THE CALL

2 be or not 2 be

4th Sunday in Ordinary time: Feb 3, 2019
Jeremiah 1: 4-5,17-19; 1 Corinthians 12:31 - 13:13; Luke 4: 21-30

Every reality has at least two sides... and the reality of our call too has two sides and the readings invite us ponder on a few twos today...

God gives us two reminders today: 

God says, I have called you, called you before you were formed in your mother's womb, called you to be mine, called you to carry my message to the peoples, called you to be the light of the nations, called you to be my signs and bearers of my Word, called you to bring good news to the poor, called you to speak my Words...MY Words to the people, as I want it to be spoken, called you to go to the nations...to all the people of the world and tell them I love them all as my own!

God also says, when you do this the very people will come against you, they will plot against you, they will consider you a disturbance, they will condemn you to be ostracised, they will find ways and means of throwing you down the cliff - but do not worry, I shall be with you! I shall be your stronghold, your protection, your refuge, your hiding place, your consolation and your way forward!

The Word faces two responses always:

When you, O prophet of God, proclaim God's Word - there are those who find it so gracious and give praise to God, there are those who accept it with joy, there are those who  long for more of it, there are those who love it with all their life, there are those who will admire and support! But are they all?

When you go with the Word, O prophet there will be those who will be offended, those who will oppose you, those who will deride you, those who will find fault with you, those who will take you to task, those who will raise their eye brows in suspicion, those who will malign your name, those who will question your credibility, those who will impute vile intentions to your acts, those who will criticise you on your face, those who will calumniate behind your back... Are you ready to respond to it all, with love in your heart?

Love poses two challenges constantly:

God's call is to love, to go out to others in love, to reach out in love, to speak to others the Word of God in love, to bear God's love to everyone specially those who have not experienced love in life, to pull up others in love, to care for the true and integral well being of others in true Christian love. That is the challenge of a servant of God, of the true people of God! But do you think your love shall be just reciprocated anytime? 

God's call is to love, and when we go out with love, there are those who try our patience, those who take our kindness for granted, those who discriminate, those who insult, those who willfully offend, those who speak noting but legalities, those who cheat and those who say lies... anyway we are called to love, because love is patient, kind and gentle; it never looks for its rewards!

The call is challenging, the call to be the Messengers of the Word is a call to be signs and bearers of God's love to the others, to the world, to the people - whether they listen and accept it or not, whether they love you in return or hate you to death - I have to decide: to be or not to be - God's light to the nations!

Familiar, Flexible and Filial

February 2, 2019

The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

23rd World Day of Consecrated Life 

Malachi 3: 1-4 (or) Hebrews 2: 14-18; Luke 2: 22-40

The readings of today were offered for our reflection only recently, on the 8th day after Christmas. They are given once more today, but they open a whole new perspective today with all that surrounds it liturgically today!

We celebrate the feast of the presentation of the Lord and the 23rd World day of Consecrated Life. Keeping all of them in perspective, we have one lovely challenge posed: the Challenge of Total Offering to the Lord. Not just persons in Consecrated Life, but every one of us is called to offer ourselves totally to God and that alone can give us true meaning and happiness in life.

From the readings of today, we can pick up three signs of our total offering to the  Lord:

Familiarity: As the Holy Family which enters the Temple with that ease and eagerness to perform their spiritual duty, so are we called to remain always familiar with the Lord. As families we need to grow in our identity as families of God, families where God is at the centre, families which live their daily life around God!

Flexibility: For Mary or Joseph, performing the duty was not merely a ritual; even for us it shouldn't be so! We cannot be so legalistic and ritualistic, drawing boundaries as to what is to be done and what is not to be done, with such precision and perfection, as if we know every bit of the mind of God. We are called to be pliable in the hands of God, as malleable as the silver and gold in the hands of the smith, so that we can become what the Lord wants us to. The only thing after all that matters to God is love, nothing but love.

Filiality: It is this love that takes us to that loving destiny that God has prepared for us: it is towards filiality, we are ultimately invited to, as the letter to the Hebrews reminds us. This filiality inspired and enthused Jesus to belong to God totally and we are called to imitate the same self-giving!

Let us grow more and more, familiar, flexible and filial. 

Patient Endurance and Hope-filled Efforts

February 1, 2019

Friday, 3rd week in Ordinary time
Hebrews 10: 32-39; Mark 4: 26-34

I remember seeing this cartoon long back sent via the social network, and I went in search of it to place it here! We see a man digging a tunnel in search of precious metals and at a point he decides to stop his pursuit. Only we the viewers see that the man was just a few inches away from the treasure hidden away in the ground! "You need endurance to do the will of God and receive what he has promised", says the Word today. 

We cannot be like the nursery kids on a class project of growing a plant in the pot. From the time they plant a seed, they would keep returning to the pot every other minute to see if something has grown. The Reign of God grows in silence and obscurity; you will never know it is there around until you really believe it to be. That is why Jesus declared, 'the Reign of God is amidst you; within you' (cf. Lk 17: 21). 

Look at those beautiful words that letter to the Hebrews addresses us with today: we are not the sort of people who draw back, and are lost by it; we are the sort who keep faithful until our souls are saved! (v.39). It takes faith to remain when everything seems to be working against you!  It takes patience to hold on when events and persons come against you with plans and expressions so discouraging or disparaging. It takes hope to keep working towards good and towards perfection, come what may. It takes Christ to keep loving every one even amidst all these undesirable experiences!

In patient endurance and hope-filled efforts one will unlock the levels towards a fuller realisation of the Reign which is already there growing within us, among us and allover us! 

Inspire each other to love

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

JANUARY 31, 2019 - FEAST OF ST. JOHN BOSCO
Hebrews 10: 19-25; Mark 4: 21-25

As children of God, we are children of love! It is not enough that you wish to love every one, you need to love in fact. It is not enough that you love every one, you need to inspire everyone to love! That is truly evangelisation - filling the world with good news! The good news that God wants to give the world is: God loves us and therefore we can love each other!

The first reading today has a call that summarises our Christian vocation to the full. To love is an undeniable vocation we have;  to inspire each other to love and to goodness is the complete understanding of it. We would certainly fail, if we do not understand what we are called to: to love, to spread love and to fill this world with love, as an act of filling this world with God. Especially today when so much of hatred is spread around and forced on peoples and nations... we need to hold love out to this world in every way possible.

This is why the Lord speaks of the imagery of light: to be lighted to light up. It takes a lot of effort to truly love; to rouse others to love it takes much more effort, a lot of sacrifice and a great amount of dedication. Yes! but the key is right there and the Lord puts it neatly: the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you, and still more will be given to you!

Let us thank God for the great person whom we celebrate today: St. John Bosco. At times as soon as we say that name people think of him as a proprietor of great big institutions and educational campuses. True, may be! But that was not who he was. He was a man who loved those whom no one wanted to love; he went after those who did not initially want to love him in return! But he gave without measure...he received it all absolutely without any measure! The best identity he liked for himself was: sign and bearer of God's love to the poor young! Let that we be...signs and bearers of God's love, inspiring each other to truly love!

Yield and Grow!

January 30, 2019

Wednesday, 3rd week in Ordinary time
Hebrews 10: 11-18; Mark 4: 1-20

Not Sacrifice but obedience is what I wish, says the Lord; an obedience that is not considered a sacrifice on your part, but offered out of an immense love that comes from your heart. It cannot be something that is forced on you from elsewhere... but it has to be something that arises from your heart, from the core of your being, transforming your entire self into an acceptable living sacrifice unto God (Rom 12:1). 

A life that is acceptable in the eyes of the Lord - that is what the Word impresses upon us this day: living an acceptable life in the presence of God. It is never the case that the Lord rejects us or finds us unacceptable; the Lord said he had come to call the sinners and not the righteous! But the fact is we choose to alienate ourselves from the Lord by the very choices we make on a daily basis and at every moment of decision making.

We may easily complain...the situation around is bad or that the conditions of life are not conducive. The Lord is not a demanding officer of returns, but a loving parent who wishes to see us grow. Our conditions differ: some more cosy and comfortable, others tough and torturous, yet others inspiring and helpful, while some really evil and gruesome! 

The Lord knows everything, all that surrounds us and whatever is within us. Sometimes we think we are thrown here in this situation; remember, we are not thrown, we are sown! There is a purpose to everything that is there around us and if only we obey and yield to the Lord, the Lord is creating something new!

All that is asked of me is that I do my best without any compromise, wherever I am or in whatever condition I find myself in; the rest the One who has sown me here will take care. All that I need to do is, keep growing... keep yielding to the Lord because it is the Lord who gives us the growth!

What you call, 'formalities'...

Tuesday, 3rd week in Ordinary time

January 29, 2019

Hebrews 10: 1-10; Mark 3:31-35

I remember, quite some time back, when I got to know a new person in life... it was a strange experience. The person would apologise for even a small or simple fault. The person would endlessly go on giving explanations and justifications for some thing that happened or something that did not happen - at times to the extent of wearying me. However, I was totally aware those were 'necessary formalities' of politeness, the relationship being at initial stages. 

The readings today seem to speak of a similar experience of what you call 'formalities' with God! When our relationship with God has still not set off on its way to maturity, we would weary God with our formalities of rituals, rites and legalities. But when we build a true and personal relationship with God, we would mind nothing more than a bonding - like mother-child, like brother-brother, like brother-sister, like friends and so on! 

If we develop a deep and intimate relationship with God, who is so close to us all the time, we would at any given moment make choices and decisions in keeping with God's will for us then and there. What is needed for this is a disposition that the readings today give us: Behold, I come to do your will. Once we arrive at this level of relationship, there would be no grave need for silly formalities and the Lord would say, 'you are my loving child and today I have begotten you!' 

It is this readiness to do God's will that makes Mary the first disciple of Christ, more than merely the biological mother that she was to Jesus! The fundamental disposition is to never lose sight of that one absolute, in relation to which all our choices and decisions have to be made: God's Will, and a total surrender to it...everything else is just what we call 'formalities'.

New Covenant: the Promise and the potholes

January 28, 2019

Monday, 3rd week in Ordinary time

Hebrews 9:15, 24-28; Mark 3: 22-30

Jesus' promise of the New Covenant is a promise of eternal salvation. The Word affirms that this salvation is given to all, by that sacrifice once and for all, on Calvary. Every one is promised forgiveness and salvation, but every person has to claim that salvation for oneself. The greatest of gifts, the New Covenant of Salvation is guaranteed to all but we can be caught up in our own potholes, refusing to claim it all for ourselves. There can be three blocks that could prevent a person from personalising this salvation. 

The first is the social block - that the background and experience handed down does not allow one to experience this salvation. This can be overcome by appropriating a new experience that can change the entire life of a person. The society calls this conversion, may be from one faith experience to the other, but fundamentally a change of vision.

The second is the personal block - that the weaknesses within us, the limitations that we personally experience keep us away from God. This can be worked out of too, with the grace of God and with the help that God sends our way, like sacraments, persons and processes of varied nature. This too is called a conversion, an internal, personal conversion!  

The third and the most dangerous is a psuedo block, because of which I deliberately keep myself away from God. It is my lack of openness and bias against anything spiritual that takes me far from the promise of the New Covenant. I go around demonising whatever and whomever I do not like - there is no remedy to it because it is my choice and no one else or nothing else can save me! This is the state that Jesus warns us against in the Gospel today.

St. Thomas Aquinas, the saint we celebrate today can be easily considered the most important of all the theologians who have explained the Church's teachings. He has written an incredibly voluminous literature, expounding the truths of faith. But at the end of it all, when he had an intimate experience of God, he exclaimed that all that he had done till then were almost rubbish! He had nothing that could block not even his own tremendous contribution to faith - He experienced God and felt himself as a child of the New Covenant!

BEING GOD'S PEOPLE

Identity, Call and Mission

3rd Sunday in Ordinary time: January 27, 2019

Nehemiah 8:2-6,8-10; 1 Corinthians 12: 12-30; Luke 1:1-4, 4:14-21

Jesus came and lived here on earth amidst us to remind us about our call to be God's people and to show us how to do it! People of God - that is our identity, that is our call and that is our mission. 

But looking at history - sometimes, it has been a dangerous proposition too! We see that the people of Israel, calling themselves the chosen people of God, killed and butchered clans and clans of the so-called 'others'; Jesus himself was killed because they thought it is better that one dies instead of the entire lot of the 'chosen people' being put to risk; think of those the times when we called ourselves the 'people of God' and went with flags marked with crosses menacing nations and even killing thousands; what about those who in the name of 'superior race' or the 'chosen race' wished to blot out the rest of the world; after all these have we anything to say when a group calls the rest as 'infidels' and threatens to eliminate people, if they don't become one of them? All these have unmistakably and gravely gone wrong somewhere, somewhere right at the foundations! 

When the Word tells us today we are called to be God's People, it is not a statement of pride or superiority or elitism or some kind of messianism claiming that the entire world is at our mercies! Absolutely no. Certainly, it is a statement of an identity that God wishes to give us, but along with it comes a call and a mission that defines it all. Yes, there are three tasks outlined for us by the Word this Sunday:

1. Beginning with the Word - Our Identity

Being God's people means beginning with the Word: our identity lies there, not in the structures we have and the statistics we boast about (that we are the greatest in number and that we have survived for 2000 years and so on!) Our identity is based on the Word, the Word which has always guided humanity, the Word which had become human and the Word which calls us everyday without ceasing to a life of love and compassion. Our identity has to be created on the foundation of the Word of God. 

When Nehemiah the leader and Ezra the priest wanted to give an identity to the heart broken people, they did it with the Word, reading it aloud to them and getting them to hear it and be strengthened by it. When Jesus wanted to establish his identity among his own people, he did it with the Word, teaching in the synagogue for the first time. As individuals, as families or as communities, if we wish to identify ourselves to others, we need to found ourselves on the Word. 

2. Building up the Word - Our Call

The Word was made flesh, the flesh was given to us and we were made One Body in Christ. The Word invites us to build up our communities of faith, in communion and sharing, thus building up the Word into a formidable challenge to the ways of the world. This task is to build up our believing community, the Body of Christ, the Body of the Word. 

The Word was made flesh, in order that God's salvation plan could be brought to its culmination in Jesus Christ the Son of God. Today the same Word has to be made flesh... the Word has to become a Body, the Body of Christ, the Body of the Word... that is our Community of faith - united as one body with the head that is Christ, the Word who lives amidst us. When we build up the community, we build up the Body of the Word, we build up the Word. When we break, divide, shatter, weaken, dismember this Body, we are killing the Word! We have just finished celebrating the Unity Octave (18 to 25 January), praying for the unity of all Christians, are we really ready to forget our differences, leave aside our past and unite in the name of the Word? 

3. Becoming the Word - Our Mission 

The word you have heard is fulfilled today in your hearing, declared Jesus. He was the Word personified...and we are today called to model our lives after him, to become the Word, to grow into the Word, into the living Word, into living images of Christ for the world today, offering sight to the blind, liberty to captives and  freedom to the oppressed.

Many a times we think our mission is to memorise a few verses from the Bible and go shout it in the face of people and get them some how by hook or by crook, by fears or by tears into our fold and say, "we have saved them". What a sham! We are not sent merely to throw the Word at others; we are sent to live It amidst others! We are not expected to swallow the Word only to spit It elsewhere, but to become It. Our mission is to be nourished by the Word and Become the Word! Seeing us people should be able to look at us and say: 'what we heard is being fulfilled in you!'

Becoming God's People is an identity we need to found on the Word, a call to build our families and communities on the Word, and a mission to transform ourselves after the Word. Can our daily lives be truly fulfilments of the Word, here and now?

Apostles: to live and to inspire!

THE WORD AND THE SAINTS

January 26, 2019: Sts. Timothy and Titus

2 Timothy 1: 1-8 (or Titus 1:1-5); Luke 10: 1-9

Timothy and Titus are two models we are presented with today.  They were both finds of St. Paul on his journeys. Inspiring the listeners to make a life choice is a special gift that some are given with. St. Paul possessed this and used it well for the Reign of God. Timothy and Titus join the great band of apostles that Jesus initiated.

The Word on this feast day offers us three insights:

1. Timothy had received Faith as a gift from God and St. Paul asks him to fan its flames... So are we called to fan to flames of God's glory, the gift we have received, our Faith. In it rests the real meaning for humanity! We have it...do we realise it?

2. Titus becomes a child to Paul in faith... So do we become brothers and sisters, bonded by faith, that is the relationship we have with God. It is God who unites us - hence, are we mindful of the unity we share or are we looking for reasons to divide and discriminate among ourselves?

3. We are all sent...just as was St. Paul to live the Word and inspire persons! Inspire people whom we meet, by our words making them so founded on the Lord and the Lord's Word, that the listeners would feel like giving praise to God and give their lives to God! This is what we are called to - to be Apostles, that is, to live and to inspire, in the name of the Word. Can we?

Conversion: an Absolute choice for God!

THE WORD AND THE FEAST: Conversion of St. Paul

January 25, 2019: Acts 22:3-16; Mark 16; 15-18

The feast of Conversion of St. Paul invites us to reflect on our conversion. Unfortunately, in today's context, the word 'conversion' has more political connotation than spiritual! There are anti-Christian elements in some societies who call us Christians, a cancer! There are those within us who hardly hesitate to call names at our universal communion, citing as cause the scandals that have been unearthed. These are truly difficult times.

But on the contrary, today is a beautiful occasion for us to remind ourselves that conversion is not about numbers, or increasing the fold or sustaining the crowd without losing adherents. Conversion is a personal decision to go towards God, an about-turn (as the Greek word 'metanoia' suggests); it is an absolute choice for God! 

Choice for God... because we begin to see the role that God has played in our life and choose to actively acknowledge it; Absolute... because nothing else matters as much as God and God's will do! We are called to conversion... may not be as dramatic as that of St. Paul's, as we read in the first reading today, but however, more demanding! Yes, we are called to daily conversion. 

To be aware, each day and each moment, of those things that take us away from our progress towards God. Nothing - no demonic powers, no distracting languages, no cunning serpents, no poisoning lifestyle, no disparaging scandals - should lead us away from God... we are called to make an absolute choice every day, for God and for God's Word.  Not merely in words but by my very life, I am obliged to proclaim God's message. "Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel," reminds me St.Paul (1 Cor 9:16)