Be Open

Journey to Holiness: Listen to the Word all around you

March 13, 2019: Wednesday, First Week of Lent

Jonah 3: 1-10; Luke 11:29-32 

Wickedness of the generation that Jesus refers to in the Word today, is the tendency to justify, rationalise or counteract the call to conversion. It is a common experience that we see, within ourselves or around us, the numerous reasons given for justifying a wrong doing even after we know clearly that it is wrong. It is also possible to see persons who rationalise a wrong doing in the name of circumstances, consequences and customs. There are others who make sure they sideline or eliminate those people who raise pertinent questions, disturbing questions or upsetting queries. These are various ways in which people react, when they are put in the dock sometime or the other. 

The challenge today is offered by the people of Nineveh, as Jesus refers to! They paid attention to the message when it came, they listened and they acted upon it. If only we are to truly listen to all the messages we receive and genuinely act upon at least a half of them, we would never be called "wicked" by Jesus! The need is to be open: to be open to receive the Word, the call from the Lord towards conversion, from anywhere and from anyone. 

That call to integrity, to authentic christian living, to radical witness to the Gospel way of life, is all around us. We are called to witness to the gospel with our very lives - are we ready?

Holiness tip for today: Listen, the Lord is speaking, through everything and everyone around.

Be God's

Journey to Holiness: Believe and belong to the Lord.

March 12, 2019: Tuesday, 1st Week of of Lent
Isaiah 55:  10-11; Matthew 6: 7-15

Yesterday we were invited to reflect on 'being Godly' and today we are reminded of our fundamental nature of belonging to God: we are God's own... God's sons and daughters. 

God's Word, God's presence with us is so effective that everything can be transformed by it: but there is hitch. That is the personal freedom that God has given us, as the core element of our fundamental dignity! God will never take that for granted. Anything that God wishes to do for us: it depends on our personal choice; the use of our freedom! We need to choose it, positively and personally. 

At times we get so busy with all that we involve - things, persons, activities, dreams, plans and projects - that we forget to whom we belong. Imagine in a football game, if a player in the midfield were playing so vigorously that he forgot for whom he or she is playing...  funny, isn't it? That is what happens with us, so regularly and so unwittingly. Most of our problems in life crop up from this situation... our frustrations, our competitions, our anxiety to prove ourselves, our arrogance, our pride, our self conceit, they come from the fact that we are not mindful of the fact that we are all God's. 

God's word, God's plan, God's design, God's reign - these are the overriding principles that should govern our lives if we are convinced that we are God's.

Holiness tip for today: Belong to God, in all that you are and in all that you do.

Be Godly

Journey to Holiness: Give Unconditionally

March 11, 2019: Monday, 1st Week of Lent

Leviticus 19: 1-2,11-18; Matthew 25:31-46

Be Holy, for I am Holy, invites the Lord today. We are called not only to be God's people, but also to be Godly people.  It is not only about doing good, but doing it as God does! That is where the key is. The Word today gives us clearly what to do (the Gospel), what not to do (first reading), what not to fail in doing (Gospel) and what to abstain from (first reading). All of them put together... the call is to become like God; to be Godly.

Observe the quality that is underlined in the Word - it is about giving and not to worry about getting it back; it is about doing good and not being worried about receiving good in return; it is about loving and not insistent about being loved in return... the prayer of St. Francis strikes a lovely chord here: Grant that I may not seek so much to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love, to be forgiven as to forgive! 

I cannot have conditions, for the good that I do: how much; to whom; under what circumstances; why they and why now... these analyses will make our giving conditional. The Lord instead gives and gives, never counting the cost nor the consequences. Can I grow to be as unconditional as that - that is being Godly.

Holiness tip for today: Give, without laying conditions for it!

Holiness: GROWING THROUGH TESTS

Milestone: The Desert

March 10, 2019: 1st Sunday of Lent
Deuteronomy 26: 4-10; Romans 10: 8-13; Luke 4: 1-13

In our journey to holiness, an essential milestone is the desert and they never lack! Every person goes through these times in quite a succession! Lent is proposed to be a workshop to train us for these testing times that might come our way, all through our life and to grow through them! Today the Word gives us three lessons on confront these testing times:

1. Our Disposition: Be Prepared to Wander

The First reading invites us to understand our history! Every one who has reached some significant point with the Lord in his or her life experience, has passed definitely passed through a phase of wandering. It is an essential spiritual experience to get closer to oneself, to each other and to the One who leads us.

2. Our Approach: Never Cease to Ponder

Yes, the One who leads us into the wilderness knows what is in store! We would miss it all if we do not keep pondering on the way. Pondering is such a powerful exercise that it can make sense of everything that happens, in its own time of course. When we cease to ponder we run the risk of wandering without purpose; the point is wandering with a specific purpose, in a specific direction...which the Lord alone knows.

3. Our Attitude: Be ready to Surrender

That specific purpose, that specific direction will be revealed in time, just in time! Hence the challenge is to surrender and not to fret. Surrendering would first involve the humility of saying to myself: I am not in control of everything. Secondly it would mean lifting my eyes to accept that God is in-charge. And thirdly it is a serene acceptance of God's will with utmost cooperation on our part, not rushing through or forcing things. 

It may be tough to find times so testing, but only when we are tested, we could be sealed OK.

Be Brilliant

Journey to Holiness: Conform not to the world but to the Lord

March 9, 2019: Saturday after Ash Wednesday

Isaiah 58: 9-14; Luke 5: 27-32

Let your light Shine, bids Jesus. This 'shining' or being brilliant, is not to project our own selves but to show the way to the rest of the world. It is not about hogging the limelight, but leading the world by example. 

While the world would look at a person as a tax collector, a sinner, a trespasser, a male or a female, some one important or less important, the Lord would see every one as a son or a daughter, someone so lovable and someone belonging to the Lord!

When I begin to see everyone as God's beloved, I begin to see the point in reaching out to each and every one of them, in the way each one needs. The world's categories such as, useful or not, worthy or not, feasible or not, do not mean anything in the categories of the Lord. The more we conform to the Lord the more we get to realise the folly of the order that the world has created for itself, not addressing each one by their utility. When we refrain from this utilitarian logic... the Lord, the Lord's perspective and the Lord's will become the priorities, and they are the essential prerequisites to Shine! 

Holiness tip for today: Shine; let the Lord shine through you.

Be Integral

Mean what you say and do what you believe

March 8, 2019: Friday after Ash Wednesday

Isaiah 58: 1-9; Matthew 9:14-15

Prayer, Penance and Philanthropy... all three are tricky! They can be performed or they can be lived, depending on our personal disposition. What am I aiming at? A personal satisfaction at doing these? A social affirmation in being faithful to these? An appeasing of my conscience in being rigorous with these? In a special manner the Word today deals with Penance - are they means to prove my prowess? 

Isaiah blasts all egocentric motivations for penance: the sense of achieving great feats in fasting and abstinence means nothing when those practices do not lead me to true relationships and compassionate disposition towards others. What would it matter if I fast the whole day but all through the day get frustrated with everyone around me and keep yelling in anger against all? How would it be if I make sacrifices, but am all the time conscious of the sacrifice I have made and serious about making it known to everyone around me? Will it really matter if I am doing great things in the name of penance this whole day, but can't spend a loving moment with persons around me who deserve or need it?

By penance, we mean to say: I wish to reduce myself and my needs, that I may encounter the Lord more in and through persons and situations around me! Do I even notice the Lord present around when I am busy telling the world I am making penances this day! Let me notice the bridegroom present with me: let me be integral in my prayer, penance and philanthropy.

Holiness tip for today: Every now and then, discuss the true motivations with your heart.

Be Pro-life

Journey to Holiness: Choose life even if it means Death

March 7, 2019: Thursday after Ash Wednesday
Deuteronomy 30: 15-20; Luke 9: 22-25

One of the pronounced sign of holiness is being pro-life! The readings today give us a precious insight into being pro-life.

Being Pro-life is not merely 'not killing' someone or something. It is promoting life in all its forms, and specially in its fullness. While the first reading says the Lord has set both life and death in front of us, for us to choose, Jesus says he chooses to die! In choosing to die, he in fact was choosing to live to the full and give life in abundance to all of us, life in all its fullness. 

The message that Jesus offers us is very clear: choose life, even if it means death. Even if you have to die, or sacrifice, or suffer, or be antagonised, be hated, be branded negatively... choose to stand by life, be a pro-lifer! 

Anything that stops you from living your life to the full, be it your so called situation, or your personal attitude, it needs to be challenged. For yourself, for others and for every one around you, wish life in its fullness and work towards ensuring it. 

Holiness tip for today: Be Pro-life!

Journey to Holiness - a Lenten Project

The Journey begins...

Ash Wednesday : March 6, 2019
Joel 2: 12-18; 2 Corinthians 5:20 -6:2; Matthew 6: 1-6,16-18

In his recent encylclical Holy Father Pope Francis set himself a task: "to repropose the call to holiness in a practical way for our own time, with all its risks, challenges and opportunities. For the Lord has chosen each one of us 'to be holy and blameless before him in love (Eph 1:4)." (GE 2)

The Rector Major of the Salesians, the 10th Successor of Don Bosco treads the same line as he proposes to each and every one, whether religious or lay, young or old: 'holiness for you too!' (Strenna 2019)

This is, as well, the proposal of the Season that we begin today - a lenten project: Journey to Holiness. Beginning today we shall be making this journey with the Word, in the Spirit, responding to the call of God, to holiness! Be holy, for I who have called you am holy!

Lent, as a journey to holiness is not all about myself and what I do for my own sake! It is about others, it is about the Other. It is about journeying towards the Father, it is growing to be like the Father. There are three powerful means suggested to us today:

PRAYER: Prayer is to grow closer to the Father: more open and more docile. It is growing out of myself, growing out of my petty plans and enslaving self image!

PENANCE: Penance is to grow to be like the Father... thinking more about the others and the Other. Convinced that I should decrease and God should increase, we grow to be more and more like the Father: merciful, loving, kind and forgiving!

PHILANTHROPY: Love of persons around, is an easy way to grow out of oneself! It is in being sensitive to the needs and struggles of the other, that we learn to perspectivise those that are our own! Every good deed that we do, should take us to higher plane of living our Christian life: forgetting our own wants and reaching out to the more needy.

This is a life long journey and we need reminders and points of renewal on this journey: here comes an entire season to remind, renew and rejuvenate us on this journey. Let us begins is journey to holiness with hope and courage and a deep sense of faith.

Rewards of the Just Judge

March 5, 2019

Tuesday, 8th week in Ordinary Time

Sirach 35:2-15; Mark 10: 28-31

That the Lord is just, is not always a convenient thing for us. At times even the best of things that we do, may not really be deigned as good owing to the intention that is behind its doing. We may act kind to someone, expecting something in return. We may try to please someone because we wish to obtain a favour from the person. We may close an eye to a fault of someone merely because we like the person and make a mountain out of molehill just because we may not like the person. 

All these, are not factors that are known to an apparent eye; but the Lord knows them all. The Lord knows us through and through. Considering that the Lord is judge, the rewards may not be always what we like or enjoy, but the rewards will always be a means of enhancing the goodness in a child. 

In simple words, what we do is important; but why we do what we do and what we want to achieve through what we do, they matter a lot more. I am not what I do, but I am what I think, as and when I do whatever I do. 

Come, Come back, Come home

March 4, 2019

Monday, 8 week in ordinary time 

Sirach 17: 20-28; Mark 10:17-27

The messages have begun to invite us back home. Soon there will be lent and this message will be all the more stronger. The invitation points out to the fact that all of us need a home that is permanent; that we belong to a home that is permanent where we are ourselves and not waiting to be invited. Let's heed the invitation of the master and turn back home as early as possible.

The Reign is our home and let us beware not to distance ourselves from it too long.  The love for our home should pull us back from wherever we find ourselves. Come, Come back,  Come home invites the Lord - with the right perspectives and right actions, let us get back home.