The Shepherd Divine

February 9, 2019

Saturday,  4th week in Ordinary Time

Hebrews 13: 15-17, 20-21; Mark 6: 30- 34

What do we have to worry about, when the Lord is our Shepherd! We need only to become the sheep of the flock that belongs to the Lord. The way to do that is to endlessly do good. Do good without any reason,  without any hesitation, without any expectation,  without any discouragement.

The Gospel presents a picture of frenetic activity today. The disciples are all intent on doing good, as their master himself who went around doing good. At times we can be at a loss deciding what is God's will at a point of time.  The readings today seem to suggest one simple criterion: do good to others;  do good to as many as possible;  do good to all!

Three qualities are needed by all means to do this. 

- First of all,  faith with which one accepts this challenge from the Lord. 

- Secondly, endurance with which one withstands all disheartening factors. 

- Thirdly, the sensitivity with which one knows what the other needs without the other even expressing it.

God is the shepherd who knows our needs and cares for them,  but God does it through God's sons and daughters who become shepherds in turn.  We are called to be the sheep of God's flock but at the same time to grow to be shepherds to each other,  doing as much good as we could to each other. 

Our Divine Shepherd is an epitome of these qualities... who accepted the challenge of being good, endured all that worked against it and treated everyone around him with utmost sensitivity.

Moral Code or Spiritual Integrity?

February 8, 2019

Friday, 4th week in Ordinary Time

Hebrews 13: 1-8; Mark 6:14-29

Is following a moral code enough to be a Christian? Moral codes are temporal and spatial- that is, what is wrong at one time may not be so at another time; what is right in a place may not be so elsewhere! If all of us are formed from and moving towards the same Divine Being, then can our life style be so subjective? That is why Jesus always stood by Spiritual Integrity rather than a set of moral precepts. 

Jesus is same, yesterday, today and tomorrow! No time can change what Jesus stood for. The letter to the Hebrews presents to us a set of values which are not merely moral codes but are frameworks for spiritual integrity. Spiritual Integrity is knowing what is right to be done, being convinced of it and living by it, come what may. 

Even if we have to face extinction from this life, our stand shall not change. Just as John the Baptist who was ready to give up even his life. But how do we know what we are holding on to is right? 

The Lord is our light and all that we need to do is stay in that light - never desert the Lord! When we are with God, we are in the light and the Spirit of the Lord directs us on. Just as the Lord promised us through Isaiah, we would hear the whisper of the Teacher, 'this is the way, walk in it', 'this is right, choose it', 'this is good, strive after it' and so on. (see Isaiah 30:20,21) In simple words, we need to be divinely informed, we need the grace, the help of the Holy Spirit to hold on to truly and eternally life giving perspectives.

The Urgency of the Reign

February 07, 2019

Thursday, 4th week in Ordinary time

Hebrews 12:18-19, 21-24; Mark 6: 7-13

Right at the start, Jesus initiated the Reign with a sense of urgency. It was very true because Jesus was not an isolated reality or a mere solitary person. Jesus was the climax of God's self revelation to the world... the fullness of revelation and the summation of it. And in the second Reign was already there in their midst and Jesus was perfectly justified in saying: the Reign of God is in your midst (Lk 17:21). 

The Indian Church singles out a martyr from the list of martyrs that we celebrated yesterday: Gonsalo Garcia, the first Indian to be raised to the altar. He was a third order Franciscan friar and he went about in his simplicity and fervour and joined the missionaries to Japan and they were crucified at Nagasaki. All that mattered to them was the Reign and making it known to everyone!

If it were so 2000 years ago, and if it were so in the recent centuries, what do we make of today and our responsibility here and now? Do I have a sense of urgency about making present the Reign of God here and now?

Drooping hands and weak knees or faith alive?

February 6, 2019

Wednesday, 4th week in Ordinary time 

Hebrews 12:4-7,11-16; Mark 6:1-6

God is all powerful except before our free will... it is not that God is incapable but it is an integral quality of God to make human freedom totally out of reach of any manipulation or infringements. God had chosen to implant that freedom which is part of God's own image and likeness within us. At times we may feel we are afflicted but we are not without the means to withstand them. 

We have within us the necessary strength to stand up to these. At no time are we faced with a trial that is more than our capacity. That is the promise of the Word (Read 1 Corinthians 10:13). But at the heart of the moment, that is, being caught up in the eye of the storm, it seems to appear that there is no way out! But, No! it just cannot be so. Even if I were to accept an untoward incident in my life or even if I were to face a situation which I detest to, I cannot do it because I have no other go; I have to do it with a trust that in every thing God works for the good of those who love God.

Hence, not the problems or the difficulties, but that which drives us to despair is this... the drooping hands and weak knees... drooping hands symbolise my lack of faith in the capacity God has placed within me; weak knees symbolise the lack of dependence on God. When these happen, I find myself helpless, because I do not perceive the Lord, who is so close to me and so concerned about me - just like those who were not able to see Christ in Jesus, in spite of all the goodness!

What do you choose:  drooping hands and weak knees or a faith alive?

Who is your Hero?

February 4, 2019

Monday, 4th week in Ordinary Time

Hebrews 11:32-40; Mark 5:1-20

The Letter to the Hebrews lists today a set of heroes, heroes of valour and vigour, heroes in history on whom the people pinned their hopes! But they were all gone in the way of their fathers. Today we too have our own heroes - persons or role models or absolute values or needs or priorities - heroes of various kind. It is important to ask ourselves who is our hero? 

With what Jesus did to the people of Gerasenes, they should have made him their hero. Jesus solved their years of problem in a moment. He just sent the legion of demons away from their living quarters...but did Jesus become their hero? No! They asked Jesus to leave - may be because they felt their loss (of the swines) was too much! And probably, they had some other things as their hero. 

The world  today has too many things to contend with the Lord being its hero! Even drawing people to God, there are many who propose material well being as a source of attraction. Come to the Lord, you will have all the prosperity you can think of. Come to the Lord and you will have your dreams so miraculously fulfilled. How many times we hear these jargons and can we get sillier than this? 

Jesus taught them that to have him meant losing a lot of other things. It was hard for them. Because the well being that Jesus proposed had a different meaning altogether - it was being free from demonic possessions, slaveries that do not let humans be humans, fears that prevent persons from living their lives to the full. It is all about what our choice is. The crucial question is: who is your hero?

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!