Presence - the greatest gift

THE WORD IN ADVENT

December 5, 2020: First Saturday of Advent

Isaiah 30: 19-21, 23, 26; Matthew 9: 35 - 10:1, 5a, 6-8

The greatest gift of God, is God's continual presence with us!

Life, food, water, protection, healing, assurance, sustenance, love and care...these are given to us gratuitously by God. All these are gifts that we have received, whether we acknowledge it or not. The greatest of all and the gift beyond all these is God's continual presence with us. More precisely, the fundamental gift of all is the presence!

God's presence is manifested to us in various ways: as providing presence that fulfills our needs; protecting presence that safeguards us from dangers; probing presence that challenges us on our life's journey; and above all, guiding presence that accompanies us on a constant basis. The last of these, is a bit different presence because, all others will be taken care of by God, even if we are mere passive receivers. But the accompanying presence of the Lord can be experienced only if we actively acknowledge, accept and allow the Lord to act on our behalf.

A second challenge that we have is, as persons who have experienced that presence, the call we have to become that presence for the others...the accompanying presence of the Lord. We give it when people need it, we dont force ourselves on them. We give it even when it means that we sacrifice much of our time, energy and attention. We give it when others need, not when we feel like! We give without looking for anything in return...just being there for the other!

Advent is a spiritual exercise precisely to grow in our capacity to become aware of this accompanying presence of God with us, and become one such for others! Personally, it is a moment when we learn to see, practice to understand and be prepared to allow God to have God's way in our life. Are we on that journey?

The Gift of Seeing

THE WORD IN ADVENT

December 4, 2020: First Friday of Advent

Isaiah 29: 17-24; Matthew 9: 27-31

Seeing is a gift, a great gift indeed. Not seeing is a sad thing. It is difficult to really understand where we are and what is around us! We would not know the imminent danger and we would be unaware of the risk that lies at the next step. 

If 'not seeing' is a sad thing, not knowing that you cannot see is still worse! It is more dangerous than not seeing itself...because when you know you cannot see, you will learn to be cautious; you will feel like getting help; you will know that you are vulnerable.

When you do not know that you cannot see, you think that you see everything, when in fact you do not see! It is a dangerous situation and you are all the more vulnerable. You would be treading a risky path but you will never know when you will be trapped. There will be help available just beside you, but you will not make use of it, because you wouldn't think you need it.

The Lord is our light and he is there right beside us - both in person and in and through other persons! Depends on us to cry out: "Son of David, have mercy on us!" Let us then pray for a threefold grace: to know it when we are unable to see; to know that there is just beside us the Lord, who is the light; and  the grace that we may see!

The Missionary of the Millennium

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

December 3, 2020: Remembering St. Francis Xavier, the Patron of India

1 Corinthians 9: 16-19, 22-23; Mark 16: 15-20

3 Messages that Francis Xavier can teach us from the Word today:

1. GO TO THE ENDS

One of the many representations of St. Francis Xavier, has the saint holding his heart in his hands and the heart burning! Indeed, a perfect image for this great missionary who not only dared to go to the ends of the world, but yearned to. He was burning with zeal for the Lord and for the proclamation of the Word. 

2. PROCLAIM THE GOSPEL

Proclaiming the Gospel, as Paul would say, for Francis Xavier was a God-given duty, not merely his fancy hobby. That is the reason for the zeal and the dedication that he had. Today we are called to proclaim too, as a duty! But let us take the inspiration from the other Francis, the one from Assisi: 'Proclaim the Gospel always; use words when necessary!' The very zeal that Francis Xavier had for the Lord and the Word, was already a proclamation... then followed his missionary trips.

3. SEEK GOD BEFORE EVERYTHING 

What would a person profit, if he gained the whole world, but lost his soul! That was the Word that shook Francis Xavier towards sanctity, a sanctity which is so concretely observed even today in his remains, that stand testimony to the whole world! Can we just sit down and list out today, how many things are rated before God as priorities in our lives... may be, we will do well to work on that list and reduce the number of those things in our life that tend to take a priority over and above, the Lord.

Happy feast of the Missionary of the Millennium!

MAY FRANCIS XAVIER FILL US WITH THE SAME ZEAL THAT HE HAD.

Hope in God

THE WORD IN ADVENT

December 2, 2020: Wednesday, 1st  week in Advent

Isaiah 25: 6-10; Matthew 15: 29-37

Hope... what a time to think of this! The pandemic is almost getting one year old...and the whole of the globe has been visited by this treacherous virus... sicknesses, deaths, loss of jobs, lack of means, migrants stranded...how many things have happened within this one year. And added to this the usual ills of humanity!

At these kind of moments, despair can get the better of us. The whole heated discussion of the rising level of intolerance in India (and even elsewhere), the neglect of the poor, struggle of the farmers, the plight of the middle class and the insensitive politics and all that is happening in the society is yet another despair inducing scenario. The increasing conditions of inhumanity and violence in the world and the lack of transparent and righteous coalitions against evil, is an alarming state of affairs! 

It is against this background that the Word speaks today: the Lord will wipe the tears from every cheek and will feel God's people to fulfillment. That is hope... to say, God will act on my behalf. Just imagine what it means to say that...

God... to think of God, feel God's nearness and relate to God from the depth of one's heart.

God will... yes, God will...it may take time, it may delay, but God will. It is part of the hope to say, God will act in God's own time.

God will act... God is not a passive onlooker...God acts on my behalf and I need to let God do so, to act on my  behalf, to direct me, and to take me along, like a Shepherd, with love and care!

God will act on my behalf...I am loved and I am cared for. My God, my Shepherd does not abandon me any day in any way! God will act on my behalf, all I need is to wait in hope, on the Lord

Christian living and thinking is all about hope. Waiting for the Lord is all about hope. Hoping in the Lord is not a leap in the dark, it's seeing the light that comes through or being determined to pick up the first streak of light that pierces through. Hope makes us authentically Christians... fear strips us of it!

A Child's traits for the Reign

THE WORD IN ADVENT

December 1, 2020: Tuesday, 1st week of Advent

Isaiah  11: 1-10; Luke 10: 21 -24

Maria, a 8 year old kid was setting up the crib at home...she brought all her dolls too, to be part of the crib. She had arranged all the animals...lion, tiger, deer, rabbit, bear and panda, all of them altogether, one next to the other! The dad objected to it, 'but my love, they cannot be one next to the other...it does not happen that way. The lion will attack the deer, the tiger will kill the rabbit, the bear will eat the goat!' Maria looked quizzingly at the father and said: 'but dad! why should they! They are all my friends, all of them! They are friends too among them! They like each other!' That is the Child's world...so close to the Reign!

Lion sleeping with the lamb, bear playing with a kid and all peaceful on the holy mount- when we read these lines, we feel like saying, it's utopian; it's like a child's dream! Precisely because of this Jesus makes that exclamation today: that the Father has revealed such things to mere children while the expert eyes are busy prying over the obvious.

The Child's capacity underlined here by Christ and advocated as required traits for the persons of the Reign, are threefold. 

Firstly, it is to see! Having that freshness of perception which would allow the person to observe any simple sign. 'It need not be always that way'...is a fresh attitude of a child. Nothing needs to be the same all the time! We need to see, see the possibility!

Secondly, it is to accept! It is sporting that openness of mind that would not rule out any thing as total impossibility, because with God everything is possible. It is like in a child's world, the dog will talk, the cat shall respond, the dolls shall miss when they are not caressed, even the tables and chairs keep chatting with those in the living room! Accept it...it is possible.

Thirdly, the humility with which one is able to wait on the Lord, as did the kings and the prophets who waited for the day of the Lord. In God's time everything shall take place and all that we need to do is remain open and prepared, waiting and willing!

The Feet of those who bring Good News

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

November 30, 2020: Remembering St. Andrew, the Apostle

Romans 10: 9-18; Matthew 4: 18-22

"How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" St.Paul quotes this word from the scripture (from Is 52:7), to insist upon the blessedness of being an apostle of the Lord, being sent to bear forth the Word to the others. A prerequisite is that the person has received the Word, to share it with others.

 

St. Andrew has played a special role during the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Andrew as a disciple of Christ always had the role of bringing good news to persons... he brought the good news of having found Christ to Peter (Jn 1:41); along with Philip, he brought the Greeks to meet Jesus (Jn 12:22); and he brought that boy who gave the five loaves to feed the five thousand (Jn 6:9). Amidst all the opposition and threat, the apostles bore witness to his name: they were the beautiful feet which brought the good news to the world. 

Today Andrew is proposed as the patron of social network...because he used every opportunity to make Christ known to people and to bring people to Christ. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had described social network as the modern day pulpit and invited us to proclaim Christ not merely from the housetops but also from the laptops...and here we have a great role model for it.

 

Let us today thank God for the numerous fingers that bring good news to the world... keying in on the smart phones, feeding in from the laptops and desktops, posting messages and videos and so many ways of sharing the Word with others. May every effort of these persons to proclaim the Reign of God through the social network, be a blessing to them, as much as it is to the world. 

Let us dedicate the social network which offers us such a great promise, that it may forever be an instrument in the hands of God, to bring God's will to fulfillment, and not an instrument of perdition. Let us strive in our own way to bring the Word to all whom we can!

W A T C H

A journey begins...

November 29, 2020: 1st Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 63: 16b-17, 19, 64:2-7; 1 Corinthians 1: 3-9; Mark 13: 33-37

Happy New Year! This Sunday marks the first day of the New Liturgical Year that we begin. On this beautiful and happy day, we begin a fresh journey and the first phase of this journey is going to be a preparation to receive the King! And what does the Word say, right at the outset? It says: WATCH.

W: Wake Up
It is a moment to wake up! The call to wake up rings all over the readings today. Let us get in touch with an ordinary experience of ours. Which is difficult: to wake up from sleep or to decide to get up from bed. We wake up, but not really; the sleep lingers on! That is a risky terrain, we miss a lot in that zone! Hence the call is to wake up; to decide to get up, shake oneself up, open one's eyes fully and see that it is time to begin, time to journey on, time to start again.

Between the resolutions we make and the concrete realisation of it, between the good will that we have for so many things in life and the everyday living out of the same, between the high ideals that we keep speaking of and the daily values that determine our decision making, there is a wide gap! A discrepancy that makes our life so flimsy and fragile. Should we not at every step of our journey with the Lord, reduce this gap and keep growing towards that integrity of life? That is the first call...to wake up to see that gap!

A: Awaken Others
Your life is not lived alone! Your faith has to be lived in communion, in relationships of love and unity. Awakening each other is a special call that is given to us, but it requires that we are awake. But how do we awaken others, if we ourselves are asleep, or half asleep! That cannot work. Do you remember  that some five years ago, Holy Father announced a year for persons living their Consecrated Life? The call he had given was: TO WAKE UP THE WORLD. He explained it immediately, that it would first of all mean they wake themselves up, reach out to the others and share the experience of being awake and thus make the whole humanity awakened! Advent is also the time to call out to each other, remind each other and journey together.

Waking up the other is not merely giving command to the other to rise, but it is more sharing my experience of being awake. There are many wake up calls... the climate crisis, the pandemic now, the economic melt down, the political stand offs... all these are wake up calls, efforts to wake up the other. In our personal lives too, there are wake up calls - may be a fight with a spouse, a misunderstanding with children or parents, a tiff with a friend...these could be moments to wake up the other! But I need to check first, am I really awake, to awaken the other?

T: Thirst for the Lord
The first reading presents us a model of thirsting for the coming of the Lord. The prophet yearns for God's coming and wishes that it happens right away. In various ways he expresses the longing for the Lord, the Father, the Potter to come and shepherd us, protect us and mould us. The prophet seems to blame the Lord, that the Lord gave us up to sin! In a way it is true, as some young friends ask: why did God give me the possibility of choosing sin? God could have made me in such a way that I always choose good! Ah! that is one tricky type of reasoning. But, let us beware - it is the freedom that makes us Children of God. If not we would be like any other beings: animals or plants. We are in the image and likeness of God, and freedom to choose is a key element of that image! But what matters in that choice is, how much do I thirst for God?

The thirst for God has to be expressed in our concrete seeking for the Lord. We need to seek the Lord, on a daily basis: in those who are around us, in the situations that surround us, in anxious faces and hungry stomachs, in hearts longing for love those darkened with hatred...we are to dig deep and look for the face of the Lord! He is coming; indeed He has come! It is upto us to unveil the Lord's presence amidst us.

C: Cleanse yourself
To seek the Lord, it goes without saying, is a moment of cleansing, a moment of self purification. It is only through this purification that we can really get to see the Lord. The Lord is near and we need to feel the urgency of purifying ourselves. What a gift we have in these four weeks, if only we use them to the full! 

Here is a suggestion: Pick up one element a week and begin working on them; report the progress to the Lord at the end of the week and start on another element in the new week! That would be a great journey and that is the journey of self purification that the Lord invites us to. And by the way, have you made your Confession yet! Decide on that...a lovely way to mark this Advent journey: a loving celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

H: Hold firm to the Lord
In the second reading, St. Paul hits the nail on its head: 'God is faithful', he declares! Yes, in our yearning to behold the revelation of Lord Jesus Christ in our own life and in our times, God is faithful. The point is we need to hold firm to the Lord. Perseverance is a rare virtue. We are good willed, and spirit filled...but for only a while. That would surely not suffice. We need to persevere in our good will, we need to hold on to the choice for the Lord, we cannot give up even when we face all the possible odds. 

On this journey we begin today too...let us stay firm and hold on to the Lord and the Lord will see us through all moments of crisis and confusion. All that we need to do is, make a pact with the Lord and journey these days close to the Lord...and we will see, we would have reached somewhere by the end of this season!

We begin a journey today, to WATCH - to Wake up, to Awaken, to Thirst, to Cleanse and to Hold on to the Lord who is to come. Let us embark upon this journey, together as a community of loving people, and feel close to each other and feel the Lord close to us. The Lord's words resound today in the Gospel: What shall I say to you, I say to all: WATCH.

Neither inaction nor hyper action!

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

November 28, 2020: Revelation 22:1-7; Luke 21: 34-36

Behold I am coming soon! At times it annoys when we hear people go hysteric about this statement. However, it is not a statement to make everyone panic, but a gentle reminder as to how one should live one's daily life. It is not something that should make is run for cover or throw spiritual tantrums, but a constant life style that should make us conscious any time in our life about who we are and what we are called to. 

St.Paul understood this well and instructed the Thessalonians: "For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. ...But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness" (1 Thess 5:2,4). If you are frightened of it or if you are interested in frightening the world about it, imagine how far you are from being true children of God!

The message is clear: that neither inaction nor hyper action is expected of us; neither carousing nor drowsiness! It is not a call to live your life on pins and needles, anxious about the next moment; nor is it a call to live our life in mourning and bewailing for the lost moments. The call is to make the best of this moment and live the 'here and now' to the full, conscious and loving. 

The Gospel presents us that call: be vigilant at all times! Neither inaction, which is the product of lamentation of the past, nor hyper action which is a frenetic preparation for an unknown future at the cost of the present, would help us, says the Word today. What matters is we live our daily lives, every moment, with responsibility to God and availability to our brothers and sisters, conscious of our choices and conscientious of our failures. But all the time serene, because one who says he is coming soon, is our Saviour!

The secret is to live our lives as children of the light, here and now, calm and composed, but awake and vigilant!

Signs of the Times

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

November 27, 2020: Revelation 20: 1-4, 11- 21:2; Luke 21: 29-33

One of the key terms popularised by the Second Vatican Council is "signs of the times" and the Council itself tried its best to be true to the spirit of that term. The Council challenged the faithful and the church as a whole to learn to read the signs of the times and respond to it. It is obviously a never failing criterion: to be attentive to what is happening around and the message we can gather from it, in order to render the way we live our faith in Christ, relevant and meaningful.

There is however a feeling among many that the "signs" from the Lord in the present times, are few and far between. The truth instead is, the signs abound: in our daily lives, through things that happen around us, through persons who live with us, those who live worthy lives, those who suffer for no cause of theirs, those who are oppressed, those who have scores and scores of woes to meet on a daily basis, through the crisis we see in the nature around us, through the humanity that has pushed into a hue and cry that is so artificial and human made with this pandemic... there are signs aplenty. 

Our responsibility is two fold: first, to learn to gather these signs, as coming from the Lord! At times we can become careless and callous to these, that we would never read the right message at the right time. A delayed action is no good! Secondly, we have the responsibility to act upon the sign we receive and respond to it, regardless of the risks and the sacrifices that are involved. We are so negligent in this second part that we habituate ourselves to becoming blind to the signs that are around. There are those who repeatedly remind us of that - and they become a nuisance in our eyes, if not even villains!

Whether we gather them or not, respond to them or not, they are there! We would do well as true sons and daughters of the Reign, if we are present to them and through them strive to build the Reign here on earth. If not, we ourselves are the losers!

Judgment: our choice!?

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

November 26, 2020: Revelation 18: 1-2, 21-23, 19:1-3, 9; Luke 21: 20-28

Happy are those who are called to the wedding feast of the Lamb...the final banquet, the moment of redemption...the end of days, the judgment seat... these are all the pictures that the Word paints before our eyes today. Let us not create for ourselves an idea of some horror stories or sort of shake-up narrations. They are, after all, logical ends towards which we are all journeying.

But a further fact to remember is that these need not be always an end time phenomenon, instead it has to be an everyday experience...the judgment is a continuous happening and it is not entirely an act of the Lord; the choices that we make at any given point of time, at any moment of a given day, the choice of our words, thoughts, actions, decisions...those are already judgments that we bring upon ourselves (cf. Jn 3:18).

The reason is this: our choice! Every time we react in a way to something or someone, we make a choice! You may say, "No! but it was just a spontaneous word, or a spontaneous act; not premeditated at all!" But remember, though it is a so-called spontaneous word or act, it has a history; there is a whole lot of experience behind it; there is a whole lot of judgement that goes with it. Why you choose a word, not another; why choose a particular way of reacting and not some other... they depend, even if unconscious or subconscious, on the attitudes or the disposition you have towards that person or that event. That is where our judgments, the judgments that come on us, rest too! That is why Jesus said: judge not, you shall not be judged!

Coming back to the parable...we are all called to the wedding feast, that is to unite with the Lord and enjoy the eternal bliss. But the choices we make on a daily basis, at a particular point of time, is our response and that decides whether we enter the banquet or not. Hence, instead of yarning tales of suspense and horror, let us realise our responsibility in making right choices, conscious choices, charitable choices, holy choices, Christ-like choices, every moment of our daily life: Judgement is our choice, indeed!