WANT TO SEE JESUS?

Fifth Sunday in Lent: 22nd March, 2015

Jer 31:31-34; Heb 5: 7-9; Jn 12: 20-23

The Word today has an open invitation: Do you really want to see Jesus? 

Wanting to see Jesus is a fitting exercise during the Lent; Jesus answers the question and teaches us an important lesson in knowing God and growing in that knowledge. 

It is possible at times that we say that we cannot know God, imagining God to be far away from us and from our human understanding. Jesus breaks that myth about God and brings God close to us, as close as God becoming human and living amidst us. In Jesus, God establishes what Jeremiah exclaims: that everyone will know God. Each and every one of us can know God and know God personally and intimately. Jesus makes the whole journey so easy and instead of challenging us to rise up to his level, he comes down to our status and assures us that we can have a relationship that is so concrete and real, with God.

Jesus promises us another favour: that He will draw us to Himself! I am reminded of an anecdote that I have heard when I was a boy, about that little girl who got lost on a trek into the forest.  It started to grow dark and the little girl was frightened, she hid herself behind a bush and remained there a bit scared. The father began to go in search his little one, worried and anxious. At a point, he reached the bush where the girl was hiding and as he peeped in to check that bush out,  the girl shouted with a great relief: "Daddy! I found you!" At times we think we are in search of God, or that we find God and understand God. The fact is the other way around. God is in search of us constantly. It is God who draws us to Godself. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father (Jn 6:44) Jesus had declared and he assures us today that he will himself draw us to where he is (Jn 12:32). He wants us to be where he is; Jesus wants us to share his world, his priorities, his mission and his vision of God. 

Jesus wants us to be like him, who learnt obedience from what he suffered. Lent is a time when we dwell on Jesus' suffering, not to emotionally sympathise with the suffering servant, but to understand the meaning of obedience in life, to prepare ourselves to be like Jesus, always open to the will of God and ready to surrender ourselves into God's hands. The more we surrender into the hands of God, the more serene we can become even at the face of all the trials that our life holds out to us! The less we surrender, the more anxious we become! This is why, the Lord suggests to us that we learn of him who is meek and humble of heart and thus find rest to our souls (cf. Mt 11:29). 

Let the rest of the season of lent be an exercise of this spiritual discipline to surrender ourselves into the all powerful hand of God and find rest to our worried, anxious and restless souls. And the right point to start is where we find those gentlemen from Greece, enquiring: 'Sir, we would like to see Jesus'!

THE WORD IN LENT -32

Half baked opinions and fully blocked minds

Fourth week in Lent: Saturday, 21st Mar, 2015

Jer 11: 18-20; Jn 7: 40-53

Forming opinions on persons or events without actually knowing the whole truth is a judgement, and of course would be a wrong one at that. Incomplete knowledge is dangerous, and not being aware of its incompleteness is doubly dangerous. Today we see this phenomenon at work every where: the clashes between religious fanatics, the terrifying threats of some fundamentalists, inter denominational hatred and divisions, interpersonal issues in the families...everywhere this phenomenon is at work: half baked opinions and fully blocked minds, that do not allow genuine dialogue and lead only to the slaughter of the minority by the senseless majority, or stifling of the weak by the ruthless strong!

The Word presents to us the same picture today, with Jesus taking the place of the minority, the weak, the vulnerable, the affected, the sacrificed lamb. It can be that everyday we could be sacrificing someone at the altars of our ego and our judgments...and in their persons we could be slaughtering the sacrificial Lamb over and over again. It takes courage to realise and accept the harm my half baked opinions and fully blocked mind can do, to me and to others!

THE WORD IN LENT -31

Doing away with persons

Fourth week in Lent: Friday,  20th Mar, 2015

Wis 2: 1a, 12-22; Jn 7: 1-2, 10, 25-30

People need no special reason to reject or condemn some one... it is enough that he or she is different from them. The passage from the book of Wisdom,  though written hundreds of years before Christ, seems to fit in exactly to his life, as if it were a direct prophecy about Christ's life and its end. Just take another look, it seems to fit into many others' lives too... D.K. Ravi IAS, who was found dead just 4 days back, Srinivas, Satyendra Dubey, Manjunath and so many others who have given their lives for having been what they were, in our own nation. Others who are fighting to be what they are, like Sagayam IAS and others... the passage seems to fit in! 

Yes, it will fit in to the life of anyone who wishes to live the purpose of one's life to the full. Like Jesus, we are called to be persons who live our life to the full, and be reminders to everyone to live their's. Jesus knows that he will be soon laid hands upon, but that would not stop him from being what he were, or doing what he did! It is so important that we understand our real identity with such clarity, to be as strong and determined as Jesus was. May the Lord fill us with that understanding!

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

He did as the Lord commanded him

Feast of St. Joseph: 19th March, 2015

2 Sam 7: 4-5a, 12-14a, 16; Rom 4:13, 16-18, 22; Mt 1:16, 18-21, 24a.

St. Joseph  is presented in the Gospels often as a modern icon of the ancient fathers -Abraham, Jacob, David and others! The readings today bring out the same theme, as they dwell on the ancestry and the promises fulfilled. Apart from various other similarities that we can find, one striking similarity between the Fathers and St. Joseph, is that of their readiness to do what the Lord commands. 

Joseph seems to have had no objections whatsoever to carrying out the projects handed on to him by God- a perfect attitude of faith, the attitude of total surrender and absolute trust. The Holy Family was in safe hands because he did not allow his ego to dominate but allowed the Lord to be the center of his household.

May St. Joseph teach us these three things for our daily living: - Listening to God and living by it; - Letting God have His way in whatever it may; - Loving those entrusted to us by the Divine Providence, with a love that is committed and selfless.

THE WORD IN LENT -29

To each proper to their need

Fourth week in Lent: Wednesday, 18th Mar, 2015

Isa 49: 8-15; Jn 5: 17-30

Does God love all in the same manner? Ofcourse, God is never partial but what would love mean if it is the same with everyone, everywhere! God's love is specific says the Word today. God's love comes to respond to the need of each one proper to the void he or she experiences in life. A mother's expression of love to a hungry child is feeding it; her reaching out to a frightened child is to caress it reassuringly!  God's love is such, declares the Word today: even if that mother were to forsake, God would never forsake us! it takes special effort to respond to each one proper to their need, at times the needs of each persons vary, at times even clash one against the other! God alone knows the trick of reconciling them and making the right thing happen at the right time. After all, is it not true that, all things work together for good to them that love God, to those who are called according to God's purpose (cf Rom 8:28)? 

THE WORD IN LENT -28

Flowing in to enliven!

Fourth week in Lent: Tuesday, 17th Mar, 2015
Ezek 47:1-3,9-12; Lk 5: 1-3a,5-6

We have a wonderful imagery today to ponder over: the flowing water that enlivens! Ezekiel speaks of it and Luke presents it; Ezekiel underlines the presence of the flowing water by the Temple while Luke points out the very presence of Christ as the life giving spring! For that man who had been waiting for years to get into that life giving water, the fact that Jesus approached him was like the waters came to him, instead of he going to the waters. The Lord reaches out to us, flows into us to enliven us and Jesus invites us to become the waters that enliven people around us, that we reach out to others and flow into their lives, enlivening them!

FIGHT GLOBALISATION OF INDIFFERENCE

LENTEN MESSAGE OF POPE FRANCIS - LENT 2015

Here is a power point presentation of Pope Francis' Message for Lent 2015
Prepared this to present for a reflection..
thought i could share it with those who would like to use.

God bless Pope Francis for the wonderful inspiration he keeps offering the world..
Lets join hands and FIGHT GLOBALISATION OF INDIFFERENCE

click the link below for the power point show

Presenting Pope's Message

THE WORD IN LENT -27

From sadness to gladness

Fourth week in Lent: Monday,  16th Mar, 2015
Is 65:17-21; Jn 4: 43-54

From sadness to gladness is the journey the Lord invites us to. It is surprising that many a persons find it a journey either unnecessary or unrealistic. They feel they can remain with sadness and that they are destined to remain with such sadnesses. Interestingly half of the journey consists in deciding to turn and walk,  as did the royal official in the Gospel account today. How long are we going to stand staring at problems and confusions and misgivings and misunderstandings in life?  The Lord says,  just believe and turn and walk towards the peace and serenity that I offer. Are we ready to set off with faith and hope,  on that journey: from sadness to gladness!

Undeservedly Deep!!!

4th Sunday of Lent: 15th March, 2015

2 Chr 36: 14-16, 19-23; Eph 2: 4-10; Jn 3: 14-21

For God so loved the world that God gave God's only Son, that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life (Jn 3:16)... the Word presents in this verse, the crux of the mystery of God's love! St. Paul would elaborate on this when he says, "God who did not spare God's own son, will not withhold anything from us!" (Cf. Rom 8:32). God's love for us has been so undeservedly deep! Have we ever been so worthy as to say, we deserved all the love that God holds out to us?

Undeservedly Deep Love of God, to us is a gift, a grace and a gamble!

A Gift, because I have not worked for it, I have not merited it, I have not earned it! It is given to me! It is poured into my heart. At times when we love, we expect that love in return; we are disappointed and discouraged when we do not get it in return atleast to some measure. But look at God: in the first reading we have the situation where it is said, people added infidelity to infidelity, but still God raises up a situation where people feel the amazing love of God, walking back to their freedom.

A Grace, because it is totally unexpected, illogical and beyond all rational calculations. As St. Paul expresses in the second reading, 'even when we were dead,  God raised us up to be with God's son, in eternal life...by grace we have been saved' (cf. Eph 2:5). I am reminded of an experience I had in the earliest year of my formation to priesthood, my novitiate days. During one of the morning meditations, I looked out of the window and saw a big tree cut down and the mighty bark lying dry and dead. Those were a bit trying days for me and I said to myself, I am lying around like that bark, so lifeless! Merely a fortnight later, through the same window and during a similar meditation hour, I looked out and the same bark caught my eye. What a surprise, in the dry bark from nowhere, a couple of tender leaves had sprouted! After all, I said, the Lord is able to raise a life from the lifeless! Elsewhere St. Paul would say, 'while we were still weak, Christ died for us' (cf Rom 5:6). It is totally an unexpected doing of the Lord, that I am loved! That love is indeed a grace!

A Gamble, because it is totally unconditional. God loved me not expecting that I will repay that love, not even knowing if I would choose to remain worthy of such deep love. The light is here, and it is upto us to choose the light. The salvation is near and it is upto me to subscribe to it for myself. God dares take a gamble on me, God invests all the love that God has for me, knowing well the risk involved: that I may totally turn against God. In his Lenten message Pope Francis had offered a beautiful metaphor. "In Incarnation, the gate between God and human person is opened... but the world tends to withdraw into itself and shut that door through which God comes into the world and the world comes to him." But God's love will never be surprised even if it is rejected,  crushed and wounded. So deep is that love,  so undeservedly deep! 

How God would wish we measure up to that depth in our own lives,  accepting this love in all is immensity and sharing it with our brothers and sisters in all its intensity. 

THE WORD IN LENT -25

Better than all sacrifices!

Third week in Lent: Saturday, 14th, Mar 2015
Hos 6: 1-6; Lk 18: 9-14

Sacrifices, after all,  are for the sake of humbling ourselves in front of the Lord that we may grow closer and closer to the Lord. If the same sacrifice puffs up my ego and takes me to a higher plane than my brothers and sisters from where I look down on them,  then that sacrifice not only fails to serve its purpose but takes me away from the Lord.

The Lord invites us to understand that our wish and effort to remain faithful to the Lord who has called us,  is much better than all sacrifices. Remaining faithful to that call would mean, becoming more and more like God. ... loving, compassionate and humble in our spirit!