Growing in Christian Faith: Getting ready to flow on!

THE WORD IN LENT - Tuesday, 4th week in Lent

March 16, 2021: Ezekiel 47:1-3,9-12; John 5: 1-3a,5-16

 

We have a wonderful imagery today to ponder over: the flowing water that enlivens! Ezekiel speaks of it and John presents it; Ezekiel underlines the presence of the flowing water by the Temple while John points out the very presence of Christ as the life-giving spring! 

For that man who had been waiting for years to get into that life-giving water, the fact that Jesus approached him was like the waters came to him, instead of he going to the waters. But it is not all that comfortable, when the waters really flow! That is why Jesus asks him that question: do you want to be well again? 

We may think it is a dumb question to ask - but it matters! What if the man was comfortable drawing pity from the others? What if the man gained much more than what he could have with his limbs alright? Hence, the need for Jesus to ask him, if he really wanted to be healed! It is our choice to be healed, to be well, to be wholesome!

We may blame people around, the situation around, the events and experiences and remain in self-pity! That will never lead us to wellness, health or wholeness. If we really want to live our life to the full, we need to receive the flowing grace willingly. It might require of us certain changes...which may not be comfortable - the man was asked to pick up his mat and wall. All this while people were carrying him around! Are we prepared for the inconveniences of grace?

The Lord reaches out to us, flows into our lives to enliven us and Jesus invites us to become the waters that enliven people around us, that we reach out to others and flow into their lives, enlivening them!

 

Let us ask ourselves, is our faith matured enough? How ready are we to flow on?

 

Renewing Christian Hope: A Journey from Sadness to Gladness

THE WORD IN LENT - Monday, 4th week in Lent

March 15, 2021: Isaiah 65:17-21; John 4: 43-54

 

Yesterday we celebrated the fourth Sunday in Lent which had the call to Rejoice! Yes, we are sinful, we have fallen and failed, we are unworthy but in spite of that the Lord loves us and that is a great reason to Rejoice. The call continues into the week!

 

From sadness to gladness is the journey the Lord invites us to. It is surprising that many a person finds it a journey either unnecessary or unrealistic. They feel they can remain with sadness and that they are destined to remain with such sadness. They don't wish to embark upon that journey so easily. 

 

Interestingly, a major part of the journey consists in making the decision to turn and walk, as did the royal official in the Gospel account today. How long are we going to stand staring at problems and confusions and misgivings and misunderstandings in life?  

 

At times, there are people who share their problems. From the very sharing of the problems we can sense the fact that they have not even thought of leaving those problems and walking ahead - every suggestion you give meets with multiple reasons why it is not workable; every challenge you pose against the problem is judged as an insensitive approach to the person! If you have to walk out of your problems, first you have to decide to stop, turn and walk away from it!

 

To stop, turn and walk is an act of faith, to surrender our life into the hands of the Lord and to allow the Lord to change our sadness to gladness! The Lord tells us today: just believe and turn and walk towards the peace and serenity that I offer.

 

Are we ready to set off with faith and hope, on that journey: from sadness to gladness!

ON OUR WAY TO BEING GOD'S LOVE

Channels, Admirers or Bearers?

March 14, 2021: 4th Sunday of Lent - Laetare Sunday

2 Chronicles 36: 14-16, 19-23; Ephesians 2: 4-10; John 3: 14-21

For God so loved the world that God gave God's only Son, that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life (Jn 3:16)... the Word presents in this verse, the crux of the mystery of God's love! St. Paul would elaborate on this when he says, "God who did not spare God's own son, will not withhold anything from us!" (Cf. Rom 8:32). God's love for us has been so undeservedly deep! What is our response? 

The fourth sunday of Lent is called the Laetare Sunday...or Rejoicing Sunday, within the Lent! It is because we are already prompted to think about Resurrection right in the middle of the season of the passion of Christ. Just to remind us, despite all suffering and temptation, what awaits is the crown that the Lord has prepared for us - because God loves us! Not because we deserve it, but because God has decided to love us, right till the end!

God's love for us is so deep, so undeservedly deep! And what response do we give...the Word educates us to it, this Sunday. There are three persons presented to us and may be we can take a lesson from each of them. 

The first person is Cyrus, the King of Persia, who released the people of Israel from their exile in Babylon. Cyrus, was not a believer in Yahweh; neither did he know the Lord or come to accept the Lord. But he was considered by the people of Israel as a messiah who acted on behalf of Lord God and gave them the long-yearned-for freedom. They could come back to their homeland and once again feel loved by God. Cyrus becomes a channel of the love of God... not that he experienced the love of God! Though he might have had the opportunity, we do no judge the person of Cyrus, but he chose to remain a mere channel through whom the love of God came to the people, without even affecting him in any decisive way. 

This is one kind of response we can give to the love of God - that we become passive channels of the love of God. God in God's almightiness, can use any means to communicate God's love. And we can become one such channels - it is a very instrumental understanding of the role we play... nothing of myself is changed but through me others might feel the love of God. But what a loss for me, that I did not drink in, what I was passing on to the others. Some examples that come to our mind in this context are persons who are considered good, loving, lovable, kind and gentle...but suddenly they take an unfortunate decision to end their lives by themselves! Everyone known to them, starts wondering, what was wrong, because so many experienced goodness through these persons, but they themselves end up so desperate. When so many are capable of seeing, experiencing God's love in me, but I myself do not really recognise it or enjoy  it or be transformed by it...I am just being a channel of God's love, because God uses me! But how unfortunate that I don't know what I am missing - God's love so undeservedly deep.

The second person we are given to encounter today in the Word is, Nicodemus, a just Jew! He was someone who admired Jesus, he even loved Jesus, he was eager to listen to Jesus, but the sad thing...he could not decide to follow him! He was too afraid of his circumstances, the respect of his fellow Jews, the fear of losing the status as the teacher of the rabbis...he did not dare even to meet Jesus in the broad day light. That is why he comes today in the cover of the night to meet him and listen to him - oh, how he admired Jesus, but what is the use?

When Jesus the love of God is revealed to us, we could also respond this way: as just admirers; admirers from far, admirers in secret; admirers under cover. We know so much, we understand it all, but we cannot speak about it or witness to it...for fear of so many things. Because we fear being called old fashioned, because we don't want to be called pietistic, because we are afraid of being branded 'religious', because we wish to be modern or post-modern, because we want to keep abreast with the latest fashion of questioning everything and making fun of everything, because we want to identify ourselves with the so-called scientific world...we at times are prepared to forego the immense love that awaits us, the love that comes across to us in varied ways! In spite of knowing well what it is and what it is that we are missing, we choose to miss it, because we consider something else more important! How sad it is again, that we remain mere admirers of the love of God without really getting it into our selves - our body, heart, mind and soul!

The third person we meet today, is the one through whom the Word speaks so powerfully - St. Paul, the Apostle... he uses the very same terms of Jesus: the words, 'God loved us with so much love, that...' - they sound just as Jesus said, 'for God so loved the world, that...' St. Paul understood how much God loves us, how God chose us from before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4), how God does not spare anything for our sakes (Rom 8), how God sent God's own son even when we were sinners (Rom 5:8) and how God's love is poured into our hearts (Rom 5:5). He was someone opposed to this love, thinking all the time about the law and the rule and the Jewish supremacy, but when he was touched by that love, he gave in, he gave himself up fully! He admired God's love, became a channel of God's love and he grew gradually towards becoming that love - be imitators of me, as I am of Christ (1 Cor 11:1), he said.

This is the response that we are expected to grow towards: to become God's love ourselves. Just as Jesus was God's love, we are called to become God's love - that is, persons who bear God's love to the others, specially to those who are in need of it most. Being bearers of God's love would presume that we have known that love, tasted it, and are filled with it, that we share it with everyone whom we come into contact with. Bearing God's love to the other is not merely doing something for the other, it is not giving something or making something for the other - it is being God's love to them. Our very beings need to be transformed by God's love. The lenten practices should lead us to that: not merely to some self inflicted pain that bears no fruit for the other, but a continual and gradual transformationof selves, that we become God's love to those around us!

However, with the personal weaknesses and the temptations, with the kind of characters around and the troubling situations, with the concerns we have and the burdens of worldly responsibilities, it becomes tremendously difficult to pursue that call: to be true bearers of God's love! But that should not worry us, as long as we are constantly, in our will and in our efforts, on our way, on this journey towards being God's love to the world and everyone around us! 

True Christian Love: Real faithfulness to God

THE WORD IN LENT: Saturday, 3rd week in Lent

March 13, 2021: Hosea 6: 1-6; Luke 18: 9-14

 

What I want is love, not sacrifice, says the Word. Sacrifices, after all, are for the sake of humbling ourselves in front of the Lord that we may grow closer and closer to the Lord. If the same sacrifice puffs up my ego and takes me to a higher plane, making me think of myself as being better than my brothers and sisters and from there, look down on them, then that sacrifice not only fails to serve its purpose, but takes me away from the Lord.

 

The Lord invites us to understand that our wish and effort to remain faithful to the Lord who has called us, is much better than all sacrifices. Remaining faithful to that call would mean, becoming more and more like God ... loving, compassionate and humble in our spirit; not self-glorifying, self-righteous and self-magnifying!

 

Look at the politicians who claim to “serve” the society and the people... majority of them are from a higher economic class or they reach there as soon as their career picks up. There is really no "service" rendered to people, rather they look at themselves as VIPs, as celebrities, almost as royals! Where does the so-called purpose that was cited for their entry into life disappear soon after?  

 

Easy to point a finger at them, but before doing that, let us take a look at our own life! When we begin to understand that we are people of God - is it for judging the other? Is it for telling the other that he or she is not saved, or is not worthy of being called People of God? The humbler I become the Godlier I shall be; the more I serve the other the more divine I shall be; the more sincere I am in my respect for the other, the more acceptable I become in the eyes of the Lord! 

Pope Francis leads us by example in this and we thank God today, for this great person, as today marks the 8th anniversary of his Papacy! God bless our Pope! Let us keep walking with our beloved Holy Father and let us rekindle constantly in our hearts and in our communities, our desire to be truly faithful to God and God alone!

True Christian Love: Resolve to get nearer to the Reign

THE WORD IN LENT: Friday, 3rd week in Lent

March 12, 2021: Hosea 14: 2-10; Mark 12: 28-34

 

The Word shows us today the easiest way of getting nearer to God and to God's Reign. It is through a life that is Shared, thanks to the pastoral courtesy of the Christian call. 'Return' is the call; but to where?  To the believing community. The Lord awaits us there – in the community of faith, the communion of hearts, the loving union of persons. 

 

Truly getting nearer to the Reign would mean right relationships and mutual respect. Getting nearer to the Reign would mean, getting closer to one another and getting more and more familiar with the One who has called me. Getting nearer to God would mean the ability to notice the Lord close to me, walking beside me, sharing my life on a daily basis…in and through my brothers and sisters in the God given community where I practice my faith.

 

Being nearer to the Reign would mean not experimenting but experiencing. Unlike the Israel who went all around looking for hope and finally with no other options reached the Lord their God, we are invited to look into ourselves and look at the experiences we are through, the subtle ways in which we are led by the Almighty and recognise it all.

 

Being nearer to the Reign would mean not making of the other, one of the options but, the very criterion to decide my course of action; that is, to act keeping the good of the other, the wellbeing of the other, the happiness of the other as the criterion to decide what I would do, in any given situation! Getting nearer to the Reign therefore, would mean to become more God-conscious and Other-conscious than self-conscious!

 

Let us resolve to get ever nearer to the Reign!

True Christian Love: Resolve to reform hardened hearts

THE WORD IN LENT: Thursday, 3rd week in Lent

March 11, 2021: Jeremiah 7: 23-28; Luke 11: 14-23

 

The world today is living a life of indifference, an inhuman and incredible indifference, so cold and selfish. Nothing matters to anyone until it hurts him or her personally. Be it individuals, groups, institutions or even local churches... we are overwhelmed by concerns of security in the face of increasing injustice in the larger society. We have seen this time and again, in so many types of crisis situations – recently in the pandemic that came as a blow to the world, affecting various parts at a time!

 

The Word today invites us to listen to the Lord speaking, speaking through the cries of the innocent victims - the cries of the poor,  the tears of those who have lost their dear ones to violence, crime, political indifference, economic segregation, social stratification, and cultural inhumanity, the miseries of those who have never understood the meaning of 'sufficient', those who are left to live in the brink of death day in and day out!

 

Let's beware of branding the poor as lazy, citing fate for the miseries of some in stark contrast to the filthy affluence of the others, brushing aside the sufferings of those who are victims of injustice saying we have nothing to do with it. When we do all these, we are closing our eyes, shutting our ears and hardening our hearts against God!  These are the qualities of a hardened heart.

 

With hardened hearts we will only be against God, scattering what God wants to gather. With hardened hearts we will only push God into the dark and the dark forces right unto the fore!

 

Let us resolve to reform our hardened hearts and transform them into hearts truly of flesh, blood and Spirit!

Growing in Christian Faith: Rootedness to the Foundation

 THE WORD IN LENT: Wednesday, 3rd week in Lent

March 10, 2021: Deuteronomy 4: 1,5-9; Matthew 5: 17-19

 

The Commandments were nothing but the expressed wish of the Lord who brought the people up to their status of God's people. It was actually the human side of the covenant that God made with us: on God’s part God loves us forever without end, and on our part, we are called to keep the commandments as a sign to say we love God!

 

The Old Testament people felt assured that when they walked in the path of the commandments, they were on the right track. At times this assurance, and the anxiety to hold on to this assurance, made them even highly legalistic. However, their respect for the law of the Lord, their zeal for the commandments and the attachment to the Word of the Lord was always commendable.

Though Jesus stood tooth and nail against legalism, he too respected the commands of the Lord and taught his disciples how to make it humanly possible to abide by those commandments. The expressed wish of the Father, was something sacred and holy to Jesus and he declared that they are never changing, eternal and foundational for our faith. 

 

Our faith, that is, our rapport with the Lord, our faithfulness to God has to be based firmly on something. And Jesus offers the right solution: the Word of the Lord. The Word which contains the expressed wish of the Father, the Word that will never perish, is the Rock foundation on which our faith has to be established! Whoever obeys and teaches these, will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

 

Let us uphold our rootedness to our foundations!

 

Renewing Christian Hope: Desire to remain God's favoured ones!

THE WORD IN LENT: Tuesday, 3rd week in Lent

March 9, 2021: Daniel 3: 25, 34-43; Matthew 18: 21-35

 

The Word today invites us to understand the figure of the Lord as forgiving. That is the source of true Christian hope! The Lord gives and forgives; if not, we would die and perish. When the Lord offered us the greatest of all gifts, God's own image and likeness, God gave us this very nature that God beholds. We were made like God, little less than the angels. God forgives and so we are called to forgive. 

 

Yes, if we consider ourselves truly God's children, it is our nature to forgive too. When we do not forgive, we are negating our very nature; we become alien to ourselves, we turn not only ungodly but even inhuman! Because real human call is to reflect the image of God in us.

 

Let us realise the image we bear and live up to that image! Let us forgive, not just a few times or just when it is convenient but all the time and amidst all tribulations. Seems a needed message for the present times! 

 

We see numerous persons and groups of persons plotting and scheming things against the innocent, the God fearing and good willed. What would our response be? Teaching them a lesson? Planning an action tit for tat? Praying for their destruction and wishing their downfall? A true child of God will forgive them and pray for them, however bad the situation created may be! That is what we are taught. 

 

In the parable narrated today, the man ends up in the dungeon because he lost his identity as "the favoured one" in the eyes of his master. Let us never lose that identity. Let us keep our desire to remain God's favoured ones, always alive! 

True Christian Love: Commitment to Reach out

THE WORD IN LENT: Monday, 3rd week in Lent

March 8, 2021: 2 Kings 5:1-15; Luke 4: 24-30

 

"Go to the existential peripheries", invites the Holy Father as one of his ceaseless recommendations to the Church today! And that is what he has done too...as he finishes his Apostolic visit today in Iraq.  But why the insistence? One reason that could be found very close to truth is, for God there are no peripheries! For God everyone is "chosen" in his or her own way; every place is a "chosen place" in its own manner! For God each and every person is at the centre of existence, no one at the existential peripheries, where we have pushed them to. 

We may brand someone 'strange', 'alien', 'outcast', 'unacceptable' or 'not-worth-relating to'... but let us understand they are at the center of the universe that God beholds. Be it the widow of Zarephath or Namaan from Aram, they were under God's care! Reaching out is a marked call of Lent, to reach out to the other in need! 

 

Reaching out means expressing God to the others, being God to those who need, making God felt by those who are broken. Reaching out means opening our eyes and looking at the miseries of the other, the struggles and pains of the other, not getting stuck to one’s own petty world of thought and interest. Reaching out means leaving the cosiness of our lives and going out to make life better for the other – not spoiling the life of the other for my comfort and cosiness.

 

When we reach out to the so-called marginalised, the so-called persons in the periphery, we are actually in the footsteps of the Lord who chose to be with them, chose to be one among them. Let us reach out today, at least to one person whom we have not considered within our circles of relationships, till now.

Let us commit ourselves to reach out to the existential peripheries! 

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!