Misleading Mentalities

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 4th week in Ordinary time

February 5, 2020: 2 Samuel 24:2,8-17; Mk 6: 1-6

I come in the name of the Lord -those were David's words before the philistine giant, when he began his adventure with the Lord. Today we see him counting his strength. He seems to be taking stock of what and how much he could achieve, as if all that he had achieved till then were purely because of his own capabilities! True to his nature, he soon realises his mistake and regrets.

The people who encountered Jesus could not but be amazed... but those who have always seen Jesus growing amidst them refused to be amazed in spite of the great things that happened. They did not believe in their own people, one among them, being so blessed. Truth had to be told by someone who came from elsewhere! They suspected their own capabilities.

Both these are misleading mentalities: the Lord has blessed us with qualities and capabilities that is for the good of all and we need to put them to use... mindful always of the fact that these came from the Lord and it is for the Lord's purposes they have to be used. 

As we, these days, hear about all the threat of Coronavirus all over the world and reflect on the pestilence that David and his people were struck by, what we need to keep in mind and learn is, the irreparable damage we do when we exaggerate our capabilities, without acknowledging the all-powerful Presence that keeps guiding us and instructing us. 

Humanity has to learn today the right balance of being filled with awe and gratitude for what we have received and, at the same time, using it to the full without being bogged down by discouraging and disparaging circumstances that may surround. Let us stay away from the misleading mentalities that we find in the Word today and grow more and more mindful of the Lord who is present amidst us.

The 'strange' people of God

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 4th week in Ordinary time

February 4, 2020: 2 Samuel 18: 9-10,14,24-25,30-19:3; Mark 5: 21-43 

Sometimes we might appear 'strange'. David does, in today's first reading! To those with David, it seemed well deserved that Absalom met with such an end for all that he had done to David; but for David, it was unbearable; he cries inconsolably. He appears strange for the people who wanted to celebrate the victory. 

Jesus looks strange too, when he asks who is that who touched him, when there was a whole multitude that was crushing him! He appears strange when he tells those people at Jairus' house, 'the child is sleeping.' In fact, the disciple expressed their surprise and the people ridiculed him. 

There was an element there that the others did not see, which made it natural for Jesus (and David) to act the way he (or they) did but, for the people it was strange. That element was, the capacity to see everything from the eyes of God and feel everything from the perspective of God! 

When David looked at it from the perspective of God, it was his loving child who was dead! When Jesus felt the touch from the perspective of God, it was a touch of intense prayer and when He saw the child on the death bed, it was God's glory yet to be revealed. Naturally from others' perspective, these appeared strange, not because they were strange, but for the people who looked on the perspective was strange. 

When we look at our own successes, failures, difficulties, trials, temptations and struggles from the eyes of God - they will have completely different meanings - 'strange' for others, 'miracles' for ourselves! That is the way it has to be. In a world that is obsessed with personal success and possessions and proofs of domination, in our humble and genuine love for each other, let us not hesitate to appear strange, or sound strange...for that is the way we would witness to this world, as truly 'strange' people of God!

The curse of compromise!

WORD 2day: Monday, 4th week in Ordinary time

February 3, 2020: 2 Samuel 15:13-14,30,16:5-13; Mk 5:1-20

The society today has many issues to sort but if there is something that seems to be having apparently no solution, it is the curse of compromises. It has no solution because one does not see it as a problem, and at times we find unlimited justification for such compromises. We learn to live with any thing, for that matter, within a very short span of time.

Just because Saul was a Benjaminite,  today we see a man cursing David on Saul's account forgetting and justifying all that Saul did against David. How many compromises are made just because someone is on my side,  known to me or related to me! Not that David was bereft of any of his own stupidities. Just because you have been chosen for something special doesn't make you special; it all depends on how firm and categorical you are on your choice of what is good, right and just.

The people in the Gospel were ready to live with the demoniac and the troubles he created. They were putting up with him for months and years, but they could not put up with Jesus even a day - they send him away from their countryside right away. Simply because, they didn't want too much of disturbance in their cosy lives. They ask Jesus to leave their neighbourhood because Jesus was intent on transforming everything and making them new. They were more for compromises than for true life giving choices.

The world has begun to put up with anything. Persons compromise on everything for certain gains and calculations. Would Jesus like it, if we his disciples had that way of life? It is important to ask myself today, would I give up on Jesus owing to this curse of compromise?

COMES, BECOMES & CHALLENGES TO BECOME

The Memory, Meaning and Mission

February 2, 2020: The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

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

We have been prepared during the last week towards the celebration today! The reflections on David's dedication to the Lord, the fall of Saul and the eventual fall of David...all these communicated to us the nature of our vocation as human persons: that we are called to belong to the Lord. They also brought out to us the weakness with which we have to constantly struggle in order to be faithful to this call. And finally, the feast today assures that we are not alone in this struggle, the Lord lives with us, all along.

THE MEMORY: The memory that we celebrate today is that of the Lord who comes, who comes into His temple! A beautiful moment so picturesquely presented by Luke. The expectations, the entry, the enchantment and the extravaganza that was witnessed in the Temple as Mary and Joseph bring the child into the temple premises. We celebrate this memory, the memory of the Lord coming to us, the Lord of the world entering our world. It is always so important to keep in mind that moment, those moments special when the Lord in some way encountered us - through a word that we heard, or a person we met, or a event that shook us, or an experience that all of a sudden called our attention. That moment, that memory could be an extraordinary source of meaning and strength.

THE MEANING: The memory that we celebrate has a specific meaning, that the Lord comes to be like us! The Lord chose to share this world with us in His incarnation and became like us, like us in everything, except sin, says the letter to the Hebrews (4:15). The Lord chose to suffer, the Lord chose to be tempted, the Lord chose to undergo the same struggle as each of us do! We are not alone in our struggles, and we are not at the mercies of an insensitive, arrogant boss type of a God - No, we are in the hands of an empathising God, an understanding Father, an embracing mother, a supporting brother! What else do we need? Why should we fret? Could anything really remove the rug from under our feet? Pluck up courage, stand up to yourself, keep working your way towards goodness and at the summit of it lies our union with God - that is the meaning offered to us. 

THE MISSION: The meaning of this memory, leads us to a deeper understanding of the Mission of the Lord who comes. The Lord comes to be like us, that we may become like Him. When John proclaims in his Gospel, "to those who believed in him, he gave the power to become children of God" (Jn 1:12), he underlined this specific mission of the Messiah - to make us like him! It is a 'power', that the Saviour gives us, to become children of God. And it is a 'becoming', a growth, a continual progress, a non-stop process of maturity, of clarifying our priorities, our values and our choices. The mission is life-long, because our very lives are our mission, not merely what we do at certain points of time. Our life, lived in loving union with the Lord and ever worthy of the Lord's love, and gradually becoming like the One who has called and commissioned us is our primary mission

If we have to become like him we have to first "Let Him enter" when He comes. The responsorial psalm invites us to open the portals of our heart and let the King enter. And when the Lord enters, He enters to purify us...like the fuller who washes the linen white, like the silver smith who burns the silver to purity, like the gush of water that enters to wash away all sediments of impurities, the Lord enters. At times it can be painful to be washed, to be refined, and to be flushed of our naive attachments and egoistic pleasures. But without those, there is no purification or refinement. Speaking of faith, in the Apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis says, "God asks everything of us, yet at the same time he offers everything to us" (n.12). The feast of Presentation reminds us of this dimension of our faith - to offer to the Lord everything of ourselves! 

The Lord becomes like us to challenge us to become like him. Jesus lived like us, but every moment of his life was a declaration to the One who sent him: "Here I come to do your will" (Heb 10:7)... that self submission to God begins in the event that we celebrate today. 

Let us pray for the Christian Parents that they, like the Holy Family, may offer themselves and their family into the hands of God, who has called them into loving existence. Let us pray for the Religious who have offered themselves to the Lord, that their consecration might ever be uncompromising. 

Let us pray for each of us, that we may welcome the Lord who comes to us, who becomes like us, that we may learn to become like Him! 

The Storm and the Calm

WORD 2day: Saturday, 3rd week in Ordinary time

February 1, 2020: 2 Samuel 12: 1-7, 10-17; Mark 4: 35-41

"It is you!" - the famous finger of God against David, is the picture we are left with today by the Word. The Lord loved David, but David slipped into godlessness; however, when God pointed it out to him, like an inamorata clinging back to the beloved after a split, David comes back with remorse and love so tenderly balanced. 

It takes a special grace to recognise and accept it when one is convicted by the Lord. The Lord knows our innermost thoughts and even our motivations, and hence even a choice or action that seems 'good' in the eyes of those around, need not always qualify for the 'acceptable' tag in the eyes of the Lord. But it takes that illumining grace to see, understand and accept the truth.

It is another experience of grace to respond in an appropriate manner to a fault pointed out. Even when David realised he had sinned, he never panicked or never gave into guilt... he felt sorry and bounced back to the love of God, because he knew and he was convinced that the Lord was with him and the Lord loved him above anything else.

The storms may rage all around us, but we can still remain calm if only we realise the Lord is with us and the Lord loves us above all else. When Jesus woke and rebuked the sea and the storm, he did not rebuke only them. He also looked at the disciples and made them realise how foolish and faithless they were. Aren't we sometime like that, if not most of the times?

When the Lord is for us who can be against us? The Storm and the calm go side by side for an authentic Christian! Let us be calm... let us be still and know the Lord.

The Reign and the Ruin - beware both are subtle

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

January 31, 2020: Celebrating St. John Bosco

2 Samuel 11:1-4,5-10,13-17; Mark 4: 26-34.

Jesus today explains how the Reign of God is subtle in its presence and its growth; it does not happen with a bang but it germinates, sprouts and grows in a manner that no one notices it.  

The danger is, even the enemy is subtle in his ways! The first reading presents how the chosen one falls into the inconspicuous trap set by the enemy. One fall follows the other...one worse than the former! 

The reminder given to us is the necessity to be alert all the time, as the Word of God reminds us very often. To be alert would mean to know what the Lord wants of us at a particular time and being able to choose exactly that. More than that, it means to be careful about the deceiving ways of the evil one, who is intent on winning us over to ruin, not merely by gross blunders but more dangerously by subtle compromises, slight slides instead of mighty falls. However the ruin is certain! 

St. John Bosco, the saint we celebrate today, understood this fact perfectly. That is why he suggested that the way out of sin, is holy joy! To be thoroughly occupied with good things, that you will never have the time to sin - that was his ingenuous suggestion to the young. 'Run, jump and shout, but do not sin,' he said. Let our hearts be so filled with the Lord, that we hardly have time to think of any other. 

The Reign, no doubt, is subtle; unfortunately the ruin too could be subtle. Our dedication to the Lord has to be absolute; let us serve the Lord in holy joy!

[Note: the readings are different where the proper of the feast of St. John Bosco is chosen; Since not everywhere the proper readings of the Saint will chosen, the readings reflected on here are of the day - i.e., Friday, 3rd week in Ordinary time]

TRIDUUM TO THE FEAST OF DON BOSCO - DAY 3

DON BOSCO - THE SAINTLY FOUNDER

The Three Promises - his salvific itinerary 

Why did Don Bosco found a congregation? Was that part of his dream at nine? It wasn't. It was no where in the horizon. Not even the historical context warranted such a move of founding a religious congregation while dozens of others were being suppressed and clamped down. What was in Don Bosco's mind? Of course, the mission given to him in his dream: show them the beauty of virtue and ugliness of sin; win them over with your loving kindness. In due time, he was promised that he would understand what he was called to. 

Don Bosco began to work for a small group of young people who needed him the most and that small group grew bigger by the day! At a point of time, he realised that even without being much conscious of it, he had opened himself to a mighty big world that the Lord held before him. Those words of our Blesssed Mother in the dream, "This is your field" was coming alive in ways and magnitude that were unprecedented. Don Bosco could not be satisfied with leading a few youngsters to God, he wanted to lead all the youth from all over the world, to God and to salvation! And the Congregation and the Salesian Family was the salvific itinerary that he proposed. An itinerary that consisted of three promises, three concrete promises - Bread, Work and Heaven! 

Da mihi animas, caetera tolle - that yearning to take the young to the Lord was uppermost in the heart of the saintly founder, who considered that not only as his passion, but also the way to his salvation. He proposed the same to his followers, his sons and daughters, his family, which stands spread far and wide today as Salesian Family. And this salvific itinerary, Don Bosco made it sound so simple with his three promises!

Bread - that was the promise of the Divine Providence. When Jesus called, if you wish to be my disciple, give up everything, take up your cross and then, come follow me, Jesus was underlining the God who provides, the God who takes care of our every need! The promise of bread is not so much a promise of convenience and absence of suffering, but a challenge to a way of life that is totally dependent on God! A life of poverty that depends on God and thrives on God's providence. 

Work - that was the promise of Divine Will. Work is not just doing, it is not achieving, it is not sealing my name on everything around me, as if to say, I own them all! Work, more than doing, is the vocation to do the Will of God. The one who does the will of the Father is my brother, my sister, my mother! Don Bosco's promise of Work was born from his conviction that he was an instrument in the hands of God, and everyone who joined him became such an instrument. A life of obedience, that concerns itself with doing the will of God and nothing but the will of God.

Heaven - that was the promise of Divine Intimacy. We are a people of God, citizens of heaven, our celestial destination. But all the way to heaven, is heaven! That is the call we accept when we pray, 'May your kingdom come'. When we live a life of total dependence on God, a life totally for the will of God, that would be a life of pure and spotless love, the love that is born from the love of God, from that divine Intimacy that creates a paradise, wherever we are! 

Don Bosco's promises etch an itinerary so sure to take us all the way to that salvation that awaits each of us - the divine providence that sustains us, the divine will that guides us and the divine intimacy that sanctifies us. Let us walk with Don Bosco, profoundly certain that we are on a salvific itinerary. 

To be given more!

WORD 2day: Thursday, 3rd week in Ordinary time

January 30, 2020: 2 Samuel 7:18-19,24-29; Mark 4: 21-25

What a lovely seen to picture in our minds - David seated before the presence of the Lord and speaking his heart out! What an example we have! 

David acknowledges the amount of good that the Lord has done on his behalf, the way the Lord raised him up from nowhere. He realises too well, that to be given so much means there is much more expected of him. Though he failed in some ways, due to his weaknesses, his love and dedication to the Lord never ceased.

The Lord chose to raise David up and David proved himself worthy of that choice in spite of his weaknesses: doesn't it look like the story of anyone among us? The Lord has chosen us and we need to live worthy of that choice in spite of our weaknesses and limitations. Yes, we are given with a clear and challenging example in the Word today, and this call has two important dimensions to it.

The first is the need to realise the fact that I am called. The more I live humble and aware of the fact that I am chosen, the more I would be blessed. At times we think we are too small to be chosen, too ordinary to be called. Small or big is never the matter with God - with God every one of us is God's child and every one is chosen and called, in a very particular way.

The second dimension: the more I am blessed the more have I to grow worthy of it. I am never a finished product. I need to be always aware of the goodness of the One who has called me and negotiate all the tricky deviations and treacherous pitfalls on my journey. Weaknesses do not hurt as much as not being aware of them or justifying them! 

To be given more, means I have to grow more. What a lovely way to sanctity! 

TRIDUUM TO THE FEAST OF DON BOSCO - DAY 2

DON BOSCO - THE MAN OF GOD

The Three Devotions - his spiritual project

In the dream of the Two Columns,  Don Bosco actually speaks of three important signs; the three elements that would make up a wholesome Salesian spirituality. The Column of the Eucharist, the Column of Our Blessed Mother and then the Ship steered by the Holy Father. In some predominantly Catholic cultures, these could be taken for granted, though it is difficult these days to find such predominantly Catholic cultures. Anyway the three elements underline the 'catholicity' of a son or daughter of Don Bosco. All the three of them are so specifically Catholic and are those very core elements that are under attack from any anti catholic force, be it in history or now. 

The devotion to the Blessed Sacrament sets the sense of God's continual presence to degree extremely high and makes a person awe filled in his or her daily life. When the Church , in the year 1905, declared that a person prepared duly could receive communion everyday, Don Bosco would have screamed with joy, if he were alive. Because that is what he wished for his children even before the Universal Church could come up with it. But today, is the Eucharistic presence being taken for granted? Is it being made into a mere ritual or is the sacrament truly received as a mode of uniting oneself with the Lord?

The devotion to Our Blessed Mother was for Don Bosco the most human form of tasting the love of God - in and through the love of a Mother, the Mother of God. Jokingly said, that Don Bosco found a short cut in Mary, to arrive at what he wanted from the Lord and Saviour, it could but be all meaningful. Mary is the short cut, the direct manifestation, the immediate proof of God's grace within human nature. That was the inspiration that Don Bosco had in growing to the full in his nature and grace - our devotion to the heavenly mother, has to make us more like her, ultimately more like her Son.

The devotion to the Holy Father, as sons and daughters of Holy Mother the Church, is a guarantee of remaining true to our identity: the identity of children of God. What would have Don Bosco done, in times like the present? People trying to form factions against the Holy Father, those trying to mislead the Papacy, those vying to destroy it and those trying to misinterpret it unceasingly? Times actually are not too different - in Don Bosco's time there was a great criticism of Pius IX and what was Don Bosco's stand: he said categorically: "it is better to go to heaven with Pius IX than to be right with those who criticise the Pope." We are beloved sons and daughters of the Church, and hence of the Holy Father! 

The call that we have today, the second day of the triduum, is the spiritual project that Don Bosco presents to us. It is a call to renew our awe and love for the Eucharistic Lord, to learn from our Blessed Mother and to resolve to stand with our Holy Father, as true and worthy children of God. 

The Word made sense

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 3rd week in Ordinary time 

January 29, 2020: 2 Samuel 7: 4-17 Mark 4: 1-20

The Word comes to us every time with a specific call and life changing challenges. We would make it dead if we do not make the real sense out of it. But in the name of making sense of it, there are those who try to twist and turn it and interpret it to their own benefits! Do you think the Word of God can be so twisted and turned? Obviously, these would be running a great treacherous risk!

The Lord himself provides us the possibility of making sense, in our daily life. Only that we have to be ready and open, we would be shown what really the Word has to offer or challenge. Open with out eyes, open with our hearts, open with our ears and open with our minds that persons, events and experiences can provide us with that key to decode the Word for our concrete lives. 

We see David so open and eager, as Samuel makes sense of the Word to him. The disciples ask Jesus to make sense of the Word to them and Jesus does it so impressively. We may go in search of meaning and messages too - but the danger is that we are looking for something that we want to see, something that is pleasing to us, while all the time the message from the Word has been right in front of our eyes.

Receiving the word and making sense of it should lead us to concrete changes in life. If not, the Word would be dead as the seeds picked by the birds or scorched by sun or suppressed by the thorns. Openness is the only way to be spiritually fertile, giving fruit in abundance.