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! 

WORD 2day

19th October, 2013

Jesus speaks of sin against the Holy Spirit in the Gospel today (Lk 12:10; also look up Mt 12:31-32). This is one of the most frequently asked questions among the youth at discussions. Moral theologians and Scripture Scholars have tried to make sense of it and one familiar interpretation given is this- the sin against the Holy Spirit, considered 'unforgivable' by Jesus, is the sin of presumption! Theologically, presumption is a vice against the virtue of hope; in simple words it is giving up hope! When one gives up hope, he or she crosses the human limits to decide that God is incapable of acting on his or her behalf and at that point the person loses any kind of needed disposition to receive anything from God, including forgiveness! It is not that God does not want to forgive, but the person has removed himself or herself from the possibility of receiving it. The first reading says of Abraham, that "hoping against hope, he believed"(Rom 4:18)...and thus he received all that blessings that he did! Our faith should be founded on Hope, and that is the fundamental attitude of a person of the Spirit.

WORD 2day

18th October, 2013 - Remembering the Evangelist St. Luke

Luke alone is with me...writes Paul. One salient feature that is often pointed out about St.Luke's gospel is the contrasting images that he uses in his narration...the beatitudes and the woes, Martha and Mary, the prodigal and his brother, the rich man and Lazarus, the good thief and the bad thief... these are typical to Luke! The message is obvious: he challenges his readers with absolute choices - for or against the Lord; with or away from the Lord! A value that he seems to have lived in his own life - he chose to remain with Paul in his difficult ministry! The radical choices that a disciple had to make according to Jesus in the Gospel today, were very clear for Luke and he made those choices his own! The memory of St.Luke invites us to make an absolute choice for God: on a daily basis, at work and at home, on the streets or in a public transport; in company or alone - we are what we choose to be! Let us fearlessly choose to belong to the Lord, always!

WORD 2day

17th October, 2013: Remembering St. Ignatius of Antioch

One is justified by faith apart from the works of law - this was, is and will ever be a point of contention. In the Old Testament times it was a contention between the 'conservative' and the 'progressive' rabbinic schools; in Jesus' times between him and the Jewish religious heads; in the times of the early Christians it was a contention between those who followed the Pauline theology and those who believed the theology of James; today it continues between the Catholics and the non Catholics! Needless to say our point of reference is Jesus: 'Don't put your trust in your capacity to achieve things and to gain control or dominance', warns Jesus, 'become like children!' That is primacy of faith! He also declared, 'when you did this to one of these little ones, you did it to me!' That is the necessity of works! What Jesus taught against was, empty ritualism, legalistic spirituality and hypocritical religiosity! St. Ignatius of Antioch, whom we celebrate today says that in very simple words, "it is not that I want merely to be called a Christian, but to actually be one. Yes, if I prove to be one, then I can have the name."

WORD 2day

16th October, 2013: Remembering St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

'For God shows no partiality' - that verse from the first reading is evidenced in the Gospel today. Jesus minces no words, nor spares no one! All that matters to Jesus is Justice and Mercy... and he pulls up every one be it Pharisees or Scribes, as Paul pulls up be it Jews or Greeks, following his Master! Justice and Mercy - purest forms of expression of God's love - is what we are called to set our minds on today! Celebrating the memory of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, we are reminded of the profound revelation of the incredible love of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus! Though God's love is a beautiful feeling of being drenched gratuitously, it challenges us - not just to reciprocate but - to act with justice and mercy towards our fellow beings, as a concrete expression of that love received and cherished! Being just, merciful and loving is the only way we can fit the description of being 'children of God'.

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)!

WORD 2day

14th October, 2013

'Asking for signs' - most of our prayers, consciously or unconsciously, are asking for signs; they are directly or indirectly asking for miracles. Is it that bad, or 'wicked' as Jesus calls it today, to ask for a miracle? Personally, I believe it is not! But what is bad and what gets on the nerves of Jesus today is the stubbornness or the blindness that does not allow one to see the miracles, the signs that are present right in front of our eyes. Those who questioned Jesus were only to look keenly into what was happening right in front of them, to understand that Jesus was the Word, the Goodnews of God prepared through the ages. This is what St. Paul tries to communicate in the first reading today. However the people demand a sign, a miracle. Today, if we yearn for signs and miracles, we would do better to remind ourselves of the famous saying (of Stuart Chase): 'For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible.' 

The great attitude of GRATITUDE

13th October, 2013: 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Spiritual life is made of a set of attitudes that make up who we are! The touchstone of an authentically spiritual person lies in the virtue that the Word of God speaks to us of today: the great attitude of Gratitude... gratitude for every goodness that one experiences, gratitude to the Source of all that one has and one is - God! "What do you have that you did not receive?" asks St. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 4:7).

Gratitude is born of a Humble Recognition of God! Namaan was asked to dip in river Jordan and he felt offended because his pride ruled his will. But when he listens to that word from the Man of God, humbling himself for that moment, he recognised the presence of the Mighty God. It is only when I am humble, I recognise God and that recognition of God makes me more humble! 

Gratitude is expressed in Grateful Submission to God! An authentic outcome of immense gratitude is total submission to God for the marvels that God has done to us. We see the man in the Gospel, just one out of the ten of them - "he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks" (v.16). What happened to the rest? Either they did not realise they were healed or they did not realise that the healing was a gift! This Samaritan heart realised the gratuitous miracle and recognised the hand of God - and the result was, a grateful submission at the feet of Jesus.

Gratitude leads to a Faithful Perseverance in God's ways! "Rise and go your way, your faith has made you well" (v.19) says Jesus, commissioning him to be an apostle to the World. That is the commission we receive every time we experience the grace of God in our personal lives - to go into the world and share the word of God, 'that the word of God may not be fettered' (cf. 2 Tim 2:9). It is the gratitude for the goodness that we have experienced in the Lord that makes us persevere, amidst all troubles and trials we might face. Our perseverance is not so much because we are faithful to the Lord, as because the Lord is faithful to us, reminds St. Paul in the second reading (2 Tim 2:13). 

A grateful heart is a humble heart and a humble person will ever be a faithful person and faithfulness gives one the courage and strength to persevere. Learning to look at our daily life and recognise the miracles that happen in abundance; putting up with daily crosses with the image of the Crucified Saviour in our hearts; placing ourselves each day at the feet of Jesus to be sent into the world as messengers of his loving Word - that is growing into Spiritual Persons. Let us heed the call of the Word today, to increase our sense of gratitude and grow into authentic spiritual persons! 

WORD 2day

12th October, 2013

"To hear the word of God and keep it" , invites the Liturgy. Today, as the Holy Father calls the whole Church across the globe to join in praying through our Blessed Mother, with the miraculous statue of Our Lady of Fatima reaching Rome and the Holy Father getting ready to consecrate the whole world to her maternal care (on Sunday, 13th), it can be looked at by some as undue and exaggerated. 'Henceforth all generations will call me blessed', sang Mary when she heard the Word of God and said 'yes' to it. And Jesus reiterated it, that Mary was 'Blessed' not merely for having borne him physically and nursed him, but more for having heard the Word of God and unconditionally submitted herself to it. Thus Jesus opened the invitation to all - it is possible for anyone, just like Mary, to become 'Blessed'. All that you need to do is: hear the word of God and keep it.

WORD 2day

11th October, 2013

The Day of the Lord - in the history of the people of God - has had quite a few interpretations. The most common of those during the Old Testament times, was what we find in the first reading today - a day of doom, a day of destruction, a day of final judgement! Jesus, spoke of not just the day of the Lord, but the days of the Lord, the coming of the Reign of God! The sense of judgement persisted, but the fear of destruction or doom gave way to the need to take a stand, the urgency to make a choice - for God or against God! The day or the moment that we make a choice for God becomes for us the day of the Lord! When that choice for God becomes persistent and absolute, that is the Reign of God. Am I ready to choose God, and choose God alone? Am I prepared to stand up for God? If yes, I become a son or a daughter of the Reign.