It is the Master who sends...

WORD 2day: Saturday, 14th week in Ordinary time

July 11, 2026: Isaiah 6: 1-8; Matthew 10: 24-33

It is the Lord who sends; it is the Master who calls; it is the Teacher who commissions! It is not because I am worthy to be sent, or qualified to be called or skilled to be commissioned... but it is because it is the Lord who calls! As St. Paul says it in such simple terms: "those whom he called, he justified" (cf. Rom 8:29). However unworthy I am, when the Lord has appointed me for a mission, he makes sure that mission goes on through me.

As soon as we speak of being called and being commissioned, let us not think of those in the ministry - the priests or the religious or the lay ministers or those who have some special responsibility in the faith community! The 'called', the 'sent', the 'commissioned' referred to here, are not those but every Christian who is called, commissioned and sent by the very fact of one's baptism in the Lord!

Yes, we are called, commissioned and sent, each of us! And it is the Master who sends, the King who clothes us with his majesty and glory, adorns us with his identity and entrusts with his power. It is in the name of the Lord, that we go - not because we can go or we are competent to go - but because, the Lord, the King, the Master, wants us to!

On my part, the challenge is to be mindful of the fact that it is the Lord who has sent me and commissioned me and to be convinced that the Lord takes care of everything around me, provided I live my life faithful to the call. A thousand may fall at my side and ten thousand at my right hand, but nothing will come near me, for I have made God my refuge, prays the Psalmist (in Ps 91:7).

It is the Lord who has called me and it is Lord who has commissioned me, I am accountable to the Lord and to the Lord alone. In this world and to those around me, I have nothing to prove! All that I need to do is, stand in awe at the majesty of the Lord, believe in the Lord's sovereignty and submit myself in total faith into the hands of God, saying "Here am I Lord, send me!" When the Lord does send us, we will see the glory of God revealed in marvelous ways!

God with us - in thick and thin...

WORD 2day: Friday, 14th week in Ordinary time

July 10, 2026: Hosea 14: 2-10; Matthew 10: 16-23

this sign in Indian tradition is called the Abhaya Mudra,

the assurance of the unfailing and protective presence of the Divine

"Straight are the paths of the Lord" (Hos 14:10), declares prophet Hosea today. 

Straight, and therefore tough. Straight and therefore no compromises. Straight and therefore no confusions! Everyone knows the ways of the Lord; everyone knows what is acceptable to the Lord and what is not; it is made known by the Lord to every human person in their innermost self. No one can say, I was not aware that this is the right thing to do! Of course, every one knows it or at least has the possibility of getting to know it.

Further reflecting, the words of Jesus in the Gospel are quite frightening as we find Jesus trying to warn us against being good, against choosing the ways of the Lord and being God's disciples or apostles of the Word. He does not promise any prospects, instead persecution. He does not announce any offers, instead oppression. He says it very clearly that we will have to suffer for his sake, for the sake of the Word and for the sake of the Reign of God.

Each one knows what is good and what is right... and while choosing it, there is going to be problems and trials - unfortunately we know that too! Come to think of it: one knows saying the truth is the right thing, but doing it, he or she knows the consequences of being isolated; one knows being honest and sincere is the godly thing to choose, but he or she knows too, that it will only bring loss and lag, while the rest of the dishonest world seems to march ahead in victory and glory! So choosing God's ways seems to bring nothing desirable!

Now listen to Jesus who assures the consolation of the Lord, the consoling and affirming presence of the Lord with us, always and everywhere. Because what we have chosen is the way of the Lord, we are certain to find the Lord present with us all the way. The way might be filled with pitfalls and climbs and hurdles and thorns and thistles... but we are sure amidst all these, the Lord walks with us, the Lord speaks on our behalf and the Lord acts in and through us.

What a mighty consolation we have: in thick and thin, God is with us!

Love, because you are loved!

WORD 2day: Thursday, 14th week in Ordinary time

July 9, 2026: Hosea 11: 1-4,8-9; Matthew 10: 7-15

We are loved, loved by God, loved extremely and unconditionally. Like a child, without having to pay back, we are loved by God. Hosea who has been speaking to us for the past few days, brings out the compassion and love of God towards God's children in various terms, always contrasting it with our own infidelity and fickle mindedness. Today he brings out the love that God has for us in terms of a love that a father or a mother has towards a little, helpless child.

In the Gospel Jesus gives a practical demonstration of what happens when we really understand and experience this love of God, so free, so unlimited and incredibly unconditional. When we receive the love from the Lord, we cannot hold it within us - because of two reasons: we receive it undeservedly and we receive it in such immense measures! That is why he sends his disciples far and wide, and asks us today, to go and to take the loving message of God to every nook and corner of the earth.

Experiencing God's love makes me by nature, loving. The more I experience God's love truly, the more loving I become. The corollary is revealing: the less loving I am, the less have I really experienced the love of God. Hence all those hypocrites who spread hatred in the name of God, are despicable beings that have really not experienced the true love of God. Isn't that a challenging perspective to think about?

If we really experience the love of God, drink deep from it, we cannot but give it because our cup overflows! We give because we are filed with it. We give because we are given. We love because we are loved!

The Lost children of God...

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 14th week in Ordinary time

July 8, 2026 - Hosea 10:1-3,7-8,12; Matthew 10:1-7

We see the Lord calling his apostles today and sending them to the lost house of Israel...go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. It is not about some historically lost group of people that the Word is speaking to us - the reference is to the present situation, the present day when people are more and more drifting away from God, when the very children created by God are losing God, getting lost from God, getting themselves away from God. 

In the first reading today, Hosea gives us at least three ways in which persons today get themselves lost from God.

The first is the image of the "divided heart"...persons divided between the good and the evil, divided between the truth and the fake, divided between love and animosity, divided between giving and avarice.

The second is the image of the "straw drifting on the water" ...the aimless ways of life, the confusing value systems, increasing promiscuity and self-centred justification of everything that leads to relativism.

The third is the image of the "thorns and thistles on the altar"...the sacred of our life encroached by the tendencies of materialism, consumerism, objectification of persons, possessive sense of sentimentalism and many other thinking and practice which cloud the true spiritual sense of human call. 

Every person is a child of God... that is our true identity and fundamental calling, but often times today marred by the conflicting ideas and luring attractions. How are we going to remain children of God in our daily lives? How are we going to reach out to the "lost children of God"? 

The passion to be compassionate

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 14th week in Ordinary time

July 7, 2026: Hosea 8: 4-7, 11-13; Matthew 9: 32-38

The Word today presents to us two contrasting realities: the obstinate sinfulness of the people and the absolute compassion of the Lord. A contrast that fills the pages of the Salvation history, right from its beginning up until now, until our own days and our own lives!

In the first reading, Hosea points out how despicable the people were getting. The dwindling faith, the blatant compromises, deliberate choices for what is ungodly, absolutisation of human autonomy, justification of a lawless economy... wait! are these not the experiences that the society is grappling with even today?

Is there a way out of these? Surely no, as long as the idolising tendency of the human person does not disappear. Today we make idols out of money, possessions, our own ego, power and position, status and social image, sometimes so ironically, even of our own religiosity, forgetting the actual epicentre of true meaning of our existence! How many values, persons and principles we sacrifice in the bargain! As if that is not enough, the society is ever ready to demonise those who stand for justice and truth, those who speak up for God, those who stand for God's people. The so-called mainstream society ostracises those persons as anti-socials, conservatives and anti-progress individuals.

Jesus presents himself to us as a motivating role model, inspiring us to stand for God and for the values of the Reign, inspite of the world that threatens us. Jesus is absolutely compassionate even when he finds that the people were not ready to understand him totally, some of them in fact were calumniating against him. Nothing would perturb Jesus... and it was so because, it was his passion to make people feel the compassion of God. Yes, the theme we reflected on yesterday... being the compassion of God and being compassionate with suffering children of God. 

The challenge today is, whether we can be still compassionate, even though we find those around, not really worthy of it!

To be the compassion of God

WORD 2day: Monday, 14th week in Ordinary time

July 6, 2026: Hosea 2:16, 17c-18, 21-22; Matthew 9: 18-26

We begin to listen to prophet Hosea from today... and Hosea brings out an intense dimension of God's love towards us. He offers the analogy of a spousal love to the relationship between God and God's people. A reminder to us, of the how compassionate God is towards us God's people. The central call is that we realise the Comapassion that God is.

Jesus brings out the same compassion in his own way, his heart goes out to the woman with the suffering and his tender love reaches out to the girl on the death bed. The readings present to us Jesus, as the compassion of God and in doing so has an underlying commission to us. As we are given to understand and acknowledge Jesus as the Compassion of God, we are called and challenged to be the compassion of God in our own way, wherever we are and in whatever we do.

In a culture that is widespread today where the very meaning and implication of love is misunderstood or insensitively neglected, when faithfulness and mutual commitment in family living is more and more under crisis, when possessions and positions mean much more than persons... the message is truly challenging. Today, let us be conscious of every moment when the Lord gives us an opportunity to be God's compassion to others in our own way, beginning from within our families. 

Though little, our compassionate deeds might go a long way in making the day blessed for us and for the others.

The Reign Perspective

WORD 2day: Saturday, 13th week in Ordinary time

July 4, 2026: Amos 9: 11-15; Matthew 9: 14-17

The times are dull and dreary, the situation is grim and gloomy, the future seems uncertain and bleak, people beginning to lose any hope about a more just and peaceful world... there are theories and conspiracies, all of them disturbing... these are the kind of feelings that fill our days today... these same are presented in the readings too! But a truly Christian hope is that, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. The last word is always the Lord's.

Amos, who has been pronouncing such vehement warnings all this while, at a point comes out with a hopeful projection of the future. In fact, some scholars say, that this part of the text could be actually an interpellation into Amos' text. However, the readings today point to the fact that things can and will change for the better. There will be plenty, there will be justice flowing like river and righteousness like an overflowing stream, in short, there will be the Reign of God established for sure!

The call on our part is that, we should be prepared for it. We should be prepared to have a new mindset, a totally new perspective, an absolutely different value system! Cosmetic changes will not work...patchworks will not be sufficient...little additions here and there, simple deletions at places will not suffice... these adjustments will only make the situation worse, more confused and totally disoriented. What will help is only a radical transformation in Christ. It is what St. Paul would say, 'do not be conformed to this world, instead be transformed in Christ Jesus' (cf.;Rom 12:2); 'those who are in Christ are a new creation' (2 Cor 5:17). And for this we have put on the mind of the Christ (cf. Phil 2:5) and that is a radically new mindset, a totally new perspective, new thinking for the new times, new wine in new wine skins, an absolutely different value system: namely, the Reign perspective!

Communion - the core of being Church

An unfortunate development despite warning

Certainly we are aware of what is happening in the Universal Church these days with the Excommunication of 2 Ordaining bishops and 4 candidates involved in the attempted episcopal consecration of the society of St. Pius X (SSPX) 

See Vatican News

Reacting to this news, I read a comment which remarked - "another Reformation is needed in the Church." Unfortunately, the connotation of the term used "Reformation" sounds exact as the efforts understaken by the group involved amounts more to a "schism" than to an enhancement of the faith community. 

When the Faith community, with all the struggles and strifes, tries to make itself as close as possible to the "joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the persons of this age," some forces deny all these inspiration and signs of the times, for what they call "orthodoxy" which infact is more rigidity and fixation. It is the Holy Spirit alone that can help us discern the right sense of bringing the Good News to the world of today!

Doubts or difficulties... till death, with the Lord!

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

July 3, 2026: Celebrating St. Thomas the Apostle to India
Ephesians 2: 19-22; John 20: 24-29

The Feast of St. Thomas could leave us with three lessons to ponder...

1. We are One Church built on the Apostles.

The feasts of every apostle is a reminder of the essential unity that has to exist within the Church. As Paul so vehemently opposes (cf. I Cor 1:10-13), right from the earliest times division has always been a dreaded scandal within the Church. This reality notwithstanding, the divided body of Christ today drains the Church of its witnessing power and evangelical authority. A divided Church is the worst scandal that we can give the world, the Magisterium has repeatedly declared. Instead, a Church with persons of single heart and mind, brothers and sisters who live in harmony, is the highest form of testimony we can offer for the Reign of God.

2. The Church in India has a special responsibility.

The Church in India, boasting a direct handing over of faith by an apostle, has a special responsibility towards establishing the Reign of God on earth. It is unfair to claim privileges but refrain from the duties that come with it. Every person who has received the gift of faith in this country of ancient heritage and culture, has to stand firm in witness to the Gospel thus received challenging the society towards a holistic transformation, ushering in the Reign of God here and now - through justice, peace, equality and sincere compassion for every other.

3. Doubts don't matter as long as the Lord remains close to us.

Thomas is easily identified with the doubt that he raised about the Risen Lord. He was not only the one who wanted to touch the wounds that nails made and put his hand into the hole on Jesus' side, but he was also the one who said, "let us also go, that we may die with him" (Read Jn 11:16). His personal attachment to Jesus covered up for his obstinacy in not believing readily when the rest of the apostles reported Jesus' resurrection. In our lives too, when doubts assail, when clouds gather over our heads and we tend to be overwhelmed by them, the only thing that can sustain us is our personal relationship with Jesus! Doubts or difficulties, we decide to stay all our life, right till our death, with the Lord.

May St. Thomas show us, and especially the Christians in India, the most fitting way of living out the Gospel in the given context, so that we may be authentic ambassadors of the Reign of God, here and now.

Inspiring awe for God

WORD 2day: Thursday, 13th week in Ordinary time

July 2, 2026: Amos 7: 10-17; Matthew 9: 1-8

Persons of God inspire awe about God, despite the unfavourable circumstances that surround them. Look at the two personalities presented to us today: Amos and Jesus. Amos, opposed by Amaziah, the local priest and threatened by Jeroboam, the king in Israel, is warned not to prophesy! What does he do... he speaks, what the Lord wanted him to! Jesus, surrounded by the self-righteous indignant religious fanatics, is scrutinised for every word that he spoke and every move he took! What does he do... he speaks, what his Father wanted him to! And the result: the people were in awe!

First of all, they inspire awe - they leave people wondering and lost in admiration: not that the circumstances around them is all conducive for that, not merely by their competence of speech or performance of a show, but by their lives and their courage to stand for truth. That fills the people with a feeling of awe!

Secondly, the feeling of awe is not all about them! They do not claim it for themselves. Amos clarifies that he is no prophet and belongs to no prophetic band, but he is a simple shepherd and a tree-dresser, but picked up by God and sent on duty by God. Jesus clarifies too that he has the authority because he was the Son of Man, the One sent by God, that his authority came from the Father who sent him! They inspired awe, but not about themselves!

Thirdly and most importantly, they inspired awe about God! Be it Amos or any other prophet or Jesus, all that they did, inspired awe about God. It was not a self-proclamation, a self-coronation, a self-nomination as the messiah of the masses. It was all about God, the glory and mercy of God... that is why seeing their acts and listening to their words, "people praised God" for giving such power to men!

If we need to be truly sons and daughters of our Eternal Father and Mothers, brothers, sisters and disciples of Jesus our Master, men and women filled with the Spirit, in short, if we have to be truly 'persons of God', every word we speak, every move we take and every choice we make has to inspire awe in the people, about God and God's glory! Do they?