A Return to hope... towards wholeness!

THE WORD IN LENT - Tuesday, Fourth week in LEnt

April 1, 2025 - Ezekiel 47: 1-9, 12; John 5: 1-3, 5-16

When we are in the Lord we have a thousand reasons to thank God for, a million reasons to glorify the Lord, because the continues to give us countless opportunities towards wholeness. The first question here is whether it is true. The next question would be, in what way? And a third question is, how ready and prompt are we to recognise it?

Healing, wholeness ... comes not merely as a corrective to a problem, as if completing a lack. Of course it is so, but not just that. The fact is that, all of us need healing - in varied forms and levels. The promises this healing, as the life giving waters that flow towards us, as the Son of God who comes in search of us, to offer us that healing, just as we see in the Word today. The Lord wishes to give us the experience of wholeness and that is true - the whole of salvation history tells us that, the experience of faith lived and passed on to us vouches for that and on a daily basis the Lord expresses this intention of his, through the Eucharist and other sacraments and sacramentals. 

The real issue lies in our disposition to recognise this presence, this offer of the Lord, this salvific experience that the Lord is willing and eager to offer us - as children of God, as brothers and sisters of the Son, as dwelling places of the Spirit of the Lord. Just as that man who was longing to go the waters, did not realise the fact that the Life giving Water had in fact come to him, we too search for, look for God experience everywhere around! All that we need to do is, as the Psalmist teaches us: be still and know, be still and realise, be still and recognise the life give water that surges within us, because we are God's own.

A Return to hope... Celebrating New Life

THE WORD IN LENT - Monday, Fourth week in Lent

March 31, 2025 - Isaiah 65: 17-21; John 4: 43-54

Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth...be glad and rejoice, says the first reading today. What more hopeful message can we get? Be it as individuals or as a community, we do have regrets in life and history, and what a wonderful experience it is to hear that they will all be forgotter, erased from memory and that we could start everything anew! That is exactly what the Lord promises us. 

But we will not believe it, we will not take it for that the Lord says; we will try to find figurative meanings and compatible interpretations to the already existing mindset of negativity and hopelessness. What else can the Lord do? We are so familiar with the promises of the Lord that many a time, they do not really mean anything to us - take for example the promises like, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you', 'where there are two are three gathered in my name, I am there,'... how much do we really believe them? However, the Lord will not be surprised about it - we see that in the Gospel. Nor will the Lord give up on us. 

The Lord goes on doing more and more good...and hopes that one day we would come to realise and behold the new things that God has created, the new things that God is continuously doing for us! When we learn to behold them, we shall see ample reasons to celebrate. The Lord calls us to that celebration, to celebrate the new life that the Lord has prepared, and is preparing, for us every day. That would be truely the dawn of hope when we form ourselves and grow enough to behold, realise and celebrate new life from the hands of God.