Be consumed by your Zeal

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

November 22, 2019: Remembering St. Cecilia 

1 Maccabees 4: 36-37,52-59; Luke 19: 45-48

Clicked at the Shrine of St. Cecilia in Trastevere (Rome),
the principle Shrine of the Saintly martyr.

Zeal for his house will consume him - Ps 69:9 - that is what John refers to when he recounts the event that we hear in the Gospel today from Luke! Judas Mattathias in the first reading and Jesus in the Gospel are presented as burning with zeal for God, for God's house. 

When we accept God as our king (the theme of this entire week) we should be burning with zeal for God, for things that belong to God, for values that stand for God, for persons and their dignity that directly springs from God, for life and love that signify God...we should burn with zeal to preserve, promote and uphold these! 

How easily we give into the pressures of this world and the so-called 'developed' society! Does this prided 'development' in anyway promote true and lasting happiness of humanity? Does this 'developed' society in anyway assure the dignity of every person or speak up only for the moneyed and the muscled? How much of individualism and materialism it keeps perpetrating? 

The saint we celebrate today, St. Cecelia is a third century martyr, who suffered for the absolute love that she had for her king, Our Lord Jesus Christ. She was burning with zeal for the love of God and wanted to belong to Christ and Christ alone. 

If we think of our Christian life in terms of king-subject relationship, our love for Christ is our allegiance to our King... let us be filled with zeal for our king! And for that we should have truly and absolutely accepted our Lord as our King!

Identify your King!

WORD 2day: Thursday, 33rd week in Ordinary time

November 21, 2019: 1 Maccabees 2:15-29; Luke 19: 41-44

Though there is a choice of celebrating the presentation of our Blessed Mother - that is the occasion of Joachim and Anne presenting the child Mary in the temple - we shall continue with the week day readings, because they have an important message and prepare us towards the great feast we look forward to at the end of this week!

Who is your king? – yes, that is the crucial question that will be asked these days of the week running up to the Solemnity of Christ the King. The parable we heard yesterday of the return of the king who demands an account, the siege of Jerusalem that Jesus speaks of today in the Gospel and the call of Mattathias to gather in his leadership against the persecuting forces… all these present a crisis situation; a situation demanding a definitive choice. The scheme with which the week began continues... the first reading presents the crisis and the Gospel indicates our response! 

Sometimes external pressures like the work ambient, the political milieu, the personal addictions or the overpowering temptations can present a crisis situation to us… a situation that actually offers us an opportunity to make a radical choice for God or against God! Even a simple affair like the choice of words we use, or an ordinary decision we make on a daily basis, can determine the radical belonging to or rejection of God in our lives! May our everyday choices be such that the Lord never need to weep over us, as he did over Jerusalem!

Hence, an all important question for me to answer: who is my king, the king after whom I would be able to go, just as the people do in the first reading today: leaving behind everything, just everything! That requires that i firmly, in my daily life, identify my kind!

Take yourself seriously!

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 33rd week in Ordinary time

November 20, 2019: 2 Maccabees 7: 1,20-31; Luke 19:11-28

The end time disaster narration continues in the first reading, while the recommendation given today is: take yourself seriously! Look at your life, look at what you are, look artwhat you have, look at what you are given, look at the tasks entrusted to you and take them seriously! The urge to be faithful to God is never a question of maintaining the status quo. 

As spiritual masters always warn us, not to progress in spiritual life is to regress! Faithfulness to God is not lived or manifested in remaining where we are (maintaining status quo) or merely in moments of legal fulfillment of rules and routine practices of piety. It takes fundamental radical choices at crucial moments to tell not just the Lord but the world too, that I belong to the Lord, to the One who has created me, the One who has called me and commissioned me. 

Like the young lad, who as his mother and 6 other brothers, in the first reading chooses God over everything that the king promises and over his very life, our choices need to speak for themselves; not just the choices of life and death, but the choices of what we want to do with what we are - the talents, the gifts that the Lord has given us, the choices of what we want to do with every moment of life that God has gifted us with. 

We can choose to enrich them and enhance them, or  just bury them and be inactive! We could easily fall into the category of 'you-wicked-servant', if we are not mindful! The choice today, is mine - would I be ready to take myself seriously and keep growing!

Allow the Lord to touch you!

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 33rd week in Ordinary time

November 19, 2019: 2 Maccabees 6: 18-31; Luke 19: 1-10

The Sunday liturgy this week called our attention to end times and the theme follows on during the week. If you pay a keen attention to the readings these days, the first reading continues to talk about the disasters of the end times, while the Gospel would offer a recommendation, as to how to confront them. Yesterday, the recommendation was to have a new vision: O Lord that I may see! Today the recommendation is to allow the Lord to touch you.

The Zacchaeus episode in the Gospel is an evergreen example of an encounter that transforms a person. As St. Paul would say, 'if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation' (2Cor 5:17). When we allow the Lord to really encounter us, the Lord transforms the whole person. Nothing remains the same, everything is new because we begin to see everything from the perspective of the Lord. 

As Pope Francis says, 'Faith is not just to see Jesus, it is to see with the eyes of Jesus' (Lumen Fidei 18). When our faith is authentic, the whole perspective changes. What seems to be important, what seems to be necessary for someone may seem totally secondary to me, because I see as the Lord does, because I think as the Lord does, because I love as the Lord does. That happens only when I allow the Lord to touch me.

Eleazar in the first reading demonstrates the same to us - 'such pretense is not worthy of our time of life' (2 Mac 6:24), he says, caring the least to safeguard his life, because he did not want to lead the others astray from God. A life touched by God, cannot be contaminated by anything ungodly! What matters is that we allow God to touch, to touch our selves, to touch our innermost being!

Blind trust or Singular focus?

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

November 18, 2019: Dedication of the Basilicas of St. Peter and St.Paul

Acts 28: 11-16, 30-31; Matthew 14: 22-33

St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican

Basilica of St. Paul outside the Walls

Just last week we celebrated the memory of the dedication of the Basilica of St. John at the Lateran! Here are two more (of the 4 major basilicas) - the Basilicas dedicated to these two Pillars of the Church - to Peter at Vatican (the famous Vatican St.Peter's Church) and to St. Paul outside the walls of Olden Rome. 

The Gospel presents to us Peter, who did not mind the turbulent sea, the raging waves, the frightening darkness... all that he heard was the call of his Lord, beckoning him, "Come." He steps on to the sea and begins to walk. The limitedness of his faith notwithstanding, he was a man who trusted the Lord blindly! 

The first reading presents to us Paul, arriving in Rome! Not a pilgrimage or a tour, he reaches as a prisoner... and remains in house arrest. He doesn't seem to bother at all about that, because his only concern was to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ - and that he was able to do, peacefully! For him that was all which mattered. In prison or free, under prohibition or not, he could not but preach the Gospel. "Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel," he said (1 Cor 9:16).

As we thank the Lord for the gift of these great apostles Peter and Paul, let us pray for the gift of the blind trust they had in the Lord and total dedication they demonstrated for the WORD. Actually, it was not blind! It was blind only in as much as it did not see the dangers, the risks, the stakes, the difficulties, the hurdles, the challenges, the hindrances, the blocks and pitfalls that lay around. But it was because, their eyes, their ears and their hearts were fixed on just one point: the Lord, the Lord's goodness, the Lord's love for them, the Lord's commission which had to be carried out by any means. More than calling it blind trust, we would do well to call it, the singular focus!

THE END TIMES

How do I confront?

November 17, 2019: 33rd Sunday in Ordinary time

Malachi 3: 19-20; 2 Thessalonians 3: 7-12; Luke 21: 5-19

Reflecting on the third World Day of the Poor

Today is the last Sunday in the Ordinary time, and next week we would be celebrating the solemnity of Christ the King. And the Word this week reminds us of the second coming of the King, that is the END times! Some get a strange a kick out of talking about the end times and spiritually terrorise those who listen to them. There have been cases of people who had bought trenches to secure themselves when the mystery stories did their rounds in 2012...about the end of the world! Let us remember dear friends that we have been living in the end times for the past 2000 years!!! Even St. Paul had to warn the Thessalonians not to make too much of these!

For a true Christian what should the 'end time' mean? Should it be terrorising? Should it make one go into a delirious tantrum or a plaguing paranoia? Those are in no way Christian responses to the thought on end times. Because for the one who believes in Christ, the Lord who has overcome the world (Jn 16:33), the Lord who has gained victory over death (Rom 6:9), the end time is not dreadful, it cannot be a threatening darkness! The first reading says so plainly, "but for you who fear my name, there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays!" (Mal 3:20). 

Pope Francis has thought of a proactive and truly Christ-ian way of approaching the End times... and that is why he proposed three years ago to punctuate this Sunday as the World day of the Poor! That adds another live dimension to our central theme here.

Hence, the Word and the reflection on the poor in the world today,  instruct us on how we should confront the end times. What if the end of times were tomorrow, or today or now! We have begun our life journey, a journey of perfection towards union in Christ and this journey has to necessarily end, and that end is nothing but union with Christ. How my soul should long for that: like the deer that yearns for running streams, so my soul longs for you, my God! (Ps 42:1) 

The first reading tells me, what I need to do first and foremost, to prepare myself for the end times is to LEND my ears to the Lord. When I hear the word of the Lord and live it with all my heart (Jas 1:22), not beset by occasional set backs but ever trusting in the mercy and goodness of the Lord, I need to fear no one; I need to fear nothing, not even the gates of hell! But the secret is eagerness to lend my ears to the Word of the Lord.

The second reading challenges me to AMEND my ways in the Lord, go on living my every day life with serenity and peace. There is nothing to worry or fret as the Thessalonians did, for my soul finds rest in the Lord, and my salvation comes from God (Ps 62:1). All that I need to do is remain mindful of my ways! A sincere humility and daily conversion leads me to a genuine Christian life. When I begin everyday in the presence of the Lord planning my life and end it in God's presence evaluating it on the basis of God's teachings, I come to know of the things that I can be happy about and the things I need to grow in. A saint is not someone who has never failed, but is someone who has never remained the same after a failure! The secret is my willingness to amend my ways to walk in the light of the Lord. It is here that the reflection on the world day of the poor can be located: the hope of the poor shall not perish for ever (Ps.9:19). The world today has to reconsider its understanding of development, progress and economic growth! It is such an inhuman phenomenon to just ignore and take for granted an entire percentage of persons, for the sake of the pleasure of a few! What has been my role in this?

The Gospel invites me to TRANSCEND all fears and trust in the Lord. Humanly speaking, I cannot end all my fears, but I can transcend every one of them. When my heart trusts in the Lord, when my eyes are fixed on my Saviour, when my hand rest in the hands of the One who leads me, I can transcend all my fears - like Peter who dared to step on to the turbulent sea and walk, like Paul and Barnabas who stood before the angry Sanhedrin and spoke, like the apostles who defied every authority and spread the message of Christ... they were all once filled with fear... they were the same weak men but with the Spirit they could transcend all fears! Nothing - no threat, no punishment, not even death - could frighten them. The secret is my capacity to transcend all fears with the Spirit of power, love and self-discipline (2 Tim 1:7). Not giving into pessimism is a crucial Christian trait and we need to grow in it. Looking at the economic discrepancies that exist, the digital divide that dehumanises, the capitalistic globalisation that makes exploitation ever more prevalent, can we give up our hope? We cannot. Every Christian and every Christian community has to make a difference - only then the Lord's wish today, that the hope of the poor shall not perish for ever, shall come true!

The End of times is near... in fact we are living in the end times... it is not a matter to be spoken of in alarm or in whispers... the message of end times is, a call to lend my ears to the Word of the Lord, a challenge to amend my ways in the ways of the Lord and to transcend all fears with the Spirit of the Lord! Let us live every day of our life, as if it were the last day of our life, every moment as if it were the last. Let us live our lives to the full, ever acceptable in the eyes of the Lord!

Act or Attitude of Prayer?

WORD 2day: Saturday, 32nd week in Ordinary time

November 16, 2019: Wisdom 18: 14-16,19:6-9; Luke 18: 1-8

Our help is in the name of the Lord, proclaims Psalm 124. The Lord alone is our refuge and our strength. The Lord knows when we sit and when we stand, even before a word is on our mouth, the Lord knows it all. This trust is called the attitude of prayer - a total abandonment into the hands of the Lord! 

Isn't it opportune here to dwell a little on the act of prayer and the attitude of prayer? Not that the act of prayer is any less valuable, but what is important to be cultivated within  us and in our younger generations is more the attitude of prayer, which covers more than just an instance, the entire life and the lifetime.

At times when we pray, we sound like knocking at the door of the Lord as the last resort...'I have tried everything Lord; and now I have nothing more to try and so I come to you!' This is one of a typical act of prayer - is this wrong? No. Definitely not wrong. But certainly, not the ideal or the best. 

The disposition has to be clear from the first moment: "You are everything Lord and I surrender myself to you; guide me along and accompany me, that I may never stray from Your will and guard me from all those which plot to take me away from You and Your holy will. Yes, I will do my best but I know even the best is not truly sufficient. It is your holy will that completes everything and I surrender myself to it." This is an attitude of prayer!

Let us live our life with the Lord - every bit of it - our duties, our desires, our trials, our preoccupations; let us live them all with the Lord and be prepared always to say: Not mine, but Your will be done, O Lord! (Lk 22:42)

Signs of Real Faith!

WORD 2day: Friday, 32nd week in Ordinary time 

November 15, 2019: Wisdom 13:1-9; Luke 17: 26-37

'Fools say in their heart, 'there is no God',' goes Psalm 14:1. Though it is not the spirit of the times to get into an argument with people with variant religious convictions, sometimes it is important to challenge the insincere ones which are held with hidden motives and contrived plots. The first reading is actually drawing that difference - the difference that actually exists between those who are sleeping and those who are pretending to sleep; between those who do not know and those who do not want to know! One is inability and the other is arrogance!

Between these two, lies another group of people who wish to wake up, who have all the willingness and possibility to know, but are procrastinating their decision. They know more or less, what is expected of them, but are waiting for a time when they can really launch themselves towards that righteous path. The Gospel warns these - it would be too late before you realise! Come on, Gird up!

The Word today is quite strong against those who probably have religious choices of convenience, than conviction. In this regard, it is easier for us to find someone to point a finger at, but what is important is for me to evaluate my faith! How much am I drifting along with conveniences and comfort zones, instead of standing firm with convictions and commitments? What makes me, as a Christian, better than someone who says he or she does not believe in a God? 

Faith is not merely saying 'yes' to a set of truths, but it is a personal relationship with the person of Jesus Christ, with God whom Jesus revealed to us, with the Spirit who lives on with us and within us. Is it not an ample opportunity for me today to raise this question in my heart: What does my faith mean to me? What are the SIGNS of real faith in my day to day life? 

God - close to us and amidst us!

WORD 2day: Thursday, 32nd week in Ordinary time

November 14, 2019 : Wisdom 7:22 -8:1; Luke 17: 20-25

The Reign of God is within you! (Lk 17:21) - this was the statement, they say, that provoked, sustained and gave meaning to Liberation theology in the 1970s. Not just that. This was also the teaching that took Jesus to the cross. What is so provocative about it? 

To answer that question from the Gospel, we need to listen to the first reading and the psalm. They speak of the Wisdom of the Lord, the Word of God that abides with us, the Lord who has come to live amidst us, the whole grace of incarnation. It is all about the Indwelling Spirit, who is the power of God almighty, the concrete expression of God's wisdom, the continued existence of God's Word amidst us.

Jesus' proclamation of the arrival of the Reign, or that of the year of the Lord and the claim about the fulfilment of the Word (Lk 4:19,21) were looked at as an offence, because Jesus underlined the proximity, the closeness of God to human beings. When God was thought of as a distant judge who would judge everything and everyone on the last day, Jesus spoke of God in terms of our daily life and ordinary choices.

Even today, if we choose to, we can see God as some one far, distant, removed and isolated. But if we are sincerely observant, we can feel the presence of the Word, the Wisdom, the Incarnate Son walking beside us and we can feel God close and intimate to us because, "God loves nothing so much as the person who lives with wisdom" (Wis 7:28), says the first reading. 

Let us make a concrete effort to feel God close to us and right amidst us!

You are Blessed - Realise and Respond!

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 32nd week in Ordinary time

November 13, 2019: Wisdom 6: 1-11; Luke 17: 11-19

The readings seem to converge on one thought today... that the Lord wishes, expects, and demands a response from us! 

Our God is a self revealing God... through signs and wonders and prophets and wise persons and finally through God's only Son, and continuously even today in and through God's Spirit, God continues to reveal Godself to us in various ways. Those who do not notice those revelations should be blind in their mind, or blocked in their spirits or bonded with the evil!

On our part, as children of the Lord, we need to realise that the more we are given, the more we are expected to respond! It is not that God gives, so that we would repay! No! What can we give the Lord or how much can we really repay God's goodness? Is there anyone who can merit what God gives or anyone who can recompense God for God's bountiful goodness?

The fact is that, we are given so much, we are filled with such goodness, we receive "grace upon grace" (Jn 1:16), that we realise it is right and just to give God thanks and praise! What a blessing it is to to know what to do at the right time and the way to do it! More blessed it is to know that one has to do something and cannot just keep quiet, because God has given without measure.

To know the right thing to be done at the right time and choosing to do it, is a gift of the Holy Spirit...we would be blessed to possess it. And the Lord says today, "set your desire on my words; long for them, and you will be instructed!" (Wis 6:11). Let us pray for this gift: to realise our blessedness and respond aptly!