Uniting in the Lord

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 5th week in Easter time

May 5, 2021: Acts 15: 1-6; John 15: 1-8

The responsorial psalm invites one to go to Jerusalem with rejoicing! And we see two people going there in today's first reading: Paul and Barnabas, however, not with rejoicing but they go with a crisis. A noble fact is that they are insistent that they wouldn't burden the people unnecessarily. The forward thinking, right priorities and empathy for the believers are a few of the salient qualities that stand out in this passage. Apart from the crisis and the solution that they sought, the clear cut lesson is to understand the method of facing and resolving a crisis in 'Christ'ian terms. 

Banners and posters, anonymous letters and abusive posts, indecent demonstrations and political insinuations... none of these were used when the crisis arose; much less, stopping masses half way through, walking out of liturgical assemblies and other un-Christ-ian ways of showing protest. It is not to point a finger at someone and accuse them of impropriety. It is simply to draw attention to how the first Christian community handled crisis!

They simply got together. They united in the Lord, to find out what the Lord willed for them as one family of God. We cannot bear fruit apart from the Lord; we cannot bear much of them without uniting as one heart and one mind in the Lord! That readiness to unite gave a moral authority to the Early Christian Community and made them true and attractive witnesses (cf. Acts 2:47). They believed in what they heard from Jesus: away from me, you cannot bear fruit. But today...some have ideologies and personalities, which and who seem greater than Christ; much more truthful than the Truth himself; much more light giving than the Light himself; much more life-giving that the Life himself....what a sad situation! It explains why the Church is no more as attractive as it was in the initial days of the First  Christians!

Come a crisis or a situation of doubt, what do we tend to do? Spread opinions, malign the other and gather a support team for ourselves? Or, get together as persons of God, unite in the Lord and find out what the Lord wants from us, as ONE people of God? 

What importance do I attach to uniting in the Lord?

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!

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!

True Christian Love

WORD 2day: Saturday, 32nd week in Ordinary times

November 14, 2020: 3 John 5-8; Luke 18: 1-8

Taking care of strangers, widows and the orphans was a special commission given to the people by God. And that was an experiential learning on the part of the people who were themselves strangers, orphans and sojourners, in a foreign land. It is an experience that cannot be explained in terms but only experienced...and those who experience it, can never forget it!

However, the term stranger or foreigner was, and is,  indicative of every one in need, people in insecure circumstances and people who have nothing to hold on to, wherever they are. Today we have every category you can ever think of within this definition of the people in need. The exploited, the immigrants, the refugees, the unemployed and the homeless!

They already have a grave situation in their lives, that of poverty, insecurity, homelessness, unemployment, lack of prospects and so on. Added to this, if they are exploited further - that is, their little taken away from them, constantly threatened with evacuation, needlessly suspected for all miscues, blamed for all social lapses... we can imagine how doubly unfortunate, orphaned and oppressed they could sense. 

There is yet another, more treacherous, attitude in the world today, against which the present Holy Father, Pope Francis has time and again warned the people of God - the attitude of indifference. Passing them by as if they did not exist! Not caring what happens to them, not bothering who is rendered homeless or who is left to die without food or who is condemned to suffer with no employment or who is crushed under the burden of debt... all that matters is the so-called development that parades affluence and divinises comfort and pleasure!

We cannot conform to these standards! We cannot even remain neutral in these circumstances... that is not possible, for a true disciple of Christ. We have a responsibility towards this part of suffering and neglected humanity. Pope Francis leads us in this true Christian love!

O LORD! I SEEK!

Seeking today and seeking with hope!

September 20, 2020: 25th Sunday in Ordinary time

Isaiah 55: 6-9; Philippians 1: 20c-24, 27a; Matthew 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. But 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 on our part we need to seek, not because the Lord hides, but we hide from the Lord. Adam and Eve, hid themselves and the Lord had to seek; Abel was eliminated and the Lord had to seek; that is the kind of God we have - the one who seeks! On our part are we open to the Lord? With this opening question, let us listen to what the Word has to tell us this Sunday. 

Seek the Lord, says the Word today. We are called to seek the Lord, seek the Lord above all else! Lord awaits to shine forth on us, however it is the need of ours to seek. St. Paul tells us in the second reading today, it becomes even a longing to end this existence on earth so that one could 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.

This seeking is not about merely searching, it is longing, it is yearning, it is getting in love it the face of the Lord, never leaving the presence of the Lord, wishing to have the Lord with us all the while in our daily life, never leaving the side of the Lord come what may... it is there that the problems crop up. We get too busy to seek the Lord, too occupied with other things to think of the Lord, too attached to so many things, persons and ideas to give the Lord the highest of priorities in life, too flimsy in our seeking of the Lord that any simple distraction on the way can take us away, like the insects picked by a flying bird! Are we seeking the Lord's face?

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 by Isaiah, when he 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!

The today we just heard is the most demanding part of the exercise! Yes we are ready to seek the Lord's face, but at a later phase in life, definitely not today! There could be three reasons in our minds to justify this: first, that there are more important things to do and it is a waste of time seeking the face of the Lord when there are things that I have to get going with; second, that it looks so outdated to do that, to speak of things that pertain to God and spiritual life and stuffs like that (as the youth lingo goes); third, that it is anyway a futile exercise because finally it is we who have to live our daily life here and now! Look at these reasons! Where is God in my priority list? What matters to me - pleasing the world around or really listening to the inner voice within me? Do I even imagine that I can do all things by myself? It is high time, TODAY, to just stop and ask myself: how long am I going to just stand and loiter around in my life...is it not time to get to work at the Lord's vineyard?

Seek the Lord with Hope, says the parable that Jesus presents. Don't worry even if you have 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 presence of the Lord in order that you need to wonder whether the Lord will accept you back. If at all you found a gap between the Lord and you, it was you who withdrew from the Lord and not the other way. Because 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 love with which the landowner gives the same wages to the first and the last, to those who slogged and those who just stepped in...that is very intriguing and apparently unjust in our logic. But that is what the Love's logic is all about - it does not calculate, it does not weigh the deserving and the non-deserving, it does not wait for an opportune moment to do good. This Love is the hope that Jesus gives us: at no point of time does God reject you! Let us repeat that as often as possible: at no point of time would God reject me! Anytime is good time to return to the Lord and enter his vineyard! Seek the Lord with Hope and you will definitely find the Lord seeking you out in the crowd, in the din and dark that you have created around yourself! 

The Lord is with me, the Lord lives with me, moves with me and sustains me! But it is up to 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! Seek, Seek today, Seek with hope, and the Lord will find you!

Never lose the Focus

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 23rd week in Ordinary time

September 9, 2020: 1 Corinthians 7: 25-31: Luke 6: 20-26

The early christian community in fact expected that they would see Jesus around, in his second coming already in their time... they were preparing for it intensely. The moment they began to realise it was getting delayed, they began to grow lax in their life of virtues! They thought, after all, it may take a lot of time... just as the waiting for the Messiah the first time took so long. 

It is in this context that Paul writes to them...about celibacy, purity and single minded dedication to the Lord. His call, in simple terms was: never lose focus, for everything will come to pass in no time! The 'long' time that you think of is very relative! But that does not in anyway exempt you from your personal life time, life choices and life tasks!

The second coming may be at an appointed time which the Lord alone knows and we wait for it, with patience and focus. But, if we believe that the second coming is a moment of judgement, that moment is here and now... for our choices every moment determine the judgement that is going to be! Every time I choose something or avoid something, I am bringing upon me a judgement by myself. That is what Jesus tells us in the Gospel: I make myself blessed or unfortunate! I need to be informed, alert and categorical about my choices - they determine what I will be judged to be. 

The crux is that I never lose the focus, even as I am involved in hectic activity! Never lose the Focus!

To have the Mind of Christ

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 22nd week in Ordinary time

September 1, 2020: 1 Corinthians 2: 10b-16 ; Luke 4: 31-37.

They believed firmly that no human being can ever deserve the love of God. All that one can do is live in fear of the wrath of God and live a righteous life in order to avoid punishment. Jesus turns those tables upside down and makes it clear that one need not deserve to be loved... God loves us not because we deserve; but because God loves! God loves us and that is all that matters. 

In his own self Jesus demonstrated how God is close to every human person and how compassionately in love God is, with God's own children. It is not about begging God for love, but it is about claiming that love with authority that comes from the very fact that we are sons and daughters of that loving God. God does not want us to beg for God's love, but to live a life that would enable us to feel that love which is always and gratuitously given in abundance. 

At times it can happen that we may take this concept for an advantage. "Claiming with the right of the children"... we have to remember obviously that it first requires that we live as true sons or daughters, knowing our duties and our obligations, our priorities and pertaining choices! We have all the time during the lockdown to sleep, socialise and do our work from home, but when it come to participating in a prayer moment, be it Eucharistic Celebration or a Rosary service or something similar, we find it difficult, inconvenient and highly impossible! Being children is not merely a right, it has an intrinsic duty attached - to give priority to God and matters pertaining to God. 

In short, it is being in touch with the Spirit of the Lord, who lives with us and within us and makes us realize that we are the sons and daughters of the Lord almighty. The Spirit instructs us that to know and enjoy our privileges as children of God, to understand the value of being God's sons and daughters: in straight terms, to have the mind of Christ!

Conviction of our Real Image

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

August 14, 2020: Remembering St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe 
Ezekiel 16: 1-15, 60, 63; John 15: 12-16

The Word today brings out the Merciful face of God at its best. The Lord resents that the people of Israel have abandoned the covenant that they had entered into with the Lord. When the Lord contemplates even a penalty, he contemplates it in terms of goodness! Being good to them and being good to all those who will respect the commandment, this is what the Lord contemplates. 

We may see that the people of Israel lose that privilege as  'chosen race' but every race becomes special provided they choose the Lord. It is, therefore the most important element that there is - it is again back to that key element of any spiritual maturity: Choice!  The Lord is always good...and we can taste that goodness if we choose to! We can become chosen race, if we choose God to be our priority!

The saint we remember today, Maximilian Kolbe, made a drastic choice, a radical and absolute choice, a choice of life and death, the choice for both the white crown of sanctity and the red crown of martyrdom - for the sake of what he was convinced; that there is no greater love than this, that one gives his or her life for another. He did not mind laying his life down for an unknown friend in the concentration camp. Even God's love has been manifested to us, in this same scheme of events. The love out of which God gave God's only Son and the love out of which the Son of God gave himself totally to the children of God, that we may share His heirship. 

We are called to image that same love, for we are made of exactly the same substance. Those who are totally convinced of it, turn into saints. Those who are moderately convinced of it, keep struggling, keeping that fight on, day in and day out. Those who are not convinced of it, make not only their life miserable, even the existence of entire humanity miserable and painful. How convinced are we of our real image: God, who is Love! 

Sowing and Growing

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

August 10, 2020: Celebrating St. Lawrence, the Deacon-Martyr

2 Corinthians 9: 6-10; John 12: 24-26

Martyr St. Lawrence gives us the occasion to hear yet another time this classical lesson that the Lord wishes to give us: what you sow you reap; what you are you grow to be! It is important here to notice that the crucial element is not what we do or what we become, but what we are! This is what St. Paul calls, becoming a new person in Christ. To be so transformed in Christ and into Christ, that we are seen as Christ, as another Christ, as alter christus!

That is what the early Christians were - in their minds, in their hearts, in their thinking and in their acts... in every way they were like Christ, other Christs, Chist-ians! Hearing that they put all their gold and silver in common as a Church, the Emperor Valerian wanted to get hold of that wealth in the treasury. He, who was killing every bishop, priest and elder in the Christian community, when it came to a humble deacon Lawrence's turn offered to let him live, if he showed where the treasury lay, where all the gold and silver was. When Lawrence asked for three days to gather all the gold and silver in one place, the greedy emperor was thrilled and excited. But three days later when he arrived at that placed indicated - he found all the poor, the sick, the crippled and the miserable gathered together. And Lawrence stood there and said: here is all the gold and silver that the Church possesses, the real treasure of the Church! The emperor was so infuriated that Lawrence was burnt to death that same day!

Listening to the Word, every Martyr gives us this same lesson: to die for Christ's sake. It does not mean only dying in the sense of losing one's life, but dying to oneself, dying to one's ego, dying to one's undue attachments, dying to one's fixed ideas, dying to one's weaknesses and fixations. That is martyrdom too...a martyrdom of a totally different nature, a martyrdom that is required of everyone. A martyrdom that has to be undertaken with a sense of gratitude and cheerfulness, in spite of the inconveniences it can cause.

What have we sown around us? What are we growing into? Let us become aware of our sensibilities and check if we are cheerful givers, who are ready to give up, in order to grow up!

The plight of a true prophet

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

August 1, 2020: Remembering St. Alphonsus Marie Ligouri

Jeremiah 26: 11-16, 24; Matthew 14: 1-12

Constant threat to life, drastic insecurities of life, total unacceptance from the rest of the so called normal people, pressures of helplessness...these form part of the usual plight of a prophet, not just in the days of Jeremiah and John the Baptist but even today. That explains why real prophets are a rare phenomenon. However, it is an undeniable and curious fact that the difference between a true prophet and a self-righteous egoist is very thin and dangerously subtle.

The first element that can demarcate the two is the FOCUS. When Jeremiah spoke to the people and the princes, he never looked for support or people who can come to his defence. His focus was determinantly on what God wanted him to say and nothing else.

The second element is DETACHMENT from the result. Though the message is definitely pointed towards a change, a result,  the prophet is not excessively anxious about it. At times a self righteous person can be on a ego trip claiming credits and proving his point. A true prophet desists this tendency naturally.

The third element is absolute FEARLESSNESS. A fearlessness that makes them hard people to handle for the authorities and the hierarchy. But that fearlessness comes from their unwavering trust, confidence and hope in the never failing presence of the Lord!

Just yesterday we celebrated a prophetic founder, St. Ignatius and today we have another: St. Alphonsus Ligouri, the founder of the Redemptorist Congregation - a great theologian, lyricist (incidentally, those who know the famous Italian carol tu scendi dalle stelle, it was he who penned it), musician, pastor, writer and thinker. He was a true prophet too and he had to pay its price. As a bishop and as a founder-leader he was a demanding prophet. We cannot judge the internal matters of the Congregation he founded, but anyway, the fact was that he was expelled from very congregation he formed and he suffered this trauma in the last years of his life. However, his focus, his detachment and his fearless love for the Lord, kept him going. 

Are we courageous enough to remain focused, and fearlessly attach ourselves to truth and the Truth? That will make us prophets, but are we ready to face the plight? 

The challenge of Orthopraxis

WORD 2day: Monday, 15th week in Ordinary time

July 13, 2020: Isaiah 1: 10-17; Matthew 10: 34 - 11:1

What Hosea has been speaking to us the last week, Isaiah speaks this week...they both underline the importance of Orthopraxis! How do we understand that term? True Christian life does not consist only of worship and of adoration, it consists of truth, justice and charity. In short, it consists of love which is the concrete translation of worship and adoration into action. The action that blends well with love for God and love for one's brothers and sisters balanced with care, is called the Orthopraxis, in simple terms. 

It may sound simple but it is tough in two senses:

Firstly, I may feel out of place when I begin to take this 'orthopraxis' seriously, because the rest of the crowd seems to be busy doing what they believe to be 'normal' or 'ordinary'...and I shall be left alone seen 'out of the ordinary' or in plain terms, 'a stranger'. Even those who are with me, those who surround me at close quarters may not  totally approve of what I live by.

Secondly, it shall certainly be tough because orthopraxis demands that I mean what I pray... that whatever I do on a daily basis does not go against anything what I say in my so called 'prayer'; that what I do by way of 'prayer' may find its continuation in the rest of the things that I do during the day, that there exists no gap between what I pray, what I say and the way I conduct my daily life. 

In fact, my ways show the truth that is hidden in my prayer, and my prayers manifest the hidden truth about my daily priorities in life. Where your heart is there your treasure might be! Not in pleasure or in riches but in the holy will of God needs to be our true joy, in our steadfast life unto the law of the Lord, our unceasing dedication to the true love, that is God. 

Let us see our way to the Lord, laid out so neatly...there may surround thorns and thistles but the way is right... let our prayer and our works orient us onward. Let our prayer transform our daily life and may our daily life inspire our prayer!

The devastation notwithstanding

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

June 27, 2020: Lamentations 2: 2, 10-14, 18-19; Matthew 8: 5-17

Destruction, devastation, desecration, disease and death bed...these are the situations elaborated in the Word today... so akin to the situation we are experiencing in the world - not only due to the virus and the health crisis, but due to inhuman discrimination and intolerant retaliation, due to exploitation of the poor and the manipulation of the weak, due to evil minded greed of the powerful and the insensitive approach of the rest! 

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

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

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

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

In Integrity... He shall walk with you!

THE WORD IN LENT - 5th week, Wednesday

April 1, 2020: Daniel 3: 14-20,91-92,95; John 8: 31-42
Point for Dialogue #28: Private priorities and Public manifestations

'Truth will set you free', declares Jesus today. And if Jesus were to have been asked to define what he meant by Truth, he would have said, 'Truth is what is'... It's no mere philosophy, it is a Spirituality! Remain with that statement a little longer and reflect on it...

Truth is what is, and it never changes. No situation, no circumstance, no crisis will ever change it; if they manage to change it, it had never been the Truth. Compromises, justifications, manipulations, adjustments, conveniences and inconveniences... these considerations at times, drive us away from truth and we experience a sort of split life, split between what we profess and what we practice, between what we believe and how we behave, between what we say and what we are! 

Hence the Word today underlines an essential dialogue that has to take place between the image of myself that I wish to give others and the real me that I nurture within me; a dialogue between my unseen private priorities and my public functional manifestations.

The absence of that split is called Integrity. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, were persons of Integrity and no one doubted them on that. Neither were they ready to give up their identity. And they found God walking beside; it was cool in the furnace. In the midst of the crisis we are living through these days, if only we wish to sense the Lord walking beside us, we need to grow in our personal integrity - giving up on the gap between what we say and what we do, what we believe and how we behave. 

Let us heed the call of the Liturgy today...to heal ourselves of all splits that we may learn to live in integrity of life, an integrity that would set us free. In integrity, the Lord shall walk beside us, all our life. 

LIVING WITH THIRST - A DIALOGUE AT CRISIS

THE WORD IN LENT: 3rd Sunday

The Faith-skills during Crisis...

March 15, 2020: Exodus 17: 3-7; Romans 5: 1-2,5-8; John 4: 5-42

Life is beautiful, no doubt; but it never lacks its share of problems, difficulties, confusions, traps and temptations. These moments, world over, are being lived as moments of crisis, a health crisis, an epidemic crisis. The beauty lies precisely in the manner in which a person lives these moments more than the happier ones. Anyone claiming to be a person of faith, has to manifest a level of maturity that shows him or her capable of living with a constant thirst. The liturgy today invites us to get into a dialogue with our moments and experiences of difficulty; with the moments of crisis. And this dialogue will lead us to reflect on a crucial aspect of our faith life - learning to live with thirst. 

Life has its own patches of dryness and no one's life is an exception to it. The dryness is more severe in some, when compared to the others. What matters is not actually how much more or how much less, but how a person handles one's own share of dryness. Handling aridity in life is a faith-skill. We see the people of Israel in their driest patch of their history - the sojourn in the desert. They are brought forth from slavery across the Red Sea, with great and mighty signs and wonders. But once in the desert, they complain for every little thing lacking patience to the core. They long for the onions and garlic of Egypt, they long for the flesh and meat they once had in plenty, they fret that they are without a drop of water! 

It is easy to laugh at them or judge their impatience, but we will do well before that to think of ourselves and our lives. Issues in the family, the employment issues, the financial crisis, the relationship issues, sickness, misunderstanding...and now the fear and anxiety of the epidemic that threatens... as soon as a problem begins in our lives don't we begin to complain too? The Lord teaches us - to TURN TO THE ROCK, when struggling to handle aridity in life. Dying without water, the people get water from the least expected source... in the dry parched desert and worse still, a dry boulder of a rock in that desert. If we turn to the Lord, our Rock... we will see solutions to our problems, clarity to our confusions, help in our difficulties, from the least expected quarters. Let us turn to the Rock.

The second reading instructs us how to comport ourselves while feeling the thirst. When in the thick of a problem or in the eye of the storm, where do we fix our gaze? On the problem: that will only magnify the problem. On ourselves: that will only make us more and more depressed in self pity. On those who are without problems: that is only a deceptive perspective of the reality. 

Instead the Word invites us to fix our gaze on Christ, on the Lord who, even while we were undeserving sinners, was ready to lay down his life for us. Such is the love of God for us and should we fret when we are in a crisis? We are invited to TURN TO THE SPRING, to the saving grace that loves without measure, the love that has been "poured" into our hearts from that Spring. Christ becomes the spring from where we could receive the grace, which alone can quench our thirst and our longing for peace.

In the Gospel, Jesus speaks of a thirst with which we should all live! It is not the thirst for a material good, not a thirst for a interim peace, nor a thirst for a breath of relief but a thirst for eternal life, a thirst for perennial peace, a thirst for fullness of life - a life-giving thirst. He offers to give us the living water, the spring "gushing up to eternal life" (Jn 4:14). "All who are thirsty, come to me and drink" he declared elsewhere (Jn 7:37). 

We are called to live with that thirst, constantly longing for God. Like that deer that yearns for running streams, like the parched land that longs for rain, our soul should thirst for God, teaches the psalm (42). Let us thirst for God, let us thirst for a deeper and deeper relationship with God. let us thirst for the Spirit, let us thirst for the fruits of the Spirit, let us thirst for a life that is united with God, let us thirst for a life that is filled with God. 

Let nothing disturb us...let nothing separate us from God...hardships or distress or persecution or famine or perils or sword, not even death; let nothing separate us from God. Let these days of lent and the days or crisis that we are facing, help us to TURN TO A LIFE-IN-GOD. 

Where do I draw my priorities and perspectives from?

THE WORD IN LENT - 2nd week, Thursday 

March 12, 2020: Jeremiah 17: 5-10; Luke 16: 19-31

Point for Dialogue #13: External Actions and Internal Motivations

Religious Commitment is not merely about rites, rituals, performances and practices! Christian faith is primarily about priorities. Even in our daily life, what we do first, what we give up for the sake of something or someone, what we choose over another, what we are ready to sacrifice for the sake of a particular reason, what we prefer over something else - all these are concrete indicators to what really matters to a person; his or her priorities!

Having the right priorities is essentially a grace from the Spirit - as it involves extraordinary sense of wisdom and discernment. And whether we have the right priorities is an obvious fact that can be easily gauged from the decisions and choices we make. But whether they are truly our priorities and whether we are truly convinced of it, is a matter of the heart, apart from oneself, God alone knows it - for God pierces the heart and knows our thoughts.

What the Word today leads us to is a sincere dialogue between what we do and why we do, between our external actions and the internal motivations. Because it is in this dialogue can we understand how far we are from ourselves. And the Word insists, what we would be judged for, is our unseen motivation and not our seen activities. Blessed is the one who has not much to cover between these two.

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 draws our attention to trees planted by the course of a river - without even anyone seeing they draw heavily from the river to live their daily life! That is what we could do too, to grow and flourish in grace and giftedness; draw from the Lord, our priorities and perspectives and that would certainly transport us to the bosom of Abraham.

LAW - OUR CHOICE!!!

LAW - to Love and Abide by the Word

February 16, 2020: 6th Sunday in Ordinary time

Ecclesiasticus 15:16-21; 1 Corinthians 2:6-10; Matthew 5: 17-37

Choice is the central theme running through the readings today! And there is another dominant theme that qualifies this choice - that is LAW. Law for the people of Israel was the way ordained by the Lord. Law was for them the guarantee of remaining  people of God; it was their part of executing the covenant that the Lord made with them: I shall be your God and you shall be my people! To speak or act against the law was for them a serious and punishable offence. There is a discussion on two other themes- "maturity" and "wisdom" in the second reading from St.Paul. Combining all these, Jesus in the Gospel presents to us a mature and wise attitude towards LAW. He invites us to Choose LAW... that is to choose to Love and Abide by the Word. 

Faith is a Choice...

Faith is not a blind leap, it is a conscious Choice! As Pope Francis' exhortation, Lumen Fidei n.3 affirms, faith cannot be associated with darkness, instead faith is a light that enlightens one to choose, to choose believe in God, to choose to see God alive in one's life. The first reading presents to us the same perspective today: we have the choice between water and fire, between good and evil, between true joy and fleeting pleasures, between the right and the convenient, between conviction and compromise, between life and death! 

The choice is ours! We cannot ride on the shoulders of tradition and custom, and justify our acts and habits. We have to grow up! Our maturity has to be seen in the wisdom we possess. It is God who gives us this wisdom, as St.Paul reminds us. Jesus embodies that wisdom and presents the same to us in his words: I have come not to abolish the law, but bring it to its fulfillment. 

A Choice beyond the Law...

Jesus declares that his disciples should make a choice, not against the law but, beyond the law! He gives a new meaning to law, and presents the way to go beyond, to transcend a mere slavish legalism and reach the heights of saintly perfection, through love and compassion. The words of Jesus, "You have heard that it was said,...but I say to you", heard repeatedly in the Gospel today presents Jesus as the New Moses, and describes the community of disciples as the New People of God! "See I am making all things new," declares Jesus by this (Rev. 21:5). 

The new law...how do we understand today that new law, the law beyond law... L - to Love, A - to Abide, and W - the Word. To love the Word and Abide by it...is the new law that Jesus gives. The Word presents to us a guarantee to sanctity. To know the Word, to reflect on it and understand it, to love it and strive to abide by it, is the sure way to be real children of God, worthy people of God. Our life does not comprise merely of avoiding evil, it is much more profound and meaningful. It is to live, to love, to relate, to do good, to mature, to be happy, to make others happy and thus together as a community of God's children, to renew the world and fill it with joy.

To Obey the Law...

Jesus teaches the people today not to go against the law but to understand what it really means to obey the law. For Him, to obey the law was not to obey the letter of the law but to obey the Lord of the law! It was so for the people of Israel; they obeyed the law as an act of obedience to YHWH. But when the Lord of the law was with them, and they did not realise it. The Word lived and moved among them, but they did not comprehend it. 

The danger for us too is the same: that we may be, by definition, the best of Christians - missing no Sunday Mass, regular with reading the Bible and reciting the prayers, strict with our fasting and abstinence, visiting as many pilgrim shrines as possible - but let us beware, we may be missing the point. These are good but not good enough - the Word instructs us: Love and Abide by the Word... to love the Word, and to live by it; not being merely hearers of the Word  but doers(Jam 1:22); to say YES to the Word and mean it, to face all the consequences of that Yes and live through it. 

Our YES to the Word has to be our choice, our choice to go beyond the Law and obey the Lord of the law, to live and fill the earth with love and compassion; to challenge the present standards of the world towards a new world, new heaven and new earth!

Misleading Mentalities

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 4th week in Ordinary time

February 5, 2020: 2 Samuel 24:2,8-17; Mk 6: 1-6

I come in the name of the Lord -those were David's words before the philistine giant, when he began his adventure with the Lord. Today we see him counting his strength. He seems to be taking stock of what and how much he could achieve, as if all that he had achieved till then were purely because of his own capabilities! True to his nature, he soon realises his mistake and regrets.

The people who encountered Jesus could not but be amazed... but those who have always seen Jesus growing amidst them refused to be amazed in spite of the great things that happened. They did not believe in their own people, one among them, being so blessed. Truth had to be told by someone who came from elsewhere! They suspected their own capabilities.

Both these are misleading mentalities: the Lord has blessed us with qualities and capabilities that is for the good of all and we need to put them to use... mindful always of the fact that these came from the Lord and it is for the Lord's purposes they have to be used. 

As we, these days, hear about all the threat of Coronavirus all over the world and reflect on the pestilence that David and his people were struck by, what we need to keep in mind and learn is, the irreparable damage we do when we exaggerate our capabilities, without acknowledging the all-powerful Presence that keeps guiding us and instructing us. 

Humanity has to learn today the right balance of being filled with awe and gratitude for what we have received and, at the same time, using it to the full without being bogged down by discouraging and disparaging circumstances that may surround. Let us stay away from the misleading mentalities that we find in the Word today and grow more and more mindful of the Lord who is present amidst us.