The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #6

Open your eyes and truly see

First Friday in Advent: 7th December, 2018
Isaiah 29: 17-24; Matthew 9: 27-31

Living the Reign here and now, requires that we open our eyes and truly see, see what the Lord continuously does for us, see all the goodness that still rests around in spite of, and right in the midst of, all disastrous events that surround us. 

Continuing to speak of our troubles, I cannot forget that moment when I met a family in deep misery after a monstrous flood. They had their house filled with 3 feet water, rendered homeless; they stood with their two children on the street with knee high water flowing past them. I was wondering what sort of bitter experience they would harbour, after all  such scenes of misery and vulnerability. To my surprise they said, even before I spoke: God be praised, for so many things far worse from which we have been spared! They had some special eyes, I felt!

For, he shall see what my hands have done in his midst, says the first reading today. It is a special capacity to be able to see the hand of God in our daily experience. We should be given the vision, healed from our blindness and the Lord alone can enable us in this regard. All that we can do for ourselves, and for those whom we know to be totally blind in this regard, is to pray ardently to the Lord, "Lord that we may see!" Because only when we open our eyes and truly see, can we begin to live the Reign here and now!

The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #5

Place your trust on the Rock

First Thursday in Advent: 6th December,  2018

Isaiah 26: 1-6; Matthew 7: 21, 24-27

Living the Reign here and now, means founding our lives on the Rock, right now and right here! We seem to have two kinds of logic that operate within us simultaneously... one which is a practical logic and the other spiritual logic. The former rules our daily life and the latter only our so-called prayer moments... unfortunately they hardly meet each other.

The way things are done today and the things that practically work today seem to suggest that there are ways and means to get things done rather than trusting them into God's hands. We worry and fret about things as if everything depended on us and as if they are totally within our capacity. We tend to think of God only at the end of it all,  when we feel nothing else had really worked! 

Trust is not having resort to the Lord at the end of everything, but entrusting everything into God's will right from the beginning, right from the time we set about on a task! It is to feel at every moment the ground beneath us, standing strong and prodding us along amidst difficulties. It cannot be a mere crisis-management. 

Trust in the Lord forever, the Lord is the everlasting Rock, says the first reading; while the Gospel challenges us to move from a fake and shallow relationship with God towards founding our lives on the rock! Founding our lives on the Rock,  trusting the Lord our Rock,  does not mean an empty jargon or a figure of speech. It is a concrete dependence on the Lord and the Lord's will on a daily basis, convinced to do just what the Lord wants and whatever the Lord wants. Thus we shall begin to live the Reign here and now!

The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #4

Learn to Hope in God

First Wednesday in Advent: 5th December, 2018

Isaiah 25: 6-10; Matthew 15: 29-37

Living the Reign here and now, needs a tremendous dosage of hope! Moments like those that we have seen recently, like the Gaja cyclone in Tamilnadu-India or the wildfire in California, they keep happening in regualar intervals and these days in greater frequency: people stranded, held up,  locked in, left without anything to eat or nowhere to stay or no livelihood to hold on to... at these moments despair can get the better of us. 

I am looking at where I come from... the whole heated discussion of the rising level of intolerance in India and the debates and demonstrations for and against it, is yet another despair inducing scenario. The increasing conditions of inhumanity and violence in the world and the lack of transparent and righteous coalitions against evil, is an alarming state of affairs! 

I remember once, amidst such kind of an experience, receiving a message from a person explaining all private initiatives and possibilities of disaster management... the person was a non-Christian but the message ended with a quote: 'if God is for us who can be against us'. That is hope! And coming from a non Christian person, it was truly powerful.

Christian living and thinking is all about hope. Waiting for the Lord is all about hope. Hoping in the Lord is not a leap in the dark, it's seeing the light that comes through or being determined to pick up the first streak of light that pierces through, identifying that silver lining however thin and subtle it could be.

Hope makes us authentically Christians... fear strips us of it. We need to learn every day and every moment, to hope in God and doing that we would be able to live the Reign here and now!

The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #3

Get to know the Lord

First Tuesday in Advent: 4th December, 2018

Isaiah 11: 1-10; Luke 10: 21-24

Living the Reign here and now, necessarily requires that we get to know God, get to know God for real! When we know God for real, our attitudes will be different. There will be no harm done to another in the presence of the Lord. 

Just because someone is different from me, I find a reason to hate that person or keep that person away from me - that is the tendency of the world today. It is a clear sign of people having moved far from the real knowledge of God. 

We have become too sophisticated to perceive the Lord, who is revealed precisely in simplicity. Unless we grow to be children, we will not get to know the Lord truly. We would know things, speak of things, explain complicated theology, solve mysteries and metaphysical issues, invent concepts and discover phenomena, but we will never know God for real! Let us grow to be children and we will get to know God!  

Let us not confuse between knowing about God and knowing God - they are two different things and one can never, never become the other. At times, even the most religious of us, are satisfied with knowing about God, reading up, discussing , arguing, defending, convincing and so on...but fall short of knowing God. Knowing God is getting in touch with God, growing in God's mentality, thinking in the way God would want us to think, seeing things that God would want us to see and hearing those that God would want us to hear. It is only then we begin to live the Reign here and now!

The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #2

COME, WALK IN THE LIGHT

First Monday in Advent, December 3, 2018

Isaiah 2: 1-5; Matthew 8: 5-11

Living the Reign here and now, is the call we have this Advent and the first way given to us, to accomplish that is to heed to the call that the Word gives us today: Come, walk in the Light!

Walking in the Light is walking in the presence of Christ, the Light! Isaiah speaks of a people who walk in the Light as the New Jerusalem, the City of God, the promised land... various names for the Reign of God! Reign of God is amidst us when we begin to walk in the light, walk according to the words of the Light! 'You say and it shall be done! You say and my servant shall live! You say and everything shall be new!'

Yes, when the Lord says and we commit to live by what the Lord says, everything shall be new, everyone shall be healed and the humanity shall be whole again! That is the Reign we look forward to, the fullness of life. This is the week of hope, in Advent. A week that invites us to hope in the Lord, await the light of the Lord, the light which is already here, all for us to receive and reflect.

We have a lovely example in St. Francis Xavier whom we celebrate this day: a man like the centurion in the Gospel - who came to know the Lord late - but once he knew him, his commitment was total, absolute, without any compromise whatsoever! That is walking in the Light! 

All that we need to do today is, decide and commit ourselves to walk in the light! And doing so, we shall live the Reign here and now!

STANDING ON THE PROMISES OF THE LORD

Alert, Ready and Firm!

First Sunday in Advent - 2nd December, 2018

Jer 33:14-16; 1 Thess 3:12 - 4:2; Lk 21: 25-28, 34-36

A fresh new liturgical year at hand! 

Let us begin to celebrate it. On the first day of this liturgical year, the reminder from the Word is: we are standing on the promises of the Lord. We begin the season of Advent, which is a call to wait, of course! But it is not a wait that has nothing to do with the present... it is a wait that is filled with hope, which affects that present. We begin to live already here and now, what we await. We are called to live the Reign that we await, right here and right now!

Advent is a season of waiting, waiting on the Lord for the fulfillment of promises. Just as the people of God waited for the centuries, we are called to wait for the Lord. The world however is growing increasingly impatient. 

There was a documentary which went viral a couple of years back... that of an 8 year old boy in Armenia, who was at school when a treacherous earth quake occurred. To the absolute dismay of the father of this boy who rushed to the school premises immediately, the school was nothing but rubbles, piles and piles of stones in a heap. But the father chose a spot and started removing the stones bit by bit... in spite of all the discouragements offered and despair thrown at him, he went on constantly doing it for the next 38 hours! After 38 hours of rummaging, suddenly he heard this voice from the rubble: 'see, didn't I tell you my father will surely not abandon us' and he was stunned to see his son with 12 others trapped under the debris.

Under debris, or boulder blocks, or totally in ruins... the challenge is to remain with HOPE... that we are standing on the promises of the Lord, the Lord our integrity.

1. PROMISES

Promises give meaning to life, they add an element that is not yet but already. A promise to a child will get that child do anything. A promise to a youngster will motivate that youngster into action. A promise to an employee will draw the utmost from the situation. A promise to the polity will gain parties votes. Promise is something that inspires action. We begin with a promise, a promise of a whole year of the Lord's accompaniment. The first reading invites us  to a hope that the Lord is serious about fulfilling the Lord's promises.

2. STANDING

Stand with confidence before the Son of Man, says the Gospel today. We are standing - that takes three dispositions: One, that we are alert. We do not allow people to deceive us, or we do not permit the situation around us to have the better of us. We remain awake and perceive everything that is going on, picking up every sign that the Lord gives towards action. The second disposition, that we are ready and on the move because our liberation is at hand reminds the Gospel again. It is time that we see not only the history but the Lord of history in action, that we perceive the hand of God in things that are happening around us. Thirdly, that we are firm, strong and standing erect! That we are not overcome by fear or trepidation. We are standing, sure of our steps because we have a promise from the Lord and we need not be shaken.

3. THE LORD

The Lord our Integrity... it is the Lord who gives us these promises and we are sure that they will be fulfilled because we are referring to the Lord our integrity: Jehova Tsidkenu, the Righteous one (Jer 23:6). We have a sure foundation because it is the Lord who promises, the Lord who is Integrity, the Lord who is Righteousness. The Lord is faithful forever.

There could be signs of destruction every where, there could be evil seen thriving all over, there could be difficulties multiplying in all directions, there could be traps set all around for the just to fall and rise no more, there could be plotters and plunderers right at our door steps, there could be powers and principalities hatching together plans to destroy truth and seize control over humanity... but nothing shall triumph, nothing that overtake you, for you are standing on the promises of God! The Lord's promise is the eternal covenant: For I shall be your God, you shall be my people!

We are standing on the promises of the Lord; we have nothing to fear however dark and dreary the situation may seem. The Lord our integrity is constantly watching over us and waiting to fulfill all God's promises! 

Alarming or Life-giving; Hyper-action or Inaction?

Last day in the Ordinary time of the Year

December 1, 2018: Revelations 22: 1-7;  Luke 21: 34-36

Behold I am coming soon! At times it annoys when I hear people go hysteric about this statement. It is not a statement to make every one panic, but a gentle reminder as to how one should live one's daily life. St.Paul understood this well and instructed the Thessalonians: "For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. ...But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness" (1 Thess 5:2,4).

We are on the last day of the liturgical year, from tomorrow we begin a whole new cycle. Last day, last days, last chance and last moments... these are words with a bit of alarm inbuilt. Jesus does shake us up a little, warning us of things that will happen in the last days. Alarming yes, but at the same time life giving, says the Word today. 

These words mean that neither inaction nor hyper action is expected of us; neither panic nor drowsiness! It is not a call to live your life on pins and needles, anxious about the next moment; nor is it a call to live our life in mourning and bewailing for the lost moments. The call is to make the best of this moment and live the 'here and now' to the full, conscious and loving. That is the sense that the Gospel presents us: be vigilant at all times! Neither inaction, which is the product of lamentation of the past, nor hyper-action which is a frenetic preparation for an unknown future at the cost of the present, would help us says the Word today. 

If we are prepared, holding on to the Lord and living in perfect communion with the Lord, then we need not be alarmed, we can remain firm with our heads high, we can rest assured whatever time it be, our experience will only be life giving. When there are, or there have been, compromises in our way of life and our choices, then the alarm is natural and eventual.The secret is to live our lives as children of the light, calm and composed, but awake and vigilant!

Signs of the times...

Friday, 34th week in Ordinary time

November 30, 2018: Revelations 20: 1-4, 11- 21;  Lk 21: 29-33

One of the key terms insisted upon by the second Vatican Council is "signs of the times" and the Council itself tried its best to be true to the spirit of that term. The Council challenged the faithful and the church as a whole to learn to read the signs of the times and respond to it.

We think today that signs from the Lord are few and far between. The truth instead is, the signs abound: in our daily lives, through things that happen around us, through persons who live with us, those who live worthy lives, those who suffer for no cause of theirs, those who are oppressed, those who have scores and scores of woes to meet on a daily basis, through the  crisis we see in the nature around us, through the humanity that is pushed into a hue and cry that is so artificial and human made... there are signs aplenty, provided we are ready to perceive them.

Our responsibility is two fold: first to learn to gather these signs, as coming from the Lord! At times even the crises that come all against us will serve its purpose and have a whole lot of meaning, if we have this attitude towards gathering the signs from the Lord, from everything that is and happens around us. 

Secondly to act upon these signs, respond to them, regardless of the risks and the sacrifices that are involved. We are so negligent in this second part that we habituate ourselves to become blind to the signs that are around. We prefer to pacify ourselves saying, 'do not expect extraordinary signs' rather than say, 'be attentive to every sign and diligent in working on them'. 

Whether we gather them or not, respond to them or not, they are there! We would do well as true sons and daughters of the Reign, if we are present to them and through them strive to build the Reign here and now.  

Judgement: Our Choice!

Thursday, 34th week in Ordinary Time

November 29, 2018: Revelations 18: 1-2, 21-23, 19:1-3, 9A; Luke 21:20-28

Happy are those who are called to the wedding feast of the Lamb...the final banquet, the moment of redemption...the end of days, the judgment seat... these are the pictures that the Word paints before our eyes today. These are not some horror stories or shake-up narrations. They are logical ends towards which we are all journeying. 

In fact, it need not be always an end time phenomenon, instead it has to be an everyday experience...the judgment is a continuous happening and it is not entirely an act of the Lord; the choices that we make at any given point of time, at any moment of a given day, the choice of words, thoughts, actions, decisions...that is the judgment we bring upon ourselves (cf. Jn 3:18).

We are all called to the wedding feast, that is to unite with the Lord and enjoy the eternal bliss. But the choices we make on a daily basis, at a particular point of time, is our response and that decides whether we enter the banquet or not. The simple message is a challenge to make a choice, a choice for God. 

Amidst all the dreadful things that happen around, we are called to remain firm in the Lord. Amidst all the inexplicable evil around, we are called to side with the truth and fearlessly face the consequences. Amidst all the dark powers that seemingly dominate the scene, we are called to firmly believe that the victory and power belong to Our Lord!  

Hence, instead of yarning tales of suspense and horror, let us realise our responsibility in making right choices in our daily life, right choices of thoughts, words and deeds: Judgement is our choice, indeed!

Christ-ian Perseverance...Ready!?!

Wednesday, 34th week in Ordinary time

November 28, 2018: Revelations 15:1-4; Luke 21: 12-19

Perseverance in terms of targets and achievements in the world is, holding on endlessly. The same, when it comes to our relationship with God is, giving up limitlessly. It is to give up totally into the hands of God, regardless of the successes or failures, gains or losses, happiness or sadness, prosperity or misery! 

Faith is all about this giving up, giving up everything and walking with our hands in the hands of God. Indeed it's a challenging feat. Specially considering the fact that today there is a great pressure laid on people to hoard up things, keep striving to prove oneself, ensure one's career or well being in competition with each other...the times are difficult. 

It takes true faith and strong hope, to remain calm and unperturbed even amidst such tribulations. That is true perseverance. Imagine the scenario around you. Truth is heckled at globally, values are sidelined, rights are taken for granted and dignity is reserved only to those who can afford it. It seems like the plagues that we read of in the hands of those angels have been let loose on to humanity! What are you going to do?

Neither hyper-reaction nor frustration can help! Neither counter aggression nor silent witnessing will serve! Neither over confidence nor a sense of hopelessness can strengthen us. Yes, we need perseverance... but not that of the world, which advocates an aggressive, obsessive, success-centered, control seeking obstinacy; but a hopeful, transcendent, serene and child like perseverance, which is truly, Christ-ian perseverance. Are you ready for it?