The splendid gift of seeing

WORD 2day: Thursday, 8th week in Ordinary time

May 27, 2021: Sirach 42: 15-26; Mk 10: 46-52

To truly see the nature and observe all that it points to, to truly see the creation and the creatures and all the marvels they possess, to truly see the process of change and rejuvenation inbuilt in the nature and drink in their splendour, to truly see all that happens around and sense the lessons that they offer... it is a splendid gift! Not all do possess it.

The pandemic we are suffering and the waves it is making...is it something that happened just over night? No it has been something that has taken its time to get itself formed and fortify itself and cause this havoc to the entire humanity! If only all of us had been attentive to indications from nature, if only all had been concerned about well being of all and entire humanity, if only even now everyone is worried only about the common good...it could have been averted or it could be better handled. It is the case with many so-called natural disorders too...if only we see things in time and truly understand what is being communicated to us!

Today, we can without exaggeration join Bartimaeus and ask the Lord that we may see, see truly, observe clearly, listen intently, understand deeply and find the splendour of God's presence with us and within us. Without God's grace we cannot see God's presence and receive God's directions for our daily life. 

To see a teary eye and read the helplessness in it; to see the troubled spirit and hear the cry for understanding; to see the disturbed minds and understand the yearning for true love, it is an essential and lovely gift that we can ask God for. At times we speak, we write and we forward lofty ideals, but we are so concentrated on ourself and our own concerns that we fail to see the need, the feeling, the yearning of the one beside us. 

How we need to ask today from God the splendid gift of truly seeing!

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!

What everyone longs for...

WORD 2day: Thursday, 16th week in Ordinary time

July 23, 2020: Jeremiah 2: 1-3, 7-8, 12-13; Matthew 13: 10-17

There is one thing that everyone longs for ultimately in life and beyond... peace and serenity! Every time God calls us to Godself, we are promised comfort, peace, tranquility, peace and well being. These are the lofty gifts that the Lord has in store for us. These we receive not by looking but seeing, not by hearing but listening, not by desiring for riches and luxuries but for the presence of God. When we abandon God, we find ourselves abandoned; not because God has abandoned but because we have abandoned God and moved away from God.

Look at the double mistake that the Lord points out through Jeremiah: one, forgetting the source fountain and secondly creating little cisterns thinking that you will store water for ever, but even those cisterns are leaking and so weak! What a powerful imagery to understand the kind of priority crisis we have in the world today! Yes we are constantly abandoning God, to our own detriment. 

There are subtle ways of abandoning God - hearing but not understanding, looking but not perceiving, seeing but not taking to heart the presence and the majesty of God. We are after "useless idols" as Jeremiah says in the first reading. What everyone longs for, what the whole world is yearning for, is right near us for our taking. But we are too busy making our living, establishing our names and defining our own glories. 

All that we need to do is open our eyes and see, open our ears and listen, open our hearts and perceive: we have so easily available what everyone longs for, right at our doorstep - the peace and joy that the Lord alone can give!

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. 

HOLY WEEK 2016 - The Maundy Thursday

THE TASK: SERVE

24th March

Maundy Thursday - the very name reminds of the mandate we have from the Lord and Master, a mandate that is so compelling because it was not given merely in words, but in and through a life that was lived! All the three events we remember today have the same message in different forms!

THE LORD'S SUPPER:

The First event is the Lord's Supper...not so much what they and how they did it, but what transpired in the mean time becomes the first mandate to us. It is the same with our families and communities too...not so much what we have at table and the variety of the spread that really matters, but what transpires around it. How many of us enjoy our table-time, in contrast to merely respecting time-table! The former concerns persons and the latter, programme. 

Jesus uses the encounter at the table, not merely here but with Zacchaeus, with the Simon the Pharisee, with the disciples to Emmaus and so on, for a spiritual encounter, an encounter that would transform the life of the other. How many of our table encounters have ended up as spiritual enrichments? Here again he uses this table-time to bring a strong lesson to the disciples: LOVE IS SERVICE!

THE EUCHARIST:

The second event is Jesus giving us his body and blood... an anticipation of what is about to happen on Calvary. Jesus anticipates the blessing of the sanctifying act, the salvific self-giving in inviting his disciples to eat his body and drink his blood. What gruesome agony he underwent on those following days - all for the love that the Father has for us; all for the love that Christ wanted to manifest to us. Jesus infact exemplifies the mandate that he gave just a while back. The lesson is so clear: LOVE IS SELF-GIVING!

THE PRIESTHOOD:

The third event is the institution of the Priesthood... as the ministry of making present this mandate given and exemplified. Priesthood is a gift to the Church, a gift that makes present the mercy of God to God's people. It is a ministry that perpetuates the self emptying of God. The Son of man who came to serve and to be served, continues to minister to his beloved flock. Priesthood becomes thus a standing reminder to serve and offers a splendid lesson: LOVE IS LIVING FOR THE OTHER. 

THE MUDGUARD AND THE GENERATION X

It was still a drowsy morning, the day had not yet unclasped itself from the rain clouds of the previous night. I was on a mission to get things set for a programme to be held later that day. Riding a two wheeler, towards a destination roughly 10 kms away, after a couple of kilometers my peaceful ride was shaken with a jolt. A young lad whiffed past me in one of the latest model motor bikes. The noise and the speed that shook me were nothing when compared to what came next. He went over a puddle of muddy water created by the rain the previous night... before I could realise he had changed my plain shirt into dotted designer wear. There was mud all over me, in dots and florals and stars on my mild green kurtha. For a second I was furious with that biker but the very next moment my mind took off on another tangent! 

That bike had such a small mudguard that it would prevent the splash only for the rider himself. I wondered whether that mudguard reflected the mindset of the present generation. The older bikes have a mudguard big enough to prevent the dust or the mud being sprayed or splashed on the rest of the vehicles on the road, while the new generation bikes have such fancy small mudguards that serve only the rider himself. Does it in any way hint at the self centered and insensitive lifestyle of a generation that cares only about its own fun and thrill and nothing about what the others think or feel? 

I have never before thought about the connection between the mudguard and the generation X. Have you? 

The Call to Serve...

Ordinations to Diaconate : 18th March, 2014

Today I had the grace of being part of the ceremony of the ordination of 9 deacons, held at Don Bosco Shrine, Ayanavaram, Chennai. It was a reminder of my call to serve, as the 9 of them were ordained deacons by Rt. Rev. Dr. Sounderraju Periyanayagan DD SDB, in a eucharistic celebration concelebrated by over 80 priests and laity of a packed church. Not to be served but to serve, said the theme that ran through the liturgy which was ably animated by the staff of Don Bosco, Kavarapettai and the hosting parish. My prayer was just this - that these words do not become just a fad or a cliche, but that I begin really to mean them. The self emptying of the Trinity, the example of the saints beginning with our Blessed Mother and the demands of the Salesian Constitution - these are the points of focus that posed a challenge to me, to renew my commitment to the Lord and the call that i have received, not to be served but to serve!

WORD 2day: 15th January, 2014

To do good - is that really enough?

Preaching, healing, casting the demons out - Jesus went around doing good! But he was personally conscious that doing good was not good enough! When the disciples scout to find him and the people try to possess him for themselves, he insists that he needs to move on. Doing good was good; but more important for him was doing what God wanted of him. We get lost sometimes in the frenzy of doing good to as many as possible... not really bothering whether we are doing really what God wants of us! Obedience to Eli and service in the temple was something good... but God was calling Samuel for something higher: to listen to the Lord and speak the Lord's word to the people! When doing good alone becomes our concern, a lot of problematic elements like the fame-game, the ego-trips and rat-races find their way easily in. If we are convinced of doing what God wants of us, we will surely find serenity even amidst the worst of situations. But for that, we need to learn to say: 'Speak Lord, for your servant is listening!'

The Saints and the Stained Glasses...

I haven't forgotten one beautiful anecdote I heard as a young fellow (not that I am old yet! the point is, quite a number of years back). The story is about little John who visited the grand cathedral of the city for the first time with his mother. As any 6 year old would, John kept asking mom questions after questions about any and everything that he saw on the way. When he entered the Cathedral, he was wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the spread of lights on the floor... the colourful shades intermingling with each other creating a psychedelic effect on anyone, needless to mention on John who was looking at it for the first time. He was wonder struck with sight and it took a few seconds for John to take his eyes off and look at the source of those lights... there were the big, Gothic, stained glass windows that adorned the walls of the Church, the series of stained glass windows each depicting a saint. John's curiosity could not contain itself anymore, he resumed his questioning spree. "Mom!", he cried in his wonder pointing to the stained glasses on the wall,"what are those?" Mom in her usual patient manner, as if she brought him there for specifically that question, said "they are saints, dear Johny." Surprisingly John kept quiet thereafter as if he was totally satisfied and continued looking with marvel at every bit of those colourful depictions.
The following Sunday, the catechism was on Saints!!! And the nun who spoke to the kids asked a question - who are saints? There wasn't any instant response, neither did the nun expect that from the 6 and 7 year olds. But she was pleasantly surprised by a hand that went up, not very late. It was John. And he said, "I know who saints are! They are those who let the colourful light pass through them!"

Ever since I heard that story, I have been stuck to that definition of Saints: Saints are those who let the Light pass through them! When we allow the LIGHT, the Lord to pass through us, we will automatically shine to the world. Let our light shine... and let us allow the LIGHT to pass through us! Let us be saints!!!

Saints - Being Saints...

All Saints day... reflecting on being saints...

Saints come in different shapes, forms and sizes... there are those who had been so from the beginning and there are those that turned so at the fag end of their life; there are those that formed others into saints and thus became one themselves while there are those that became saints so much due to someone else who had been after them all the time; there are those that renounced everything in life to become so and there are those who lived a busy life of a householder but through it grew to be what they were; there are those that isolated themselves in a desert or on mountains (or even on pillars) and there are those that dwelt in the din of humanity; there are those that lived upto a ripe old stage in life and there are those that died mature already at a stage so young. The message is simple: you don't need a situation that can make you a saint - you become one by recognising who you are!

EMPTINESS - where God Encounters!

27th October, 2013 - 30th Sunday in the Ordinary Time

You cannot fill a cup that is full ...

God is not partial, God knows no favourites says the first reading but all the while speaking of a God who takes his stand by the poor, the widow and the orphans, the oppressed and the lowly. There is no paradox here, neither is there a partiality. It is natural that water flows where it is low. Isn't it true that we can fill only that which is empty! 

Today we are reminded of the Spirituality of Emptiness! Emptiness, is not merely an absence of things. Emptiness is not merely a state of something not being there. If it were so, it is so easy to reach that state - all that you need to do is remove what is there! Instead, emptiness is a positive reality. Emptiness is where God encounters us!

Emptiness can be due to a lack! The first reading speaks to us of the oppressed, the widows and the orphans...persons who lacked, who lacked their rights, who lacked some on to lean on, who lacked people who cared. God encounters us in that state...that is a condition! A condition in which one knows that one lacks, when one knows that he or she is not complete. In our inabilities, in our lacks when we turn to God, and accept God as the one who can fill me... God fills me! 

Emptiness can be a lifestyle! One can have, one can possess, but still can decide to live in a state of emptiness, not giving into attachments and bonds that can cripple one's existence. God encounters him or her there, in that emptiness. That is not a condition, but a choice! St. Paul, speaks in the second reading of how he had emptied himself for the sake of the Word, for the sake of the Lord, for the sake of the Lord's people. It is a lifestyle ... a mindset...the mindset of Christ... For he did not consider equality with God as something to be held on to,...but emptied himself (Phil 2: 5-7) - the lifestyle of Christ, the Son of God! Emptying yourself is a choice to allow God to fill you!

Emptiness is liminality! Liminality is a word that is used to mean, 'to stand at the threshold', a state of passage, a state where one is changed from what one was, but has not yet become what one is yet to become! One is not complete yet, but he or she is well on the way to being complete. We can be reminded of the words that St. John writes, 'We are children of God, what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, because we will see him as he is' (1 Jn 3:2). When we empty ourselves, we are moving towards being complete. When we are too conscious of being so complete and perfect, we actually are closing ourselves in and we become dead. The more we empty ourselves, the more God fills us!

O God, who alone is complete...
behold my emptiness, and make me ever conscious of it,
that I may be filled, filled by you,
to become complete, just as you are...
... so ready to empty myself for the others, 
that I may be once again be filled by you, who alone is complete!

WORD 2day

15th October, 2013 : Remembering St. Teresa of Avila

The theme of yesterday continues today... there isn't any need for an extraordinary exercise to realise the presence of God. "Be Still and know that I am God", suggests Psalm 46 (v.10). One common word that we can find in the first reading and the Gospel today is, "fool" (Rom 1:22 ; Lk 11:40). It would indeed be foolish, if we do not really manage to experience the presence of God after all that we have been blessed with in life. Sometimes we can be led into that foolishness by our daily concerns, overwhelming troubles, endless temptations, nagging situations, seemingly insuperable burdens that tend to bog us. The readings, as well as the Mystic whom we celebrate today - St. Teresa of Avila, invite us to look within us and observe the greatness that is treasured within us, and from there we can shine forth to the world: through a thorough soul searching and a realisation of the indwelling Spirit within us! For we may be unworthy clay jars, but exactly in these has the Lord placed the priceless treasures (2 Cor 4:7)!

Goodness of Persons - the sign of undeserved love of God!!!

16.07.2013: Citta' di Marostica and Monte Asiago...

This evening was eventful...there were two couples (all of them 65+) who invited me (infact forced me) to join them on a visit to another couple who had a house in the near by mountain!!! I joined them...and we started around 4 in the evening, and I returned to the room at 11.30... after an evening indeed eventful!

MAROSTICA

Citta' di Marostica...or City of Marostica, is a city of world renown - though it is a small little town. If you google "Marostica" you will see for yourself the tradition that is attached to this small fortified city from the 10th Century. The popularity of the city today is the Chess that is played with live characters on the board, every other year to mark a historical event that is more than 500 years old. In the then brave city known for its rustic valour, there were two young men who loved the same belle. And when it came to settling for one of them, as their instincts went they decided to fight in the public square, with the obvious result that the one who dies loses the hand of the coveted beauty. When the father of the girl, saw how bloody it was getting, he suggested to them another method... instead of slaying each other, that they play a game of chess and show their bravery through their combat skills, with the agreement that the one who wins the game, wins the hand of his daughter. Thus began a tradition, that is commemorated once in two years, in the very same public square where the first chess was played. I stood this evening on that very square in the citta' di scacchi, or the city of chess! I compared in my mind the various traditions we have back in our culture, lifting the millstone in the public square, taming the fighting bull, hitting the prized pot blindfolded..and many others. 

From the public square we took a walk around the little town and came to the part where there are two churches from one from the 15th century and the other from the 17th century...the one from the 17th century, where we entered first was a Church built in the patronage of St. Antony... you would wonder if it is St. Antony of Padova or St. Antony of Egypt, the Abbot. You would have the same doubt even if you entered the Church because both the Saint Antonys are represented with their statues their. Your doubt will be clarified only when you exit the Church and read the plaque that is place beside the entrance...which reads, St. Antony, the Abbot...the third century saint, whose feast day is celebrated on 17th January (Vanatthu Anthoniyar as he is known in our place!!!).

Standing outside the Church, there was a dilemma - whether to proceed or to visit also the second Church that was their. Though the others said otherwise, I felt we should go and pay a visit to that Church too, though it looked much smaller and less inviting from outside. When we reached there, and prayed for a while and came out, those who accompanied me, thanked me profusely - for it was a Church dedicated to Blessed Mother of Carmel!!! (Today - 16th July...was the feast proper of Our Blessed Mother of Mt. Carmel) and to visit the Church of the Lady of the Scapular...was a special blessing! One of them rightly pointed out, "Our Blessed Mother herself brought us here today"

MONTE ASIAGO

Monte Asiago, where the couple awaited us, is another historical landmark on the map of world history. The two World Wars were fought on this mount...Italy, supported by England, America, Hungary and Austria; versus Germany, supported by its allies. It was ground zero of the battle and it is said on this mount alone 24,000 Italian soldiers have died for the country along with three to five thousand of the ally soldiers. Just a question of 200 meters from the house to which we went, there were two cemeteries... for the soldiers who died in the war. Not just that the whole area is surrounded by symbols and memories of the wars, which have not left the minds of the people here. Infact the couple whose house we reached told us, that just that morning as they dug a small part of their land infront of their house to make a vegetable garden their pickaxe brought out from the land a bomb-shell still not detonated...when they panicked about it, an expert who had come from the museum, told them that it is already dead, due to the water and mud that have entered it. The bomb-shell was carried away to the museum! however they had something else to show us, another equally prized recovery, a star that might have adorned the shoulder strap of a General or someone of his ranks those days...and they showed us also what they have found there over the years...bullet shells, bullets, balls used in the olden day canons etc.

As we had our dinner together, the 3 couples and I, they asked me to bless the meal and in my silence, I turned my grateful heart to the Lord. These three couples, not related, but just friends...had a fellowship among them that was so admirable. What prompted them to invite me to be part of that fellowship today? Who am I to be part of them? Being of the waning generation, they were more at home with the dialect than italian; unless very conscious about my presence, they were spontaneously conversing in the dialect, which i understood little. However, I enjoyed being with them and listening to them; I pitied them for having had to every now and then switch from their dialect to italian so that i may understand what they said. 

My ultimate feeling was this: besides the great historical things and the picturesque mountains that i came across, i felt i was blessed to be around persons with such goodness in their hearts. People who had no, absolutely no need to have taken me along and made sure i had a good evening, but were going out of their way to make me feel loved, accepted and cared for. It was a true sign of the love of God showered on me, however little I deserved it in reality.

The Scourge of the #hashtags and the Urge to be counted

In these days of ‘netmospheric supremacy’…where everything seems to be dominated by social network, with posts and comments, likes and shares, tweets and retweets, updates and whatsapps, there is a new phenomenon that is catching up! Communication, faster communication, instant communication…and now it is notable communication that matters! What am I rumbling about?

It is about #using #hashtags #everywhere in the #updates one wants to #add to his or her own #post or #wall or on #socialnetworking sites!

What are we looking at… a communication that is becoming more an end in itself! Communication is to communicate and not for its own sake! More than communicating what one wants to, the fact that one has communicated becomes more to be recognised, and something that cannot be left unnoticed. Going on a Facebook page or a twitter or other popular social networking sites, one notices today the invasion of the hash tags, right into the subject matter, which were once just used as merely tag keys at the end of a subject or the content. The scourge of this sign does not leave you even when what is being reported is a sensitive or a heart churning issue! Media reporting proves sans ethics when it seeks to increase its readership or TRP rating or likes or hits…even on an issue like a natural disaster or inhumanity against someone! And individuals follow suit, justifying and reifying the craze into a legitimate need to get noticed or get counted!

In a short time now, this will be already an accepted phenomenon…and I just want to record my annoyance before anyone finds it “too late”. Am I acting under an urge to be counted too?

August is rushing past!

I turn around and take note! its already past two months since I blogged!

June,
then July
and now August is rushing past.

What challenging virtues perseverance and consistency are! not just is what we do,but even in what we are.

In spite of all the various things that crop up - like my hectic July and the August which began with a mishap leading to a fracture in the hand - perseverance demands and pays!

If I am serious about my personality, i think I got to go well past the mere level of knowledge. Knowing myself renders itself irrelevant if it does not help me transcend myself.

Let me resolve to be consistent, constant and persevering!

Meet you soon!