Coming and Going...

WORD 2day - Thursday, 15th week in Ordinary time

July 20, 2023: Exodus 3: 13-20; Matthew 11: 28-30 

The Word that dominates the first reading today is 'Go'... Yahweh sends Moses to the Pharaoh. The term that stands out in the short but sweet Gospel of today is, 'Come'... the Lord invites the burdened to rest. Come and Go... may look like two opposite words but the reason given for both the movements is the same: because I am with you, says the Lord.

Coming and going... refer to the docility of the chosen, the willingness and readiness with which a messenger of the Lord vows to act. Going anywhere mattered nothing to the prophets of old or for the apostles in the New Testament... they just went, where the Lord sent them to. Added to that, it did not sound a "sending" according to them; it meant an invitation, "come", "come, be mine!", "come, be me where I send you!". That remains the same even today, even with us.

Every day and in ways mysterious or means ordinary, the Lord keeps sending us these instructions: come, go, speak, share, remain, endure and so on... are we prepared to listen and eager to act upon it? When we do it, there is bound to be a myriad of struggles and endless strife... but the Lord will give us the strength, make the yoke easy and the burden light. Easy and light, because the Lord is with us!

Thank thee Lord our God!

WORD 2day - Wednesday, 15th week in Ordinary time

July 19, 2023: Exodus 3: 1-6,9-12; Matthew 11: 25-27 

God reveals Godself to Moses, and thus to the people of Israel, and thus to the whole world - the very first revelation of the God who intervenes in history is a revelation of a God who stands by the suffering, the poor, the oppressed! While the dominant, the oppressive and the powerful lot float on their cloud of pride and arrogance, creating petty gods of themselves and idols of their power and penny, the Lord rests with the weak, the suffering, the little ones who put their trust in the Lord. 

The interim picture of the situation may look favourable to the powerful and the dominant, but at the denouement it wont certainly be so! The last shall be first, the least shall be the greatest, the humble shall be exalted, the persecuted shall be consoled - these repeated paradoxes taught by Jesus are not asking one to wish misfortune for oneself or to negate the fullness of life that Jesus himself brought. 

It is to remind us that the fullness of life is not in the power, possession and prosperity that we hold so dear - it is in right priorities! It is understanding one's origins, one's duties, one's giftedness, one's call, one's mission, one's relatedness to the other, one's responsibility for those around oneself and to the humanity as a whole. 

When I understand all this and live my everyday life in all earnestness, it would be a reason to thank and praise God, as Jesus does today - "I thank thee, Lord of heaven and earth!"