LESSONS FROM THE HOLY FAMILY

To individuals, families and the communities!

December 28, 2025: Solemnity of the Holy Family
Ecclesiasticus 3: 2-6,12-14; Colossians 3: 12-21; Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

Increasing number of Homes for the Aged, Orphanages, Day care centres and Night shelters for the kids on the streets, alarming rate of divorces and split families, the ridiculous family feuds and meaningless stand offs among the relatives within a family... these are no strange scenes today in a Christian Community! And much more, these are vivid testaments of a collapsing Christian faith.

Christian faith is a faith of a Community, from the earliest times known it is experienced, lived and shared in a community; and the basic unit of the community is the family. That is the reason for using the beautiful term, 'domestic church' referring to the family. It is there, that the Church grows from a seed to a seedling and then to an orchard of God's love. The Solemnity today, intends to rekindle in us our respect for families, our commitment to living our faith in our families and as families to become the nuclei of God's love that can give birth to a whole new world, a world of love, peace, joy and fellowship.

The Holy Family of Nazareth presents to us a wonderful project towards this dream:

To the Families: BE GOD CENTERED! The first reading invites us to reflect on the fact that a Christian Family is constituted by God. It is not merely the man and the woman who come together to make the family, but it is the Lord who brings them together. The second reading affirms the same in the words of St. Paul, who elsewhere points out that marriage should lead to mutual sanctification of the partners (1 Cor 7:14). As long as God is the centre of a family, the family will remain united, bonded in the love of God.

God was at the centre, in the Holy Family... God commanded, the family carried out. They listened to God, obeyed God and took directions from God. There were difficult commands to carry out, but they carried out. There were terrible issues involved, they stuck together. There were challenges to face, they did it all without losing their serenity. All because they had God, right at the centre of their family...they listened to God and took directions from God! Do we as a family, listen to God and take directions from God?

To the Individuals: BE FAMILY CENTERED! The individualistic and materialistic tendencies of the society at large, have begun to affect the individual families drastically. Individuals within a family, far from thinking of the well being of the other, have begun to calculate the gain they have from the rest of the family and stoop to dirty levels of hurting the other for one's own good!

The Good of the Family was the uppermost criterion in the Holy Family... Mary did not mind the running around, be it when she was still carrying or after the delivery; Joseph did not mind taking up the burdens of transferring them every time; all that was in their mind was the Good of the Family and Jesus was no exception as Luke says in his Gospel, "he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them' (Lk 2:51). Do we as individuals, place the good of the others in the family before my own interests?

To the Churches: BE COMMUNION CENTERED! The Local Churches, that is the parishes, are essentially God's Family of families. In the wise and eternal plan of our loving Lord, the Universal Church in the world is the communion of Churches in various nations, namely the dioceses; the Diocesan church is the communion of the local parish churches; the Parish church has to be the communion of the domestic churches, that is the Family! All of us united in the name of the Father, Son and the Spirit, who invite us to form one, big, universal family of loving hearts - that family which is called the REIGN OF GOD.

The Holy Family did everything with just one objective in mind: that God's will be done. Mary said that to Angel Gabriel: Let it be done unto me according to your will, and ever since she did nothing but obey the Lord with thanks, praise and reflection in her heart. Joseph carried out every command that was given to him without speaking a word of doubt or objection - all for the will of God to be done. Do we as part of a parish church or a faith community, do our part to grow in our communion with each other, towards forming one, big, God's family - the Reign of God? 

This year we shall be missing out on the feast of the Holy Innocents, but they are certainly and succintly presented to us by the background of the Gospel when we read shuttling of the Haly between Egypt and Bethlehem. Let us take to heart the lessons from the Holy Family today...and as families be God centered, as individuals be Family centered and as a Parish be Communion centered.

Joy - the sign of Christian life and ministry

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

December 27, 2025: Remembering St. John, the Evangelist
1 John 1:1-14; John 20: 2-8

The Christmas joy continues, even as we commemorate St.John the Evangelist today. "The Joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus," says the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, no. 1. Though the Gospel today draws our attention to the scene of the resurrection, the message is more focused on the all important encounter with Christ that redefines one's life. When a person encounters Christ in all earnestness, there is a choice, a categorical choice for Christ and Christ's mission!

As St. Paul affirms that it is no merit that an apostle proclaims the Word, but woe to him if he does not (1 Cor 9:16), today we see John explaining that in the first reading: I am called to announce Christ, not merely because others will benefit from it; but primarily that my joy may be complete (1 Jn 1:4). That is the Christmas joy too, the joy of beholding the revelation of God's love and sharing it with the other.

For a Christ-ian, a joy-filled proclamation of Christ is the only way to live his or her life - joyfully proclaiming Christ in every word, every action and every choice that is made, at every moment of one's daily life. 

The Reign Dream

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

December 26, 2025: St. Stephen, the first Martyr

Acts 6: 8-10, 7: 54-59; Matthew 10: 17-22

Persecutions and Martyrdom have never been alien to Christian Faith. St. Stephen is the first Biblical evidence to it. Continuing in the line of the prophets and persons of God who have been treated at will by the world in the Old Testament, we see Jesus and most of his disciples facing the same end in the New Testament.

Religious fanaticism and the consequent discrimination and communalism is dangerously being justified these days as patriotism and conservatism! Be it the secularistic values that is spread globally, or the anti-secular system that is being forced into the fabric of tolerance and conviviality in great enviable traditions, the hate speeches and hidden agenda... these are signs of anti-Reign elements in the world today.

St. Stephen knew what it meant to suffer for the Reign and die for Christ; it meant suffering for the things that really matter; it meant standing for true beliefs and convictions that can elevate your spirit to the heavens open and the angels coming down!

It was Stephen who also imitated his Master literally: While Jesus prayed for those who crucified him and offered his spirit into the hands of his loving Father, Stephen prayed for those who stoned him and surrendered his spirit into Jesus' hands. What an example for us to emulate! Not only praying what Stephen prayed but seeing what he saw: the open heavens - that is open hearts, high ideals, profound humanity, in short, the Reign dream!

Buono e Santo Natale a tutti!

 

Merry Christmas to all

 

CHRISTMAS NOVENA - Day 9: O Morning Star!

24th December: O Morning Star...

The 7 O-Antiphons are over with yesterday...
but the Novena ends today...with the rising of the Morning Star!

O Morning Star, Radiance of eternal light
Sun of Justice, come and enlighten those who live in darkness
and in the Shadow of death.

Morning Star, actually is the star that is seen in the east shining bright just before the dawn! It is considered the imminent sign of the morning that is already rising.

The Lord is not just near...but the Lord is here!!!
We celebrate the Rising Star, the Morning Star that announces the break of day!
The Lord comes to rule in our hearts, not just in the world...
Let us prepare ourselves..for the Lord is here

The Reign - God's abode here and now!

THE WORD IN ADVENT

Fourth Wednesday in Advent - December 24, 2025

2 Samuel 7: 1-5,8-12,14,16; Luke 1: 67-79

The Reign, which is the hope of the trustful pilgrims, can be demonstrated in varied ways. It is true that we have to work for it, strain our way to make its presence felt... but we would be terribly mistaken to think that it is our doing! That is the mistake that David does, as we see in the Word today. 

When David resolves to build an abode for God, God retorts: are you going to build a house for me? I shall build a house for you, says the Lord. The first message of the Word today is - that God makes a house... God forms us into a people, gives us an identity and commissions us with our lives which are challenged to become a sign and sacramente of God's presence wherever we are.

The Lord, not only builds a house for us God's children, but deigns to make God's own home amidst us. Emmanuel... whom we have prepared to behold and we are all set to receive in few hours from now... is absolutely God with us. In Jesus' vicinity to us, we see God making home with us and becoming part of our being and our experience.

The Lord comes to visit us, making a home with us amply signifies that. The Lord does not only come to visit us, but to stay with us, stay in us and stay in every experience that makes up our lives. The Lord abides here and now, in the present, at every moment and at every instance of our lives. Hence Reign, is not something we arrive at... it is something we abide in, and something that will allow God to abide here and now, amidst us, within us and with us. 

Emmanuel, God is with us; and the Reign is where God is, where God abides... here and now.    

CHRISTMAS NOVENA - Day 8: O Emmanuel

23rd December: O Emmanuel

O Emmanuel, our king and our lawgiver,
the hope of the nations and their Saviour:
Come and save us, O Lord our God.

Based on the famous prophecy of Isaiah 7:14, the title Emmanuel is the key to the mystery of incarnation. The presence of God with the people was the greatest of the promises that they could experience. Be it with Abraham or with Moses or with Joshua or with the people who were walking in the desert, one of the prominent promises that God gave was to be with them! Christ comes as the fulfilment and the most complete expression as that promise: as God among us.

The symbol is the virgin with the child in the manger. It is not just any child, but the promised salvation of the God of the universe, the king who has come to meet his subjects to make them co-heirs to his throne. The manger is a lovely symbol that unites the heaven and the earth, the Divine and the human!

The presence of the Lord is salvific; one who has experienced it cannot remain silent - he or she has to go out and share it, make every one else experience that presence! This is the crux of evangelisation: it is not proselytisation, not sheep stealing and increasing the numbers within a fold. It is sharing that salvific presence that one has experienced, from the Lord. The first call is to experience the God-with-us, the presence of the Lord with us, and the call that follows is to share that presence with those around - that is salvation.

The prayer is to the Lord our God to save us by God's saving presence... in simple words it is a beseeching to stay with us, to live with us. to sanctify us, to make us worthy of God and of God's great big family.

The Reign - an attentive beholding!

THE WORD IN ADVENT

Fourth Tuesday in Advent - December 23, 2025

Malachi 3: 1-4, 23-24; Luke 1: 57-66

We are in the last step of preparation towards the commemoration of the great Incarnation moment! Just as our 24 day long preparation towards this feast this year, the original incarnation event had its preparation too, only that it was a bit longer, longer by let us say a few centuries... yes, there was a patient and compassionate preparation on the part of God... preparing God's people generation after generation to behold that peak moment of revelation. 

The preparation, which Malachi compares to the skillful precision of a silversmith, was so patient that some were not strong enough to wait; it was so compassionate that it did not leave out even those who did not have the strength. Yes, the Lord prepared with everyone in embrace; no one is  left out of that compassion. 

The preparation of God was so attentive - no one, no detail was left unattended, just as a silversmith cannot afford to take his or her eyes off the precious metal that is being worked on. God had the divine eyes fixed on each of us, with love and understanding, preparing each of us. We see that in the Gospel today...how every one was being prepared - John the new born, his parents, those around - everyone; the whole creation is gearing up to behold the coming of the One, the One Saviour, the Son of God. 

For us, the pilgrims of hope, for whom the hope is the Reign, the Reign is being prepared with attention, patience and compassion... just as the Lord who is preparing it with attention, we are called to behold it with attention. There could be experiences and responses that can make us lose the attention and focus on other matters that may not be proportionately important or urgent! The Word calls our attention today, towards an attentive beholding of the Reign. 

Inversion - the Reign-version

THE WORD IN ADVENT

Fourth Monday in Advent - December 22, 2025

1 Samuel 1: 24-28; Luke 1: 46-56

We are in the last days of preparation towards the great event of Christmas, the commemoration of the Incarnational moment. The incarnation is in fact an inversion, an inversion willed by God. The Word presents to us the significance of this inversion as Reign-version! 

The Reign, the hope of the pilgrims, is in fact, a logic of inversion: the poor empowered, the lowly raised, the weak strengthened, the hungry filled... the Reign is the inversion of the popular world order, the so-called normal of the world, the common logic approved - all for the sake of establishing the sovereignty of God. 

This inversion is the fruit of the Lord's promise - we see this expressed in the first reading with Hannah's song, that great song expressing the praises of the Lord, lovingly and gratefully adapted my our Blessed Mother in her magnificat. 

The inversion is the sign of Lord's supremacy - the last word is of the Lord. There could be people and the whole society holding up a system, but what really matters is what God has willed. When the system and the Divine will do not coincide, there is always a conflict that humanity experiences and a crisis it has to handle. 

The inversion is the Lord's marvelous ways -  the incredible ways of the Lord, the inconceivable grandeur of God's plan, the mystery of God's design is the real structure of the Reign. The Reign is not just an extension of what we think is good or better... but it is an inversion, it is a total and absolute shift of excellence proper to God's ways!

The Root of Jesse... is a symbol of radicality of God's promise... which is certain to come true. It may delay, but shall not delay anymore... it shall certainly come alive in the Word becoming flesh.