FAITH THAT LIBERATES

Favour, Faith and Freedom

Solemnity of Assumption of our Blessed Mother - 15th August 2017

Rev 11: 19,12: 1-6, 10; 1 Cor 15: 20-26; Lk 1:39-56

Assumption of Mary into heaven is a celebration of the goodness, faithfulness and mercy of God and not that of an achievement of Mary. Though it is a Marian feast, we celebrate the mighty things that the Lord had done in her and for her! The celebration and the Word calls our attention to three important terms today - Favour, Faith and Freedom!

Favour... Full of grace, filled with favours - Mary was a predilected child of God, because wanted her to be an instrument to bring salvation to humankind through God's own Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. She was granted favours in abundance. Assumption is one last favour that God showers on her at the end of her earthly journey, so occupied with doing God's will and nothing but God's will. We are filled with favours too - to be born, to have life, to be born as children of God, to be loved by God and to have the Lord's presence ever on our side. Are they not enough favours? But what we do with them is a more pertinent question.

Faith... Here is where Mary shines forth as a person. Mary was filled with favours but her merit is seen in the fact that she always remained worthy of those favours by an absolute choice for God. That is faith - that absolute personal choice for God, and God's will. Inspite of all her difficulties and struggles, she stood faithful to the Lord, choosing God above anything else. That makes her a great model for us today. This absolute choice for God, created in her an attitude that kept her totally away from anything that could separate her from God. That attitude is what we celebrate today.

Freedom... the ability Mary had to choose on her own things that were acceptable to God is that which set her apart. That is what liberated her. That is true freedom, to choose God on my own, without any force or pressure, without any fear or threat. That freedom is not merely a freedom from but it is a freedom to...freedom to live my life to the full come what may, freedom to stick to what is right in spite of the repeated despise of the world, freedom to remain with God forever! Mary used her freedom and she was liberated forever! 

The call is simple - a challenge to grow in our faith, in a faith that liberates!

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

Half a Shekel or Life to the Full

Remembering St. Maximilian Kolbe - 14th August, 2017

Dt 10: 12-22; Mt 17: 22-27

Celebrating St. Maximilian Kolbe, is a challenge we accept to dwell on - a man who did not do anything for the sake of a rule, but for the sake of what his heart prompted him to do for the Lord who loved him. Paying half a shekel was a duty of a slave, according to Jesus. That is not what is asked of a Son or a Daughter. While a slave intends to pay the half shekel that is expected of him, the Son gives the entire life to the Lord, surrenders the totality of one's life, bringing that life to its fullness thus. 

God is not to be bribed, declares Moses. You don't try to appease God by being calculative in what you give, trying to pay your due, for your due is your life, not just some money or some fulfilment of a rule. The heaven, the earth, everything that exists therein and my very life belongs to God and what can I possibly give the Lord - nothing less than the whole of my life! 

That is why when Kolbe decided to die for a man whom he knew not, he did not consider that act a great feat. For him that was what he could do, all that he had to give at the moment was  his life and he gave it - he loved his Lord with the whole of his heart, with the whole of his strength, with his very life. I am called to give not just half a shekel, but my life to the full.