The Dry bone syndrome

WORD 2day: Friday, 20th week in Ordinary time

August 19, 2022: Ezekiel 37: 1-14; Matthew 22: 34-40

The world is experiencing a time that is strange in all its sense and meaningless in its totality. There is some invention or development every single day in the field of social networking, making it ever more easier to stay in touch and communicate to each other. But the paradox is, that world is growing colder by the day towards those who are suffering, those who are struggling, those who are left without hope, those who are exploited and targetted, denied their rights, robbed of their dignity and incessantly dehumanised. No one bothers about these weak and the least, there is only the mighty and the moneyed who have their way in everything.  It is an experience we can call the dry bone syndŕome. Bones strewn all around but having nothing to do with each other.

The spirit, the breath of the Lord that the Lord commands Ezekiel to prophesy about, is nothing but the Spirit of the Lord, the love for God and the love for one's neighbours. It is Love that can give life to this heap of dry bones. It is the love that God lavishes upon us and the realisation of it, that can urge us to love others (2 Cor 5:14).

Looking at the war situations and stand-offs between nations that create feelings of fear and insecurity among people... are they not clearly experiences of dry bone syndrome? And what else can be the solution proposed, if not, love, genuine love and committed love, inspired by the Lord and the Spirit of the Lord!

The task of becoming God's people

WORD 2day:  Thursday, 20th week in Ordinary time

August 18, 2022: Ezekiel 36: 23-28; Matthew 22:1-14

The readings today seem to underline the urgency of responding to God's invitation. The urgency in no way does away with the demands of the criteria. The demand is not just to be good people, but to be God's people. However we may try, that task seems to be practically impossible, with all the traps and trials around in our living conditions. 

The Lord offers to fill us with Lord's own spirit. It is only through that, one can live according to the norms of the living Lord. By God's invitation to becoming the Lord's people, God wishes to display God's holiness in us... what a realisation if only we understand what God wants to communicate by this invitation to us. 

At times we reduce our human nature to sinfulness and wickedness, jealousy and egocentrism, lawlessness and insensitivity. The truth is not that: the truth is that we possess within us the holiness of God, the splendour of God, the glorious and majestic image of God. If only we realise it! 

We are called to be holy, we are given with the task of becoming God's people...holiness here is knowing the right perspectives of life and living with right priorities, on a daily basis. We claim to have accepted the invitation of God, but if we do not have this balanced perspective and wholesome priorities, we are doomed to be cast out from that presence of the Lord, for it is no holiness that does not result in concrete wholeness!