The Relationship: living by faith

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

January 31, 2025 - Remembering St. John Bosco

Hebrews 10: 32-39; Mark 4: 26-34

The Relationship that God establishes between Godself and us, is a call to live by faith. That is what the prophet Habakuk said and Paul quoted, and we see in today's passage from the letter to the Hebrews - the reighteous shall live by faith. What does it mean to live by faith: it can have two senses - to live in an endless sense of awe and to live totally dependent on the ultimate source of life, that is the Almighty!

Look at life, is there a limit to the surprises it offers? A person with a balanced reason, will certainly and without hesitation say, we can never understand life, at no point, to the full. A reductionist might define life as comfort or pleasure, a materialist may reduce life to possessions and successes , a blind nihilist might call life nothing or worthless, but one who is illumined will know how profound life is and how overwhelming a reflection on it could be. That is why in today's parable Jesus draws our attention to sense of mystery that is embedded within life, that puts us into a never ending feeling of awe. 

Secondly, the struggles and difficulties, moments of failures and challenges, experience of disappointments and acknowledgement of helplessness, are but opportunities to express our endurance in the Lord, to continue to do  God's will and gain what God has promised. The Saint we celebrate today, St. John Bosco, fondly known as Don Bosco, is a splendid witness to this fact. No amount of hardships or hurdles, no count of failures and burdens, would stop him from believing in the Lord and hoping in the Lord's promises. The great achievement that he has accomplished stands testimony to what it means to live by faith! Don Bosco would tell us the same words we heard in the first reading today: you and I are not the sort of people who draw back, and are lost, we are the sort who keep faithful until our souls are saved! 

The Relationship: Connecting and Radiating

WORD 2day: Thursday, 3rd week in Ordinary time

January 30, 2025 - Hebrew 10: 19-25; Mark 4: 21-25

The relationship that God has promised us in and through the Covenant, is not something that changes, it is something that remains forever - for the One who made this covenant is faithful. That does not mean it is static - the same all the time! It is dynamic and ever on the move. That is why it can be attributed with these two qualities that the Word today presents to us: connecting and radiating. 

God's relationship with us does not position us in a safe and cosy corner where we remain forever, contemplating and conserving our own selfcentered happiness. It is just the opposite - God's relationship pushes us onward, it pushes us out of ourselves, it makes us reach out, go forth. That is why the Christ comes to us, the Word comes to us, reaching out to us and becoming that curtain through which we can reach God... the unreachable summit. Christ connected, Christ connects... me and the One who loved me into existence and continues to love me,... me and my brothers and sisters, all of whom are children of that same God whose relationship has given me the grace of salvation. We need to connect to each other, we cannot remain aloof or unconcerned about each other! 

God's relationship with us, in connecting us to Godself, and to each other, makes us radiate that joy, that bliss, that presence of God that has to be felt by everyone around. Like the light that burns, shines and radiates, we are called to give (burn), inspire (shine) and unite (radiate) everyone in the love of God, in that relationship that gives us our sense and purpose in life. God's relationship radiates from within us and reaches out to the other - making God present everywhere. The more we give, the more we shine and the more we shine, the more we connect - that is manifestation of the relationship that we have in the love of God. 

The Relationship: covenant of love, not sin offerings!

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 3rd week in Ordinary time

January 29, 2025 - Hebrews 10:11-18; Mark 4: 1-20

God's relationship with the children of God is a covenant of love, God repeatedly has emphasised this fact, as the letter to the Hebrews explains to us today. God does not take up the sins of the past or require a settlement from one, once the person decides to commit oneself to the covenant of love! Once a person makes that commitment, the decision grows. Yes, although the decision made is once for all, it does not exclude moments of setbacks, failures and difficulties. 

Jesus presents us with a parable to understand that - that of the sower and the seed! It is God's love that has sown the inspiration to commit ourselves to this covenant of love - once we make this decision to commit, there could be situations of precarity when the enemy is at the best, trying to snatch us away from God our Father and Mother; we need to overcome that, let us not fret God is with us. 

Once we begin that journey, anytime we could hit the rock bottom, for our energy and enthusiasm is not always the same; but what matters is our original decision and let us not lose heart, the Lord of love is with us. Continuing that journey, we might come across thorns and thistles, bushes and shrubs that could block our way ahead, but all that we need to do is keep looking ahead, the One who has sown, shall reap when it is ready!

When we persevere in that original decision to commit to that covenant of love, we shall see that we bear fruit, we inspire many more, we inspire the world around and the Reign of God will show itself up. That is the relationship to which the Lord has called us - a relationship of love, a relationship of fidelity, a relationship of never failing covenant. 

The Relationship: doing God's will

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

January 28, 2025 - Remembering St. Thomas Aquinas  

Hebrews 10: 1-10; Mark 3:31-35

Relationship is the core of the Christian faith - but it is important to know what is the Covenantal or the Christian understanding of relationship. Let us consider our ordinary experience of relationship - with a person strange or just introduced we would be as formal as possible and as obliging as we could. But when the so-called relationship grows, we would beging to take the person for granted and would not mind doing what we want in relation to him or her. Is this really the Christ-ian or the covenantal significance of relationships? Certainly cannot be.

A Christian sense of relationship is not doing what I want, but wishing to do what the other needs! It cannot be even what the other deserves, but what the other needs, that is what the other intends to receive from us, even when the other has not expressed it to us. That is the crux of the definition of love, that the Saint whom we celebrate today gave: love is wishing the good of the other... doing whatever it takes to make the other feel good, be good, fare good. 

When the same is translated in the sense of faith - where the Other is God - it is being ready to do whatever God wants, wishes, wills. How often we begin to calculate in terms of saying, how close I am to God and God does not fulfil my wishes! It is not about God doing what we want, but we doing what God wills - that is what faith, or a covenantal relationship is all about! It is to say with sincerity of heart: here I am Lord, I come to do your will. That is how we shall become truly children of God, truly brothers and sisters of the Son.  

The Relationship: the promise of the New Covenant

WORD 2day: Monday, 3rd week in Ordinary Time

January 27, 2025 - Hebrews 9:15, 24-28; Mark 3: 22-30

We are continuing our reflection with the letter to the hebrews, and after the series on the journey of our faith in the first week, the reflection on 'the way' in the second week, we begin a reflection on the reason behind and the foundation of this journey and the way... the relationship - which is the crux of the promise that Jesus gave us! 

Jesus' promise of the New Covenant is a promise of eternal salvation. The Word affirms that this salvation is given to all, by that sacrifice once and for all, on Calvary. Every one is promised forgiveness and salvation, but every person has to claim that salvation for oneself. There can be three blocks that can prevent a person from claiming this salvation for onself. 

The first is the social block - that the background and experience handed down does not allow one to experience this salvation. This can be overcome by a new experience that can change the entire life of a person. The second is the personal block - that the weaknesses within us, the limitations that we personally experience keeps us away from God. But this block, can be worked out of, with the grace of God. 

The third, and most dangerous of all, is a psuedo block because of which I deliberately keep myself away from God. It is my lack of openness and anti-spiritual bias that takes me far from the promise of the New Covenant. It could be due to any selfish or egoistic reason, which most of the time is psuedo block... from which not even God can save us! 

BEING GOD'S PEOPLE

Identity, Call and Mission

3rd Sunday in Ordinary time: January 26, 2025

Nehemiah 8:2-6,8-10; 1 Corinthians 12: 12-30; Luke 1:1-4, 4:14-21

Jesus came and lived here on earth amidst us to remind us about our call to be God's people and to show us how to do it! People of God - that is our identity, that is our call and that is our mission. 

But looking at history - sometimes, it has been a dangerous proposition too! We see that the people of Israel, calling themselves the chosen people of God, killed and butchered clans and clans of the so-called 'others' and justified it too; Jesus himself was killed because they thought it is better that one dies instead of the entire lot of the 'chosen people' being put to risk; think of those times when we called ourselves the 'people of God' and went with flags marked with crosses menacing nations and even killing thousands; what about those who in the name of 'superior race' or the 'chosen race' wished to blot out the rest of the world; after all these have we anything to say when a group calls the rest as 'infidels' and threatens to eliminate people, if they don't become one of them? All these have unmistakably and gravely gone wrong somewhere, somewhere right at the foundations! 

When the Word tells us today we are called to be God's People, it is not a statement of pride or superiority or elitism or some kind of messianism claiming that the entire world is at our mercies! Absolutely no. Certainly, it is a statement of an identity that God wishes to give us, but along with it comes a call and a mission that defines it all. Yes, there are three tasks outlined for us by the Word this Sunday:

 

The first: Beginning with the Word - Our Identity

Being God's people means beginning with the Word: our identity lies there, not in the structures we have and the statistics we boast about (that we are the greatest in number and that we have survived for 2000 years and so on!) Our identity is based on the Word, the Word which has always guided humanity, the Word which had become human and the Word which calls us every day without ceasing to a life of love and compassion. Our identity has to be created on the foundation of the Word of God. 

When Nehemiah the King and Ezra the priest wanted to give an identity to the heart broken people, they did it with the Word, reading it aloud to them and getting them to hear it and be strengthened by it. When Jesus wanted to establish his identity among his own people, he did it with the Word, teaching in the synagogue for the first time. As individuals, as families or as communities, if we wish to identify ourselves to others, we need to found ourselves on the Word. 

 

The second: Building up the Word - Our Call

 

The Word was made flesh, the flesh was given to us and we were made One Body in Christ. The Word invites us to build up our communities of faith, in communion and sharing, thus building up the Word into a formidable challenge to the ways of the world. This task is to build up our believing community, the Body of Christ, the Body of the Word. 

The Word was made flesh, in order that God's salvation plan could be brought to its culmination in Jesus Christ the Son of God. Today the same Word has to be made flesh... the Word has to become a Body, the Body of Christ, the Body of the Word... that is our Community of faith - united as one body with the head that is Christ, the Word who lives amidst us. When we build up the community, we build up the Body of the Word, we build up the Word. When we break, divide, shatter, weaken, dismember this Body, we are killing the Word! We have just finished celebrating the Unity Octave (18 to 25 January), praying for the unity of all Christians, are we really ready to forget our differences, leave aside our past and unite in the name of the Word? 

The third: Becoming the Word - Our Mission 

The Word you have heard is fulfilled today in your hearing, declared Jesus. He was the Word personified... and we are today called to model our lives after him, to become the Word, to grow into the Word, into the living Word, into living images of Christ for the world today, offering sight to the blind, liberty to captives and freedom to the oppressed.

Unfortunately, some of our brethren tend to think that our mission is to memorize a few verses from the Bible and go shout it in the face of people and get them somehow by hook or by crook, by fears or by tears into our fold and say, "we have saved them". What a sham! We are not sent merely to throw the Word at others; we are sent to live It amidst others! We are not expected to swallow the Word only to spit It elsewhere, but to retain It, digest It and become It. Our mission is to be nourished by the Word and Become the Word! Looking at us, people should be able to say: 'what we heard is being fulfilled in you!' 

Becoming God's People is an identity we need to found on the Word, a call to build our families and communities on the Word, and a mission to transform ourselves after the Word. Can our daily lives be truly fulfilments of the Word, here and now?

The Way: the journey of Conversion

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

January 25, 2025: The Conversion of St. Paul

Acts 22: 3-16; Mark 16: 15-18

The conversion of St. Paul marks a the very first twist in the tale after the Risen Lord began to make a difference in history! Hidden life, persecution and private practice of Christ-inspired faith life was suddenly taken to the public domain with St. Paul getting into the bandwagon. A passionate attachment to Christ was growing into a Charismatic challenge! We celebrate this feast today and it fills us with great joy!

Some thoughts from the Word on this feast:

1. Conversion is a life Journey: We need this grace of conversion, which the Lord inspires within us. Yes, conversion comes from within - though we see the dramatic events that accompany the conversion of Paul, they are only external signs of something that was happening within him, at the core of his being.

2. Conversion begins with a Bolt: We seem to be going in great pace with our life, when suddenly strikes a bolt. We call that a misfortune, a shock or a setback. But we need to be conscious of the fact that these experiences are messages, invitations for a transformation we need to effect within us.

3. Conversion definitely involves falling to the ground: Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground, it will not bear fruit. When Saul fell from his horse to the ground, he rose as Paul, enquiring 'who are you Lord'! And from then his life changed...for no longer did he live, Christ lived in him.

4. Conversion is fundamentally a new vision: Nothing of Saul changed...he was the same determined, stubborn, hardliner. But his vision had changed. And that changed everything else. When he got back his sight, he did not only see again, but his vision was totally new! He now saw everything from the point of view of Christ. That is the conversion expected of us: to see everything as Christ does - that is the journey you and I are called to make, a journey of conversion.

The Way: it's all about relationships!

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

January 24, 2025 - Celebrating St. Francis de Sales

Hebrew 8: 6-13; Mark 3: 13-19

The first reading raises an important question: what has changed with the coming of Jesus, in the self-revelation of God? God has always revealed Godself as related to the people - you shall be "my" people and I shall be "your" God. The covenant that God made with the people, was the central and definitive feature of God's self revelation and God's nature.It was fundamentally, the way that God wanted to be related to the people and the way God wanted people to be related to God. 

When Jesus comes around, it continues to be about the covenant, but this time it is about a "New" covenant. As we see in the letter to the Hebrews, the old covenant that had existed from time immemorial, needed a revamp...because people had lost real touch with it, they had forgotten the crux of it: that therein, mercy and faithfulness encounters each other. And Jesus comes as the realisation of that encounter and reminds us of what a covenant truly is: relationship, and what God's natures is: relationship.

Yes, it is all about relationship. That is the reason Jesus began his ministry by gathering a community around him... the apostles. Even when Jesus ascended to his Father, what he was leaving behind to ensure the establishment of the Reign was, the community of apostles, persons related to each other in mercy and love because of their relatedness to Christ, that revelation of God.  

The Saint whom we celebrate today, Francis de Sales, is known as the Doctor of Divine Love, because he reminded us untiringly of the need to practice and strengthen the charism of love - love for god and in turn, a love for one's fellow beings simply and reverently. That is the centrality of relationships in the faith that Jesus has initiated us into. 

The Way: withdrawing to the Tent

WORD 2day: Thursday, 2nd week in Ordinary time

January 23, 2025 - Hebrews 7:25 - 8:6; Mark 3: 7-12

Jesus very often withdrew by himself, or with his discples or with some select apostles - this was his customary routine. There was a reason he prefered this retreat very often and the Word today explains that to us, not just for our edification but also as an example to follow, the way to orient our lives. 

First of all, it refers to the all-encompassing mission that Jesus had. He had it from his Father who sent him. As he himself often clarified, he did nothing or said nothing that the Father had not told him to! Hence his entire mission was according to the Father - it was like, he was constructing a Tent, just as Moses was instructed to construct, the Tent of Meeting or the Tent of the Covenant that Moses had to construct, in exact terms as God instructed him. 

Jesus was doing exactly the same - was constructing a Tent of Covenant, only that, this time the Tent of the Covenant was to remain forever, and it was his own Self. Jesus himself was the Tent, the Space of encounter, the possibility of getting in touch with the Father and the Eternal Will. This he was doing, by doing exactly what the Lord was instructing him to do... here I am, Lord, I come to do your will. In doing that Jesus was showing us the way how we can approach the tent of the Covenant. 

Jesus was withdrawing not only to the Tent, but as the Tent, in which we can encounter the Lord, and the Lord's will. Today, this is the message given to us - amidst all that we do and all that we wish to do in good will, let us never forget to withdraw to the Tent, encounter the Lord and the Lord's will, that we may always live in the guarantee that we are in that Presence, that Presence that makes us cry out: You are the Son of God!

The Way: life-oriented not death-bound

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 2nd week in Ordinary time

January 22, 2025 - Hebrews 7: 1-3, 15-17; Mark 3:1-6

The Way that Jesus showed us was definitively life-oriented! Today we see the contrasts in the mindset of Jesus and the Pharisees who opposed him - while Jesus was asking them if it were lawful on a sabbath to give life, they were intent on gathering together to plot his death. The Jesus difference that we can make in this world is this: being life oriented persons, giving life to all. 

Melchizedek, is presented to us by the letter to the Hebrews as a prefigurement of Christ from the Old Testament, one whose origins and whereabouts were known to none. Just as Jesus said, you think you know from where I come, in fact you do not; the One who sent me alone knows that! Melchizedek is presented as the one with fullness of life, who blessed Abraham in the Old Testament (Gen 14:18) and who is presented as the priest of God who offered himself to God for eternity. 

The fullness of life that Jesus was able to offer to us as saving grace, is this sense of offering oneself to God and to God's will for eternity. It is in living for God and belonging to God forever in everything that we become people of God, people of life.  And naturally anything Christ-ian has to be life-oriented, not death-bound; life giving and not death wishing. 

The Way: relationship, not rules!

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 2nd week in Ordinary time

January 21, 2025 - Hebrews 6: 10-20; Mark 2: 23-28

The letter to the Hebrews explains at length today about the speciality of the alliance or the covenant that God has made with us - the letter says three important facets of that covenant. 

Firstly, it is dependent on God's relationship with us - not anyone else, not even on us, because no one is as dependable as God and depending on us would make it so weak. Secondly, the covenant is unalterable, as God is unchanging. This is the anchor of hope that we have, that at any time we have God who is faithful. 

Thirdly and most importantly, it is all about relationship. It is not difficult to observe that the key terms that dominate the explanation there are, descendants, heirs, inheriting the promises... all these refer to a relationship with God, as children, as sons and daughters, in that One Son who entered the Holy of Holies, for our sakes. 

Jesus declares the same - that relationships matter the most, more than any rule or regulation, when it comes to the promises of the Lord. The Lord goes by persons, not by precepts. When it comes to persons and their well being, the Lord has no other priorities - this is what the covenant is all about, and the Lord keeps the covenant ever in mind. When we hold on to a rule, just for the sake of the rule and have no consideration at all for the persons whose lives, whose freedom, whose wellbeing and dignity are at stake, we are far from the Reign of God. 

The Way: obedience of faith

WORD 2day: Monday, 2nd week in Ordinary time

January 20, 2025 - Hebrews 5: 1-10; Mark 2: 18-22

We are going to continue for a second week, reading from the letter to the Hebrews, and the beginnings of the Gospel of Mark to corroborate the teaching! While entire last week, the Word spoke to us about the Journey we are called to undertake with Christ, the journey of our faith, this week would speak to us about the Way that is set out for us, to make this journey. Jesus who declared, I am the Way, explained that in his way of living and in the choices he made, much more than the words he spoke. This week the Word, wishes to draw our attention to that way, set out for us. 

First and foremost, according to Jesus' mind and his life testimony, the way to our total realisation is obedience of faith. The letter to the hebrews will emphasise this in more than a few places and in many ways. It was the obedience of Jesus that makes his the True Son of God, the Begotten One who saves us, the perfect obedient Priest-Sacrifice who not only offered that sacrifice but became the sacrifice of salvation for all. 

This obedience is seen all over the Old Testament - in fact, this obedience was praised as the best of religion and the say to salvation. The interpretation of this obedience was concrete too - obey the law given by the Lord, and you shall be saved. The Law was the absolute revelation of what one needs to pledge one's allegiance to. At a moment, the absoluteness of the law, was so exaggerated that the law-giver was placed out of focus. This is what Jesus explains in the Gospel. 

The Gospel, which seems to be a continuation from the discourse of wine in yesterday's gospel, invites us to reinterpret law, to revisit the purpose of the laws that we have, and to reinvent our way to God our loving father and mother. Obedience, yes, without any doubt... but interpreted not as a blind following of a set of lifeless rules, but as a living relationship with someOne who has always loved us, who has always been with us and wants to be with us always. Obedience of faith, therefore is not a religion, it is a relationship. 

WHEN YOUR LIFE RUNS DRY...

Jars, filled and transformed!

January 19, 2025: 2nd Sunday in Ordinary time

Isaiah 62:1-5;1 Corinthians 12:4-11; John 2:1-11

The Word today, establishes the beginning of the public ministry of Jesus. After the Baptism where Jesus is seen in public this is the incident that can be interpreted as the beginning of his life and work among people, according to John's Gospel. The Word also defines what the purpose of the ministry is: to replenish the rapport between God and God's people.

The imagery that holds the common thread between the first and the Gospel reading today is that of marriage. Often the relationship between God and God's people is spoken of in terms of the faithfulness between the bride and the groom, as in the first reading from Isaiah. God wishes an intimate relationship with God's children but at times our lives run dry. It's also a pastoral concern that after all the weeks of Advent and Christmastide the ordinary season might seem too ordinary and eventless - that is the ordinariness of life. As the wine ran short, our lives too will run dry at moments.

We hear often people saying: 'that's it, that's the end of my patience', 'I cannot stand it anymore', 'why should I put up with it anymore?', 'I have reached the brink of my tolerance', 'I cannot go on further', or 'I give up'...and so on! These are the moments we are referring to when we say - when our life runs dry! What can we do? Nothing! Nothing can be done at that time and that is why the Lord invites us right at the beginning of this liturgical year, when our spirits are still fresh and alive - prepare for a dry moment, anyway the Lord shall be with you there too!

When it is so probable that the dry moment would show up, but we can do nothing then because we are dry, it only goes to say that we should do something already now. Permit me to make an allegorical interpretation of the Word today: it seems good reflection to make on our lives. There are three things beautiful that could happen when our life runs dry...

1. Have your jars ready: 

When the wine ran short and Jesus looked around, there were six stone jars according to the custom of the Jews. When our life runs dry and the Lord wants to intervene we should have something ready for the Lord to use from our lives. Like the loaves the Lord used, like the mud that the Lord used, we see the Lord using these jars today to make the Lord's presence felt. When our life runs dry too, we need to have at least empty jars ready... that is the basic disposition to the Lord, our ordinary and regular habits of prayer, our basic ongoing relationship with the Lord and not some occasional business based interactions, our hope that the Lord is with us constantly, our trust in the goodness that belongs to God... these are the basic dispositions that the Lord can work on. 

It is important that we work on these and keep these ready in our ordinariness of life, for a dry patch. The culture today seems to switch from celebration to drudgery... one moment you are happy and effervescent and once it is gone you are down in the dredges. There is no midway about it. We are called to be sober, conscious and aware of what we are going through and build attitudes, habits and support systems that would serve us at times of dryness. 

2. Get your jars filled: 

Use all the gifts that you have, to stand strong, endure the moment. It is important that we endure them, when we reach moments of trials and dryness. One who endures shall receive the crown, instructs James (1:12), isn't it? You have splendid gifts given you, by the Spirit of the Lord. Gifts that can sustain you, strengthen you and take you across a weak patch... if only you are aware of them and know how to use them. 

These are your weapons in moments of dryness, provided you know you possess them. In your youth get to know your Lord, says Ecclesiastes, to mean that when we are in good spirits to ascertain the foundations of our life that we shall be supported when times come that may assail us. Take up the arrows in your quiver, which until then were preserved for this moment. Do no be unaware of the extraordinary gifts of prudence, will and endurance that the Spirit fills you with - they are great means to sustain yourself at passing moments of darkness. Remain firm with the Lord, become aware of the presence of the Lord and call upon the Lord, waiting on the Lord! 

3. Taste the transformed wine: 

We may have the jar and we may have them filled but it is Jesus who makes it wine! We may have all it takes to make this life meaningful and fruitful but be wondering why it isn't really working out... Jesus renders it fruitful; the Spirit makes our abilities true gifts. Wait, wait with patience and trust and the Lord will transform - your tears into joy (Jn 16:20), your shame into radiance (Ps 34:5), your weariness shall be replenished (Jer 31:25)... all this when you are able to endure with the Lord, wait on the Lord and allow the Lord to work on you! 

We see a tendency today, as soon as a little problem arises, we are out running from pillar to post seeking and begging someone or something to solve the problem. We have lost the courage to sit at the feet of the Lord and seek the light. We have lost the trust that everything that happens in our lives has something important to communicate to us. We have lost the faith that the Lord is there beside us even while we shall walk in the darkest of valleys and the Lord's crook and staff shall be there to guide me to light, to fullness, to sweetness of the new wine! 

When our lives run dry... let's take our jars filled to Jesus and he will transform them into wine; let's surrender to the Spirit and the Spirit will make us capable of always growing more and more  into God's children. 

The Journey: with grace and confidence!

WORD 2day: Saturday, 1st week in Ordinary time

January 18, 2025 - Hebrews 4: 12-16; Mark 2: 13-17

The Word today is about the Word! A familiar passage that reminds us of the living Word, the dynamic and and powerful Word, which knows our innermost thoughts. This part from the letter to the Hebrews is not certainly one of its kind. Because we have a equally profound precedent in Psal 139, which tells us that the Lord knows us through and through; even before a word is on our lips, a thought is on our mind, the Lord knows them all...at times this can be frightening, isnt it?

Knowing how weak we are and how vulnerable and faint hearted we could be, naturally a proposition of this sort can be bewildering. How disastrous it could be that someone knows my thoughts, while I hide and harbour there quite some things that I cover up with my uncanny smiles and sugar coated words! For I alone know who I really am and what my interior is all about... these are obviously truthful fears. But the Word says, these do not matter, and that we could approach the mercy throne of the Lord with confidence. But how - that's would be an instant question in our mind!

Jesus answers that in the Gospel: yes, I know you are weak, your are tempted, you fall, you fail, you give in, you compromise, you lie, you have your private life... but these are no reasons for me to reject you. In fact, these are reasons, I have come in search of you! I am here for you; I am here with you and I am here to stand by you to transform you! God chooses the weak, the vulnerable, the sinners. And hence, we can approach the mercy seat, with that childlike trust in the Lord. 

On our journey of faith therefore, we are invited to keep marching, with grace and confidence! 

The Journey: miles to go...

WORD 2day: Friday, 1st week in Ordinary time 

January 17, 2025 - Hebrews 4: 1-5,11; Mark 2: 1-12

Our journey of faith is long; it is not a short trip or a sprint, it is a marathon. It is a life long pilgrimage in its essence. The most trying part of it, apart from moving itself, is the endurance and perseverance. We cannot fool ourselves or fake being on this journey. If we take this journey seriously, we are at it; if not, we have already lost... we are only deceiving ourselves. There are three tendencies to check in our daily life experiences:

Are we those who hear or do we truly listen? The letter to the Hebrews makes this difference - "hearing the message did them no good because they did not share the faith of the those who listened!" We hear a lot of things daily, and we hear also the Word of God coming on to us, from varied quarters. But the hitch is, it would not be sufficient hearing when it comes to the Word of God. We need to listen; we need to receive and we need to allow the Word to transform us from within.

Are we saying, what we are thinking? Saying prayers, praising God, and speaking about God - may be easier when compared to truly praying, placing God first and sharing God with the others. The latter is about conviction, about our tranforming inner experience. We are called to bring these two tiers, as close as possible - the inner thoughts and external behaviour. 

Are we persons in awe or persons of faith? At times we remain persons in awe, wondering at the greatness of God and even praising it at moments when we see the glory manifest. But this falls short of who a person of faith could be. A person of faith would be the one who is ready to pick up the mat and walk, the one who is ready to believe in the constant relationship with God and move on even amidst all difficulties, the one who know the journey has miles to go, and I need to move, keep moving! 

The Journey: cleansed by the Word

WORD 2day: Thursday, 1st week in Ordinary time

January 16, 2025 - Hebrews 3: 7-14; Mark 1: 40-45

The Journey of faith we begin with the Lord, and embark upon in communion, is a journey towards compassion, in a continuos sense of repentance, constantly cleansed by the Word. If we need be cleansed by the Word, there are three conditions to be noted:

The Word comes, I need to note it: From where we saw Jesus yesterday, Peter's home, he is entering another village, and we see the person with leprosy went to meet Jesus. The Word constantly comes to encounter us, but it is our responsibility to go out to receive it; if our hearts are hardened we shall not receive the Word, we shall let the Lord pass by. 

The Word can cleanse, I need to believe it: "If you choose, you can make me clean," that was a profession of faith. The Word is powerful and alive, but I need to believe that the Word can touch me and heal me, purify and cleanse me. Only if I believe, I would place myself under the merciful gaze of the Word, to look at me and cleanse me, speak to me and purify me!

The Word can liberate, I need to ask for it: We are made co-heirs with Christ, but we need to hold on to Christ; the Lord says, "I wish to cleanse you", but we need to ask for it to be cleansed, to be liberated and to be led to the house of the Lord: go, show yourself to the priest and be a child of God. The Reign of God consists in this, in recognising the power of God to make us whole, in believing that the Lord chooses to make me whole and in asking the Lord with the childlike simplicity to be made whole! 
  

The Journey: towards growing compassionate

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 1st week in Ordinary time

January 15, 2025 - Hebrew 2: 14-28; Mark 1: 29-39

The Journey of faith, our ordinary journey of faith begins with the Lord and it has to be embarked in communion, but whereto? Towards growing compassionate, says the Word today. We find the Lord teaching us this, with authority! 

The Lord teaches us compassion by his words. He went around preaching and insisted that he has to go to as many as possible, and to the furthest of the limits as possible to preach, because he was convinced he had been sent for that - to bring the love of God, the message of the Reign to as many as possible. 

The Lord teaches us by his deeds, as he went around curing and healing all who needed and liberating those who were bound in their spirits. He went to people who were in need, like the mother in law of Peter and he attended to those who came to him from far and wide... what guided him was the compassion he had for the people who were in need. 

Not merely by words, and not only by actions, but by his very being the Lord teaches us compassion. As the letter to the Hebrews explains to us, the Lord became completely like his brothers and sisters so that he could be a compassionalte and trustworthy hight priest of God's Holy will. 

The message is that on our daily journey, we become more and more attentive to our words, our actions and our very beings, and in and through our every experience we grow to be compassionate in our ways and in our attitudes towards our brothers and sisters; that is the true scope of the journey of faith.  

The Journey: embarked in communion

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 1st week in Ordinary time

January 14, 2025 - Hebrews 2: 5-12; Mark 1: 21-28

We are reflecting on our ordinary journey of faith, the journey we are called to make every day of our daily life, and this journey is embarked in communion, instructs us the Word today. There are various dimensions to this communion and those are what the Word wants us to pay attention to today. 

The first dimension is the God dimension - the vertical dimension, the height. We believe in a God who deigned to become like us; that is what we celebrated for a long time, a short while ago. This mystery of incarnation, about which the letter to the Hebrews speaks to us, is based on another fact, that was already indicated by the psalmist long before the epistles or the gospels - that God made human person little less than a God! And today we see, God made God's some less than the Angels to come amidst us. These are ways in the which mystery of incarnation had always been a means deployed by God to identity Godself with us... seeking that communion where we will feel one with God. 

The second dimension is the other dimension - the horizontal dimension, the breadth. The Gospel begins with a phrase that we will often, not just in the markan narrative, but evey in others: Jesus and his disciples. The community that Jesus was building around him was the first of all his messages of the Reign. He wished not create a community not merely to announce the message, but to be the message!

The third dimension is the interior dimension - the inner dimension, the depth. We are reminded today of the way Jesus taught - "with authority"! The authority was his integrity, which is precisely this communion with oneself, the communion within - that is the only source of authority to proclaim the message from the Lord. The communion which signifies no separation within us, in the core of our beings. 

We have embarked, or we are invited to embark, on this journey of faith, in communion with the Lord, with the other and with ourselves. Let us strive to march on, in communion!  

The Journey: begins with the Lord

WORD 2day: Monday, 1st week in Ordinary time

January 13, 2025 - Hebrew 1: 1-6; Mark 1: 14-20

In many ways today's liturgy of the Word signals a beginning - after long weeks of specific events and feasts, we enter the Ordinary season, the precious gift of the ordinary time; we have begun the jubilee year recently and with the end of the Christmas season, beginning today we could amply turn our atttention to this pilgrimage of the jubilee; and we begin to listen to the readings proper to the liturgical cycle C from this week, and of course the odd-year alternative during the weekdays! In short, we are beginning a journey anew, the journey of faith, with the Lord, with the hope that the Lord grants.

We shall be reflecting on the letter written to the Hebrews this whole week, taking us on an exploratory retreat on the journey we are called resume once again, the ordinary journey of our faith. The first message given us is this: that journey begins witih the Lord. It is the Lord who has initiated this journey speaking to us in varied ways in the past, during the stronger liturgical seasons, who shall continue to speak now, in a more ordinary and a daily manner. The call for us is not to miss the "ordinariness" of God's call. 

And the Gospel reiterates that, now it is Jesus himself who speaks to us, and calls us every day - to follow him, that he can make us fishers of persons. There is a Christian television series that has become very famous over the past couple of years, an interdenominational initiative from the United States - The Chosen, which has reached already 4 seasons and is promising more. The picture that accompanies this reflection is the logo of that series! Interestingly the very first season, right away began with Jesus choosing his followers! That is how Mark begins his Gospel too: not with the nativity narrative but the call of the apostles. 

The message is loud and clear: we are chosen for this journey, and this journey begins with the Lord, are we ready to respond and follow?

WATER, FIRE AND THE SPIRIT

An act of Resubmission to the Lord

January 12, 2025: Solemnity of the Baptism of the Lord

Isaiah 40:1-5,9-11; Titus 2: 11-14, 3:4-7; Luke 3: 15-16,21-22

We have come to the close of the Christmas Season - it ends with the solemnity of the Baptism of the Lord. What does this feast communicate to us? What is the message that the celebration of Baptism offers us: a reminder towards a resubmission to the Lord.

Resubmission indicates that it has been a process, not something that is happening just once or right now. The Lord calls us and we respond to the Lord - that is the crux of our Christian life and we accept this mandate when we say, or the community says for us, 'yes' to the Lord - at our baptism.

The Baptism of Jesus was a resubmission too. The Lord had predestined and initiated God's salvific plan in Christ, but Jesus as a human person had to cooperate to that salvific plan of God... in order that in his obedience of faith, he shall be raised to be the Son of God (Rom 1:4-5); so are we, in our yes, we are raised to be sons and daughters of God.

We see in the event of baptism today, that this reclaim on the part of God over Jesus and the resubmission of Christ as the son of God. Jesus submits himself to be baptised by John, as the Gospel of John specifically outlines, where we see the resubmission of Christ, which was reflected then in the entire life of Jesus. On the part of the Almighty, there is a declaration to which John testifies: 'this is my Son, in whom I am well pleased'. In this whole event, we see three elements that mark the call to constant resubmission to the authority of God.

The first is the element of Water - waters that purify, revitalise and revive. John was baptising with water...people came to him to revive their goodwill to live righteous, to revitalise their desire to be acceptable in the eyes of the Lord, and to purify their acts and motives! Jesus arrives to purify that water that purifies, ratifying the need to long for purification, revitalisation and revival within us. The celebration today reminds us of this purpose of the baptismal promises, which demand our constant and continual purification, revitalisation and revival, in spite of our repeated failures and limitations.

The second is the element of Fire - fire that warms, burns and lights up. We are presented with the warmth of the Lord that wishes to console God's people, the burning zeal of the prophet who wishes to set things in order in the lives of the individuals and in the community of the people of God, and the light that shines from above giving us knowledge and wisdom. The Word, therefore, calls our attention to the journey we began at our baptism! We might have lagged behind, deviated, and in some way lost our way...but the warmth of the Lord invites us, the burning light that was presented to us convicts us and brings us to an enlightened return to the journey embarked upon.

The third is the element of the Spirit - the Spirit of power, the Spirit of renewal and the Spirit of adoption! The Spirit who came upon Jesus was the Spirit of power that God had filled Jesus with, that is why he proclaimed: the Spirit of the Lord is upon me and God has sent me! The Spirit that was there with the people was the Spirit who constantly called them to renewal and effected that renewal in them, that is why the psalmist proclaimed: send forth your Spirit and the face of the earth shall be renewed. The Spirit of Jesus Christ is the Spirit that makes us sons and daughters of God, co-heirs with Christ, who share the same privilege and love that Christ has with God, our Father and Mother. One fact that we can never forget if we are disciples of Christ is, that we are children of God. It is not a flowery, euphemistic, metaphoric saying... but it is a fact, an experiential fact, or rather a fact to be experienced!

May the celebration of the Baptism of the Lord, especially in this Year of Ordinary Jubilee 2025, at the beginning of this pilgrimage of hope, offer us a sense of hope, inspire us and lead us to focus on our baptism, our baptismal promises and the daily resubmission that we are called to make, as loving children, to God our loving Father and Mother.

 

God reveals: we are God's delight!

WORD 2day: Saturday after Epiphany

January 11, 2025 - 1 John 5: 14-21; John 3: 20-33

We are already at the threshold of the feast of Baptism... we have been preparing towards it, rather the Word has been preparing us towards this feast and today comes the peak of the revelations that God has made to us - that God delights in us. This message, we will soon be hearing in the occasion of the feast. 

This has three implications, as in the plain sight from the Word today. The first implication is that we belong to God. Our baptism, as the celebration of the feast of baptism of the Lord will son remind us, is fundamentally an essential transformation of our selves, as children who belong to God. That grants us numerous and bonteous favours - including the fact that whatever we ask, we shall receive in the merciful will of God. 

The second implication is that when we belong to God, the Lord delights in us and the delight of the Lord although it is not merited, can be lost if we decide to turn our backs to the Lord. That is our choice, and it is part of the implications of rejoicing in the fact that God delights in us. 

The third implication is that we are called to do all that we can to make God present wherever we are, if we are truly children of this God who delights in us. Not only that God delights in usm but the presence of God brings us joy, and that completes the joy that we can ever imagine in our own limited ways. 

Being children of God is a privilege given to us, and that God delights in us is the greatest source of joy that we can have. Let us prepare ourselves to celebrate this great feast of the year!  

God reveals: in water, in Spirit and in blood!

WORD 2day: Friday after Epiphany

January 10, 2025 - 1 John 5:5-13; Luke 5:12-16

We are getting very close to the feast of the baptism of the Lord, in fact it is towards that event  the Word this whole week is preparing us - from the epiphany to the baptism. This preparation involves a series of reflections offered to us by the Word everyday, on a particular aspect of revelation that God has given us, especially in Christ. The Word today speaks of three of those aspects: the water, the Spirit, and the blood.

The water, which enlivens and purifies, represents the new life that faith gives us in baptism. The Spirit, who sanctifies and consecrates, reminds us of having been chosen and set apart with the identity of the sons and daughters, the people of God. These two elements, the message they symbolise and the call that we have in them, we have spoken of in the past days. The element that stands out today is the third - Blood. 

Jesus himself would refer to this, when he indicates to the apostles the baptism that they would all have to receive - the baptism of the blood, the martyrdom. This refers to the testimony, the witness that our lives have to become. The testimony that we are called to give this world is that we have the Son, and therefore, we have life. Our lives have to stand out in front of the world, to manifest, to reveal to all persons, the life that God gives. 

The persons with leprosy, that Jesus cures, were called to go and show themselves to the priests and announce to the whole world the new life they have received. They were clearly instructed, not to bother about announcing the praises and glory of Christ - that would happen by itself. They were asked to announce to the world, their new life - in fact, that would have been the best proclamation of the glory and graciousness of God. 

Our baptism too invites us not to merely sing of the glories of the Lord, but announce to the world through our lives, the newness that the Lord brings, in water, in Spirit and in the blood!

God reveals: love as annointing in the Spirit

WORD 2day: Thursday after Epiphany

January 9, 2025 - 1 John 4:19 - 5:4; Luke 4: 14-22

The Word gives us a series of reasons to love: because God loves us; because anyone who says he or she loves God has to; because whoever believes in Jesus has to; because every one who is begotten by God has to; and finally Jesus summarises it, because we have been annointed with the Spirit. The sign, that we are people begotten by the Father, that we are people who accept and proclaim Jesus as the Lord, that we are people filled with the Spirit, is that we love one another. Isn't this what Jesus told us elsewhere: by this they will know that you are my disciples, by the the love that you have for one another (cf. 13: 35). 

Jesus reveals himself as a person filled with the Spirit, and the people notice it. The people marvelled at it. They were astonished by it. But for Jesus it was no matter of marvel or astonishment, it was his identity. He declared it with such simplicity and went about doing or living what he declared. He went about doing good, proclaiming liberty to the captives, new sight to the blind, freedom to the downtrodden, the year of Lord's favour to all! These became his mission because of his identity as the person filled with the Spirit - the identity of one who loved every one. 

There are two invitations presented to us in the Word today: to realise that we are people annointed with the Spirit, and to convince ourselves that love is an annointing in the Spirit. 

God reveals: to love is Christ

WORD 2day: Wednesday after Epiphany

January 8, 2025 - 1 John 4:11-18; Mark 6: 45-52

Let us take a close look at these two statements: "If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God"; and the other statement, "God is love and anyone who lives in love lives in God, and God lives in him." There is a syllogistic corollary that John is creating in these lines, in his letter - to say, to believe in Christ is to live in God; to live in God is to live in love; and therefore to live in Christ is to live in love! Without living in love one cannot live in Christ. 

Christ shows to his followers another sign today, walking on the water! Every one marvelled at him for this, but do we ever see him lecturing to the disciples on how to walk on water or multiply bread or chase an evil spirit out? Never. For him these were not important feats, but loving the other was! He insisted without getting tired about how to love and how much to love; in fact, he did not stop with talking to them about loving, but he taught them to love with his own example of laying down his life for love! 

He was certain and absolutely clear - to love is to live in God, and that is why he was all the time in God and never feared having to die - for he lived in God and lived love. When we live in Christ, we shall live in love and we shall live in God, because to love is Christ. 

God reveals: God is love!

WORD 2day: Tuesday after Epiphany

January 7, 2025 - 1 John 4: 7-10; Mark 6: 34-44

We have begun from yesterday, a journey from the epiphany of the Lord to the event of the baptism of the Lord. If yesterday we were given to reflect on the Spirit as the dimension of God's revelation, today we have another essential dimension of God's nature... a dimension that the Spirit stands for: Love. Love, the communion that is found within the Trinity, is expressed in God's relationship with us! And Jesus in the Gospel, expresses that love in concrete terms, through a miracle, a miracle inspired by his compassion for the people whom he found as sheep without a shepherd. 

Jesus' miracles, as exegetes and theologians insist, are not mere means of revealing the glory and splendour that is hidden within Christ, but to express a concrete sense of compassion and love for the people who stood around, and in that, to us! Jesus himself is the love of God expressed in its fullness and Jesus come across as the love of God made flesh and sent to dwell amidst us. 

Journey from the revelation at the epiphany to the manifestation at the baptism of the Lord, we are called today to see God as love, perceive God as compassion, experience God as mercy and remain always recognizant of the place that God has reserved for each of us, within God's great and wonderful design. May we grow more and more observant of the various ways in which God expresses God's infinite love to us.

GOD MADE KNOWN

The Star, the House and the Detour

January 5, 2025: Solemnity of Epiphany of the Lord
Isaiah 60: 1-6; Ephesians 3 : 2-3, 5-6; Matthew 2 : 1-12

The Word became flesh and came to dwell among us; today the world gets to see its Messiah. The Son who was promised to the Hebrews through the prophets through the ages, then revealed to Mary and Joseph in their private life and dreams, is now revealed to the world - that is why the Magi from the East, as East was then considered the end of the world.

The feast of Epiphany has three important symbols carrying three crucial messages for us disciples of Christ.

The first symbol is the Star: 

The guiding star which led the magi to the Lord. Stars shine, position themselves to be seen by all and remain above every thing unaffected! We all wish to be stars too... shining and glittering in the world of fame. The star of Christ or a star for Christ is called to shine too, not for personal glory but for people to be attracted. The star of Christ is called to be seen by all, not for adulation but for example! The star of Christ has to be above everything, not to insist on a superiority that is anti-Christian but to give hope to people at all moments including difficult ones. Everyone who claims to be a follower of Christ has to be a star that guides people to Christ. Are my thoughts, words and decisions shining enough to lead people to Christ?

The second symbol is the House: 

The star might have been magnificent but it rested on a simple manger. The signs and events might have been grand but the Messiah was found in a stable. What we are and what we have does not matter as much as who we are! Whether simple or sophisticated, whether learned or ordinary, whether rich or poor... we are called to possess the Lord, we are called to be one home that houses the Lord. People who come to us should be able to see, feel and experience the Lord and praise the Lord through us and for us. That is true Epiphany.

The third symbolic event is the Detour: 

The magi who came were asked to leave on a different way back. They had to make a detour... because they had truly seen the Messiah. Even we, if we truly see the Messiah, we would not be able to go back the same way that we came. We would have to make a detour for sure. That detour could be our sign of repentance, our change of ways, our going out of our way for the sake of someone else... in short, it is our New life, because we have come to know the Lord. How many we have heard, who speak of their moment when they met the Lord! It does not matter how many years or generations I am a 'Christian', but what matters is that I encounter the person of Christ - the moment of truth when I realise the meaning and call of my life! Once I do that, I cannot but take a detour!

God is made known... it is upto us to become God's guiding stars, true dwelling places of God and people who are ready to arise and shine!