Justice of the Lord

WORD 2day: Thursday, 7th week in Ordinary time

February 27, 2025 - Sirach 5:1-10; Mark 9: 41-50

The Word today is quite hard and as soon as we hear it we feel like saying, this is an old teaching, too rigorous and too bleak in hope. But as the wisdom of Sirach warns us, it can turn into an excuse for not changing oneself. We could have, in the name of modernity and culture, over the centuries lost some fundamental sense of faithfulness to the One, the Truth and the Goodness. 

The Lord knows the ďeepest of our thoughts and the most secret of our intentions. It is not possible to fake allegiance to the Lord as people do to each other. The Lord cannot be one of the options, that when all is done we have resort to the Lord. We say we trust in the Lord, but when? Maybe, when everything else is out of question and we have exploited all our so-called resources... without realising right from the beginning that all the resources we have, are from the hands of the Lord! 

However, the Lord is not only all knowing and compassionate, the Lord is also just and righteous. We would be at fault to think that we can appease the Lord with some legalities, some rituals and some compensations that are peripheral... nothing short of a true intention and a sincere dedication in our efforts to become acceptable in the eyes of the Lord, can make us God's own people!

Let us not only count on the mercies of the Lord, but also strive to live by the justice of the Lord.

Exaggerated Loyalty or Easy Lethargy?

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 7th week in Ordinary time

February 26, 2025 - Ecclesiasticus 4: 12-22; Mark 9: 39-42

We have an identity as people belonging to the Lord and there is a rightful sense of feeling proud about it, which is expressed in our gratitude to God who has called us and made us God's own. But the danger is that sometimes we might take this sense or identity to two extremes, both of which are equally bad.

The first extreme is an exaggerated loyalty, that thinks as if we have the monopoly of God, and all that belongs to God - like truth, authority, judgement, righteousness etc.! We tend to dictate terms to the 'others' and feel a kind of superiority that is absolutely in no way Christ-ian. Today we see one such incident in the Gospel, where the apostles claim a patented right for doing good; Jesus talks them out of it.

The second extreme which is seen in the life of many so-called 'nominal' christians of today: where they live a life of abject lethargy, not conscious of their identity, not owning up the responsibility that comes with it and not really living up to the standards set while accepting that identity! There is no concrete sign that many of us are truly Christ-ians.

The solution to this lies in the relationship we have with Wisdom, the Counsel of the Lord, the Holy Spirit who sets our hearts to abide by the right balance. Neither exaggerated loyalty nor easy lethargy, but a humble and loving recognition of our identity and a faithful and committed living out, of the same.