with Christ-ian qualities!
Being Christian today, for that matter anyday, is a demanding task. It is not a simple automatic membership to a community, but a serious, sincere and self-conscious dedication to living the faith that one has received as a gift, firstly from God and without doubt from the community - which includes family, the faith community and every one who stands by the person in his or her faith life. Today, amidst the confusions of the present world dominated by heartless science and selfish designs, this task becomes more challenging! More than a year and a half now, the world has been languishing in disease and death, grief and helplessness, fear and meaninglessness, due to the pandemic that is still ravaging certain parts of the world, India being at the peak of it. What does it mean to live a life that is truly Christian at this point of time - being Quality Christians would consist inevitably of certain Christ-ian qualities, that is, qualities lived, passed on and required by Christ, our Saviour, Master and Model. The readings of this Sunday, point to three qualities that are currently relevant and ever demanding.
The First reading declares, 'God does not have favourites'! For long this tendency has haunted the spiritual beings and communities - being close to God or feeling the presence of God in the life experiences, has made people in history, not only holy and righteous as God would desire, but also proud, haughty and self-righteous! The Jews were very particular about their 'chosenness' and considered and treated everyone else as lesser beings, calling them 'pagans'! The Muslim mindset (the generalisation regretted), even today considers everyone else as an 'infidel' and wishes to bring everyone to their way of looking at reality! The sad fact is...in between these two major traditions the so-called tradition of Christianity too, considered itself 'saved' and the rest of the world rushing towards perdition, took a paternalistic attitude and gave into so many mistaken measures. How hard it is to forget the historical errors like the inquisitions and other similar vindicative ventures of the catholic church! However, we have learnt lessons and we cannot fall back into that error! And the fundamental correction is in the very name we have given ourselves - Catholic!
Catholicism is not merely a name, it is an attitude! It has to become our lifestyle as Christians - it is simply being "all-embracing"...it is to believe that God has no favourites...God loves every child of God. And those who hold on to God, feel the presence of God more and those who wish to move themselves away from God, feel it less. And therefore, as true chidlren of God our call is to look at everyone as a loved child of God, and create situations where everyone can feel and get closer to the presence of God, and not judge and place blocks on their way to God. We cannot write off someone as 'condemned' or 'damned' or 'hell-bound'. That is totally un-Christ-ian. Just the other day, someone forwarded on the social network, a video of someone who calls himself a preacher and a prophet, warning and threatening those who are of other faiths that they are all going astray from true God! Do you think, a blatant judgement of this sort will bring them to God? Does one have to threaten people in order to make them run to God? Is it not better to show love, share love and spread love, that those who feel that genuine love, feel the presence of God? That is catholicism...to embrace everyone as friends and share love.
2. God's versus gods:
All-embracing, does not mean we say, believing in any God is the same, it does not matter! Then my faith becomes meaningless and pointless. What we are saying is, be sincere about being God's people. When I am serious and committed to being a person of God, people will see it in my life. If I am friends with God, it can be seen in my daily life - a friend of God! As it is said of Moses, that God related and spoke to Moses as a friend would - so does God speak to each of us everyday. Are we aware, conscious, attentive and responsive to that? The more we grow to be friends of God, the more we shall grow to be friends with every one else, because the love that we experience from God shall get translated into the love that we have for others in our concrete daily life. Just think of those persons who call themselves to be persons of God, but are totally inaccesible to the others around them - either due to their character and temperament, or due to the system they create around themselves and so on! The difference can be understood in the simple fact: whether they are truly God's, or are they making of themselves petty gods?
Specially in a time like today's, when there is so much misery and pain, a person of God reaches out, goes to the most suffering, empathises with the grieved and strives to offer relief to the wearied hearts. They cannot be those who stay up there and judge, pose as great visionaries and cast spells and warnings, make of themselves little gods and exploit the moment for their popularity and glory! That is the worst lifestyle that can be witnessed in any context, much worse in a Christian context! Being God's means being loving - God begets those who love, says John in the second reading today.We are God's as much as we love! When we make of ourselves gods, or when we make for ourselves gods of our name, our popularity, our branding, our riches, our comforts, our safety, our profits, our pleasure, our plans, and so on... we are being counter-witeness to God...instead of being God's, we are being anti-God! Is it not high time we look at the core motivations and intentions we have in our hearts, so that we truly grow more and more loving, thus grow to be persons who are God's own.
3. Chosen versus choosy:
At times we get too choosy in life...we wish to choose whom to love and whom not to, we want to choose what kind of experiences we should have and what not, we want to choose what should happen to us and what should not, we want to choose in which we will follow the will of God and in which we want God to follow our wish and wants! If we are chosen, we just cannot be choosy! We think being chosen is a privilege; yes, of course it is! It is a privilege to be chosen people of God. But at the same time it is an obligation, a demand, a challenge, a call, a task that is given to us and we have so many things involved which we cannot choose! We cannot choose whether to love or not; we cannot choose whether to be truthful or not; we cannot choose whether to forgive or not; we cannot choose whether to reach out or not! It is infact a bit on the reverse - if we choose to love all, we are chosen people of God; if we choose to reach out those who are suffering, we are chosen people of God; if we choose to embrace all in fellowship and solidarity, we are chosen people of God!
Our chosenness is not a status statement, but a mission...You have not chosen me, I have chosen you... the Lord has chosen us and sent us, to bear fruit - fruits of love and compassion! Love is the mission that the Lord has entrusted to us. This I command you: that you love one another! The chosenness has to be revealed, manifested, lived out, in love. Quality Christians are those who in their thought, word and deed, their choices and priorities, in their fundamental perspectives and life-governing principles, are moved by love and love alone!
Love is the secret key that would inspire and empower a person to move from exclusivism to catholicism; from the tendency to create one's own gods to being truly God's, from being choosy to realisation of being chosen by God! It is the fundamental of the Christ-ian qualities that can render a person, a Quality Christian.
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