The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #19

Trust, Surrender to the Lord!

Thursday, December 20, 2018
Isaiah 7: 1-14; Luke 1: 26-38

Living the Reign here and now demands that we trust the Lord, trust in the Lord's promises and Surrender ourselves to the Lord. The world today seems lost and dissipated because by and large it has lost any solid foundation on which to base itself. The famous title of the book by Zygmunt Bauman sets us think - 'the Liquid Times'. Everything and everybody seems so flimsy and fragile that the moment you begin to feel secure, things fall apart. And there is only one thing that we can stand firm on; and Christmas says it all - the promises of God!

We started the Advent journey with this reflection, remember? We stand on the promises of God. They alone do not fail us, come what may. The readings today bring this out in such vivid fashion that we do not need any interpretation to it. The first reading presents the promise made in King Ahaz's time and the Gospel presents the realisation of that promise. And in all this, Mary finds a special role. 

Mary's YES to the Lord was an absolute trust placed in the promises of the Lord and a total self surrender that followed: Behold, the handmaid of the Lord! Her yes did not stop with the Angel disappearing but it continued all her life; she founded herself on the promises of God and as Elizabeth declares, "Blessed is the one who believes that what God promised will come true!"

Emmanuel, the Lord with us, is the only true foundation living with us. It is the Lord who resides with us and strengthens our confidence in this life through the promises and inspiring us to trust, that all God's promises will come true. When we truly trust in the Lord, a surrender follows and in this surrender to the Lord, we begin to live the Reign here and now. 

The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #18

Wait, Bear fruit and Praise the Lord

Wednesday, December  19, 2018

Judges 13:2-7,24-25; Luke 1: 5-25

Living the Reign here and now involves an enduring wait, timely action and constant acknowledgement of the Lord. This is a special type of fruitfulness that the Lord expects of us. We have two episodes of such miraculous fruitfulness narrated today... both bring out the same salient characters that we just mentioned: to wait, to bear fruit and to praise the Lord. 

When the Lord is with us, and we acknowledge and appreciate that presence and found our lives on that presence, we become fruitful in a miraculous way. From where we do not expect and from circumstances that are most unlikely we will  see shoots of new life - that is Lord's doing. The parents of Samson and John are given as models of the people of the Reign - just like them, we might feel we are incapable of doing such a great task of bringing forth the Reign but we wait on the Lord, wait till the appointed time when we shall bear the right fruit expected of us and that would fill our hearts and our minds with praises to the Lord.

There are two verses that these events remind us so strongly of. First, from John: Apart from me you can do nothing (Jn 15:5). And the other, a corollary from Paul: I can do everything through him who strengthens me (Phil 4:13). How true! With my Lord around, it is not difficult at all, to be fruitful. 

All that we need to do is, even during the darkest hours wait on the Lord, be filled with the graces of the Lord, and when we are expected, bear fruit. Bearing fruit would be the greatest of all praises, if we constantly acknowledge the presence and guidance of the Lord in our lives. This is already living the Reign here and now!

The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #17

Decide, Grow in Integrity

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

Jeremiah 23: 5-8; Matthew 1: 18-24

Living the Reign here and now is deciding to grow in total integrity! The Word today brings home this message to us through one name that is common to both the first reading and the Gospel... David! 

David was such a loved person to the Lord, even after the blunders that he made and after having received the deserved punishment! What was so special about David? Obviously, he was not the perfect of the people available. But he was the most integral of all, because when he made a mistake and that mistake was pointed out, he accepted it and repented. 

When we talk of integrity, we are not speaking of a spotless perfection in a person, but of the capacity to look at reality and accept it for what it is. Even Joseph had his own plans of keeping Mary away, but when Lord God revealed his plan, he was able to look at the divine plan and accept it, and carry out the task entrusted to him.

Not just the Messiah coming in the line of David, but the Lord wishes that each of us fall in line with David, in his humility, in his docility, in his availability, in short, in his integrity. When we begin to grow in our integrity, we would be earning more and more critiques or even hate mongers. 

What is going to be our response - find fault with these critiques, lament at the injustice done to us, refrain from being just and good for the fear of suffering, play it safe and feign compliance with the crowd, or the worst of it all - accept their value system and live according to their standards or decide to grow more and more in our personal and collective integrity: as a child of God and as people of God! That is already living the Reign here and now.

The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now # 16

Reflect, Realise your real lineage!

Monday, December 17, 2018
Genesis 49:2, 8-10; Matthew 1: 1-17

Living the Reign here and now requires we understand who we really are and where we come from. The readings today remind us of how important it was for the Jews to know their lineage and how it played a crucial role in their understanding of the coming of the Messiah. The first reading reminds us of the promises given to the peoples and how they understood it in such relationship with their lineage. The Gospel presents us how this promise, in keeping with the lineage and people's, was fulfilled in time!

In any traditional society, people place a great importance on the lineage of a person and the historical background that a person hails from. Issues like the surname in the European context, or the family names from the father or the mother in some cases, the clans in tribes and sometimes the caste identities in the Indian subcontinental contexts... how dear and important they seem for so many! But the real question today is: which is the most significant lineage for you and me?

The Word today insists on the one lineage that matters: that we come from God! It is God who formed us and created us;  it is God who willed us into existence;  it is God who has a plan for us; it is God who waits to make sense, for us and through us for many others. If only we realise this lineage and that this lineage alone matters, we would find God very close to us, and find ourselves genuinely close to each other. 

What do we need to do, if this realisation has to happen: take time and reflect! Yes, from the overwhelming chores of days, from the countless customs of the living contexts, from the limitless expectations constantly shoved upon us, let us take a time off... to take time and reflect... reflect on the real lineage that matters... the lineage that we have from God! It is from God that all God's people take their name! When we realise this all-important lineage that we possess, we shall begin to live the Reign here and now.

WAITING IN THE LORD WITH JOY FOR THE REIGN

Faith, Hope and Love

Third Sunday in Advent: December 16, 2018

Zephaniah 3:14-18; Philippians 4: 4-7; Luke 3: 10-18

An expectant couple, a lover on the park bench, a child on the birthday eve, a starved person on a set table... these are vivid snapshots of the joy of waiting! There is a pain involved, but a pain that is part of the joy. There are myriads of reasons to be disturbed and be restless about, but they are all overwhelmed by the joy that resides beneath. That is the picture that the Church wants us to contemplate this Sunday: Waiting in the Lord with Joy for the Reign. 

This Sunday is called the Gaudete Sunday (Gaudete in latin simply means 'Rejoice')... taking off from the entrance antiphon which invites us to REJOICE, because the salvation of the Lord is near. Note the colour of the vestments today... they are not merely the violet, but purple or pink... to add the necessary element of joy to the waiting! A Christian waiting should be joyful, the liturgy reminds us today.

The whole creation groans as with pangs of childbirth...for a peaceful, prosperous, perfect world. Every religion and every spirituality is a yearning towards that state of existence, called in various names. We believe it to be the Reign of God; "We are seeking God's Kingdom" reminds the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium(180) of Pope Francis. This waiting, this Christian waiting for the Reign of God is a joyful waiting, not a miserable waiting, not a servile waiting. The readings today bring to our attention the marks of this waiting: 

The first mark is the Assurance of FAITH. The first reading is full of words like, gladness, joy, exultation, rejoicing, shouting, dancing, singing... all these words of Zephaniah was used by the people of Israel in their liturgy because it consoled them in their times of exile... the prophet reminds them the day of the Lord is near! What fills their hearts and their lives is faith - a joyful and total abandonment into the hands of God, one who creates and directs history. A total assurance that the Lord is for them; the Lord stands in favour of them and the Lord will lead them to the prosperity that they are waiting for. Our life, to be truly Christian, to be truly worthy of the Reign, has to be based firmly on this assurance of faith, that the Lord is with us and the Lord is for us. When at times things go wrong in our lives - a break of relationship, or a repeated failure in career, or  a disillusionment with one's dreams... we need to remember in faith: When God is for us, who can be against us!

The second mark of a joyful waiting is the Aspirations of HOPE. Hope is not an empty dream or a fanciful imagination that things will dramatically and miraculously change over and everything will be fine at a point of time. Hope is the aspirations of a heart, the desire for a better world, the yearning for a bright tomorrow, the thirst for justice and truth, these are infallible signs of the Reign. That is what we are invited to.. to hope, and only that hope will thrust us into action, into doing our little bit, our essential part in making those dreams come true! We need to do our bit: John the Baptist instructs those people what to do and what not to do. Today, we have each of us our part to reflect upon and do... to change the world in our own way. Are we going wait for some change to come from somewhere without we doing anything for it? Or are we going to be filled with that vision, to reach the promised land, each and every one of us hand in hand.

The third mark is Associations of LOVE. When is a person filled with such joy while waiting? Only while the person is waiting for the love of one's life! This is the chief characteristic of our waiting. We are not waiting for something to happen, but we are waiting for someone to come, someone whom we love with all our heart, someone whom we know so well. We are waiting with joy because we know the person would bring us exactly that - joy, joy without ending! The love that fills our hearts, fills our lives too and that is why our life changes while we are waiting. In fact the waiting is for the change to happen within us, that at the moment of coming we are in the best of our selves to encounter the moment, meet the person, enjoy the love and grow into the Reign.

We are waiting... we are waiting for the Reign... but the Reign is already here, the wait is to make it more and more visible! Hence, each of us has the responsibility, to make the Reign of God felt, here and now, through living with an abundance of assurance of faith, with limitless aspirations of hope and divine associations of love with each other. The joy of waiting for the Reign, has to radiate that joy to every one, everyday in every way.

The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #14

Look, Listen and Renounce Arrogance

Second Saturday in Advent: December 15, 2018

Sirach 48: 1-4,9-11 ; Matthew 17: 9a, 10-13

Living the Reign here and now requires that we look, listen and renounce our arrogance so that the Lord can have his way! One of the sayings tough but totally true is: you can wake up someone who is asleep, not the one who pretends to be sleeping. The question of Elijah comes up and Jesus responds more than a bit in those terms. 

Jesus lays bare the arrogance that the Jews had, which was instrumental in doing away with such numerous prophets. Jesus knew all the while what awaits him with such stiff necked people. Before we go ahead to blame those people, let us direct the question to ourselves: how prepared are we to receive the revelation from God, even from those quarters that we may not totally like! 

At times our likes and dislikes determine what we would consider to be true or not! Can truth me so relative, that when someone whom I like tells me I believe it and when someone whom I don't like says it, I scorn! As the ancient Indian wisdom would say: Let truth come from all directions! We should be able to look at the reality around and listen to the messages that abound. For that we need to necessarily shed our arrogance!

In our arrogance, we would miss the Lord passing by, we would miss the words that can give us new life, we would remain stunted and dwarfed in our spiritual life. Renounce arrogance to receive the Lord, because the Lords stands at the door knocking... if we have to listen, we need to wake up and look. In doing so, we shall begin to live the Reign here and now.

The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #13

Just live, you have nothing to prove

Second Friday in Advent: December 14, 2018

Isaiah 48: 17-19; Matthew 11: 16-19

Living the Reign here and now is just living one's life! The world insists on proving yourself to everyone around and that is where all frustrations arise. Most of our happiness is short lived because much of it depends on whether or not others accept me, whether they affirm me or not, recognise me or not, appreciate me or not! Even if not dancing to the tunes of the others, we are most of the time conditioned by what the others say, what the others feel and how the others judge me. At times this goes to the extent that I forget to live my life, I live someone else's opinions and prejudices!

We are given with a great gift, that is our life. And every one of us has come into this world with a purpose, however small or big you judge them to be. The Lord however has always a new insight into the entire journey. The more we consider people's opinion as leading criteria or directions to decision making, we cease to live our life. 

The Lord bares the foolishness of this way of life as he says in the first reading today - that the Lord himself has taught us how to live and how not to. If we follow the precepts of the Lord, we would live an upright life and we would not need to cringe at anyone's feet! As the Word instructs today: the vindication shall be from none other than the Lord! All that we need to do is, as St. Paul would suggest in 2 Thes 3:12, just go on quietly doing your work and earning your living. 

This is one of the hardly found Reign value among the so called people of the Reign...whether Christians or not, we are unduly conditioned by the opinions and judgments of the others. Would we dare grow out of it and begin to think only of living upright, knowing well that we have nothing to prove? All that we need to do is live in the presence of the Lord and when we do that we live the Reign already here and now!

The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #12

Learn at the School of Suffering

Second Thursday in Advent: 13th December, 2018

Isaiah 41: 13-20; Matthew 11: 11-15

Living the Reign here and now requires that we learn to suffer with hope! The poor and needy ask for water and there is none, their tongue is parched with thirst. These lines from the first reading today, bring to our minds the pathetic scenes of poverty stricken nations, refugee camps, relief camps, war torn zones... where people are in dire need of food and water, looking up to someone who would come to their aid. Why do they suffer? Merely natural reasons? Justified political reasons? Is it all of their making? Today people suffer so much more due to human made calamities than due to those that are natural. 

The ones who suffer are not merely the greedy and the trespassers, the wrongdoers and the offenders, but majority of them are the innocent, the poor and the vulnerable! There are only sufferers and those who make them suffer today; there are only oppressors and the oppressed today - you are in either of the group! Where exactly am I?

The first possibility is, you stay off from being part of the causes of the problem, that is being  part of the group of exploiters and oppressors! Then you are oppressed, suffering and bearing the brunt of the callousness of the world. 

The second possibility is, you are part of the cause of the problem. You are in a way, however small, a cause of the sufferings of the innocent, the vulnerable! What reward do you expect for yourself? Do you really think this is what your life was made for!

But surprisingly, a majority of us like to be in the third group, calling ourselves 'in the middle'. Beware, nothing of that exists! You are  part of either the first or the second! If you say, I do not actively oppress anyone, see if you passively approve of it. Even if you are comfortably and conveniently silent about the wrongdoers and the wrongs, you are part of the cause of the problem!

It takes true courage to suffer and suffer with hope! To tell the world, that there is something that is incomparable to all these suffering that awaits us: the Reign. In fact, at the school of suffering we learn to live the Reign here and now.

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!