Announcing God? or Scaring Away from God?

Is this winning persons for God or shooing people away from God?

Just yesterday I received a friend request on the social network and I after the usual careful analysis of the profile accepted the request. In no time there were series of questions as obvious as, are you a christian, do you have a bible and so on. Before I could make out where it was all leading to, came the question: are you born again! And I went straight ahead to unfriend the person and block the id. It was then I began to wonder, when I analysed the profile, I saw the Word of God posted all over and thought to myself, that it is going to be a person in the Lord. But with the ready break out of the judgmental approach, I was forced to draw myself back, not from the Lord but people who claim to be spokespersons of God. As Francis of Assisi would instruct, let us proclaim the message all the time, but use words only when necessary. Our actions, our attitudes, our approach to people should gather them together under one banner, not shoo them away from God who unites. Our God is a God of love and love is unity, let love reign, let unity be built on mutual respect and human dignity.

WORD 2day : 30th June, 2015

No looking back

Tuesday,  13th week in Ordinary Time

Gen 19: 15-29; Mt 8: 23-27

'Do not look back' instructs the Angel, in a symbolic message to us Christ's followers today. Wars and persecutions, perversions and promiscuity, scandals and slanders abound and they are on the increase by the day. Though just a minority are involved in all this, the vast majority is left helpless and affected, tormented and tired of the whole turn of events. What are we going to do? Lose heart? Become desperate? Join the party? Let our principles and values fall? Give up our determination on our journey? I need to forget what lies behind and strain forward towards what lies ahead (Phil 3:13), St. Paul would suggest. And the angel tells us today: Do not look back!

You have decided to have Jesus on your boat or rather you have decided to jump on to Jesus' boat, then why worry of the storm and rain around; why panic about the tossing wind and the turbulent weather; why lose your focus and look back at what is following you... fix your eyes on the One who is there with you. No looking back, just keep wondering what an awesome God he is, who has called you. Just surrender; be still and feel the presence of the Lord in your life! Inspite of your boat that is being rocked, you keep rocking!

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

29th June, 2015: ST. PETER and ST. PAUL

Acts 12: 1-11; 2 Tim 4: 6-8, 17-18; Mt 16: 13-19

The Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, marks the day of their martyrdom...of course they were not martyred together; neither were they martyred in the same place or manner! But they were both martyred in Rome and Rome has these two principal apostles as its patron.

There is one thing told of these two apostles in the readings today. They were called, and given a specific task and the Lord constantly protected them and rescued them when they were ready to give up anything, including their very lives, for the sake of the task entrusted to them. 

You shall be the rock... you shall be my instrument to take my name to the gentiles... these were the words with which the Lord invited them and in similar terms we are invited too, with a specific task, with hurdles and burdens yes, but the Lord is there all the way. 

Let us resolve to become aware of the special and unique call that the Lord has placed within us! 

LIFE, ME & GOD

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Wis 1:13-15, 2:23-24; 2 Cor 8:7,9,13-15; Mk 5: 21-43

Life is a precious Gift from God. The first link that we have with God as someone outside of us,is the the link that we have from the fact that it is God who has given us life. Can we think of what is life? What constitutes life? Can we create life... yes, we can multiply, clone or enhance life, but creating it from nowhere, from nothing... Can we?

GOD OF LIFE
God is the author of life and the God we have is God of life, not God of death, says the book of Wisdom as we read today. Anything that enhances life and promotes it, comes from God. Anything that militates against life, in whatever way, it is contrary to God. The World today is being filled with forces that threaten life: unbalanced development, inhuman godliness, inauthentic means to living, unfettered exploitation of the other, disoriented conception of oneself... these are all principles in today's world that go against life. Abortions, Suicides and Genocides are dubbed as assertion of rights! 

LIFE OF GOD
The life that we have is the life of God, reminds us St.  Paul in the readings today. God has given us life, not only that,  God has given his own life that we may live! It is like that twin child who as told by the parents, your brother is dying and we need that you give him blood that he may live on! And the child after much frightful moments, said 'yes'. And once that blood was given to the ailing brother, the twin turned to the parents and asked: 'okay, now that I have given it, when will I die?' Giving blood that child thought, was to die and give life to the sick brother! God did exactly the same. The Son of God gave us his life to redeem us. The life we have is the life of God. We are living a life that is lent to us. We have brought in death into the world and into our own lives, by our faulty choices and warped priorities; but God has given us life so that we may live on in spite of our iniquities. Our life has been leased to us!

LIFE IN GOD
Whether we touch God or God touches us, God gives us life, a renewed life, a holistic life, a life that is abundant. I have come that you may have life, life in all its fullness - declared Our Blessed Lord. Reaching out to the Lord, or the Lord reaching out to us, we receive a new lease of life! All our brokenness, our sinfulness, our sicknesses, our infirmities, our inner conflicts... everything will be whisked away with that one glimpse from the eyes of the Lord. All that we need to do, is surrender into the hands of God and receive life from God's hands. At times we think or act as if 'my life belongs to me'! And in that vision of life, I will have added nothing but pain and meaninglessness to my life, which will show up at a moment when it would seem a point of no return. And then would follow depression, desperation and desolation. But if from the very moment that I realise, if I would begin to live my life, as a life lived in God, I would save myself a life that is so meaningful and wholesome.

The God of life has given me the very life of God, and all I need to do is resolve to live my life IN GOD.

WORD 2day: 27th June, 2015

When the Lord enters. ..

Saturday,  12th week in Ordinary Time
Gen 18: 1-15; 8: 5-17

The readings today have the leitmotif of the Lord who enters homes and when he does that,  there is something marvellous happening. The Lord enters Abraham's house, and the childless Sarah bears a child. The Lord enters Peter's home and Peter's mother in law rise up from her fever. The Lord's presence makes things come anew.  There is a third episode here which brings the same theme to the next plane: a mere Word from the Lord can make things beautiful.

If we allow the Word of the Lord to enter our homes, everything will be renewed testifies the Centurion in the Gospel. Allowing the Lord to enter our homes is a marvellous thing to do;  but it involves a great risk too. Things will not be the same anymore. We will have to be ready to forgo of a few things because,  when the Lord enters everything is renewed!

WORD 2day: 26th June, 2015

The folly of Back up Plan

Friday, 12th week in Ordinary Time
Gen 17: 1, 9-10, 15-22; Mt 8: 1-4

At times we act smart- though we ask God for a favour,  we begin making a back up plan...if in case we do not get what we ask! That actually spells a doom in most of the cases and instead of backing up, it backfires. Yesterday we read of Sarah making a back up plan of begetting a child through the maid servant and how it backfired. Today,  even as he listens to God communicating his plan,  Abraham is intent on having a back up plan,  seeing Ishmael as his progeny! Abraham has still to grow in his faith,  true and total faith. He will grow and he would soon be an epitome of faith but not yet.

In the Gospel we have an instance that shows us what it means to believe without a back up plan. ..'Lord if you wish. ..' An attitude of surrender,  a total surrender that is not tempted by the folly of having a back up plan. Alternatives are in the hands of God. ..it is not for us to make back up plans when we believe in God but to make an act of faith and leave everything into the hands of God.

WORD 2day: 25th June, 2015

Good to All alike

Thursday,  12th week in Ordinary Time
Gen 16:1-12, 15-16; Mt 7: 21-29

Speaking of his Father,  Jesus would say,  "the Father makes the sun shine upon and the rain shower upon the good and the evil." Heaven and earth may pass away but the Word of the Lord shall never! Making this Word the foundation of one's life is the best of all possibilities - what a great God is our God. God is good, not only all the time, but even to all persons. It does not matter, who the person is,  God's love extends itself when they cry out in agony. How much more will it support and sustain us,  if we consider ourselves loving children of God!

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

24th June,  2015: Birthday of St. John the Baptist

The Gospels narrate a long list of similarities between the stories of John and Jesus... the apparently 'impossible' conditions in which the mothers conceived, the direct intervention of God in the conception, the apparitions of the angels to the fathers, the prior choice of the name of the child to be born - one simple message is the image of John the Baptist as the precursor of Jesus. But the birth narratives of John and Jesus, together have another important message to reveal to us and that is, we are not here by chance! We are part of a complex plan, an eternal design of God. We are willed into existence by God; we are loved into existence, by the Creator! We have a purpose, because God knew us right when we were being formed in the womb of our mothers! We have a special mission because, it is the Lord who has called us by name, even before we were born! We are chosen in the eyes of God, because as St. Paul says, God has chosen us before the foundations of the world in Christ Jesus, to be holy and blameless! We are created, called, commissioned and destined to usher in the Reign of God, as John announced the coming of Christ. Let us become aware of our call, our purpose and our destiny, which is much larger than the petty preoccupations of our daily worries!

WORD 2day: 23rd June, 2015

Fairness and Justice: a sense of God

Tuesday, 12th week in Ordinary Time

Gen 13: 2, 5-18; Mt 7: 6, 12-14

I was impressed by a child in the train the other day. She had her younger brother with her and every time the mother was giving anything to her or buying something for her, she instantly would turn to her younger brother as if asking her mother, what about him? The curious climax was, when she returned the biscuit packet that she was sharing with her brother, to her mother with just one biscuit remaining in it. When asked why she left it behind there, she said there is only one, how we two will take it? I began wondering where has this kind of a spirit gone, in the world today!

Selfishness and greed, jealousy and competition is the order of the day. Hardly anyone wishes to do anything if that does not bring them dividends atleast in some measure or kind. Abraham's dealing with his brother Lot and the suggestion of doing what you would wish others do to you, are narrow doors. Those won't be the kind of behaviour that the mainstream humanity will choose spontaneously today. But as disciples of the Lord, our choice has to be precisely this: a choice for fairness and justice, that would be the right sense of being a person of God. 

WORD 2day : 22nd June, 2015

To let go!

Monday,  12th week in Ordinary Time
Gen 12: 1-9; Mt 7: 1-5

We will be presented with Abraham for our reflection for the next few days. What was so special about Abraham? From the very first moment the Word clarifies that. Leave your country and your people,  calls the Lord and there he is doing it with such confidence. He lets go of everything,  everything that gave him an identity.

The Gospel presents to us a similar and greater challenge: to let go... of our opinions and judgements and prejudices of people and to be open minded. How many new experiences we would have lost because of our opinionated approach! How many enriching encounters we would have lost because of our prefixed judgements! How many growth experiences we would have lost because of our prejudiced mindset. How prepared are we to let go?

WHAT A MIGHTY GOD WE HAVE!

21st June 2015: 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Job 38: 1, 8-11; 2 Cor 5: 14-17; Mk 4: 35-41

Quiet! Be Still... and you will know what a mighty God you have!

We are so fond of lamenting, fretting, complaining, grumbling, panting and gasping, that we fail to notice the mighty presence of God right beside us as we struggle in the daily storms of life. It takes that moment when the Lord finally intervenes and says: Quiet! Be Still...I am here, right here, in the midst of it all. Don't you see? Don't you believe? Haven't you experienced my interventions in the past? Haven't you learnt that lesson yet? 

Behold! a New Thing... the mighty God is creating it for you!

At times the turbulence that you go through may be a new thing in the making! Yesterday while we were on a task in place near the East Coast, a person with me commented looking at the plaque on a building: if it were not for the Tsunami, we would not have had this building here! Though it may sound less sensitive to the disaster and its effects, the statement triggered an insight in me. At times the turbulences that we experience in life, may lead to newer and fresher outlooks on events. 

Be Urged by the Love of Christ... the mightiest experience of God!

In every thing and at every moment, be urged by the love of Christ; a love that so powerfully brings the presence of God into our life. Allow God into your life, feel the presence of God and enjoy the love that God continues to shower on you - a love so immense and unconditional. If only we taste that love of God, we would become so filled with that love that we will overflow with that love. Our words, our thoughts, our gestures, our relations, our interactions and everything in us will be flooded with that love and people around us will experience it. That love will urge me to be loving; that love will push me to reach out to the other in love; that love will not allow me to remain quiet about the goodness that I have experienced; that love will make goodness so contagious and ofcourse everything around me will be created anew! I can never forget a statement  made by one of the parents from a group I had just addressed: there is something about you Christians that makes you happy people! Yes... can we stand up and accept the challenge: The Love of Christ urges us!

WORD 2day : 20th June, 2015

Sense of Sufficiency - sign of sanctity!

Saturday,  11th week in Ordinary Time
2 Cor 12: 1-10; Mt 6: 24-34

The rich and the poor,  the affluent and the needy,  the influential and the ordinary... they seem to be no different from each other! They wish for more and more and more. And at no point in their life they seem to have a sense of Sufficiency.

St.  Paul places a lot of importance on this attitude and considers it even a sign of sanctity. In his letter to the Philipians, Paul considers himself 'blessed' with a sense of Sufficiency, in plenty and in want (Phil 4: 11,12). In our families,  in our personal lives,  in our social life, in our religious communities... where does this virtue stand?

Be it Indian spirituality,  western monastic spirituality, eastern yogic spirituality. ..all of these seem to harp upon having fewer and fewer attachments as a way to sanctity. Where do I stand in this virtue?

WORD 2day : 19th June, 2015

The heart,  the eye and the lesson

Friday,  11th week ìn ordinary time
2 Cor 11:18,21-30; Mt 6: 19-23

Jesus speaks of the heart and the eye and the importance of these to a being. St. Paul presents himself as a madman who is putting himself through so many trials knowing well they lurk round the corner but still risking them all. We have hosts and hosts of martyrs who have died for what they believed in, Saints who lived for God and God's purposes till the last breath of their lives, and people who continue to risk their lives for causes they commit themselves to.

Where lies their strength?  In their heart and in their eye,  says the Word. Heart refers to their Priority and eyes to their Perspective!

When God becomes my priority,  nothing else would matter to me more than being Godly. When God becomes my perspective my whole world changes,  because I begin to see everything the way God sees them. What is expected of us thus is, we form our hearts and our eyes,  that we ascertain our priority and clarify our perspective!

WORD 2day : 18th June, 2015

A God who Relates
Thursday,  11th week in Ordinary Time
2 Cor 11: 1-11; Mt 6: 7-15

St Paul wishes that the believers stand in front of the Lord as brides and Jesus proposes a parent-children relationship between God and humankind. A Christian vision of God would refer to God in terms of relationship believers have with the Divine,  rather than in terms of a power or an impersonal being.

This relationship should be characterised by two elements: Cordiality and Difference. Cordiality would be the closeness a person feels with the Divine according to one's experience and need. But closeness alone would not suffice because a genuine cordiality should lead one to a concrete difference in one's life and in those around.   A truly Christian life would be filled with meaningful relationships as we port within us the image of a relating God.

WORD 2day : 17th June, 2015

Value added deeds
Wednesday,  11th week in Ordinary Time
2 Cor 9: 6-11; Mt 6: 1-6, 16-18

I know a person, a good friend of mine,  who is a trainer. He does the training of the younger cadets of the organisation that he was trained in. He distributes training kits and accessories on his own cost to those young trainees and does not receive any payment for his services other than the train ticket for his travel up and down! This is going on for quite a few years now and I have not revealed his identity because he will not like it absolutely!

The true value of whatever we do depends more on why we do than on what we do. What we do will vary according to our ability and the context provided possibilities. But the why will never change whether what I do increases or reduces. What I would wish to reap I will reap; if it is popularity or publicity that I wish,  exactly that I will reap! If it is true satisfaction and divine interior joy that I wish,  precisely that the Almighty will grant!

WORD 2day : 16th June, 2015

God: the poor businessman!

Tuesday,  11th week in Ordinary Time
2 Cor 8: 1-9; Mt 5: 38-42

Among us friends we have a good laugh whenever we think of an elderly religious who was put incharge of the farm that belongs to a community. Every year at the annual audit he was used to repeating a remark, in his own inimitable modulation: "what put I get,  what I get I put...no profit, no loss,  no problem".

If we look at the love that God had lavished upon humanity,  he would not have got back even a tiny fraction of what he has put in! Incarnation is just one of the many mighty investments that God had made on our behalf (cf.  2 Cor 8:9)... but consider the dividends! God seems to be such a bad business person and the strangest part of it is,  Jesus invites us to follow God's logic! Nothing else is fitting enough for true God's children. Let's love without counting the cost.

WORD 2day : 15th June, 2015

Be compassionate-right here and right now!
Monday,  11th week in Ordinary Time
2 Cor 6: 1-10; Mt 5: 38-42

The better is the enemy of the good,  Don Bosco used to say, in the context of doing good to the other. At times I have caught myself lamenting the times and the conditions instead of doing whatever little I could to express my true compassion. If only I were someone else or if only I were somewhere else or if only I had such and such a possibility... these are the yearning for the better that neglects the good that is already available.

The Gospel today invites us to go out of our way to express or computation to the other and the first reading adds that now is the time and now is the hour for it. We may not be able to give or do great things for those whom we come across in dire need,  but we can always be compassionate, caring and respectful towards them,  wherever we are! Does that need a special condition or time? 

THE FAITH GROWTH MANUAL

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time: 14th June, 2015

Eze 17: 22-24; 2 Cor 5: 6-10; Mk 4: 26-34

After a long while we have a Sunday that is typical of the Ordinary Time...and the Word today invites us to reflect on a theme that is central to our Christian Living: Faith! Infact, the readings together present to us a Faith Growth Manual.

The Faith Growth Manual invites us to change our style of thinking, judging and living, all based on the faith that we have. Faith is not merely a set of beliefs that we hold on to, but it is fundamentally a way of life, the way I live my life in relations to the One who has called me. 

Let us begin with this: 

How do we understand faith? Try a definition in your hearts for faith... 

A theologically sound definition should come somewhere close to this: Faith is my personal response to a Self-revealing God. God continues to reveal Godself to me in various ways, and this revelation comes to me continuously, eliciting from me a spontaneous and conscious response and that precisely is Faith. When I experience God as the almighty creator out there, I spontaneously am filled with an awe and I am inspired to surrender as a response. When I experience the presence of God in a moment of trial personally and feel delivered from it, I am moved to proclaim God as my Saviour. At times when I am directed in ways so marvelous, I thankfully acknowledge a God who dwells with me and moreover, within me! This is faith. Beliefs are merely expressions of this faith. Formulations like the Creed and the Act of Faith are nothing but ways in which the experience from a tradition is consolidated.

Faith, therefore, is a personal relationship with the One who is the cause of our very being. And this relationship has to grow; it has to gradually mature! 

First step is to understand that we walk by faith and not by sight. That is, we are convinced that something is right to do or not right to do, directed by our relationship with God. It is to say that we have God as our guiding principle, our compass, our route map! What is right at a moment to do can easily be defined: what God wants of me at that juncture.

Second step is to judge a situation from God's perspective,that is judging by faith. What is valuable and what is not; what is desirable and what is not; what is wholesome and what is not; it has to be decided from God's perspective. What my relationship with God permits to be good, is good for me. What my relationship with God deems improper, would remain far from my life. The ethical choices and my value system has to be determined by the relationship I have with my God. Which tree is big or high and which tree is small or low, depends on how God wants to have it!

Thirdly, when I begin to walk by faith and judge by faith, I can be confident I am living by faith! We will receive a recompense according to what we do: good or evil, reminds the second reading. What we do, will be determined by what we are. When we live by faith, our choices will show it. We need not pay any undue attention to gaining the mercy of God, or contriving to win God's favour. All that we need to do is live by faith, live with our relationship with God at the centre of our lives. That will automatically take care of every other aspect of my life.

A simple but demanding programme presented to us by the manual today: Walk by faith, judge by faith and live by faith!

THE IMMACULATE HEART AND THE ANOINTED TONGUE

13th June, 2015

Remembering the Immaculate heart of Mary 

and St. Antony of Padua

The Immaculate Heart invites us to a pure and total dedication to God,  a consecration so pure and absolute that no stain could ever affect that heart. Even the piercing sword found no resistance because that heart was mild, meek and docile inspite of being so strong and firm in its affection for God.

The anointed tongue of St. Antony inspires us to think, speak and proclaim God and God's love with such passion that we would not have an end at all. If the one who believes in the Lord has eternal life, imagine the one who proclaims and witnesses to the Lord incessantly. St. Antony within his short span of 36 years, lived his life with such passion that he achieved what would take hundreds of years. His single minded focus was on proclaiming the Word and that is what earned him the glory that he possesses. 

HAPPY FEAST OF THE MOST SACRED HEART

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

Remembering St. Barnabas: June 11, 2015

Acts 11:21b-26, 13:1-3; Mt 10: 7-13

Barnabas, is a great personality we find in the beginnings of the Apostolic Communities. Two things that strike us from this person are:

His total dedication to the Lord: He is one of the first ones mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles as having had sold his properties and brought them to the feet of the Apostles (Acts 4:37). We find him as fearless as Paul in the ministry that they would for a long time do together as companions on the move. And a tradition holds that he was dragged out of the synagogue as he was disputing on the Word with the  Jews and stoned to death! He spared not even his life for the sake of the Word.

His undisputed priority for God:  Barnabas gave an undisputed first place to God and God's Word. Nothing else came before that... the greatest enemy that vies for the place of God in our life is our SELF, our Ego and Barnabas kept it far away from prominence. As we see in the first reading today, though he himself was a famous man, a man loved by all, when he brought Paul to the limelight, he took a secondary place and never vied for name or fame! He was actually Joseph but was called 'the son of encouragement' that is, Barnabas, by the apostles! He encouraged the apostles and the people in their radical living of their vocation as God's people. Leaving our ego aside, is such an important task within the mission of following the Lord. If only this happens in our families, in our faith communities, in religious communities and every type of relationship, how concrete and challenging our witness would become!

WORD 2day: 10th June 2015

A sure ground to stand on

Wednesday,  10th week in Ordinary Time, 2015
2 Cor 3: 4-11; Mt 5: 17-19

One commercial I so vividly remember from my childhood is about the 2 minute noodle! Its alarming to see  all that is going on in its regards today. What was good one day, is not good any more. What seems true today is soon proved a lie. A court finds one gravely guilty,  a higher court acquits the same person as totally innocent! Can we base our life on facts as flimsy as these?

The readings today offer us the only sure foundation we have: the foundation that Jesus referred to as the foundation of rock, the foundation of the Word and the Holy Will of God.  At times people place so much of confidence in persons who are around that when they feel let down they feel as if the whole earth under their feet is giving way. We have nothing to assail us because we have a great wall of defence,  a sure foundation in the Lord. Let us realise,  we are standing on the promises of God!

WORD 2day: 9th June, 2015

Salt, Light and an Yes!

Tuesday,  10th week in Ordinary Time

2 Cor 1: 18-22; Mt 5: 13-16

There is a close relationship between being salt, being light and saying an Yes to the Lord! To say Yes to the Lord means to be like the salt... totally dissolving oneself in the yes that is said, choosing to remain insignificant and hidden but making a difference in the entire reality! To say Yes to the Lord means to be like the light... remaining in your respect bright and burning, not counting the cost in melting yourself down or burning yourself up for the sake of the yes that you have given the Lord. The first reading places it plain and clear in front of us.

Jesus was never an yes and a no! He was always yes! And that is what he wants us to be - to entrust ourselves totally in the hands of God and be an yes always! That requires an enormous faith and relentless hope, filling us with a matchless love for God and God's ways.

WORD 2day: 8th June, 2015

Encouragement: A Spirituality of memories and promises!
Monday,  10th week in Ordinary Time

2 Cor 1: 1-7; Mt 5: 1-12

Fear not, Take heart,  Be firm... these are some exhortations that we find in abundance in the Word of God. St. Paul explains to us today why it is so.

As people of God and in union with God we are constantly encouraged,  that is filled with courage for times that can be trying, filled with an inner joy even in the face of troubles, filled with hope even at the so called times of despair. This is so because of a past that is so filled with care and concern on the part of God and a future the seems so heavenly.

The Word today draws on the past and the future to instruct us that a life that is filed with God, the memories of God and the promises of God,  will be a life of Courage and Commitment.

HE COMES TO STAY

Solemnity of Corpus Christi: 7th June, 2015

Exo 24:3-8; Heb 9: 11-15; Mk 14: 12-16, 22-26

The Feast of Corpus Christi reminds us of a drastic decision that God made in our favour! God loved us, God came amidst us and God came to stay with us! The solemnity that we celebrate today explicates this decision inspiring in us a similar attitude as we live our daily life.

That decision to stay with us is a Covenantal Presence... As St. Paul writes to Timothy, even if we are unfaithful, God is faithful forever. God has made a covenant with us through the very body and blood of God's Son, and that covenant is, to be with us forever!

The decision to stay with us is a desire for Corporal Union... Our Lord and Saviour becomes one with us, unites in our bodily existence too, enabling us to say, It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. It is a decision to be in us forever!

The decision to stay with us is  Concrete Commitment that the Lord take on our behalf; that we may be saved, sanctified and brought back to God. It is a call that Christ gives us to offer ourselves entirely to God, in every thing we are and everything we do. This is my body; this is my blood which shall be shed for you, says the Lord. It is a concrete commitment the Lord makes to be forever for us! 

WORD 2day: 6th June, 2015

GOD SEES YOU

Saturday, 9th week in  Ordinary time

Tob 12: 1, 5-15, 20; Mk 12: 38-44

St. John Bosco, a great apostle of the young in devising his method of working with the young, used what his mother Margaret taught him always at home when he was a boy: God Sees You, she used to often repeat.Don Bosco, later in the Oratory while living with those street kids and rest of the ruffian friends of his, wrote this truth in prominent places and instilled that feeling in his boys.

The readings today seem to hint at this truth and call our attention to living our life conscientiously. The widow never realised that Jesus was looking at her, and praising her act in front of his disciples. But Jesus saw her, saw what she did, and more that that saw what she was - the mind and the heart behind the 2 pences that were dropped in the box. Tobit, or even Tobiah, did not realise that the one who accompanied on the way was the Angel of God, the hand of God, the extension of God's presence. But God was there looking at everything that they were going through and the way they were living their life.

It is not pleasing the eyes of those around us, establishing a name among our fellow beings, publicising our goodness and generosity and things of that sort that will give us true and lasting happiness. it is only the watchful and undeceived eyes of God that see us, that will grant us meaning in life. It is a beautiful childlike spirituality to live mindful of the fact that GOD SEES YOU. 

WORD 2day: 5 th June, 2015

Identifying the True Lord

Friday,  9th week in Ordinary Time

Tob 11;5-17;Mk 12: 35-47

A few days back a friend of mine was having a good sport reading out the predictions based on zodiac signs and at times we were surprised at the pricision that emerged in those predictions. There was a kind of temptation to even believe, that it may after all be true that these constellations have a kind of influence on our personality and our eventualities.

True faith in God consists in seeing through all these creaturely order and logical wisdom, and acknowledging the true Lordship - the absolute and sovereign Lord our God! Tobit sings a hymn of glory and praise to the Lord for the great things that happened in his life, for his son and for his daughter in law.

Jesus challenges us to see beyond the apparent and identify the True Lord. That is a gift of faith that the Spirit alone can give us. Let us thirst for that grace all our life!

WORD 2day: 4th June, 2015

Love... do we understand it at all? 

Thursday,  9th week in Ordinary Time

Tb 6:10-11; 7:1bcde, 9-17; 8:4-9a; Mk 12: 28-34

Two unfortunate sharings I heard recently: one about a husband who decided to disown his wife an year after their wedding,  because she was diagnosed with a serious illness; the second a religious who said she had not spoken for the past four years with another sister living with her in the same convent. These two and many such experiences raise a fundamental doubt: are we truly Christian? Have we really immersed ourselves into the mystery that God is? God is love and if we are born of God we should love.

While the Gospel reiterates this call that each of us has received,  in the first reading today we have a typical example in the person of Tobiah. Once he decides that he loves Sarah,  nothing deters him from growing in that perfection. He is told how fatal it can be if he loves Sarah,  but he does not hesitate. The reason is, he believed that Sarah was brought into his life by God.

Love is not merely a feeling;  it is an act of faith. To look at every person around me and see and believe that God has given me that person,  that brother or that sister, to love- that is the secret. That is true Christian love: does the world today, does every Christian today, do I today,  really understand it at all?

WORD 2day : 2nd June, 2015

To see or not to see

Tuesday,9th week in Ordinary Time

Tob 2: 9-14; Mk 12: 13-17

Tobit loses his sight and lives so for four years or so. Even that did not disturb his wife much but the question she asks him, 'where is all your charity?', brings out the crux of the message today. It is truly charity that helps us see persons as they are. In charity we decide whether to see or not, persons as they are instead of fixing them into the peg holes we have made for each of them. Judgements are the first enemies of charity and that is why Blessed Mother Teresa made that statement: if you judge, you have no time to love!

The Pharisees and the Scribes hated Jesus to the core because he was exposing their hypocrisy,  their stubbornness of heart,  their decision not to see,  because they wanted to prove their judgement that Jesus was a fake messiah! Even after reports and experiences of the goodness of the Lord,  they refused to see,  or decided not to see!

How far do you really see?  Does the sight giving charity reside in your hearts?

WORD 2day : 1st June, 2015

The Unjust world order

Monday,  9th week in Ordinary Time

Tob 1:3, 2:1a-8; Mk 12: 1-12

An unjust world order is something we see prevalent everywhere. The moneyed seem to be the first class citizens and the rest mere spectators or worse still, victims! There are two characters presented today who neither identified themselves with the rich nor did they get lost in the crowd of insignificance.

One does the maximum on his part to alleviate the misery that is meted out by this unjust order and the other challenges this very order and faces the extreme conditions.

The options remain open to us if we are sincere enough to accept the fact of the injustice that is involved,  dare to face it and stand up to challenge it,  in our own way. Would we be ready to defy the present world order and usher in the Reign as part of our Christian Existential responsibility?

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