What everyone longs for...

WORD 2day: Thursday, 16th week in Ordinary time

July 23, 2026: Jeremiah 2: 1-3, 7-8, 12-13; Matthew 13: 10-17

There is one thing that everyone longs for ultimately in life and beyond... peace and serenity! Every time God calls us to Godself, we are promised comfort, peace, tranquility, peace and well being. These are the lofty gifts that the Lord has in store for us. These we receive not by looking but seeing, not by hearing but listening, not by desiring for riches and luxuries but for the presence of God. When we abandon God, we find ourselves abandoned; not because God has abandoned but because we have abandoned God and moved away from God.

Look at the double mistake that the Lord points out through Jeremiah: one, forgetting the source fountain and secondly creating little cisterns thinking that you will store water for ever, but even those cisterns are leaking and so weak! What a powerful imagery to understand the kind of priority crisis we have in the world today! Yes we are constantly abandoning God, to our own detriment.

There are subtle ways of abandoning God - hearing but not understanding, looking but not perceiving, seeing but not taking to heart the presence and the majesty of God. We are after "useless idols" as Jeremiah says in the first reading. What everyone longs for, what the whole world is yearning for, is right near us for our taking. But we are too busy making our living, establishing our names and defining our own glories.

All that we need to do is open our eyes and see, open our ears and listen, open our hearts and perceive: we have so easily available what everyone longs for, right at our doorstep - the peace and joy that the Lord alone can give!

A Passionate love for the Lord

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

July 22, 2026: Song of Songs 3: 1-4; John 20: 1-2, 11-18

Celebrating Mary of Magdala, one who loved the Lord passionately

Mary Magdalene is one character in the life of Jesus, that many are very curious about. The conspiracy theorists and apocryphal experts find in themselves a great interest to study this person more and more and come up with details that are there and even those that are not there! However they all begin with one question, which the Gospel today answers.

That Question is this: Why is it that the Lord appeared to her first and not to the other apostles?

The Gospel answers it in such simple terms: because she was there!

As we read in the Gospel today, she was there at the tomb early morning. Then, she ran to the apostles and brought them; the apostles saw, they believed and they left... but she was there, she stood on, she stayed at the tomb and kept weeping (cf v.11). She was there, and she got to see her Master.

She was like that widow about whom Jesus spoke of once in his parables (Lk 18) - persistent and insistent, not giving up! She wanted by all means to know what happened to her Master! She could not settle with the answer, 'we do not know'! She persisted in her heart and mind and soul. She stayed on because she just could not go! She was so passionately in love with her Master.

The key is right there: if we are passionately in love with the Lord, we will see the glory of the Lord right in front of our eyes. A passionate love for the Lord seeks the Lord with a yearning so strong that cannot take 'no' for an answer. By all means, the soul, the heart, the person wants to get in touch with the Lord. That is what is to be answered first when i say, I want to encounter the Lord - how passionate am I about it? How passionately am I in love with the Lord? 

My passionate love for the Lord will be seen in my daily life style: nothing else will matter more to me. Every person around me will resemble my Lord to me, every cry of the suffering will come to me as my Master reaching out to me, every heart that bleeds will bring my Master alive suffering right before my eyes - how can I remain indifferent then? Yes, the key is, a passionate love for the Lord!

Mercy and Faithfulness

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 16th week in Ordinary time

July 21, 2026: Micah 7: 14-15,18-20; Matthew 12: 46-50

The most concrete expression of God's faithfulness is God's mercy which is so boundless and plentiful. At times people insist on the 'anger' of the Lord and question where it has disappeared when things untoward happen or persons inhuman affect others or the society at large. Are we really right to attribute human emotions to God: the Old Testament people did it, when theology had not really developed as much as we have it today; when the revelations were yet to come to their fullness, which happened concretely in Christ our Lord!

One attribute that can be logically justified is that of God's unlimited mercy, because we have come to know God as Love... God is Love, God is Mercy, God is Goodness and therefore to say, God abounds in Mercy, could be logically sustained. And the Gospel today clarifies, on our part the concrete way of living our mercy is being faithful to the biddings of the Lord.

Being faithful to the biddings of the Lord would consist of being attentive to everything around me, being truly concerned about everyone around me and being open to the promptings of the Spirit within me. These days when there is so much of killing and destruction all around, and endless uncertainties everywhere... we are called to remain attentive to the Lord speaking through the other, the Lord challenging in and through the other to remain merciful... that would be the most crucial bidding of the Lord today: to be merciful.

Mercy is not about doing some charitable acts here and there, and now and then. But it is becoming like God, growing in our godliness and being signs of God's faithfulness to those who are in need of it. It begins right from home - with your spouse, with your children, with your parents, with your neighbours, with your need strangers... with your brother and your sister! Be ye merciful as your Lord God is merciful!

Want miracles? Here is a project of life...

WORD 2day: Monday, 16th week in Ordinary time

July 20, 2026: Micah 6: 1-4, 6-8; Matthew 12: 38-42

"To act justly, love tenderly and walk humbly with your God" - Micah presents a project of life in these precise words (Mic 6:8). It is a project that he gives to the people to walk in the Lord's ways and not to weary the Lord with their unfaithfulness and stubbornness. How different are we from the people whom Micah addresses today in the first reading? Aren't we just like the pharisees and the others who were incessantly asking for signs from the Lord?

Crying statues, bleeding icons, moving crosses... aren't they all time hits of the so-called religious minded people? And today, in the context of the present war crisis... aren't we asking continuously the Lord to do something, while it has been always the mean human intentions and excessive exploitation of the vulnerable that has led the whole humanity to varied crises thus far! Are we looking for miracles?

Of course, for us miracles are a daily feature, because our God is an awesome God. But looking for some strange phenomenon, exciting events and glamorous happenings, is not the "Christ"ian outlook of a miracle. For Christ, the miracle is in the hope that we can give each other; miracle is in the love that we share for every one around us; miracle is the everyday faith in the Lord and the resultant serenity amidst all the din that we find ourselves in. Don't we have the call to be agents and sources of peace and justice wherever we are?

Let's resolve to do the right, love goodness and walk humbly with the Lord and we will see miracles all around us, on a daily basis!

Choice... the choice of God!

WORD 2day: Saturday, 15th week in Ordinary time

July 18, 2026: Micah 2: 1-5; Matthew 12: 14-21

Jesus was living dangerously. But he chose to do so, for the sake of the Reign of God. He stuck his neck out for the poor, for the oppressed, the marginalised, the ostracised, the exploited, the forgotten in the society. He believed that the Reign of God belonged precisely to them. His life was a hope to the least, the last and the lost.

In this choice Jesus was making present the God of the Old Testament who sided the oppressed, who stood by the just in their struggles and who kept watch over the persons who strove to live according to God's will. The first reading points out the choice of God, the choice for the poor and the suffering. This predilection on God's part distinguished Jesus and the choices he made. His choice was, the choice of God.

There were apparent and real dangers, and Jesus knew it well. Nothing could stop him from proclaiming the Reign of God for he knew he had come precisely for that, to establish the Reign of the God of Truth, the God of the suffering, the Lord of the least, the protector of the lost, the hope of the last.

If we look at the world today - the poor are the last to be thought of, if at all they are considered. The weaker sections are totally forgotten when it comes to economic development and national identities. A nation can execute decisions that would affect entire life of people, in hours' time and nothing is thought about what the homeless and helpless will do! They are almost non entities. What can we do for that, we may ask. If we remain silent we become equally culpable and our choices do not truly reveal our identity as people of God or people of the Reign.

Our identity has to be our Choices... may they be forever in keeping with the choices of God!

Something greater is around

WORD 2day: Friday, 15th week in Ordinary time 

July 17, 2026 - Isaiah 38: 1-6, 21-22, 7-8; Matthew 12: 1-8

God deigns to do strange things for the love of the one who trusts in God! The first reading is one such episode. There are so many others, like the burning bush (Exo 3), the water from the rock (Exo 17), the sign of the fleece (Judg 6:36ff), and many more. These are merely to show that there is nothing or no one greater than the Lord and anything is possible with God!

When it comes to showing mercy to those who trusted, the Lord is lavish, prodigal and unreasonably generous, because God's love is unconditional and everlasting. That was a difficult message for Jesus to communicate to the law abiding, traditional and painfully legalistic Jews. Even today the Lord tries to impress upon us the same message, the message of how loving the Lord is, how unconditional God's love is and how far from judging the love of God is.

No rule can be too big and no custom too important, than the love that the Lord has for you and me and the longing that Lord has for our total well being. When we have a tendency to be legalistic, when we find ourselves prone to judge, when tasks at hand draw our utmost attention, or the situations of stress or crisis try to overpower us, let us realise: something greater is around us, something greater envelopes us, something greater sustains us - and it is, God's love, the love which became man and gave his life for our salvation.

Come, now come!

WORD 2day: Thursday, 15th week in Ordinary time

July 16, 2026: Isaiah 26: 7-9, 12, 16-19; Matthew 11: 28-30

The yearning of a Godless soul, the struggle of a people who have gone far away from God is intensely presented in the first reading today. The world today is treading that path indeed... trying its best to define life sans God; trying to convince everyone around that it is possible to live without having anything to do with anything sacred! Worse still, the trend today advocates creating our own gods and creating gods of ourselves!

We have been thinking for long that we have solutions for every problem and even for those that we do not have the solutions, we could create shortcuts that can keep the pain and the struggle away for the time being. Hardly do we care to remember in history, how some things have put the entire humanity into crisis of varied kinds - the experience of the pandemic, the wars that afflict, the economic meltdowns etc.

The Word today presents to us the situation and the Lord's response - yes, you have gone far away from me, and caused so many grievous situations for yourself. But do not panic; do not fret; I have all this time been beside you just waiting for you to freely choose to come to me. Now, Come!

The Lord invites us today to the true consolation, the real solution, the authentic peace that can give meaning to our daily life and all its strife. He does not promise an absence of yoke, nor does he lure us with a negation of burden...he promises a yoke that fits us perfectly and a burden that proves really bearable: because we live it in the Lord's company. 'Come to me' says the Lord, because all the struggle is since you have moved away from me.

Come to me...and learn of me...and you will find meaning, peace, consolation and serenity!

All things belong to God...even you and me!

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 15th week in Ordinary time

July 15, 2026: Isaiah 10: 5-7, 13b-16; Matthew 11: 25-27

All things have been handed over to me by my Father, says Jesus today in the Gospel. 

'God as the author of history', has been a concept so strongly evinced by the narratives of the Old Testament. Even the super powers like Assyria and Babylonia were considered to be commissioned by the Lord to make certain twists and turns happen in history. This is the background against which Isaiah chides Assyria saying, they think they are the masters of their own destiny and the authors of their success. They fail to understand that there is someone far beyond and above them, who "sits in the heavens and laughs"(Ps 2:4) at the folly of the proud.

This is an ongoing reality even today. Humanity as a whole, the scientific community at times, the political and economic super powers many a time, fall prey to this folly and create and cause atrocities that we have seen all through history. But the saddest part of it is the fact that the worst affected section of the society would be the poor, the innocent and the weak. How many inhuman justfications we have ready, to rationalise such follies.

The Word recalls to us - the Lord scatters the proud hearted and raises the lowly (cf Lk 1:51); God reveals things to mere children and sends the haughty empty! All things are God's and from God everything draws its life and its sense. If I approach life with this sense, my worries find a way out, my concerns cringe to my feet and bearing my burdens become a child's play!

What a saving wisdom it would be to recognise that all things belong to God, yes... even you and me, and all that we dream... everything belongs to God, and in God we live, move and have our being!

Right faith and Right living

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 15th week in Ordinary time

July 14, 2026 - Isaiah 7: 1-9; Matthew 11: 20-24

Unless your faith is firm, you shall not be firm. What is that which differentiates, sets apart a Christian in this world - it is not the name or the external signs or the identification by belonging to a group or the other; instead, it is a matter of faith, an internal disposition towards the Lord who has called you and commissioned you.

Right faith has to create right living; right belief and right action are after all essentially dependent in so many of the religious traditions, as we know of. The Integrity that Jesus demands of us is basically one of right belief and right living. It is not enough to have theoretical correctness in what we believe, the essential factor is that this theoretical knowledge translates itself into a practical living.

Sometimes circumstances and situations can force us to take decisions or make choices that are not proper to the life that we have been called to. It is not so strange to commit such a mistake. But it is not only strange, even highly unbecoming of a child of God when he or she has received all possible warnings and all possible signs of God's directions but still makes a choice that is not worthy of a child of God. Worse still, if the person justifies that choice. And worst of all, nothing can help the one who decides to remain with that choice in spite of all this.

Faith which is not translated into right living and a living that is not guided by right faith, are totally alien to a true child of God. Even if the simplest of signs is given, a child of God will acknowledge it, make sense of it, hold on to the light that the Lord provides and and shape his or her life according to God's will. Where do I stand in this regard?

The Challenge of Orthopraxis

WORD 2day: Monday, 15th week in Ordinary time

July 13, 2026: Isaiah 1: 10-17; Matthew 10: 34 - 11:1

What Hosea has been speaking to us the last week, Isaiah speaks this week... they both underline the importance of Orthopraxis! 

How do we understand that term, Orthopraxis? True Christian life does not consist only of worship and of adoration, it consists of truth, justice and charity. In short, it consists of love which is the concrete translation of worship and adoration into action. The action that blends well with love for God and love for one's brothers and sisters balanced with care, is called the Orthopraxis! 

It may sound simple but it is tough in two senses:

Firstly, I may feel out of place when I begin to take this 'orthopraxis' seriously, because the rest of the crowd seems to be busy doing what they believe to be 'normal' or 'ordinary'...and I shall be left alone seen 'out of the ordinary' or in plain terms, 'a stranger'. Even those who are with me, those who surround me at close quarters may not totally approve of what I live by.

Secondly, it shall certainly be tough because orthopraxis demands that I mean what I pray... that whatever I do on a daily basis does not go against anything what I say in my so called 'prayer'; that what I do by way of 'prayer' may find its continuation in the rest of the things that I do during the day; that there exists no gap between what I pray, what I say and the way I conduct my daily life.

In fact, my ways show the truth that is hidden in my prayer, and my prayers manifest the hidden truth about my daily priorities in life. Where your heart is, there your treasure might be! Not in pleasure or in riches but in the holy will of God needs to be our true joy. It has to be in our steadfast life unto the law of the Lord, our unceasing dedication to True Love, that is, to God.

Let us try to recognise our way to the Lord, laid out so neatly... there may surround thorns and thistles but the way is right... let our prayer and our works orient us onward. Let our prayer transform our daily life and may our daily life inspire our prayer!