Let us beware of obstinacy!

WORD 2day: Saturday, 12th week in Ordinary time

June 27, 2026: Lamentations 2: 2, 10-14, 18-19; Matthew 8: 5-17

Destruction, devastation, desecration, disease and death bed... these are the situations elaborated in the Word today... so akin to the situation we are experiencing in the world, all due to inhuman discriminations and intolerant retaliations, due to exploitation of the poor and the manipulation of the weak, due to evil minded greed of the powerful and the insensitive approach of the rest!

But that is not all. Alongside these unfortunately oppressive forces, there is an insistence on mercy, healing, forgiveness, faith and trust... be it in the first reading or in the Gospel! And that is what we need to focus on and reflect with our mind and heart - all the possible devastation notwithstanding, the Lord is with us and for us - the Lord loves us!

The words of the centurion, which we repeat every time we approach the Eucharistic table, is a splendid prayer that we can make anytime, "Just say a word Lord and the world shall be healed!" But let us just pause a while there, and see the explanation that the centurion gives for that - That he is in authority and when he says something, it is done. Just so he says, the Lord who is in authority, just says a word and things shall happen. That is the key!

Humanity has for long now taken the authority into its own hands. With the liberty and the faculty that God has given us, we have taken everything under our control and kept the Lord out of as many things as possible: from the public life, from the governance systems, from the ethical categories, from the schools... from everything we have kept the Lord out - at times even from our own families and daily life! And then we begin to wonder, if the Lord says a word, will it not happen? How hypocritical and opportunistic of us!!!

But all these notwithstanding, the Lord wants to heal us and the Lord wants to make us whole! What can separate us from the love of God, St Paul would question in his letter to the Romans (8:38,39). Absolutely nothing can separate us from the Love of God that is poured into our hearts through Jesus Christ, yes, nothing... except our own obstinacy! Let's beware!

Of course, the Lord wishes to...

WORD 2day: Friday, 12th week in Ordinary time

June 26, 2026: 2 Kings 25: 1-12; Matthew 8: 1-4

The first reading today is an anticlimax... everything seems finished, everything seems done and dusted, all that has been seems useless at a point in life. This is what we call the breaking point. Each one reaches that in life, at some moment or the other. How one deals with it, depends much on what one has done all the time till then in life - that is, how one has prepared onself for varied experiences of this kind, in life.

Talk of depression, stress and anxiety disorders are reported more in numbers these days - not only because the situation all around has gotten worse than what it has always been. It is because people have become less prepared for all that life could offer us in time. We are prepared for good times and for jubilations, but for trying moments and tribulations? Don't we not see that from the way people panic when smallest of crises hits them all of a sudden? 

When the man asks Jesus to cure him if he wishes to, Jesus says, "of course, I wish to!" That is what the Lord tells us today: of course, I wish to be with you, strengthen you and help you out at times of trials and difficulties - but what can I do, you have accustomed yourself to doing things by yourself, to taking things under your own control, deciding things on your own and working on things on merely your own terms! I don't seem to have a place in your life! What do I do?

Of course, the Lord wants to, but are we willing to go into the presence of the Lord and surrender ourselves, and say, "Lord, if you wish to... do what you wish with me!"