God: a poor businessman!

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 11th week in Ordinary time

June 15, 2021: 2 Corinthians 8: 1-9; Matthew 5:43-48 

Among us friends we have a good laugh whenever we think of an elderly religious (of happy memory), who was put incharge of the farm in one of our religious communities. Every year at the annual audit he was used to repeating a remark, in his own inimitable modulation: "what put I get, what I get I put...no profit, no loss, no problem". 

If we look at the love that God had lavished upon humanity, he would not have certainly got back even a tiny fraction of what he has put in! 

Incarnation is just one of the many mighty investments that God had made on our behalf (cf. 2 Cor 8:9)... but consider the dividends! God seems to be such a bad business person and the strangest part of it is, Jesus invites us to follow God's logic! Knowingly to invest in a losing business, who ever will oblige today?

You are almost certain what you give will not come back to you... still you are called to give! You know by forgiving a person that person is not going to in anyway become better or convert for good, still you are called to forgive! You know the one in need right in front of you, has been someone who has done so much damage to you in the past, still you are called to reach out with compassion and do the needful. What kind of a logic is this? Will anyone rational really accept this kind of a reasoning? 

If you do not accept this logic, you risk not being part of the band of Christ. This lifestyle may look illogical, but nothing else is fitting enough for being truly God's children. Let's love without counting the cost; Our Master, is undoubtedly a poor businessman!

Be compassionate - right here and right now!

WORD 2day: Monday, 11th week in Ordinary time

June 14, 2021: 2 Corinthians 6: 1-10; Matthew 5: 38-42

The best is the enemy of the good, is a statement attributed to Don Bosco, they say in the context of doing good to the other. Even the better, sometimes is a formidable enemy. What do we mean by that? We mean, thinking of better options and the best prospects, we can easily miss out on the opportunity and the possibility of the good that we can do at a given time. Is this not a common experience?

At times I have caught myself lamenting the times and the conditions instead of doing whatever little I could to express my true compassion. If only I were someone else or if only I were somewhere else or if only I had such and such a possibility... these are the yearning for the better that neglects the good that is already available.

The Gospel today invites us to go out of our way to express our compassion to the other. The first reading emphatically  adds: now is the time and now is the hour for it, just go ahead do whatever good you can! We may not be able to give or do great things for those whom we come across in dire need, but we can always be compassionate, caring and respectful towards them, wherever we are! Does that need a special condition or time?

Hence what we do and how we do, do matter a lot - but how much love we put into these, matter much more! And that is where compassion comes into play. When we are compassionate we are godly! However righteous we could be, if we are not compassionate, we are nowhere close to being godly! Let us strive to be compassionate - right here and right now!

THE WAY OF FAITH

Surrrender, Transcendence and Awe

June 13, 2021: 11th Sunday in Ordinary time

Ezekiel 17: 22-24; 2 Corinthians 5: 6-10; Mark 4: 26-34

The parable in the Gospel today is a fascinating one, specially taking into consideration the tall unrealistic claims of certain sections of humanity, who forget their limitation and vulnerability in their times of upward mobility. Life is filled with ups and downs, twists and turns, and curves and bends, that we are at times at a total loss as to how one can understand and approach issues in life. In spite of this there is no end to the haughtiness of human kind, especially on the part of certain sections of humanity which thinks, imagines and acts as if every thing is in their perfect control. Unfortunately, their attitude, their claims and the decisions that these so-called powerful sections make, affect the entire lots, particularly, the simple and weak, the voiceless and the meek. Human beings would do well to understand that so many elements in their life is actually not in their control and so many other elements that they would like to blame it on something beyond, is actually their making. The Word this Sunday, invites us to understand the right sense of this perspective of life - the human-divine relationship.

Our faith life, specially in days such as these, when we are going through tough times, comes into crisis. There are other days when we may not pay even the least attention to this aspect of our life, because we are flying on the top of the world riding the waves of the good times. The call is simple: to have a clear perspective that would guide our life consistently - whether in happiness or sadness, whether in problems or amidst prospects, whether facing failures or relishing success, we would remain balanced and in equanimity. Is it not the key to understand a truly "spiritual" person in Christ-ian terms. What is this right sense, according to the Word given us today:

1. A Sense of Surrender

First is a sense of Surrender that would remind us always that there is someOne beyond us who not only controls us and moves us around, but loves us and cares for us. At times the difference between an impersonalistic theism and Trinitarian faith is eclipsed and forgotten due to some of our modes of interpretation and approach. We look at God as some kind of force controlling everything and determining things before hand or taking to task those that which upsets God's plan! Instead, God is our loving parent, someOne who is walking beside us, helping us to make sense of our life at every step of it...some of those steps may be difficult, some advantageous, some challenging, some even unbearable...but we are through all these, and God is with us. The first reading reminds us of this sovereignty of God, and our need to understand that this Sovereign God is with us, helping us cope with whatever be the moment in life. It is not always easy to take it that way, but the way of faith helps us - if we develop the sense of surrender and say, Lord, you are the Sovereign, you have your way, and I follow.

2. A Sense of Transcendence

The second is a sense of Transcendence that makes me aware of the fact that I am created by God, called by God and meant for God. I belong to God and I need to have that longing to belong to God totally...it is not merely a grammar of the consecrated way of life...every Christian in fact is called, consecrated and commissioned to belong to God. The second reading from St. Paul may sound like promoting the dichotomy between body and spirit...it is not the point that the Apostle is making. The point is, our life is not merely what we have here. The body, the world, the things, the experiences, the others, the attachments, the pleasures, the likes, the dislikes, the discomforts, the problems, the difficulties, the temptations...all of these are passing. And there is just One who is eternal...and that is God. Our way of faith has to help us realise this fact more and more, it happens gradually. We grow into this sense, the sense of transcendence has to come by, as days and years and experiences go by. The way of faith helps us tell God, Lord, for you and for you alone I long, hide not your face from me and I shall transcend everything.

3. A Sense of Awe

The third sense is that of Awe that makes me remain always in wonder like a child who looks at everything with a freshness, the freshness which is not ignorance but innocence. A sense of awe helps me give God the place that truly belongs to God. God has an indispensable place in this world, in my life and in everything that exists...how prepared am I to give that space. The exaggerated claims of some - that we are in control of everything, that we can predict everything and that we can tackle everything - are being questioned and broken with a lot of experiences these days. Let us not make the mistake of making that an experience to point and finger and cruely make statements against the suffering humanity. What is important is to allow our mind and our spirit to have and to grow in a sense of awe at the presence of God with us, around us and in us. Just like that seed buried, lives on, sprouts and grows into a life form...so does our life too... it is guided by the power of God, the magnificence of God, the loving aura of God. The more we surrender to that sense of awe, we shall become that presence of awe for others, specially those who are struggling to find it for themselves in their life! The way of faith should help us see the presence of God in every thing, and in every moment of life and say, Lord, I see you and I stand in awe of you!

Our way of faith needs to be marked by these remarkable senses - sense of surrender, sense of transcendence and sense of awe. May the Spirit help us in this way of life! 

The Memory of the heart - a Spirituality in itself!

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

June 12, 2021: Celebrating the Immaculate Heart of Mary

Isaiah 61: 1-11; Luke 2: 41-51

To Remember is a Spirituality in itself!

And in the normal parlance, when something has to be learnt to memory, it is termed - learning by heart! An interesting terminology...to remember is to keep something in the heart...not just the mind. The memory of the heart... it is a spirituality in itself, indeed.

Mary's heart is exalted today...
because she remembered...
she kept everything in her HEART...
Abraham, Moses, Prophets...everyone exhorted the people to remember, and presented that as the criterion to be blessed people of God. They themselves remembered, they remembered the good that the Lord had done to them... and God remembered them and blessed them without end!

Just after the Sacred Heart of Jesus,
the Church proposes that we remember the Immaculate Heart of Mary...
because a heart that resembled
the heart of Jesus.

Learn from me,
for I am meek and humble of heart...
Mary observed that heart from close,
infact she had her part in forming that heart...
and she herself treasured a heart that resembled that meek and humble heart of the Lord!

She kept everything in her heart! To remember the goodness of the Lord, to remember the great things done to us by the Lord, to remember the mighty presence of the Lord ever in my heart - that is the spirituality that Our Blessed Mother teaches me today!

When I remember all the good that the Lord has done to me, the hurdles and heart aches that come to me sometimes will look much smaller. All I need to do, as the responsorial psalm instructs today, is rejoice and exult in the the goodness of the Lord, because... to remember is a Spirituality in itself!

CELEBRATING the Heart of Christian Faith: LOVE

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Hosea 11: 1,3-4,8-9; Ephesians 3: 8-12,14-19; John 19: 31-37

The Feast of the Sacred Heart is the feast of the very heart of Christian faith, that is Love; the feast of Love, the Love that God is. The feast invites us to meditate on the love that God has for each of us, to realise how unworthy we are at the same time as we are gifted and to make a choice to strive to become bearers of the same love to everyone around us. The Word and the feast, offer us a reflection on three important faces of this Sacred heart which inspire and challenge us at the same time!

The Parent-Heart

The Sacred heart comes across to us as a parent heart, the heart of a Father who longs to hold us close, guide us by our hand, lead us on the path of righteousness, as Hosea speaks of. It is presented as the heart of a mother who longs to nuture her child and see the child grow safe and sound right in her arms. It reflects the heart of the creator who made the creature and owns every bit of it and rejoices in its life and well being.

The Parent-heart loves us every moment, however we are and whatever we are upto. As we reflect in the words of Hosea, the Lord draws close to us and longs to draw closer - depends on us to really receive that love and be filled with it. The sad fact is that majority of us reject that love - some knowingly and others unknowingly. The grades of this rejection ranges from an absolute disregard for the love of God which consists of speaking against God and demeaning the image of God, to an insensible choice for ungodly ways of life being taken up by the immediate pleasure and ephemeral excitement. But the Lord never rejects us - as the imagery that Jesus gives us in his famous parable, the Parent-heart awaits with arms wide open for the return of the prodigal children.

The call that we have here is to GRATITUDE... to thank the Love of God, so caring, so warm and so unassuming! To thank the Love of God shared through persons so close and so far - those who are in the family and those who are friends; those who are unknown but still do so much good and those who come by in such miraculous ways to share this love with us! All these are ways in which the Parent-heart reaches out to us and should we not be grateful for it?

The Powerful Heart

The Sacred heart is certainly meek and humble, but definitely not weak nor little! It is the heart that reveals the mightiness of God in its simplicity and humanness. As St. Paul indicates, all sovereignties and powers are subject to it, and they learn from this heart the comprehensive Wisdom of God, a wisdom that is planted in love and built on love - not in haughtiness and cruel arrogance. We do not possess the capacity to grasp the breadth or the length, the height or the depth of this love, a love beyond all our knowledge.

The Powerful heart, is large and powerful, mighty and all-embracing. It is a heart that loves without measure and boundaries, loves all and everyone. It knows every move that we make and every choice that we pick, and even the motives and the intentions, however hidden they might be! How powerful and awesome it is. The awesomeness does not consist merely in knowing everything, but in the fact that despite knowing it continues to love and embrace us, in genuine and sincere care! 

The call that we have here is to AWE at the immensity of this love. At times, it is so unfortunate that persons and groups are prone to presenting God as avenging, retaliating, self-protective, ego-conscious and even arrogant! Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart; come to me and I shall give you rest... this is the type of heart we are reflecting on today: this is the true power to be celebrated, to be awed at.  It is important to unlearn the terror-instilling images of God and learn to stand in awe at the unfathomable love and the incredible mercy that God is. The power of the Sacred heart is its meekness and mercy! Should we not truly recognise and realise with awe the fullness of God that we are surrounded by, in and through this heart?

The Pierced Heart

The Sacred heart is the pierced heart, the heart to which we look up for grace and mercy, for forgiveness and acceptance into the life-giving embrace of God. As the Gospel points to, the Sacred heart is a giving heart, a heart that gave of itself until the last drop of blood and water. The water that flowed washes us and the blood that oozed gives us life - a washing away of the past and a promise towards a future, which is the crux of the hope that Christ our Lord promises us, as children of God. 

The Pierced heart, is broken, torn, hurt, injured, battered...all because of our insensitivities and our narcissistic tendencies. The heart bleeds due to our rejection and refusal to understand the obvious facts. The heart remains hurt by our self-centred choices and egoistic tendencies, considering ourselves the most important in the entire universe, expecting everything and everyone to serve our needs and our pleasures, and never opening our eyes to the needs of the other, even after it is brought to our notice in varieties of ways!

The call that we have here is to develop a DETERMINATION to reach out, to go out of ourselves, to feel for the other, to understand and empathise with the other and never take the other for granted. For God so loved us, that God gave us the Son who would die to save us, to make us children of God. The pierced heart commissions us to flow out, to stop looking at ourselves and our own private lives and needs and to take the love of God to the others, to our brothers and sisters, to our friends and neighbours, to the so-called strangers and every one who stands in any need! It is this determination that will make us and our faith truly Christ-ian. It has to be seen in our choices and priorities, in our decision making and daily lives, in terms of the heart of Christain Faith - love!

The Sacred Heart, which is a Parent-heart, a Powerful heart and the Pierced heart, invites us to celebrate love, in our daily lives, in our personal faith and  Christian community living. Let us realise that today in celebrating the Sacred Heart, we celebrate the heart of Christian faith: Love!

Witness: Deeper, brighter and freer!

WORD 2day: Thursday, 10th week in Ordinary time

June 10, 2021: 2 Corinthians 3:15 - 4:1,3-6; Matthew 5: 20-26

'Preach not by words, preach by virtues' - St. Anthony would often say. Just as St. Francis who would repeat, 'preach always, when needed use words'. Witness is the first form of proclamation that the Church recommends to every baptised person. A life of witness, is a life marked by the Spirit of the Lord - this is the crux of the Word today.

We cannot be mere common people, we have to become committed people. We cannot be just any people, we have to be inspiring people. We cannot be just acceptable people, we have to be challenging people. We cannot be satisfied with just a mediocre life of non-disturbance and mind-myself mentality, we have to be people who disturb the world and be the conscience wherever we are.

This means that our life has to be lived in a personal and common space that is much deeper - going to the roots of what rules and regulations mean, not just obeying them for what they are or rejecting them for the sake of it. 

It means that our words and more so our actions, should shine brighter in a world that is filled with so much fear, fear to have personal opinions, fear to have personal choices, fear to live a convinced life, fear to stand up for truth, fear to stand by those who are true.

It means that our mind, heart and our spirit is more free, looking at the right and the good, as something to be lovingly chosen and integrally held on to. Laws, rules and principles would not be then something that bind us or limit us, but would free us more and more, for truth and integrity.

All these are possible only with the Spirit who can deepen our perspective, brighten our convictions and free our spirits! The Lord is Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom!

A sure ground to stand on

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 10th week in Ordinary time

June 9, 2021: 2 Corinthians 3: 4-11; Matthew 5: 17-19

What was celebrated good one day, is not considered good any more another day. What seems true today is soon proved a lie another day. A court finds one gravely guilty, a higher court acquits the same person as totally innocent! What is criticised one day, is identified as a norm another day. We are living in times of change! Can we base our life on facts as flimsy as these?

Even the covenant made with the people of the Old Testament is something that has become outdated with time, claims St. Paul in the first reading! Oh, what an alarming situation it is then! But he himself clarifies, that outdated covenant has been replaced with another covenant, that will never change or never expire - a covenant that is sealed forever by the blood of Christ! And Jesus give us another similar assurance.

Jesus refers to the only sure foundation we have: the foundation of rock, the foundation of the Word and the Holy Will of God. Nothing, not a dot, not a line shall go unfinished says Jesus. A sure foundation, an unfailing ground, a never expiring assurance, that comes in the person of Jesus, who reveals to us the true, One and Only God who is all love and goodness. In following the Lord, the Absolute love, the unconditional Good, we have a surity of peace, joy and love. When we go against what God is and what God expects from us, we have all the miseries we face in these days!

At times people place so much of confidence in persons who are around, that when they feel let down they feel as if the whole earth under their feet is giving way - just think of the famous 'break-ups', 'depressions', and other phenomenon people experience these days. We have nothing to assail us because we have a great wall of defence, a sure foundation in the Lord. 

Let us realise, we are standing on the promises of God, and that is a sure ground to stand on!

Salt, Light and an Yes

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 10th week in Ordinary 

June 8, 2021: 2 Corinthians 1: 18-22; Matthew 5: 13-16

There is a close relationship between being salt, being light and saying an Yes to the Lord! The Word today highlights it for us in a symbolic way.

To say Yes to the Lord means to be like the salt... totally dissolving oneself in the yes that is said, choosing to remain insignificant and hidden but making a difference in the entire reality! The Yes that is said, does not exclude any part of one's life, however insignificant. It is therefore a warning against any compromise... compromises which curiously disturb us in the beginning, but as days go by we get accustomed to it, and it becomes almost 'normal'...the call is to be mindful of one's Yes!

To say Yes to the Lord means to be like the light... remaining wherever one is called to be, and from there to burn bright and spread light, not counting the cost like melting oneself down or burning oneself up for the sake of the Yes that has been given to the Lord. It is about our proactive lifestyle that makes those around us, turn and take a look, stand and wonder, and even dare to come to us and ask us a question like: how are you able to do this! The call is to be enthused by one's Yes!

The first reading today places it plain and clear in front of us and adds that, it is only through the Lord that we are empowered to say an Yes to our call...it is not merely our capacity, our prowess and our goodness! It is Jesus, who was a personification of this Yes in his own life, who affirms us and makes us capable of it. Jesus was never an yes and a no! He was always yes! And that is what he wants us to be - to entrust ourselves totally into the hands of God and be an yes always! 

Responding to that call, requires an enormous faith and relentless hope, filling us with a matchless love for God and God's ways. We will do well to pray for this grace every single day!

Encouragement: A Spirituality of memories and promises!

WORD 2day: Monday,  10th week in Ordinary time

June 7, 2021: 2 Cor 1: 1-7; Mt 5: 1-12

Fear not, Take heart,  Be firm... these are some exhortations that we find in abundance in the Word of God. St. Paul explains to us today, why it is so.

As people of God and in union with God we are constantly encouraged,  that is filled with courage for times that can be trying, filled with an inner peace even in the face of troubles, filled with hope even at the so called times of despair. This is so because of a past that is so filled with care and concern on the part of God and a future that seems so heavenly.

Memories and Promises, play a great part in our faith experience, in our identity as people of God. But there is also a tendency that has to be avoided for a holistic spirituality ...the tendency to a selective memory of negative things and selective amnesia of so many positive experiences; and the tendency to make faith moments a series of foretelling and soothsaying. Instead memories should be of the gracious moments of the past and promises should be a childlike surrender to the will of God. 

The Word today draws on the past and the future to instruct us that a life that is filed with God, the memories of God and the promises of God,  will be a life of Courage and Commitment.

WITH US, IN US & FOR US

Covenantal Presence, Corporal Union and Concrete Commitment

June 6, 2021: The Solemnity of Body and Blood of Christ
Exodus 24:3-8; Hebrew 9: 11-15; Mark 14: 12-16, 22-26

The Feast of Corpus Christi reminds us of a drastic decision that God made in our favour - With Us, In Us and For Us - God loved us, God came amidst us and God came to stay within us! The solemnity that we celebrate today explicates this decision inspiring in us a similar attitude as we live our daily life. 

WITH US: That decision to stay with us is a Covenantal Presence... As St. Paul writes to Timothy, even if we are unfaithful, God is faithful forever. God has made a covenant with us throughout the ages, and finally God had sealed it and convalidated it with the very body and blood of God's Son, and that covenant is, to be with us forever! The Covenantal Presence of God with us is the highest form of security and protection that we can feel. It gives us the sense of sonship and daughterhood. 

The call here is to be WITH OTHERS, specially when someone suffers, struggles, grapples and fights to live meaningfully. In the time of this crisis, with the terrorising Pandemic, how much are we able to assure persons who are affected, that we are with them. With the quarantine and social distancing, are we also emotionally and spiritually isolating and distancing ourselves from the others, specially those who are suffering? 

IN US: The decision to stay with us is a desire for Corporal Union... Our Lord and Saviour becomes one with us, unites in our bodily existence too, enabling us to say, It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. It is a decision to be in us forever. It is a decision to purify us from within us, it is a decision to infuse sanctity within us, it is a decision to make us whole from within. 

The call here is to be IN THE LIVES OF THE OTHERS. Just like the Son of God becomes one with us, we are called to empathise with others with whom we share this common home: the World. It is crucial with whom we side: with those who really need empowerment or with the dominant rows. Aren't we tired to see today those in governance and public administration, thinking predominantly in terms of economy and development, ready to stifle and set aside the poor, the weak and the economically insignificant of the society? It is ready to criticise them...but very important to examine our own inner most logic. 

FOR US: The decision to stay with us is a Concrete Commitment that the Lord takes on our behalf; that we may be saved, sanctified and brought back to God. It is a call that Christ gives us to offer ourselves entirely to God, in every thing we are and everything we do. This is my body; this is my blood which shall be shed for you, says the Lord. It is a concrete commitment the Lord makes to be forever for us. 

And the call is obvious: to GIVE OF OURSELVES FOR THE OTHERS. A truly Christian life is a life that is lived for Others, for it is in living for others that we live for God. The Others here would begin from one's immediate family, the faith community, the universal brothers and sisters, specially those who are weak and oppressed. Giving should remain an extraordinary act of goodness, but our very nature of being Christian. 

The Body and Blood of Christ that we celebrate is a living reminder of the extraordinary love that God has to be WITH us, IN us and FOR us! Let us heed the invitation and become persons with others, in others, for others!