualising the Destination

Advent 2024: A Pilgrimage of Hope - the Commission of the Journey!

First Friday in Advent - December 06, 2024

Isaiah 29: 17-24; Matthew 9: 27-31

Our hearts bleed today when read those references today to Lebanon and its woes… because we are naturally led to connect it to the sad and treacherous happening of these days – be it in Lebanon, Syria or even elsewhere there, or around the planet. But this has been going on for centuries! Is there no stop to this? Violence, war, terrorism, rebellion, revenge, killing and destruction – will they never end? This reflection unfortunately coincides this day, with “the dark day” 22 years ago in India, a day which announced with a bang, the change of an era in this land of tolerance and secularism.

With all these working on our minds, it is very just to cry out to the powers out there in the society at large, who are determining this awful situation. But is that truly warranted, when we have so many issues to settle even within our small little societies, our families, our communities, and above all within ourselves – a situation of conflict and contestations, an indubitably peace-less experience.

The pilgrimage of hope invites us to see, to behold, to visualize the destination proposed to us, the Reign open to us, the Reign present amidst us, and grow into it. We are reminded that hopelessness is blindness, and we need to recover our sight, to behold the Reign. It is not that easy and those who do it are not always judged smart – they can be considered dreamers, delusive, “out of their minds”. But the challenge remains to stand firm in hope and visualize the destination, and behold the Reign that is there within us, to strengthen it, sustain it, promote it, grow it and present it to the world.

At the gates of the Destination

Advent 2024: A Pilgrimage of Hope - the Commission of the Journey!

First Thursday in Advent - December 05, 2024

Isaiah 26: 1-6; Matthew 7: 21, 24-27

 

The commissioning of a journey, with its destination well defined, needs to also single out the way to reach the gates of the destination. The image of the “gates,” stand out in the Word today and that augurs well for the discourse that we are having these days – to enter the Reign.

The way to enter the gate is not to stand around and cry out to the Lord; it is simply   knowing the will of the Lord and being ready to translate it into action in our daily lives. Doing the will of God gives me the “gate pass” and the gate is always open for those who have been with the Word and the Will of the Father.  This indicated way is the sure ground to remain in the Lord – the rock that makes our hopes come true.

Being pilgrims of hope is not going anyway and anywhere blindly believing we will reach the Lord and enter the Reign. The way is determined. And before anything, one needs to know the way: know the Word, listen to the Word and understand what the Word requires on a daily basis, in the concrete situations of life. 

It would not suffice to know! The further step is to act on what I know. There is no other way for reaching and entering the gates of the Reign. Although the gates are open wide for me, out of the love that God has for me, I need to have the ticket to enter and that is my life based on the Word – which is compared to a house built on the rock. The Rock will never fail me!

Banquet at the Destination

Advent 2024: A Pilgrimage of Hope - the Commission of the Journey!

First Wednesday in Advent - December 04, 2024

Isaiah 25: 6-10; Matthew 15: 29-37

The commissioning of a journey, with its destination desirable and attractive, becomes a sign of hope for everyone who looks up to it. But its desirability and attraction have to be true, not just an appearance or a delusion. On our pilgrimage of hope, we have our destination clear – the Reign. And it is definitely attractive and unquestionably desirable. Not just that, it is also a promise and guarantee… everyone, without any discrimination, is called to that destination where a banquet is prepared for all! All are entitled to this banquet of the Reign, but first of all they have to enter the Reign, enter the banquet hall. That signifies three levels of requirement to be fulfilled:

The first level is Desire; as the responsorial psalm guides us, we ought to develop a desire, a longing, a yearning for the house of the Lord. Unless that desire exists, and is expressed, one cannot make it to the banquet.

The second level is Decision; as Isaiah indicates the banquet is rich and is prepared, it is ready and it is inviting. But it depends on us to reach there, to enter in there. This who were with Jesus, ate the bread from the hands of the compassionate Lord – yes, those who were with Jesus! They had to be there to partake of the banquet. That is a decision, on the part of every individual.

The third level is Dedication; because it is not easy to reach the Reign or enter the banquet. They journey towards, is tough and dry. It takes endurance and perseverance to reach the destination – that is why it is a pilgrimage of hope. 

Gazing at the Destination

Advent 2024: A Pilgrimage of Hope - the Commission of the Journey! 

First Tuesday in Advent – December 03, 2024

Isaiah 11:1-10; Luke 10: 21-24

The commissioning of a journey, if it has to be an impelling proposal, has to enable persons have a glimpse of the destination. That is what the Word does today – invites us to gaze at the destination fixed, the Reign, where wolves live with the lambs, calves and lions feed together, the lion eats straw and young child plays with the cobra! For anyone who looks at this, it would be an impossibility, a utopia that has nothing to do with the reality. That is why the Gospel today says – you need those eyes to see it. 

Seeing the Reign, requires the eyes of a child. When Jesus glorifies the Father for having made the revelation to the children, he is telling us inferentially that we need to develop the eyes of a child to behold the Reign.

Seeing the Reign, requires a heart that yearns for justice and peace. It is a condition where one goes beyond his or her own good and wellbeing, far from one’s own desire or dreams, looking at the good of all, especially that of the least, the last and lost. That is where exists the Reign.

Seeing the Reign requires that one see the way God sees everything – as God’s own! Everything, and everyone belongs to God and no one has the right to hurt the other; every being is inviolable.  How difficult and problematic it is for human beings to see this? That is why the Reign remains still a farfetched dream. Can we really see what the Lord wants us to see – the Reign? Can we at least begin our efforts to see it?

Fixing the Destination

Advent 2024: A Pilgrimage of Hope - the Commission of the Journey!

First Monday in Advent – December 02, 2024

Isaiah 2:1-5; Matthew 8: 5-11

The commissioning of a journey consists in primarily declaring the destination of it – where to? That is what this pilgrimage begins with too. The Word today clarifies that we are on a journey towards the Reign of God. Jesus is on a journey, in the Gospel today, as he is most of the time pictured in the Gospels. His whole life was a journey, not only his. 

Our whole life is a journey too, a pilgrimage, a pilgrimage of hope towards the Reign, the salvific hope that is presented to every being created in the love of God. It is not about where we begin, from where we come, when we began and so on, that matter – but that we are determined to journey towards the Reign. For Jesus bursts the bubble of privilege, and sets the ground plain for everyone: many will come from east and west, to take their places at the feast of the Reign! 

Come let us go to the mountain of the Lord, the call is so clear and loud. Three important attributes of this call: to begin with, that we rejoice in that journey; secondly, that we journey together, forgetting our differences and disputes, leaving behind our scuffles and squabbles; and finally, that we walk in the light of the Lord. It is not about somehow reaching the destination, in fact in this case, we cannot! Because it is the Lord himself who will adjudicate. The choice we need to make right at the beginning of this journey, is to fix our minds, our hearts and our feet on the way of the Lord, that our journey leads us to the house of the Lord.

THE PILGRIMAGE OF HOPE

The Commission of the Journey!

First Sunday in Advent – December 01, 2024

Jeremiah 33:14-16; 1 Thessalonians 3:12 - 4:2; Luke 21: 25-28, 34-36

Let us wish ourselves a Happy New Year! A happy new liturgical year! And this year’s Advent, apart from ushering in the new liturgical year, gives us another special commission too, it commissions us a journey towards the Jubilee Year, the threshold of which shall coincide with the celebrations of the Nativity of our Lord this year.

We are challenged to be Pilgrims of Hope… and the upcoming year shall encapsulate that vocation in a myriad of ways, but the journey begins now. That is why, this Advent can be very well considered a Pilgrimage of Hope! And that certainly coincides with this first Sunday of Advent, the Sunday dedicated to the theme of hope. The Word this Sunday invites us to understand this commission, this call for a pilgrimage of hope in its depth. The pilgrimage has begun, with the commission of this journey.

The Journey begins, as everything, with God! God has raised us and God has convoked us to this journey. Jeremiah speaks of this in the metaphor of raising up a righteous branch – the Lord-our-integrity raises up the branch for David and that branch shall reign. The Raise, is a promise, and that promise is the foundation of hope, for the Lord is righteousness and integrity. Our minds, our hearts, our spirits are raised, and it is the most rudimentary meaning of advent, which invites us to see everything from the point of view of God, God’s promise and its fulfillment – the stock of Jesse, the branch of David, the Lord our Saviour.

The Journey is all about a reaffirmation, from the Lord who increases our love for each other and confirms our hearts in holiness and righteousness, after the Lord’s own heart. This Reaffirmation, is all about reassuring us on our journey that we are on the right track, or even if we have spotted ourselves drifting that we are not clueless about the return. We know the coordinates – love of God and love for one another, which alone can make us holy and blameless before God! The key is in learning to see the mercies of the Lord that surround us. The journey that we begin this day, is not a lonesome adventure. We are accompanied – the by the very One who has commissioned this journey, and the co-pilgrims who are commissioned along with us. Our responsibility is twofold – that we recognize with hope this commission we are presented with, and secondly, we share this hope with every co-sojourner along this pilgrimage.

The Journey is ultimately about our rising, being enlivened by the call of the Lord to “stay awake”, “to stand with confidence”, and “to stand erect and hold our heads high,” come what may. The Rise, is not about an escape from fearsome happenings, but it is all about looking at that liberation that is brought to us by the Son of Man. The Saviour shall come with glory and power, and those shall become ours too – depending on the assent that we give to the Lord who reveals, the Lord who has inaugurated this pilgrimage of hope, right when he spoke of the Reign. This is actively our response, while the first two were what God would do for us – while it is the Lord who would raise us up and reaffirm us, it is we, who have to rise; we have to decide to rise! To rise and shine, that we may make this journey, this pilgrimage of hope.

The first week shall underscore for us the commission of this journey – explicating right at the outset the nature, the destination, the expectations and so on, related to this pilgrimage. Being a pilgrimage of hope, it has to be filled with the presence of the Lord. And that is what we ask of the Lord this day – that the Lord accompanies us in this journey commission by the Lord himself, a pilgrimage of hope.

Bringing Good News - the feet and the fingers!

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

November 30, 2024: Remembering St. Andrew, the Apostle
Romans 10: 9-18; Matthew 4: 18-22

"How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" St.Paul quotes these words from the Scriptures (cf. Is 52:7), to insist upon the blessedness of being an apostle of the Lord, being sent to bear forth the Word to others. A prerequisite is that the person has first received the Word, in order to share it with others.

St. Andrew has played a special role during the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Andrew as a disciple of Christ always had the role of bringing good news to persons... he brought the good news of having found Christ to Peter (Jn 1:41); along with Philip, he brought the Greeks to meet Jesus (Jn 12:22); and he brought that boy who gave the five loaves to feed the five thousand (Jn 6:9). Amidst all the opposition and threat, the apostles bore witness to his name: they were the beautiful feet which brought the good news to the world.

Today, curiously, Apostle Andrew is proposed as the patron of social network... because he used every opportunity to make Christ known to people and to bring people to Christ. Pope Benedict XVI had described Social Network as the modern day pulpit and invited us to proclaim Christ not merely from the housetops but also from the laptops... and here we have a great role model for it in St. Andrew.

Let us today thank God for the numerous fingers that bring good news to the world today... keying in on the smart phones, feeding in from the laptops and desktops, posting messages and videos, instagrams and reels, and so many ways of sharing the Word with others. May every effort of these persons to proclaim the Reign of God through the Social Network, be a blessing to them, as much as it is to the world.

Let us dedicate the Social Network which offers us such a great promise, that it may forever be an instrument in the hands of God, to bring God's will to fulfillment, and not fall into the trap of becoming an instrument of perdition. Let us thank God for every opportunity that comes our way to bring the Word to all whom we meet!

Signs of the times

WORD 2day: Friday, 34th week in Ordinary time

November 28, 2024: Revelation 20: 1-4, 11- 21:2; Luke 21: 29-33

One of the key terms popularised by the Second Vatican Council is "signs of the times" and the Council itself tried its best to be true to the spirit of that term. The Council challenged the faithful and the church as a whole to learn to read the signs of the times and respond to it. It is obviously a never failing criterion: to be attentive to what is happening around and the message we can gather from it, in order to render the way we live our faith in Christ, relevant and meaningful.

There is however a feeling among many that the "signs" from the Lord in the present times, are few and far between. The truth instead is, the signs abound: in our daily lives, through things that happen around us, through persons who live with us, those who live worthy lives, those who suffer for no cause of theirs, those who are oppressed, those who have scores and scores of woes to meet on a daily basis, through the crisis we see in the nature around us, through the humanity that has pushed into a hue and cry that is so artificial and human made with this pandemic... there are signs aplenty.

Our responsibility is two fold: first, to learn to gather these signs, as coming from the Lord! At times we can become careless and callous to these, that we would never read the right message at the right time. A delayed action is no good! Secondly, we have the responsibility to act upon the sign we receive and respond to it, regardless of the risks and the sacrifices that are involved. We are so negligent in this task that we habituate ourselves to becoming blind to the signs that are around. There are those who repeatedly remind us of that - and they become a nuisance in our eyes, if not even villains!

Whether we gather them or not, respond to them or not, they are there! We would do well as true sons and daughters of the Reign, if we are present to them and through them strive to build the Reign here on earth. If not, we ourselves are the losers!

Judgement, our choice?

WORD 2day: Thursday, 34th week in Ordinary time

November 28, 2024: Revelation 18: 1-2, 21-23, 19:1-3, 9; Luke 21: 20-28

Happy are those who are called to the wedding feast of the Lamb... the final banquet, the moment of redemption... the end of days, the judgment seat... these are all the pictures that the Word paints before our eyes today. Let us not create for ourselves an idea of some horror fiction or some sort of shake-up narrations. They are, after all, logical ends towards which we are all journeying.

But a much deeper fact to remember is that these need not be always an end time phenomenon, instead it has to be an everyday experience... the judgment is a continuous happening and it is not entirely an act of the Lord; the choices that we make at any given point of time, at any moment of a given day, the choice of our words, thoughts, actions, decisions... those are already judgments that we bring upon ourselves (cf. Jn 3:18).

The reason is this: our choice! Every time we react in a way to something or someone, we make a choice! You may say, "No! but it was just a spontaneous word, or a spontaneous act; not premeditated at all!" But remember, though it is a so-called spontaneous word or act, it has a history; there is a whole lot of experience behind it; there is a whole lot of judgement that goes with it. Why you choose a word, not another; why choose a particular way of reacting and not some other... they depend, even if unconscious or subconscious, on the attitudes or the disposition you have towards that person or that event. That is where our judgments, the judgments that come on us, rest too! That is why Jesus said: judge not, you shall not be judged!

Getting back to the parable... we are all called to the wedding feast, that is to unite with the Lord and enjoy the eternal bliss. But the choices we make on a daily basis, at a particular point of time, is our response and that decides whether we enter the banquet or not. Hence, instead of yarning tales of suspense and horror, let us realise our responsibility in making right choices, conscious choices, charitable choices, holy choices, Christ-like choices, every moment of our daily life: that way ,our judgement would be our choice, indeed!