Holiness: Faith lived at the Core

WORD 2day: 13th November, 2017

Monday, 32nd week in Ordinary Time

Wis 1:1-7; Lk 17: 1-6

Holiness is a matter of the innermost being. It does not consist merely of the external signs and shows. Words not said, thoughts not expressed, acts merely contemplated, reactions withheld... these determine my holiness more than what the world around perceives me to be. That is why the strange link between faith and forgiveness in the Gospel today. 

While Jesus teaches the disciples to forgive brothers and sisters, they respond saying - 'increase our faith!' Can sound strange, but only apparently so! One cannot consider oneself to be a person of faith, holy and spiritual, if one's relationships with others is not right. If faith is relationship with God, forgiveness is relationship with my fellow beings! If the latter fails, the former is meaningless. If we want really to be spiritual, we have to forgive, accept, and love our brothers and sisters, as God does with us! 

Lets ask the Lord to "Increase our faith" (Lk 17:5); increase in faith means what the first reading tells us: honesty, simplicity of heart, shunning deceit, being truthful, in short: being godly at the core of our being, not merely in the external show! Yes, holiness is faith lived at the core of our beings. Faith is our daily life lived in the presence of the Lord. The more we grow conscious of the continuous presence of the Lord the more holy we shall grow!

Authentic Faith and Right Relationships

WORD 2day: 11th November, 2017

Saturday, 31st week in Ordinary Time

Rom 16: 3-9,16,22-27; Lk 16: 9-15

Note those words used in the first reading today - friend, fellow workers, fellow prisoners, compatriots, brothers and sisters - it is all full of relationships! Faith without relationships is empty. In fact faith in itself is a relationship, a relationship with God that defines every other relationship in life. Yes, it is all about relationships, but the right ones.

Faith and Right Relationships are connected to each other. Faith creates right relationships and right relationships mark authentic faith. How do we understand right relationships - they are relationships that are centered on God. They are not relationships that turn out to be possessive, selfish, self centered, self seeking, materialistic and mundane. They are relationships that center on God, that promote true selfless love, that respect the mutual dignity and freedom and that edify each other towards the spiritual maturity. These are Right Relationships, nurtured by Authentic Faith. 

When Jesus speaks of choosing one master and letting go of the other, this is what he means. By "money" he means all that is mundane, all that is materialistic and all that is merely utilitarian. By "God" he meant, all that is spiritual, faith centered and truly Divine. Relationships, if they are right, will surely lead us to this Spiritual Edification!

\

How long yet that they taste the Lord!

WORD 2day: 10th November, 2017

Friday, 31st week in Ordinary Time

Rom 15: 14-21; Lk 16: 1-8

A couple of days back, a few of us priests had gone for a programme out and were returning by bus! As always, we were enjoying each other's company with cheer and laughter. I noticed an old lady who was sitting by a window and staring at us. She was quite stern faced and gloomy and before I could notice it fully, her eyes caught mine and she asked, 'are you all priests'? (ofcourse, we were in civil clothes and not clerical). No sooner than I nodded in response to her question, she began to curse - you are all liars, the church is finished, it will no longer stand, you are all living in the name of god! Though it was bad that all who were around were looking at us with pity, I could only look with pity at that old lady, and her bitterness that was so vividly portrayed on her face! Certainly she has some experiential baggage that makes her resent so badly. This event instantly popped up in my mind as I sat with the Word today.

How long yet that the bitter people of the world turn around and taste the love of God? Just like the pagans that Paul speaks of and the steward in the Gospel who suddenly discovered his insecurity, the proud and the arrogant, the resentful and godless of today need to come back to the Lord. The role that you and I are called to play here is to be reminders, signs, pointers, of that love and meaning that God alone can offer. For that we need to first take in that love as much as we can and hold it out to the world. For as St Paul affirms, 'those who have never been told about him will see him, and those who have never heard about him will understand.' 

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

Feast of the dedication of the Lateran Basilica: 9th November, 2017

THE ARCHBASILICA OF ST. JOHN AT THE LATERANS, is the oldest, not only among the four Major Papal Basilicas of Rome, but among all the Churches in the West. And this is the most important of all Catholic Churches, even more than St. Peter's because it is the Cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, that is the Pope's Cathedral. That is why it is called the Archbasilica and it is known as the Mother of all Churches. When a Pope is elected and consecrated, he takes possession of this Holy Seat at a formal occasion, making himself the Bishop of Rome. The Basilica is named so, because it was originally the palace of the Laterans, a family of Royal Administrators. It was confiscated from them during the rule of Nero. But when Emperor Constantine married Fausta, the sister of Marcus Aurelius, the Domus Faustae (Fausta's Palace) came into Constantine's hands who in turn gave it to the Bishop of Rome. Later in 324 CE, Pope Silvester I transformed it into the Cathedral of Rome and dedicated it to Jesus Christ the Saviour. Later  in 10th century it was rededicated to St. John the Baptist and once again in 12th century rededicated to St. John the Evangelist. Thus the Church has a principal patron Jesus Christ the Saviour, and two additional patrons, John the Baptist and John the Evangelist. Hence the name, Archbasilica of St. John at the Laterans. 

We celebrate the dedication of this Basilica today and the message is clear: that we are called to become the dwelling places of God, sources of life and wellness to whole humanity. 

BEING FORSAKEN AND MOVING AHEAD

WORD 2day: 4th November, 2017

Saturday, 30th week in Ordinary Time
Rom 11: 1-2,11-12, 25-29; Lk 14: 1,7-11

At times we dare ask that question: has God forsaken me? All the expression of an endless love on God's part notwithstanding I ask that question, and wait for an answer - how cheeky!! 

Forsaking, is not within the precincts of God. Being Forsaken -is an absolutely human parlance! God never forsakes, not even if it is the worst of beings that God is faced with. Because when God creates someone, God does so out of love! That love never changes, as does God's righteousness never change. 

God's righteous love, accepts me whatever state I might be in. But at times, I reject God, keep myself away from God and remain indifferent towards God. I look for other things - human respect, worldly success, material affluence, social status and mundane glory! God is sideline and forsaken. Jesus challenges us: move ahead my friend!

Grow up and realise that it is not God who forsakes you; you forsake God! Realise it... and then you will be truly able to move ahead and get on with God.

Hope - that makes us Christian!

All Souls Day - 2017

What is the difference between a Christian and an unchristian outlook on anything? 

Hope! The difference is hope. It is hope that makes us see a possibility even in the worst of our daily problems. Hope gives one the serenity and tranquility to approach every day problems with grace. One big unsolved question for the whole humanity is how to understand the end of life and beyond. 

For a Christian, life is changed, not ended; it is transformed not terminated, explains the preface of the Mass for the dead. Jesus' resurrection fills us with hope and that hope does not disappoint us. The hope is towards eternal life, it is the eternal destination that characterises the culmination of this journey on earth. 

Death is just the horizon beyond which we are not able to see what really exists; for if we see, there is no more place for hope (Rom 8:24). All that we see is the Risen Lord, who lives with us and lights our path. And in the Risen Lord is our hope. We hope to see every one of our brothers and sisters gone before us, united in the Risen Lord, as do the saints we celebrated yesterday and our prayer today is that these brothers and sisters of ours join their ranks and that we, at the end of our journey, join that wonderful family, the family that is founded on faith, united in love and kept alive in hope!

It is hope that makes us truly Christian!

BEING SAINTS

1st November, 2017: All Saints Day

Rev.  7: 2-4,9-14; 1 Jn 3: 1-3; Mt 5: 1-12a.

O when the saints, 

go marching in, 

I want to be in that number! - 

... a simple but profound thought in those familiar lines of the song. To be saints: that is God's call to each of us. At times we think, becoming saints is reserved for a select few. May be the long and tedious process of canonisation of a person in the Church, makes us feel that way. But the fact is, each of us, all of us is called to be saints. St. Paul states that in clear and unequivocal terms in his letter to the Ephesians (1:4), Thessalonians (1 thes 4:3), and other places. 

The question sometimes is, whether it is, being a saint or becoming a saint! We are created in the image and likeness of God (says Genesis 1:27) and this image and likeness of God is a "given", a nature that we have within us, as a gift. We are reminded of this image and likeness at our baptism. All the we need to do is to remain with that image in our lives. The beautiful symbol used in the rite of baptism, where the priest hands over a white cloth to the child and entrusts the task of bringing it, as it were, unsullied, intact in its purity to the end of days.That, dear friends, is the call - "to be saints"...and not merely to 'become' saints.

The readings today, develop the same thought in three wonderful dimensions:

Being Saints means... being aware of who we are! O Christian, realise your dignity! We are children of God, reminds St. John in his letter, in the second reading. God has chosen us from eternity, before the foundation of the world! This is an initiative from God our Father and Mother, who creates us and wishes that we share in God's love and ever remain in God's image and likeness, as children of the loving God.

Being Saints means... being washed by the blood of the Lamb! The Image of God within us, sometimes is disturbed, smudged, smeared or sullied by the choices we make misusing the human freedom that is granted to us. The evil one will be more than happy when we lose heart at such moments and give up. The Son of God, our Saviour Jesus Christ shed his blood that we may have victory over sin and death. In that blood we are saved, and in that blood we are made clean, each and every time we turn to the Lord in genuine repentance and willingness to regain our original image. Saints are those who have their garments washed in the blood of the Lamb, says the second reading.

Being Saints means... being 'blessed' in the eyes of the Lord! And the only way to be 'blessed', is to live by the promptings of the Spirit who dwells within us. Paying attention to the indwelling Spirit, we will know what it means to be blessed - to be poor in spirit, to be meek, to hunger and thirst for righteousness, to be merciful, to be peace-loving - these are ways of being persons of the spirit. In the ordinariness of our daily life, we have to be persons of the Spirit, looking at the reality different from the way the self seeking world teaches us to. 

God's initiative in the call that I have received; Christ's redeeming act of Salvation; the Spirit's indwelling presence that guides me on a daily basis - these are compelling reasons why I need to think seriously about, not merely becoming a saint one day, but being a saint everyday, in my own way!

Hope - the confidence in the Goodness of God

WORD 2day: 31st October, 2017

Tuesday, 30th week in Ordinary Time
Rom 8: 18-25; Lk 13: 18-21

Longing for a brighter future is a human reality. Within the framework of faith this ordinary human reality takes the form of Hope. If faith is a total childlike surrender to God, hope is the blind joy that fills the heart. Even in a moment dark and grim, this joy lights up life. Haven't we seen persons who have faced years and years of struggle, who have experienced tragedies after tragedies, but still strong and serene? Those are real saints for they live in a spirit of hope, in holy patience that St. Paul speaks of. 

We need a very special spiritual capacity to behold the Reign of God - it is patience in problems, endurance in trials, optimism in setbacks ... a certainty, that in everything, simple little things or great grand events, it is God who is in charge. That in one word is, hope!

Hope is not a great sign or a grand manifestation. It is a subtle disposition and a tiny little spark. Like the mustard seed or the yeast in a dough, it is an elusive attitude, but inevitable to become truly children of God. Yes, it is hope that makes us truly children of God because Hope is the unassailable confidence in the goodness of God.

NOT SLAVES BUT HEIRS

WORD 2day : 30th October, 2017

Monday,  30th week in Ordinary Time

Rom 8: 12-17; Lk 13: 10-17

The point of discussion in the Word today is the difference between slaves and heirs and their respective traits. 

A slave is governed by fear, is ruled by law and bound to restrictions. A slave cannot think beyond oneself and gaining favours by pleasing the one in command. A slave, even when he or she is doing everything for the other, is all the time self centered.

An heir is governed by freedom, is guided by love and empowered with spontaneity. Freedom rules out restrictions, love transcends fear and spontaneity despises calculations. An heir never schemes!

Jesus proves to be the rightful heir,  experiencing God as the Abba and feeling the need to render a child of God wholesome. Laws and regulations did not matter to him;  threats and warnings looked despicable in his sight. The greatest of all good news is,  Christ has given us the same Spirit that was in him,  that in our spirit we may be convinced that we are rightful sons and daughters of the merciful God.

Thank you and love you!

29.10.2017

It's one year since you left us,
a thought that still eludes us all,
how like a whiff you left us,
to heed to your Master's call.

Remembering you with love today
though I could in my heart say
how I wish you had a longer stay
in our life in your own unique way...

Thank you!
Thank you is all we wish to tell you,
May the Lord grant you eternal peace!