ME - the core of the Reign!

WORD 2day: 16th November, 2017

Thursday, 32nd week in Ordinary Time

Wis 7:22 - 8:1; Lk 17: 20-25

The Reign of God is within you! (Lk 17:21) - this was the statement, they say, that provoked, sustained and gave meaning to Liberation theology in the 70s. Not only that. This was also the teaching that took Jesus to the cross. 

What is so provocative about it? To answer that question from the Gospel, we need to listen to the first reading and the psalm. They speak of the Wisdom of the Lord, the Word of God, that abides with us and within us, the Lord who has come to live amidst us, the whole grace of incarnation. Look at those attributes given to that indwelling Lord: in the form of Wisdom, the Word, the Spirit who is intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, active, incisive, unsullied, lucid, invulnerable, benevolent, sharp, irresistible, beneficent, loving, steadfast, dependable, unperturbed, almighty, all-knowing, penetrating, all-intelligent, pure and most subtle! The Indwelling Spirit, the Lord who dwells within me, making me the core of God's Reign.

Jesus' proclamation of the arrival of the Reign, or the year of the Lord or the fulfillment of the Word (Lk 4:19,21) was looked at as an offence, because Jesus underlined the proximity, the closeness of God to human beings. Jesus declared every common person the beholder of the Reign, you and me as the core of the Reign!

Even today, if I choose to, I can see God as some one far, distant, removed and isolated. But if I am sincerely observant, I can feel the presence of the Word, the Wisdom, the Incarnate Son walking beside me and I can feel God close and intimate to me because, "God loves nothing so much as the man who lives with wisdom" (Wis 7:28). We need to look at the Reign of God residing within us, at the core of our being. We are indeed the core of the Reign, we need to evolve into it, by our daily choices and lofty ideals.

Faith is to respond!

WORD 2day: 15th November, 2017

Wednesday, 32nd week in Ordinary Time

Wis 6: 1-11; Lk 17: 11-19

The readings seem to converge on one thought today... that the Lord wishes, expects, and demands a response from us! Our God is a self revealing God... through signs and wonders and prophets and wise persons and finally through God's only Son, and continuously even today in and through God's Spirit, God continues to reveal Godself to us in various ways.

The more we are given, the more we are expected to respond! It is not that God gives, so that we would repay! No! But it is that, we are given so much, we are filled with such goodness, we receive "grace upon grace" (Jn 1:16), that we realise it is right and just to give God thanks and praise! 

To know the right thing to be done at the right time and choosing to do it, is a gift of the Holy Spirit...we would be blessed to possess it. And the Lord says today, "set your desire on my words; long for them, and you will be instructed!" (Wis 6:11). Doing the right thing, at the right time, is a response that we give to the Lord and that response is what is expected from me! When I don't respond, I waste what was entrusted to me, as a gift, a treasure! 

Our response to the self revealing God - that is our faith. Growing in faith is learning to respond more and more adequately. Failing to respond is dwindling in faith. Let us grow in faith everyday - let us be attentive to respond to the Lord in every way!