See Angels! Be Angels!

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

September 29, 2020: Celebrating the Archangels - MGR

Daniel  7: 9-10, 13-14 (or) Revelations 12: 7-12; John 1: 47-51

Celebrating Archangels, Michael, Gabriel and Raphael (MGR) gives us an opportunity once again to remind ourselves of the significance of the angels within the Christian tradition. Angels in the Old Testament were considered the extensions of God... when the angels came, they said, 'the Lord visited' them: take the case of the visitors to Abraham (Gen 18) or the case of Jacob fighting with the man of God (Gen 32) etc. Michael, as the strength of God; Gabriel as the messenger of God and Raphael as the healing of God, is a well known understanding of the Angels and their functions.

Celebrating the Archangels today gives us two lessons - To See the Angels and Be the Angels:

To see the angels, is to see the hand of God at work in our everyday experiences, not to be blind to the daily miracles that happen around us. It is a special grace to perceive it and God is active on our side all the time; it is left to us to acknowledge it and gain the advantages of it.

To be the angels, is to be extensions of God's presence to the others, to be extensions of God's love to the others. When we stand by someone in trouble, when we side with the oppressed and the victimised, when we speak out for the truth and bring God's message to people, when we empathise with those who are suffering and bring healing to them, we are being angels to those persons. That is our call, to be angels to the others, specially the needy and the weak. 

As we thank God for a special presence that God makes us feel, let us also resolve to experience that presence and be that presence to the others, in short, to see Angels and to be Angels, to the needy!

The Naked Truth: God alone is!

WORD 2day: Monday, 26th week in Ordinary time

September 28, 2020: Job 1:6-22; Luke 9: 46-50

Naked I was born, naked will I die! God gave and God has taken it back. Blessed be the name of the Lord... Job is given by the Word today as the brilliant example of a child of God! His properties burned, he remained calm. His cattle were taken, he bore it all. His servants were killed he held on to the Lord. His children died altogether, he broke down but in the bosom of the Lord! That was Job, of whom the Lord was proud of. 

Aren't we facing a situation similar these days, in many of our close quarters...with families, friends, acquaintances, affected by this treacherous pandemic, losing dear ones, losing jobs, losing security, losing peace of mind...left with no certainties, even the basic certainties of planning a month ahead! But how do we face them all?

There is a concrete lesson that Jesus wishes to give us in the Gospel ...realise with all these crisis reminding you, that your ego, your social status, your position and power, your possession and your attachments... nothing can stand the test of time. God alone will. Whether we believe or not the Lord is. Whether we praise the Lord or not, the Lord is worthy of all the praise in the world. Whatever we do and whatever we are involved in, even without our own full knowledge of it, we are serving the purposes of the Lord. Ultimately that which is going to prevail is God's will. God alone is almighty and God's purposes alone give meaning to anything that exists. 

The truth finally is, who ever we are and whatever we have, everything will pass. The naked truth is, God alone is, God alone will forever be.

PUTTING ON CHRIST

Doing, being and remaining good!

September 27, 2020: 26th Sunday in Ordinary time
Ezekiel 18: 25-28; Philippians 2: 1-5; Matthew 21: 28-32

Have in you the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus! That is the invitation, the Word today offers us! In short, it can be understood, in Paul's own terms: to put on the mind of Christ. The readings also offer an itinerary, a graded way of putting on Christ, putting on the New Man, to have the mind of Christ! It is a three level progress that is presented to us, as a vocation, a project, a programme of life and a plan of growth.

The first level of putting on Christ is DOING good: to do good, however easy it could be, has to he a choice. One has to choose to do it. Of course, nothing is automatic. The choice a person makes at a particular situation, before a set of options, is what would determine the kind of action that would follow. Even what we call a spontaneous reaction, is not absolutely spontaneous...how is it possible that one person reacts to a situation completely in a completely different way form another, even at a spur of a moment! It is because even the so-called spontaneous reactions are nothing but choices made again and again over a number of times, that it looks automatic that one chooses to react in such and such a manner. 

The point here in doing good is, what one does gets noticed, appreciated or criticised, analysed and evaluated. Especially in receiving those appreciations and recognitions, Jesus would conclude that you have already received your reward. Hence, doing good, or choosing good because you wish to be accepted by others, appreciated by all and recognised for your goodness would already strip you of its merits. According to the mind of Christ, doing something externally is good, but not good enough. Absolutising external signs was considered by Jesus plainly as hypocrisy! 

The second level of putting on Christ is BEING good: doing good alone is not enough according to the mind of Christ. An excessive insistence on doing things, can easily lead to hypocrisy, legalism and ritualism. And so, we are called to be good, that our actions flow out of the person that we are; that from our internal goodness people experience a goodness that brings them to experience the goodness of God. Ezekiel points out in the first reading today that God does not see one's actions but the inner disposition from which those actions proceed. 

Is it not true that we may be doing the best of things at a given time, but a wrong intention or a imperfect motivation behind that action, can make the whole affair totally unchristian. That is why, though doing good is so important, being good becomes something very crucial. At times we may not be in a position to do good at all - for example, when someone comes to share with you their burdens, you may not me in a position to help them all: may be a economic crisis that you cannot help them out of it, or a spiritual crisis which you yourself are facing, or a family crisis where you have nothing much to do, or a professional crisis where you have no means to be of assistance... it really does not matter, as long are you are good, you are compassionate, you are listening with real empathy, you are feeling one with the sufferings of the person, you are whole heartedly atleast wishing that the person soon gets out of the problem or crisis that he or she is caught up in. That is being good in your person, in your heart, though you really may not 'do' anything good!

The third level of putting on Christ requires not only that we are good, but we REMAIN good. It is a reminder that our goodness has to be something that is sustained and not sporadic, constant and not conditioned! To remain good, is a challenge. At times we can be good and do good; but to remain good always is a demanding task; but putting on Christ means precisely that. Here we are dealing with the grace of perseverance. One may attempt to be good occasionally, but is hard to persevere in being good. 

Looking at the parable from the Gospel today - saying 'yes' to his father, the son fails to do what he accepted to do: it is like the seeds that fell among the thorny bushes or those which fell on the shallow rock. The initial fervour dies and soon every thing becomes so monotonous and meaningless. Instead, with the grace of perseverance, every new day is a renewed challenge to remain with the Lord, to remain good, to really put on Christ. My enemies may surround, every action of mine may be misunderstood and misinterpreted, every thing that I am involved in may be proving a great mountain to be crossed over...it does not matter, I shall not be moved; I shall not leave my itinerary of goodnes; I shall remain good! How prepared are we to say that?

Putting on Christ is a matter of doing good, but more than that it is being good, being good all our life and every moment. Are we ready to take up the task? We would do the right thing to pay heed to the life task that God gives us through St. Paul today: Have in you the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus!

Live, love and experience God

WORD 2day: Saturday, 25th week in Ordinary time

September 26, 2020: Ecclesiasticus 11:9 -12: 8; Lk 9: 43b-45 

Life is short and life is limited, but it offers ample opportunity to do things that are remarkable. It never forces anyone, leaving far behind anyone who complains of a life of boredom and monotony. For a Christian, life cannot be boring because he or she has a life task to accomplish and daily directions to carry out, from the Lord. That is why St. Paul would write saying, "do not grow weary of doing right" (2 Thess 3:13). 

But that kind of a life, lived in reaching out, doing good and spending oneself to the full, might invite criticism, jealousy, opposition, persecution and even crucifixion! But what matters is to do the will of God, and do it willingly. 

There was a video few years ago doing the rounds, shot live and uploaded by someone - a video of a boy who was eaten by a white tiger, in a zoo. All that time that the boy was going through the trauma of hanging between life and death, caught in the confinement set apart for the tiger. But what did the crowd do? What did the officials do? Yes, there was a crowd there, screaming and going mad, and a few among them recording it on their cell phones... video graphing what...the boy being torn into pieces? What did they really do to save that boy? It was a crucial time, a crucial issue of life and death, a crucial moment of taking decisions and making choices. It can really traumatise a sensitive conscience looking at that video; but imagine the trauma that boy would have gone through!

Life is short and life is limited; let's live it to the full, let us do all the good that we can to every one around. Let us not waste our life in envying, calumniating, gossiping, judging and spreading hate! Let us live to the full, love each other and experience God close to us!

In God's own time...

 WORD 2day: Friday, 25th week in Ordinary time

September 25, 2020: Ecclesiasticus 3: 1-11; Luke 9: 18-22

Two great enemies to spiritual health, as spiritual masters point out are: Anxiety and Curiosity! 

Anxiety is against faith because it points to a lack of trust in the Lord. You are worried about the future, it is justified to the extent that it helps you to prepare, plan and project some of your actions, habits and decisions towards making positive changes in what is to come, within your powers. But after that limit, it becomes a unwarranted worry and a burden taken upon oneself, as if every depends on you and you alone!

Curiosity is lack of patient acceptance of the present. You have a task at hand and you are involved in it...but your mind is all the time preoccupied on finishing it and seeing its outcome, than on really applying yourself whole heartedly to it. You are involved in preparing for an examination, you are more interested to know what questions will be asked of you. You are working on a project, but you are more interested in knowing whether it will end up to be a success or not. Curiosity is again a denial of the fact that every moment of your life, you are receiving it from the Lord, in faith.

To both these - anxiety and curiosity, and to many other spiritual ailments the corrective given is Surrender! In simple terms, surrender can be described as the assurance that in God's time everything will happen. Patience, trust and the unfailing confidence in God's goodness, are the ingredients of this mentality of surrender. Especially when things aren't going the way we would want them to, we need this quality to remain sane and secure. Doesn't that speak to the kind of experience we are having these days?

In the Gospel today, we find Jesus as a personification of this quality. He was neither curious nor anxious about his mission on earth. That is why he was more interested about their personal conviction than the public opinion; and he was stern that they don't go about frenetically spreading their conviction and forcing it on people, but to let them arrive at that conviction through their own experience too! 

That serenity on Jesus' part comes from the attitude of Surrender, an assurance that everything will be made beautiful IN GOD'S OWN TIME.

From vanity to sanctity through sanity

 WORD 2day: Thursday, 25th week in Ordinary time

September 24, 2020: Ecclesiasticus 1:2-11; Luke 9: 7-9

TINNUTS... have you heard that sigh from anyone? And what does it actually mean? Too simple to be intrigued, the expansion of it goes this way: There Is Nothing New Under The Sun - TINNUTS. The first reading today speaks of vanities in life. Labour, dreams, experiences, senses...everything is a vanity if they are not in the right perspective... because there is nothing new under the sun and you are going to do nothing new after all your striving and struggling! 

Continuing in the same line, the Gospel presents to us a personification of vanities, Herod! Herod had every opportunity to realise the vanity with which he was living, but he made no use of those. He even put an end to them. That would surely affect him all his life. That is why the Gospel says, "he kept saying, I beheaded John." How many such personifications we find in today's context - you turn your television sets on...there is a parade of these personifications of vanity, from all around the globe! The present COVID crisis has done its best in putting in a pin through our bloated balloons of vanity...but no lessons seem to have been learnt by humanity at large.

Now, stop! Before judging them all in such terms, let us have a good look at ourselves and our immediate surrounding! In our families where relationship should govern but selfishness takes over... between spouses, between parents and children, between siblings! In work places where formalities reign supreme and vanities and self glories are idolised! How genuine are we...and how sane and simple we strive to be?

Are there vanities which surround us today? Aren't there opportunities offered to realise them and to do away with them? From Vanity to Sanity...that is the primary journey we are challenged to make, so that we shall feel ready and prepared to embark upon the extraordinary journey towards sanctity! That is our itinerary: from vanity to sanctity, through sanity!

In plenty and in want...

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 25th week in Ordinary time

September 23, 2020: Proverbs 30:5-9; Luke 9: 1-6

What would be your reaction if you hear a young person, in a prosperous turn of his career telling you, "I am resigning my so-called promising and colourful job." And you ask him the reason and he says: " they are paying me unreasonably high!" Strange! Would it be not? It was possible half a decade ago, in a booming kind of a situation. Though today, this may not be possible at all, with all the crisis and economic strain around, the first reading speaks of a mindset of this sort- a man who wants to live neither in want nor in plenty. Not in want, because he will not think of shortcuts to get rich; nor in plenty, that he does not forget the one who gives. 

Jesus knew that mindset! He instructs his apostles on being a messenger of God... the crux of his instruction is not merely about whether to have or not to have, whether to possess or not to possess, but it is all about depending on God or not, and how dependent do you feel on God and how dependent on other forces of push and pull around you! 

Poverty within the worldview of the Reign of God, in terms of Jesus' thinking, is a fundamental dependence on God. Being grateful for what God gives, and being expectant like a child to be given things in love. With that mindset, everything is appreciated as a blessing and not to have is not a cause for lament.You know you will be given at the right time, and you know the One who gives is all the time watchful over you. 

It is more than what proverbs suggests, while the passage from the proverbs carries a tinge of cynical realism, the Gospel offers a proactive sense of dependence out of true human freedom, that defines a true disciple and a dedicated apostle. Clearly St. Paul makes a choice for the Gospel mentality, the mind of Christ: to learn to live in want and in plenty, because we can do anything through the one who strengthens us (cf. Phil 4:12,13).

The Right thing to do...

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 25th week in Ordinary time

September 22, 2020: Proverbs 21: 1-6, 10-13; Luke 8: 19-21

Doing the right thing is better than sacrifice says the first reading today. And the right thing is imprinted in our hearts. That is a simple but profound question each of us has to constantly ask ourselves- what does my heart say? what does my inner being say? Because, there is someone so great who resides there in profundity. 

The Word of God, comes to us through various ways: direct proclamation is just one among them. There are situations and persons whom we come across who bring us a challenge to face and respond to. The Word of God comes along, instructing us what is right and what is to be avoided. And before anything else, there is the inner voice within us, that "sound of sheer silence" (1 Kgs 19:12), which tells us at the right moment the right thing to do. 

All that we need to do is first of all, be attentive: attentive to the Word that comes across to us. Have you had experiences of what they call 'the inkling' or 'a feeling' as they put it in simple words...as you are about to do something or take a simple decision, you get a feeling within...or you are about to close your room and get out and you feel a kind of reminder of something...but you just carry on with what you are doing...only later regret that you did not pay attention to what was flashing across in your mind? That is what it means... that we need to pay attention to that soft, gentle inner voice!

Secondly, be sincere: sincere to admit that we have received the word and to recognise the demands that it places. At times because of the demands that the Word places on us, we pretend not to have heard, or not to have understood the real meaning of the Word. It would serve no purpose and we in fact deceive ourselves by doing it. 

Thirdly, our task is to be diligent, in carrying out amidst all struggles, what the Word tells us. We are in no way equating that inner voice to God..all that we wish to see is how the Lord can use such a subtle thing to communicate to us. And should we not be grateful for it and be diligent in doing what we ought to?

The Gospel today assures us that when we do all the three we would be considered not merely disciples, but mother, brother, sister, in short, coheirs with Christ to the Reign of God. But when we stop short of them, we would be deceiving ourselves warns the letter of James (1:22). So, the right thing to do... we have always known it, within us!

The call to be One

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

September 21, 2020: Celebrating St. Matthew the Apostle

Ephesians 4: 1-7,11-13; Matthew 9: 9-13

One Lord, One faith, One baptism, One Spirit... Paul stacks up the meaning of the feast today, in describing his own wish for his children. Yes, every time we celebrate the feast of an apostle we are celebrating our call to be One! The division within the Church is because the sense of this Apostolic succession is lost somewhere, the link broken somewhere for those who deserted the lineage! 

That was an ecumenical point of view and important, of course. But more important is a socio-existential point of view of the Church today. The Feast of Matthew and the reminder from the scene of his call, give us this message with an enviable clarity: We are called to be One - are we?

How many categories we have created for ourselves to stand divided - denominations among churches, divisions within churches based on rites and languages and even caste - the worst of its kind! Churches sealed and communities shattered due to caste clashes and rites controversies - is that the Church that the Master wished for? Is that a Church at all? 

Matthew, when he was called, left everything on the table and followed Christ. A lot of things were at stake for him when he made that choice - he cannot turn back, he will have people on his back, he will have to answer so many people, he will be criticised by many, he will be branded by the world as 'out of his mind', he would be going behind a person about whom he can only pretend to know until the person himself reveals with clarity - how many things against that choice that he made! But still he made that choice - to leave everything and follow Christ. Leave everything, follow Christ and still hold on to the difference that some were fishermen and others household Jews over whom he had authority, the Roman authority given him, the authority to extort taxes... sounds so imbecile, doesn't it?

That is how it sounds when some one claims he or she is a follower of Christ and still holds on to divisions, stratifications and classifications, superiority over another, tolerating imposition of inferiority...how infantile and illogical of us! 

The question is, can I today, leave everything, everything - my desires, my identities, my attachments, my clingings, my holdings, my support system...everything! Can I leave them all, and follow Him, to become one with him and one with my brothers and sisters in him?

O LORD! I SEEK!

Seeking today and seeking with hope!

September 20, 2020: 25th Sunday in Ordinary time

Isaiah 55: 6-9; Philippians 1: 20c-24, 27a; Matthew 20: 1-16a

It is your face O Lord that I seek, prays the Psalmist (cf 27:8). Seeking the face of the Lord is the sweet task given to a lover of the Lord. But the Lord declares, I have not told you to seek me in vain, as if I were absent from you! The Lord is always with us and the Lord's countenance sheds its light upon us and that is the joy of our Christian living. But on our part we need to seek, not because the Lord hides, but we hide from the Lord. Adam and Eve, hid themselves and the Lord had to seek; Abel was eliminated and the Lord had to seek; that is the kind of God we have - the one who seeks! On our part are we open to the Lord? With this opening question, let us listen to what the Word has to tell us this Sunday. 

Seek the Lord, says the Word today. We are called to seek the Lord, seek the Lord above all else! Lord awaits to shine forth on us, however it is the need of ours to seek. St. Paul tells us in the second reading today, it becomes even a longing to end this existence on earth so that one could get to the Lord, that we may behold the face of the Lord! But it is not ours to decide, we are expected to live our earthly sojourn as long as the Lord wills it for us; but even within this sojourn the Lord will enable us to behold the Lord's face, if we seek it.

This seeking is not about merely searching, it is longing, it is yearning, it is getting in love it the face of the Lord, never leaving the presence of the Lord, wishing to have the Lord with us all the while in our daily life, never leaving the side of the Lord come what may... it is there that the problems crop up. We get too busy to seek the Lord, too occupied with other things to think of the Lord, too attached to so many things, persons and ideas to give the Lord the highest of priorities in life, too flimsy in our seeking of the Lord that any simple distraction on the way can take us away, like the insects picked by a flying bird! Are we seeking the Lord's face?

Seek the Lord, today! says the first reading and the Gospel parable too. The urgency of seeking the Lord is expressed so well and so plainly by Isaiah, when he urges that we seek the Lord while there is still time! Instead of just standing around and staring at things that will do no good, and focusing on elements that would lead us no where, it is important that we seek the Lord and seek the Lord today, here and now! It is a call to make a choice, to make up our minds, to discern our ways and set on a determined seeking!

The today we just heard is the most demanding part of the exercise! Yes we are ready to seek the Lord's face, but at a later phase in life, definitely not today! There could be three reasons in our minds to justify this: first, that there are more important things to do and it is a waste of time seeking the face of the Lord when there are things that I have to get going with; second, that it looks so outdated to do that, to speak of things that pertain to God and spiritual life and stuffs like that (as the youth lingo goes); third, that it is anyway a futile exercise because finally it is we who have to live our daily life here and now! Look at these reasons! Where is God in my priority list? What matters to me - pleasing the world around or really listening to the inner voice within me? Do I even imagine that I can do all things by myself? It is high time, TODAY, to just stop and ask myself: how long am I going to just stand and loiter around in my life...is it not time to get to work at the Lord's vineyard?

Seek the Lord with Hope, says the parable that Jesus presents. Don't worry even if you have wasted your time till now, make up your mind right now and seek the Lord with hope; do not think if the Lord will accept you or not. First of all, the Lord has not rejected you from the presence of the Lord in order that you need to wonder whether the Lord will accept you back. If at all you found a gap between the Lord and you, it was you who withdrew from the Lord and not the other way. Because the Lord's love is unconditional, and the Lord does not love us to the extent that we deserve it. If only the Lord were to calculate how deserving we are, how many of us can really stand before the Lord and claim the love of God for ourselves? "But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us"(Rom 5:8). 

That love with which the landowner gives the same wages to the first and the last, to those who slogged and those who just stepped in...that is very intriguing and apparently unjust in our logic. But that is what the Love's logic is all about - it does not calculate, it does not weigh the deserving and the non-deserving, it does not wait for an opportune moment to do good. This Love is the hope that Jesus gives us: at no point of time does God reject you! Let us repeat that as often as possible: at no point of time would God reject me! Anytime is good time to return to the Lord and enter his vineyard! Seek the Lord with Hope and you will definitely find the Lord seeking you out in the crowd, in the din and dark that you have created around yourself! 

The Lord is with me, the Lord lives with me, moves with me and sustains me! But it is up to me to seek that presence of the Lord, seek that grace of the Lord and seek that face of the Lord so that the light of God's countenance may illumine my daily life! Seek, Seek today, Seek with hope, and the Lord will find you!