New People: with and in Christ

WORD 2day: Friday, 2nd week in Ordinary time

January 22, 2021: Hebrew 8:6-13; Mark 3: 13-19

New covenant, new people, new faith, new community, new life: for behold I make all things new. ..this is the theme that dominated the life of the early Christians. And that was what made them so attractive. Their life style and values brought freshness and zest for life. All this newness came from one fundamental experience - the experience of a new relationship with Christ and in Christ.

Their relationship with Christ defined their new existence. Their identities were renewed and their lives were transformed, Christ and relationship with Christ was not one of the things that marked their meaning to life, but was that which pervaded their entire life and reality, changing every bit of life and its significance.

Another salient feature of their new found life was their relationships in Christ - in Christ they found a new relationship with God and with one another. Their relationship with Christ affected their relationships in Christ... they began to see themselves as sons and daughters of God, beloved and blessed; they found in each other true brothers and sisters in Christ, bonded in love and not bound by some give and take transaction. Their relationships in Christ created a whole new society, a whole new world!

Let us make this two-fold reflecttion today: how is my relationship with Christ who wishes to draw me closer to himself every day; and how are my relationships with others founded in Christ? These will make us New people with and in Christ!

Power from above

THE WORD AND THE SAINT 

January 21, 2021: Remembering St. Agnes, Virgin and Martyr

Hebrew 7: 25 - 8:6; Mark 3: 7-12

Jesus possessed the power from above and that was sensed by all, specially by the evil spirits that he often encountered. It is not that some did not notice it, because it was so obvious - only that, some were not ready to acknowledge it. It is by this power from above that Jesus became the high priest who can save all of us - the power given to him by the Father. 

Each of us has received our share of this power to be called the people of God and to live a life that is proper to that call. What if we are mindful of this power and start using this power - of course the opposition from the enemy camp will be more, but will we not set ourselves up as great signs of God's presence to this world that needs it so badly? 

Another question that is more crucially relevant is: to what end are you willing to use this power - your own selfish ends or for the greater glory of God? In a world that is torn between compromises and mixed allegiances, St. Agnes' example shines forth as a splendid beacon, beckoning us towards concrete and daily sanctity, as a manifestation of the power invested within us. The Power that comes from God does not make us arrogant or aggressive, but it makes us more meek, humble, gentle and totally belonging to God -thus making us signs of God's presence to the world around. 

Let us remember this day and reflect everyday - we are made children of God by the power from above! And if only we decide to live every moment as true children of God, without compromises or connivances, we shall remain great signs of this 'power from above.'

Worship: Total Self Giving

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 2nd week in Ordinary time

January 20, 2021: Hebrews 7: 1-3,15-17; Mark 3: 1-6

The readings today speak of two religious disciplines that mattered much to the Old Testament people of God: the practice of tithing and the observance of the Sabbath. Both of them taken in their legalistic sense, would be practices very simple but of less significance. A tenth of your possession given grudgingly, or as in the example of Ananias and Saphira (Acts 5) trying to make it as less affecting as possible, will bear no spiritual fruit. 

Keeping Sabbath as a day of dead and insensitive inactivity, instead of holy and active worship to God, will be of no spiritual value. The key to right understanding of true worship is given here - not giving of what we have, but giving of what we are: a true and total self giving.

Faithfulness vs faithfulness

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 2ne week in Ordinary time

January 19, 2021: Hebrew 6: 10-20; Mark 2: 23-28 

The crux of the the first reading today, or for that matter even of the whole Gospels, is the fact that God is faithful forever. God's faithfulness never ceases and the question is, how do we find our faithfulness vis-a-vis that of God! 

In demonstration of God's faithfulness, God gives! God gives without count, without any limit, without restraint, without conditions, without anything expected in return. What do we do to demonstrate our faithfulness to God? A weekly appointment and a few fragmented moments every day and some special day's activities? All of them so legalistically followed sometimes with such insensitivity towards expressing our true love and gratitude...today let's give this dimension a serious thought: God's Faithfulness versus our faithfulness!

God's faithfulness is manifested all through history and in our daily life to. The words of the psalmist, 'if you should consider our iniquities, who would stand before you O Lord,' is a practical reminder of the fact of God's faithfulness towards us. St. Paul writing to Timothy explains, 'if we are faithless, God is faithful' (2Tim 2:13). God's faithfulness is a gift, a reminder and a challenge, that invites us to remain faithful. The concrete expression of our faithfulness towards God, is our faithfulness towards fellow human beings and towards humanity as a whole.

The rising conflicts in relationships at all levels, personal, familial, social, global and so on, is but a sign of how unfaithful towards God we are growing to be! The havoc that is done by this faithlessness, is enormous and we are witness of the damages. Is it not high time to halt, think and renew our faithfulness to God, modeling ourselves after the faithfulness of God?

The New people

WORD 2day: Monday, 2nd week in Ordinary time

January 18, 2021: Hebrew 5:1-10; Mark 2: 18-22

When the Lord announces in the book of revelation, 'Behold I make all things new,'... we know well that it's not merely about some "things" to be made again or re-created; it's primarily about a new mentality, a new perspective that God wants to instil and inspire in us. The source and the spring of this new perspective is Christ himself. He is at the same time the priest and the sacrifice; the prophet and the Lord of the prophets!

In fact with a new way of relating with us, with the unique way of sharing our very nature, Christ makes us a new people! And that is what the Lord wants to see in us: our new selves, free from the shackles of the past and the prejudices of the ages, to relate with each other anew and to live with each other without any conditions or preconceived notions.

Being new persons is not being strange, but being recreated in the Spirit, being imbued with the newness of the Gospel and being inspiring and to some extent being even scandalous. Some truly Christian attitudes are scandalous - forgetting the evil done to oneself, forgiving the harm intended, loving the one who hurt you, doing good in spite of the evil done against you, helping someone whom you hardly know or from whom you can expect no return, standing by the weak and the helpless despire the inconveniences and discomfort that is cause to oneself - these are scandalous, aren't they? 

We are called to conform to the Spirit of Christ, not conform to the practice and system around. That is the crux of being New people today!

COME, SEE AND BE

Inspiration, Invitation and Institution 

January 17, 2021: 2nd Sunday in Ordinary time 

Samuel 3: 3b-10,19 ; 1 Corinthians 6: 13c-15a, 17-20 ; John 1: 35-42

Our life is a call and more specifically our Christian life is a demanding call. Having reflected last week on the Call of Jesus, last week with his Baptism, this week the Word speaks to us of our call from Jesus! It involves an inspiration, an invitation and an institution! 

The first reading, from the life of Samuel highlights the inspiration we have received. Inspiration is from within. It requires that we are attentive in order that we do not miss it. A friend of mine recently resigned his job and opted another underpaid job. When asked why, he said that he felt that the former job was keeping him away from the Church, eating away his Sundays and a great portion of even the other days. I asked him how he did come to decide on such a thing. And he said, 'I just felt it'. It is significant to note that he had very recently become a Catholic, in spite of strong resistance from the rest of his family.

Inspiration is the intervention of Spirit into our concrete lives, making us discern the will of God and work out our salvation. There are directions that come our way, as to what to do and what to choose, and if only we are attentive to the signs and events, we would know exactly what choices to make! At times we care so less about what God wants of us, that we decide on something wrong and reap the fruits of it - complaining that the Lord is too hard with us! How great a gift inspiration is!

The Gospel extends the invitation to come and see. The fact that we are inspired is undeniable, for every one of us is guided and led by the Spirit who resides within us (as the Second reading reminds us). But the crucial element is for us to 'see'... to take note of... to understand what we are inspired about. The invitation is to behold the message from the Lord, to make our contact with the Lord an experience and not just an appointment.

There is a standing invitation from the Lord to belong to the Lord, in body and soul, in spirit and mind, in time and space! The invitation is at the same time a challenge, challenging us to belong to the Lord. That invitation and challenge has been age old - Hear O Israel, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your might and with all your strength. That love is indeed a challenge to belong to the Lord and to the Lord alone.

The call to be a Christian is not a call of an individual, it is a call to be a communion of persons, to be an institution. It is a call to form One Body with the Lord - united with the brothers and sisters in love, instituted into a sign of hope to everyone around who is looking out for something to hold on to in life. The world today may appear so critical about Christians, but it is only an expression of the expectations they have of us: that as one family of hope-filled people, one institution of Christ filled persons, we radiate the joy that the humanity stands in need of.

Let us be attentive to the inspiration within, heed to the invitation from above and belong to the institution that we are called to become - the Church, the people of God, the believing Community, brothers and sisters in love!

Divine Solidarity that makes us complete

WORD 2day: Saturday, 1st week in Ordinary time

January 16, 2021: Hebrew 4:12-16; Mark 2: 13-17

The Word became human and lived amidst us, sharing every bit of our reality, everything except sin. The same Word lives with us and within us today, enlightening us, sustaining us and making us complete. 

As the psalmist instructs us, the Lord knows me through and through, knows when I sit and when I stand, even before a word is on my mouth, the Lord knows what I am about to say and knows even the thoughts in my heart. 

These knowings are not for judging me or conditioning me, they are not means of labeling or categorising me...they are means of Divine Solidarity that makes me Whole. God the only Complete Being, chooses to complete my being, in spite of my unworthiness and imperfections. 

This Divine Solidarity is a grace and a vocation. Grace, because we know we are loved forever without conditions or limits. That is our Identity - people loved by God. It is a Vocation, because we are called to imitate the same solidarity in Empathy - not judging and gossiping, calumniating and scandalising, but feeling one with the weak and healing those with hurts. We are called to empathise, build up solidarity among us because, one of the fundamental expressions of true love is solidarity. 

Faith is a Verb

WORD 2day: Friday, 1st week in Ordinary time

January 15, 2021: Hebrew 4: 1-5,11; Mark 2:1-12

Faith is not merely accepting a set of truths in theory and professing to believe it. Faith takes the most concrete form of expression in one's personal life and in the life of a community and brings the entire reality, personal, communitarian, social, economic and political, together affecting the whole being of a person and a community. In fact, faith is not merely a quality or a feeling, it is a verb.

When we say faith is a verb, it means faith is an action word. It takes a doer, an action done and the one towards whom the action is aimed. The classical definition of faith too upholds this vision : faith as the personal response to a self revealing God, involves me, God, and my response, the response being a concrete expression in action.

The Word today presents is with persons who had faith in Christ and moved by it they did something that was incredible...they broke all barriers that kept them away from Christ. Their faith was expressed in most concrete way possible. They decided to take that crippled man to Christ, they had a problem, they over came that problem and did what they decided to do - because they had faith in Christ. Nothing could stop them.

We would do well to reflect :

How concrete is my faith in Christ?

How determined am I to stay close to Christ?

What are those things that hinder me from getting near to Christ?

What am I prepared to DO, because I believe? 

Ready and Willing

WORD 2day: Thursday, 1st week in Ordinary time

January 14, 2021: Hebrews 3: 7-14; Mark 1: 40-45

If you wish, you could make me well, prays the man with leprosy! What does God wish for us? God wills that we live to the full, that we live every day and every moment to the utmost, regardless of the situation that we find ourselves in. For I know the plans I have for you, plans for your welfare and not for your ruin, says the Lord through Jeremiah (29:11). When it comes to giving us life, and fullness of life, God is ever ready and always willing. The question is, are we?

Are we ready and willing, to listen to the Lord and live up to the status that the Lord had given us: to be coheirs with Christ. Just as the man says to the Lord in the Gospel passage today, the Lord says to each of us - if you wish, you could be coheirs with me to the Reign! Again the question is, are we ready and willing?

To be ready is to be prepared to act, to respond and to face a situation. It consists of being aware of what we could possibly be encountering, to be equipped to face that situation and to make the preliminary effort to live life to the full even in a changing scenario.

To be willing is even more fundamental...it is to make up one's mind to accept a situation, with all its exigencies. It involves trust and hope; trust that the Lord will always be in favour of our life to the full, and hope that nothing that happens is hidden from the omnipotent and beloved presence of God. Isn't that a disposition that we need to grow in?

The Lord wishes that we be well, be blessed and live our lives to the full... Are we ready and Willing? 

The Lord with us

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 1st week in Ordinary time

January 13, 2021: Hebrew 2: 14-18; Mark 1: 29-39

The Lord be with you, is a daily greeting we have! The Lord being with us, in Christ-ian terms, means that the Lord is for us, the Lord is in our favour, the Lord cares for us - in short, the Lord is with us. The Lord with us - Emmanuel, is not merely a presence that is spatial, but a presence that is total - in every way. 

The Word explains today the ways in which the Lord is with us. The Lord is with us emotionally - for the Lord knows what we feel, what we are going through and what we make of what happens to us. The Lord is with us spiritually - for the Lord inspires our spirits to make choices, set priorities and walk in righteousness. The Lord is with is concretely - for the Lord experiences with us all that we experience during the day and all through the day. 

In the daily routine of Jesus that is presented in the Gospel today, we are given with a picture of what his life was like, giving us a hint that there should be enough space for the other, for the needy and for God in our daily lives. Jesus shows us by example as to how to live a life, where the Lord shall be with us!

The Lord is with us, in every way! Let us never fret or despair, even in the worst of scenarios, for God knows what we are going through, because Jesus has gone through that himself!