LOVE-LENT 2017 - THE WORD IN LENT #16

Love: To dare to belong

Saturday, Second week in Lent - 18th March, 2017
Mic 7:14-15,18-20; Lk 15: 1-3,11-32

To say the Lord loves me is to trust in the goodness of the Lord. To say I love the Lord is to dare to belong to the Lord. The former is many times easier than the latter. 

In the first reading today, Micah speaks to God with a right of a child who belonged to the Lord, though he acknowledges his own shortcomings. In the parable that Jesus narrates we have the younger son who fell short of perfection but soon realised that he belonged to his father. They both dare to declare to the Lord that they loved the Lord. 

That was very daring of them, which the elder son dared not do. He did not feel that sense of belonging to the father, though he lived all the time with the father. What a lesson to learn, that it  is not to be taken for granted that I dare to belong to the Lord, just because I am most of the time around him. Even if were to stray a bit away from the Lord occasionally, it is important to feel that strong sense of belonging to the Lord, only that will bring me back to him. To love the Lord is to dare to belong to the Lord.  

LOVE-LENT 2017 - THE WORD IN LENT #15

Be Calm, you are Loved!

Friday, Second week in Lent - 17th March, 2017
Gen 37:3-4,12-13,17-28; Mt 21:33-43,45-46

Come let us kill him - this is the common phrase for both the readings today. There are always persons and situations which are against us, no matter where or when. And life itself is full of such varied episodes - there are ups and there are downs, there are moments of exuberance and there are moments of dullness, there are moments of strength and there are moments of trials, there are moments of grace and there are moments of crisis... how we face them depends on the perspective we choose. 

If we choose to believe that we are loved - as did Joseph and as did Jesus - whether we are in situations of want or in situations of plenty, we would live with just one disposition: the disposition that the Word presents to us - Be calm; you are Loved! 

When we know and we are convinced that the Lord loves us all, then we can be calm. And the vice versa is true too - when we learn to be calm and surrender, we would see that the Lord loves us with an immense love and that we are called to recompense that love, pay back in fruits.

When we are not mindful of that fact - we get anxious and make irreparable mistakes. What matters is to be calm and see not only the fact that we are loved but also the fruit we need to bear, that is - our call to love.  

LOVE-LENT 2017 - THE WORD IN LENT #14

Love: a Lord centered life

Thursday, Second week in Lent - 16th March, 2017

Jer 17: 5-10; Lk 16: 19-31

Blessed is the one who puts one's trust in the Lord! The Word today invites us to understand an important fact regarding a life of love. Let us reflect on it in three steps.

One. Achieving a loving way of life cannot be done by a self centered way of life. Me, myself and mine can never allow me to think of the others and of their good. What matters to me would be the absolute for me: my career, my personal wishes and desires, my personal dreams etc.! The one who lives his life just at my doorstep would matter nothing to me for it is never within my perspective.

Two. Not even the other centered life would lead me to true love, because it would make me belittle myself or make myself a slave to the other. My values would be warped and influenced greatly by the goodness or the wiles of the other. I would relativise everything because of the other and I would have no absolute reference point to guide myself. Would that make my life truly loving, guess it won't.

Three. The right way to grow in a truly loving way of life, is to live a Lord-centered life. When I let the Lord have the central place in my life, I would see that everything else falls in place. The Lord is love and a Lord centered life would be love centered life. The Lord shall be the absolute reference point and nothing would be relativised. 

It is a Lord centered life that would help me grow in a loving way of life and curiously the other way around is not so certain. Let us check if we are engaged in a Lord centered life; love would find its place without much difficulty.

LOVE-LENT 2017 - THE WORD IN LENT #13

To love is to suffer; as the Lord suffers

Wednesday, Second week in Lent - 15th March, 2017

Jer 18: 18-20; Mt 20: 17-28

Jeremiah has a very serious cause to present before the Lord - the Lord called him to make him the light of the nations, the prophet to God's people. But Jeremiah finds that he has become not only a laughing stock but even a person who is looked at with apathy. They were plotting against him. Is this becoming the light of the nations and prophet to the people? 

The Lord says, yes it is. To be truly God's servant and to live for God's people is to suffer! Jesus experiences the same. I am reminded of what the mother of St. John Bosco told him, when he finally became a priest after all hardships - she said, 'to begin to celebrate mass is to begin to suffer' -why so? We have the answer in the readings today and in the lives of all God's servants. God is love and God's love is always put to test with the hard heartedness of the people. When God suffers, will not servants of God suffer?

To truly love is to suffer - because it entails looking for nothing in return, having no demands on the one whom we love and continuing to love with the good of the other in mind. This is what Jesus did, while we constantly look for our remunerations, affirmations, recognition and recompense. The challenge is to grow up and love, 'love until it hurts' as Mother Teresa says.

LOVE-LENT 2017 - THE WORD IN LENT #12

To love is to serve; as the Lord serves

Tuesday, Second week in Lent - 14th March, 2017

Is 1:10,16-20; Mt 23:1-12

The anawim of Yahweh is a concept very close to the hearts of the prophets - Isaiah refers to this category of people who draw the special attention of the Lord readily. All over the Old Testament, this fact is seen that God sides with the oppressed, the needy and the suffering. God chose to serve the needs of the poor and the helpless. 

Jesus when he lived among us, was himself as epitome of this choice of God... He moved with the outcast, the lonely, the poor, the oppressed and the so called sinners. He not only served the least and taught us to serve but made serving the little ones the key criterion to inherit the Kingdom of God.

We are challenged today to serve, to serve like God does.... those who are helpless in dire need. In serving them shall we become true sons  and daughters of God! 

LOVE-LENT 2017 - THE WORD IN LENT #11

To love is to give; as the Lord gives

Monday, Second week in Lent - 13th March, 2017

Dan 9:4-11; Lk 6: 36-38

God gives and forgives without reserve or measure, we know! Though the Lord does not expect anything in return, the Lord expects that we receive and give; that we be forgiven and forgive. 

The measure we receive and the measure we give, be it forgiveness or love or compassion or understanding... it should be balanced. Our readiness to bear everything and share love, should be more than the ordinary people, who do not identify themselves with God and god's own people.

Love has to be shown in concrete reality: the Lord shows God's love through forgiveness and through God's motherly providence. Likewise does Love invite every one who is loved by God, to love everyone around, to forgive and build up communion, that we will build up the Church and ultimately build up the Reign of love, the Reign of God.

TO LOVE IS TO CHANGE

LOVE-LENT 2017 - THE SUNDAY SCHOOL

Sunday 2: 12th March, 2017
Gen 12:1-4; 2 Tim 1:8-10; Mt 17:1-9

God's love is on demonstration today and we are invited to behold that true, genuine, authentic and matchless love in the name of Jesus our Lord and Saviour! The Love of God invites us to change, for to love is to change!

Change is a task: observe that God's love gives us a task...a task to give! Are we ready to give? Yes...a bit of our changes in the pocket, a few of our currencies in the wallet, some of us a little more...may be our enjoyment of a movie or two during the season of lent, or our stylish make overs or things of that sort! But Observe, calls the second reading today: observe the love that God has for us. Because of that love, God gave, God gave Godself, God's own son, the only Son, the Word who was One with God. 

Change is a growth: understand that God's love makes us grow...from death to life to immortality. We understand from our daily experience that growth is fundamentally a change, a change from simpler form of existence to a more complex form of existence. The reminder today is that every change has to be a growth. Just a couple of days back Ezekiel spoke to us of a change that is not acceptable in the eyes of the Lord - a change where a righteous person falters from his righteousness. That's definitely not the change that is expected of us.

Change is a challenge:  God's love that challenges us to change is not merely a love that gives but a love that gives everything, gives all that God is...The Gospel reminds us of that: Jesus shows us and his disciples, what he has given up for the sake of the love he had for us! The first moment we find it, we feel like holding on to it. The apostles wanted to remain there...Jesus reminds us: "No... your call is to give, to grow, to give all, to give of yourself; that is my love!" The fundamental challenge here is accept God's love into our heart: to fill our hearts with God's love! Abraham was ready to leave everything and walk because he was ready to accept that challenge. Gradually he was filled with God's love and in a little while he was ready to give up his only son for God's sake. By then he had experienced what God's love means and what change it can bring about in his life. That is why he did not consider anything on par with God's love. In our life to, if we believe in God's love, that has to be seen. It has to be seen in our lives, our day to day relationships, our choices and our responses to events. To behold God's love is to be held by God's love and hold out that love to all whom we come across! 

May our lives be transformed, changed forever, by God's love into God's love!

LOVE-LENT 2017 - THE WORD IN LENT #10

Love for the sake of loving

Saturday, First week in Lent - 11th March, 2017

Dt 26: 16-19; Mt 5:43-48

You ask a loving pair, 'why do you love the other', and if they manage to give you a ready reason... that is not true love! Curious? Strange? 

If you have a reason, the danger is, it is merely a liking and not truly loving. What if the specified reason disappears? For instance, one loves the other for the sake of the good looks...what if something happens by way of an accident - will the love too disappear? Or one loves the other for the reason that the person is very kind...what if there is some change in the situation and the person loses his or her calmness and gets irritated - will love disappear? Reasons are conditions, when conditions change does the so-called love too change? That is what is happening in today's society.

Does a mother need a reason to love her child? Does God look for a reason to love you? God loves us because God loves us. And just like Godself, God wants that we love each other without expecting anything in return. Loving is growing in godliness in our lives that we accept the other as God-given person to love and wish their well being, do our best for the same and make sure that they are happy. Loving for the sake of loving, no reasons should bar us from loving the other and reaching out to the other, if we wish to be authentic disciples of Christ.

LOVE-LENT 2017 - THE WORD IN LENT #9

Love sees the intention not the incident

Friday, First week in Lent - 10th March, 2017

Ezek 18: 21-28; Mt 5:20-26

I remember when we were doing our college, it should be so even now, there would be three internal assessments and they would take the better two of the three for the final tabulation. This comes very close as an imagery to explain the message of the Word today.

Or let us consider another imagery - that of a person who wins a gold medal in an event at one occasion and he or she lives on with that glory for all his or her life. 

A Christian version of Righteousness is not such as the above titles - you do your best now and then and they are picked and chosen for your reward, or you peak at a certain moment in your life and you think you can live in that glory for all your life. There are two elements that bring about that difference. The first one is, consistency of one's goodness, which determines the authenticity of the righteousness.

The second and the more important element is the fact that love does not value so much what is done as  why it is done. if love is capable of forgiving faults against it, it is because of this truth. Love rejoices in the interior goodness of the person, who might sometimes falter, more than the external acts of goodness which has intentions of a different nature, What matters most is the intention - even the best of acts done with an intention that has a tinge of evil in it cannot go well with true love; while even a simple act but with the noblest of intentions will be considered precious, because love sees the intention and not the incident.

LOVE-LENT 2017 - THE WORD IN LENT #8

Taking refuge in the LOVE of God

Thursday, First week in Lent - 9th March, 2017

Esth 4:17 ; Mt 7:7-12

The World is trying its level best to hide God. They don't want to attribute anything good to God. Creation, they wish to attribute to some irrational coincidence; life, they try hard to attribute to some invisible process that they cannot explain; and all scientific development, they wish to attribute to the human mind that created itself or evolved all by itself! It is in this dark scenario that we as Christians are called to bear witness to God today. 

Esther was a capable woman, who had used all the assets that God had given her for the good of God's people. But inspite of her capacity and commitment we see her totally surrendering to the Lord: taking refuge in the Lord. 

Jesus looks at the people and says, "Ask, Seek and Knock"...humble yourself and place yourself at the receiving end at least a while in you life and you will see the blessing. The Lord promises, "if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and save them, and will forgive their sins and heal their land" (2 Chr 7:14) 

Jesus invites us - ask, seek and knock to prepare ourselves towards us taking refuge in the lOVE of God.

LOVE-LENT 2017 - THE WORD IN LENT #8