Rebuilding the Ruins

Saturday, 13th week in Ordinary Time

July 7, 2018: 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. My mind forces me to share here the comment any onlookers pass when they see the Colosseum for the first time, with the way it looks. It is history that the famous stadium was destroyed in a fire and then in eventual invasions. Over a couple of centuries ago, they proposed to rebuild it, restore its ruined parts...but what they have done has ruined further the elegance and the majesty of the structure - it is so amateurish! Rebuilding or Restoring is an expert's job.

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, and God alone 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.

Jesus is trying to rebuild, in the Gospel, rebuild the consciousness of people about God's presence with them and the beauty that it beholds. Let us beseech the Lord for the gift to build up ourselves into fitting temples of God and the grace to rebuild others in whatever way we can!

Searching for the Word

Friday, 13th week in Ordinary Time

Amos 8: 4-6, 9-12; Mt 9: 9-13

Searching for the Word, that is the quality presented today as a distinguishing trait of a person of God. A person who is far from God, will conveniently keep away from the Word of God because it would disturb his or her peace. But when that happens his or her life drifts away from truth, from its origin, from its very meaning. That is what Amos warns the people of God about. Whereas, when a person is close to God, he or she longs for God and earnestly seeks for the will of God, and will find that life giving Word right at their doorstep. 

The Lord declares today, only the sick need the doctor. Let us be aware that only those who accept their sickness will seek the doctor and only those who want a way out of their sickness will do the needful to grow wholesome. The Word has to nourish us and only if we feel the need of it, we would seek for it. Not that we do not need, we do not feel the need, we feel we can substitute it with so many other things in life - which  invariably ends in a failure!

The Word of the Lord contains life, life in its fullness... let us make it a sincere habit to search for the Word, be nourished by it, and long for it!

IN or OUT - it's your choice!

Thursday, 13th week in Ordinary Time

July 5, 2018: Amos 7: 10-17; Mt 9: 1-8

The Word today presents to us varied pictures of people going in and out : in to captivity, out of slavery to sin, in to their own doom, out of disease and handicaps... but the choice was always theirs.  

It is the same with us today: we can choose to remain in our weakness and godlessness, satisfied with little we have. The Lord has so much in store which we miss entirely because of our stubbornness. 

I am reminded of that picture that is quite popular... a little girl with her tiny doll refusing to give it to Jesus kneeling before her. She is totally unaware of the jumbo size teddy doll that Jesus is holding behind his back, all for her! 

What is my choice: holding on to the little I know or allowing the Lord to lead me by hand, teach me everyday and enrich me with his wholeness?

Seeking God and Shunning Evil

Wednesday, 13th week in Ordinary time

July 4, 2018: Amos 5: 14-15, 21-24; Mt 8: 28-34

Seek Good and Shun Evil... it is such a simple and straight forward directive from Amos today! It is a universal dictum, but is it as simple as it sounds? Do we really and absolutely seek good and good alone? More importantly, do we shun evil, and shun it absolutely? 

The world today holds out a culture that seems to be a subtle mixture of both... some good are seen to be 'too impractical' and we are advised not to seek them. Some evil are so subtly deemed 'acceptable' and made so hard to be shunned right away. Sometimes it seems better to live with certain forms of evil and remain acceptable and comfortable in our living zones. 

When we seek good, when we seek the Lord, we have to by all means do away with certain things in our lives. But we conveniently keep the Lord away at those points, so that our comfort zones are not affected, like the people in the Gospel today who came and begged Jesus to leave their locality. They did not mind living with the evil spirits, but they were upset that they lost a herd of swine! They wondered how much more they will have to lose if Jesus stayed on with them!

If we really want Jesus to stay on with us, we will have to do away with a lot of things! Are we really prepared? Or would we choose to tell the Lord to leave us in peace? Seeking God and Shunning Evil... is it a natural quality to me?

From doubt to Faith

Celebrating St. Thomas, the apostle to India

Eph 2: 19-22; Jn 20: 24-29

Feast of St. Thomas leaves us with three lessons...

1. We are One Church built on the Apostles.
The feasts of every apostle is a reminder of the essential unity that has to exist within the Church. As Paul so vehemently opposes (cf. I Cor 1:10-13), right from the earliest times division has always been a dreaded scandal within the Church. This reality notwithstanding, the divided body of Christ today drains the Church of its witnessing power and evangelical authority.

2. The Church in India has a special responsibility.
The Church in India, boasting a direct handing over of faith by an apostle, has a special responsibility towards establishing the Reign of God on earth. It is unfair to claim privileges but refrain from the duties that come with it. Every person who has received the gift of faith in this country of ancient heritage and culture, has to stand firm in witness to the Gospel thus received challenging the society towards a holistic transformation, ushering in the Reign of God here and now.

3. Doubts don't matter as long as the Lord remains close to us.
Thomas was not only the one who wanted to touch the wounds that nails made and put his hand into the hole on Jesus' side, but he was also the one who said, "let us also go, that we may die with him" (Jn 11:16). His personal attachment to Jesus covered up for his obstinacy not to believe when the rest of the apostles reported Jesus' resurrection. In our lives too, when doubts assail, when clouds gather over our heads and we tend to be overwhelmed by them, the only thing that can sustain us is our personal relationship with Jesus!

May St. Thomas show us Christians, though we are troubled and weak, that the most fitting way of living out the Gospel in our context is living in mutual love, unrelenting respect and unassailable solidarity - so that we may be true and efficacious ambassadors of the Reign of God, here and now.

Is God on your priority list?

Monday, 13th week in Ordinary Time

July 2, 2018: Amos 2: 6-10, 13-16; Mt 8: 18-22

Is God on my priority list? This is the question that came to my mind when I dwelt a little on the readings today. The question does not mean, do I go for the eucharist everyday nor does it mean do I read the Bible every day nor whether I spend a fixed time in prayer everyday! It means, whether God really matters to me, whether what God wants absolutely matters to me, whether God is the first on the list of criteria that would affect my choice or decision making. 

Because there is a difference between the two things that we are referring to here: one is our practices of piety which are very important, but the other is our concrete life with God which is much more important as it takes for granted the practices of piety and goes beyond it... to the way these practices affect my everyday life. If there is a discrepancy between these two, I am far far away from the way that Jesus points out to me!

If I say, 'Yes, God is a priority in my life', then the way I live by myself, the way I relate to persons irrespective of who they are and the so-called strata of society they belong to, the way I look at the world and the reality around me, would be totally different. God may be one of the important considerations in my life, but that will never suffice. God has to be my priority - the first criterion and an absolute criterion!

LIFE, ME & GOD

1st July, 2018: 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Wis 1:13-15, 2:23-24; 2 Cor 8:7,9,13-15; Mk 5: 21-43

Life is a precious Gift from God. The first link that we have with God as someone outside of us,is the the link that we have from the fact that it is God who has given us life. Can we think of what is life? What constitutes life? Can we create life... yes, we can multiply, clone or enhance life, but creating it from nowhere, from nothing... Can we?

GOD OF LIFE

God is the author of life and the God we have is God of life, not God of death, says the book of Wisdom as we read today. Anything that enhances life and promotes it, comes from God. Anything that militates against life, in whatever way, it is contrary to God. The World today is being filled with forces that threaten life: unbalanced development, inhuman godliness, inauthentic means to living, unfettered exploitation of the other, disoriented conception of oneself... these are all principles in today's world that go against life. Abortions, Suicides and Genocides are dubbed as assertion of rights! 

LIFE OF GOD

The life that we have is the life of God, reminds us St.  Paul in the readings today. God has given us life, not only that,  God has given his own life that we may live! It is like that twin child who as told by the parents, your brother is dying and we need that you give him blood that he may live on! And the child after much frightful moments, said 'yes'. And once that blood was given to the ailing brother, the twin turned to the parents and asked: 'okay, now that I have given it, when will I die?' Giving blood that child thought, was to die and give life to the sick brother! God did exactly the same. The Son of God gave us his life to redeem us. The life we have is the life of God. We are living a life that is lent to us. We have brought in death into the world and into our own lives, by our faulty choices and warped priorities; but God has given us life so that we may live on in spite of our iniquities. Our life has been leased to us!

LIFE IN GOD

Whether we touch God or God touches us, God gives us life, a renewed life, a holistic life, a life that is abundant. I have come that you may have life, life in all its fullness - declared Our Blessed Lord. Reaching out to the Lord, or the Lord reaching out to us, we receive a new lease of life! All our brokenness, our sinfulness, our sicknesses, our infirmities, our inner conflicts... everything will be whisked away with that one glimpse from the eyes of the Lord. All that we need to do, is surrender into the hands of God and receive life from God's hands. At times we think or act as if 'my life belongs to me'! And in that vision of life, I will have added nothing but pain and meaninglessness to my life, which will show up at a moment when it would seem a point of no return. And then would follow depression, desperation and desolation. But if from the very moment that I realise, if I would begin to live my life, as a life lived in God, I would save myself a life that is so meaningful and wholesome.

The God of life has given me the very life of God, and all I need to do is resolve to live my life IN GOD.

The Devastation Notwithstanding

Saturday, 12th week in Ordinary Time

Memory of the First Martyrs of Rome
June 30, 2018: Lam 2: 2, 10-14, 18-19; Mt 8: 5-17

Destruction, devastation, desecration, disease and death bed...these are the situations elaborated in the Word today, but alongside there is an insistence on mercy, healing, forgiveness, faith and trust and above all the immeasurable love of God which takes our sickness to a glorious end! 

This is what we need to keep in our mind- all the possible devastation notwithstanding, the Lord is with us, for us and the Lord loves us. What can separate us from the love of God, St Paul would question in his letter to the Romans (8:38,39). Nothing can separate us from the Love of God that is poured on us through Jesus Christ, nothing except our own obstinacy! 

The day after the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul , we remember all the first martyrs of Rome, that is, the hundreds or even thousands who were killed because they professed their faith in Christ, as the Son of God. The Roman catacombs stand witness to this historical facts even today. Nothing could separate them from the love of Christ - neither suffering, nor starvation, nor threats, nor persecution, nor the fear of death - nothing could separate them. They gave their lives for their faith, because they truly understood how much Christ loved them.

We are called to believe beyond doubt today that nothing, absolutely nothing can separate us from the Love of God that is poured into our hearts through Jesus Christ, nothing except our own obstinacy! Let us beware!

Peter, Paul and Francis

Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul: 29th June, 2018

Why is this twinning...Peter and Paul? Because they were two solid pillars of reference in the early Christian Community. The Tradition of Papacy is a combination of both these apostles: Peter referring to the governance and Paul referring to the doctrines! Both of these are equally important as roles of the Holy Father. This is the reason, this day is celebrated in many places as the "Pope's Day"

It is a day to celebrate the great God-given gift of Pope Francis! We are aware of the numerous forces that are up in arms against the present Holy Father many from the other denominations and some even from within the Catholic Church. But at a closer study and understanding it is easy for one to realise the amount of good that the present Holy Father is doing to the Church and to the world in the name of the Church.

Pope Francis seems a beautiful combination of Peter and Paul - making his mark in the governance of the Universal Church and bringing the deep doctrines to make sense of the ordinary day to day experiences. Today, let us keep the Holy Father in our special prayers!

There is one thing told of these two apostles in the readings today. They were called, and given a specific task and the Lord constantly protected them and rescued them when they were ready to give up anything, including their very lives, for the sake of the task entrusted to them. 

You shall be the rock... you shall be my instrument to take my name to the gentiles... these were the words with which the Lord invited them and in similar terms we are invited too, with a specific task, with hurdles and burdens yes, but the Lord is there all the way. 

Let us resolve to become aware of the special and unique call that the Lord has placed within each of us! 

Divine Design - Part of it or Apart from it?

Thursday, 12th week in Ordinary time

June 28, 2018: 2 Kgs 24: 8-17; Mt 7: 21-29

Prophecies, prodigies, spectacles or splendid preaching... nothing can replace doing what God really wants of me. The fundamental attitude required of me here and now, is the clarity that it is not my enterprise, but God's Will that will finally work and that it is the only thing that can give me a sense of true meaning and satisfaction.

The first reading presents to us an experience that is called the Watershed of the History of Israel...the Babylonian Exile! The people went through a tough period in their life... so many out of their homeland and others separated from their dear ones, the artisans and all other capable people in a strange land, while the rest languished in slavery in their own land with a king appointed by a foreigner. The people go back in time, analyse what had gone by and find their own reasoning and in that reasoning they have a lesson to give us: when we do not regard the will of God, when we are so occupied with our plans and projects that we forget the One who is the greatest of all Master Craftsmen, when we do not really pay attention to discerning the signs of the times that manifest God's will to us at an appointed time, we are planning our own ruin. 

We have no dearth of examples today: the unbalanced scientific advancements, the ecological crisis, the insensitive economic growth, the rising political and social unrest...all these are candid instances of disregard of the Divine design.

Accepting the primacy of God within the universe, submitting to the mystery that forms part of the Divine Design, a respectful approach to advancement with a mind of discernment and a holistic spirituality... these are the needs of the hour in today's world. Personally, it requires that each of us develops a personal rapport with the Lord who is the author of the Divine Design, that we may live our life listening to the Lord's Word and carryout to the details the holy and eternal will of God for each of us and for the entire humanity!