Mary the Mother of the Church and Help of Christians

THE WORD AND THE FEAST  

May 24, 2021: Mary Mother of the Church and Mary Help of Christians

Genesis 3: 9-15; John 19: 25-34

It is a meaningful coincidence this day - Mary Mother of the Church and Mary Help of Christians - both opening up the vistas of proclamation and evangelisation and that of sustained growth in faith, all one's life! Both these titles to Mary seem a bit problematic at the outset...but infact made sense of from the right perspective, they can be useful ways to understand the precious identity we share as people of God and in relation to the the world at large. Problematic because it could be interpreted in an exclusive sense, for Christians and for the Church! But the scope is much larger. 

Help of Christians  - the title which was historically inspired, stands good in as much as the Church in the world today, does need a powerful intercessor and protector, looking at the challenges that exist from within and without. From within, there are forces which in the name of be it progressiveness or be it adapting to the rest of the world, seem to weaken some fundamental basis of Christian values today. From outside today, as ever, there are those who consider the Church their firm enemy because the Church has stood formidable for two millennia upholding the Reign principles handed down by Christ. The Blessed Mother as she once protected the Church from the ravaging enemies, today has to continue to protect the flock.

Mother of the Church - the recent feast, but one of the most ancient titles to Mary, is a challenge to the people of God, towards forming themselves into people who wait on the Lord, who are filled with the Spirit of the Lord, who proclaim the Lord to the rest of the world, who are united in prayer even if the situation around seems so fearsome or unpromising, who know that the Lord will never let them down, who never leave the side of the Lord come what may and who find solace in each other building themselves up into the living Reign of God, here and now.

These two titles of our blessed mother celebrated together this day present to us a fundamental identity that the Church gives to Mary within our Christian faith: an INTERCESSOR who protects and a MODEL who inspires us, to live our faith to the full. 

Mary our Mother and Help, pray for us!

COME HOLY SPIRIT...WE NEED YOU!!!

Fire, Fruits and Friendship

May 23, 2021: Pentecost Sunday
Acts 2:1-11; Galatians 5: 16-25; John 20: 19-23

Welcome to the birthday celebrations of the One Holy Apostolic Church! Thousands of small communities of the people of God, chosen by God, saved by the Word and animated by the Spirit might exist in the world today - the origin is the One Holy Spirit, the One Spirit of communion and courage, the One Spirit of conviction and consolation who underlies every good thing that comes from God. Hence... let us wish each other today a happy birthday, because we were reborn in the Spirit as the people of God. When Jesus said, unless one is born again in the Spirit of God, one cannot enter the Reign of God - this is what the Lord meant: to receive the Spirit - in concrete it means to feel the fire, bear the fruits and grow in the friendship that comes from the Spirit.

We need the Holy Spirit, now more than ever! Look around us... there is pain and sorrow, fear and weariness, disease and death, grief and confusion, suspicion and conspiracies... the pandemic has pushed not just some parts of the world, but the entire humanity into this situation today! In spite of this predicament, there is still injustice, inhumanity, cruelties, insensitivities, insincerity, exploitation, corruption, dehumanisation, abuse, sexual perversion, self seeking, money mindedness, materialism, relativism, consumerism, egoism, fundamentalism, fanaticism, hegemonism, totalitarianism... every thing working against Truth and Justice! Sinfulness has become the order of the day and every day the level of sinfulness keeps rising and nothing matters anymore than the capacity to fend for oneself. Worse still, it looks like a handful who are affluent and moneyed, could control the entire globe and have their way, come what may. They are able to bulldoze even the so-called transnational organisations and all sorts of historical attempts at setting up neutral watchdogs for human rights and dignity. What a state of gloom the human race is pushed into!

We need the FIRE of the Holy Spirit to give us the courage to face the Truth! When things go wrong or go in the way we would never want them to, we need the courage to accept it. When things seem to be dark and so in incomprehensible to us that we are lost in our life's ways, we need the light to decide our next steps. When we look around and see everything around us justifies what the Lord considers 'evil' and perpetrates darkness and doubt, we need the fire that burns the evil away, the fire that lights up the true Christian way! That fire that was lit in our hearts (though when we were still in our mother's womb, yet concretely and externally) at our baptism; the fire that we were commissioned to keep burning till we return to the Lord, that we may see clearly the way set out for us and show it to our brothers and sisters, friends and neighbours.

We need the Holy Spirit, now more than ever! When selfishness is justified and glorified as success mindset, when violence is looked upon as a way to make one's dreams come true, when money and wealth come before humanity and peace, when politics means nothing but dominating the masses in whichever inhuman means possible, when happiness means pleasure and excitement at the cost of anything and anyone, when love means possessing and marriage means merely a contract, when the suffering persons become just numbers of cases and people dying become merely masses to be dealt with,  what difference are we called to make today as people of the Spirit? 

We need the FRUITS  of the Holy Spirit, that we may live true love and teach it to the world, that we may have the inner joy and show it to those around, that we may spread peace that creates heaven where we are, that we may have the patience to endure the evils holding firm to the good, that we may possess the kindness to see beyond the failures of people, that we may have the generosity to give of ourselves for the good of the other and the entire humanity, that we may ever be faithful to the One who has called us and commissioned us, that we may challenge the violent world with our gentleness, that we may possess the self control that puts us in control of everything else - this is the difference we are called to make - can we?

We need the holy Spirit, now more than ever! How do we picture ourselves today: As people of the Spirit, people of God, people of Redemption...if so, our identity has to be different from that of the world. The world identifies itself with power, possession and prestige. Persons are ready to do anything to have power - power over others, power over means of wealth, power over systems and power over everyone else! The craze to possess, ruins any humanity that could be. To possess things and to possess persons have come to mean the same and the world differentiates no more one from the other. Prestige and ego, seem to rule everything and the society seems ready to sacrifice anything for it. Today the experience of the pandemic proclaims so loud the fragility and the vulnerability that lies under the covers of our claim to know everything and be in control of everything! 

We need the FRIENDSHIP of the Holy Spirit, to understand the true identity that we have. We are friends - made friends of God, called to be friends to each other, commissioned to be friends to the needy, the broken, the afflicted, the suffering, the discouraged, the lonely, the grieving, the weak and the downtrodden! It is the Spirit that gives us the heart and the capacity it takes to be friends... the Spirit unites, makes us understand each other, synchronises our thoughts, synergises our capacities and moulds us together as One People of God. Where there is division and hatred, there is no Spirit because the Spirit of God, is the Spirit of love and wisdom, communion and friendship.

Yes, let us pray together this day:
Come Holy Spirit, we need thee!
We need your Fire to burn and to light up,
We need your Fruits to raise this world up,
We need your Friendship to truly grow up!
Come Holy Spirit, we need thee!