Doing it God's way

WORD 2day: Thursday, 17th week in Ordinary time

July 30, 2020: Jeremiah 18: 1-6; Matthew 13: 47-53

Have thine own way Lord, 
have thine own way

Thou art the potter, 
I am the clay

Mould me and make me, 
after thy will

while I am waiting 
yielded and still.

What a beautiful prayer it could be for us to make this day, inspired by the passage from Jeremiah... to accept the Lord as the potter, who makes me, moulds me and uses me to behold the glory of the Lord and share it to the world! If only this is always the case, that we are in the hands of the Lord and that we do just what the Lord wants us to do - the world will be a paradise, the Reign of God here and now. For is that not what we pray: May your will be done, here on earth, as it is in heaven!  

In the parable that Jesus tells us today about the Reign of God, he brings out a fundamental element of either belonging to the Reign or not belonging to it. The angels will separate the good from the bad; the wicked from the righteous; the docile from the obstinate; the obedient from the rebellious; the discerning from the naive. Yes, the criterion is: doing the will of the Father, being clay in the hands of the Divine potter, not rebelling, not disobeying, not trying to act too smart!

Have you heard it said, that the anthem in heaven is, "I did it God's way"; while in hell it is, "I did it my way." The secret is here: doing it God's way! Living our life, God's way!

The Word made sense

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

January 29, 2020: 2 Samuel 7: 4-17 Mark 4: 1-20

The Word comes to us every time with a specific call and life changing challenges. We would make it dead if we do not make the real sense out of it. But in the name of making sense of it, there are those who try to twist and turn it and interpret it to their own benefits! Do you think the Word of God can be so twisted and turned? Obviously, these would be running a great treacherous risk!

The Lord himself provides us the possibility of making sense, in our daily life. Only that we have to be ready and open, we would be shown what really the Word has to offer or challenge. Open with out eyes, open with our hearts, open with our ears and open with our minds that persons, events and experiences can provide us with that key to decode the Word for our concrete lives. 

We see David so open and eager, as Samuel makes sense of the Word to him. The disciples ask Jesus to make sense of the Word to them and Jesus does it so impressively. We may go in search of meaning and messages too - but the danger is that we are looking for something that we want to see, something that is pleasing to us, while all the time the message from the Word has been right in front of our eyes.

Receiving the word and making sense of it should lead us to concrete changes in life. If not, the Word would be dead as the seeds picked by the birds or scorched by sun or suppressed by the thorns. Openness is the only way to be spiritually fertile, giving fruit in abundance.

WORD 2day: 4th November, 2015

Love is a battle... Ready for it?

Wednesday,  31st Week in Ordinary Time
Rom 13: 8-10; Lk  14: 25-33

Love... it's a term that is by far the most spoken of,  not merely from a Christian perspective but that of the whole reality today. But that is no statement that guarantees the right usage of the term,  because more often than not it is misused and abused. A great percentage use it to mean a kind of feeling, a sentiment,  an emotion that warms up one's heart.

Love is not all those.. love is a decision,  a choice,  a commitment that would demand so much from me that,  I would find myself in a battle. Yes,  responding to the call to love is like undertaking a whole expedition,  against evil and hatred, for goodness and genuine fellowship. To accept to genuinely love, means being ready for any cost I would have to pay. After having launched myself into this battle, if I turn back and find myself wanting,  I will be considered unfit for the Reign. On a daily basis let us hearken to this call to love...which insists that we take a commitment every day which could be dangerously demanding. Am I truly ready for it?

WORD 2day: 30th January, 2015

Patient Endurance and Hope-filled Efforts

Heb 10: 32-39; Mk 4: 26-34

A few days back there was a cartoon sent via the social network, with a man digging a tunnel in search of precious metals and at a point he decides to stop his pursuit. The cartoon allows the viewers alone to see that the man was just a few inches away from the treasure hidden away in the ground! "You need endurance to do the will of God and receive what he has promised", says the Word today. 

We cannot be like the nursery kids on a class project of growing a plant in the pot. From the time they plant a seed, they would keep returning to the pot every other minute to see if something has grown. The Reign of God grows in silence and obscurity; you will never know it is there around until you really believe it to be. That is why Jesus declared, 'the Reign of God is amidst you; within you' (cf. Lk 17: 21). 

In patient endurance and hope-filled efforts one will unlock the levels towards a fuller realisation of the Reign which is already there growing within us, among us and allover us! 

WORD 2day: 22nd September, 2014

Think good; Do good; Be good!

Pro 3:27-34; Lk 8:16-18

The first reading today has a wonderful set of practical tips for a happy living. Those tips can altogether be summarised in the phrase: think well of all; speak well of all; do good to all. This is the runway to happiness, but rarely taken by many! We prefer to complicate our lives, make it distrustful, enigmatic and suspicious. Neither are we happy nor do we allow others to be happy. 

Recently, I asked a person who came to me with a problem at home, "What is you choice: to be happy or not to be?" And the person said, "ofcourse, to be happy!" and immediately added, "but I am afraid I wont be able to do the things that you told me to. They would take me for granted and make me more and more a fool!" Then I concluded, "so, you choose to be unhappy!"

At times, that is the fact! We choose to be unhappy and we are experts at making ourselves unhappy over anything at all. Jesus today seems to tell us, "you want to be happy? choose it! manifest it! Let it be seen in your lives, in your choices!" Lighting the lamp and putting it on the stand, is the metaphor to living a life that is God-worthy and making it known to others that they may be challenged. The simple formula to begin with is what is said in the first reading; in other words: think good! do good! be good!

It is your face Lord, that I seek!

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time: 21st September, 2014

Is 55: 6-9; Phil 1: 20c-24, 27a; Mt 20: 1-16a

It is your face O Lord that I seek, prays the Psalmist (cf 27:8). Seeking the face of the Lord is the sweet task given to a lover of the Lord. The Lord declares, I have not told you to seek me in vain, as if I were absent from you! The Lord is always with us and the Lord's countenance sheds its light upon us and that is the joy of our Christian living.

But we on our part are invited to Seek the Lord, say the readings today. We are called to seek the Lord, seek the Lord above all else! Lord awaits to shine forth on us, it is ours to seek. St. Paul tells us in the second reading today, it becomes even a longing to end this existence on earth and get to the Lord, that we may behold the face of the Lord! But it is not ours to decide, we are expected to live our earthly sojourn as long as the Lord wills it for us; but even within this sojourn the Lord will enable us to behold the Lord's face, if we seek it.

Seek the Lord, today! says the first reading and the Gospel parable too. The urgency of seeking the Lord is expressed so well and so plainly in the first reading, where Isaiah urges that we seek the Lord while there is still time! Instead of just standing around and staring at things that will do no good and focusing on elements that would lead us no where, it is important that we seek the Lord and seek the Lord today, here and now! It is a call to make a choice, to make up our minds, to discern our ways and set on a determined seeking!

Seek the Lord with Hope, says the parable that Jesus presents. Don't worry if you wasted your time till now, make up your mind right now and seek the Lord with hope; do not think if the Lord will accept you or not. First of all, the Lord has not rejected you from the eyes of the Lord in order that you wonder whether the Lord will accept you. The Lord's love is unconditional, and the Lord does not love us to the extent that we deserve it. If only the Lord were to calculate how deserving we are, how many of us can really stand before the Lord and claim the love of God for ourselves? "But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us"(Rom 5:8). That is the love with which the landowner gives the same wages to the first and the last. This is the hope that Jesus gives us: at no point of time does God reject you! Seek the Lord with Hope and you will definitely find the Lord, assure the readings today.

The Lord is with me, the Lord lives with me, moves with me and sustains me! But it is upto me to seek that presence of the Lord, seek that grace of the Lord and seek that face of the Lord so that the light of God's countenance may illumine my daily life! 

WORD 2day: 20th August, 2014

A warning and a lesson... BE COMPASSIONATE  

Ezek 34: 1-11; Mt 20: 1-16

The careless shepherds and the sensitive land owner: the readings today present to us a dynamic contrast. It is a warning and a lesson offered together, to every person who has in some way or the other, care over others. It could be pastors who have care over the whole flock of the faithful, or the parents who have the care of children, or the teachers who have the responsibility towards their wards, or friends who have a natural ascendancy over their peers, or employers who have a say over their employees and so on.

The warning is: You are not indispensable and you are answerable! The ascendancy you have is a service required of you. Jesus would instruct those given charge not to lord it over the people (Mt 20:25) and St. Peter would perfectly learn it from his master (1 Pet 5:3). It is a service of love and a task entrusted by the Lord, to be compassionate towards those under our care.

The lesson is: Treat persons for what they are and not for what they have to give you! Whether it was the one who came into the field at the dawn of the day or the ones who came close to the dusk, they were persons in need and persons who had stomachs to feed. The land owner saw what they were and not what they gave him in the form of labour. He gave them all, what they needed at the end of the day to live life at peace.

In both, the warning and the lesson, the Lord underscores a heart that is compassionate. Indeed, that is the identity of the Lord himself.

WORD 2day: 14th August, 2014

Obstinacy of Human Selfishness - Remembering St. Maxmilian Kolbe

Ezek 12: 1-12; Mt 18:21 - 19:1

The Rebellious people have eyes to see but do not see; they have ears to hear but do not hear. How good, loving, forgiving, merciful and bountiful God is to me - I am so aware of it right until the time that I myself have to be good, loving, forgiving and generous with those around me! I begin to count, calculate, justify, judge, grudge and grumble when I have to give or forgive or show mercy or be loving. I have the eyes to see God's goodness but I lack the vision to see that I need to be good too. I have the ears to hear the merciful whisperings of the Divine but I don't have the ears to hear the pleading for mercy in the eyes of my brother and sister! What is this but an awful obstinacy of human selfishness?

The Obstinacy of Human Selfishness does not allow me to share with the others whatever God has given me; it blocks even the natural consciousness and awareness of the extent to which I have received. In comparison to the amount of love that God has showered on us, where does the level of love that I show to others stand? In comparison to the sins and the wickedness that God has forgiven in me, where do the simple faults committed by my brother or my sister stand? Maxmilian Kolbe, stands tall in this regard as he offers to give of himself to a brother of his, whom he know not, from whom he received not, for whom he did not make any calculations whatsoever - a simple but profound way of loving as God does!

WORD 2day: 28th July, 2014

The God of small things!

Jer 13: 1-11; Mt 13: 31-35

God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God (1 Cor 1:27-29). Jesus is fond of presenting his Father as the God of small things! He thanks God for keeping the secrets from the elites but revealing them to children (cf. Lk 10:21) and compares the Reign of God to a mustard seed and to a pinch of yeast. He invites us to learn of his meekness and humility (cf. Mt 11:30) and mediates the salvific love of God through his sheer obedience (cf. 2 Phil). Mindful of this, St. Paul sighs, "what do we have that we have not received?" (cf. 1 Cor 4:7).

Let us remind ourselves of our smallness before God! It is nothing more than a realistic understanding of what we are in front of the majesty that God is adorned with. It is better to be a small little thing in the presence of God than a mighty big being without God. It just would not make any sense; not forever! The foolish man says in his heart, 'there is no god' - derides the Psalm (14:1). The secret lies in keeping it simple and being grateful for every small thing that we have; for our God is a God of small things!

Lord God, the Just Judge

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time: 20th July, 2014

Wis 12: 13, 16-19; Rom 8: 26-27; Mt 13: 24-43

One thing that is sure about anything is that it will end. Our life too will end! However not necessarily at the end of our life, but at every moment of our life, as we make decisions, as we go through actions, as we choose our words to speak and our opinions to make, we are liable for judgement. The one who judges us is not anyone who is placed above us or those who are around us; but Lord God, the Just Judge!

The Lord alone can judge, for it is the Lord alone who knows our innermost thoughts and fundamental attitudes. When the Lord judges, the Lord judges not the action but the attitude, not the decision but the disposition, not the choice but the underlying intention and priority. Nothing can escape from the all knowing, ever present God who knows us through and through. That is both a challenge and a grace: a challenge because we cannot deceive God; a grace because the Lord never judges us rashly - the Lord is a Just Judge.

The Just Judge is Mighty but Merciful. The book of wisdom, in the first reading, so beautifully brings out the fact that the Lord is mighty but merciful as a judge. The Lord knows everything and sees through everything, but treats us with mercy and kindness. As St. Paul expresses in the second reading, the Spirit of the Lord knows us and inspires us from within. At times we fail repeatedly in our daily life, with tendencies that overpower us and with temptations that make us fumble. The Lord knows it all, but the Lord's mercies never cease! The Lord has perfect control over us and can decide to pull out the weeds at anytime, but that is not who God is! God is merciful and loving, slow to anger and abounding in love!

The Just Judge is Particular but Patient. The Lord is not satisfied with any mediocre life. The Lord is particular about the way we are to live our life. The Lord has set an ideal as acceptable way of life and wants us to live up to that. Nothing short of perfection is acceptable in the eyes of the Lord; but the Lord is patient. The Lord endures the wait. The Lord walks with us, step by step as we proceed towards this perfection. When we lack in perfection we actually are not testing the patience of the Lord, for the Lord's patience is endless, but we are running the risk of not being "gathered into the Lord's barn" (Mt 13:43). There is no end to the Lord's patience, but our possibilities are limited and it is we who have to feel the urgency!

The Just Judge is Firm but Forgiving. The Lord is demanding but absolutely understanding. The Lord's firmness never lessens the readiness to forgive. The justice of the Lord is guided by love, the absolute love that characterises the Lord alone! Firmness of God is in the very nature that we have inherited as sons and daughters of God. We are called to be plants, giving fruit, blossoming flowers and putting forth the yield, because we are children of God. We would belong to the Reign when we give fruit, however small or negligible it be: just a small mustard seed can give rise to a tree that houses hundreds of birds, a bit of yeast can leaven a bunch of dough. The Lord gives us chances but never relents from the demand to bear fruit. Forgiveness is never a compromise, it is always another chance to start anew, firm in conviction to reach the perfection.

The Lord is a just judge, loving and merciful, patient and kind, understanding and forgiving! Yet it is our duty to realise our call and bear fruit, grow into plants and not into weeds!

WORD 2day: 20th March, 2014

RELEARN RIGHT PRIORITIES

Religious Commitment is not merely about rites, rituals, performances and practices! Christian faith is primarily about priorities. Life and all that it involves is a gift from God, and it makes meaning only as long as it is lived with that perspective clear and strong. At times the values that the times teach us, the priorities that the society promotes, makes us look at riches, comforts, social status, economic security, personal attachments as things that matter most. Taken well, these can bring us to realise, understand and cherish the giftedness involved. But taken amiss, they can confuse our priorities, as it happens with the rich man in today's parable. Jeremiah invites us to live a life as trees planted by the course of a river, to grow and flourish in grace and giftedness; and the way is to Relearn Right Priorities. Let God be the first priority in our life and we will surely be transported to the bosom of Abraham.

WORD 2day

8th November, 2013

Living life as a ministry - this was the inspiration that sprang within me reflecting on the Word today. Ofcourse, it is easy to brush it aside saying its a 'clerical' or 'priestly' or religious' way of thinking. But looking at the readings of today we can understand the words that Pope Francis has repeated in several modes: We cannot be part time Christians. We are called to live our life as persons of God every moment of our life, at home, in the neighbourhood, at work, on the way, in company, alone or at Church! If not, we will be caught unawares at a moment when we will have to frantically set things right as the dismissed steward does in the parable today. We should work out our own salvation, as St.Paul says to the Philippians Phil 2:12), not only in fear and trembling, but on a daily basis living our life with a consciousness that we are sent with a definite mandate, a concrete call by God to be God's stewards, to be sons and daughters of God in the world.

With HANDS RAISED unto the Lord!

20th October, 2013: 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Work as if everything depended on you; Pray as if nothing depended on you, goes the popular saying. Today we have a wonderful image to place before us, as we go about our daily life. Moses on the hill overlooking the battle, with hands raised unto the Lord! The Battle belongs to the Lord... all that we need to do is keep still, the Lord will fight for us says the book of Exodus (14:14). 

We are called to live our life with our hands raised unto the Lord! 

Living with hands raised unto the Lord is a gesture that means to abandon everything into the hands of God. It is a total personal abandonment to the Lord, that the Lord may guide us and that the Lord may fight the battle for us! Many grow weary of struggles and temptations in life... when Moses' hands were raised, Israel won! The book of Proverbs tells us, 'the horse is made ready for the battle; but the victory belongs to the Lord!'(Prov. 21:31). When we learn to abandon ourselves in the hands of God, we will see the wonders that can happen.

Living with hands raised unto the Lord is to reach out to the Lord with all our heart. It is like the antenna that stretches to connect, to receive and to communicate. That is in short, 'prayer' - to connect, to receive and to communicate. Let us pay attention to the term that seems common in today's readings: pray without ceasing tells Jesus presenting to us the image of the widow; proclaim in season and out of season instructs St. Paul; and the first reading presents to us Moses unwilling to grow weary of having his hands raised unto to the Lord. A two fold call here: first, not to grow weary... like the widow to go on in trust, with our hands raised unto the Lord; second, when a brother or sister seems to grow weary, to rush to their side like Aaron and Hur and to be with them and to raise our hands in unison unto the Lord. A praying person builds a praying community of brothers and sisters, genuinely concerned about each other!

Living with the hands raised unto the Lord is to be filled with hope in the Lord. Like it happened to the widow, it may look like you might never get justice. Like it happened to the Israelites, it might look like you are losing the battle. Things may continuously go wrong, people might endlessly misunderstand you, nothing might seem to be going the way you wished it would..."But as for you, continue, in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it"...from Jesus himself who hoped in the One who sent him, from our Blessed mother who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken by the Lord! "Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of our hope" reminds Pope Francis.

Every day of our life, every moment of our day, let us resolve to live with our hands raised unto to the Lord in a holy abandonment, in a loving union and in an unfailing hope... so that when Our Lord and Saviour comes he will still find faith here amidst us! 

RACE: An analogy for Christian Living!

18th August, 2013: 20th Sunday in the Ordinary Time

"Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us"(Heb 12:1), invites the Liturgy today! Race - is a common analogy that is used to refer to something that requires relentless effort and enormous endurance. Today, the Liturgy of the Word invites us to look at our Christian living in the light of this analogy. Christian life is a Race; Living the Christian faith is like running a race...which has its starting point and the finish line in the person of Jesus Christ - "the pioneer and the perfecter of our faith"(Heb 12:2) Given the situation of the Greek Culture that was just spreading its wings, as Christianity was emerging out of Judaism, it was easy for the people to understand the analogy of Race applied to the life of faith. The analogy seems quite prevalent that we see apart from the letter to the Hebrews that we read today, also St. Paul uses it with facility, in his letters to the Philippians (Phil 3:14) and to Timothy(2 Tim 4:7,8). Extending a little more, the analogy, we shall try to understand our Christian life today. 

Christian Life is a Race, a race of Hurdles! Obstructions all along the way, does not in anyway hinder the progress of the athlete, the athlete has to jump over those and run towards the goal that is set before one's eyes. If at every hurdle the person contemplates a back off, the race is lost and ruined. Jesus today warns us of such hurdles and Jeremiah is presented to us in the midst of such overpowering obstructions. But Christian life has to go on! Jeremiah, when he was finally lifted up from the dungeon, he went back to proclaim the Word of the Lord! Up and across each hurdle, our life of faith, moves on!

Christian Life is a Race, a Relay Race! We are not running alone, we are in a team. Some one has run the race before us and they have passed the baton to us. It is our responsibility today to run and we will not be running it forever. We will have to finish our course and pass the baton to the next! Faith has to be lived, and passed on. In the encyclical, Lumen Fidei, chapter three we reflect that those who believe are never alone, faith is always shared and it tends to be spread; it has to be handed on! The second reading presents this beautifully recalling to our attention that we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses(Heb 12:1).

Christian Life is a Race, a Marathon! It is not just a sprint, that I strive for a short time and I clinch a victory; it is a marathon, it is long and it is taxing. Speed is not enough, it demands also stamina! Endurance and Perseverance are inevitable subjects of attention when it comes to our Christian life. In Jesus' footsteps, St. Paul too instructs us, in his letter to the Thessalonians - never to be tired of doing what is right(2 Thes 3:13) and in the letter to Timothy - to endure every suffering and carry on our life (2 Tim 4:5). At times it can be boring, tedious or exasperating, but our character rests in staying on the track!

Be it what it may, the analogy of the Race requires of us three important mindsets!

The first is a sense of URGENCY. The Gospel presents this with the image of FIRE. Just as an athlete needs the fire within to run, a Christian needs the fire within to glow in his or her life. The fire that Jesus came to set, and badly wants ablaze. Jeremiah had it ablaze within his heart (Jer 20:9), the apostles, the martyrs, the first Christian community - all of them had it so ablaze within them, that it consumed them and spread wild to the world. Do we have it in us?

The second is the strength of PERSEVERANCE. The Second reading presents it with the image of the BLOOD. In every race, there are those who are ready to beat us, to over power us - in our Christian life too there are elements that are on the prowl to beat us, to over power us - the element of sin, the element of godlessness, the element of materiality! A Christian needs to fight these elements constantly, struggle against them relentlessly, right up even to the point of bloodshed. 

The third is the sense of FOCUS. The first reading presents it with the image of the MIRE. With those around want us to fail, with the tiredness that catches on, with the target that lies quite away in a distance... there are chances for the athlete to lose heart. The training is to focus on the finish line! The darkness of the dungeon or the Mire that was all around, did not in anyway take away the focus of Jeremiah! He had his eyes focused from where came his help! The second reading has those phrases - "looking to Jesus"(12:2) and "Consider Him(Jesus)"(12:3), underlining the need for us to Focus on Him, who is our beginning and our end, our alpha and the omega, our pioneer and perfecter. 

With a sense of Urgency in our will to live our faith to the full, with the strength to persevere all trials and with our focus always on Christ - let us run this race set before us. We are not alone, we have the example and the help of those who have gone before us - the saints and martyrs. We have our brothers and sisters around us, united in the One Lord, to support us and sustain us. With the example and the help of the Crucified Lord who sits at the right of the throne of God, as the Risen Lord, let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.

PILGRIMS TO PARADISE

4TH AUGUST 2013: 18TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

A wise man lived in a tent in the deserts of Arabia. Numerous people went to meet him everyday either for a blessing or a counsel or merely to see the saintly man! Once entered a man who was totally surprised that there was nothing, absolutely nothing inside the tent – not even a stool for a furniture! And he asked the wise man, “Where are your furnitures?” The wise man looked up and instead of answering that question, retorted, “and where are yours?” “But I am only a traveler, a passer-by” protested the visitor. And without losing his calm the wise man quipped, “So am I; a traveler, a passer-by!”

We are all travelers, passers-by, pilgrims towards our heavenly home, pilgrims to paradise! We do not have a permanent home here, we are looking towards it, says the letter to the Hebrews(13:14). When the Word of God repeatedly reminds us that we are merely “strangers and pilgrims” (Heb 11:13; 1 Pet 2:11), it is not a negative outlook on our life here and now, but a lasting perspective to understand it in the right manner! We are not permanent here on earth, however famous or important we are – and that is an obvious truth, so much forgotten or so much neglected by our ambitious world! We are not in an oblivion, as if to say we do not know our origins nor our future! No! The second reading today tells us, “Brothers and sisters, you are risen with Christ” – We are resurrected people, people of the Risen Lord, who awaits us in the heavenly abode, for us to be with him for eternity! We are on a journey, we are on a pilgrimage! And on this pilgrimage we need a travel kit! The Liturgy today reminds us of three essential components that should find their place in that kit – those components are Wisdom, Knowledge and Discernment!

The first of the components is Wisdom – the capacity to know the difference between the vanities and values in life!  There are those who run after wealth all their life and finally discover that they have infact lost their whole life for nothing! Attachments, Ego, Vain glory, prestige, power and pleasure can mislead our minds and spoil our spirits, leading to a life so empty and erroneous. Persons entrusted to us by God, Love that brightens every morning and illuminates every night, Relationships that give meaning and make us feel wanted- these can help us live our life for others and ultimately for God, who is the very source of that life and the only One who can throw light on its real meaning! Vanities and Values – both shine but it depends on me to differentiate the real brilliance and the fake lustre.

Knowledge is another necessary element to never lose our way on this journey! Knowledge is not merely a collection of information, it is the capacity to choose between the virtues and vices! St. Paul instructs us through his letter to the Colossians today (3:10) that to put on the new person, is to be renewed in the fullness of knowledge after the image of the One who has created us! God is the fullness of knowledge, that is, the fullness of Virtues who shows us how our lives have to be lived! “To make them know the beauty of virtue and the ugliness of vices” was the task given to Don Bosco, the educator of the young, by the Risen Lord and the Blessed Mother. The right knowledge guides us on our path and leads us through right choices.

The third and the most difficult of all is Discernment! To store up right treasure in the right place! The clarity of what is truly the treasure to be sought and the choice of the right place to store them, is the most important truth every religion and faith intends to present. The readings today direct us to this discernment! Living in a world of consumerism and globalization, days of technological advancement and communication revolution, we are today made to think deep with the situations of war, violence, killings, greed, corruption, domination, deception, exploitation and dehumanization all around us. The choice is ours, either to be carried by the current or to swim against the current! If we are carried by the current we are dead and buried in this world of vanity! If we dare to stand against it and swim countercurrent, we are people of the Risen Lord, the followers of the living Lord, real pilgrims to paradise!

WORD 2day

1st August, 2013 - Remembering St. Alphonse of Liguori

'As the Lord commanded' - we find that phrase repeated atleast thrice in today's first reading, leave alone counting the number of times it appears in the whole life of Moses narrated in the book of Exodus. Doing what the Lord wants, was the key preoccupation for Moses and that is what he taught his people...hence he is presented as the greatest law-giver!  He even made it clear to the Lord when he said, "If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here" (Exo 33:15). Being with the Lord and never going away from the Lord's presence was everything for the people of Israel. Good fish and Bad fish...resembling the sheep and the goats (in Mat 25)... Jesus presents the reality of the choice that we have to make in life - a radical choice for or against God that would determine every single decision and even the minutest moves of our life. There can be no compromises in this - it is either being in the net or being cast out of it! 'A scribe instructed in the Kingdom of heaven' is a person who is strong as a scribe in the laws and the commandments, but with a clear perspective of the Kingdom that reinterprets, reinvigorates and rejuvenates all understanding one has of God and of spirituality. To be instructed someone has to instruct! Alphonsus Liguori, whom we remember today, was a saint of the 18th century, who felt a special call to instruct people in faith, to preach the Word to the people...that they may always remain in the presence of the Lord. Remaining in the presence of the Lord forever, is possible because the Lord accompanies us, 'as cloud by day and fire by night' the presence of the Lord goes before us. With that illumining and guiding presence, we can be sure of staying always within the net, because it will become our way of life to live and do, as the Lord commands! 

WORD 2day

30th July, 2013

Let your light Shine - is a constant invitation from the Saviour to all those who profess their faith in him. What do we do for the light to shine - ofcourse we have to do things right, just and loving! But more fundamental than that - before we do anything, we need to BE. Like Moses, we need to be in the presence of the Lord, in the Tent of Meeting - then our light will shine, as the face of Moses shone so much that the people of Israel were afraid of gazing at it (2 Cor 3:7). The Gospel today, gives us the same invitation, in and through the explanation of the parable of the weeds explained to us by Jesus. "The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father" says the Gospel, underlining the circumstances in which we will shine to the world! Infact, many of us are in search of this Tent of Meeting(Exo 33:7)... in places of pilgrimage, in events of miraculous nature, in our practices of strenuous personal piety and so on! All these are appreciable efforts and readings today give us two possibilities of spotting this tent - One the Inner Sanctuary of personal integrity, that Jesus speaks of in the parable of the weeds. The Lord has blessed us with goodness within us, it depends on our use of personal freedom to retain that goodness or contaminate it with baser tendencies. The second is the Mobile Tents of the Others, where God encounters us at every moment of our day. Living as Moses did for the others and in total dedication to their well being, is an unfailing means to encounter the Lord. Let our hearts be tuned to the Tent of Meeting that we may encounter the Lord today!

PRAYER IS RELATIONSHIP

28th July, 2013 - 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Prayer... A Christian Prayer... An authentic Christian Prayer... A Christ-like prayer is fundamentally one's Relationship with God. Out of the numerous attributes to God that were proper to the historical experience of the people of Israel, which was his own experience - Jesus picked that of 'Father'. That was the most scandalous of all, for the Jews. When Jesus called God, Abba, Father (Mk 14:36) as we see in Gospels, he was demonstrating an intimate relationship that existed, not only between him and the One who sent him, but also between everyone who believes in him and God...as John says, to all who believed in him, he gave the right to become the children of God (Jn 1:12). Radically for Jesus, faith was a process of acknowledging a God who reveals Godself as a father, a mother, one who created us, one who cares for us! Consequently, Prayer for him was a relationship that one shares with God; a relationship that is built on a personal sharing - on DIALOGUE.

Prayer is a Dialogue... a dialogue where there is a sharing of minds and oneness of heart. Abraham, today is presented in the reading as dialoguing with God... he does not only speak his mind but listens to God and gets to know God's mind. A beautiful picture of a person in conversation with God - trying to raise his preoccupations, with the limited knowledge that he has, but with the concern he has for the life of the others. And an amazing depiction of God who knows very well that there will not be even 10 righteous people as Abraham claims, but listens patiently to his pleas, allows him to talk and permits him to share his concerns. At times when we begin to furnish a list to God and ask that to be granted on order; or when we make programmes and suggest God to follow; or when we find problems with God's designs and suggest improvements - we need to remind ourselves of this dimension of prayer - prayer as a dialogue! It consists not only in speaking but also in listening, waiting for and accepting God's will. Prayer is a dialogue, a dialogue that is initiated by the overwhelming RECOGNITION OF GOD'S GOODNESS.

The overwhelming recognition of God's goodness and majesty is what initiates the process of dialogue! The Psalm beautifully presents the human heart opening itself up to God, in praise and thanksgiving! A true Christian prayer begins there! St. Paul formulates this so well in his letter instructing, "do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God" (Phil 4:6). When we recognise the loving presence, the helping hand, the protecting wings, the sheltering solace of God on a daily basis, we cannot help singing the praise of God inspite of the endless needs and preoccupations we can possibly have in life! That recognition of God's goodness and majesty and our readiness to acknowledge and submit to it, bestows on us the greatest of all gifts, the TOTAL ACCEPTANCE BY GOD. 

Prayer is the relationship that is born out of the realisation that God accepts me totally, unconditionally, inspite of all my iniquities. The second reading today affirms that God has forgiven me, buried all my sins and nailed them to the Cross on which my saviour Jesus died for me! And with the same Jesus, God has raised me to the status of God's child, in my baptism! God loves me so much that God accepts me with all my limitations, with all my childishness, with all my idiosyncrasies. Comparing this relationship to friendship in the parable that Jesus narrates today, he subtly communicates a point that we can be sometimes foolish, simplistic and thoughtless in the things that we ask from God or in the way we ask for them. Still, we need not hesitate, we can go right on and do it, because God accepts us as we are. It is that affirmation that gives us the right to stand in the presence of the Lord and be ourselves, as Abraham dared to be! 

Let us treasure this great relationship we have with God, yearn to be in God's presence and live in God's presence as authentically as possible, as innocent and dependent as children, as grateful and obedient as sons and daughters, as rightful and loving as Jesus himself was towards God, whom he revealed to us our Our Father and Mother! 

WORD 2day

27th July, 2013

You cannot surprise the Master; you can never surprise God! With all the goodwill, as the people of Israel said a loud 'yes' to the ordinances of the covenant and made that solemn ceremony of swearing by the sacrificial blood which God instituted as the blood of the covenant, we too make promises galore. When everything seems to be going well,  we find ourselves unwittingly giving into something we would rather not. We can call it infidelity to God, breakaway from God, sin, or merely a mistake! But when we do find ourselves in such situation, lies the challenge that Jesus wants to address today! I have heard people explaining the reason for not approaching the sacrament of Eucharist or reconciliation for years, saying that they feel they are not worthy, that they feel they are too weak or that they keep falling into sin again and again, that they don't want to disrespect the sacraments. Here lies the trap of the enemy! A subtle but dangerous trap...the trap of self pity which leads to sad succumbing into one's shortfalls. Who is not unworthy? Who is not weak? And who does not have limitations! It is while we are still in sin, that God loves us, affirms St.Paul (Rom 5:8). It is while the weeds are still present the Lord permits the crop to grow, in the parable that Jesus narrates today. You cannot surprise or shock God; God knows everything, absolutely everything(Ps 139). God is patient and kind; with all our impurities, limitations and infidelities, God still loves us and waits for us to grow in our hearts, strong good crops that would outdo the weeds. Everyday is an opportunity to suppress a weed and allow a good crop to grow in our hearts and become more and more worthy of the gratuitous gift of love that we receive from God. Let every day be a sacrifice of praise that we offer to the Lord!

WORD 2day

24th July, 2013

Those who have ears, let them hear; those who have eyes, let them see; those who have a heart, let them feel... how pained Jesus would have been to say this! The people saw him cure the sick, give sight to the blind, make the deaf hear and the mute speak, drive the demons out and raise people from the dead! Inspite of all these the people were not ready to believe him! He was wondering what kind of a heart they had... rocks, or thorny bushes or sandy sidewalks... how he wished they were good fertile soil. However Jesus knew what kind of people he was dealing with - the children of the people who saw the plagues one after another in Egypt, but still readily murmured when they saw the Egyptians pursue them; the people who saw the Egyptians perish right in front of their eyes, but still readily murmured when they had nothing to eat; the people who saw the manna fall from nowhere and the quails that fell right into their mouths, but still readily murmured that they would die for want of water; the people who saw water gush forth from a rock in the middle of the desert, but still readily murmured that manna was tasteless and the quails were stale! Hard and stubborn as they were, nothing pierced their hearts to make it bear fruit as God wanted from them... the warning to us is clear! How prone we are to murmur against God in times of trouble, forgetting the abundance of graces we have received! The capacity to see God's presence in our daily life will decide, whether we are sandy sidewalks or rocky ruins or thorny bushes or as God wants, fertile soil!