I Chose you!

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

May 14, 2021: Celebrating St Mathias, the Apostle

Acts 1: 15-17, 20-26; John 15: 9-17

Every relationship is a response! Relationships can never be forced upon persons. I wish to relate to a person, I choose to relate to the person and then I leave the response of the person, to the freedom of that person! Only then there is a healthy relationship that blooms. It is the same with God's choice too!

You have not chosen me, I chose you!, reminds Jesus today. With the beautiful example of Mathias and Barsabbas, Jesus brings out another element of the election theology! When God chooses, God chooses individuals (not masses), for a unique purpose and specific plan. As God reminds us through Jeremiah, God has a plan for each of us (Jer 29:11) and God alone knows what the plan is and how it would come through. All that we need to do is submit, surrender to that plan and walk by it.

And when God chooses, God chooses not for merely conferring a privilege, or a position or power; but for commitment, suffering and for giving one's life for the other! As the readings of the past Sunday reminded us, we cannot stop with thinking we are chosen therefore we are special! We are chosen, we are special... but it entails further, that we are specially chosen to strive, fight, struggle, suffer and thus, usher in the Reign of God, wherever we are. 

Mathias is today counted into the band of apostles. Of course a privilege, but with that came the burden of being a Messenger of the Word, the burden of being the Elder in the Community and the burden of being a Shepherd of God's flock. St. Mathias is an inspiring example which tells us, the Lord counts on us... the Lord has chosen us and wishes to count us into the number of his apostles!

Yes, the Word and the Saint of today speak to us: You are chosen! Are you ready for all that it entails?

Sorrow or Joy... your choice?!

WORD 2day: Thursday, 6th week in Easter time

May 13, 2021 - Acts 18: 1-8; Jn 16: 16-20

What would be your choice, your natural spontaneous choice: sorrow or joy? Of course, we would all choose joy or at least that is what we think. Today, there is so much sorrow in the world, because we think we choose joy, while in fact we are constantly adding to our sorrows. Is that confusing? Not really. It is an easy perspective that the Word offers today, to understand our situation today. Let us contrast these as the perspective of the world and the perspective of the Word.

The perspective of the world says, with a faulty understanding of the phrase 'here and now', choose what gives you utmost happiness at any given moment and that will add to your joy. This is why people end up frustrated, ruined and wrecked in their life, making all the wrong choices possible, adding to their own woes and to the others'. The disciples could not understand what Jesus was telling them, because they only had a limited perspective of the here and now, until the Spirit arrived to open the eyes and their hearts.

The perspective of the Word says, have the ultimate Joy, the Joy that the Lord alone can give, in your mind. You would then be ready to choose at a given moment even a bit of pain and struggle, because you know you have a joy, a glory, an eternal happiness that awaits you! Look at Paul, Aquila, Priscilla, Titus Justus... they were wantonly choosing trouble and opposition, because they had their ultimate joy in perspective. Paul said that emphatically: I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us (Rom 8:18).

With all the situation around us in perspective, now let us consider that question again- what is our choice: sorrow or joy?

QUALITY CHRISTIANS

with Christ-ian qualities!

May 9, 2021: 6th Sunday of Easter

Acts 10: 25-26,34-35,44-48; 1 Jn 4:7-10; Jn 15: 9-17

Being Christian today, for that matter anyday, is a demanding task. It is not a simple automatic membership to a community, but a serious, sincere and self-conscious dedication to living the faith that one has received as a gift, firstly from God and without doubt from the community - which includes family, the faith community and every one who stands by the person in his or her faith life. Today, amidst the confusions of the present world dominated by heartless science and selfish designs, this task becomes more challenging! More than a year and a half now, the world has been languishing in disease and death, grief and helplessness, fear and meaninglessness, due to the pandemic that is still ravaging certain parts of the world, India being at the peak of it. What does it mean to live a life that is truly Christian at this point of time - being Quality Christians would consist inevitably of certain Christ-ian qualities, that is, qualities lived, passed on and required by Christ, our Saviour, Master and Model. The readings of this Sunday, point to three qualities that are currently relevant and ever demanding.

1. Catholicism versus Exclusivism:

The First reading declares, 'God does not have favourites'! For long this tendency has haunted the spiritual beings and communities - being close to God or feeling the presence of God in the life experiences, has made people in history, not only holy and righteous as God would desire, but also proud, haughty and self-righteous! The Jews were very particular about their 'chosenness' and considered and treated everyone else as lesser beings, calling them 'pagans'! The Muslim mindset (the generalisation regretted), even today considers everyone else as an 'infidel' and wishes to bring everyone to their way of looking at reality! The sad fact is...in between these two major traditions the so-called tradition of Christianity too, considered itself 'saved' and the rest of the world rushing towards perdition, took a paternalistic attitude and gave into so many mistaken measures. How hard it is to forget the historical errors like the inquisitions and other similar vindicative ventures of the catholic church! However, we have learnt lessons and we cannot fall back into that error! And the fundamental correction is in the very name we have given ourselves - Catholic!

Catholicism is not merely a name, it is an attitude! It has to become our lifestyle as Christians - it is simply being "all-embracing"...it is to believe that God has no favourites...God loves every child of God. And those who hold on to God, feel the presence of God more and those who wish to move themselves away from God, feel it less. And therefore, as true chidlren of God our call is to look at everyone as a loved child of God, and create situations where everyone can feel and get closer to the presence of God, and not judge and place blocks on their way to God. We cannot write off someone as 'condemned' or 'damned' or 'hell-bound'. That is totally un-Christ-ian. Just the other day, someone forwarded on the social network, a video of someone who calls himself a preacher and a prophet, warning and threatening those who are of other faiths that they are all going astray from true God! Do you think, a blatant judgement of this sort will bring them to God? Does one have to threaten people in order to make them run to God? Is it not better to show love, share love and spread love, that those who feel that genuine love, feel the presence of God? That is catholicism...to embrace everyone as friends and share love.

2. God's versus gods:

All-embracing, does not mean we say, believing in any God is the same, it does not matter! Then my faith becomes meaningless and pointless. What we are saying is, be sincere about being God's people. When I am serious and committed to being a person of God, people will see it in my life. If I am friends with God, it can be seen in my daily life - a friend of God! As it is said of Moses, that God related and spoke to Moses as a friend would - so does God speak to each of us everyday. Are we aware, conscious, attentive and responsive to that? The more  we grow to be friends of God, the more we shall grow to be friends with every one else, because the love that we experience from God shall get translated into the love that we have for others in our concrete daily life. Just think of those persons who call themselves to be persons of God, but are totally inaccesible to the others around them - either due to their character and temperament, or due to the system they create around themselves and so on! The difference can be understood in the simple fact: whether they are truly God's, or are they making of themselves petty gods?

Specially in a time like today's, when there is so much misery and pain, a person of God reaches out, goes to the most suffering, empathises with the grieved and strives to offer relief to the wearied hearts. They cannot be those who stay up there and judge, pose as great visionaries and cast spells and warnings, make of themselves little gods and exploit the moment for their popularity and glory! That is the worst lifestyle that can be witnessed in any context, much worse in a Christian context! Being God's means being loving - God begets those who love, says John in the second reading today.We are God's as much as we love! When we make of ourselves gods, or when we make for ourselves gods of our name, our popularity, our branding, our riches, our comforts, our safety, our profits, our pleasure, our plans, and so on... we are being counter-witeness to God...instead of being God's, we are being anti-God! Is it not high time we look at the core motivations and intentions we have in our hearts, so that we truly grow more and more loving, thus grow to be persons who are God's own.

3. Chosen versus choosy:

At times we get too choosy in life...we wish to choose whom to love and whom not to, we want to choose what kind of experiences we should have and what not, we want to choose what should happen to us and what should not, we want to choose in which we will follow the will of God and in which we want God to follow our wish and wants! If we are chosen, we just cannot be choosy! We think being chosen is a privilege; yes, of course it is! It is a privilege to be chosen people of God. But at the same time it is an obligation, a demand, a challenge, a call, a task that is given to us and we have so many things involved which we cannot choose! We cannot choose whether to love or not; we cannot choose whether to be truthful or not; we cannot choose whether to forgive or not; we cannot choose whether to reach out or not! It is infact a bit on the reverse - if we choose to love all, we are chosen people of God; if we choose to reach out those who are suffering, we are chosen people of God; if we choose to embrace all in fellowship and solidarity, we are chosen people of God!

Our chosenness is not a status statement, but a mission...You have not chosen me, I have chosen you... the Lord has chosen us and sent us, to bear fruit - fruits of love and compassion! Love is the mission that the Lord has entrusted to us. This I command you: that you love one another! The chosenness has to be revealed, manifested, lived out, in love. Quality Christians are those who in their thought, word and deed, their choices and priorities, in their fundamental perspectives and life-governing principles, are moved by love and love alone! 

Love is the secret key that would inspire and empower a person to move from exclusivism to catholicism; from the tendency to create one's own gods to being truly God's, from being choosy to realisation of being chosen by God! It is the fundamental of the Christ-ian qualities that can render a person, a Quality Christian. 

An experience that grips - Resurrected Beings!

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

April 21, 2021: Acts 8: 1b-8; John 6: 35-40

When things were getting worse the believers were getting stronger. They were scattered, but once in diaspora they continued their witnessing. There was something in them that made them just reckless, going about excited with their new experience. That experience was so gripping that it made them forget all the pain they had to go through. 

Amidst difficulties and sacrifices, who do you think, are those who would go on with enthusiasm and fire within them? Only those who are gripped by an experience! Be it the persons in love who challenge all odds to be with each other; or parents looking for their children or children looking for their parents who wish to find each other come what may; or a situation of someone who loves life and freedom and is kept in captivation but get a slight clue that there is a possibility of an escape...these are situations you can picture in your minds. Imagine the fire that would burn within the person making all the efforts...it is because the person has experienced something - may be love, may be freedom, may be care...that experience which grips them and goads them on!

We keep receiving news about people who are ready to give up their life at the hands of some heartless fanatics. Just two days ago (18th April) there was a news about Nabil Habashy Salama, a 62 year old man who was killed by the IS militants as a warning to the other Christians who are fighting against Islamic militancy in various parts. This elderly man killed had established a coptic church in Beir el-Abdtown in Sinai. This is but one case, among many such that continue to happen. These persons are capable of it because they are gripped by the experience they have had...which is primarily the experience of the Risen One. 

Leaving alone these extreme sacrificing experiences, look at the ordinary daily experiences such as forgiving the other, bearing with the faults of the other, accepting burdens for the sake of the other... are these even possible without being gripped by a life changing experience? 

For me today Jesus has to become that experience, that experience which grips me to a total transformation that I will fear nothing, for I know my Lord will raise me up on the last day, come what may! Once I am gripped by that experience, nothing, absolutely nothing can threaten me. I will be a Resurrected Being!

The test of time - Endurance!

WORD 2day: Friday, 2nd week in Easter time 

April 16, 2021: Acts 5: 34-42; John 6: 1-15

One term that unites the two readings today is the term, "test." Jesus himself is tested with such a big number to feed. He tests his disciples with a task given them. And in the first reading we have Gamaliel setting up a test of time for the believers! All of these are tests that bring out the quality of Endurance. 

Jesus could have very well said, let the people go and find their own means of food, after all they came on their own; they were not obliged to come! Won't we do that, when we plan some activities for others or in ministry? But that would have been on Jesus' part, an escapism! When Jesus asked the disciples where they could buy bread for the crowds, they could have easily said it wasn't possible! Or later in the Acts of the Apostles, when they were threatened and jailed, the disciples could have, at the first instance said, why should we break our head over the salvation of these people! That would have been shirking the responsibility given to them. As a community the first Christians could have remained calm, quiet and comfortable within their small circle loving each other and fending for each other. But that was not to be the case!

If Jesus were to have taken an escapist mode of reaction to the situation, or the disciples the shirking mode, or the first believers a comfort seeking compromise mode... we would have nothing of what we believe and belong to today. The revelation of the limitless love of God in the person of Jesus, the Christian community that experienced that love and handed it down to the generations, the prophetic presence of the Church, as the sacrament of God's salvific love - these are grand signs of a simple decision that Jesus, the disciples and the community took - to endure the test!

Endurance is the time tested virtue that enables us to stand the test of time. The Martyrs of old, great saints in history, the holy ones of our times, all of them stand proofs to one fact: Endurance helps faith mature and endurance is a mark of a mature faith! Our faith is true, strong and alive, only in as much as it endures, especially the test of time!

Obedience: the promptings of the Spirit

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

April 15, 2021: Acts 5:27-33; John 3: 31-36

We must obey God rather than men; we must obey God's directions rather than men's directives; we must obey the promptings of the Spirit rather than the rulings of men! What a clarity on the part of the disciples. If only we had today that same clarity! But it could be problematic too, as evidenced in these COVID times in many places! It is a dilemma that we face, think along!

Do not conform to the standards of the world; rather renewed in Spirit conform to the mind of Christ, instructed St. Paul well in this line (cf. Rom 12:2). At times we justify conformity and compromise on the grounds of "peace in the house"; other times we create division and sport rebellion under the pretext of being unique and convinced, while it could just be a way of promoting one's own convenience! Our own innermost self is our judge, and of course the one who resides there: the Spirit of the Lord!

Today, with the pandemic situation and the measures to contain it, there are governments and the international organisations that are tending to make rules and controls, forcing people at large to obey, at times even blackmailing masses into submission. What are we to do? Does out religiosity, our faith, our spirituality, come into play in this scenario? They have to. If not, what are they for?

So, do we abide by what they say or do we not? The question is - not whether we need to abide or we need not; but whether we can think logically or not; whether we can spiritually reason out or not; whether with the help of the Spirit, we can think holistically or not! Not with selfish concerns and sub-human criteria, but with true Spirit-filled mindset and truly all-embracing mindset, what is our judgement of things that are being said and being forced on us? It is not conformity or non-conformity, but our sense of faith and sense of clarity based on the wisdom of the Spirit!

Obedience is not merely conformity to the rule; nor its opposite mere negligence of the rule. It is all about being sincere to the innermost promptings of the Spirit. Being understood when one follows that promptings, is not always guaranteed. Being misunderstood cannot prevent me from being sincere to those promptings. One who obeys will see life (cf. Jn 3:36).

The Key: From Above

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

April 13, 2021: Acts 4: 32-37; John 3: 7b-15

The first Christian Community gives us a challenging example today, a prophetic witness! Just imagine that to be the state of our parish communities, or our basic christian communities...or even the Religious Communities of Consecrated life... can this model be emulated today? It is easy to brush it aside, calling it an outdated model, or an impractical ideal, or an utopian imagination, or a time proven failure! Call whatever you may, the challenge remains.

Along with the challenge there is also a doubt that lingers on: could they have really lived that way! Really! Sometimes youngsters dare ask that question aloud too, when we have sessions or seminars! Isn't it an exaggeration, a kind of figure of speech that hightens the reality for the sake of creating the appeal that is intended? The answer is, a categorical NO. They lived that way! The records are true and the records are not only in the Bible...they were also historical communities which caused the many a eyebrow raise! 

Jesus provides us with the key to the challenge, that is the secret which helped them live that way: it is, to live your life as if from above. We have received our life and everything in life as a gift from above. And when it is time for us to report back from where we come, we will go without anything in our hands. When we see things from above then, we would laugh at our folly as does the Lord now from heaven (see Ps 2:4). 

This was the fact...the early Christian community saw Jesus live and come back to life and go back to his Father...they expected him to come back shortly...even while they were still living. That is why they were prepared at anytime to report to the Lord...this gives us the clue how they managed to live such a detached life. Though it seems a reduction of their high noble ideals, the fact is clear: they were living a life from above!

Just look at your life, as you live it today, just from a little above! You will understand how foolish we can be... with our attachments and avarice, jealousy and treachery, ego and selfishness, and every other inhumanity for the sake of things that do not matter at all! Have we not totally lost the real sense of our lives? 

Let us remember the key given to us by Christ: live your life as from above. Learn to look at life from above and you will have a clear picture of what is important and what not!

Growing in Christian Faith: Getting ready to flow on!

THE WORD IN LENT - Tuesday, 4th week in Lent

March 16, 2021: Ezekiel 47:1-3,9-12; John 5: 1-3a,5-16

 

We have a wonderful imagery today to ponder over: the flowing water that enlivens! Ezekiel speaks of it and John presents it; Ezekiel underlines the presence of the flowing water by the Temple while John points out the very presence of Christ as the life-giving spring! 

For that man who had been waiting for years to get into that life-giving water, the fact that Jesus approached him was like the waters came to him, instead of he going to the waters. But it is not all that comfortable, when the waters really flow! That is why Jesus asks him that question: do you want to be well again? 

We may think it is a dumb question to ask - but it matters! What if the man was comfortable drawing pity from the others? What if the man gained much more than what he could have with his limbs alright? Hence, the need for Jesus to ask him, if he really wanted to be healed! It is our choice to be healed, to be well, to be wholesome!

We may blame people around, the situation around, the events and experiences and remain in self-pity! That will never lead us to wellness, health or wholeness. If we really want to live our life to the full, we need to receive the flowing grace willingly. It might require of us certain changes...which may not be comfortable - the man was asked to pick up his mat and wall. All this while people were carrying him around! Are we prepared for the inconveniences of grace?

The Lord reaches out to us, flows into our lives to enliven us and Jesus invites us to become the waters that enliven people around us, that we reach out to others and flow into their lives, enlivening them!

 

Let us ask ourselves, is our faith matured enough? How ready are we to flow on?

 

Growing in True Faith: Assume Personal Responsibility for your Choices!

THE WORD IN LENT: Tuesday, 2nd week of Lent

March 2, 2021: Isaiah 1: 10, 16-20; Matthew 23: 1-12

 

There are innumerable non-Catholic friends and groups which pick up the lines of Jesus today, entirely out of its context and keep creating polemics out of it, unfortunately. ‘Do not call any one your Father or your Master here on earth” – what does that injunction actually mean?

 

Let no one be responsible for your judgments, your behaviours, your decisions and your choices! That is in crux what Jesus meant when he said, let no one be your ‘father’ or ‘master’ here on earth. For a Hebrew, father would mean that person who decides everything for you! You have nothing else to say, because the father's decision is final. The master is someone who holds a total authority over you; what he decides to be right has to be right for you; what he decides to be desirable has to be desirable for you! Let that not be your mode of decision making; allow no one make choices for you, says Jesus.  

 

The point is clear beyond confusions: a person will be responsible for one's own choices. It is no more the case that a person does something or decides on something and passes the blame on to someone else: his or her father, or generations before, or persons in authority. That may be an age-old practice; not for a true disciple of Christ, the Son of God.

 

Let each one take responsibility for his or her own choices, challenges the Word today. Your choices determine your destiny, apart from the all-pervading love that is God. It is this love that has invested us with such a great personal will and freedom, using which we are challenged to choose God and all that pertains to God.

 

Let us quit looking for scapegoats; isn’t it essential to assume personal responsibility for our choices. 

True Christian Love: Growing to be God's Own

THE WORD IN LENT - Saturday, First week of Lent

February 27, 2021: Deuteronomy 26: 16-19; Matthew 5: 43-48

You would remember, especially if you are from India, few years ago, a comment passed by a leader of one of the religious nationalist groups in India on Mother Teresa and her motivations behind all the service she had rendered to the least of the Indian Society. He was not the first, nor the most prominent of people who have spoken so. However, my reference here is to one of the retorts that came by - I loved the cartoon some one posted; it was a cartoon depicting Mother Teresa holding that gentleman who spoke rather ill of her, as a mother would hold her little child! And the caption read in Mother's own words: if you judge others, you will not have the time to love them. 

According to me that was the best response one could ever imagine, because it brings out our very nature: as people peculiarly God's own (Dt 26:18)! We have had so many examples of this peculiarity which the Word demands from us - Pope John Paul II who met the one who attempted to assassinate him, the family of Sr. Rani Maria (whose commemoration was just a couple of days ago) who accepted the murderer of their daughter as one their family members, Mrs. Gladys Stein who instantly forgave the one who burnt her husband and two sons alive, the mother of the two brothers among the 21 coptic christians killed in Egypt some five years ago, and the list is not certainly exhausted!

These people are peculiar in the eyes of the world and that is our call too: to be people peculiarly God's own. The only way to belong to God is to be God-like in our love for others, loving everyone with no conditions, no limits and no expectations! Very often a lofty love that begins well falls in the trap of expectations and there is no more time to enjoy the goodness that is involved in that love, because the expectations on each other has drained it all. God's love - a love beyond conditions, a love beyond expectations, a love beyond the urge to feel fulfilled... is it difficult? Yes! Any alternative options? Definitely No, if we want to be truly God's own!

Renewing Christian Hope: Choosing to Change!

THE WORD IN LENT - Wednesday, First week of Lent

February 24, 2021: Jonah 3: 1-10; Luke 11: 29-32

Waking up a sleeping person is not as difficult as waking up someone who pretends to sleep. Lent is all about conversion; and conversion is something absolutely personal. External signs of it are appreciable, but they are not all. At times we can have splendid external signs of religiosity and concern for others while they may merely be hypocrisy and hidden agenda. But the good or bad news is that, God knows our innermost thoughts and yearnings. That is the source of Christian Hope too!

We create and maintain whatever image we would like with those around us, but with God it is always the truth and nothing but truth. It is the absoluteness of Truth that gives us hope. Christian Hope is not a false consolation towards something that does not exist; it is all about the truth, the Truth that God is. When we are with the Truth, we have hope that one day everything will change for the good. And that change begins from within each of us.

Jesus in the Gospel, gives the Jews, the so called chosen people the challenge of the simple people of Nineveh. Even today, the highly sophisticated, the so called devoted, and the self proclaimed Spiritual Masters are given the challenge of the simple and unsophisticated persons who convert, who change in the heart of their hearts toward God. They would be much greater and much closer to the Reign of God than the so-called VIPs! 

Conversion is a matter of the heart... an internal and absolute choice for God. God has never given up hope on us and expects that we will keep growing in true Christian living. Lent is an apt time to make that choice, a personal, internal and sincere choice to change... to change our thoughts and our ways. 

LENT 2021

LENT: Living Enthusiastically the Need for Transformation

Each of us has the need for transformation...and we are reminded of it time and again, if we are spiritually awake! It is not our weakness that makes us truly weak, but our mindlessness of our weakness! That is why the Pope Emeritus often said, 'what is more dangerous than sin, is the loss of the sense of sin.' While Pope Francis incessantly recalls the absolute mercifulness of God in forgiving and extending God's hands of embrace, he repeats with equal insistence the need for conversion - conversion from godlessness to Godliness in our daily lives. 

Once again this year for the season of Lent, the Holy Father insists on the need for renewal, the need for transformation, the need to remain conscious of the journey we are called to make to the holy mount of Jerusalem, the eternal Jerusalem - the Reign of God. 

Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem (Mt 20: 18)

Lent: a Time for Renewing Faith, Hope and Love

The Season of Lent this year invites us to journey towards beholding Truth in faith, towards refreshing our lives at the living waters of hope and towards nurturing love as the highest expression of faith and hope. 

The need that we have for transformation is not a guilt-ridden feeling but an enthusiastic reminder. True to its literal meaning, 'filled with God', the enthusiasm that is created is Spirit-given. Repent and believe in the Gospel! Our Transformation is a Need and it has to be Enthusiastically Lived...Living Enthusiastically the Need for Transformation, is the crux of every season of LENT. 

Happy Lent to you!

The dangerous leaven

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 6th week in Ordinary time

February 16, 2021: Genesis 6: 5-8, 7: 1-5, 10; Mark 8: 14-21

The Lord invites us, as God's people to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Another significant role the Lord assigns to us is to be the leaven of goodness; the yeast of the Reign. Jesus uses this image of the leaven - both in the positive sense of the leaven of the Reign, and in the negative sense of the leaven of the pharisees to be avoided.

Today, the Lord warns us of a danger that we become a leaven of insincerity, compromises, mediocrity and hypocrisy. Even though we may not outwardly choose to be blatantly evil, we may live a life of double or multiple standards, a life of total discrepancy; that life would not only be unfit for Reign, it would be dangerously against the Reign.

Getting into the ark of the Lord, that is the Reign of God, is not a simple matter that happens automatically. It is a series of deliberate choices to be made, on a daily basis. It does not happen by decisions others have made on our behalf (something like the parents deciding to baptise the kids), not does it happen by mere enrollment on a roll of members in a society or a community! It is a personal choice and an absolute way of life.

We are at the threshold of a holy season... the holy season of lent which begins tomorrow. What a time to impress on our minds this concrete message!

Where do the seeds fall?

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

January 27, 2021: Hebrew 10: 11-18; Mark 4: 1-20

The Word today speaks to us of living an acceptable life in the presence of God. It is never the case that the Lord rejects us or finds us unacceptable; the Lord said he had come to call the sinners and not the righteous! But the fact is we alienate ourselves from the Lord by the very choices we make on a daily basis and at every moment of decision making. 

We may easily complain...the situation around is bad or that the conditions of life are not conducive. But we are asked to do the best without any compromise, wherever we are or in whatever condition we find ourselves in; the rest the one who has called us will take care. We can plant, water and take care, it is the Lord who gives us the growth!

Where do we permit the seed to fall - the seed is the Word of God which constantly comes to tell us what is right and acceptable in the eyes of the Lord; where do we permit that seed to fall? Far away from us or all around us or in precarious places or right at the heart of our being? If only we prioritise the Word of God and strive to live by it, we shall grow more and more capable of experiencing the grace of God's continual presence. Yes, it all depends where we allow the seed  of the Word to fall!

Conversion - An absolute choice for God

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

January 25, 2021: Conversion of Saul to Paul

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

The feast of Conversion of St. Paul invites us to reflect on our conversion. Unfortunately, in today's context, the word 'conversion' has more political connotation than spiritual! 

In fact today is a beautiful occasion for us to remind ourselves that conversion is not about numbers and increasing the fold. It is a personal decision to go towards God, an about-turn (as the Greek word 'metanoia' suggests); it is an absolute choice for God! Choice for God...because we begin to see the role that God has played in our life and choose to actively acknowledge it; Absolute... because nothing else matters as much as God and God's will do! 

We are called to conversion... may not be as dramatic as that of St. Paul's, as we read in the first reading today, but more demanding! Yes, we are called to daily conversion. To be aware, each day and each moment, of those things that take us away from our progress towards God. Nothing - no demonic powers, no distracting languages, no cunning serpents, no poisoning lifestyle - should lead us away from God... we are called to make an absolute choice every day, for God and for God's Word. Not merely in words but by my very life, I am obliged to proclaim God's message. "Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel," reminds me St.Paul (1 Cor 9:16). 

Notice the very first question that Paul asks the Lord after he recognises it was the Lord: What am I to do Lord? That is a relevant question for each of us to ask every day: What am I to do Lord, to turn to you and to make an absolute choice for you! 

Open your eyes and make Him seen!

THE WORD IN ADVENT

December 16, 2020: 3rd Wednesday in Advent

Isaiah 45:6-8,18,21-25; Lk 7: 19-23

We begin the novena to the great feast of Christmas this evening! And the Word today inaugurates the immediate preparation to receive with Lord, with the question: are you the one to come? And look at the answer given , not merely by Jesus also by the first reading and the responsorial psalm. Open your eyes and see!

John the Baptist who identified Jesus and proclaimed him to the people, begins to have his doubts. Maybe, he too, just like the other Jews, expected Jesus to come out with a plan and a programme drastically different - a rebellion, a revolution, a protest, a challenge to the status quo! All these were happening, but in a much different plane altogether, from what everyone was trying to see!

The dumb speak, the deaf hear, the crippled walk, the sinners are forgiven, the diseased are healed, the lonely are accompanied, the poor are fed, the jobless are sustained, the weak are strengthened, the oppressed are freed, the voiceless are empowered, the least are lifted, the lost are respected... these are the signs of the coming of the Lord. 

Are you the one to come? The Lord would say...I have already come! Are you ready to make me seen? Are you prepared manifest me to the world in your words and attitudes, in your choices and priorities, in your criteria and discerments? It is important to open your eyes and see...but as sons and daughters of God, we have an added duty! Apart from opening our eyes and seeing, we need to open our eyes to all the suffering and the needy, and make the Lord seen! That shall be true Christmas!

Truly God's Children?

THE WORD IN ADVENT

December 15, 2020: 3rd Tuesday in Advent

Zephaniah 3: 1-2, 9-13; Matthew 21: 28-32

At a point in the first reading the Lord says: 'you need not be ashamed of all your deeds...'. Not to be ashamed of myself is a life of dignity and honour; that I am myself and I am proud of it. True love and true regard for each other will give one this dignity and honour. The Lord fills us with this dignity and honour as God's sons and daughters. 

In our moral integrity we are challenged to remain worthy of that calling we have, that is, to be sons and daughters of God our loving father and mother. It consists of the decision we make to hear the voice of God, listen to it, realise the call within it and act on it with love. 

Not hearing the voice would be a total insensitivity to God - a rejection or a shutting out of God from our lives. Not many of us dare to it, atleast not for long in life. Hearing but not listening would be a disrespect - this is more often than not, seen in our attitudes. Listening but not realising the call involved in it, would be foolishness - because why all the effort and attention to listen but finally only to throw it away in the air. Is it not a waste of time and energy? Finally, Realising the call that is involved in the Word listened to, but not acting upon it, would be a deliberate choice that would negate our very belonging to the Lord - that is we telling ourselves and the world, that we are not really, truly, in actuality, children of God!

When we are ready to hear, listen, realise and act on God's word, we would be true sons and daughters of God; and we would never need to be ashamed of ourselves, our deeds or our lives. The point is, are we really God's children!

W A I T

Prepare the way!

December 06, 2020: 2nd Sunday in Advent
Isaiah 40: 1-5, 9-11; 2 Peter 3: 8-14; Mark 1: 1-8

One fourth of the Advent is gone; and soon it will be Christmas! The Lord will be here anytime, warn the readings today. Last week liturgy invited us to watch, and this week it invites us to WAIT.

Waiting can be of two fundamental kinds. The first type is a passive indifference - you wait helplessly; you wait doing nothing, because you think you can do nothing about it! You are passive and you are inactive...whatever you are waiting for, has to happen by itself and you feel you have no part of it, until it really begins to happen. The other type of waiting is, an active preparation - you are totally involved in the expectant events. Though you know you cannot do much about what you are waiting for, but you can do all the preparations for it, and you do it with such enthusiasm, that when it really happens you begin to live the moment to the full. 

A Christian waiting can never be an indifference or a passive helplessness regarding things that happen. That is what the world calls fate. The difference between the concepts of fate and will of God, is the love that is involved in the latter. A love with which a person lives to the full the moments of preparation, in order that the event itself could be meaningfully experienced. Yes, a Christian Waiting at advent is an active participation in the historical events that announce and usher in the Reign of God.

What does this WAIT concretely consist of? The liturgy today offers a clarity on this.

To wait is to Wish the coming of the Lord. True Waiting begins with a real wish, a want, a true desire that the Lord comes. It cannot be based on a dubious or a half hearted acceptance of an inevitable situation. A truly Christian waiting for the Lord should begin from an ardent desire that the Lord should visit us. Sometimes this wish or desire can be half hearted because of the fear of the changes that the Lord can effect with the coming.

There were those who did not wish the coming of the Lord - just imagine Herod becoming troubled at the news of a child being born. Recall those people of the Gerasenes (Mk 5), who did not want the Lord to come into their village. Let us not take this condition for granted - the condition to wish the coming of the Lord. At times, even we may tell that Lord, 'please do not enter my life...I cannot afford to change anything there right now!' 

To wait is to Allow the hand of the Lord. Isaiah today speaks of the changes that we need to look forward to; that the valleys be filled and the hills be leveled! It cannot be a true Christian attitude to want the Lord to come but not being ready to do anything or give into any change personally or as a community. It is a readiness to allow the Lord to challenge us to perfection.

Yes, if we truly wish the coming of the Lord into our lives, we need to allow the Lord to have his way! Today I want to dine with you the Lord said to Zacchaeus; and the very moment he began climbing down that sycamore, Zacchaeus started planning his itinerary already...I will change; I will become better; I will repent; I will restitute what I have unlawfully taken from others; I will relinquish my comforts for the right way of living. That is allowing the hand of the Lord to work on me, on my life, on my daily decisions.

To wait is to Inhabit the dwellings of the Lord. The second reading speaks to us of the need to conduct ourselves in holiness and devotion. The Gospel presents to us a people who went in search of the man of God that they may get closer to God, purify their ways and dwell in holiness and devotion. How eager are we to dwell in the courts of the Lord? How prepared are we to inhabit the new heavens and the new earth that the Lord promises us?

The coming of the Lord is a figurative phrase! It is not that the Lord has to come from somewhere, as if the Lord is not already with us. But it is a fact that we need to come home to the Lord. We are busy elsewhere, while the Lord waits at home, with arms wide open. We have neither the time nor the patience to recognise the Lord present and the arms that wish to console us, calm us, enthuse us and energise us. We need to inhabit the dwellings of the Lord - the Lord's favourite dwelling is our being...our inner being where the Lord resides...let us come home to this dwelling and get in touch with the Lord there.

To wait is to Tremble at the presence of the Lord. Let each one work out one's own salvation with fear and trembling, St. Paul would instruct elsewhere (Phil 2:12). John the Baptist personifies the need to prepare oneself in earnestness for the day of the Lord. He gives the ways and means of being prepared for the Reign of God. When the people looked for a saviour in the Baptist, he admits it with trembling before the Lord that the One who comes after him is mightier than him. And not just that, but that we need to prepare with haste for the day of the Lord.

There are no fixed formulae nor some short cut pathways to reach the salvation that God has in store for us..it is something that we need to work out on a daily basis: it is working out to be fit for the Reign. As John the Baptist indicates, each of us, depending on the state of life that we are in and the daily commitments that we have and the context in which we live our lives - we need to plan our itineraries. The journey we began last week is fast running its course out. We cannot take it at ease, or wait inactively for an opportune moment. We need to make decisions here and now...to change, to grow, to prepare more in concrete for the coming of the Lord.

Lets WAIT... wish heartily the coming of the Lord, allow the hand of the Lord to change our lives, inhabit the dwellings of the Lord and tremble at the presence of Lord. Let us take stock of the journey so far and continue in earnestness.

Signs of the Times

 WORD 2day: Friday, 34th week in Ordinary time 

November 27, 2020: Revelation 20: 1-4, 11- 21:2; Luke 21: 29-33

One of the key terms popularised by the Second Vatican Council is "signs of the times" and the Council itself tried its best to be true to the spirit of that term. The Council challenged the faithful and the church as a whole to learn to read the signs of the times and respond to it. It is obviously a never failing criterion: to be attentive to what is happening around and the message we can gather from it, in order to render the way we live our faith in Christ, relevant and meaningful.

There is however a feeling among many that the "signs" from the Lord in the present times, are few and far between. The truth instead is, the signs abound: in our daily lives, through things that happen around us, through persons who live with us, those who live worthy lives, those who suffer for no cause of theirs, those who are oppressed, those who have scores and scores of woes to meet on a daily basis, through the crisis we see in the nature around us, through the humanity that has pushed into a hue and cry that is so artificial and human made with this pandemic... there are signs aplenty. 

Our responsibility is two fold: first, to learn to gather these signs, as coming from the Lord! At times we can become careless and callous to these, that we would never read the right message at the right time. A delayed action is no good! Secondly, we have the responsibility to act upon the sign we receive and respond to it, regardless of the risks and the sacrifices that are involved. We are so negligent in this second part that we habituate ourselves to becoming blind to the signs that are around. There are those who repeatedly remind us of that - and they become a nuisance in our eyes, if not even villains!

Whether we gather them or not, respond to them or not, they are there! We would do well as true sons and daughters of the Reign, if we are present to them and through them strive to build the Reign here on earth. If not, we ourselves are the losers!

Judgment: our choice!?

WORD 2day: Thursday, 34th week in Ordinary time

November 26, 2020: Revelation 18: 1-2, 21-23, 19:1-3, 9; Luke 21: 20-28

Happy are those who are called to the wedding feast of the Lamb...the final banquet, the moment of redemption...the end of days, the judgment seat... these are all the pictures that the Word paints before our eyes today. Let us not create for ourselves an idea of some horror stories or sort of shake-up narrations. They are, after all, logical ends towards which we are all journeying.

But a further fact to remember is that these need not be always an end time phenomenon, instead it has to be an everyday experience...the judgment is a continuous happening and it is not entirely an act of the Lord; the choices that we make at any given point of time, at any moment of a given day, the choice of our words, thoughts, actions, decisions...those are already judgments that we bring upon ourselves (cf. Jn 3:18).

The reason is this: our choice! Every time we react in a way to something or someone, we make a choice! You may say, "No! but it was just a spontaneous word, or a spontaneous act; not premeditated at all!" But remember, though it is a so-called spontaneous word or act, it has a history; there is a whole lot of experience behind it; there is a whole lot of judgement that goes with it. Why you choose a word, not another; why choose a particular way of reacting and not some other... they depend, even if unconscious or subconscious, on the attitudes or the disposition you have towards that person or that event. That is where our judgments, the judgments that come on us, rest too! That is why Jesus said: judge not, you shall not be judged!

Coming back to the parable...we are all called to the wedding feast, that is to unite with the Lord and enjoy the eternal bliss. But the choices we make on a daily basis, at a particular point of time, is our response and that decides whether we enter the banquet or not. Hence, instead of yarning tales of suspense and horror, let us realise our responsibility in making right choices, conscious choices, charitable choices, holy choices, Christ-like choices, every moment of our daily life: Judgement is our choice, indeed!