Sowing, Growing and what is in between!

WORD 2day: Saturday, 24th week in Ordinary time

September 17, 2022: I Corinthians 15: 35-37, 42-49; Luke 8: 4-15

The Word today speaks to us of sowing and growing, and what goes on in between these - between dying and being reborn! Our Christian history is so full of martyrdom, and it highlights in a vivid manner, the aspects of dying to ourselves and being reborn in Christ is a criterion for Christian living (cf. Rom 6). In fact, it is true of every Christian... our very life has to be one of daily martyrdom - dying to our ego and growing in a deep sense of being; dying to our petty desires and growing in the sense of the Will of God; dying to our pleasure-seeking tendencies and looking at the nourishing value of suffering and hardships in life. 

Many of us who claim to be followers, disciples and apostles of Christ, still refuse to die to certain tendencies and elements within our self, which militate against the Spirit who wants to dwell within us, for we are called to be the temples of the Holy Spirit (cf. 1 Cor 3:16, 6:19). When there is a resistance to death, there is a resistance to new life, a resistance to resurrection. Where there is resistance to dying, there is a big struggle against growth.

These are indeed instances that are against our becoming totally the dwelling place of God: like the parched land or the scorching heat or the choking thorns. They are everyone's experience and cannot be cited as valid reasons for our personal lack of commitment to belong to God and for our lagging in efforts to grow closer to God. God has sown, God has called us and chosen us and appointed us each, in our life and in our own context. What matters now is our personal commitment, perseverance and loving decision to belong and to grow into the image and likeness of the One who has loved us into existence. 

The Resurrection Community

WORD 2day: Friday, 24th week in Ordinary time 

September 16, 2022: I Corinthians 15: 12-20; Luke 8:1-3

The Readings today point to an identity that is so fundamental to a follower of Christ. The first of all the effects that Christ has on his followers is the Resurrection effect: that is a life filled with hope! If Christ were not raised from the dead, our faith would be in vain - declares St. Paul today. We are filled with a hope so great that nothing, not even death can take away the meaning of our life. 

Secondly, we find today Jesus amidst the first community that he himself had initiated - the Twelve, and some women! That is another Resurrection effect - the fruit of rising above all the pettiness of the world, discarding the divisions, despising the differences of gender or geography, and becoming one community, one people! 'We are all baptised into the one Spirit - Jews or Greeks, free or slaves, we are all filled with the same Spirit', instructs St. Paul ( cf. 1 Cor 12:13). 

Today, let us look at our faith community, the Church, the local church and our own family or religious community: is it one body? is it united in the Risen Lord? is it "following" the Lord, the Risen Lord in every way? Does it have the "mind" of Christ? Are we really Resurrection Community?

One of the infallible signs as we reflect today, has to be - the hope we have in persons: never giving up on persons, never judging persons and never descriminating persons on any count! In a world that is full of expectations and standards of descrimination and division, our challenges is to be this ideal community: the Resurrection community.

Teaching us to Suffer

THE WORD AND THE FEAST 

September 15, 2022: Remembering the Mother of Sorrows

1 Corinthians 15:1-11; John 19: 25-27

A heart pierced with an arrow is a famous symbol today, a symbol very romantic. But there was a heart that was once told: one day a sword shall pierce you! And that heart remained patient and bore that piercing for the sake of that one "yes" that was pronounced at the beginning of the string of those events. The Mother of Sorrows is an icon that challenges us to understand the meaning of Christian living. 

As St. Paul would say, 'the reign of God is not a matter of food and drink, enjoyment and fun, a romantic feeling or a colourful happening'. It is a matter of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (cf. Rom 14:17). Righteousness, requires a hunger and thirst for it (cf Mt 5:6); Peace and Joy in the Holy Spirit consist of doing the will of the God, come what may.

Following immediately the Exaltation of the Cross, the feast of today, establishes the truth that, in living a Christian life, there are certain things clearly difficult and demanding. It requires an absolute choice to live a truly 'Christian' life to the full. Mary made that choice and stuck to it right up to the end and that is what we celebrate today... the mother who stood right there, right up to the cross, right up to the last minute of the gruesome salvific sacrifice. She has shown us what it means to be a disciple of Christ, the Lord of the Cross! 

May our Blessed Mother, strengthen our spirits, increase our endurance and deepen our faith. 

Look up to the Lord and be Loved!

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

September 14, 2022: The Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross
Numbers 21: 4b-9; John 3:13-17

We have today a beautiful remembrance, the celebration of the Christian symbol of Love: the Cross. The Cross is taken more often than not, as a symbol of suffering! Yes, it was a symbol of suffering, until the loving Lord took it into his embrace, on his shoulders and climbed on it to give his life for us... all this out of the limitless love he had for us! He changed its meaning and ever since, the cross has come to symbolise love, the unconditional, limitless and boundless love that the Lord has for us.

Hence the feast that we celebrated today gives us a fundamental lesson for living our daily life: Look Up to the Lord and Be Loved!

Look Up:
At times we are lost in the troubles that we have, in the daily struggles and everyday chores; so lost in those that we have time only to murmur, to lament and to complain. We do not have the patience and the capacity to look up! Look Up, look beyond, look upon high and you will see the horizon that will give you hope.  Hope is the key to Christian way of life.

Look to the Lord:
Let us look to the Lord; it is from the Lord that our help comes! The Psalms further insist: Look upto Him and be radiant (34:5). 'Looking Up' alone is not enough, we can be deceived or distracted or misled. Looking to the Lord is the key to Christian Problem Solving. The real solutions to our problems lie in the hands of God: it is in looking to the Lord that we will have life, life in all its fullness. 

Be Loved:
God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that we have eternal life. The Son so loved the world that he gave everything up, and showed his love in the total self-giving on the Cross. We are promised a measure of love that no human mind can comprehend, because it is eternal and limitless. Such is God's love for us, but nothing can be done if I keep myself away from it. When I claim that love, in total obedience and surrender unto the Lord, I feel loved! 

As we exalt the Cross today, as we sing praises to the One who is lifted high for our salvation, let us resolve to Look Up, to Look to Him and to Let ourselves be loved!

Comparisons or Compassion?

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 24th week in Ordinary time 

September 13, 2022: 1 Corinthians 12: 12-14, 27-31a; Luke 7: 7-11

Each of us is given special gifts from the Holy Spirit, special gifts according to the particular calling that we have. If we become aware of the call that we have received, we would also become aware of the gift that is given to us, to live up to that calling. To be prophets, or to be apostles, or to be teachers, or to be leaders, or to be interpreters... these are all different calls which are lived out by means of various tasks that we are called to carry out. But the fundamental purpose of all these, the call underlying all these calls is just one: to be holy and blameless, before God in love (Eph 1:4). And we are indeed given with all the gifts needed to live that call out in our daily life. 

The Word today, taken together, explains this all important Christian lesson: be compassionate and do not compare! Our call makes us all, children of One God our Father and Mother. The diversity of the call we have recieved does not divide us; it unites us, makes us one people, one people in one Word, one Body of Christ, one heart and one mind in the Lord who has called us. As St. Paul would instruct in the letter to the Romans, to rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep (Rom 12:15), that is the way we can realise, that we are One People! 

Comparisons lead to jealousy and infights and make us enemies, and we would lose our very identity of being God's people! While compassion makes us one, one in the Lord, one in his love. 

The Communion and the Coming of Jesus!

WORD 2day: Monday, 24th week in Ordinary time

September 12, 2022: 1 Corinthians 11: 17-26,33; Luke 7: 1-10

The Word presents to us the two inseparable dimensions of every Eucharistic celebration we undertake.  The coming of Jesus Christ the Word made flesh and the communion in the Body of Christ, the people of God.These are not only two inseparable elements, but essential too. A lack of these is symptomatic of a serious decadence in the true meaning of a Eucharistic moment.

Hence the first real challenge today is to make our Eucharistic Celebrations, truly moments of communion of hearts rather than merely rituals or ceremonies. That challenge requires a bit of homework prior to the celebration itself - the Communion has to be built in the daily life situations and be celebrated at the Eucharist. If it had not been built already, how do we celebrate and what do we celebrate at all?

The second challenge is to recognise the coming of Christ, making the words of the Lord come true. Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is a great boon given to our burdensome lives! The Lord is with us and that makes our life extremely beautiful, come what may. 

We may not be worthy but the Lord deigns to visit us. How blessed we are!

Differences, disputations and dialogue!

WORD 2day: Saturday, 23rd week in Ordinary time

September 10, 2022: 1 Corinthians 10:4-23; Luke 6: 43-49

We live in a world of pluralism today. Not just India, or countries like that, but almost every one, all over the world lives in a context and a culture of pluralism. Everyone finds one's neighbour different, different in his or her creed or convictions or value systems. In such a situation, what should be a true Christian disposition? Can it be one of disputation, debate or delirious defence? The result would range from a kind of disrespectful cynicism to a hateful dissent. Are those fruits proper to a tree that is Christian? How can anything be its fruit other than love:  for by this they will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for each other.

If so, what would be the right disposition? Compromise? Relativism? An anything-is-ok mentality? No! Never!, says St.Paul in today's first reading. Between Controversies and Compromise, there is something called Comprehension. That, and that alone, is the need of the hour today. An attitude of mature Dialogue. 

What is the use of talking so much of God as love and of Christ's teachings of a forgiving and forbearing love, if we dont begin to live it? Will we not be foolish builders, building our beach side castles? Let us form ourselves into solid bulidings of enduring love and never failing faith, that we may teach the whole world, the lifestyle of true love.

"Trained" to be Apostles

WORD 2day: Friday, 23rd week in Ordinary time

September 9, 2022: I Corinthians 9:16-19, 22b -27; Luke 6: 39-42.

The Word today insists on the need to be trained, in being an apostle. An apostle we are, each of us by virtue of our baptism. That call is not merely a privillege, it is an obligation, a duty and a demand placed on me. Considering it merely a matter to boast about leads to some unfortunate developments within the faith community, situations such as infights, ego clashes, jealousy, clericalism and unchristian 'politricks'. 

The Gospel calls these practices: blind leading the blind and both into the pit! Neither you know what it means to be a Christian, nor do you allow those who aspire to really understand what it takes to be a Christian; in living wrong values you bring judgement upon yourself and in the counter witness that you give you make people go away from the Word and Lord, rather than bringing them closer to Christ experience. Instead, taking the call seriously - the call to be a Christian, the call to be an apostle - leads one to a fuller realisation of the gift that it is and at the same time of the demands that it places. 

One of the important demands that comes up is, to be trained! Both St.Paul and Jesus, today speak of this training. It would consist of fundamentally three things: humble acceptance of the call to be an apostle; attentive listening to the Word that comes to us; and diligent practice of the Word that is heard. Falling short of these three steps would make us either arrogant bigwigs or pretentious bullies but never trained disciples. 

The need to be trained is in simple terms, growing grow gradually into the image of the Master who has chosen us, called us and sent us! 

Life and Vocation - a wonderful reminder

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

September 8, 2022: Birthday of our Blessed Mother
Micah 5:1-4a (or) Romans 8:28-30; Matthew 1:1-23

The readings prescribed for the day do not speak to us directly of Mary... but they have a truth which the birthday of our Blessed Mother teaches us very strongly. The truth is that of the choice that God has made of us! As St.Paul would say writing to the Ephesians, God chose us in Christ before the foundations of the world! 

The Birth of Mary signals in utter silence the beginning of the climax of God's plan of salvation. No one would have known when this girl was born, that she was destined to be that woman of whom the Son of God will be born in the fullness of time. Every life is a vocation - that is the wonderful reminder that we have from today's feast. In fact, that is the mystery we are. 

We enshrine within ourselves a marvellous design which we ourselves are not aware of. The design that is part of the mysetery that we are - our very life and the vocation that it enshrines within it. Mother Mary is a splendid example for us to learn from. She leaves us this strong lesson: from eternity God has chosen us for a particular purpose and each of us has to discern that purpose, to live our lives to the full.

Today as we sing a happy birthday to our Blessed Mother, will sing to the glory of the Lord for the great things God has done to her, and to us through her. Let us not lose sight of the same wonders that God continues to do for us and that God wants to do more! Let us respond just as our Blessed Mother with our readiness to surrender and our capacity to ponder in silence... on every wonder that happens around us. 

Never lose the Focus

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 23rd week in Ordinary time

September 7, 2022: 1 Corinthians 7: 25-31: Luke 6: 20-26

The first christian community in fact expected that they would see Jesus around in his second coming already in their time... they were preparing for it intensely. The moment they began to realise it was getting delayed, they began to grow lax in their life of virtues! It is in this context that Paul writes to them...about celibacy, purity and single minded dedication to the Lord. His call was: never lose focus, for everything will come to pass in no time!

The second coming may be at an appointed time which the Lord alone knows and we wait for it, with patience and focus. But, if we believe that the second coming is a moment of judgement, that moment is here and now... for our choices every moment determine the judgement that is going to be! Every time I choose something or avoid something, I am bringing upon me a judgement by myself. That is what Jesus tells us in the Gospel: I make myself blessed or unfortunate! I need to be informed, alert and categorical about my choices - they determine what I will be judged to be. The crux is that I never lose the focus, even as I am involved in my hectic activity of my everyday!