WORD 2day

26th July, 2013: Sts. Joachim and Anne, parents of Mary: Grandparents' Day!!!

The first setting in which faith enlightens humanity is the family, declares the recent encyclical Lumen Fidei (52). It further explains that passing of faith in the family happens in the process of shared expression of faith within the family, helping children to become aware of their faith and grow and mature in it. Christian faith is always communitarian and it is passed primarily in the family. Recently someone observed to me, sharing on the level of faith being lived (or practiced) in Europe vis-a-vis in India, that one major reason for the degeneration in Europe is the weakening of the institution of the family. Those who hand on faith to us are really God-given. Most important among them, our parents and grandparents who not only give us life but show us also how to live it, from their own experience. Celebrating a day to remember the parents of Mary, the Mother of God and our Mother, provides us an opportunity to remember with thanks these our fore-runners in faith, as the first reading suggests, 'let us praise famous persons, our parents in their generations. These were persons of mercy, whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten' (Sir  44:1,10). Infact, thanks to them, we are in a position better than them due to their hard work, great example and their dreams for us! Jesus acknowledges that in his words (Mt 13:16-17) and exhorts us to live up to our blessedness, our giftedness, worthy of the faith and tradition that is transmitted to us, from our predecessors. Maybe, a grateful remembrance of our grandparents if they are no more, or a bear hug to them if they are still with us, will be in place today! 

WORD 2day

25th July, 2013 - Feast of St. James, the Apostle

We believe; so we speak!  That was the watchword of the band of apostles, as St. Paul notes in the first reading today(2Cor 4:13).Though there was a time when even the apostles did not understand what Jesus was upto... they looked at Jesus like any other leader, carrying forward his career! But in time, Jesus made them understand that they are called to follow, a leader who is 'crazy' in the terms of the world, a man who was full of contradictions. Whoever among you would be the great must be a servant, and who would be the first must be a slave. James and John today become the occasion for Jesus to reinstate his philosophy of life, indeed a tough one. St. Paul understood that philosophy perfectly and he expressed it lucidly when he said, we carry within our bodies the death of Jesus, that the life of Jesus might be manifested in us. He says, death was at work in the lives of Apostles, so that life can be experienced by those to whom they carried the message. When we would think it is important to abandon death and seek life, the apostles seemingly seek death, to give life! And they invite the others to believe and once they believe, the believers too seek to carry within themselves the death of Jesus, so that the world may receive life in Christ. That is the chain of apostleship that is passed on to us... to be apostles is to carry the death of Jesus within us, that we may ultimately manifest the eternal life in Jesus to the world. James, the first of the apostles to be put to death (Acts 12:2) bears a resounding witness to this way of life; a life of contradiction; the life of apostleship.