The temple that we are

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

November 9, 2019: Commemorating the dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome 

Ezekiel 47:1-2,8-9,12;John 2:13-22

Today we commemorate the dedication of the Basilica of St. John at the Lateran. This basilica is special because it is one of the four major basilicas of the Church in Rome. It becomes more special because it is the Cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, which is the Holy Father himself.

Moving around in Rome, one can see churches, one mightier than the other, in every other lane of the city. An unofficial statistics says that the city of Rome alone has more than 2500 churches. Though at an apparent observation it might look to be an exaggeration of a period in time, still there is an insight that it can offer. Why did the people go on building churches after churches?

Churches meant for them, not just a place of gathering for worship; if it were merely that, they would surely not have needed so many. Churches, were temples, buildings from where the glory of God shone forth! That is why they built more and more of them, that the glory can shine forth more and more!

Today's readings, and any feast of dedication of a Church, remind us of this important vocation that we have. From the temple of the Lord goes forth the glory of that Lord, "and that temple you are!" (1 Cor 3:17). From the temple of the Lord flows the water which gives life, which brings healing, we read from Ezekiel today! From our lives, from our words, from our acts, from our very being, should flow the grace of God towards others! 

Jesus sets us the example, by being so conscious of being the Temple of the Lord. If we are his brothers and sisters, if we are to be known as his disciples, we need to be conscious too, that we are God's temple and God's spirit dwells in us (1 Cor 3:16)!

Living life as a ministry

WORD 2day: Friday, 31st week in Ordinary time

November 8, 2019: Romans 15: 14-21; Luke 16:1-8

Living life as a ministry - that could be the inspiration that springs within us reflecting on the Word today. Of course, it is easy to brush it aside saying its a 'clerical' or 'priestly' or religious' way of thinking. But looking at the readings of today we can understand the words that Pope Francis has been repeating in several modes: We cannot be part time Christians. 

We are called to live our life as persons of God every moment of our life, at home, in the neighbourhood, at work, on the way, in company, alone or at Church! If not, we will be caught unawares at a moment when we will have to frantically set things right as the dismissed steward does in the parable today. While many question the real meaning of the parable and how Jesus seems to be appreciating the crisis-management of the steward, they conveniently forget the fact that Jesus is actually saying, 'there is a crisis there!'

The first point made is that there is a crisis...and let us address that first! At times, we choose to be oblivious of that fact - like some geniuses who say today that 'climate crisis is a myth'. With Jesus, let us reflect - Why the crisis? Obviously, it is becuase of lethargy, compromises, laxity and indifference. The solution is not to fight the crisis, but in the first place, preventing it. And the way - to live every moment conscious and aware that you are a son, a daughter of God!

We should work out our own salvation, as St.Paul says to the Philippians Phil 2:12), not only in fear and trembling, but on a daily basis living our life with a consciousness that we are sent with a definite mandate, a concrete call, to be God's stewards, to be sons and daughters of God in the world. Let us begin to live our life, each of us, as a call, a vocation, a ministry and we will stay clear of these crises.

A God who never gives up

WORD 2day: Thursday, 31st week in Ordinary time 

November 7, 2019: Romans 14:7-12; Luke 15: 1-10

God never gives up on us! Like the shepherd who lost his sheep and the woman who lost her coin, the Lord is after us, in search of us every time that we get ourselves lost. That a Christian should never lose sight of this fact, is what St.Paul wants to impress on us today. 

That God never gives up on us, has two major implications: First of all, that we never give up on ourselves, because there is someone who believes in us, there is someone who loves us come what may, there is someone who is constantly present with us participating in every moment of our life - be it success or failure, joy or sadness, life or death! Sad it gets when some one easily gives up on oneself, be it in thoughts, words or decisions, thinking that it is not worth continuing whatever one is and one does. 

Secondly, it implies that we give up on none of our brothers or sisters, because there is someone who loves them unfathomably and we have no right to judge them on our whims and fancies. What right do I have to judge someone worth or not, when I really don't know what is going on within that person, the person's thoughts, words and experiences. Total openness to listen to the person, empathise with the person and try my best to understand that person is what I am called to. 

Hence, the Word today invites me to trust, that God believes in me more than I myself do, and that God believes in my brothers and sisters as much as God believes in me! Do I really believe in a God who never gives up? 

Love founded on God

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 31st week in Ordinary time 

November 6, 2019: Romans 13:8-10; Luke 14:25-33

'The fullness of law is love,' says St. Paul today. It can be confusing apparently if both the readings of today are taken together. The first speaks of the primacy of love and the Gospel says, unless you hate your father and mother, spouse and children... Aren't they contrary to each other? No... they are not contrary but complementary. 

The first reading with no dubious terms establishes the primacy of love and speaks of loving one's neighbour. Understanding the mind of Christ, in which there is no place equal to that given to love, Paul invites us to found out entire life and every choice on love. 

The problem arises with the verb "hate" in the Gospel... which bible scholars say is a simplified (infact over-simplified) translation of the word in the original text which would actually mean, "to love less". With that actually the point is made. 

Christian love draws from God - God has to be the foundation for any love and that cannot be overlooked! When God is overlooked, "love" can dissipate itself into 'liking', into a mere objectification, a desire to possess, a seeking of self gratification. That is why today, so many things done in the name of "so called" love, goes wrong and takes people to wrong decisions. 

Let us remember, even our so-called 'most-loving choices' should be checked in these terms: Is God at its foundation?

From the Lord's spread

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 31st week in Ordinary time 

November 5, 2019: Romans 12:5-16; Luke 14: 15-24

Jesus has the table spread; where the saints of God are fed; he invites his chosen people come and dine!

The spread that Jesus has is joy, hope, love, sharing, caring, helping, encouragement, honour, respect, service, hospitality, empathy - all that we see in the first reading, from Paul's letter to the Romans (a  profile of a perfect Christian from chapter 12). It's all right before us... At any moment to make a choice, a deliberate choice and when that choice is according to God's will, we can surely count on God's accompaniment through the rough terrain. 

But we... we are too busy with our own choices, too busy setting ourselves up, towards selfishness, envy, pride, jealousy, insensitivity, avarice, competition, hatred, enmity... we choose not to pick from the spread that Jesus has - but later blame the Lord, complain against the Lord when things go wrong! 

It takes courage to choose God, to say 'yes' to God's invitation and partake in God's banquet. Only when we dare do that we can meaningfully pray the verse from the responsorial today, "In you, O Lord, I have found my peace!"

Are we ready to choose from the Lord's spread? 

From God, through God and to God...

WORD 2day: Monday, 31st week in Ordinary time

November 4, 2019: Romans 11: 29-36; Luke14: 12-14

Calculations of gain and loss, returns and rewards make an action limited to these considerations. Jesus, not only taught us a consideration different from these, but lived it himself and challenges us to live by it. 

The consideration Jesus lived by was -'what God wants of me here and now'! Adopting that as my decisive criterion in life, requires of me two important attitudes: 

The first reading speaks of the first of the two attitudes - it is, an immeasurable awe and absolute entrustment to the Wisdom of God. Doing the will of God is possible only when there is an invincible conviction that God's will is always good and favorable to my well being. Looking at God as a punishing God or a vindictive task master will never enable to lovingly surrender to God's will. 

The second attitude - placing others, especially the weak, the poor, the least and the last, the needy as a crucial focus of my perspective on life, and not looking at my own selfish and egoistic ends. How many times even the little good that I do for the needy, is so filled with my selfish motives! 

Only when these two become my attitudes, I can worthily say as St. Paul says in the reading today: 'From God and through God and to God are all things. To God be glory for ever. Amen.'

SALVATION - TODAY, HERE AND NOW

Eager and Enthusiastic Encounter

3rd November, 2019 - 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time

Wisdom 11:22 12:2; 2 Thessalonians 1:11-2:2; Luke 19:1-10

Salvation is the theme that dominates the liturgy today. The two days that have preceded help us to get into the theme readily. The first day when we celebrated those who shine as stars having reached the due destination; the second day when we remembered those who have completed their earthly lap and are bound towards the eternal abode; both these made us reflect on our future, as something certain and glorious. That is salvation. 

The word salvation, sometimes can be understood in terms of salvaging something that has gone wrong. Though this dimension is definitely present in the Salvation that Jesus wants to offer us, Salvation for a Christian should mean much more, much broader and more holisitic. It is wholeness, fullness, oneness, where nothing is lost, nothing is dissipated, everything is intact, everything is reconciled into One, whole cosmos reconciled in God, in and through one Saviour Jesus Christ. It is not merely an other-worldly phenomenon, but a concrete experience here and now, says the Gospel today through the example of Zacchaeus. 

An essential eligibility for this salvation is an Eagerness towards it. This eagerness is present in every person, every being. As St.Paul says in his letter to the Romans, the whole creation longs for it, as in a labour pain (Rom 8:22). It is God's will that nothing should be lost (Jn 6:39), that everything should be reconciled in Him (Col 1:20). The first reading expresses it in simple terms, that the Lord loves all things that exist and wills that they be united in the Lord. This is the oneness that we long for with the eagerness that is exhibited in the whole creation, and we as sons and daughters of God, have this longing much more. This longing is manifested in Zacchaeus in a gradually intensifying degree... first as a mere curiosity to see Jesus, then as an openness to listen to him and then as a longing to have him under his roof! Our eagerness too has to grow in these degrees... from a willingness to know, through an openness to listen to the Lord, to a longing to belong to Him for ever.

Salvation is not only something that happens at the end of time or at the end of my life... but it is the moment of truth that is occasioned every time the Lord encounters me - through daily events, through persons around, through a challenging situation, a needy person or a moment that demands a choice from me. As both the first and the second readings explain, the Lord strives to make the creation worthy of its original nature, the perfection which the Lord willed them. It is in this framework we understand every intervention of God, especially that in Jesus Christ, the Word made human. Once the Lord encounters me, I can never remain the same! That is why we keep dodging and avoiding the gaze of the Lord. But when it does happen, it is a moment of reckoning. It was so for Zacchaeus, he was encountered by Jesus at the Sychamore... an encounter that transformed him totally, initiated in his life a salvific process. He listened to Jesus' call, obeyed and came down from the tree, and his life was changed for ever. We are invited to listen to the call of the Saviour, come down from our obstinacy and our life will be changed for ever!

Salvation is not an imaginary state of life...it has to be seen in concrete living. It should be seen in our Enthusiasm for life. We see Zacchaeus enthusiastic about his new life...he is ready to return whatever he has unjustly extorted, not just that, but four times! This is what we call enthusiasm. The word enthusiasm, comes from the root 'en' and 'theos', which combine to mean, 'being filled with God'...being enthusiastic in life means to be filled with God every moment of our life. Salvation has to be evidenced in this enthusiasm to live life to the full... not ever compromising with the unjust state of affairs, not giving into selfish considerations of me and mine, but looking at everything from the perspective of God, from the perspective of wholeness that consists of reconciling everything, the whole creation, in God. 

We are people of the salvation, as St. Paul says, "God chose you from the beginning for salvation" (2 Thes 2:13); Let us live our life with a never ending eagerness for this wholeness in God, ever prepared to encounter the Lord and be corrected and made perfect by the Lord. Let our enthusiasm in our daily life proclaim to the world that we are people of salvation. 

Today, the Lord offers, as he did with Zacchaeus, to be our guest. If we receive the Lord with our whole hearts, TODAY, we will experience the power of God's salvation.

HOPE - a sign of the SAVED

All Souls Day - November 2, 2019

Wisdom 3:1-9; Romans 5: 5-11; Luke 7:11-17

What does it mean to be a Christian, especially today? What is the difference you find in your life as a Christian, from a life lived by one of your friends, supposedly a non Christian! What is the difference between a Christian and an unchristian outlook on anything? 

It is hope. It is hope that makes us see a possibility even in the worst of our daily problems. Hope gives one the serenity and tranquility to approach every day problems with grace. Can anyone in this life claim that he or she has absolutely no problem? There are just two kinds of people: those who approach their problems with positivity and those with negativity - naturally Christians have to be in the former category by all means. 

Speaking of problems... one big unsolved question for the whole humanity is how to understand the end of life and beyond. For a Christian, life is changed, not ended, says the preface of the Mass for the dead. Jesus' resurrection fills us with hope and that hope does not disappoint us. The hope is towards eternal life, it is the eternal destination that characterises the culmination of this journey on earth. 

Death is just the horizon beyond which we are not able to see what really exists; for if we see, there is no more place for hope (Rom 8:24). All that we see is the Risen Lord, who lives with us and lights our path. And in the Risen Lord is our hope. We hope to see every one of our brothers and sisters gone before us, united in the Risen Lord, as do the saints we celebrated yesterday and our prayer today is that these brothers and sisters of ours join their ranks and that we, at the end of our journey, join that wonderful family, the family that is founded on faith, united in love and kept alive in hope!

A SAINT - Being or Becoming?

Solemnity of All Saints: November 1, 2019

Revelation 7: 2-4,9-14; 1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 5: 1-12a

O when the saints, 

go marching in, 

I want to be in that number! - 

... a simple but profound thought in those familiar lines of the song. To be saints: that is God's call to each of us. At times we think, becoming saints is reserved for a select few. May be the long and tedious process of canonisation of a person in the Church, makes us feel that way. But the fact is, each of us is, all of us are called to be saints. St. Paul states that in clear and unequivocal terms in his letter to the Ephesians (1:4), Thessalonians (1 thes 4:3), and other various other places. 

The question sometimes is, whether it is being a saint or becoming a saint! We are created in the image and likeness of God (says Genesis 1:27) and this image and likeness of God is a "given", a nature that we have within us, as a gift. We are reminded of this image and likeness at our baptism and invited to grow in it, towards the fullness of it. All the we need to do is to remain with that image in our lives. The beautiful symbol used in the rite of baptism, where the priest hands over a white cloth to the child and entrusts the task of bringing it back, as it were, unsullied, intact in its purity to the end of days.That, dear friends, is the call - "to be saints"...and not merely to 'become' saints.

The WORD today, develops the same thought in three wonderful dimensions:

Being Saints means... being aware of who we are! O Christian, realise your dignity! We are children of God, reminds St. John in his letter, in the second reading. God has chosen us from eternity, before the foundation of the world! This is an initiative from God our Father and Mother, who creates us and wishes that we share in God's love and ever remain in God's image and likeness, as children of the loving God.

Being Saints means... being washed by the blood of the Lamb! The Image of God within us, sometimes is disturbed, smudged, smeared or sullied by the choices we make misusing the human freedom that is granted to us. The evil one will be more than happy when we lose heart at such moments and give up. The Son of God, our Saviour Jesus Christ shed his blood that we may have victory over sin and death. In that blood we are saved, and in that blood we are made clean, each and every time we turn to the Lord in genuine repentance and willingness to regain our original image. Saints are those who have their garments washed in the blood of the Lamb, says the second reading.

Being Saints means... being 'blessed' in the eyes of the Lord! And the only way to be 'blessed', is to live by the promptings of the Spirit who dwells within us. Paying attention to the indwelling Spirit, we will know what it means to be blessed - to be poor in spirit, to be meek, to hunger and thirst for righteousness, to be merciful, to be peace-loving - these are ways of being persons of the spirit. In the ordinariness of our daily life, we have to be persons of the Spirit, looking at the reality different from the way the self seeking world teaches us to. 

God's initiative in the call that I have received; Christ's redeeming act of Salvation; the Spirit's indwelling presence that guides me on a daily basis - these are compelling reasons why I need to think seriously about, not merely becoming a saint one day, but being a saint everyday, in my own way!

Nothing can separate!

WORD 2day: Thursday, 30th week in Ordinary time

October 31, 2019: Romans 8: 31-39; Luke 13:31-35

Nothing can separate me from the love of Christ; no one can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus - the most energising words of St. Paul. Can things be clearer than this... just read those lines in the first reading once more - categorical, clear, convinced, charismatic and courageous! 

St. Paul, the apostles and the first Christians learnt this from Jesus himself. If God is for me, who can be against me - that was the confidence of faith that defined the courageous choices that Jesus made. Neither Herod, nor Pilate, nor the high priests or the chief priests, nor the impending death, nor the rejection of the crowd - nothing mattered to him, because he knew that the One who sent him, loved him! 

Look at the situation today: the anti-religious voices becoming louder, the anti-Christian forces becoming stronger, the anti-Church movements becoming fiercer by the day! Should that frighten us? What about so many millions who have left the Christian faith for either non-religious adherence or other diabolic choices, in the few decades past? Should that destabilise us? No. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ.

However, there is one... there is one who can separate me from God's love - that is a warning for me today! There is only one who can separate me from God's love - Myself. There is only one thing that can separate me from the love of Christ - My ego! If I choose not to belong to God, if I choose to reject God's love, I separate myself from God. 

How much God wishes to gather me into God's arms, but I rebel!!!