Making God present!

WORD 2day: Monday, Fifth week in Ordinary time

February 5, 2024 - 1 Kings 8:1-7, 9-13; Mark 6: 53-56

The Ark comes to the Temple and Jesus comes to the people: there lies a beautiful link here in. Obviously, it lies in the fact that the people of God are the true temples of God! Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? , asks St. Paul (1 Cor 3:16). Specially the needy and the poor, the sick and the suffering, the lonely and the unloved... they are the temples where God resides and where the world can and should in all earnestness encounter God, face to face.

Jesus does not depise in any way the importance of the Temple when he said: a day will come when you will worship the Lord in Spirit and in Truth (Cf. Jn 4: 23,24). He invites us to look at a new perspective. Building churches and beautifying them are important, but it is much more important to build the Church, that is, the people of God. Celebrating the feasts and solemnities is important, but it is much more important to celebrate persons and ensure humanity, happiness and wholeness to every person.

What would we have gained if we spent tons of money on a well organised festivity, if we had not touched even one person who needed to be, or made happy even one grieving heart, or given joy to even one drooping spirit? Wherever Jesus went, people went and God's presence was felt; wherever the apostles went, people went and God's presence was felt (compare with Acts 5:12-15); wherever we Christ-ians go, God's presence should be felt... is it really felt?

Compassion - the quality of a person of God

WORD 2day: Saturday, Fourth week in Ordinary time

February 3, 2024 - 1 Kings 3: 4-13; Mark 6: 30-34

"An understanding heart to guide God's people", is what Solomon asks of the Lord... and that is what he was given! We see Jesus, who understood the tiredness of his apostles and counselled them to relax. We see Jesus looking at the people and understanding their need, their thirst, their yearning for life... he was filled with compassion!

Compassion, which comes from com-pati (latin), to have the same feeling as someone, is basically an understanding of the other! When someone next to me is undergoing a crisis, when someone in my vicinity is going through a suffering, when persons in front of my eyes are experiencing a situation that stifles their lives... can I really feel with them, can I really suffer with them? That would be compassion! That is the sensibility that Jesus exhibits, that is the sensibility that Christ requires of us, if we have to call ourselves Christians!

A compassionate person alone can be a person of God. When I feel depressed, when I feel oppressed, when I feel spent, when I feel exploited, when I feel angry, when I feel disappointed, only a person with compassion can feel exactly what I feel. The person becomes a person of God, when the person feels what I feel and take me to where God wants me to move on. Yes, compassion is crying with those who cry and laughing with those who laugh, but it is not drowning with those who drown and decaying with those who decay! Compassion has to be a Godly presence of suggesting the right thing at the right time!

Compassion is the quality closest to sanctity! To be Christ-ians, we cannot but be compassionate; like Solomon, let us ask the Lord, and the Lord will grant us a heart that is wise and understanding, loving and compassionate.

Tests, Results and Outcomes

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

February 2, 2024: The Presentation of the Lord
Malacchi 3:1-4; Hebrews 2: 14-18; Luke 2: 22-40

Do not bring us to the test, we pray everyday. But our life is full of tests. It is in and through these tests that the real quality of our life is brought to the fore. Mary at the temple today stands model to this brave spirit of a God-filled person: to face everything with a serenity that God alone gives!

More than the results of the tests, what matters is the manner in which we go through it. These tests are not mere situations to be overcome but are experiences to learn from. The true result is not whether you succeed or not; but that you come out of it better, refined, polished, purified, and made more whole. St. Joseph after every crisis that he faces, comes out more flexible at the hands of God. Another example of serenity!

The marks of having grown out of these tests should be seen in my capacity to offer myself into God's hands more every time. Truly speaking, however, the actual effect of these tests could either make me stronger or break my spirit... and obviously, the mark of a God-filled person is to come out of it ever more stronger in one's will to surrender to the Lord. That child presented today at the temple, will grow up to be the best ever example of someone who grew out of every test and remained faithful to his consecration!

Here is the special reason the Church wishes to commemorate this day as the world day of consecrated life... not just for the consecrated men and women of the world, but for each and every member of the people of God, let us pray that we shall grow evermore capable of living our lives with serenity that comes from an absolute surrender to God!

Our part towards the Reign!

WORD 2day: Thursday, Fourth week in Ordinary time

February 1, 2024 - 1 Kings 2:1-4, 10-12; Mark 6:7-13

David gives instruction to young Solomon as he is about to take over the Kingdom. Jesus gives instruction to his apostles as they are about to set out for a mission! The common element is the instruction and there is a common thread that runs through the two sets of instructions too. 

For that matter the whole of the Word of God, and Jesus as the Word of God made flesh, always has this ready message to give us: Seek first the Reign of God, and all other things will be given unto you (Mat 6:33). The apostles, the first christian communities, the early missionaries... every one of them was filled with this same zeal. Health. wealth, pleasure, not even life mattered more than the Reign of God for them! 

Solomon would later fall from the glory of his father, precisely because he would lose sight of the Reign that God wanted to establish. When we lose sight of the Reign, even the most beautiful things we do in the name of God, will become things done for our own glory and our own petty kingdoms. The more we grow conscious of our call to live for the Reign, the more our work and our efforts would make sense. 

Our call is to renew our commitment towards the Reign - the Reign of justice, love, peace, brotherhood and sisterhood... in short SHALOM, Wholeness, God's presence! Let us make present these in our little way everyday, that would be our part towards the Reign for today!

The Lord in the Ordinariness of life

THE WORD AND THE SAINT 

January 31, 2024 - Remembering St. John Bosco
2 Samuel 24: 2,8-17; Mark 6: 1-6

Today we celebrate St. John Bosco, the father and friend of youth - as the Church calls him. There are special readings chosen for the feast (memoria of the Saint), but not all would be choosing those readings. Hence, we shall continue to reflect on the reading of the 4th Ordinary week... however, the Saint has an inspiration to give even here. 

The Word comes to remind us that, falling into sin and giving into our imperfections are common human experiences. Comparatively more problematic experience is when we have fallen and we do not want to get out of it. Still worse is when we do no even realise we have fallen - in which case, there is no question of getting out of it at all. 

David was a chosen one of God. He was blessed with experiences and graces that no one else had been blessed with... but he too falls, and he falls repeatedly! But let us wait - nothing to judge him "evil" here... it is a ordinary human experience, to fall, even to repeatedly fall. The merit that we can attribute to David is the fact that when things go wrong and miseries come his way, he readily realises his folly. When he falls he knows that he has fallen and he accepts that he has fallen! All the while he also realises, the ever present grace of God which instructs him and guides him.

The Lord's grace is ever present with us - but it is possible that we do not realise it or we refuse to behold it in our obstinacy. The ordinariness of Jesus was an obstacle for the people to accept the great things that he was upto. They were not ready to notice or behold anything divine in Jesus, because they knew him too well! They were so fixated in their ideas that the ordinariness in which God's glory was set to shine, did not appeal to them.

St. John Bosco has handed down a legacy to his sons and daughters, the great big Salesian family that he had initiated as a movement - the Salesian Spirituality, which hinges upon a spirituality of ordinariness. It requires that we find God in the ordinariness of our daily life and experience. It is important that we learn to behold the Lord's graceful presence, in the ordinariness of our lives lest we miss it all, as it happened to those people who missed Jesus the Christ altogether. 

Let us resolve to be ready and eager to behold the presence of the Lord in the ordinariness of our days.

It does not matter to appear strange!

WORD 2day: Tuesday, Fourth week in Ordinary time

January 30, 2024 - 2 Samuel 18: 9-10,14,24-25,30-19:3; Mark 5: 21-43

Sometimes we might appear 'strange'. David does, in today's first reading! To those with David, it seemed well deserved that Absalom met with such an end for all that he had done to David; but for David, it was unbearable; he cries inconsolably. He appears strange for the people who wanted to celebrate the victory. 

Jesus looks strange, when he asks who is that who touched him, when there was a whole multitude that was crushing him! He appears strange when he tells those people at Jairus' house, 'the child is sleeping.' In fact, the disciple expressed their surprise and the people ridiculed him. Jesus looked so strange. 

There is an element here that those around did not see, which made it natural for Jesus (and David) but, for the people it was strange. The element is, the capacity to see everything from the eyes of God and feel everything from the perspective of God! 

When David looked at it from the perspective of God, it was his loving child who was dead! When Jesus felt the touch from the perspective of God, it was a touch of intense prayer and when He saw the child on the death bed, it was God's glory yet to be revealed. 

When we look at our own successes, failures, difficulties, trials, temptations and struggles from the eyes of God - they will have completely different meanings - 'strange' for others, 'miracles' for ourselves! Begin to live your life from the perspective of God, it does not matter if you appear strange!

Presentism or Reign-mindset?

WORD 2day: Monday, Fourth week in Tempo ordinario

January 29, 2024 - 2 Samuel 15: 13-14,30, 16:5-13; Mark 5: 1-20

We come across two lifestyles in the Word today. First is represented in the Gospel, where the whole quarters of the people is terrified with the presence of the possessed man - a constant and continuous threat to security and peace. And Jesus arrives there curing the man and clearing their difficulty for the rest of their days. But what happens in the process is a herd of swine is lost, over two thousand we are told. And what is the response of the people who truly should have been profusely grateful to Jesus? They ask him to leave their locality, for fear that they could lose more! This is a lifestyle, which says, when it comes to losing what I feel attached to, even if it is the Lord, I don't want to have anything to do with it. My attachments and priorities are too sacred to lose! There is a very strong 'here and now' here, a dangerous presentism, that takes the true meaning out of our life. 

There is another lifestyle reported - David, who is facing a coup d'etat. While he is fleeing the scene with such heavy heart, he is accosted by a man from the clan of King Saul, cursing him bitterly. Those who are with David, threaten the man to silence. But how does David respond? It is here we see the lifestyle portrayed: he says, if it were God's prompting that this man cursed me, who am I to resent it. What a lesson: even if it is a curse, a difficulty, a trouble, a hurdle, if it is within the design of God, I have nothing to refrain from, I have nothing to fear! For God knows the plans that God has for me, for my fullness of life! That is true Reign-mindset, that prioritises God and thinks in terms of eternity. 

What a contrast we have in these two mindsets! One to say, if I can avoid pain and trouble, I dont mind giving up even God; the other to say, even if it is the worst of circumstances, if it is within the plan of God, I do not fear anything for God is with me! Which of these mindsets do we wish to grow in? That is our choice!

To submit to the Lord

WORD 2day: Saturday, Third week in Ordinary time

January 27, 2024 - 2 Samuel 12: 1-7, 10-17; Mark 4: 35-41

The first reading today brings out the best element of David for our consideration. David was favoured in the eyes of God, not for his valour or for his victories, nor for his eloquence or for his talents. The outstanding quality of David, that makes him an example to all of us, is his humility and his capacity to listen to the Lord.

Humility is the ability to see the truth. And the capacity to listen to the Lord is the easiest way to observe the truth; the truth that is ever present right in front of our eyes. Even while Nathan was speaking, David did not realise the truth; but when the prophet said to David, "You are the man!", David realised his folly, that he has deluded himself from seeing the Lord who was right there with him all the while, even when David indulged in all the evil that he did. In his humility, he submits himself instantly to the mercy of the Lord.

Weak as we are and tempted as we are, our capacity to listen to the Word of the Lord and our humility to submit ourselves to the mercies of the Lord, are those which can really make us persons of faith. The storm and the sea, the heavens and the creatures therein, everything obeys the Lord, and why should we hesitate to submit to the Lord?

In faith, we shall ask the Lord, and the Lord shall give us a pure heart and a steadfast spirit, humble and honest, to submit to the Lord!

The seed and its fruits

THE WORD AND THE SAINTS

January 26, 2024: Remembering Sts. Timothy and Titus

2 Timothy 1: 1-8; Mark 4: 26-34

Timothy and Titus are two models we are presented with today. They were both finds of the Apostle Paul on his journeys. Inspiring the listeners to make a life choice is a special gift that some are given with. St. Paul possessed this and he used it well for the Reign of God. Timothy and Titus join the great band of apostles that Jesus initiated.

How beautifully Paul speaks of faith in the first reading of today (we have chosen the one from the letter to Timothy)... as something that is gifted, something that has to be nurtured and something that has to be celebrated and handed over!

Faith is a gift from God, as life and growth are. Just like the sower sows and waits for the grains to sprout, so do we sow all the goodness that we can and wait for the life and growth that God alone gives. We cannot be impatient and agitated to see their fruits, fruits will appear in God's own time, for it is the Lord who is at work!

Our faith has been sown in the ground of our hearts, it has to grow into the Reign of God on earth. Our responsibility is to nurture the seed (the faith) and await the fruit (Reign). It is not within our capacity to establish the Reign where we are, but it is within our capacity to live our faith to the full, because we are given a Spirit of power, love and self control! When we live our faith to the full, the Reign shall sprout!

Conversion: an absolute choice for God

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

January 25, 2024: The Conversion of St. Paul
Acts 22: 3-16; Mark 16: 15-18

The feast of Conversion of St. Paul invites us to reflect on our own conversion. Unfortunately, in today's context, the word 'conversion' has more political connotation than spiritual! 

In fact, today is a beautiful occasion for us to remind ourselves that conversion is not about numbers and increasing the fold. It is a personal decision to go towards God, an about-turn (as the Greek word 'metanoia' suggests); it is an absolute choice for God! Choice for God... because we begin to see the role that God has played in our life and choose to actively acknowledge it; absolute... because nothing else matters as much as God and God's will do! 

We are called to conversion... may not be as dramatic as that of St. Paul's, as we read in the first reading today, but more demanding! Yes, we are called to daily conversion. To be aware, each day and each moment, of those things that take us away from our progress towards God. Nothing - no demonic powers, no distracting languages, no cunning serpents, no poisoning lifestyle - should lead us away from God... we are called to make an absolute choice every day, for God and for God's Word. Not merely in words but by my very life, I am obliged to proclaim God's message. "Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel," reminds me St.Paul (1 Cor 9:16). 

Notice the very first question that Paul asks the Lord after he recognises it was the Lord: What am I to do Lord? That is a relevant question for each of us to ask every day: What am I to do Lord, to turn to you and to make an absolute choice for you!