The Two Great testimonies of Faith

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

June 29, 2020: The Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul

Acts 3: 1-10/Acts 12:1-11; Galatians 1: 11-20/ 2 Timothy 4: 6-8,17-18; John 21: 15-19/ Matthew 16: 13-19

"I have neither silver nor gold, but I will give you what I have: in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, walk!" The first reading highlights the fact for the apostles the true treasure, the true strength, the true source of well being was Christ! They depended on no one else, they feared no one and they cared about nothing else other having Christ with them. 

"It is no longer I who lives, but it is Christ who lives in me!" The second reading underlines the intimate relationship that the apostles had with Christ, their Master and presents the same challenge to us: to have a love for Christ that would consume us totally in our body and soul, making us aglow with the love for Christ and Christ's mission of the Reign of God.

These two pillars - one a rock and the other a foundation, stand testimonies to how a life in Christ has to be lived! One shows in action and the other in his commitment; one in his total dependence on the Lord and the other in a total consumation for the Lord. Let us pray for the faith of the Church - that it may grow forever in its integriy!

Some Traditional Trivia... interesting to know

Peter to the right of the Square

Paul on the left corner of the square

- Originally this feast was called the Martyrdom of Apostles Peter and Paul 
- There are just three Basilicas built on the tomb of the Apostles...
    1. St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican
    2. St. James's Basilica, Campostella, Spain
    3. St. Thomas' Basilica, Mylapore, Chennai, India 
- Peter was Crucified (crucified upside down on his request!!!)
- Paul was beheaded (there is a church built on the spot where Paul was believed to be beheaded...in the immediate outskirts of Rome)  
- The Vatican St. Peter's Square leading to St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, has the statues of Peter and Paul adorning the square as we overlook the Basilica... as traditionally, Peter holds the keys, and Paul holds a sword!

LET US THANK GOD FOR, ADMIRE AND IMITATE...

ST. PETER, 
IN HIS INTUITIVE FAITH AND INTIMATE FRIENDSHIP WITH CHRIST;

ST. PAUL, 
IN HIS TOTAL DEDICATION TO THE GOSPEL AND SELF-CONSUMING LOVE FOR CHRIST!

READY TO WELCOME GOD?

Welcoming... God, God's Message & God's Messenger

June 28, 2020: 13th Sunday in Ordinary time

2 Kings 4: 8-11, 13-16; Romans 6: 3-4, 8-11; Matthew 10:37-42

'Welcome Holy Spirit' - you are familiar with that famous hymn, aren't you? Can you go back and think of what you felt the first time you heard those lines - Welcome Holy Spirit... a little amused at least, at those lyrics? Perhaps, it was inspired by Benny Hinn's book Good Morning Holy Spirit (or was it the otherwise?)... anyway, the words do tickled a smile in people's hearts those days. Though now we have gotten used to that hymn, the words are still very homely, down to earth and totally informal. In fact welcoming God, is a beautiful attitude, though God is always there and all the time everywhere! So what would welcoming God, really mean?

Welcoming God would mean an entire life style, a totally unique priority list, an entirely unworldly mindset if we can use that phrase! That is what Jesus says. Just imagine this conversation between two real people, who had both lost their fathers just a few weeks earlier... one said, for him it was an obligation to stay home, losing a few prospects of his future and career, just to ensure his mother felt safe and secure. The other said, he just couldn't do that, as a matter of fact. He was a Priest, belonging to a Congregation, who had a whole parish community to take care of... he shared how with his call and commitment as a Religious, he could not prioritise the care of his mother. However, he luckily had his siblings to leave that to. In fact, when it comes to giving priority to God and God's call, nothing can claim precedence. This is the message that the Lord wants to communicate. 

Welcoming God would mean prioritising God over everything and all. How many Christian families today stand shattered and challenged because of the kind of priorities that the members in the family held on to: Egocentric spouses, money centered siblings, career centered parents, pleasure oriented kids, materialistic mentalities and Godless lives! Sometimes an experience such as what we are facing today, a lockdown or a quarantine, a sickness or a setback, makes us realise how weird our priorities have been! But should we wait for such situations? Are we looking to blame it on something, without really taking stock of our real priorities in life? Welcoming God would mean, rearranging our priorities and looking at God's place in our daily life, yes... our daily life - not the occasion show we put up, may be weekly or seasonally.

Welcoming God's Message is one of the daily dispositions of welcoming God. It would be hypocritical to SAY that I need God and LIVE as if I don't. I may do things that show others that I need God. I may speak to others about me and my life, giving them an idea that I value God. But if that is not translated into my daily life and my regular choices, I am failing to live a life that is integral. What matters most is not what I feel like or what I keep saying, but what I really live on a daily basis. 

Welcoming or Accepting God's message truly means changing my life according to that message; it is dying to sin and being alive for God in Christ, says St. Paul today. Dying to sin, means saying no to those which would do away with God. God cannot be where there is hatred; God cannot be where there is injustice and exploitation; God cannot be where there is lie and evil; God cannot be were there envy and treachery; because God is love and love is against all these! Welcoming God's message would mean saying no to all these, and choosing God above all, above my pride, my anger, my hurts, my tendency to settle scores, my wish to see the doom of the other! Yes, it means choosing love, when I say I am ready to welcome God and God's message.   

Welcoming God's Messengers, is a disposition of openness and humility - being open to God and God's marvellous and mysterious ways of revealing Godself to me - through persons, events and signs. A new person we come across, a poor person we see suffering, a hapless person we exploited...all these are messengers of God! And being humble is to receive God's message from anyone, even those from whom we least expect it! The Shunammite woman we come across in the first reading had a special eye for this observation! She spotted the Messenger of God in Elisha and the consequence of it, we know so gladly. 

Welcoming God's messengers would truly mean being open minded, being authentic in our relations with all, being forthright in our dealings with anyone, being truthful and honest about our feelings and attitudes, being ready to form them all according to the mind of Christ: did not St. Paul instruct us to put on the mind of Christ - let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus (Phil 2:5). It is easier to think of God's messengers as people who are set apart, people who are in ministries, people who are so-called 'chosen'...but not just those! God's messengers are all those who bring God's message on a daily basis - parents for children, children for parents, bosses for employees, employees for bosses, the poor on the streets, the neighbour in living quarters, the stranger in a bus, anyone who challenges us about our priorities, our mind in Christ and our way of life. Are we ready to notice, accept and welcome them?

If we really give a serious thought to our Christian living today, it could really be a mighty big challenge. A remarkable thinker of the past century, Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes in his book The Cost of Discipleship, "being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God's will." Is this not what we are repeatedly reminded by our Holy Father today? 

Let us pay heed to the precious question from the Word today: Are you ready to Welcome God, to welcome God's message and to welcome God's messengers... in whatever form and whichever way? What would my response be?

The devastation notwithstanding

WORD 2day: Saturday, 12th week in Ordinary time

June 27, 2020: Lamentations 2: 2, 10-14, 18-19; Matthew 8: 5-17

Destruction, devastation, desecration, disease and death bed...these are the situations elaborated in the Word today... so akin to the situation we are experiencing in the world - not only due to the virus and the health crisis, but due to inhuman discrimination and intolerant retaliation, due to exploitation of the poor and the manipulation of the weak, due to evil minded greed of the powerful and the insensitive approach of the rest! 

But that is not all. Alongside these unfortunately oppressive forces, there is an insistence on mercy, healing, forgiveness, faith and trust... be it in the first reading or in the Gospel! And that is what we need to focus on and reflect with our mind and heart - all the possible devastation notwithstanding, the Lord is with us, for us and the Lord loves us. 

The words of the centurion, which we repeat every time we approach the Eucharistic table, is a splendid prayer that we can make - much more in an emergency situation like these days: "Just say a word Lord and the world shall be healed!" But just pause a while there and see the explanation that the centurion gives for that. That he is in authority and when he says something, it is done. Just so he says, the Lord who is in authority, just says a word and things shall happen. That is the key!

Humanity has for long now taken the authority into its own hands. With the liberty and the faculty that God has given us, we have taken everything under our control and kept the Lord out of as many things as possible: from the public life, from the governance systems, from the ethical categories, from the schools...from everything we have kept the Lord out - at times even from our own families and daily life! And then we begin to wonder, if the Lord says a word, will it not happen? How hypocritical and opportunistic of us!!!

But all these notwithstanding, the Lord wants to heal us and the Lord wants to make us whole! What can separate us from the love of God, St Paul would question in his letter to the Romans (8:38,39). Absolutely nothing can separate us from the Love of God that is poured into us through Jesus Christ, yes, nothing... except our own obstinacy! Let's beware!

Of course, the Lord wishes to...

WORD 2day: Friday, 12th week in Ordinary time

June 26, 2020: 2 Kings 25: 1-12; Matthew 8: 1-4

The first reading today is an anticlimax... everything seems finished, everything seems done and dusted, all that has been seems useless at a point in life. This is what we call the breaking point. Each one reaches that in life, at some moment or the other. How one deals with it, depends much on what one has done the rest of the time in life - that is, how one has prepared onself for varied experiences of this kind, in life. 

Talk of depression, stress and anxiety disorders are more these days - not because the situation all around has gotten worse than what it has always been. It is because we have become less prepared for all that life can offer us in time. We are prepared for good times and for jubilations, but for trying moments and tribulations? Are we not seeing that from the way people panic when crises of the sort we are facing today world over, comes our way?

When the man asks Jesus to cure him, if he wishes to, Jesus says, "of course, I wish to!" That is what the Lord tells us today: of course, I wish to be with you, strengthen you and help you out at times of trials and difficulties - but what can I do, you have accustomed yourself to doing things by yourself, to taking things under your own control, deciding things on your own and working on things on merely your own terms! I don't seem to have a place in your life! 

Of course, the Lord wants to, but are we willing to go into the presence of the Lord and surrender ourselves, and say, "if you wish to...do what you wish with me!"

What is your choice: the exile or the Reign?

WORD 2day: Thursday, 12th week in Ordinary time

June 25, 2020: 2 Kings 24: 8-17; Matthew 7: 21-29

The Word today has the classical challenge: what do you choose? Our life of faith and our daily life meet each other on that hot seat called, Choice! Rise or ruin, happiness or doom, fullness or nothingness - the choice is mine! I cannot escape from it. We have seen in the book of Deuteronomy this basic philosophy of life that the people of God were taught: behold I place before you today, life and death! (see Deuteronomy 30:15) Today we have an illustration of the same lifestyle in the reading taken together.

The first reading says, Jehoiachin did what was not desirable in the eyes of God and his house crumbled - his mother, his servants and all, his people were destroyed, the entire salvation plan that God was taking forward in and through the so called chosen people of God, went to ruin! Chosenness is not guaranteed by anything other than reponding to that choseness by our daily personal choices.

The Gospel affirms that the one who hears the Word of the Lord, and does the will of God the Father and Mother, has already found favour in the eyes of the Lord, and his house is built on a rock; no rain, no thunder, no floods, no disease, no fear of death, no suffering or sickness can ruin it! In all these the chosen one will live strong, clear, hopeful and blessed. 

Taking the readings together we can understand what the Word tells us today: the choice is yours - the exile or the Reign. If you choose your own will, your own ego, your own ways and your own logic of profit, exploitation and manipulation... you are already walking towards your exile. You may think you are rising up, your are rushing towards prosperity or proving yourself to the world; you will all of a sudden realise, you have entered into an exile which is a million times worse than all the quarantines that we keep speaking of these days.

Instead, if your receive the Word of God, respect the will of God and follow the promptings of the Spirit, it would seem you are walking through fire, drowning in suffering, slipping into misery and trapped in troubles - but you are actually and already treading into the Reign, growing into the Reign, entering into the Reign of God, the fulfillment of the entire life and of the world. 

Let us pay attention today: what is our choice - the exile or the Reign?

x

John: God has been Gracious

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

June 24, 2020: Birthday of St. John the Baptist 
Jeremiah 1: 4-10; 1 Peter 1: 8-12; Luke 1: 5-17

The readings today summarise in a perfect sense who John was. The first reading describes his identity, the second his self-understanding and the Gospel, his blessedness in the eyes of God.

The Voice: his identity. 

He stands out as a prophet, a prophet who ensures the continuity between the Old Testaments prophets and Jesus, the prophet par excellence. His identity as a voice explains also his priority to make God's Word known. The Word is announced by the Voice: the call for us... to make present to the Word in the world.

Our Reflection: Is my identity in relation to the Word, in relation to the Lord, in relation to my saviour?

The Servant of God: his  self-identity.

John was filled with a sense of his mission. He was sent to prepare the way of the Lord, as a precursor to run before the Lord and get the spirit of the Lord's people up and awake. He challenged people to conversion as a foretaste of the Reign of God that Jesus wanted to establish. The challenge for us, is to recognise God's will at work in our lives.

Our Reflection: Do I consider myself as an instrument at the service of the Will of God... in my family, in my work place, in my parish or wherever I am!

Blessed from the Womb: God's chosen one.

John becomes the most proximate witness to us for the words that Isaiah, Jeremiah and other prophets always insist upon: the Lord chooses us before we were ever formed in the womb and the Lord has a specific plan for each of us. Such a blessed one, was killed so brutally and it looked like he ended up a big failure! In God's wisdom lies our true happiness. The invitation for us, is to understand the real purpose of our lives from the perspective of God.

Our Reflection: The so called goals and ambitions, purposes and plans of my life - how seriously do they seek to know, understand and accept the plan and purposes of God?

In the identity he received from God, in his self identity and in his blessed life right from the womb of his mother, John stands a witness and a challenge to our life in God! In fact, as his name means, we are called to realise God has been gracious to us and respond to that grace, with our true childlike love and surrender. 

Be mindful: the pearls, pigs and our pride!

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 12th week in Ordinary time

2 Kings 19: 9-11,14-21,31-36; Matthew 7: 6, 12-14

A look at the scene reported in the first reading, fills us with a nostalgia: will something like that not happen today, and save us all and the entire humanity from this gruesome pandemic that is on an unrelenting raid? Just on the verge of being conquered and subjugated, the people of Israel miraculously experience the liberating hand of God! What a great wonder it would have been!

But we forget to see the other elements that were there: to total submission of kind, the good will of the rest, the support of the prophet and everything else came together with the will of God. Today, aren't we testimonies to the blunders made by human pride, occasions lost by human ego, evils brought in my exploitation of the other and disasters created by human greed! How can something like that really take place today?

This what Jesus is warning us of in the Gospel...throwing your pearls to the pigs! You have pearls directly from the hands of the Lord, handed over to you in love: your life, your soul, your goodness, your image and likeness to God, your happiness, your loving relationships, your capacity for goodness... how are you treating them all? We have saints - those are ones who have given the right place to these pearls and adorned their world with it.

The sad fact is we are too prone to throw our pearls to the pigs like our greed, our passion for pleasure, our desire for power, our insensitive consideration of the other, our wish to exploit the other, our craving to dominate every thing for our own happiness and and satisfaction! This group is the crowd that enters through the wide and spacious gate! Are we in their numbers?

Or do we want to enter the narrow gate, with that slender minority which loves truly, walks justly and lives fully their life, mindful of their pearls!

A self-critical conscious Choice

WORD 2day: Monday, 12th week in Ordinary time

June 22, 2020: 2 Kings 17: 5-8, 13-15, 18; Matthew 7: 1-5

Judge not, and you shall not be judged, instructs Jesus today. Not to judge others does not mean justifying whatever he or she does. Between judging the other and justifying the other there is an attitude that Jesus deems Reign-worthy and that is, a Self-critical Conscious Choice.

The first need is to be self critical. When I find something wrong in the other, charity requires that I first become critical of myself... it is seeing the log that is in your eye before offering to remove the splinter from your neighbour's. Once I am aware that I too possess the same, or a similar, or a bigger weakness, my attitude changes completely. I am in a  position to act with prudence and humility.

The second need is to set the home tidy first. "Do not do like they do" ... that was the instruction that the Lord had given the people when they come into contact with other people in their wanderings. St. Paul too has a similar warning for us, isn't it? Writing to the Romans, he tells us: do not be conformed to the world, instead be transformed in the Lord (cf. Rom 12).

The third need is to make a conscious choice. Do not let yourself be carried away by your emotions and the anger of the moment. How many times this happens, that we lose our cool in a moment of restlessness, and feel bad to have said something or done something that we can never undo! If we judge and react to our brothers and sisters merely in the whiff of the moment, it would not be a conscious choice, and later we will have no other choice than to regret it all our life.  

In short, the Word invites us today to live our daily lives conscious of who we are, what we are called for and where we are bound to! Let us take our daily life seriously and live on a daily basis with sound self-critical conscious choices... the Word shall be the lamp to that path!

Glowing for the love of God

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

June 20, 2020: Remembering the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Isaiah 61: 9-11; Luke 2: 41-51

Following the Sacred Heart, we remember the Immaculate Heart - so fitting and meaningful a tradition! The Heart of Mary, immaculate originally by the grace of God, but manifests more than that... a total dedication to God and the role God has to play in the salvation history of human kind.

The heart of Mary gives us three lessons to live by.

1. The heart was pierced by sorrows as Simeon predicted. In the book of Lamentations, we come across the picture of the lamenting daughter of Sion and Mary is prefigured in this imagery. But no matter how much the heart was was pierced and hurt and tortured, it always glowed for the love of God and the fulfillment of God's will.

2. The heart of Mary was absolutely open to the working of the Spirit and it was at the beck and call of the Word. We see this right from the moment she heard the greeting from the angel. Openness to the Spirit is a matter of the heart and Mary exemplifies it to the utmost.

3. The heart of Our Blessed Mother was filled with 'God-thoughts' and that was because she kept everything that was happening in her life in her heart and pondered over them. She recognised, acknowledged and accepted interventions of God in her life, and found herself being moved and animated by the Lord, the Lord's Word and the Lord's Spirit.

Imitating Mary, let us open our hearts to God, glow for God and allow ourselves to be guided by the Lord and we will experience strongly the presence of the Lord in our hearts. May the Immaculate heart of our Blessed Mother be a guide post on our journey towards the merciful heart of God, our Father and Mother. 

Love made Flesh

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

June 19, 2020: Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Deuteronomy 7: 6-11; 1 John 4: 7-16; Matthew 11: 25-30

Today we celebrate the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, the fount of love, the most symbolic expression possible of our relationship with God. The great devotion that we have for the Sacred Heart, has come from and passed through immense experience of God's love in a concrete manner. Sr. Margaret Mary Alacoque was chosen as the champion and apostle for this devotion and today we have a treasure in its form, to reflect upon, to learn from, and to attach ourselves to.

The Sacred Heart symbolises...

1. Covenant: God's initiative in love towards humanity, towards you and me. The heart reminds us of the covenant we have with the Lord - to belong to the Lord, to be people of the Lord! "It is you that the Lord our god has chosen to be God's own people out of all the peoples on earth," says the first reading. 

2. Compassion: God's continued relationship, filled with compassion towards us. The compassion which calls us to 'come and rest'; the wounded, scarred, pierced heart, that offers to heal, soothe and fill our hearts. "Come to me," calls the Lord and promises, "I will give you rest." 

3. Commitment: God's invitation to imitate the total, self-giving love of God. Loving one another is a commitment, not merely a sentiment or a wishful feeling. It is a concrete commitment towards the over-all well being of each other. Only when we love, are we born of God's love; if not, our very sonship or daughtership in relation to God becomes null and void. Anyone who lives in love lives in God, says John in the second reading today. 

Love made flesh, Most Merciful Sacred Heart of Jesus, fill us with the same love that your heart burns with - Amen.