LIVE LIFE CHRIST-LIKE - 2

For others, for the marginalised and for God!

February 14, 2021: 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Leviticus 13: 1-2, 44-46; 1 Corinthians 10:31- 11:1; Mark 1: 40-45

Certainly you have heard of this anecdote shared about a lay missionary, a doctor by profession who passed through a village once. He stayed with the people, treated them for their sicknesses, dealt with them with compassion and after a while he moved on to the next village. The wonderful memories of that doctor never left the minds of that village. After a couple of decades a missionary preacher came to the same village. He began talking to the people in the village squares and market places. All that he asked them was: "Do you know Jesus?" Many said, 'No' and moved away. One old man stopped and asked him: "alright, tell me what kind of a man is that Jesus you are enquiring about!" The missionary was indeed waiting for that question. He began: Oh, he is kind, he is loving, he is compassionate, he is caring, he deals with the sick with such love...he was intending to go on, but that old man stopped him. "Now, if that is the man you are talking about, we know him! He passed by our village some 20 years back!"

We are called to reflect on living our life Christ like, for a second consecutive week! The message is same as last week: to live like Christ. And the readings today highlight three attributes to a life that could be Christ-like, taking the cues from Christ's life.

Christ lived for Others: Today the atmosphere would be filled with red vibes, as many frenetically celebrate the valentines day! How many messages about love - defining what it is, describing how great it is, demonstrating how much one is immersed in it. Love does not need so many commentaries. It can just be understood in that simple classical definition: love is wishing the good of the other. Placing the other before myself, genuinely interested in the other's well being...that is love. 

Christ was love personified. He lived his life for others, entirely. He had no comforts, no protection, nothing that was his own. He was candid in telling those who wished to follow him, that it meant to own nothing, not even a place to rest one's head, if they were to follow him. Living totally for others, for the people of God, is the essence of a life that is Christ-like! Are we prepared? Or are we, even in the so-called service to the others, seeking our own name and fame, and glory and gain?

Christ lived for the Marginalised: Pope Francis has a concrete, unavoidable point to make, when he repeats : Go to the periphery! He invites us to live life Christ-like. Today's first reading tells us where the persons with leprosy lived: ostracised, in the peripheries, in the obscurity of humanity. If they were able to come to Jesus, it actually means Jesus went to those peripheries, those margins of the society. Jesus was often found in zone which were not meant to be traversed by a Jew like him, a teacher like him and a man with such following like him. 

Jesus reached out to those in need, those in agony, those in the periphery. It is easy to love people who deserve our love; it is easy to love people who will love us in return; but it is Christian to love everyone, even those from whom we will receive nothing, not even the recognition of our love in return. Are we prepared? Or are we in the name of love, looking for our own pleasure and satisfaction, warm feeling and sense of being accepted and affirmed? Is our love truly reaching out, to those who really need it?

Christ lived for God: When a reporter commented to Mother Teresa, looking at the dirtiest tasks that she was involved in, like washing the wounds and wiping the puss: 'Mother, even if they gave me a million dollars I would not be able to do this!', the Saint of Kolkata seemed to have responded: 'Even for a couple of those million dollars, I would not do this. I do this for the Christ whom I see in these faces'. Whether you eat or drink, do everything for the glory of God, invites St. Paul. 

Christ did all that he did, said all that he said, was all that he was, because it was God's will for him. "My food is to do the will of the One who has sent me!' he declared. He lived it till the end - not my will but yours be done, O Father. That is the lesson for us too - to live our lives for God, in keeping with God's will, constantly striving to know what is God's will for us and dedicating ourselves to it, despite the inconveniences and discomforts - because we are convinced that we are called to live for God. Are we prepared? Or are we looking to make our life as comfortable as possible, giving into compromises of all sorts?

Living life Christ-like, is challenging indeed. But if we strive with all our heart, sincerely and humbly, we too will be able to tell the world as did St. Paul: Be imitators of me as I am of Christ! (1 Cor 11:1). Will I ever grow to that level?

The Promise, the bread and the Word!

WORD 2day: Saturday, 5th week in Ordinary time

February 13, 2021: Genesis 3: 9-24; Mark 8: 1-10

The Word in its entirety today, brings to us the deep connection that exists among the three key terms of our Christian faith: the promise, the bread and the Word. 

The multiplication of the bread in the Gospel, is but a symbolic episode of the continuity that exists between the God of Old Testament and the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ / the God who provided, in a deserted placed, to a multitude of people and from almost nowhere - Jesus provides food; gives them bread to eat, juts as the Father gave them food, manna from heaven to eat.

The bread is not merely a bread to eat, but a sign of God'promise. You shall be my people and I shall be your God, was God's promise and God lived, and has lived faithful to it, all the time. Come what may, sun shine or nay, God is faithful in God's ways, each and every one of our days. God promised that we would be redeemed by an offspring from a woman...and we are! The promise lies open to us and we stand firm on it, not because we deserve it but because the Lord our God is faithful to it. 

The Word is the incarnation of the promise, and the Word comes to us every day in varied forms, including the form of the bread, the bread of the Covenant, the mystery of our redemption: the Eucharist. The Eucharist embodies all the three elements of the promise, the bread and the Word... it is a daily reminder of the goodness and the faithfulness of God.

Let our celebration of the Eucharist today, be a true thanksgiving to the goodness of God in which we are saved!

Beware of half truths

WORD 2day: Friday, 5th week in Ordinary time

February 12, 2021: Genesis 3:1-8; Mark 7: 31-37

We see a striking similarity in the claims of both the Satan and the Lord, in the Word today. 

Do what I say and your eyes will be opened, says the serpent. 

Ephatha, Be opened, says the Lord to the deaf ears of the man. 

Both take place...but the latter opens to fullness of life, while the former to destruction of life.

Today in our situations of daily life we don't deliberately choose the evil, the lie, the destruction of life... we are deceived by the look-alikes. The evil one taunts us with lies which look like truth, while they are really half truths. The insistence on autonomy of individuals, need for self actualisation, the attraction of successful living - these are presented as ideals to be pursued! They look so good and we may tend to believe this is what the Lord made us for! But unfortunately a major part of humanity is today deceived by these half truths.

Yes, they are half truths, unless they are conceived, interpreted and presented in relation to the other half  - love for the other, common good, human solidarity and universal harmony! These are the complements that make the reality of creation, truly what it was conceived to be by the Creator! We would understand that if only we open our ears to the cries of the poor and the marginalised, the wailing of the crumbling creation, the mourning of the suffering part of the humanity - ephatha...be opened, says the Word to our deafened spiritual ears.

Half truths are more dangerous than the plain lies; they can make one walk one's own way to perdition. It is important that we remain faithful to the truths taught to us, clarify them further and deepen them instead of being carried away by the fancy teachings and fantastic claims.

From Sickness to Wholeness

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

February 11, 2021: Celebrating our Blessed Mother of Lourdes

Commemorating the 29th World day of the Sick

Genesis 2: 18-25; Mark 7: 24-30

Man-woman, we-they, rich-poor, high-low... these categories of daily consideration of people, things and events is something to be consciously transcended. Jesus himself receives a bit of a lesson from that Syro-phoenician woman. 

At times people are apprehensive about interreligious dialogue or multi religious initiatives of unity and harmony. They prefer to look at the other as different, separate or even contrary. If we truly mean what we say and what we pray: I believe in One God - then I need to become more and more proactive and look at the reality as One Humanity! 

Divisions and discrimination are sins; they are a sickness, a sickness that has affected human persons right from the beginning and tries to control them all along. It makes humans sick... sick in their vision of the other, sick in their relations with the other, sick in their conception of the world and sick in their attitude towards others and everything else.

Celebrating Our Lady of Lourdes today, we are inspired to thank God for the great gift of her person and the fullness of grace that she possessed. And not just we in the Church, but even the world at large remembers as the world day of sick persons. Receiving the apparition at Lourdes, Bernadette said, 'The Mother said, I am the Immaculate Conception.' Immaculate Conception was a manifestation of God's fullness in the person of Mary, the wholeness which the Blessed Mother intercedes for. Especially these days when the whole world is tired of battling against the pandemic that is more than a year old, we need the sustenance of our Blessed Mother. 

From sickness to wholeness, or healing - that is the journey we are called to make today. Not just sicknesses of body, but also sicknesses of the mind - such as divisions and discriminations, sicknesses of the spirit - such as sinfulness and spiritual laziness, and sicknesses of all sorts. May our Blessed Mother strengthen and sustain us in this journey, from sickness to wholeness.

FEBRUARY 10

Shouldn't this day be celebrated in the Church as 

Younger Sisters' Day, 

specially by the brothers...in honour of Saint Scholastica 

who had such a lovely and saintly bonding with her elder brother Benedict, 

and eventually both of them grew to be saints! 

What a lovely testimony that our relationships, any of them, are God-willed, 

if and only if they help us progress in our journey towards 

Sanctity! 

May the saintly siblings inspire us to belong to God in every way!

Neither death nor defilement!

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 5th week in Ordinary time

February 10, 2021: Genesis 2: 4-9,15-17; Mark 7: 14-23

Religious practices and principles abound in our contexts defining what is right and what is wrong; determining what is acceptable and what is unacceptable in the sight of God. The Word today has one such clarification as to what would make a person unacceptable in the eyes of God from a Christian perspective - it is neither death nor defilement.

Death is considered the peak of negative experiences by many religious traditions but not the Christian. Death is merely another milestone considering the totality of human experiences. It shouldn't perturb us or preoccupy us... the least, it should frighten us! For those who believe in the Risen Lord, death is but a transition, a passage, a moment of faith.

Defilement laws are seen as important religious factors in a society. What makes one socially acceptable or not, is a crucial religious parlance. But Jesus is categorical in stating that nothing of that sort - categories of acceptability and experience of defilement, exists in his Father's mind. The Father is all Mercy and compassion towards God's children!

So, neither death nor defilement can separate me from the Lord, but a deliberate choice does. I cannot live my Christian faith merely on customary practices and accepted mores. It is not so much about what I say and what I do, as about what I think and what I intend. It is there I need to make concrete and categorical choices, within me! I need to make those deliberate choices on a daily basis and at every moment of my life... choices that would determine whether I belong to God or no.

A Spirituality true to Christ

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 5th week in Ordinary time

February 9, 2021: Genesis 1:20 - 2:4a; Mark 7: 1-13

The Word today invites us to understand the true Christian spirituality. Spirituality itself is a sense of being connected to everything and everybody. And further still, Christ's, Christ-like and Christian Spirituality is a sense of feeling an obligation to love people, fend for their good, be interested in their well being and spend oneself for the happiness and well being of the other. 

A true Christ-ian spirituality cannot be merely a dry or rigid performance of rituals and lifeless obedience to rules and commandments. It is about persons and relationships... the person of Christ and one's relationship with him; the persons who are around and one's relationship with them in Christ. It is all about that relationship that cares for each other - in a holistic sense, it is all about love.  

Christ's spirituality consists predominantly of love: which is to go out of one's way to make the other feel cared for; it is to wish the good of the other always in spite of the troubles and inconveniences for oneself. Just imagine if today anyone, even those who claim to love each other, would fit into this definition of love. 

If you would,  you are well on your way in mastering Christ's spirituality.

As many as touched were healed!

WORD 2day: Monday, 5th week in Ordinary time

February 8, 2021: Genesis 1: 1-19; Mark 6: 53-56

As many as touched were healed... it did not matter whether they touched the Lord or the Lord touched them, they were healed. Both ways it is an act of faith: to touch the Lord and to allow the Lord to touch us! What a challenging invitation we have from the Word today - to touch the Lord in the core of our being, or to remain open to the Lord that the Lord may touch us! 

'Speak Lord, but a word and my soul shall be healed,' we pray! A word, a touch, a glimpse or a gaze, a whisper... that is all that it takes for us to receive the fullness, from the hands of the Lord who has made us and continues to guard and protect us. But how many blocks and abysses we create between the Lord and ourselves (Isa 59:2), not allowing the grace of God to reach us, not permitting the touch of the Lord to heal us, not remaining open to the Word of the Lord to form and transform us!

All that we need to know is to understand that we are handiworks of the Master Creator and live our lives according to the mind of the One who has loved us into existence with a well defined purpose and an eternal plan. How prepared are we to allow the Lord to touch us? How eager are we to touch the Lord with all sincerity of heart? Because, when the Lord touches, nothing remains the same; they change, they transform, they are recreated!

Send forth your Spirit, O Lord and the World shall be recreated!

LIVE LIFE CHRIST-LIKE

The 3P Recipe: Proclaim, Practice and be Prepared!

February 7, 2021: 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Job 7:1-4,6,7; 1 Corinthians 9: 16-19, 22,23; Mark 1: 29-39

Remember those words of Mahatma Gandhi - "I like your Christ; but I don’t like you Christians. Because you Christians are so unlike your Christ." That great man had the clue to what it meant to be Christians - it is to be Christ-like!

To Live Life Christ-like... that is the call that the Word gives us this Sunday. To live for the Gospel, to live for the Reign, to live for the People of God and to love everyone with all your heart and soul: that is the life task given to you and me, and to everyone called in the name of Christ.

PROCLAIM:

Proclaim to the world that God is love! Live that love and spread it around, a true and genuine love that does not possess but a love that brings the whole world together. A love that reaches out, heals, frees, unites, enhances, enriches and rends every one whole. We hear a lot of voices today, that claim to be "christian" but speak of things other than love: they speak of condemnation, they speak of vengeance, they speak of violence, they speak of closing in, they speak of rejection of people, they speak of convenience rather than conviction, they speak of killing, they speak of establishing supremacies... are they truly Christian?

Proclaim, yes! But proclaim what? ...proclaim love, proclaim peace, proclaim wholeness - only that is Christ-like! When you proclaim that, you will have trouble. Because there are forces that stand for a heartless egoism, selfish development, inhuman exploitation and unbridled avarice! Now you will become the odd one out, when you speak of love and live for it. But still you will do it: because that is what you are called for - to live life Christ-like!

PRACTICE:

There is no great virtue in proclaiming alone! Today there are hundreds who are into it. Specially in those covid-stricken days, youtube channels and online sessions have proliferated. There are hundreds who are craving to proclaim, of course each with his or her own agenda! But which of these is truly Christ-like? To find that, one has to answer three questions -

First of all, to which band do I belong? Am I truly an apostle of love? Only I can answer the question regarding the deepest motivations of my soul. I may be ‘Christian’ by name, I may even appear to be so - but whether I am or not in reality, only I know, apart from the Lord who knows everything!

Secondly, if I proclaim the message of the Reign, the Gospel of love, does my style of life coincide with the proclamation. In simple words, do I walk the talk? Is there that moral integrity within me because of which I can command the evil forces with authority and they will go silenced before me! The authority that Jesus had before the demons and all other forces that challenged the wholeness of life, came from the fact that there was absolutely no discrepancy between what he proclaimed and what he practised. Can I command the same respect or authority?

Thirdly, if I identify myself with Christ and Christ's message, what do I do on a daily basis to justify my identity, stay relevant to my self-claim and be counted in that number? Will my lifestyle speak before my words ever leave my tongue? Will the values I stand for, make me stand before the Lord or cringe at His sight? Have I felt the burden of the Reign within my heart, an urgency that unsettles my heart, a passion that sets me afire?

PREPARE:

If I really take these questions seriously, and their responses, I will certainly be identified a Christian – but today that is not a great boon! The world despises what seems religious or spiritual. The world finds it offensive to hold on to your identity as a person of faith and a person of a spiritual lifestyle. There are the so-called ‘seculars’ who feel, it is infantile to speak of God or Church or practices of piety or virtues or ethics or values or standards of righteousness in life. There are those who think it is old fashioned to insist on heaven, hell, purgatory, last judgement, and the call to live a saintly life! What is my response? What would I say? Am I prepared?

May be today, the call that the Word gives us: to live life Christ-like, comes as a challenge. Are we living a life that is congruent to the message we are called to proclaim? Are we prepared to face the consequences of a choice of that kind – to live life Christ-like!

Doing good is doing God's will

THE WORD AND THE SAINTS

February 6, 2021: Gosalo Garcia and others

Hebrews 13:15-17, 20-21; Mark 6: 30-34

In the recent weeks we have been remembering saints, blesseds and martyrs connected to India. Bl. Devasagayam, St. Joseph Vaz, John de Britto and today it is Gonsalo Garcia. Though in the Universal Catholic Church it is commemorated as Paul Miki and companions, for us in India it would be just and right to focus on Gonsalo Garcia, who was part of that company of missionaries who were crucified in Nagasaki, in the year 1597, for the sake of the Word and for the Kingdom of God.

Some interesting facts about St. Gonsalo: he was born of a Portuguese father and an Indian mother. He left India when he was 15. He was among the 26 missionaries killed in Nagasaki, Japan. The Franciscan expedition of missionaries took Gonsalo Garcia, who was just lately accepted as a Third Order Minor into their congregation, because he wanted to go out as a missionary of the Lord.

The Gospel presents to us a picture of a missionary of the Lord - frenetic activity for sake of the Kingdom! The disciples are all intent on doing good, as their Master himself who went around doing good. At times we can be at a loss deciding what is God's will at a point of time. The readings today seem to suggest one simple criterion: do good to others; do good to as many as possible; do good to all!

God is the shepherd who knows our needs and cares for them, but God does it through God's sons and daughters who become shepherds in turn. We are called to be the sheep of God's flock but at the same time to grow to be shepherds to each other, doing as much good as we could to each other. That would be the easiest way of experiencing the continued presence of God.