THE WORD IN LENT: Monday, 3rd week in Lent
March 8, 2021: 2 Kings 5:1-15;
Luke 4: 24-30
"Go to the existential peripheries", invites the Holy Father as one of his ceaseless recommendations to the Church today! And that is what he has done too...as he finishes his Apostolic visit today in Iraq. But why the insistence? One reason that could be found very close to truth is, for God there are no peripheries! For God everyone is "chosen" in his or her own way; every place is a "chosen place" in its own manner! For God each and every person is at the centre of existence, no one at the existential peripheries, where we have pushed them to.
We may brand someone 'strange', 'alien', 'outcast', 'unacceptable' or
'not-worth-relating to'... but let us understand they are at the center of the
universe that God beholds. Be it the widow of Zarephath or Namaan from Aram,
they were under God's care! Reaching out is a marked call of Lent, to reach out
to the other in need!
Reaching out
means expressing God to the others, being God to those who need, making God
felt by those who are broken. Reaching out means opening our eyes and looking
at the miseries of the other, the struggles and pains of the other, not getting
stuck to one’s own petty world of thought and interest. Reaching out means
leaving the cosiness of our lives and going out to make life better for the
other – not spoiling the life of the other for my comfort and cosiness.
When we reach out to the so-called marginalised, the so-called persons in the periphery, we are actually in the footsteps of the Lord who chose to be with them, chose to be one among them. Let us reach out today, at least to one person whom we have not considered within our circles of relationships, till now.
Let us commit ourselves to reach out to the existential peripheries!