Banquet at the Destination

Advent 2024: A Pilgrimage of Hope - the Commission of the Journey!

First Wednesday in Advent - December 04, 2024

Isaiah 25: 6-10; Matthew 15: 29-37

The commissioning of a journey, with its destination desirable and attractive, becomes a sign of hope for everyone who looks up to it. But its desirability and attraction have to be true, not just an appearance or a delusion. On our pilgrimage of hope, we have our destination clear – the Reign. And it is definitely attractive and unquestionably desirable. Not just that, it is also a promise and guarantee… everyone, without any discrimination, is called to that destination where a banquet is prepared for all! All are entitled to this banquet of the Reign, but first of all they have to enter the Reign, enter the banquet hall. That signifies three levels of requirement to be fulfilled:

The first level is Desire; as the responsorial psalm guides us, we ought to develop a desire, a longing, a yearning for the house of the Lord. Unless that desire exists, and is expressed, one cannot make it to the banquet.

The second level is Decision; as Isaiah indicates the banquet is rich and is prepared, it is ready and it is inviting. But it depends on us to reach there, to enter in there. This who were with Jesus, ate the bread from the hands of the compassionate Lord – yes, those who were with Jesus! They had to be there to partake of the banquet. That is a decision, on the part of every individual.

The third level is Dedication; because it is not easy to reach the Reign or enter the banquet. They journey towards, is tough and dry. It takes endurance and perseverance to reach the destination – that is why it is a pilgrimage of hope. 

Gazing at the Destination

Advent 2024: A Pilgrimage of Hope - the Commission of the Journey! 

First Tuesday in Advent – December 03, 2024

Isaiah 11:1-10; Luke 10: 21-24

The commissioning of a journey, if it has to be an impelling proposal, has to enable persons have a glimpse of the destination. That is what the Word does today – invites us to gaze at the destination fixed, the Reign, where wolves live with the lambs, calves and lions feed together, the lion eats straw and young child plays with the cobra! For anyone who looks at this, it would be an impossibility, a utopia that has nothing to do with the reality. That is why the Gospel today says – you need those eyes to see it. 

Seeing the Reign, requires the eyes of a child. When Jesus glorifies the Father for having made the revelation to the children, he is telling us inferentially that we need to develop the eyes of a child to behold the Reign.

Seeing the Reign, requires a heart that yearns for justice and peace. It is a condition where one goes beyond his or her own good and wellbeing, far from one’s own desire or dreams, looking at the good of all, especially that of the least, the last and lost. That is where exists the Reign.

Seeing the Reign requires that one see the way God sees everything – as God’s own! Everything, and everyone belongs to God and no one has the right to hurt the other; every being is inviolable.  How difficult and problematic it is for human beings to see this? That is why the Reign remains still a farfetched dream. Can we really see what the Lord wants us to see – the Reign? Can we at least begin our efforts to see it?

Fixing the Destination

Advent 2024: A Pilgrimage of Hope - the Commission of the Journey!

First Monday in Advent – December 02, 2024

Isaiah 2:1-5; Matthew 8: 5-11

The commissioning of a journey consists in primarily declaring the destination of it – where to? That is what this pilgrimage begins with too. The Word today clarifies that we are on a journey towards the Reign of God. Jesus is on a journey, in the Gospel today, as he is most of the time pictured in the Gospels. His whole life was a journey, not only his. 

Our whole life is a journey too, a pilgrimage, a pilgrimage of hope towards the Reign, the salvific hope that is presented to every being created in the love of God. It is not about where we begin, from where we come, when we began and so on, that matter – but that we are determined to journey towards the Reign. For Jesus bursts the bubble of privilege, and sets the ground plain for everyone: many will come from east and west, to take their places at the feast of the Reign! 

Come let us go to the mountain of the Lord, the call is so clear and loud. Three important attributes of this call: to begin with, that we rejoice in that journey; secondly, that we journey together, forgetting our differences and disputes, leaving behind our scuffles and squabbles; and finally, that we walk in the light of the Lord. It is not about somehow reaching the destination, in fact in this case, we cannot! Because it is the Lord himself who will adjudicate. The choice we need to make right at the beginning of this journey, is to fix our minds, our hearts and our feet on the way of the Lord, that our journey leads us to the house of the Lord.

THE PILGRIMAGE OF HOPE

The Commission of the Journey!

First Sunday in Advent – December 01, 2024

Jeremiah 33:14-16; 1 Thessalonians 3:12 - 4:2; Luke 21: 25-28, 34-36

Let us wish ourselves a Happy New Year! A happy new liturgical year! And this year’s Advent, apart from ushering in the new liturgical year, gives us another special commission too, it commissions us a journey towards the Jubilee Year, the threshold of which shall coincide with the celebrations of the Nativity of our Lord this year.

We are challenged to be Pilgrims of Hope… and the upcoming year shall encapsulate that vocation in a myriad of ways, but the journey begins now. That is why, this Advent can be very well considered a Pilgrimage of Hope! And that certainly coincides with this first Sunday of Advent, the Sunday dedicated to the theme of hope. The Word this Sunday invites us to understand this commission, this call for a pilgrimage of hope in its depth. The pilgrimage has begun, with the commission of this journey.

The Journey begins, as everything, with God! God has raised us and God has convoked us to this journey. Jeremiah speaks of this in the metaphor of raising up a righteous branch – the Lord-our-integrity raises up the branch for David and that branch shall reign. The Raise, is a promise, and that promise is the foundation of hope, for the Lord is righteousness and integrity. Our minds, our hearts, our spirits are raised, and it is the most rudimentary meaning of advent, which invites us to see everything from the point of view of God, God’s promise and its fulfillment – the stock of Jesse, the branch of David, the Lord our Saviour.

The Journey is all about a reaffirmation, from the Lord who increases our love for each other and confirms our hearts in holiness and righteousness, after the Lord’s own heart. This Reaffirmation, is all about reassuring us on our journey that we are on the right track, or even if we have spotted ourselves drifting that we are not clueless about the return. We know the coordinates – love of God and love for one another, which alone can make us holy and blameless before God! The key is in learning to see the mercies of the Lord that surround us. The journey that we begin this day, is not a lonesome adventure. We are accompanied – the by the very One who has commissioned this journey, and the co-pilgrims who are commissioned along with us. Our responsibility is twofold – that we recognize with hope this commission we are presented with, and secondly, we share this hope with every co-sojourner along this pilgrimage.

The Journey is ultimately about our rising, being enlivened by the call of the Lord to “stay awake”, “to stand with confidence”, and “to stand erect and hold our heads high,” come what may. The Rise, is not about an escape from fearsome happenings, but it is all about looking at that liberation that is brought to us by the Son of Man. The Saviour shall come with glory and power, and those shall become ours too – depending on the assent that we give to the Lord who reveals, the Lord who has inaugurated this pilgrimage of hope, right when he spoke of the Reign. This is actively our response, while the first two were what God would do for us – while it is the Lord who would raise us up and reaffirm us, it is we, who have to rise; we have to decide to rise! To rise and shine, that we may make this journey, this pilgrimage of hope.

The first week shall underscore for us the commission of this journey – explicating right at the outset the nature, the destination, the expectations and so on, related to this pilgrimage. Being a pilgrimage of hope, it has to be filled with the presence of the Lord. And that is what we ask of the Lord this day – that the Lord accompanies us in this journey commission by the Lord himself, a pilgrimage of hope.