THE WORD AND THE SAINT

Remembering St. John Mary Vianney
4th Aug, 2015
Num 12: 1-13; Mt14:22-36

The readings present to us two incidents,  one the shock Aaron and Miriam had and the other Peter's shock as he feared he was sinking. Miriam and Aaron found it challenging to accept the leadership of Moses as they did not approve of some of his choices. They failed to see it was God who had chosen Moses and looked at him as an undeserving rival to their popularity. While Peter who was called by Jesus to step on to the water failed to see that he was called by the Lord himself and began to gear his inability.

We have a saint today who did not give into that error at any point in his life. When he was about to be sent out of the seminary for his dullness of intellect,  or when he was rather dumped into a 'god forsaken' village add they thought,  when the people did not even bother about the new priest at the Church,  when he had just empty pews to talk to,  he never have up.  He was always mindful of the fact that it was the Lord who had called him and sent him to that village. That faith paid off!  That village experiences a revival.

As we resolve today to take the faith perspective of our life seriously,  let us whisper a prayer for every priest whom we know, specially for those who are in some kind of crisis. May Vianney interceed for a revival.

WORD 2day : 3rd August, 2015

God who feeds

Monday,  18th week in Ordinary Time
Num 11:4-15; Mt 14: 13-21

It sounds a bit funny, but very true to say: God gives and forgives; we get and forget. God keeps providing; we keep hoarding,  God keeps intervening and we keep complaining. God takes pity on us while we take advantage of God. God gives us God's love and we love the things that God gives.  Moses feels it today and Jesus would feel it soon too. But that would not stop them. Because they are persons of God.  Faith and hope renders love truly enduring.  On God's part, God is ever faithful; what we need to do is recognise that goodness and acknowledge the many things that God keeps feeding us with.

Make a Difference

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time: 2nd August, 2015

If you are a Christian...
Feel the Difference, 
Live the Difference, 
Make a Difference!
that is what the readings invite us to! 

Stop Complaining...start feeling the presence of God says the first reading today!
Stop Running after useless things...prioritise God in your life says the Gospel!
Stop following the crowd...make the crowd turn to follow you, as a Christian, says St. Paul.

We need to feel the presence of the Lord who makes a difference for us! We need to start living that difference in our life, on a daily basis, by showing to the world that our value systems are different, that our priorities are different and that our foundation is different. We will then surely make a difference, wherever we are! 

The Difference is God! Make God felt, in and through all that you are!

WORD 2day : 1st August, 2015

A Righteous Celebration

Saturday,  17th week in Ordinary Time
Leviticus 25:1,8-17; Mt 14: 1-12

Inspite of all the talk about recession and tough times,  celebrations do not seem to have reduced or stopped. Especially in the religious realm, celebrations find their importance and significance intact. At times they are exaggerated too to the extent of being detested.

Today the Word presents to us two modes of celebration: one, an exploitative celebration that is irresponsible, insensitive and a mere show of arrogance; the other,  a righteous celebration. Let none of you wrong the neighbour but fear the Lord your God,  instructs the first reading of today, which is all about jubilee among the people of God.

A celebration that is godly should not be at the cost of the other, but for the sake of the love for the other. Celebrations should reaffirm the meaning and joy of living. That is why everyday eucharist is a celebration, a reminder of the life that we are called to live in the Lord, in communion with our brothers and sisters. !

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

31st July 2015: Remembering St. Ignatius of Loyola

Lev 23:1,4-11,15-16,27,34-37; Mt 13:54-58

Moses, Ignatius and Jesus

We are reading these days at the Eucharist about Moses and the interventions that God made through Moses, the great prophet of God. Today we celebrate another prophet, Ignatius who has some characteristics that he shares with Moses.

Moses was a timely intervention that God had prepared for the sake of God's people. Ignatius was a timely intervention too; he comes in at the disturbed times of Reformation and initiates a Counter Reformation that revolutionises the whole Church and calls her to renewal.

Moses had a history of killing a person; but that was an outcome of the fundamental feeling for the oppressed people that was hidden in his heart and God makes use of that to raise him up as a prophet who would stand by God's people. Ignatius was a soldier, who had ambitions of rising in power and position; but God makes use of that warrior's spirit to raise a soldier of God, who would combat the wiles of the evil one and defend the Church, the people of God.

Moses gives rise to a new community of people, the hebrews who were bound by the Ten Commandments, the sign of their covenant with the Lord. Ignatius gave rise to a new company called the Company of Jesus, later called the Society of Jesus, who bound themselves to total obedience to the Holy Father and resolved to stand by the Church and defend the Church at all cost. 

Today Jesus extends to us the same call, the call to be prophets. He warns us, it is not an easy call. It involves struggles which one cannot imagine. It involves rejection, insults and sometimes even persecution as we see it all the time around us. Jesus does not want to deceive us into some dreamland, he calls us today to live a life of commitment and conviction and warns us of all the consequences of such a choice. Are we ready?

WORD 2day : 30th July 2015

Set Apart

17th week in Ordinary Time
Exodus 40:16-21,34-38; Mt 13: 47-53

Moses did exactly as the Lord had directed him. The first reading begins thus.  And that is what set Moses apart! Joshua would soon be following suit.  We are constantly being judged. ..not by God nor by the world but by our very actions and our choices. We are set apart as people of God but that is no guarantee that we will remain so forever. Just as we were set apart we could be set aside too, again depending on our choices and our readiness  to do as God directs! The Lord is present among us,  as pointed out by the tabernacle that Moses made. It is a clear message sent to the people and to us: God dwells amidst us;  God is with us. God shares our lives. We are set apart to do exactly as God directs. If we fail we would be consequentially set aside! Wish to be in the net? Or to be cast away?

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

29th July, 2015: Remembering St.  Martha

1 John 4: 7-16; John 11:19-27

Woman called Martha,  she had a sister called Mary and a brother called Lazarus...these are the details given to us by the Gospels taken together.  

Three elements highlighted by the Word in her life:

1. She invited Jesus... there was a woman who invited Jesus to her home, reads the episode at Bethany. Inviting Jesus into our homes,  is a Bethany theme we can reflect on today.

2. She loved Jesus, she loved her sister and her brother. Martha was a person of love. Her hospitality to Jesus,  her missing of Lazarus and her relationship with her sister Mary. ..these are imitable signs of God's love made tangible in her life.

3. She believed in Christ. She did not take Jesus for granted. Her familiarity with Jesus did not make her forget the fact of who he was. She held Jesus always high and believed in him.

St. Alphonsa of Immaculate Conception

28th July, 2015: Remembering First Woman saint of India

St. Alphonsa's life has any number of elements that one can highlight as a model of belonging totally to God...and that is why she has been raised to the Altars, from amidst us. She was almost a contemporary to us; she lived from 1910 to 1946. Within the short span of these 36 years she has set an example so brilliant.

Three things that stand out for me in the life of this Saint:

1. Her determination to belong to God:

She would say from the age of 7, when she received the Lord for the first time in her heart, she belonged to Jesus and took him as her Divine Spouse. The seeds of her vocation had already begun to sprout in that tender age. That is why when she was 13 when they tried to get her married, she tried all her best to turn that proposal down, even to the extent of injuring herself thinking that would stop the probable suitors. They tried to trick her into marriage even after she entered the convent, when she was a postulant, with the knowledge and cooperation of her formator, but nothing could succeed before her determination to totally belong to the Lord.

2. Her total acceptance of life from the Lord:

She knew she was to accept the life that the Lord gives her, come what may. Be it suffering or pain or insults or disease, she never complained. Already when she was 3 months old she lost her mother and she grew under the care of her aunt who was rather strict and unduly demanding. She never complained all her life about it but considered it a formation in humility, patience and endurance. She underwent great sufferings right from her 20 years, but with her perpetual profession came an extra dose of suffering. From her perpetual profession she says it seemed that she was given a part of the Cross of Christ! 

3. She suffered with joy:
She always wished that she could learn to suffer with joy and the more she suffered the more she thought that her divine spouse was fulfilling her wish, forming her to suffer with joy. A day that she had no suffering, she thought, was a day lost in her life. For her suffering was her way of being united with her beloved soulmate, Christ her Lord. From her childhood she had come across sufferings, one after the other, more and more, but nothing could stop her from loving the Lord more and more intimately. 

The following were her words, as she started her postulancy when she was 18...
I do not wish to act or speak according to my inclinations. Every time I fail, I will do penance... I want to be careful never to reject anyone. I will only speak sweet words to others. I want to control my eyes with rigour. I will ask pardon of the Lord for every little failure and I will atone for it through penance. No matter what my sufferings may be, I will never complain and if I have to undergo any humiliation, I will seek refuge in the Sacred Heart of Jesus

These were not mere sentiments, they were convictions, they were her very way of life!

Let us pray to this sister of ours:

Oh Blessed Alphonsa, you have been graciously chosen from our midst to be united with Jesus Christ, our Saviour, in the misery of his passion, death and resurrection. You have grown to the heights of holiness and have been crowned with heavenly glory.

Help us in our trials and tribulations. Oh, daughter of sufferings, obtain for us the grace to lead a holy life, following your example, in total submission to the will of God. Be with us, transforming all our sorrows into a holy sacrifice in union with Christ Crucified, in reparation to our sins, for the sanctification and salvation of the whole world. Amen.

WORD 2day: 27th July, 2015

Steadfastness in times of trials

Monday,  17th week in Ordinary Time
Exodus 32:15-24,30-34; Mt 13: 31-35

For the sake of Moses the Lord spares Israel inspite of their offence. Aaron was not able to withstand the pressure from the people to make for them a god. Moses and Joshua rescue the situation with the steadfastness they possessed.

Now the question is, where do I find myself: one of those who lack the patience to wait on the Lord and decide to create their own gods - gods  of our egos,  of our money,  of our affections and so on?  Or do I find myself in the place of Aaron giving into pressure from the majority. ..and not holding on to what is right and just. Or do I form that steadfast minority,  the small mustard seed,  the tiny portion of the yeast, the minority who remain faithful to the Lord come what may!

Moses and Joshua were capable of a faithfulness that the entire people were unable of. The reason is,  they had seen and experienced and witnessed to how good the Lord was. If we need to stand strong in times of trial we need to build up a strong relationship with the Lord in our regular days and convince ourselves of how good God is. If only we realise the crown that awaits our steadfastness (cf. Jam 2:12)

Hand in hand with God

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time: 26th July, 2015

2 Kgs 4: 42-44; Eph 4: 1-6; Jn 6: 1-15

The times are bad...those are the words that we hear from almost all contexts today. Economic or Cultural or Moral or Political or Religious... every corner human existence seems to echo this judgement invariably. Need, misery, unbalanced growth, neglect of a majority, domination of a few, loss of meaning and a sort of helplessness that fills the minds of every person with good will... that is what the scene looks like today!

What am I going to do? That is the most pertinent question at the moment. Am I going to give in to that sense of helplessness and hopelessness. That cannot be a Christian attitude, says the Word today. I need to work hand in hand with God and things will surely change. I am fond of a movie titled, I am Gabriel, which begins and ends with the same shot - a shot of village name board. In the opening shot the board reads, 'where good things never happen' and the closing shot has the same board and the same reading, with that "never" erased! Where good things happen! Nothing much has changed; just a word removed and the entire sense changed. Even in that village during the movie, nothing much happens but the entire village goes through a revival! How do we revive the earth, and the humanity... by acting hand in hand with God.

GIVE... a heart to give - that is the essential correction needed for the humanity today. We need to have a heart to give, to give with all our heart. That is what God does. God gives, and gives, and gives! When we begin to grow within us a heart to give, truly give not merely of what we do not want, nor of what is excess with us but of ourselves and of what we actually need and of all that we have, that is Giving after the heart of God. God is essentially a Giver! Elijah is ready to Give, Jesus wants to Give, God is every ready to Give! Do I have the heart to Give?

OTHERS...an eye for the others - is the radical perspective that needs to guide the humanity today. People have ceased to think of the other. Whether a daily scene of jostling in the public places like railway stations or bus terminuses or the national politics and policy lobbying...every where humanity has grown cold to the other, thinking only of the self, only of the petty private interest. Even when they think of the common good, they think of what is common to a small circle to where they belong, and not the Greater Common Good...the good of the whole humanity, the good of the wholeworld - Lokasamgraha, Sarvodhaya, vasudhaiva kutumbakam,  Universal brotherhood and Sisterhood, the care for the Common Home...these have become merely wishful thinking!

DO... determined to do - is the fundamental mindset that will redeem the situation today. At times the good willed persons can lose heart seeing the enormity of the opposition. But that will only be a curse on ourselves. The Word today presents to us the determination of the man who brought the barley loaves to Elijah, Philip who brought the boy with the few loaves to Jesus...they knew what they were doing actually is nothing before the task that lay before them, but they were kind of determined about what they were doing. The One Lord who takes care of everything, the One Lord who is aware of everything, the One Lord who just waiting for us to do our part and take our responsible place in this humanity, will see to the needed revival. The Lord will provide the change that is needed for the times, but the times require that we act hand in hand with God. 

In Giving, in being sensitive to the Others, and in being determined to Do..., we act hand in hand with God, infact we initiate the very thing that God wants to do.