Discouragements, the right mode and the right persons!

WORD 2day: Monday, 18th week in Ordinary time

August 2, 2021: Numbers 11: 4-15; Matthew 14: 13-21

Discouragement in the life of a disciple, has to be a moment to take stock and bounce back! Moses feels overburdened today, with the weight not just of carrying the people along, but of their obstinacy not to perceive all that is so good and blessed around! The signs and wonders notwithstanding, the people decide to be unhappy and never to be convinced of the goodness that surrounds them. 

As a disciple in ministry sometimes, all the good that is done and all the troubles that are taken seem to be ignored and much worse, interpreted wrongly! We see this discouragement in every person of God – apart from Moses presented today, Jeremiah (20:14-16), Paul, ... the great prophets and disciples experienced it – Jesus was no exception. 

Today we find Jesus, withdrawing to a secluded place after hearing the execution of John the Baptist. As if to have been reminded of his own fate to come, Jesus resorts to a time of solitude with the One who has sent him! 

Discouragements in our life too can be made moments of blessings if we opt to spend those moments with the right persons – first of all with God, who is always with us; then with persons of God who are given to us as reminders of God’s presence! When they are utilized well, as moments to take stock, we can bounce back into action with a renewed spirit, as it happens with Moses, who grows so strong in his rapport with Yahweh who stood by his side all the while; like Jesus who comes up with the feat of feeding the multitude, as Yahweh did in the desert! 

Discouragements are part of the package of our experiences – they have something to tell us, something to offer us. If we are ready to wait on the Lord, we will surely gather every bit of the blessings in store!

LIVE THE CHRISTIAN DIFFERENCE

Feel, live and make that difference!

August 1, 2021: 18th Sunday in Ordinary time

Exodus 16: 2-4,12-15; Ephesians 4: 17, 20-24; John 6: 24-35

Feel the Difference – the Lord is around! The Lord with you makes all the difference for you. How important it is to feel the difference. The famous reminder of Pope St. Leo the Great says it all: O Christian, Realise your dignity! How important it is for me to know the dignity and the greatness that the Lord has invested in me. That I have been given life, is the first gift given to me. That I am given human life, is a greater gift, knowing the image and the likeness in which I am created. And that I am called to live a Christian life, is such a great treasure that is placed within me, however undeserving or incapable I am! That is the difference that the Lord is making and with the never ceasing presence of the Lord, the Lord continues to strengthen and empower me towards living this call, with a difference!

Live the Difference – let them see who are around! If you truly feel the difference, you will live it, and the world around you will see it. Is it not the best mode of proclamation – to let the world see the difference, that you feel within? As they say, a flower does not bear a placard to invite the bee in search of honey, nor do the ants need a google map to reach the source of their sweet feed. It is seen; it is felt; it is sensed; it is obvious. Your daily life has to hold out to the world the difference that you feel within! That is what the great saint from Assisi meant when he said, ‘preach unceasingly; use words only when necessary!’ Our life has to manifest the difference that we feel within, due to the Lord’s presence with us. If we fall into the same category as the rest of the world, if our lifestyle has nothing much different from what the rest of the world has to offer, if our priorities are nothing different from what the consumeristic world holds on to, then I don’t live any difference! It is unfortunately a sign that I really feel no difference within me, being with the Lord and belonging to the Lord. But if I really be with and belong to the Lord, it will be seen in my life!

Make a Difference – wherever you are around! The Word today invites us to make a difference wherever we are, in the lives of whoever we are with and in the world at large! The Reign of God is all about difference, the difference that we make in other’s lives, the difference we make in the humanity at large and the difference we make specially for those who are suffering and are oppressed by various forces of the power centred systems. Making a difference would happen through our words, through our deeds and through our commitments – but at the foundation of all these, difference will happen when we have the Lord in our lives! Making a difference without really feeling the difference within us, would become an empty promise given to others and would prove short-lived. Making a difference without living the difference in my own life would be so artificial and meaningless that it would soon be resented by others and resound the emptiness within us.

We have a call this Sunday from the Word to feel, live and make a difference, the difference of the Reign of God here on earth. And the Word gives us three important injunctions to achieve the task:

    - If you wish to make a difference, Stop Complaining... and start feeling the presence of God says the first reading.

    - If you wish to make a difference, Stop Running after passing things... and prioritise God in your life says the Gospel!

    - If you wish to make a difference, Stop following the crowd... and as a Christian, make the crowd turn to follow you, says St. Paul.

We need to feel the presence of the Lord who makes a difference for us! We need to start living that difference in our life, on a daily basis, by showing to the world that our value systems are different, that our priorities are different and that our foundation is different. We will then surely make a difference, wherever we are!

The Difference is God! Make God felt, in and through all that you are, and you will certainly make a difference!

A Righteous Celebration

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

July 31, 2021: Remembering St. Ignatius of Loyola 

Leviticus 25:1,8-17; Matthew 14: 1-12

In spite of all the talk about recession and tough times, crisis and economic slowdown, and even the pandemic, celebrations do not seem to have reduced or ceased! Especially in the religious realm, celebrations find their importance and significance intact, though there do exist a number of restrictions and the rest. At times these celebrations are exaggerated too, to the extent of being detested. Should we, or should we not, celebrate? 

 

The Word today presents us two modes of celebration: one, an exploitative celebration that is irresponsible, insensitive and a mere show of arrogance; indifferent to the other and absolutely self centered, with no thought of contributing to the good of the other or the common good. The other mode is a righteous celebration. Let none of you wrong the neighbour but fear the Lord your God, instructs the first reading today, which is all about jubilee among the people of God.

Ignatius of Loyola whom we remember today, was a man of that logic, who would do everything according to the mind of God! From the thirtieth year of his life, when he came to know the Lord and fell so madly in love with Him, he was ready to do anything "FOR THE GREATER GLORY OF GOD" (ad majorem Dei gloriam) – a passion that led to the great movement of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) and so many other movements related to that; a celebration of God’s glory for the sake of the people of God, that has produced scores and scores of holy men and women in the last 5 centuries, right up to the present Holy Father our beloved Pope Francis! 

A celebration that is godly should not be at the cost of the other, but for the sake of the love for the other. A true Christian celebration should reaffirm the meaning and joy of living. That is why everyday eucharist is a celebration, a reminder of the life that we are called to live in the Lord, in communion with our brothers and sisters!

Do you see Jesus?

WORD 2day: Friday, 17^th week in Ordinary time

July 30, 2021: Leviticus 23: 1,4-11,15-16,27; Matthew 13: 54-58 

 

Due to their lack of faith, Jesus did not work many mighty deeds among them, says the Gospel today. Someone might argue, “but if God could not do a miracle, be it for whatever reason, is it not a limitation or a weakness?" Let us pay attention, it is not God's weakness, but the strength that God has shared with us. What do we mean? 

God created us in God's image and likeness and this likeness ensures that we are hardly different from God (Ps.8)! That makes us also persons with inviolable freedom, a freedom which not even God would take away. Though many resent it saying it is the cause of scores of evils in the world, it is that which makes us human, and gives us the dignity as the images of the Creator. Without the 'personal freedom' we would be no more than the animals. 

Faith and Freedom have a great deal to do with each other. Faith is a response given in freedom, a total absolute freedom of the inner being of a person. Jesus in his freedom chooses to enter the synagogue to pray with his people and the people with their freedom choose to see only the apparent facts of Jesus, as the son of the carpenter and a son of their soil. They were not able to see the divine import of his actions, his words and the signs that he was accomplishing. 

Today, it can happen so if we look at Jesus as someone kept aside for Sundays, special days and some particular moments of other days! It is an oft repeated warning from the Lord, not to make our spirituality legalistic and our piety pharisaic! 

Are we able to see Jesus in our everyday life?

Celebrating Home-makers

THE WORD AND THE SAINTS

July 29, 2021: Remembering Sts. Martha, Mary and Lazarus 

Exodus 40: 16-21; John 11: 19-27 (or) Luke 10: 38-42

 

Let us begin with an interesting fact that today's feast (till now feast of St. Martha) is a fruit of a mistake... a mistaken identity in history which equated Mary Magdalene with Mary, the sister of Martha. If you remember exactly a week ago (on 22nd) we celebrated the feast of Mary of Magdala, calculating a week from there, in history they wanted to celebrate the alleged sister of Mary, that is Martha!?! Though a mistake, a happy mistake and we should be happy to celebrate today the feast of this person, who was all preoccupied to express her love for Jesus Christ in every way that she possibly could. Ironically, her sister Mary, whom the Lord said chose the right part, has had no celebration specific to her... of course, from this year we celebrate the siblings together - the two sisters and their brother Lazarus, together on this day!

Focussing a little on Martha, in today’s Gospel from St. John, we have the scene of Jesus' arrival after three days of Lazarus' death. Thanks to this passage of John, it redeems the image of Martha as a workaholic and helps us identify in her a person who had a deep understanding of who Jesus was. 

The affirmations that Martha comes out with shows how practical her faith in Christ was; that she set out and ran towards Jesus indicates the eagerness she had to meet him; and the openness she had towards the Lord and the Lord's power over any circumstance shows how deep her faith was. An active love for God and an unwavering faith in the Lord - these are the two lessons that Martha teaches us. 

How relevant they are for the world of today, which is characterised by a godless spirituality, inhuman development and unethical rationality! However, on a practical note, it is a good day to express our gratitude and felicitate the home-makers (the so-called house-wives!!!) who make our lives so pleasant! It could also be a great day to celebrate the sanctity of the siblings together - sanctity in a family!

The need to cover your face!

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 17^th week in Ordinary time

July 28, 2021: Exodus 34: 29-35; Matthew 13: 44-46

 

The need to cover your face! In the first reading today, we have an interesting account of Moses who would cover his face with a veil because, it shone after the meeting with the Lord. We see in the television newscast and other dailies where people cover their face, when taken into police custody or arrested for some malpractices! Two extreme reasons which can lead us to cover our face - one, shame and the other, a holy embarrassment - it all depends on one fact - where lies your treasure or which is the pearl you are in search of? 

Many of the saints who found their treasure in the Lord, were found to act crazy! They gave up everything - their wealth, their prospects, their career, their comfort, their health, even their life - because they found the Lord and the Lord's will for them! Some of them were even considered lunatic and taken to asylums. As St. Paul says, they have behaved like "fools for Christ"(1 Cor 4:10). 

 

Look up to him and be radiant, says the Psalmist (Ps 34:5). In whatever we do, in whatever we choose, if we have the Lord ever before our mind and always as our priority and criterion, we will never have the need to cover our face in shame. Instead, if we continuously grow in our union of intention with the Lord, we will reach a moment, when we would be forced to cover our face – out of sheer radiance!

 

Let us fix our eyes on the Lord, from whom all richness and light come. All that matters is that our treasure, our pearl remains forever, the Reign of God!

Looking for the Tent of Meeting

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 17^th week in Ordinary time

July 27, 2021: Exodus 33:7-11, 34: 5-9, 28; Matthew 13: 36-43

 

Let your light Shine - is a constant invitation from the Saviour to all those who profess their faith in him. What do we do for the light to shine - of course we have to do things right, just and loving! But more fundamental than that - before we DO anything, we need to BE. Like Moses, we need to be in the presence of the Lord, in the Tent of Meeting - then our light will shine, as the face of Moses shone so much that the people of Israel were afraid of gazing at it (2 Cor 3:7). 

The Gospel today, gives us the same invitation, in and through the explanation of the parable of the weeds explained to us by Jesus. "The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father" says the Gospel, underlining the circumstances in which we will shine to the world! In fact, many of us are in search of this Tent of Meeting (Exo 33:7)... in places of pilgrimage, in events of miraculous nature, in our practices of strenuous personal piety and so on! 

Understanding all these appreciable efforts, the readings today give us two possibilities of spotting this tent: 

One, the Inner Sanctuary of personal integrity, that Jesus speaks of in the parable of the weeds. The Lord has blessed us with goodness within us, it depends on our use of personal freedom to retain that goodness or contaminate it with baser tendencies. 

The second is the Mobile Tents of the persons around us, where God encounters us at every moment of our day. Living as Moses did for the others and in total dedication to their wellbeing, is an unfailing means to encounter the Lord. 

Let our hearts be tuned to the Tent of Meeting that we may encounter the Lord today!

Finally the Grandparents' Day!!!

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

July 26, 2021: Celebrating Sts. Joachim and Anne

Exodus 20: 1-17; Matthew 13: 16-17

 

The first setting in which faith enlightens humanity is the family, declares Pope Francis in his encyclical Lumen Fidei(52). It further explains that passing of faith in the family happens in the process of shared expression of faith within the family, helping children to become aware of their faith and grow and mature in it. 

Christian faith is always communitarian and it is passed primarily in the family. Recently someone observed to me, sharing on the level of faith being lived (or practiced) in Europe vis-a-vis in India, that one major reason for the degeneration in Europe is the weakening of the institution of the family. Those who hand on faith to us are really God-given. Most important among them, our parents and grandparents who not only give us life but show us also how to live it, from their own experience. 

Celebrating a day to remember the parents of Mary, the Mother of God and our Mother, provides us an opportunity to remember with thanks these our fore-runners in faith, as the first reading suggests, 'let us praise famous persons, our parents in their generations. These were persons of mercy, whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten' (Sir  44:1,10). Infact, thanks to them, we are in a position better than them due to their hard work, great example and their dreams for us! Jesus acknowledges that in his words (Mt 13:16-17) and exhorts us to live up to our blessedness, our giftedness, worthy of the faith and tradition that is transmitted to us, from our predecessors. 

For a few years now, I have been sharing this reflection, that maybe, a grateful remembrance of our grandparents dedicating this day to them would be in place. And finally Pope Francis, this year had announced the World Grandparents' Day in the Church to be celebrated to the closest Sunday to the feast of Sts. Joachim and Anne. Accordingly, the first World Grandparents' day in the Church was celebrated yesterday! How lovely it is to think of these loving persons in our lives! And you, if you have the fortune of having them still with you, give them a bear hug and say a big thanks! And if they are no more, remember them with love and gratitude! Whatever be the case, let us celebrate them!

HAND IN HAND WITH GOD

Facing the World Crisis today!

July 25, 2021: 17th Sunday in Ordinary time

2 Kings 4: 42-44; Ephesians 4: 1-6; John 6: 1-15

The times are bad...those are words that we hear from almost all quarters today - economic or cultural or sanitary or moral or political or religious or ecclesial... every corner of human existence seems to echo this judgement invariably. Need, misery, unbalanced growth, neglect of the majority middle class, domination of a few, the gross problem of the migrants, resistance and revolts all over, a general sense of loss of meaning and a sort of helplessness that fills the minds of every person of good will, and added to all these the Pandemic that is still having its sway over humanity at large... that is what the scene looks like today!

How do we revive the earth, and the humanity... it is by acting hand in hand with GOD. We are presented with three mentalities to grow in, for the revival of this world today. Three mentalities that can be called GOD mentalities - Giving oneself, Other centred and Doing one's part!

GIVE... a heart to give - that is the essential correction needed for the humanity today. We need to have a heart to give, to give with all our heart. That is what God does. God gives, and gives, and gives! When we begin to grow within us a heart to give, to truly give not merely of what we do not want, nor of what is excess with us but of ourselves and of what we actually need and of all that we have, that is Giving after the heart of God. God is essentially a Giver! Elijah is ready to Give, Jesus wants to Give, God is ever ready to Give! Do I have the heart to Give? We know the tendency to Give today...calculations of gain and profit, returns and publicity dominate the act of giving. They become more personal statements of polpularity and establishing what one wants to achieve. True Giving that is divine has to be an authentic self-giving, as the Lord gives and never counts.

OTHERS...an eye for the others - is the radical perspective that needs to guide humanity today. People have ceased to think of the other. Whether a daily scene of jostling in the public places like railway stations or bus terminus or the national politics and policy lobbying...everywhere humanity has grown cold to the other, thinking only of the self, only of the petty private interests. Even when they think of the common good, they think of what is common to a small circle to where they belong, and not the Greater Common Good...the good of the whole humanity, the good of the whole world - Lokasamgraha (the welfare of the world), Sarvodhaya (the rise of all), vasudhaiva kutumbaka (the world-family spirit), Universal brotherhood and Sisterhood, the care for the Common Home...these have become merely wishful thinking! Humanity needs to revive its other-centered existence - with the conviction that when the whole humanity is well, I shall be well too. It cannot be definitely the other way around! 

DO... a mind determined to do - this is the fundamental mindset that can redeem the situation today. At times the good willed persons can lose heart seeing the enormity of the opposition. The Word today presents to us the determination of the man who brought the barley loaves to Elijah, Philip who brought the boy with the few loaves to Jesus... they knew what they were doing actually is nothing before the task that lay before them, but they were kind of determined about what they were doing. The Lord will provide the change that is needed for the times, but the times require that we act hand in hand with God. Lamenting and cursing the times would do no good, unless we do on each of our part, whatever little that we can, joining hands with as many as we can, in doing which we shall be acting with God hand in hand. There is no point in waiting for the opportune time or the best ocassion to rise to - but wherever we are and in whichever mode we can, we need to make the little difference that we can: that will be making present the Reign of God wherever we are. 

In Giving, in being sensitive to the Other, and in being determined to Do..., we act hand in hand with God, in fact we initiate the very "new thing" that God wants to do - the new heavens and the new earth, the Reign of God here and now!

You cannot surprise the Master

WORD 2day: Saturday, 16th week in Ordinary time

July 24, 2021: Exodus 24: 3-8; Matthew 13: 24-30

 

You cannot surprise the Master; you can never surprise God! With all the goodwill, as the people of Israel said a loud 'yes' to the ordinances of the covenant and made that solemn ceremony of swearing by the sacrificial blood which God instituted as the blood of the covenant. We too make promises galore. When everything seems to be going well, we find ourselves unwittingly giving into something we would rather not. We can call it infidelity to God, breakaway from God, sin, or merely a mistake!

Certainly we have heard people explaining the reason for not approaching the sacrament of Eucharist or reconciliation for years, saying that they feel they are not worthy, that they feel they are too weak or that they keep falling into the same sin again and again, that they don't want to disrespect the sacraments. Here lies the trap of the enemy! A subtle but dangerous trap... the trap of self-pity! 

Who is not unworthy? Who is not weak? And who does not have limitations! It is while we are still in sin, that God loves us, affirms St. Paul (Rom 5:8). It is while the weeds are still present the Lord permits the crop to grow, in the parable that Jesus narrates today. You cannot surprise or shock God; God knows everything, absolutely everything (Ps 139). God is patient and kind; with all our impurities, limitations and infidelities, God still loves us and waits for us to grow in our hearts, strong good crops that would outdo the weeds. 

Every day is an opportunity to suppress a weed and allow a good crop to grow in our hearts and become more and more worthy of the gratuitous gift of love that we receive from God. Let every day be a sacrifice of praise that we offer to the Lord!