In plenty and in want...

Wednesday, 25th week in Ordinary time

26th September, 2018: Pro 30:5-9; Lk 9: 1-6

I can never forget that strange thing I heard from a young man a few years ago, barely reaching his forties, who resigned his promising and colourful job. The reason: they were paying him unreasonably high! The first reading speaks of a mindset of this sort- a man who wants to live neither in want nor in plenty. Not in want, so that he would not think of shortcuts to get rich; nor in plenty, that he does not forget the One who gives. 

Jesus instructs his apostles on being messengers of God. The crux of his instruction is not merely about whether to have or not to have, whether to possess or not to possess, but it is all about depending on God or not! Poverty within the worldview of the Reign of God, in terms of Jesus' thinking, is a fundamental dependence on God. Being grateful for what God gives, and being expectant like a child to be given things in love. 

It is more than what proverbs suggests, while the passage from the proverbs carries a tinge of cynical realism, the Gospel offers a proactive sense of dependence out of true human freedom, that defines a true disciple and a dedicated apostle. This is the same as St. Paul suggests, to learn to live in want and in plenty, because we can do anything in the One who strengthens us (cf. Phil 4:12,13).

The best thing that can happen to me!

Tuesday, 25th week in Ordinary Time

25th September, 2018: Prov 21: 1-6, 10-13; Lk 8: 19-21

The first reading speaks to us of a variety of categories of people - the king, the virtuous, the just one, the hard working, the haughty, the wicked, the mocker... the message seems to be: whoever you are, what is important is live a life that is pleasing to the Lord; do exactly what the Lord wants you to do.

In fact, this is not a note of threat, but a wisdom par excellence. Because the best thing that can ever happen to me is what the Lord has planned for me! Once I am confident of that, then I can live my life with a serenity that nothing else can offer me. The Gospel has Jesus underlining the same fact. Mary could have been the mother of the Son of God. Not even that is the best thing that can happen to her. That biological motherhood is not as important as the Spiritual Motherhood that comes out of the fact that she listened to the call from the Lord, kept it in her heart, pondered over it and lived her life exactly according to it. That is where she stands as a great example to allowing God to have God's ways in our life.

When we allow that to happen, then God has a freehand in my life and I become the rightful child of that Father and Mother. And thus I become a brother or a sister of my Lord, Jesus Christ!

Let your light shine!

Monday, 25th week in Ordinary time

24th September, 2018: Prov 3: 27-35; Lk 18: 16-18

We just reflected on being good yesterday! Yes, be good, be just, be righteous...the Proverbs gives us a list of qualities of a just person who is acceptable  in the eyes of the Lord. Be good, be a light, shine before the world invites the Gospel. Let your light shine, let it shine day in and day out, let it shine regardless of the people and the situations around.

We do like to be good, we do wish to shine our light before the world...but is it so in all circumstances? What kind of light we wish to be?

Like the electric bulbs which give light only till that moment that they receive, at times we decide to be good to others only as long as others are good to us; we are good to the world only as long as the world around is good to us. If not, we begin to have second thoughts; we raise myriads of questions!

Like the oil lamps that sustain their burning as long as what they received lasts, we decide to be good for a little longer, anyway our goodness lasts just as long as the memory of good done to us  lasts. We are soon discouraged and disheartened!

Consider a candle, which is ignited to burn and shine. It keeps burning as long as it exists, without expecting anything from anywhere! This is our call: to shine, regardless of what others do to us. Be good in spite of the evil that may rest around you. Be Godly, however ungodly the world around you gets!

YOU REALLY WANNA BE GOOD?

23rd September 2018: 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Wis 2: 12,17-20; Jas 3:16 - 4:3; Mk 9: 30-37

I remember more than one conversation, where persons have remarked to me: 'why should I be good when everyone else seems to be discouraging me from that? And not just that, they take advantage of me. And I am forced to give up on being good!' How true and real it is! Everyone of us wants to be good, but on a second thought we wonder whether we really want to be good, given all the consequences of it.

The Word today brings out this theme in such a picturesque manner. 

If I want to be good, I will be mostly alone! Or atleast the majority will be against me, opposing me and trying to get me renounce my wish to be good. The first reading presents that so vividly. Even if not so directly, we will surely sense people talking behind our backs, pulling down our spirits, assassinating our character, calling names and fixing us into pigeon holes. How are we going to react to them? Are we going to go around convincing each of them that we are good and we want to be good? Are we going to be bogged down by all the pressure that they create around us? In the Indian context, for example in Tamilnadu, we have a great examples in the likes of Sagayam IAS, a civil service official who has been shunted to over 29 posts in 21 years, all because he has vowed to be honest and sincere. He seems to be fighting a lone battle. Are you ready for it? 

If I want to be good, I will have to suffer and who knows, even be killed! Think of persons like Bl. Oscar Romero, who is going to be canonised next month. Or think of the scores of whistle blowers in the world who have been erased from the face of the earth in the recent times. Being good is not all that easy. You need to resolve to be good, in spite of the eventual rejection and every such risk. Jesus was clear about what is going to happen to him; he instructed the apostles about it time and again though they did not really understand what he meant. They were busy playing the game of the majority, seeking the prime places and the limelights. Jesus today takes his time off, makes sure no one interrupts, in order that he can drive home this lesson deep into the hearts of his beloved brothers. That is what the Word wants to do to us: drive home the lesson into our hearts...we have no reward here below if we want to be good, but still we have to be good! Now comes the question...but why? Why have we to be good? Because...

If I want to be good, I am godly! If I am a child of God, as Jesus tells me to be, I have to be good. God is good, all the time: we know it so well! If God is good, I who am God's child, I have to be good too! I have to be good even though there are no rewards for it. Apostle James says, if I am of God, then I will be good, pure, peaceable, gentle, full of mercy and good fruits (cf. Jas 3:17). People may not appreciate it, but I have to be good because I am a child of God. People may take advantage of me and take me for a ride, but I still have to be good because I belong to God. I don't need a reason; or rather I don't have a reason to be good, other than the fact that it is my true nature to be good, for I am created in the image and likeness of God and it is godly to be good!

Ask this question to yourself: Do I really want to be good? If so, am I prepared for all its consequences?

Sowing, Reaping and the Seed

Saturday, 24th week in Ordinary Time 

1 Cor 15: 35-37,42-49; Lk 8: 4-15

We are so worried about the plight of the farmers as the tussle between 'corporatisation' and traditional lifestyle has reached its peak in developing agricultural societies like India. The fight  for water continues and takes newer twists and turns. Easy to understand what the Word speaks of today: sowing and reaping, burying and raising... what is crucial here is to understand the seed.

The Word keeps coming to us in various ways in our daily life- daily experiences, accidents, anti social happenings, political developments, international affairs and domestic fights and house hold events... everything keeps giving us a lesson. If only we pay the needed attention to every bit of our life, we would see ourselves learning from them and becoming more and more wise. Added to that if only we hear the Word from the Lord in and through them, we become more and more loving, forgiving, peaceful, in short Godly. That is the experience of Rising... those who are in Christ will rise! For he is the Seed.

The Call to be ONE

Celebrating the Feast of St. Matthew the Apostle 

21st September, 2018: Eph 4: 1-7,11-13; Mt 9: 9-13

One Lord, One faith, One baptism, One God...Paul stacks up the meaning of the feast today, in describing his own wish for his children. Yes, every time we celebrate the feast of an apostle we are celebrating our call to be One! The division within the Church is because the sense of this Apostolic succession is lost somewhere. That is an ecumenical point of view and important. But more important is a socio-existential point of view of the Church today. 

The Feast of Matthew and the reminder from the scene of his call, give us this message with an enviable clarity: are we ONE? How many categories we have created for ourselves to stand divided - denominations among churches, divisions within churches based on rites and languages and even caste, the worst of its kind! 

Matthew, when he was called, left everything on the table and followed him. A lot of things were at stake for him when he made that choice - he cannot turn back, he will have people on his back, he will have to answer so many people, he will be criticised by many, he will be branded by the world as 'out of his mind', he would be going behind a person about whom he can only pretend to know until the person himself reveals with clarity - how many things against that choice that he made! But still he made that choice - to leave everything and follow Christ. 

Can I today, leave everything, my desires, my identities, my attachments, my clingings, my holdings, my support system...everything! Can I leave them all, and follow Him?

THE ACT OF FAITH

16th September, 2018: 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Is 50: 5-9A; Jas 2: 14-18; Mk 8: 27-35

Faith has to be lived, it has to be manifested, be seen and shown; if it does not, it can be interpreted as dead and good for nothing. The ACT is one perspective that the Word offers today, to live and manifest a living Faith.

Faith has to be manifested through Actions of love

Faith that is devoid of love is not Christian and that love when not shown in action is not real. Love is not treating people according your whims and fancies, it is approaching every person with a respect and reverence that he or she is an image of the living God.True love translates itself into commitment, a commitment for the well being of the other.

Faith has to be witnessed to in Choices for life

The world and its culture today is prone to death. Difficulties are highlighted, despair is amplified, destruction is perpetrated and death is felt in the air. It is nauseating for a true believer, because we are persons who have chosen life, life in all its abundance. We can never choose to be gloomy and sad, pessimistic and given up! We choose God, we choose life!

Faith should be based on the Thoughts of God

Human thinking and worldly calculations will never make us persons of faith. it is only God's perspective of all that is and all that happens, that can fill us with faith. Jesus had only the thoughts of God and he rebukes Peter for being contrary to that. Sufferings, Crosses, Sacrifices are nothing new when we take up to the mind of God. Within the perspective of God everything has its place and meaning. It is that realisation, that makes our faith come alive. 

THE REIGN HERE AND NOW

Behold, Block not; Be Agents of the Reign!

9th September, 2018: 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time 

Is 35: 4-7; Jas 2: 1-5; Mk 7: 31-37

The deaf hear and the dumb speak... that was not merely a statement of compliment to Jesus,  but it was an expression of a hopeful longing! A longing of generations that the Reign of God would be established wiping every tear off the eyes of humanity. When Jesus did these wonders among people,  they found in those wonders and signs the very symptoms of the imminent Reign of God,  as foretold by the prophets of old. They hoped it would come around atleast then. ...and Jesus did promise them that. I have come that I may proclaim the year of the Lord,  initiating the Reign on earth (cf. Lk 4: 18), declared Jesus. Anyway,  Jesus was not deceiving them or letting them down; he told them clearly,  the Reign of God is among you (Lk 17:21). If they wanted to make it present or make it a reality, they could have done it. They were not ready for it.  The challenge is the very same today... if we want it we can make it a reality today, here and now! But we are not ready;  we do not want to! 'Oh no... how we wish it became a reality today', we might say. But the Word challenges us today: Do you really want the Reign present here and now? Then...

1. Behold the Reign

If I truly wish that Reign is established here and now, I have to firstly believe that the Reign is amidst us. Through persons of good will, through initiatives of selfless promotion of well being of the downtrodden, through the numerous who are ready to lay their lives down for a cause that might not concern their good at all,  through the ascendancy that God has over the earth,  the humanity and history,  the Reign is in reality present right in our midst and all that I need to do is realise it. There are so many signs of it;  there are ample evidences of it. God is at work in reality, let us acknowledge it. In partnering with persons and agencies of good will, in recognising the presence of the Lord in the world through various simple signs,  in attributing to God every single inspiration to common good,  we behold the presence of the Region here amidst us. The first reading from Isaiah presents us these symptoms of the  reign.

2. Block not the Reign

There are certain attitudes and habits through which I become a block or an hindrance to the Reign. The mere fact that I too belong to the so called church and I too have received the Baptism doesn't guarantee that I will allow the Reign come alive here and now. Discriminations on the basis of any criterion - caste or colour or community or availability of resources - is an apparent block to the Reign, says James today.

3. Be Agents of the Reign

The ultimate call is to be positive agents of the Reign in the manner that each one is called to be. My words and attitudes, my thoughts and convictions, my deeds and dispositions have to be Reign friendly. They have to be life giving. They should offer the light to the blind, the voice to the dumb, the hearing to the deaf, the liberation to the suffering... I need to become the agent of the Reign of God here and now. How long am I going to blame the other, moan the times and wait without doing anything? The call is clear: to actively do my part in making present the Reign here and now. How ready am I for the sacrifices involved? How prepared am I to take upon myself the hardships that would come my way and the inconveniences i would have to put up with?

Happy are those who hunger and thirst for the Reign of God, for they shall be satisfied!

Nothing greater than the Person!

Saturday, 22nd week in Ordinary Time

8th September, 2018: 1 Cor 4: 6-15; Lk 6: 1-5

God has an extremely soft corner at heart for God's children! God has been too good, compassionate and forgiving, loving and accepting, never counting the cost when it comes to loving God's children... even to the extent of sending God's only Son to die for our sakes! 

The question is, what matters to us, the prodigal children of God : our ego? our wealth? our social status? our popularity? our comfort? our image in front of others? our rules and our systems? our selfish interests? For how many of these reasons we are ready to sacrifice the persons around us - our own parents, life partners, siblings, kith and kin!

The Lord reminds us today: there is nothing more precious than persons around us. Our judgments of others, however right or wrong they are, cannot take away the value that is inherent in every child of God! A person may be found to be mistaken, he or she may make wrong decisions, they may be tempted and may fail at times - nothing of this can take away the inherent value a person is invested with. 

As we celebrate the birth of our Blessed Mother today, we are reminded of the value that we are invested with, being children of God. Mary who was just like any of us was specially chosen and greatly favoured - we are chosen too and we are blessed too. Let us resolve to never forget the true value that resides within us and within the others!

Mind your Business!

Friday, 22nd week in Ordinary Time

7th September, 2018: 1 Cor 4: 1-5; Lk 5:33-39

At times we mind everybody else's business, forgetting the all important business that we have - our life! The Word today instructs us to mind our business. How hard can one try to satisfy everyone around? Is it worth the effort at all? How many lives are made so boring and barren merely out of living up to the expectations of the world around! The secret of a truly fruitful and meaningful life is: knowing your business and going about it.

Knowing who we are: as St. Paul shares in his letter today, what is expected of a steward is that each one is found worthy of the One whose stewards we are! Knowing who we are and striving to be faithful to it, is the Christian meaning to our life. Christ did just that. He knew he was the Son of God and he lived his life to the full worthy of the identity that he inherited from the Lord. 

We are called to be his stewards, and we are called to live worthy of it, notwithstanding the praises or critiques, the affirmations or discouragements that might come our way. If we try to patch up with unfitting elements merely because those around us are looking for it, if we mix up unblending elements just because the world around enjoys it. if we compromised our life with God with standards and criteria other than God's... we may lose the true sense of our calling. 

The best thing amidst all the mixed voices around is, to know and mind our business!