THE WORD AND THE FEAST

LET US CELEBRATE CHILDREN

28th December 2017 - The Feast of the Holy Innocents

1 Jn 1:5 - 2:2; Mt 2:13-18

The Feast of the Holy Innocents is a reminder to celebrate the children with us and within us - the Gospel speaks of the latter and the first reading of the former! The call is threefold :

1. Let us celebrate every child: The very same world that is raising a hue and cry of the rights of children and related issues is also fighting for the right to abortion, in the name of right to choice! What an irony! The attitude of celebrating children should come from the fact that children are a wonderful gift from God, they are a sign that God is forever in love with the world and the humanity! Every child is a gift to be celebrated. 

2. Let us nurture our children: Nurturing our children does not mean pampering them; it is a great task and responsibility given to us parents and elders to nurture them to the fullness of their life - it means we give them everything they need to grow up with - not everything that the world says is important! The right values, the right orientations, the right priorities...how can we give these if we lack them ourselves? When we fail to give them a balanced growing ambient, we are actually ruining their life, in a sense, killing them! How important the role of a parent is! How much do we take care to learn that art, the art of parenting?

3. Let us learn from children: The children are not only at the receiving end, they have much to teach us too! We need to learn from their innocence, from their openness, from their capacity to trust and their innate sense of perceiving the divine! We, in the name of our rationality and our craving to prove ourselves right and superior, at times refuse to perceive the obvious signs of the divine around us and and fail to give a place of priority to God. May our children today teach us to remain children, children of the Most High. 

Let us celebrate children this day...it is actually a Church proposed CHILDREN'S DAY!!!

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

Christmas Joy and a Joyful Proclamation

27th December, 2017: Remembering St. John

1 John 1: 1-4; Jn 20:2-8

The Christmas joy continues, even as we commemorate St.John the Evangelist today. John is literally a great gift of God to us, as the name itself suggests. John refers to himself in the Gospel as the Other Disciple and that specificity gives us a guarantee of the great tradition that is behind that name and that experience.

"The Joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus," says the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (n.1). Though the Gospel reading draws our attention to the scene of resurrection, the message is all about an encounter with Christ that redefines one's life. 

When a person encounters Christ in all one's earnestness, there is a choice, a categorical choice for Christ and Christ's mission! As St. Paul affirms that it is no merit that an apostle proclaims the Word, but woe to him if he does not (1 Cor 9:16), today we see John explaining in the first reading: I am called to announce Christ, not merely because others will benefit from it; but primarily that my joy may be complete (1 Jn 1:4). 

For a Christian, a joy-filled proclamation of Christ is the only way to live his or her life - joyfully proclaiming Christ in every word, every action and every choice that is made, at every moment of one's daily life. John stands for a loving personal relationship with the Lord. It is this personal relationship that gets translated into a proclamation, by the very life that we live. It is a call that is given to each of us who has heard the Word, felt its presence and experienced it in our life. Can we say a wholehearted yes to that call?