Good people or God's people?

WORD 2day: Monday, 34th week in Ordinary time

November 23, 2020: Revelation 14:1-5; Luke 21: 1-4

Are we called to be good people? Yes, but not just that. The Word today challenges us: it is not enough to be good people, but we are called to be God's people. Being good seems a bit of a relative opinion these days. We are good to some, and not so to some others! According to some, I am good and for some others, I am not good. I am good at times when I see an advantage in being so, but when it is not going to favour me in anyway, I give up on that guard. Being good seems so relative.

Just have a look at the posters with politicians doling out their "generous" gifts to the unfortunate lot, the numerous NGOs scripting out projects for the eradication of social evils for decades and decades together, the so-called social activists voicing the woes of the downtrodden. And these days, the scenario is worse... to see poses with masks and microphones...everything seems a show! People who do good and claim to do good, do it with various intentions and it is that which makes all the difference.

One thing it is to be known as people who do good and the other is to be people of God. Doing good has no end to it and is evaluated in its quantity, in the volume of the good we do. Being God's people is in one way simpler and in another way a lot more demanding. 

It is simpler because it does not matter what you do and how much you do but with how much of love you do whatever you do! You need not be giving away tonnes of things to others in charity or announcing everyday one scheme, which means nothing to none. What matters is you have true compassion for the other, in the depth of your heart.

More demanding because even a slight intention of selfishness or vain glory can negate the true effect of the good that is done. It is what is in your heart that makes your gift valid or not in the sight of the Lord - whether it is sacks of gold or a mere two pennies! You can hide what you have in your heart to everyone, but to God? 

To be marked as people of God is to belong to God and to put our whole self and all we have at the disposal of the One who gave it all to us. It is important to be people who do good, but more important it is to be people of God.

A KING WITH A DIFFERENCE

Shepherd, Servant and Sovereign!

November 22, 2020: Solemnity of Christ the King
Ezekiel 34: 11-12, 15-17; 1 Corinthians 15: 20-26, 28; Matthew 25: 31-46

Christ the King Sunday marks the beginning of the last week of the Liturgical year and thus it serves as a fitting culmination of the year, a climax to end the year with! The one whose birth, life, death and resurrection that we remembered and celebrated all through this liturgical year, is our King, says this Sunday. 

We celebrate our King today, our King who is madly in love with us, our King who had given up everything for the sake of the love that he had for us, our King who even today is ready to give up on anything, all just for the love that he has for us. Our King, definitely, is different from the rest of the kings we can think or see around. To be served, to have authority over all, to rule over all and to hoard as much as possible for oneself: these are what being a king would mean today. 

Enough to look around we have all sorts: rulers who were all their life hoarding things and died so miserable and despicable; rulers who pose themselves shamelessly as 'greatest ever' and think that they can never be dethroned; rulers who do all they can to please every one whom they can merely to stay in power and hold on to the throne; rulers who manipulate every one and every thing and project themselves to be the saviours but all the time gnawing at the very roots of the happiness of the common folk; rulers who openly suppress rights of people and rule by fear; rulers who have all secret pacts to destroy anyone who stands against them, caring nothing about the innocents and vulnerable who are trampled in the bargain! Oh...what range of them! But we the people of God, are a privileged lot because we have a King who is a contrast to all these !

The King we have is a Shepherd King: he comes in search of us, strains himself for our good, provides for our needs, binds our wounds, leads us, directs us, feeds us, nourishes us, defends us and does everything necessary for our peaceful and happy life. None of us can ever deny the fact that we have the protecting and providing hand of God hovering over us, because without that we would find our life tough and sometimes even terrible. A King who comes in search of us, not one who waits in his throne for us to go begging!

Certainly you have come across that cartoon that was circulated during this COVID lock-down - the devil laughing at God saying, "Ah...I managed to close all your Churches!". And God smiling back retorting, "And I have just opened one in each home!" Whether we go in search of God or not. God is ever search of us. All that we need to do is open the door of our hearts and he shall enter, and make home with us!

The King we have is a Servant King: it is strange that our king, kind of depends on us. All that he is concerned about is not so much to "rule" us as to "serve" us. He wishes that we feed him, clothe him, console him... he says he depends on us! What sort of a king is he who depends on his subjects, a king who wants his subjects to give him in mercy to eat, who identifies himself with his subjects who are in want and in dire need. What sort of a king is he who feels sad when his subjects are sad, feels abandoned when his subjects are left to suffer alone, feels neglected when his subjects are left without no one to care for. Truly he is a servant king, who desires that we play his role, take his side and be his ambassadors when there are our brothers and sisters who are in hunger, in need, in dire want, in loneliness, in suffering! 

If the King is a servant, the subjects and servants of the king, what do they become? Kings? No, servants of the Servant king! The more I humble myself, the more I become a true subject of my King. The more I reach out in service to the needy, the more I grow in the image of my King who came reaching out to me, leaving behind all the regalia of a king. The more I look at every one around me as person whom I need to serve, the more I become like the King who announced: I have come to serve, not to be served! What an example we have!

The King we have is a Sovereign King: every knee shall bow and every tongue confess the he is King and he is Lord! The dependence that we see in the king is not a sign of weakness, it is the very nature of our King and Lord who is a relational Being; God who is a community, God who is three persons, in relationship with each other, and defines what right relationships should be like. God orders the movements of the planets and the heavenly bodies but gives each of his sons and daughters, a divine freedom that fills them with respect and dignity. We are given a royal identity, that we are sons and daughters of the Sovereign king. 

The Creator, the protector, the ultimate judge, the righteous arbiter, the King of the Universe...that is what the Lord is. There can be millions of inventions and thousands of theories with which people in history have tried to do away with God and replace God with something! But it has never worked. There is invariably a point after which no one can proceed without compromising on certainty and clarity in their negation of God. Besides all these, there is no need for anyone to try to prove God! God does not need our proofs...and if God does need them, it cannot be God. We do not try to prove God... we experience God and share that experience with the others. So, let us not get upset when we are not able to "prove" God's existence to people around us...but we need to get worried when we are not able to communicate God-experience to others in and through our life, because we have not had it ourselves! That is what we need to strive for - to have a deep God-experience within us, so that we can share it with all those around us. 

Yes, we have a King who is all powerful, governs every aspect of this universe, but when it comes to his love for us, he loves us so tenderly that he looks so weak like a servant, so humble like a shepherd and yet no one can deny the Sovereign that God is!

The God of the Living

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

November 21, 2020: Revelation 11: 4-12; Luke 20: 27-40

The God of the living - that is how Jesus presents his God and Father, and our God and Father. Resurrection is the foundation of our conviction that our life is not merely made of the few years that we spend on this earth. Our life is part of the Eternal Stream, that is God and we have but a few years here on earth. We come from, and we are meant for, a union that is eternal and all our efforts during this life has to be towards ensuring that union for ever. 

What would be the fallout if we had this truth right in front of our minds while we live? We would not unnecessarily fret to make ourselves comfortable at the cost of the other. We would not long to possess something or someone, leading to undue striving to control the other and manipulate situations. We would not harm others or harm the nature just because at present we would like to make more money or make life more easy. We would not calculate everything in terms of gain and profit and dividends and surplus.

These months have done this in a great sense - the uncontrollable dance of the disease, the threatening face of death, the gnawing claws of misery, the frightening stare of unemployment...how many forms of impermanence we have experienced... but have we changed in our attitudes? Time and again, something or the other - like a storm, or a flood, or an earthquake, or a fire - comes by to remind us of our vulnerability...but do we learn our lessons? How many times we get to stare into the eyes of death, may be our own dear ones, those known to us, famous personalities... seeing them make that last lap of journey in front of our eyes... does that in anyway change our mindsets?

Anyway, should we wait for such terrifying moments to repent and reset our values? Jesus offers us a wonderful criterion: the criterion of Resurrection. Live as Resurrection-people - it means the ability to see far ahead of this limited life we have! Live as people of the Eternity - it means living a life that will never end, will go on in its goodness and love. Live as people who really believe that your life does not end here and now... live as people who belong to the God of the living!

Sweet in the mouth; bitter in the stomach

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

November 20, 2020: Revelation 10: 8-11; Luke 19: 45-48

Jesus was attractive; people rallied after him so willingly and readily. He was interesting to listen to; so many pharisees and scribes hung on to his lips. He was famous; the mere name drew not just crowds but even prominent persons like Zachaeus, Nicodemus and others. He had charming ways; even Herod wanted to see him atleast once! All these were true only in as much as they all looked at Jesus from a distance. When Jesus got near...he turned demanding. 

The people came to him and he challenged them to live a life of destitution, with no place to even lay their heads. The people listened to him and he called them whitewashed sepulchers, inviting them to true personal conversion. Individuals approached him and he challenged them to total reformation of their personal and public lives. The people led him with such celebration into the city of Jerusalem and he enters the Temple and drives out the vendors and money lenders, challenging the social system that the people were so easily justifying and living with.

The Lord's promises are sweet, but when we take it to heart they are demanding. If we truly listen to the Word of God, we cannot remain the same forever, we would be challenged to change, to transform, to become more and more like the Lord himself. But that is not an easy process, though it has to form part of the life of every Christian. Hardly do we take it seriously... the reason - initially it looks attractive but as we get into it, it gets tougher and tougher.

The Word may be sweet in the mouth; but for sure it will be bitter in the stomach, churning the unwanted elements out and paving way towards the Reign. Are we truly prepared?

Smile upon or Weep over

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

November, 19, 2020: Revelation 5:1-10; Luke 19: 41-44

The Gospels picture Jesus as weeping, in two places: once in John (11:35); and the other is the passage we have today from Luke (19:41). In the first instance he wept for his friend; and today he is weeping for Jerusalem, that is the chosen people of God, the people called to come under the wings of the Lord who wanted to protect them all as a hen does to her chicks. But the people weren't prepared. Jesus wept thinking of their obstinacy, their choice against God's plan of salvation! 

In the first reading we have another instance of weeping: John who weeps for the fact that there was no one worthy to open the scrolls. Opening the scrolls means being the mediator between God's ever present love and our absolute need for that merciful love. There is one who is worthy: Jesus, the Son of God...the One mediator who revealed to us who God really is to us and what we are called to be. 

In our obstinacy we can remain in our own shells and do what pleases us, instead of opening our hearts and letting Jesus in. We can be so hardhearted that we can miss out the greatest treasures presented to us, in simple and ordinary ways, everyday. We can have the Lord speaking to us all day, we can have the Lord showing us the way, we can have the right persons we need at the right time... but in our hardheartedness, we could miss it all!

Let us not be people over whom Jesus would have to weep. Being sensitive to the messages that Lord gives us on a daily basis, through the Word, through the daily events, through persons we encounter, through the insights that dawn on us... we will be prepared to receive the Lord and the love of God that he mediates. Let the Lord smile upon us, not weep over us!

Called to Praise the Lord

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

November 18, 2020: Revelation 4: 1-11; Luke 19: 11-28

John impresses upon us how important and essential it is for us, as creatures of the Creator Almighty, to give praise to our Lord and King. Praising God - can never be done enough and it is always in want, in contrast to the boundless glory that the Lord possesses! The Word today distinguishes among three types of people who give praise to the Lord:

The first are the Psuedo Praisers: who praise the Lord with their tongues but are far away in spirit from the Lord. They are those who deceive themselves putting up a mere show of their allegiance to God, while in fact are all the while doing their own will. Wantonly, they make of themselves people unfit for the Reign.

The second are the Pointless Praisers: who think praising the Lord alone is enough to inherit the Reign. Their praising is pointless, in fact the Lord himself had declared: 'not all those who call me Lord Lord, will enter the Reign of God' (cf. Mt 7:21). They keep praising as a part time occupation, doing things diametrically opposed in the rest of their lives! Does it work so? At times due to spiritual laziness and other times due to undue attachments to the unhelpful attitudes, they hardly drag themselves towards the Reign. Ultimately, they fall short of entering the Reign. 

The third are the Profound Praisers: who do not consider praising the Lord as a duty in itself. Their very words, actions and life gives praise to the Lord. Their witness leads, not only themselves, but even those around them to praise the Lord to the heights. They live their life to the full, and seeing their lives, people are inspired to give praises to their King and Lord. They do have their share of weaknesses and faults, but they are quick to rise and get back in line with the Will of God. These are the People of the Reign, true and profound in their praise.

Obviously...apart from God, there is only one who can truly say to which of these categories I belong: Myself!

Letting Jesus enter our homes!

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

November 17, 2020: Revelation 3: 1-6, 14-22; Luke 19: 1-10

To welcome Jesus into our homes: that is the task given to us by the Word today. Obviously when Jesus comes its a blessing - 'today salvation has come into this house' (Lk 19:9). But it is more than that... it is a Challenge too: 'because you are neither cold nor hot, i will spit you' (cf. Rev 3:16). That is indeed a point to reflect on and think seriously about. 

Letting Jesus in, is fine...but once he comes, things cannot remain the same! You cannot remain both dead and alive at the same time; hot and cold at the same time; or belonging and not belonging to the Lord at the same time! You cannot have certain value systems in the heart and speak of different ones in public; you cannot have hidden motives and feign goodness in your actions and choices; you cannot be both this and that - you have to be either this or that!

The Word instructs me today: I have to make a choice and choices are all! 

Like Zachaeus who not only changed from his old ways but made up even for the mistakes, for his wrong doings and every thing that made others' lives less happy, we are constantly called to make some drastic choices. Choices for good, for what is beautiful in the eyes of the Lord and for what is true. At a given moment, it may be difficult to do it, demanding to make such a choice and requiring a lot of effort and sacrifice. But I cannot imagine otherwise. I have to go through those struggles, take my time, but the Choice, I have to make. That choice will truly determine, who I am and on which side I am. That choice alone can truly say, whether I am ready to let Jesus enter my home, my heart or not!

The choice is ours - to keep to our old ways or to let Jesus enter our homes. The home that he enters, the hearts where he resides...will be marked by the choices, or the Choice 'to be blameless and holy before him' (Eph 1:4).

Lord, that I may see again!

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

November 16, 2020: Revelation 1:1-4, 2:1-5; Luke 18: 35-43

Repent and get back to your original ways, invites the first reading today. With a plenty of good will and an abundance of spirit we begin something new and good... just imagìne the day of our first communion, for some confirmation, for some others the day of religious consecration and for others the day of your wedding! But in a short while the energy drains, the spirit goes faint and a mere good will becomes drastically insufficient. The reason: we are not attentive enough to note the initial changes that happen...we remain so insensitive to what is happening within us that we are caught unawares at a much crucial time. That is why the prayer today: "Lord grant that we may see again!" (Cf. Lk 18:41).

Staying in touch with the Lord keeps us in touch with ourselves, to constantly check our pride, insensitivities, arrogance, unforgiving attitude, judgmental tendencies, loose talks and compromises against true love: these are the blindnesses that set in, so gradually that we do not even realise it! The first reading tells us: I have this complaint to make; you have less love now than you used to! How many spouses have this to tell each other. How many of us have this to tell ourselves, with regard to some good work we began with all enthusiasm, but fell apart in the process!

Going from bad to worse, at a point of time, we become so blind that we do not recognise what sad levels we have reached. And it is the Lord alone who can restore the original spirit by enabling us to see... empowering us to realise and restart... "make us see again!" The first reading again gently instructs us: think where you were before you fell...before you lost your interest...before you got dissipated... before your interests began to wobble... think where you were and repent and do as you used to at first.

We are reaching the end of this liturgical year. It is a time to evaluate our journey thus far, not to get discouraged or merely to judge ourselves, but to gently remind ourselves of our initial fervour and start again! It is time now that each of us make it our prayer: Lord, that I may see again!

A 3G ON THE WORLD DAY OF THE POOR

GRATITUDE, GUILT AND GIVING - 3 sensibilities provoked!

November 15, 2020: 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

4th World Day of the Poor

Proverbs 31: 10-13,19-20,30-31; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-6; Matthew 25: 14-30

Today is the fourth commemoration of the World Day of the Poor, instituted at the request of Pope Francis at the end of the Year of Mercy in 2017, calling us to keep alive the sensibilities that were provoked during reflections of that entire year! Here this Sunday's Word brings home to us the same sensibilities... and we shall dwell on them in 3Gs.

Gratitude - because what I have is given by God!

The parable that Jesus narrates speaks of each one having what was given them by the King and what they do with that is what the story is all about. Whatever I have, I have it because it is given by God. You may protest - no, I earned it, I merited it...could be. But the opportunity, the contacts, the success...do all have it? If I had it, I was more fortunate than so many. Without giving into a boisterous 'theology of prosperity', I need to admit that if I am blessed with comforts, with conveniences that many do not have today, I have to be grateful. 

When I complain, I cannot be grateful. We know of that famous saying - I complained of not having shoes until that day when I found one not having his legs! Gratitude is one important sensibility that we are called to possess - Gratitude is a sign that I acknowledge what I have received and I realise the value of what I have received. The last man was not grateful, he was afraid, lazy and crooked and that is why what he received did not fructify.

Guilt - because what I have is not only mine!

Some may not like this word used here, certainly! It is not even to alliterate with the G's that this term is chosen here as the second sensibility but with a lot of consciousness. Pope Francis when he invites the world to observe this day as World Day of the Poor - do you think he is saying, now all of us rich get together and pool in some money to give to the poor? No! He is raising a big question - why are they poor? 

At times, when we travel around, when we encounter poor people with nothing to eat or nothing to wear or nowhere to stay... do not we feel guilty of the well pressed clothes that we wear, of the well presented recipes that we enjoy, the well planned travels that we make, at times the well guarded houses that we live in. Are we going to leave all these and go to the streets - no, it may not happen! But that little feeling of uneasiness within us, that needs to be there. That uneasiness drove Francis of Assisi to sanctity; that uneasiness dragged Mother Teresa out of the confines of her convent to the peripheries of the world. It would not benefit us, if we wish to soften the word to 'being sensitive' or to 'being aware'...no, it is being guilty! Let us not get into poetic polemics like. 'everyone is poor is some way' and so on. It should pain each of us, to see people poor; it should pain each of us to see persons suffer. The world today has to feel that guilt of having pushed its children to poverty and misery. When that third servant failed to be fruitful, the worst fact was not that he was not fruitful, but he was not even guilty about it. That was the most miserable fact. The king just could not digest that!

Giving - because that is why I have!

If I have anything, it is a clear sign that I am called to give! That is what a Christian life should be - Christian life and hoarding wealth for its own sake cannot go together! Oh, what a statement that is to make! But that is the fact. One cannot say, God has blessed me and therefore I am going to be happy! Yes I am happy with the blessing - but I am given to give! The beautiful philosophy of Stewardship that God has been insisting on right from creation, has widely been forgotten, negated and dumped down the drains. How can I not give when I know someone needs it and I have it. To add to that, I have it more than I need! 

In a country like India, for an instance, or wherever in the world, we can see the rich getting richer and the poor becoming poorer - can things remain the same? The worst of the scenario, the social organisations and governmental bodies which are to fend of every citizen, are worried serving the purposes of the Corporates and the moneyed! How long are we going to be happy collecting something from somewhere and giving it elsewhere? Giving has to be a duty! Giving has to be our essence! Giving has to be our being! I should give naturally, spontaneously and without a second thought, if I want to be seen as a child of God, because God gives, give abundantly.

"Stretch forth your hand to the poor (Sir 6:7)," invites the Holy Father this day! The ugliness of poverty and misery that has always been around us today, has gathered more flesh to torment humanity with the pandemic that is causing havoc world wide. The call is to look out for the most affected, the worst hit, the totally lost, the utterly broken, those who feel they have nobody, those who are struggling to even live their next minute in life... to those we need to stretch forth our hand, our heart, our minds and our love. 

Listen to these words of Pope Francis: 

“Stretch forth your hand to the poor” challenges the attitude of those who prefer to keep their hands in their pockets and to remain unmoved by situations of poverty in which they are often complicit. Indifference and cynicism are their daily food. What a difference from the generous hands we have described! If they stretch out their hands, it is to touch computer keys to transfer sums of money from one part of the world to another, ensuring the wealth of an elite few and the dire poverty of millions and the ruin of entire nations. Some hands are outstretched to accumulate money by the sale of weapons that others, including those of children, use to sow death and poverty. Other hands are outstretched to deal doses of death in dark alleys in order to grow rich and live in luxury and excess, or to quietly pass a bribe for the sake of quick and corrupt gain. Others still, parading a sham respectability, lay down laws which they themselves do not observe. Amid all these scenarios, “the excluded are still waiting. To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed. Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own” (Evangelii Gaudium, 54). We cannot be happy until these hands that sow death are transformed into instruments of justice and peace for the whole world.

Gratitude, Guilt and Giving... these three sensibilities can truly keep us alive and attentive to the suffering brothers and sisters around us, and all over the world. Those sensibilities, if they are authentic will certainly transform themselves from mere words and individual actions to a collective mentality and a global culture...that is true evangelisation, making God felt everywhere, making God present everywhere, and making God's Reign present here and now!

True Christian Love

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

November 14, 2020: 3 John 5-8; Luke 18: 1-8

Taking care of strangers, widows and the orphans was a special commission given to the people by God. And that was an experiential learning on the part of the people who were themselves strangers, orphans and sojourners, in a foreign land. It is an experience that cannot be explained in terms but only experienced...and those who experience it, can never forget it!

However, the term stranger or foreigner was, and is,  indicative of every one in need, people in insecure circumstances and people who have nothing to hold on to, wherever they are. Today we have every category you can ever think of within this definition of the people in need. The exploited, the immigrants, the refugees, the unemployed and the homeless!

They already have a grave situation in their lives, that of poverty, insecurity, homelessness, unemployment, lack of prospects and so on. Added to this, if they are exploited further - that is, their little taken away from them, constantly threatened with evacuation, needlessly suspected for all miscues, blamed for all social lapses... we can imagine how doubly unfortunate, orphaned and oppressed they could sense. 

There is yet another, more treacherous, attitude in the world today, against which the present Holy Father, Pope Francis has time and again warned the people of God - the attitude of indifference. Passing them by as if they did not exist! Not caring what happens to them, not bothering who is rendered homeless or who is left to die without food or who is condemned to suffer with no employment or who is crushed under the burden of debt... all that matters is the so-called development that parades affluence and divinises comfort and pleasure!

We cannot conform to these standards! We cannot even remain neutral in these circumstances... that is not possible, for a true disciple of Christ. We have a responsibility towards this part of suffering and neglected humanity. Pope Francis leads us in this true Christian love!