ON OUR WAY TO THE CROSS

The folly of God

March 7, 2021: 3rd Sunday in Lent
Exodus 20: 1-17; 1 Corinthians 1: 22-25; John 2: 13-25

 

The Crucifix is the symbol of "the foolishness of God", says St. Paul today. Where does the folly lie - in the fact that God loves humanity beyond all the limitations and defects found in it. True love not only does not hurt, but takes the hurt on itself without any complaints. The Crucifix, apart from being the sign of this great love that God has for God’s children, it is a standing message from God, a lesson for whole Christian living and a reminder of what we are and what we are up to. It is a challenge that invites us to be mindful that in our daily Christian life we are on our way to the Cross!

On our way to the Cross – that is a description of our life as Christians; that is the call given to each of us disciples of Christ to grow towards; and it is also a check on our way, to ensure we remain on the right path all through our lives!

The Cross is a Judgement

Whenever we see the Crucifix it has to remind us of the wretchedness of humanity. The first reading speaks to us of the covenant, the contract, made between the people and the Lord and the Cross, as the Gospel presents to us is the picture of all the atrocities humanity ventured into, disrespecting all those commandments. Just as that day when Jesus had to take the whip against them, so does the Cross today convict us of our failures and atrocities today! What was happening at the temple was an outright breach of the covenant…and the same is happening all over the world today – injustice and inhumanity, ungodliness and devilish craze for power and possession is making humanity so wretched. The Cross is a summary of all these!

The commandments given to the people ensured the right place for God and the right place for one's brothers and sisters. Both of these were at stake in the Temple as Jesus saw it, that was the reason for Jesus' anger flaring up against them: that they pushed God out of the Temple area and they pushed the poor and the penniless out of the bounds of the temple area. This was unacceptable to Jesus, the greatest of prophets of God, the Son of God, the righteousness of God! The Cross is not merely a symbol of love but a reminder of our wretchedness, and what we made of God’s love for us.

The Cross is the Salvation

In the Cross, Jesus did not only take on himself our suffering and sin, he took on himself our weaknesses and shame too! That is why over and beyond the judgement we have in the act of rejecting God, we are assured and affirmed that we are loved by God, loved immensely and unconditionally – can we ever understand it? No, we cannot, because it is foolishness and has no rationale…it is the folly of God! That is where our salvation lies – that we are loved, not because we deserve it but because God has deigned it so. God has promised us God would love us and God so loved us that God gave the Son, for our life and resurrection. The Cross is the summary of this love, of this folly.

The Cross saves in the very fact that Christ became human like us, lived and died like us and showed us we are all on our way to the Cross and we have the responsibility of choosing the Cross to be saved. It is an offer, a gift, a grace and at the same time a challenge, a call and a commitment required of us to choose the Cross. There are umpteen alternatives proposed by the world and the culture around – what is going to be my choice? That shall decide whether I shall be saved or not. The Cross saves.

The Cross is the Law

The Crucifix is the epitome of the Christian law – Jesus summarised the entire set of commandments of the people of God into one word: Love. And he gave us the spelling of that word as, C R O S S. Taking up pains not for my own sake but for the will of God, taking up challenges not to prove myself but for the sake of the good of the other, taking up sufferings on myself not to show how heroic I am but to show that there is meaning in living for others and living for love… that is the way to the Cross. That is the law given to us as brothers and sisters of the Son of God, the Lord of the Cross. The Cross is the guideline given to us.

There is an episode narrated in the life of St. John Bosco, who had invited his elderly mother to come and stay with him and take care of his orphan and street kids. The elderly woman was so exhausted with the ruffians that the kids were, in a very short time. She went to her son and told him she could not manage and she wants to leave. Don Bosco in a gentle voice told her, “Mother please feel free to leave. I do not want to force you. But before you leave just have a deep look at this and do what you wish” and he pointed to her the crucifix that hung on the wall. Mamma Margaret, changed her mind and remained in the Oratory taking care of those kids, until her death!

Today, as Jesus entered the temple, so does he enter our lives, our personal lives, our family lives, the life in our faith communities, the life in our societies... what would be his reaction. Just take stock: have we given the right place to God, and the right place to our brothers and sisters? Are we really on our way to the Cross?

We know, the right place or the right perspective is not the order of the day! What is the sign that the Lord poses in front of our eyes: not the whip but the Cross, the Crucifix! That is the folly of God. The love of the Lord takes the pain on itself; the crucifix reminds us that every time we hurt humanity, we hurt the Lord; the continual inhumanities perpetrated, the rising crimes against the weak and the voiceless, these are clear signs that the world stands in need of repentance and conversion!

The folly of God, the crucifix alone can drive home the true lesson: love until it hurts!

Love never hurts!

Renewing Christian Hope: Relearning humility everyday!

THE WORD IN LENT: Saturday, 2nd week in Lent

March 6, 2021: Micah 7: 14-15, 18-20; Luke 15: 11-32

A lovely version of the interpretation of this parable says, it was not so much the Son who was prodigal with his money, as the Father who was prodigal with his mercy. It is lovely not merely because it sounds rather novel and different, but because that seems more likely the point that Jesus wanted to draw: the unconditional and limitless mercy of God. 

The first reading brings out the fact of how strange it sounded to the Old Testament people that God would endlessly forgive! It still sounds strange to many, why even to us sometimes. We do not really grasp that logic though we pretend as if we comprehend it. If only we truly understand it, we would be totally humbled and heart-broken!

God offers to cast our sins deep in the ocean, the ocean of God's love and mercy. But why? Because we deserve it? Because we would from the moment we are forgiven, live the most righteous way of life? Because God gains by being merciful to us? Because otherwise God will be misinterpreted? There is but just one reason: God is Mercy; God is Love.

 

The Word invites us to focus on the right perspective of Christian living... an optimism of continual renewal and unconditional acceptance. Oh, how blessed and loved we are! If only we realise how much we are forgiven, how much we are loved, how much we are cared for by the Almighty, we would grow more and more humble, open and all-embracing. All that we need to do is realise how undeservedly blessed we are! How unworthy we are of the super abounding mercy of God. That needs a lot of humility.  That is exactly where the hope that Christian life can offer humanity lies.

To renew the hope of our generation and the next, let us relearn humility on a daily basis!

True Christian Love: Are we convinced not to kill?

THE WORD IN LENT: Friday, 2nd week in Lent

March 5, 2021: Genesis 37: 3-4, 12-13, 17-28; Matthew 21: 33-43, 45-46

 

There is a common phrase in today's readings: come let us kill him! 

At times we target a helpless individual just because the person is different from us or thinks different from us. In spite of knowing well that the person is just and could well be right, we tend to gang up against the person merely because he or she is a hindrance to our way of thinking or our way of being. 

Our words, or judgements, the remarks we pass, the comments we circulate can be really killing the person, worse even than sentencing the person to death. Character assassinations, insensitive treatment of persons, selfish manipulation of individuals and exploitations of all types are some ways we do away with persons around us – they are actually modes of killing. 

The moment a person has an opinion different from mine, the moment a person does not do what I want, the moment a person finds that my way of thinking may not be the ideal and expresses it so, I begin to think that the person is against me! Once I decide that he or she is against me, I am out to destroy that person - in whichever way I can: intellectually, morally, psychologically, socially... only thing that is left is destroying physically, which happens by itself! Is this not killing?

Even the best of preachers, specially the television and media preachers of today, fall prey to this murderous tendency - trying to destroy the other with facts and fallacies, allegations and imaginations. Forget the politicians and businessmen, the so-called "religious" people are the worst of this kind, killing each other in words and in deeds! The call to each of us today is: to restrain ourselves from killing the other. 

Towards forming ourselves in true Christian love, let us ask ourselves: are we really convinced not to kill?

 

True Christian Love: Grow Sensitive to the Suffering

THE WORD IN LENT: Thursday, 2nd week in Lent

March 04, 2021: Jeremiah 17: 5-10; Luke 16: 19-31

 

Reflecting on the passage in the Gospel today, we may be led to wonder at times, what mistake did that rich man do? And in what way he is responsible for Lazarus' misery? In no way is he responsible for the misery of the miserable poor man, Lazarus! But the rich man is responsible for his attitude towards Lazarus. That he did not care even to see the miseries of the person right at the foot of his table, looking for the crumbs - oh, what a gross insensitivity! Sheer blindness! And the worst of all, that blindness comes from the blessings he had, the abundance that he had for himself. The Blessings blinded him. 

Look at the situation everywhere, especially in places that are badly stricken by the recent experience of pandemic!... the world at large seems to be oblivious of the doubled suffering of the poor amidst this! There are stray voices that call for a global attention, but nothing seems too serious! The affluent are busy making more money. The medical industry, the health care institutions, the pharma industry, they are keen on making the optimum use of the crisis. The powerful are looking out for opportunities to further demonstrate their power over the rest. The crooked are making use of every chance to reach their hidden agenda at all cost. 

 

Blessings should make us more grateful and more sensitive; unfortunately, it can also blind us to those in need around us - within the family, in the neighbourhood, in our workplaces, in our known circles or outside the immediate circle! We can grow so comfortable and cosy about our life that we may forget to look out – out just beside our doorsteps, out right next to us, out there in the broad day light – to find , people suffering, struggling and stifling themselves to death. Should not our blessings make us more aware of those in need?

 

If at all we want to understand what is true Christian love, let us grow ever sensitivity to the suffering!

Renewing Christian Hope: Switch to the Reign Mode

THE WORD IN LENT - Wednesday, 2nd week in Lent

March 3, 2021: Jeremiah 18: 18-20; Matthew 20: 17-28

 

The Word today presents to us the stark contrast between the Jesus' way of thinking and the worldly terms of thinking. These are two contrasting paradigms, and we become conscious of them.  

Jesus' way of thinking is Reign mode of thinking; thinking of the primacy of God, thinking of the framework of love, thinking of the criterion of service, thinking of the fullness of life of all! 

The worldly mode of thinking is thinking of one's gains at all costs, thinking of one's comfort mindless about the struggles of others, thinking of scaling the ladder and not serving my brothers and sisters, thinking of every one and every situation as an opportunity for my own gains! Look at the hundreds of millions of scams that are being spoken of these days, even in nations so poor where millions go hungry out of misery everyday... what heights of greed and selfishness!

 

But before pointing a finger, before blaming someone, let each of judge for ourselves, in which mode we live our life today. At times our worldly mode may be the most justified looking at the way everyone else lives all around; and the Reign mode might seem totally ‘out of the world!’ Are we going to give into that conformity to the world? Or sometimes the modes may be off and on; that is, occasionally we may have the two of them alternating between themselves. But which of it is the predominant mode? 

 

When are we going to clearly switch to the Reign Mode? St. Paul instructs in his letter to the Philippians: 'Put on the mind of Christ' (2:5). That is the hope that the Christian way of life can offer to this battered world...but are we living up to that mission? If we have to...let us live our everyday in Reign Mode!

Growing in True Faith: Assume Personal Responsibility for your Choices!

THE WORD IN LENT: Tuesday, 2nd week of Lent

March 2, 2021: Isaiah 1: 10, 16-20; Matthew 23: 1-12

 

There are innumerable non-Catholic friends and groups which pick up the lines of Jesus today, entirely out of its context and keep creating polemics out of it, unfortunately. ‘Do not call any one your Father or your Master here on earth” – what does that injunction actually mean?

 

Let no one be responsible for your judgments, your behaviours, your decisions and your choices! That is in crux what Jesus meant when he said, let no one be your ‘father’ or ‘master’ here on earth. For a Hebrew, father would mean that person who decides everything for you! You have nothing else to say, because the father's decision is final. The master is someone who holds a total authority over you; what he decides to be right has to be right for you; what he decides to be desirable has to be desirable for you! Let that not be your mode of decision making; allow no one make choices for you, says Jesus.  

 

The point is clear beyond confusions: a person will be responsible for one's own choices. It is no more the case that a person does something or decides on something and passes the blame on to someone else: his or her father, or generations before, or persons in authority. That may be an age-old practice; not for a true disciple of Christ, the Son of God.

 

Let each one take responsibility for his or her own choices, challenges the Word today. Your choices determine your destiny, apart from the all-pervading love that is God. It is this love that has invested us with such a great personal will and freedom, using which we are challenged to choose God and all that pertains to God.

 

Let us quit looking for scapegoats; isn’t it essential to assume personal responsibility for our choices. 

Growing in True Faith: Live by the Christ-Criterion

THE WORD IN LENT: Monday, 2nd week in Lent

March 01, 2021: Daniel 9: 4b-10; Luke 6: 36-38

As pastors many have this experience, as once a priest shared: “as it has happened many a times, I stepped out of the Sacristy after the Sunday Eucharist, and a person approached me and said: ‘Fr., thanks for the homily today! It was really beautiful, but I am afraid too difficult to practice!’ And I smiled at her reassuringly and said, ‘If I were to think of living my life anyway, with compromises, it would be much easier! But living a true and convinced Christian life is any day, difficult.’ She smiled, and bowed for a blessing!”

Is that not a very common experience, a very spontaneous thinking that many of us might have? That we can go easy on ourselves, and not demand too much from ourselves, to go with the flow and live in conformity to the society we find ourselves in? But conforming to the world or conforming to Christ…which is our real call?

"To live by the law you gave us", prays prophet Daniel today in the first reading! And Jesus gives us a criterion, to follow the law. Let what you expect from others for yourself be the criterion for your dealings with others! But the difficult part follows: Jesus says, let what you expect be the criterion but not what you actually get! You may or may not get what you expect, but you have an obligation to give the others what you expect from them! What you get in return - does that actually matter?

An apt day to pray with St. Francis of Assisi, 'Lord, grant that I may seek to understand than to be understood; to love than to be loved; to forgive than to be forgiven'. To give, give and to give, that is the Christ-Criterion!

Let us live by the Christ-criterion - that shall be the last renewal required of us!

On our way to the Mountain!

We shall not be moved!

February 28, 2021: 2nd Sunday of Lent

Genesis 22: 1-2, 9a,10-13, 15-18; Romans 8: 31b-34; Mark 9: 2-10

I believe you like a mountain, they say. Have you heard that expression? What it actually means, ever wondered? Like a mountain - mountains, they fascinate, they inspire awe, they challenge, they smile down on us and they stand there unperturbed by anything! It is not their tallness that is their strength, may be that too. It is not their hugeness that is their pride, may be that too. But it is their endurance, their never failing attitude, their fortitude in facing all weather - wind or cold or heat or wet! That is why our faith is a mountain to which we are called...we are well on our way to the Mountain!

The readings present to us a mountainous experience... the first reading we have a mountain that tested Abraham but saved him forever and in the Gospel we have a mountain that shone in splendour to the apostles because of Jesus, but it was not all, there were more things to understand and come to terms with! And St. Paul in the second reading speaks to us of an unfailing mountain, with whom we shall not be moved: if God is for us, who can be against us - the Lord our Mountain!

Let us analyse these mountains and we shall be done for this week...not just this week, but for our whole life which is a journey, a journey of faith, a journey that leads us to the everlasting Mountain, the promised Mountain of the presence of the Lord. We are on our way to that Mountain...and on the way we are given mountains to foretaste that which awaits us and mountains to remind us that we are on our way to the Mountain. 

Before we have a look at those mountains...let us note one important detail: the Word today does not name the mountains for us. Neither does the account from Genesis, nor does the episode from Mark, give us the name of the Mountain - because it is not the mountain that they are concerned about, but the experience of the Mountain. It is not the mountain itself that is holy, but what happens there! It is not the mountain in itself that shines, but the one who invites us there! Now ...let us be on our way to the Mountain. 

The first mountain is the mountain of testing and sacrifice! Our faith journey is more often than not, a uphill journey. There are of course moments that give us a easy ride and other moments when the experience is plane (or plain)! But the moments that are remembered for long are the mountainous moments...moments that try us, as was tried Abraham. But that trial becomes salvific, when we begin to understand the whole picture of our life. Look at Abraham...he was childless and he was given a child and when that child was demanded of him, he could have easily thought he has to protect that child with all his life. But he is our father in faith, because he thought differently. He thought to himself: what was I before the Lord called me, before the Lord named me Abraham from Abram, before the Lord gave me Isaac as my own...it is the Lord's own making and it is the same Lord who is asking! Abraham reaches the peak of the mountain...not the physical peak of that mountain he was climbing, but the spiritual peak of the mountain of faith. He gets ready to give all that he had, to God...and the Mountain saved him, saved him forever, saved his name for generations to come! The Mountain Saves!

The other mountain is the mountain of splendour and glory! Our faith journey at times is obscured by events around us. There are events that seem dark and dreadful - like the pandemic, the economic crisis, the political mockeries, the globalised vandalism that we are experiencing right now in the world. All that we need to do is, climb the mountain with the Lord and there we will see the splendour, there we will see the light, there we will see the Truth that rests with God alone. But the problem is we cannot remain there all our life...we have to come down, but remember always what we saw "up there"...that is the experience that the Lord creates, so that we are given the endurance to keep walking on our way to the Mountain. That is why we proclaimed with energy in the responsorial psalm today: I will walk! I will walk in the presence of the Lord! I will walk all my way to the Mountain! The apostles were given a special experience, because they needed it. No doubt they were having tough times, with no one understanding their master and they themselves not getting clearly what their master was communicating to them. But there were tougher times still to come...they had to be prepared. They were prepared with that experience on the mountain, and that would sustain them for quite some journey. The Mountain Shines!

Then comes the Mountain par excellence - the Lord our God. On my way to heaven I shall not be moved - for the Rock is with me; the Mountain is with me, my stronghold, my fortress and I shall not be moved. When God is with me, what does it matter who is against me! My mountain is my Lord...and it is to this Mountain that I am journeying all my life. As the psalmists says:I did not say to the sons of Jacob, search for me in vain! Yes, the Lord is with us, and there is no need to search for the Lord. The Lord is right beside us as an unmoved Mountain, all that we need to do is decide to be on our way to the Mountain and we shall be there; allow the Mountain to sustain us and we shall not be moved, we shall last, we shall endure, we shall stand and we shall stand firm - because our Lord stands at the right hand of God to plead for us! The Mountain Stands!

The Mountain bids us: walk, the Mountain challenges us: stand, the Mountain encourages us: endure! And we shall be saved, we shall shine and we shall stand, because we are on our way to the Mountain! 

True Christian Love: Growing to be God's Own

THE WORD IN LENT - Saturday, First week of Lent

February 27, 2021: Deuteronomy 26: 16-19; Matthew 5: 43-48

You would remember, especially if you are from India, few years ago, a comment passed by a leader of one of the religious nationalist groups in India on Mother Teresa and her motivations behind all the service she had rendered to the least of the Indian Society. He was not the first, nor the most prominent of people who have spoken so. However, my reference here is to one of the retorts that came by - I loved the cartoon some one posted; it was a cartoon depicting Mother Teresa holding that gentleman who spoke rather ill of her, as a mother would hold her little child! And the caption read in Mother's own words: if you judge others, you will not have the time to love them. 

According to me that was the best response one could ever imagine, because it brings out our very nature: as people peculiarly God's own (Dt 26:18)! We have had so many examples of this peculiarity which the Word demands from us - Pope John Paul II who met the one who attempted to assassinate him, the family of Sr. Rani Maria (whose commemoration was just a couple of days ago) who accepted the murderer of their daughter as one their family members, Mrs. Gladys Stein who instantly forgave the one who burnt her husband and two sons alive, the mother of the two brothers among the 21 coptic christians killed in Egypt some five years ago, and the list is not certainly exhausted!

These people are peculiar in the eyes of the world and that is our call too: to be people peculiarly God's own. The only way to belong to God is to be God-like in our love for others, loving everyone with no conditions, no limits and no expectations! Very often a lofty love that begins well falls in the trap of expectations and there is no more time to enjoy the goodness that is involved in that love, because the expectations on each other has drained it all. God's love - a love beyond conditions, a love beyond expectations, a love beyond the urge to feel fulfilled... is it difficult? Yes! Any alternative options? Definitely No, if we want to be truly God's own!

Growing in True Faith: the Right Righteousness

THE WORD IN LENT - Friday, First week of Lent

February 26, 2021: Ezekiel 18: 21-28; Matthew 5: 20-26

The "Scribes and the Pharisees"...we find this phrase very often in Jesus' words. What did he have against them? Was he then a sectarian too... dividing and categorising people by the group they belong to? No! Never! Jesus himself was a pharisee and he had disciples among pharisees, tax collectors and zealots. Then where is the justification for the usage of this phrase, 'the scribes and the pharisees'?

The phrase actually refers to, that category of people, need not be necessarily only the scribes and the pharisees, who consider the external signs and legalistic fulfillment more important or significant than the interior disposition. What we do is important, but why we do what we do, matters much more! The internal disposition with which something is carried out, truly determines the value of the act or the attitude. 

Righteousness often can remain a matter of image building or opinion creation. There are those who hire the media, buy it up or throttle it to control, in order to project themselves as they wish to be seen - not exactly was they really are! Every one of us wishes to give a pleasing and desirable image of ourselves to the world - there is nothing much wrong in this wish per se. But the problem lies in the fact that I hide, how much I hide, to what extent I go in order to hide and what I want to gain by hiding what I really am! Can I still fall under the category of the 'righteous', after all this image creation?

Jesus, explains today his version of righteousness - the Right Righteousness. It consists of meekness and humility, openness (lack of judgments) and acceptance, endurance and perseverance, and endless hopefulness. It consists of accepting who I really am and working on myself without pretensions. It consists of accepting the other as he or she is and trying to live as brothers and sisters in peace! 

Against these measures on the scale, where does my righteousness stand?