To destroy and to build; to stop and to proceed!

WORD 2day: 28th November, 2017

Tuesday, 34th week in Ordinary Time
Dan 2: 31-45; Lk 21: 5-11

This week's readings have a bi-dimensional orientation - a preparation towards advent (a new beginning) and at the same time a reflection on the end times. This is the real Christian disposition: a bi-dimensional approach to life. A reflection on the end times has to be radically open to the new beginnings, lest it becomes a vain curiosity. 

A focus on the new beginnings, the new earth and new heaven, on the definitive coming of the Reign should have a mature openness towards the end time perspective, lest it remains a simplistic dream of an all-bright future, without any personal commitment to it. 

There is no use raving about the last days, the end of the world, the Armageddon,  the judgement and so on and so forth, as if talking about a football match or a cricket tournament. Dreams, visions and extra natural phenomenon have no value in themselves, unless they help a better living here and now, and a preparation for a more holistic future. 

The first reading and the Gospel today remind us of this need - the need to question ourselves on our life style, our criteria and choices in daily life - whether they are really worthy of the Reign, that we are called to announce to the world as disciples of Christ!

The call that today we are given is to be daring enough to accept a break down in your life and an eventual restart; to effect a rupture from the old habits and to begin anew; to  destroy the old and to build anew; to stop and to proceed. Am I ready?

Choosing God in little things!

WORD 2day: 27th November, 2017

Monday, 34th week in Ordinary Time

Dan 1: 1-6,8-20; Lk 21:1-4

The world has stereotypical criteria of what is good and what is better; social standards of what makes one good and what makes the other better! The temptation to conform to that social stereotypes is very high and dangerously subtle. Many a times we fall into the trap, though the Word very often warns us, "Do not be conformed to this world" (Rom 12:2), because, "the Lord does not see as the mortals see" (1 Sam 16:7). 

That is why, the two tiny coins that the widow drops quietly into the treasury seems more valuable to Jesus than the bags and bags of wealth that the others dump there. To be his disciples, "let the same mind be in you, as it was in Christ Jesus" (Phil 2:5) instructs St. Paul. We begin to read from today from the book of Daniel, every day increasingly reminding us of the imminent choice we have to make for the Lord and not for the convention of the world.

Daniel was special because of this, that God's mind was in him, the wisdom of the Lord was in him, that made him shine to the rest of the world. He knew what to choose and what to let go. He knew what really mattered and what did not. He knew what it meant to be faithful to his Master, the Lord, the Almighty. 

Maybe, I need to ask the Lord today, to give me that wisdom to see things as the Lord does, with the same mind that was in Christ Jesus and choose the right things and let go of those that are immaterial. Choosing the little that truly matter, will win me all that I need - the all, that is God!