A Return to hope... to the right celebration!

THE WORD IN LENT - Friday, Fourth week in Lent

April 4, 2025 - Wisdom 2:1, 12-22; John 7: 1-2, 10, 25-30

There is no dearth for celebrations within our Christian tradition, enough to consider this whole year, called the Jubilee Year. But the question is, are our celebrations truly Christian Celebrations? This is a crucial point to reflect on, be it as families, or as entire community of faith. In what does a true Christian celebration consist in? The true celebration is when there is new life for the broken hearted, says the Word today. 

Most of the times a celebrations belong to the mighty, the powerful, the victorious, the successful, the greats of all times... they are unfortunately a show of pride and arrogance, regardless of whether they of religious or otherwise! We celebrate on the fall of the other, the destruction of someone, the defeat of another, the inability of someone - how can it get more cruel? The Word presents to us these cruel mentalities what awaited and even complotted the death of righteous, because they thought they were weak and despicable! How much the world today sports this attitude, we know it well.

The Word today teaches us that the Christian sense of Celebration consists in the revival of the dead, the renewal of the spirits, the enlivening of the broken hearted. We began the week with the Word reminding us of that beautiful parable - that of the prodigal. The son comes back with such a broken heart that a real celebration awaited him. There was the other son with such an arrogant and self righteous heart, that he totally missed that celebration. 

Christian celebrations belong to the broken, the fatigued, the low-spirited - the Lord is by their side to lift them up! Let us grow in our spirit of humility and we shall see what true celebration in the eyes of the Lord is. 

A Return to hope... to the Right Assurances

THE WORD IN LENT - Thursday, Fourth week in Lent

April 3, 2025 - Exodus 32: 7-14; John 5: 31-47

"You place your hopes on Moses, and Moses will be your accuser," warns the Lord today in the Gospel. Jesus comes to us as the ultimate mediator between us and our God, the God of Jesus (Eph 1:17), and our God, the Father of Jesus (Rom 15:6; Eph 1:17 etc.) and our Father! At times in our pride and presumption, we tend to think that we can get away with some of our terrible choices in life, because we do something, or we have some one who will cover for us. Just a simple second thought on such a proposition, will tell us how wrong we are. And that is what Jesus is telling us today.

Our penitential measures during the Lent, or our pilgrimages and charities on occasions, or our devotions and litanies to the Saints, should not become sources of assurance of our salvific hope. Intellectual study of scriptures, legal fulfilment of religious routines, diligent adherence to rules and regulations cannot claim the place of being the right assurances of belonging to God. Seeking each other's approval, looking for human respect, creating fake images of oneself to be presenting to the rest of the world, can never be assurances of our justification in the eyes of the Lord, for the Lord knows us through and through. 

The Voice of the Lord, the Will of God and the Works of our Saviour calling us to act and to surrender ourselves to the Lord - that is our only and absolute assurance! The world tends to lose itself to the false hopes built by appearances and baseless constatations, while the Word and the Lent challenges us to return to the right assurances, that we find only in the Lord. 

A Return to hope... towards Eternal Life

THE WORD IN LENT - Wednesday, Fourth week in Lent

April 2, 2025 - Isaiah 49: 8-15; John 5: 17-30

On our pilgrimage of hope, we are reflecting these days about the reasons that make us celebrate, even amidst this lent; the causes that makes us rejoice even amidst the hardships of life. First we said the Lord gives us new life, yesterday we said the Lord takes us towards wholeness and today we have the culmination of it... eternal life, the experience of salvation which is eternal life. From new life, to wholeness, being born to eternal life: all those who believe in me will have life eternal - that's the promise of the Lord and that is a cause of rejoicing, certainly. 

The Gospel today presents to us the tussle between the Jews and Jesus - Jesus who claims that he has the power to raise people from death, just as his Father does. That raising people from the dead, is what we call the perspective of eternal life, that which destroys death and defeats hell. Life eternal is not just a state of not dying, it is a perspective. It is the whole way of living that is spoken of here, not merely about dying. 

We can draw from today's Word, at least three indications of eternal life. The first indication is that we come from the Lord and the Lord never abandons us; we belong to the Lord: the first reading outlines this. We have nothing to fear, not even death, because the Lord never forgets us, not even if our own mothers do forget us.

Secondly, God has given us God's only Son, that we have eternal life. What else can come against us , or who? Apart from the very fact that we share the image and likeness of God, we have been "saved" by God - that experience of salvation is the promise of God's eternal existence, an offer that God makes us. However, it depends on us to take it or not, after all it is an offer, and never a compulsion. 

Thirdly, the way to behold the offer of eternal life, Jesus teaches us - is to listen to the Word, believe in the one who has sent the Word to us, and do the will of the One who has sent us! All the lenten practices are pointed to this ultimate growth expected of us. Jesus identified himself with the Father and that was why he never feared anyone who stood against him - for us too, that is the indication: that we identify ourselves with our source, that is God! That is the true perspective of eternal life! 

A Return to hope... towards wholeness!

THE WORD IN LENT - Tuesday, Fourth week in LEnt

April 1, 2025 - Ezekiel 47: 1-9, 12; John 5: 1-3, 5-16

When we are in the Lord we have a thousand reasons to thank God for, a million reasons to glorify the Lord, because the continues to give us countless opportunities towards wholeness. The first question here is whether it is true. The next question would be, in what way? And a third question is, how ready and prompt are we to recognise it?

Healing, wholeness ... comes not merely as a corrective to a problem, as if completing a lack. Of course it is so, but not just that. The fact is that, all of us need healing - in varied forms and levels. The promises this healing, as the life giving waters that flow towards us, as the Son of God who comes in search of us, to offer us that healing, just as we see in the Word today. The Lord wishes to give us the experience of wholeness and that is true - the whole of salvation history tells us that, the experience of faith lived and passed on to us vouches for that and on a daily basis the Lord expresses this intention of his, through the Eucharist and other sacraments and sacramentals. 

The real issue lies in our disposition to recognise this presence, this offer of the Lord, this salvific experience that the Lord is willing and eager to offer us - as children of God, as brothers and sisters of the Son, as dwelling places of the Spirit of the Lord. Just as that man who was longing to go the waters, did not realise the fact that the Life giving Water had in fact come to him, we too search for, look for God experience everywhere around! All that we need to do is, as the Psalmist teaches us: be still and know, be still and realise, be still and recognise the life give water that surges within us, because we are God's own.

A Return to hope... Celebrating New Life

THE WORD IN LENT - Monday, Fourth week in Lent

March 31, 2025 - Isaiah 65: 17-21; John 4: 43-54

Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth...be glad and rejoice, says the first reading today. What more hopeful message can we get? Be it as individuals or as a community, we do have regrets in life and history, and what a wonderful experience it is to hear that they will all be forgotter, erased from memory and that we could start everything anew! That is exactly what the Lord promises us. 

But we will not believe it, we will not take it for that the Lord says; we will try to find figurative meanings and compatible interpretations to the already existing mindset of negativity and hopelessness. What else can the Lord do? We are so familiar with the promises of the Lord that many a time, they do not really mean anything to us - take for example the promises like, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you', 'where there are two are three gathered in my name, I am there,'... how much do we really believe them? However, the Lord will not be surprised about it - we see that in the Gospel. Nor will the Lord give up on us. 

The Lord goes on doing more and more good...and hopes that one day we would come to realise and behold the new things that God has created, the new things that God is continuously doing for us! When we learn to behold them, we shall see ample reasons to celebrate. The Lord calls us to that celebration, to celebrate the new life that the Lord has prepared, and is preparing, for us every day. That would be truely the dawn of hope when we form ourselves and grow enough to behold, realise and celebrate new life from the hands of God. 

A RETURN TO HOPE -TOWARDS CELEBRATION

Celebrating Reconciliation, Return & Renewal

March 30, 2025 - Laetare (Fourth) Sunday in Lent

Joshua 5: 9-12; 2 Corinthians 5: 17-21; Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32

The Return to hope, the pilgrimage of this Lent has reached the landmark Fourth Sunday - the Sunday of Celebration, Laetare Sunday. The call today, for this entire week, is to celebrate! Our Christian life is a life of Celebration - in spite of whatever difficulty or trouble, we can find a thousand reasons to thank the Lord, to celebrate the gifts that the Lord keeps filling us with. 

The Word today explains the call we have to celebrate, that we are called, 

to celebrate Reconciliation:

That the Lord calls us to Reconciliation, to get back to that relationship which alone can give us meaning! The Lord has made a covenant with us, a covenant that would never change, on the part of the Lord. The call is to us, to get back to that relationship, it does not matter how far we have gone away.

to celebrate Return:

It is a return that we celebrate today, a return that is made possible by the Lord. On our own it is not possible for us to return, but the Lord makes it possible to us. An important detail is, if it has to be a return, I need to realise where my original identity is. The parable of the prodigal son is a classic representation of "return" which forms one of the core themes of this whole pilgrimage that we have undertaken. One of the peak experiences of return that we can celebrate is the sacrament of Reconciliation!

to celebrate Renewal:

The celebration is truly due and impelling, because what we celebrate is a renewal. Lent, is a time when we celebrate what the Lord has done for us - through his life, death and resurrection. We celebrate New Life, Renewed Life, Eternal Life. What we see in the first reading is that lease of new life that the people of God experienced... from manna to a new crop of grains, it was a new beginning for them. That is what we are challenged to be: renewed beings in Christ. 

One who is in Christ is a new person...and we need to celebrate that renewal, through returning to that relationship!       

A Return to hope... ultimately to love!

THE WORD IN LENT - Saturday, Third week in Lent

March 29, 2025 - Hosea 6:1-6; Luca 18: 9-14

The discourse on Obeying the Lord, that we have been having in past few days, is brought to its climax today, as the Word declares - what God wants is love and not sacrifice! That is the secret: a return to hope actually is ultimately, a return to love! We are called to love and everything in life has to be an expression of that love - the two tier love that is presented to us: love of God and love of the neighbours. 

Love and not sacrifice is a dictum that can communicate three fundamental messages to those who are serious about Christian Spirituality: 

First of all, it is a shift from the doing paradigm to a being pardigm. We are challenged to concentrate on who we are  at the core of our beings and make our doing a simple and sincere expression of what we are. The other way cannot make me neither christian nor spiritual - that is trying to do a lot of things and from there intending to define my identity. That would lead to the peculiar problem of today - the secularisation of faith. 

The second message is to liberate ourselves from ourselves and focus more on the other! What I do, what I give up, what good things I accomplish - these are of course important elements of discussion, but a true Christian spirituality would redirect me to look at the other, what the other needs, what the other feels, and what the other experiences on a daily basis.

Thirdly, it is a reminder of the precedence and centrality of love in Chrisian Spirituality. When done out of sincere love, everything goes well with the Lord. That is why Augustine dared to say, "love and do what you wish!" What we do, might end up a failure, not bear the right effects, not result in anything lasting... but if it is really done in love, the Lord would approve of it - and we would go home justified!

A Return to hope... to love the One Lord

THE WORD IN LENT - Friday, Third week in Lent

March 28, 2025 - Hosea 14:2-10; Mark 12: 28-34

We are reflecting these days on doing the will of God, by way of our obedience to the commandments, the precepts or the teachings of the Lord. It is not simply following a rule, or abiding by a law, or keeping up a custom... it is all about a relationship with God - how absolute that relationship is, and how uncompromising our dedication is! 

First of all, the compromises might come in, when we find excuses to not follow the rule or reasons to break the law or justifications to define exceptions - whatever name we give them, dispensation or allowance or remission and so on. But what matters here is the motive, the real and the innermost motive, and not what is apparently presented. At the level of the conscience we need to come to grips with it. 

The other mode of compromise is what is more dangerous, and the prophet speaks to us about it: creating our own gods... making our own idols, not only in the literal sense, but in the most applicative or figurative sense. When we make riches, conveniences, comfort, progress, advancement, happiness, success, human respect, status, prestige, power, control etc. the priorities of our decision making, we are making of them little gods who will slowly grow and begin occupying larger and larger space in our lives, be it as indivuduals or as communities.

The remedy, as the Word presents to us today is - listening to the voice of the Lord! And the Jesus explains to us that, as the first and the most fundamental commandment: to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. The commandment that follows is a sequel to it, rather a verification of the former - to love our neighbours. It is the latter, true love for the other, that makes sure that I am not making a god for myself, or making a god of myself... but remain loyal to the call that I have received from my One God - to love him in everything. 

 

A Return to hope... to turn to that Voice!

THE WORD IN LENT - Thursday, Third week in Lent

March 27, 2025 - Jeremiah 7: 23-28; Luke 11: 14-23

Yesterday, w began the discourse on obedience to the Lord, obedience to the will of God, obedience to the eternal plan that God has for us. But how do we obey without knowing it... which means the Lord takes an extra effort to make it known to us, notwithstanding the fact that we habitually ignore all those efforts. This is what we see the Lord instructing Jeremiah in the first reading today - the Lord is almost preparing him for a rejection, because that is what the people have always done. 

In the Gospel we see Jesus facing the same rejection from the people, inspite of all the signs and wonders that were given to them. The call here is turn to the Voice of the Lord - that Voice that reaches us in so many varied ways: through those who speak to us directly the Word of God, through those who inspire us by their ordinary conversations or daily experiences, through extraordinary events that make us pause a moment and take a look, through ordinary and regular events that we most of the times take for granted, through signs of happenings be they glad or sad... in varied ways, the Voices keeps calling our attention; and our call is to turn to that Voice.

Not hearing the voice and not heeding to its call, it is true that we are not with God! More than that, we will be held responsible, for two reasons - one, that we failed to be that Voice for the others around us; two, that we distracted the others too from listening to that voice by our negligence and lack of witness! That is why Jesus warns us categorically: those who are not with me are against me; those who do not gather with me scatter what I came to gather. There is no neutrality here - either we are with God or we are against the Lord! 

A Return to Hope... towards a fruitful obedience

THE WORD IN LENT - Wednesday, Third week in Lent

March 26, 2025 - Deuteronomy 4: 1,5-9; Matthew 5: 17-19

I have not come to abolish the Law, but to complete them, to fulfill them, to take them towards the fullness and fruitfulness. Speaking of hope, we know it means that at the end of all that may go well or on the contrary, the Lord's will shall be done, and God's will is always for my welfare! This is hope and the space for God's will within it is non negligible. One of the ways in which this aspect of hope as God's design for us, comes to the fore in the reality of the commandments. 

The commandments which become the fundamentals of our ethical living and Christian mores, is a crucial part of the scaffolding that keeps our hope intact. It refers to a simple conviction that the Lord has already thought through what is good for us and lets us know by the commandments - as to what to do and what to avoid. Hence following the Law, is the source of hope, peace and serenity. However, not all that appears to be obeying the law is unequivocally wholesome! Being legalistic can at times take us towards self righteousness more than sanctity. Jesus is aware of it, and that is why he reorients our attentions towards the fulfillment of the laws - that come from the fruitfulness of our choices. 

Obedience, as we spoke about it just yesterday, cannot be just doing something because it has to be done. Where is the human choice and freedom involved in such an action or such a decision? Obedience of Faith is much more: knowing the will of God, embracing it with love and carrying it out in life with purpose. That is the way that obedience can become fruitful. Returning to hope is all about choosing this obedience to the commandments, which are but God's will made easy. Beginning today, we shall be led to a deeper understanding of what obedience to God's will is - first and foremost, it leads to me to a sense of fulfillment, a sense of meaning and a sense of hope. You Words O Lord, are spirit, they are life.