The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #11

Dare to Soar on the Lord's wings

Second Wednesday in Advent: December 12, 2018

Isaiah 40: 25-31; Matthew 11: 28-30

Living the Reign here and now is to soar like the eagle, whatever the situation may be! Those who seek the Reign of God with all their hearts, in their weariness and helplessness will find the rejuvenating wings of the Lord uplifting their spirits. 

To feel the Reign present amidst us is to dare and not to droop! The Reign is in fact a promise of lifting the spirits of the drooping hearts, showing the way for those who grapple with life for meaning and purpose.  The Lord stands by those in a special way, assures the Word.

The Lord says,  come to me all who are heavy laden and take upon yourself my yoke and my burden. He never promised us,  come to me and have no burden or no load. No. Hence the call today is two fold:

One, to dare, to be strong to bear our burdens. Strength is seen not in moments of celebration and victory but in moments of trials and heartaches. To be strong is to feel the closeness of a support, to feel I am not alone and be sure of a shoulder to lean on. That is what the Lord promises in the Gospel today. 

The second call is to rise above, to soar: if we have to look square at the troubles around us and understand whether they are real, whether they are necessary, whether need to be attended to at all, we need to rise above them, take a distance and observe and reflect. Only God's people would do that. Because each of us knows that one has his or her own legitimate share of troubles to face. If we are truly strong in the Lord we will run and not wear out;  we will walk and still not tire, because the burdens from the Lord are light and the yoke that the Lord offers is sweet. And we shall soar like eagles, on the comforting and empowering wings of the Lord and thus we shall live the Reign here and now!

The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #10

Choose to Surrender to the Shepherd

Tuesday, 2nd week in Advent, 2016

Is 40:1-11; Mt 18: 12-14

Living the Reign here and now means living a way of life that is worthy of the King! The imagery that is  common to both the readings  today is that of the Shepherd.  The shepherd who is promised by the Lord through Isaiah and the Shepherd who is presented as a model by Jesus. 

The promise is  the Shepherd will carry you... I was reminded of that icon we have been seeing for one whole year in 2016... the icon of the year of mercy, where  Christ the Shepherd carried Adam on His shoulder. Explaining its significance the Holy Father had said: the Shepherd is ready and willing to carry us;  are we willing to allow ourselves to be carried?

The message to Israel through Isaiah and to us  today is the same:  allow yourself to be carried.  From drudgery of life to fullness of life;  from a world of compromises to a world of true convictions; from a culture of death to an experience of resurrection... allow yourself to be carried. 

Allowing myself to be carried is to go where the shepherd wants me to and not to go where he does not want me to; it is to do what he wants and not to do what he wishes I don't; it is to live the way he wants me to and avoid anything that would bear a counter witness to his person! But all this the Shepherd never forces on me, it my choice! It is my choice to go, to do, to live the way my Shepherd wants; it is my choice to be his sheep or not; it is my choice to surrender to the Shepherd... and when I dare to make that choice, I begin to live the Reign here and now!

The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #9

Perceive and Anticipate the Incredible

Second Monday in Advent: December 10, 2018 

Isaiah 35:1-10; Luke 5: 17-26

Living the Reign here and now is perceiving the presence of the Reign wherever we are. When the Reign comes you witness the incredible!  The Lord is around and when you let the Lord into your life, things you consider incredible just happen from nowhere. It's Isaiah's prediction and made true by the event in the Gospel and the reaction of those high priests and scribes.

In our lives too the Lord stands knocking at the door to change things and to change the way we see things... it is upto us to let the Lord in.  We would let him in when we are able to anticipate the incredible things that are possible and at times not possible too! 

The Prophets have always been giving the indications of the Messianic times. The dumb speaking, the lame walking, the possessed freed and the captives liberated... the people saw all these happening with Jesus around. But they stopped with seeing. The people around could not perceive the message beyond all that was happening around them! 

We too see a lot happening, but we are called not just to see, but to perceive. To perceive the signs that the Lord gives us - to build up the true Reign of God... not our petty kingdoms, not our ego centers, not our brand building and not our monopoly. 

If we do not begin to perceive, we will miss the whole message! Without perceiving, miracles wont be miracles... we will only see strange things, as in today's Gospel! With perceiving we not only see what is happening, but we anticipate even the incredible. Only when we perceive and anticipate the incredible, we shall be prepared to live the Reign here and now!

PREPARING FOR THE MOMENT OF TRUTH

Living the moment in love!

Second Sunday in Advent: 9th December, 2018

Baruch 5: 1-9; Philippians 1: 4-6,8-11; Luke 3: 1-6

'PREPARE' is the call that dominates this season! Every time a natural or social disaster pays us a visit, there is a widespread feeling that we were not prepared enough for it in spite of the warnings we have had. Almost immediately, discussions and finger-pointing fills all news channels and daily pages. The second reading and the Gospel today invite us to prepare, while the first reading and the Gospel tell us how to prepare! Yes, we are preparing to celebrate the coming of the Lord, and we are preparing for the coming of the Lord too, that is the coming of the Reign of God... but what does this preparing truly mean and what is its real end!

Preparing: I remember as young lads, just out of our secondary schooling but in the seminary, once we had a serious discussion (at least we thought it was serious!). It was this: On the 15th of August we would stage every year a 3 act play and that would involve at least two months of preparation, at the end of which we would stage the 2 hour play and everything would end with it. The discussion was that we found it disproportionate that we "waste" two months on something that would just be done and dusted in just two hours: the memorising of the script, the rehearsals, the making of the scenes, the gathering of the props, the publicity, and every thing, just for two hours of a show? And as if we were more serious than our formators in using our time well, we argued that it was a waste of time and a fruitless labour! It is not the argument that I remember as much as the lovely explanation given by our formators. It is not about the play that your are preparing for, the very preparation is a drama that you are learning from! I think of this every time I feel a process gets tedious. We are preparing too: not to celebrate that day, December 25th and forget about it and keep busying ourselves with the next act in the play. This preparation has to become an experience in itself.

The Moment: Whatever we may say, all preparation is towards a moment and it is the depth of that moment that justifies the amount of preparation that goes into it. This is natural. And we are preparing for a moment; not just any moment but a moment of truth. A moment that would redefine entire history and renew every bit of the reality. If we mean preparing is getting ready in advance for the sake of facing a situation, then it involves imagining what that situation is going to be, understanding the various elements that would be involved and habituating oneself towards those situations already now... in short, it is living that moment already now! The Lord has instructed us time and again, to be prepared for the coming of the Lord in glory. The 'Coming' is going to be glorious and demanding too... because we would have to render an account for everything that we were given with and the way we have responded to it. Imagine someone you respect much, is about to visit your personal room: what would you do? You would be pushing dust under the carpet, stuffing clothes into the closet, dumping books into our cupboards and make the room look presentable. But this is not the preparing that we are called to today. Preparing cannot be a cosmetic alteration that stays just skin deep. It is a fundamental transformation because what we are preparing towards is not just a passing event or a momentary experience, it is the ultimate end, the climax towards which everything is going, the Reign which every one and every being is longing for. Hence it is a moment, but a moment of truth that is going to change every other moment that would follow!

Living the moment in love: To prepare, in Reign-terminology would be, to live the moment here and now... that is the task that St. Paul entrusts to himself and to us. The only preparation that is good enough for the coming of the Lord or the only preparation that can truly lead us towards the coming of the Reign of God, is beginning to live the Reign right here and already now. And that is done by growing in true love... love which means giving and not getting, reaching out and not receiving, leveling and not proving oneself; it is straightening and not manipulating, simplifying and not complicating, feeling for and with the other and not feigning sorrow; it is making life better for the other and not making a life out of the other. True love is a forgetfulness... a forgetfulness of harm done or good left undone, a forgetfulness of the struggles one has gone through while coming to face with the present struggles of another, a forgetfulness that does not so much think of repaying as of responding to the present need of a person. 

After all the reflection, what do you think? To prepare - does it not mean, to live the moment in anticipation? Let us heed to the Word. Let us prepare...prepare ourselves for that moment of truth, a moment when our whole world will be transformed in true love. Let us keep growing into God's people, towards being signs of God's Reign here on earth, living the moment, here and now, in love! 

Celebrating the Immaculate Conception

The WORD and the FEAST

8th December, 2018: Genesis 3:9-15,20; Ephesians 1: 3-6, 11-12; Luke 1:26-38

3 Lessons from the Feast of Immaculate Conception of Our Blessed Mother:

- In God there are no Compromises: Mercy of God does not mean compromises. In our normal parlance, God does not make adjustments. God sets things right, expiates and blots of offences in God's mercy but when it comes to being in the presence of the Lord there can be no compromises. I remember in our early seminary days, there used to be a way of saying, going back to Don Bosco's times, that this day Mary will sweep the salesian house. Though we used to poke fun saying we need not do our daily chores, we all understood the point. The purity and integrity of the persons in the house will be put to check by our Blessed Mother - that was the trust. Just to say, this feast is all about an absolute choice for God.

- In God there are no Impossibilities: Giving an unassailable justification a Doctor of the Church would say about Immaculate Conception God could do it and God did it! Keeping a person totally safe from the trace of original sin is purely grace! Mary received this grace for the sake of and by the merits of the Son of God whom she was destined to bear. It was a choice of this person called Mary, as St. Paul puts it, 'before the foundation of the world'.

- In God there are Wonders: God has great wonders in store for us. All that we need to do is give our humble and total assent. How many graces we miss with our stubbornness and selfishness. Though it was grace that kept Mary away from Original Sin, it was Mary's choice of God and God's purposes that kept her pure in her day to day life. That was her 'Yes' to the call of God. 

Mary herself proved the veracity of this truth taught by the Church through the great progress of events. It was in 1850 that the dogma was defined by the Church and Mary made an uneducated, little peasant girl Bernadette use the same words merely four years later - at the series of apparitions in Lourdes in 1858 (that strikes... 160 years). May our Blessed Mother continue to inspire us to remain pure, joyful and grace filled.

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!