THE WORD AND THE SAINT

The gift of giving to the Lord

Celebrating St. Benedict: 11th July, 2016

Pro 2: 1-9; Mt 19: 27-29

Choosing the noble things in life, choosing those that really matter in life, choosing God as priority in life... that is wisdom! Benedict whom we celebrate today, chose God to be everything in life for himself and not merely that, he taught it to the world. He started a whole order of religious minded persons who would choose God above all else!

Everything we have is a gift from God; and we need ask nothing from God, for God gives all that we need! Persons like Benedict, and many such other great persons of God teach us an important lesson: if at all we need to ask something from God, that would be the gift of giving everything to the Lord. Giving to the Lord... is something that we need to learn when we wish to mature in our spiritual life, not being concerned merely of asking and receiving from the Lord. What have I given the Lord today?

LIVE LIFE CHRIST-LIKE

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time: 10th July, 2016

Dt 30: 10-14; Col 1: 15-20; Lk 10: 25-37

The statutory call that all of us Christians have is to live our life Christ-like. And that call is repeated today in the Word, with a step by step guide towards making it a reality. 

LISTEN TO GOD, to God's life giving Words

Moses invites us to listen to the Word of the Lord, the commandments of the Lord, the life-giving principles that the Lord holds out to us. Not that we do not know them, not that they are impossible, not that they are beyond our strength. They are well within our daily decision making; they are totally possible and practically inevitable. If we are serious about living our life Christ-like, we have to begin from there: listening to the Lord, listening to the Word of the Lord. But when we listen to the Lord and the Word of the Lord, many a thing seems so difficult to follow! But we have some one who showed us that they are not impossible: Jesus, the Son of God

LOOK AT GOD made manifest in Jesus our Lord

Jesus' life is one showcase of how the Lord wants us all to live our life. Talking to the young these days about the Christ-like love that we need to practice, there is an inescapable feeling of helplessness at the end of each session, where the youngsters look at me and ask, 'is it really possible?' Every time my reaction is the same: Look at that man on the Cross - If it were possible for him, it should be possible for us. Looking at Christ is looking at God! He is the image of the unseen God as St. Paul says. Looking at Christ is also looking at ourselves! We cannot forget both these dimensions which come so well merged in the person of Jesus. When we look at Jesus and learn from his life, we are faced with the challenge: to imitate Christ, to live our life Christ-like.

LIVE GODLY - that is the challenge

Do not be conformed to the standards of the world, but conform yourselves to Christ, to his life so godly! The parable of the Samaritan we meditate on today is a clarion call that tells us, being like Christ, living like Christ is the only way of living our life to the full. 

I wish to narrate these two stories that always fill my mind when I think of this call to live like Christ, be like Christ. First, is about this blind girl who was walking out of a crowded railway station with a basket on her head filled with oranges. The train was whistling away alerting all of its imminent departure. There was a man who had to board that train and was running with his eyes fixed only on the train and in his hurry he never realised as he elbowed this girl and ran past her. The basket fell and the oranges ran helter skelter. Blind as she was, she was helplessly sitting and groping for the rolling oranges. Every one was busy with their business and she had hardly any empathisers. Suddenly she felt some one sit beside her and pick up every orange that was scattered and collect them all back in the basket. Once done, he bent down to the girl and whispered, 'take care'. The girl held his hand and with tears trickling down asked him: by the way are you Jesus Christ?

The second is about this group of people in a tribal village where an evangelist entered. He asked them, do you all know of a man who lived on earth going about doing good, he loved everyone, he cured the blind and gave sight to them, healed the sick and brought the dead back to life and gave his entire life for others? He was meaning Christ all the while but the villagers said, "yes, we know him. A few years ago he passed by our village and stayed with us for a few months." Then the evangelist understood they meant a Christian Doctor who had made a medical tour of those villages. How beautiful that the people saw Jesus in him!

That is what we are called to: to live our life Christ-like. How we wish that the world may see in us the person of Jesus, that we may be truly CHRIST-IANS.

WORD 2day: 9th July, 2016

Fear of Following

Saturday,  14th week in OrdinaryTime
Is 6: 1-8; Mt 10: 24-33

When the Lord calls,  as God infact does with regard to all of us, we invariably have some objection or the other. It can be of two types.

One could be due to the fear that I am not worthy... but can anyone be really worthy?  So the Lord says we should not be worried about that, as the Lord would do the needful to make good for our want and unworthiness.

The second and more dangerous mind set is one of pride. Looking at the fact of my chosen-ness as something that I can work and qualify towards. Can I?

It is with these at the background that the Lord invites us to steer clear of fear and put our trust in the Lord. The Lord is our rock,  our strength!

WORD 2day: 8th July, 2016

Coming back... but who?

Friday,  14th week in Ordinary Time
Hos 14: 2-10; Mt 10: 16-23

The first reading repeatedly speaks to us an important term: coming back! "Come back," the Lord urges the people. Hosea brings out the tender compassion of the Lord insisting on the relationship we have with the Lord or rather the relationship God has with us.

Though the Lord keeps saying again and again 'come back', finally one who comes back is the Lord himself. Through the prophets and holy men and women, through the only Son and even today in various means, it is the Lord who comes back to us how many ever times we go away from God.

The year of mercy is a reminder of this fact and a challenge to live up to the unconditional love the Lord showers on us.

WORD 2day: 7th July, 2016

Give because you are given

Thursday,  14th week in Ordinary Time
Hos 11: 1-4,8-9; Mt 10: 7-15

We are loved, loved by God, loved extremely and unconditionally. Like a child, without having to pay back we have been loved by God.

If we really experience that love, drink it in deeply, we cannot but give it because our cup overflows. We give because we are filed with it. We give because we are given. We give by our very nature,  that is being godly.

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

Compromises and Christian Focus

Celebrating Maria Goretti - 6th July, 2016
Hos 10: 1-3,7-8,12 ; Mt 10: 1-7

The Word continues from where we left yesterday... the discussion on a commitment devoid of all compromises. There is an added illustration today with Maria Goretti proposed as a model for it. Her's was one life of determined focus on the Lord and the ways of the Lord. There is yet another saint whose shadow passes us by as we discuss this -Dominic Savio whose feast we celebrated precisely two months back - one who decided he would die rather than sin.

The compromises of Israel were way too high but still the Lord stood by them because the Lord is in no way a person who would compromise. The Lord is the Lord of promises! It is on this faithfulness we are called to build our life. 

Maria Goretti was firm in her focus and today that firmness is dubbed as conservatism or dominant moralism. The world stands in need of liberation, true liberation, a liberation that arises from truth and integrity.

WORD 2day: 5th July, 2016

The Right Belief

Tuesday, 14th week in Ordinary Time
Hos 8 :4-7,11-13; Mt 9: 32-37

We widely practice religion but rarely do we truly believe! Practices of piety, fulfilment of the so called ritual requirements, attendance at the Church - these would merely be religion if they do not arise from a belief that is right and real.

Placing our trust on things, relying  entirely on what we perform, thinking in  terms of appeasement and satisfying sacrifices are modes of religion practiced and do not lead to  the right belief.

Our belief is in a person not in a power; it is not about some legalistic fulfilment of requirements but about a loving relationship.

Take a moment during the day  today to evaluate how right your belief is!

WORD 2day: 4th July, 2016

What has betrothal got to do with faith?

Monday, 14th week in Ordinary Time

Hos 2: 16, 17-18, 21-22; Mt 9: 18-26

I will betroth you to myself, says the Lord in the Word today. It set me thinking on the various elements of a relationship of betrothal! And the more intriguing part came by when in the Gospel Jesus speaks to us of an unconditional and unwavering faith! Now the question became more complicated in my mind - what has betrothal got to do with faith!

Betrothal is mostly a traditional, conservative concept of giving a couple-to-be some confident space to move in. It is an organised and formal mode of courtship. It is an enamouring phase of a wedding - where there should be utmost confidence, striving to impress each other and vying with each other to shower love! Faith is all about that - a feeling of having been enamoured by God, that I feel so confident in the Lord, I strive to please the Lord, I accept anything from the Lord and never even for a moment doubt that the Lord is all for me!

Does my faith measure up to such a personal attachment to the Lord?

PEACE - THE GOOD NEWS

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2nd July, 2016

Is 66: 10-14; Gal 6: 14-18; Lk 10: 1-12, 17-20

Happy Feast of St. Thomas. We would not dwell on that wonderful theme of faith that St.. Thomas stands for. But the Word speaks to us of another theme that is very closely connected to St. Thomas, or for that matter to all the apostles. The theme is Good News... the Good News that Jesus sent his apostles to proclaim.

What could be Good News today to the world? These are days of unrest. Unrest at all levels - Global, National, Local - at all levels there is a sense of acute unrest, a feeling of insecurity and anxiety.

At the global level news like the Brexit - the United Kingdom opting to get out of the European Union -one of the most promising gestures of solidarity in the last millennium - is a sign of unrest, a sign of  dissatisfaction, a sign of loss of hope in humanistic solidarity!

At the National level, the various uprisings, the suicide of Rohit, the arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar, are just the tip of the iceberg of unrests that are aggressively active underground.

At the local level, the recent killing of a helpless girl in the broad day light in a place as public as a railway station, the suicide of the girl whose morphed images went viral on facebook, these are another set of events laying bare the unrest that rules the minds of persons in today's society.

Just to add to these instances one opinion that is being considered as newly practical these days: there are people who seem to say, 'it is alright to be selfish'! What a stage we have reached where people not only justify selfishness but propagate it as if it is a virtue, a virtue of the pragmatic school!

What would be the good news for a time that is marked by such unrests: the good news is PEACE. "Peace" is the term that is common to all the parts of the liturgy of the Word today. The Lord promises a peace of comfort to God's people; the psalmist hopes for the peace of the Lord; St. Paul wishes and blesses the people of God with peace; and finally Jesus highlights good news as a sharing of peace!

What kind of a peace is the Word speaking about?

A peace that promises... Comfort but not Compromise

                Though the Lord time and again promised the people of God peace in their borders and the justice in their homes, the Lord does not compromise on anything. The comfort that the Lord promises does not consist of any compromise. What matters to the Lord, matters truly and matters always. When we are clear of what the Lord expects of us, and when we make a conscious choice for it, we are filled with a peace that comforts us, even amidst difficulties and pressures.

A peace that is born out of... Convictions and not Convenience

                The Lord as he sends his messengers ahead of him puts them through a rigorous drill, to learn to put up with inconveniences for the sake of the convictions they would live by. The conviction of a provident God, the conviction of the ever loving God, the conviction of the ever present God... leads to a peace of mind that defeats all consumer crazy claims of the day. Like St. Paul, we would be able to say, I have learnt to live in want and in plenty (cf. Phil 4:12)

A peace that is experienced through... Commitment and never Compulsion

Peace is the good news that the Lord offers, but the bad news is that it is upto me to accept it or not. It is not all that too easy to accept that offer because it involves quite a bit of discipline and sacrifice! But the choice is always mine. Behold I place before you life and death: remember those words that the Lord said in Deuteronomy? It is the Son of that God who speaks to us today and he will never be less demanding.

In summary, the good news that the Lord wants to offer us today is peace...a peace that flows from personal integrity and interpersonal solidarity. 

WORD 2day: 2nd July, 2016

Rebuilding the Ruins

Saturday, 13th week in Ordinary Time

Amos 9: 11-15; Mt 9: 14-17

I have heard many a builder say, it takes double the effort to rebuild something that is already built vis-a-vis building something fresh. It is true. Rebuilding or restoring is a work of an expert. The Lord when he promises to rebuild Jerusalem, restore the Lord's people, proves Godself to be an expert. Not all can manage. It takes completely a different aptitude to build up people. It is easy to find fault, criticise and break people but to build them up, more so to rebuild them from their ruins, it takes God to do it. 

Those who rebuild are Godly, those who rebuild have the touch of the Master's hand, those who rebuild have a quality that is so close to the quality of the Creator. Let us be renewed in the Lord to see the good in others, those traits that will build them up and build the community of faith.Let us beseech the Lord for the gift to build up!