The Interior Castle

WORD 2day: Friday before Epiphany

January 5, 2024 - 1 John 3: 11-21; John 1: 43-51

Reflecting on the Word today, we can readily be reminded of the famous title written by St. Teresa of Avila: the Interior Castle. That reminds us of the fact, that our life of faith actually is a life lived at the interior castle of our beings! That is why we are required to invite people to 'come and see', as does Philip today. This is in continuation with the reflection we had yesterday, where Jesus invited the disciples to 'come and see' and challenged them to invite others! Andrew yesterday and Philip today, took up that challenge and invited others! 

We cannot share our spiritual experience with others, merely with words and proofs! Words, or even deeds, speak much less than what our personal interior lives can speak. What we are called to dare is, to invite others to come and see our life, our innermost life. When our interior life is orderly, when our conscience is at peace, when our inner sanctuary is maintained with holiness and purity, our entire life can become a testimony to others: we can without fear say, "Come and See" my interior castle! 

The interior castle is where my Lord lives. Yes, the secret about the interior castle is practically, integrity; the presence of the Lord, enshrining the Lord firmly in my innermost sactuary of life, so firmly that from that centre my life is guided, directed and oriented - nothing happens without that centre of my being, the Being at the centre of everything.

The call is that we dare to build this interior castle, little by little, furnish it with care to the extent that we can dare to invite the world around and let them see the Lord dwelling there: come and see!

They went, they saw, they stayed...

WORD 2day: Thursday before Ephiphany

January 4, 2024 - 1 John 3: 7-10; John 1: 35-42

Jesus invites us today to come and see... just as one of the favourite psalms of all times invites: 'taste and see, that the Lord is good' (Ps 34:8). Added to the element of personal experience of the Lord, that we spoke about yesterday, this invitation to come and see, refers at one and the same time, to a call and to a choice! Jesus calls us: COME; it is our choice: TO SEE. 

Jesus' call to come, is an everstanding call that is there from God, through the ages, in and through persons and events, and finally in the person of Jesus himself. The call to come is an offer of God's loving hands that we may hold on to it and keep walking our way in life. And it is here that our part becomes crucial.

To see, is a choice. To see the Lord leading us everyday, to see the Lord directing us on our way; to see the Lord acting on our behalf and to cooperate with the Lord's will in every way... that is the choice we have to make! It is a radical choice - a choice of black or white, light or night... there can be no compromise with the Lord - it's righteousness or sin; ultimately, an yes or a no to God! 

If we choose God, we choose righteousness; if we do not choose God we choose sinfulness. Of course there are moments of temptations and weaknesses, but the choice is fundamental. It defines my daily life, every word I say, every decision I take and every move I make. 

There is something special about the two disciples whom we see in the Gospel today - Andrew and his companion. Jesus invited them to come and see, they did not stop with seeing; they came, saw and they stayed; not just that, they went back and announced to the others what they have seen! 

We have come to the Lord; we have seen the marvels of the Lord; now the question is, how ready are we to STAY forever with the Lord, making of our life an announcement of the goodness of the Lord!

The Name - our identity and call

THE WORD AND THE FEAST 

January 3, 2024: The Most Holy Name of Jesus
1 John 2:29 - 3:6; John 1: 29-34

"There is no other name under heaven...by which we must be saved," says Acts of the Apostles (4:12). Names, in the Biblical tradition, are not merely nominative, they are descriptive and definitive! Abraham, Moses, were names that redefined the history of the person; Gabriel, Raphael, Michael, are names that define the very role of the angels who bear them; John was given the name even before he was conceived, just like JESUS the Saviour, Emmanuel the God-with-us! Although this feast of the Holy Name of Jesus is a long standing tradition, it has not sustained its fervour down the centuries. We need to rediscover the importance and significance of this feast in our faith expression.

The true purpose of Incarnation was not to demonstrate the grandeur and the omnipotence of God, but the closeness of God with those whom God loved. Emmanuel, is the title that explains best the love that God has for us...For God so loved the world, that God gave up everything even God's own Son; and the Son of God gave up even his Godhead and came to be one among us! The Word became flesh and dwells among us. 

The Word today, brings to us another indispensable dimension of this name - the name that is imposed on us, through the greatest name of all - the name and identity as "Christ-ians". We see that the Holy Spirit, in the form of the dove testified on behalf of Jesus that he was the Son of God. We are made the children of God and the same Spirit waits to testify for us. We would be identified as children of God if and only if we resemble God, says John in the first reading today. 

Resembling God, would mean being loving, beyond all petty differences and being generous, beyond all calculations. Resembling God would mean remaining with the Lord - in every thought, word and deed. Resembling God would mean knowing the name imposed on us and its significance, and realising our call and daring to embark on that journey, of growing every day in our resemblance to our maker. 

Encountering Christ

WORD 2day: Tuesday, before Epiphany

January 2, 2024 - 1 John 2: 22-28; John 1:19-28

The identity of Jesus, as both God  and Human, was a major issue of controversies in the early Church. The first reading we have today is an indication to such feuds that they existed. What matters finally, as John so rightly points out there, is not the philosophical and theological justification of who Jesus is; but the personal experience of the person of Christ - live in Christ, .

John the Baptist foretold the coming of Christ and pointed out when Christ really came. His prophetic gift gave him the privilege of understanding Jesus and identifying Jesus when he came. Today we would do well to pray for this grace... to identify Jesus when he comes so that the encounter may enrich our life and bring meaning to it. 

In varied ways, and specially in our neighbours, our brothers and sisters, and more specifically in those who are in dire need and helplessness, we are challenged to encounter Christ who is God, but who had deigned to assume or nature and live in the poor and the oppressed! Certainly if we cannot find in Jesus a person, a man who lived human and experienced all that he did, we cannot see the Lord in the persons who are around us. We would be missing a major half of what Christ really wanted to reveal to us. 

This week running up towards the great celebration of the revelation of God in Christ, we are invited to understand and appreciate the depth of God's revelation on a daily basis - let us remain open to the Spirit and strive to understand the real meaning of incarnation and its lessons for our daily life. Today, let us prepare ourselves to encounter Christ wherever we are.

A PROMISING 2024

God's promise: blessing, grace and peace!

January 1, 2024: New Year, Mary Mother of God, and World day of Peace

Numbers 6: 22-27; Galatians 4: 4-7; Luke 2: 16-21

We are in the midst of a triple festivity today: the birth of a brand new year 2024, the person of Mary - Mother of God and the 57th World day of Peace in the Universal Church! On this auspicious day, we have a loving promise from the Lord - again a triple promise: Blessing, Grace and Peace, as the formula in the first reading from the book of Numbers teaches us. 

BLESSING: 

The Lord promises first of all, Blessings. How do we understand blessing? The antonym is a curse, that is wishing the destruction of someone. Blessing therefore is wishing that something good happens to the other. 

The Lord's Holy Will is that we receive, and experience all that is good. Sometimes we may think that the Lord fails to send anything good our way. Blessings abound when the waiting is long. Permit me to share with you a funny forward that I enjoyed some time ago circulating on a social network: it was about a dog and an elephant which got pregnant together. In 60 days the dog delivered some ten puppies! It got pregnant again and delivered another 10 in after 60 days... then again... in fact, after half a dozen such cycles, the dog happened to meet the elephant. The elephant was still go around with the first baby in gestation (we know the elephants' gestation period is close to 600 days). The dog laughed at the elephant and asked, "did you check if you are really pregnant? I have already given birth to some sixty kids. Look at you!" The elephant with a solemn smile said, "but just imagine, when I deliver my kid, he would draw everyone's attention. When he crosses the road, everyone will stop in awe. When he stops and turns around humans would run for their life." 

The longer the wait, the greater the blessing! The Lord has great things in store for us. Let us never get impatient and frustrated. Even amidst the toughest darkness, we need to keep our eyes fixed on the Lord and wait on the Lord with faith! The Lord promises blessing and they will surely come our way! 

GRACE: 

The second promise is Grace. What greater witness than the Mother of God, Mary who was called 'full of grace'. Understanding grace is another task we have today. What is grace? -Is grace a thing? an intention answered? a healing?... At times, we give into the misunderstanding of speaking about more graces and less graces, as if we count or weigh graces on scales. 

Let us remind ourselves today, Grace is fundamentally the presence of God with us, the relationship that God establishes with us, the way that God enters our ordinary lives! That is why Mary was full of Grace: she bore the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, the Word made flesh, God made human in her womb. Mother of God, is what God made her! Theotokos - the bearer of God. In the fullness of time, God sent God's only son, born of a woman, declares St. Paul in the second reading. Why should God send God's Son? It is the way that God fulfilled God's own desire of being with the people of God, the children of God. I will be with you. I will never leave you; I will never forsake you, nor forget you, my people! Isn't that the promise that the Lord has given always?

The presence of God surrounds us, as much as we wish to have it. That presence never forces itself on us, nor does it choose to abandon us - the choice is ours. We choose it when we wish to remain with God, with the values that God proposes, with the ways that the Spirit of the Lord teaches us. That is grace, the state of grace, the grace-filled life. The Blessed Mother of God, teaches us as the bearer of God, the secret of remaining in grace, that is to bear Christ within us, to bear God all the time in our hearts and spirits. 

PEACE: 

The third promise is Peace. Celebrating as a Church the 57th World Day of Peace, Pope Francis invites us to reflect a bit on the theme - Artificial Intelligence and Peace. We are well aware that the Artificial Intelligence today is synonymous of the current progress in the scientific world, but is everyone equally sensitive about all its impact on the world today? 

The year that has just past, has been treacherous in many ways, adding to the case of world war being fought in piecemeal, all over the world, with over 50 nations involved in some form of war or weaponed activity! Along with this the reckless rapidity with which the advancement of artifical intelligence is taken forward, is alarming to humanity and to the entire universe or the cosmic home. Apart from the varied concerns it causes, namely the threat to democracies, to the autonomy and dignity of human persons, and to the ethical balance of the world, there is a need that "the rapid development of forms of artifical intelligence will not increase cases of inequality and injustice all too present in today's world, but will help put an end to wars and conflicts, and alleviate many forms of suffering that afflect our human family."

The Prince of Peace is with us - the Son of God who has come into the world, pleading us to love, embrace and grow together towards fullness of life - only peace can make that happen. And it is the Lord alone, who can give us that peace!

Blessing, Grace and Peace - that is what the Lord is promising us in 2024. Let us claim that promise for ourselves, for our families, for our communities and for the entire world.

The Lord BLESS you and keep you;
The Lord make his face shine upon you and be GRACIOUS to you;
The Lord lift his countenance upon you and give you PEACE!
Amen.

The Choice of a Christian Community

WORD 2day: Christmas Octave - December 30, 2023

1 John 2: 12-17; Luke 2: 36-40

World or things of the world as opposed to the love of the Father: by now, this kind of a contrast could be considered outdated way of thinking. Indeed, the dichotomy that is involved and implied is a bit old fashioned - there is no doubt we need to distance ourselves from such dualistic modes of thinking - spiritual and material, body and spirit, and so on! But, hold on... though the dualistic thinking seems a bit irking, the difference between the types of choices with these contrasting perspectives is real and concrete, don't you think?

Even our prayer, for example, could have within itself an impact of the two contrasting perspectives - it is all about the sense of priority or importance that we give to those around us and to the experiences of here and now, at the cost of the a filial and trust-filled love for God, our Father and Mother. It has become a spirituality, justified by its practicality to just look at the imminent and forget the horizon of eternity! 

I remember once a group of youth with whom we were preparing for a major event, when they heard of a last minute forecast for a likely thunder showers, they immediately got down on their knees to pray and say, 'Lord, please stop the rain'! Praying... it was a wonderful and exemplary gesture on their part, but a subtle point to be noted here is: how prepared are we to accept the will of God in things that we have planned; instead of asking the Lord to adjust everything to our designs?

Whoever does the will of God remains for ever, reminds St. John in his epistle today (v.17). Prophetess Anna, or even Prophet Simeon whom we encountered yesterday in the Gospel for that matter, waited for years together, in relentless patience towards the will of God. They knew what it was to abandon themselves to the will of God: a surrender so beautifully symbolised by the Divine Kid in the manger whom we celebrate these days. An absolute choice for God and for God's will without any compromises, is one of the unfailing marks of a true person of faith or a real community of faith. 

The Mark of a Christian Community

WORD 2day: Christmas Octave - December 29, 2023

1 John 2: 3-11; Luke 2: 22-35

One of the earliest marks of a Christian community, which holds good even today or especially today, is that it was a Contrast Community! They were called and commissioned to remain marks of a contrast, to stand out from the rest of the society, that they may call the entire humanity to a particular way of life: the way that is highlighted in the Word today - the way of the Light. The True Light was coming into the world - reminds us John in his Gospel prologue (Jn 1:9).   

Hatred, violence, vengeance, aggression, terrorism, manipulation and exploitation abound today in forms varied and vicious. The tendencies of anti-religiosity, the pressures of self-assertion, the obligation to challenge the established order or convention... these are some of the daily events we experience today in the world. There is constantly a question that resounds everywhere - who is right and who is wrong?

The Word today gives us a neat criterion to judge who is right and who is not: the one who loves one's brothers and sisters is in light. And whoever says he or she is in light, yet hates one's brother or sister, is still in darkness (Cf. 1 Jn 2: 8, 9); he or she is a liar! What matters is love, true love, true love of one's brothers and sisters, which does not make my self-centered desires and greed, priorities over the good of the other and the good of all.

Jesus the light can never cause hatred or division. There can be people who claim to be interpreting the Light but actually cause division, hatred and rivalry. Let them be certain, says the Word, that they are still in darkness. Let love, the light of life, guide us on as we come closer to the end of this year, that we may grow constantly to be children of the Light. 

The Obscurity of a Christian

WORD 2day: Christmas Octave - December 28, 2013

The Feast of the Holy Innocents: 1 John 1:5 - 2:2; Matthew 2: 13-18

These days we are celebrating the continued joy of Christmas, reflecting on the Christian community that testifies to this Word made flesh - we celebrated the martyr heroes who we hold in great esteem; we celebrated the great apostolic evangelisers who shine on the cloud of glory. And today we celebrate those who shine in their obscurity. It looks like a contrast in terms, isn't it? But that is the truth about the feast of the holy innocents we celebrate today. 

Those who died, the holy innocents, did not know who Jesus was, neither do we know these children we died were! All that we celebrate today is the fact that every day there are so many who are being killed, those who lay their lives down, for the sake of truth - without even knowing what they are doing. There are two important considerations that we can have today, from the perspective of our faith:

The first consideration is to recognise the Christians in obscurity - those who are standing up for the Reign, those who are voicing their hope in Truth, those who are ready to give up - be it simple things in life or be it their life itself, those who are ready to lose anything for the cause of true love of humanity. These are truly brothers and sisters of Christ, recognised by God - "all those who listen to the words of my Father and put it into practice are my mother, my brothers, my sisters". 

The second consideration is about the obscurity of a Christian - that a true Christian would live his or her Christian life in the obscurity of his or her daily life experiences. They are not always those in the limelight. Today, there is a craze for limelight; everyone wants to be trending - making statements without need, just creating ripples through the social media just for the sake of it, sometimes not worried about the repurcussions it would have on the common good. Instead, a true Christian, goes on living his or her life, in silence, in obscurity, in a daily martyrdom. 

Let us pray for all the innocents who are made to suffer for the Reign today, and in a special way let us offer the innocent children who are sacrificed at the altars of greed and inhumanity! May God have mercy!

The Joy of a Christian

WORD 2day: Christmas Octave - December 27, 2013

St. John the Evangelist: 1 John 1: 1-4; John 20: 2-8

The Christmas joy continues, even as we commemorate St. John the Evangelist today. There seems to be a wisdom and logic in celebrating St. Stephen yesterday and St. John today! Though this is certainly an unofficial reasoning, I like to hold on it for the point that it makes! Immediately after celebrating the birth of Jesus, we celebrate the birth also of the community around him - yesterday we remembered the representative of those who decide to lay their life down for the their Master, and today John, the only apostle as the tradition says, who did not die a martyr's death! But his undeterred perseverance was a martyrdom in itself - he was the only apostle who did not desert Jesus at the time of passion and he had the previllege of inheriting the mother of Jesus, in the name of the whole Church. It is indeed a great challenge to imitate - for him it was all about joy! 

Although the Gospel reading today draws our attention to the scene of resurrection, the message is about an encounter with Christ that redefines one's life. When a person encounters Christ in all one's earnestness, there is a choice, a categorical choice for Christ and Christ's mission! The joy of a Christian is seen here - John defines this for us today in three fundamental experiences - encounter, union and proclamation! 

"The Joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus," declares the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (n.1). This is what we are celebrating for the past two days - the joy of having encountered the Word made flesh.

The union that this encounter leads to, is a joyful union with the Father in the Son, with the Son in everyone who is called in his name, with each other in the joy that the Lord fills us with - a complete joy, an overflowing joy, that has to be proclamed by all means!

Just as St. Paul would affirm that it is no merit that an apostle proclaims the Word, but woe to him if he does not (1 Cor 9:16), we see John today explaining in the first reading: He seems to say, "I am called to announce Christ, not merely because others will benefit from it; but primarily that my joy may be complete (1 Jn 1:4)!

For a Christian, a joy-filled proclamation of Christ is the only way to live his or her life - joyfully proclaiming Christ in every word, every action and every choice that is made, at every moment of one's daily life.

The Birth of a Christian

WORD 2day: Christmas Octave - December 26, 2023

St. Stephen the first martyr: Acts 6: 8-10, Acts 6: 8-10, 7: 54-59; Matthew 10: 17-22

Yesterday we celebrated the birth of Christ; today we celebrate the birth of a Christian! Stephen becomes a true Christ-ian, as he follows what his Master taught and lived, in his own life and even in his death! 

One does not become a Christian automatically, one becomes a Christian, through a process of continual imitation of Christ. As Thomas A Kempis, reflects in his classic The Imitation of Christ, "whoever wishes to understand fully the words of Christ must try to pattern his whole life on that of Christ." It is not that we try to understand the words of Christ, in order that we put it into practice, but we strive to practice and we begin to understand what it really means. 

Let us do an exercise: first let us read the Gospel today - Jesus has some strong words to teach us, we might even miss to observe the full sense of it; now let us go to the first reading and read it - that becomes a practical explanation of what Jesus taught! And certainly we understand the depth of it, however painful and frightening it is. That is the beauty of a true Christian life: it becomes a commentary to the teachings of Christ. 

It is not enough to look at Jesus as a child born yesterday, sweet and mild, and celebrate around. It is important to open our eyes to the constant challenges of being Christians, more precisely, challenges of becoming Christians - we are constantly called to become Christians. That is to grow more and more into the likeness of Christ. May St. Stephen the first martyr inspire us in this project of our life.