WORD 2day: 23rd August, 2016

Keep Calm and Live on!

Tuesday, 21st week in Ordinary Time

2 Thes 2: 1-3,14-17; 23: 23-26

It looks like the crazy ones were there right from the beginning! At times we want our spiritual life to be exciting, on the move, ticking away in fret, like a suspense thriller. There is an imminent sign and there is a mighty revolution in the making...such claims are galore these days on the street corner banners and well funded TV channels! St. Paul warns us against such tendencies. He says, KEEP CALM and go about your daily duties!

Jesus sounds more vehement with the same message in today's Gospel: don't be hypocrites, don't make a show of your piety, don't make a living out of the fears of people and don't try your imaginations in God's name. Just keep calm and live on. 

Live your daily life to the full, love each other sincerely, reach out to one another with genuine care and relate with truth in your heart. Allow God to take control of the entire reality and don't claim franchise for decisions and activities that belong to God alone! Keep Calm and Live on... shall we?

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

Celebrating the Queenship of Mary

22nd August, 2016

2 Thes 1: 1-15, 11-12; Mt 23: 13-22

I was strangely reminded of this recent experience of mine on a journey! One knows quite well that a photo identity card is essential on journeys these days and for the past three years I had carried a colour photocopy of my driving license as a identity proof. On a journey last month it suddenly became an issue, when a Ticket Inspector took exception to the fact that it was a photocopy! By rule, it has to be an original document... not that I did not know that rule! I understood I was at fault but the Inspector was kind enough to merely warn me and let me go without the stipulated fine. What I am trying to share here is not what happened till here, but what has happened after that event. Nowadays I carry the original document with me, and every time I travel and the Ticket inspector comes my direction,  I hold my head high and feel so confident about the fact that I have every thing right on my part - that's feeling like a king!

Jesus is referring to a life confused with varying standards, footless principles and self-centered schemes! When a person lives that way, he or she has to be all the time on the guard against people who would find fault, accuse or atleast murmur against them. But when some one has everything right in his or her life, there is an inner freedom that is akin to living life like a king or a queen! 

Queenship of Mary from this angle seems a natural outcome of her way of life - the absolute freedom she enjoyed, the total personal commitment she manifested and the bother-about-nothing-else attitude she had when it came to obeying God's will... that is what made her the Queen of Heaven and Earth, inspiring us to live our Christian Life like her - Kingsize or Queensize!