PEOPLE OF RESURRECTION - LISTENERS OF THE VOICE

Saturday of the Easter week

April 6, 2024 - Acts 4: 13-21; Mark 16: 9-15

We are almost ending this Easter week which continues to give the characteristics of the Easter People - today we have a typical trait: people who listen and obey the voice of God. My own know my voice and they listen to me; those who listen to my father and do what he wants are my mother, my brothers and my sisters - these were clear teachings of Christ. Understanding well what Jesus meant by these words, St. James in simple terms put it: we shall be deceiving ourselves if we only listen to the Word and do not live by it. 

There is a symbiotic relation between the people of Resurrection and the listening to the voice of the Lord. The Apostles realised that only after the Resurrection experience - they would not have said what we hear them say in the first reading today, before the event of Christ's resurrection. We cannot ignore what God tells us for the sake of what you tell us, they declare with courage that they cannot just stop speaking of what they have seen about the Lord and heard from the Lord.  

Here we see three levels of listening to the Voice of the Lord - first is the level of hearing: to read the Scriptures, to listen to teachings and preachings etc.; second is the level of understanding: to not stop with reading and listening but to meditate and reflect and to contemplate the Word through various means; third is the level of living: to put into practice what one has heard, listened to and meditated upon, creating a change from within and in the context around. This is evangelisation in its essence. Go out to the whold world and proclaim the good news says the Lord - if that is what the Lord has told us, can we remain without doing it?

What is important is to discern how we shall do it, how we shall become true listeners of the Voice, how we can become people who listen, understand and live the Word, spreading it thus wherever we are and where we are sent to be people of Resurrection.  

PEOPLE OF RESURRECTION - SPIRITUAL COURAGE

Friday of the Easter week

April 5, 2024 - Acts 4: 1-12; John 21: 1-14

The Word these days is continuously speaking to us about the characteristics of the people of Resurrection - today we have an undeniable trait to reflect on: Courage. It should not be understood merely as a human valour or a daring spirit. This has to be concevied a bit more profoundly than that - as Spiritual Courage, that we see evidenced in the readings today. 

We come across the disciples, who stand up and speak up, for their mission as announcers, proclaimers of the message left behind by their master and only Saviour, Jesus Christ. They were not always so, we know that very well. They were transformed after the Resurrection and specially after the coming of the Holy Spirit. That is why we can call this Spiritual Courage, not in the sense of contrasting it with a material courage, but to indicate the origin, that this courage came from the Spirit. 

Symbolically, we could find a representaton of the levels of this courage in the Gospel: the first level which can be seen in the act of throwing the net out to starboard even though they did not know who it was that was directing them to do it; the second level is knowing who it is, the fact of knowing the Lord - "it is the Lord" said the beloved disciple; the third level is that which establishes that it is not enough to know, one has to throw oneself into faith, in total enchantment for the Lord, as Peter did - throwing himself and going towards the Lord. 

That  can happen only from the courage that the Spirit gives a spiritual, a Spiritual courage that consists of listening to the Lord even in the most diffilcult of times, of recognising the Lord close and standing in the midst of our lives, and of choosing to reach out and respond to the call of the Risen, thus becoming ourselves the most intimate proclamation of the Lord. 

PEOPLE OF RESURRECTION - PROCLAMATION

Thursday of the Easter week

April 4, 2024 : Acts 3: 11-26; Luke 24: 35-48

The Word today continues from where it left us yesterday: to think of our identity as people of Resurrection as people who give, who give above all the Lord to the world. This is the identity that is deepened today with the Word - to be the Proclamation. 

Proclamation can be announcing, sharing and becoming what we have to give to the other! It is announcing in as much as we let others know what we possess - the Lord. It becomes sharing when we get closer to persons and share our experience with the Lord that it becomes their experience too. At a deeper level, we become what we possess, that is we become more and more like the Lord whom we wish to proclaim, thus becoming a proclamation ourselves. This is the progressive identity of the People of Resurrection. However, there are some inevitable requirements, if these roles need to be fulfilled. 

First, we cannot announce if we do not know! To know the Lord, to recognise the Lord and to acknowledge the Lord in one's life is the primary requirement for an efficient proclamation of the Lord. The Emmaus disciples are equipped with that recognition to go back and announce!

Secondly, we cannot share, if we do not have! To share the experience of the Lord, one needs to have had that experience. One cannot fake that experience, it will be seen through and it would be a total farce. Real experiences are not described, they are shared. That is why, the experience with the Lord cannot be spoken about, but it has to be shared, that the other begins to as well feel the same experience. The disciples after the Resurrection, possessed the Lord that everytime they shared their experience, people were struck by it... they shared the experience that was being shared - that is true proclamation. 

Thirdly, the proclamation is not complete until we become what we proclaim. Jesus invites his disciples to that... to become his witnesses, not in words and not even in works, but in their lives. He wishes them to become witnesses of the Reign, that can spread the goodnews of God's salvation to the ends of the earth. 

PEOPLE OF RESURRECTION - GIVING

Wednesday of the Easter Week

April 3, 2024 - Acts 3: 1-10; Luke 24: 13-25

A sign of the people of Resurrection, pointed out by the Word today: Giving. They shall be "giving" people! They give because they have been given; they give because they believe in a God who gives, gives without measure or conditions. Giving is an essential quality of God. God, we know, has always been giving - the whole creation, the gift of our life and everything is a gift from God, right up the only Son of God given up for our salvation. That is why the people of God are identified by their capacity to give! Here we can reflect on this "giving" at three levels:

Firstly, the readiness to give. The act of giving has to be necessarily preceded by the readiness to give. If not, it is obviously a forced giving and it shall bear none of its merits. The people of God are distinguished more by their readiness to give, than by what they give. 

Secondly, the choice of what to give. One significant question that emerges when we think about the readiness to give is, whether the person who is ready to give would have anything to give. Not all who are ready to give, have something to give and on the contrary, not everyone who has something to give, has the readiness to give. Therefore the question is, if the people of the Resurrection are those who give, what do they give - not so much from what they have as from what they are. Self-giving is the characteristic giving of the people of Resurrection - if we have died with him, we shall rise with him too. They are people who are ready to give as the Lord gave, that is, of oneself. And that way, they rise, they are born to new life, in giving of oneself. They recognised the Lord, the Gospel says today, in the breaking of the bread, which was an essential symbol of Christ's self-giving. They immediately recognised it. 

Thirdly, the highest form of giving that the people of Resurrection can practice, is giving the Risen Lord to the other, to the others, to the world. Gold and silver, is not what they are actually called to give, but Christ and the power of Christ. What we have we give, said the apostles at the Beautiful Gate: this is a key to undersand. We can give only what we have - it is an obvious lesson. So, if we are called to give Christ, then we would require to possess Christ; that is, we need to be constantly in touch with the Risen Lord, in order to have the Lord within us and only if we have the Lord, we can give the Lord. People of Resurrection, give, they give of themselves, they give the Risen Lord to the world around. 

PEOPLE OF RESURRECTION - RECOGNISING AND REALISING

The Tuesday of the Easter Week

April 2, 2024: Acts 2: 36-41; John 20: 11-18

Among the indications of the People of Resurrection, today we have the characteristic trait of recognising the Lord and realising His presence! "I have seen the Lord and he has spoken to me," affirms Mary of Magdala today, in terms so clear and sound. But it took time and effort for her to arrive at that statement, because it was not a statement from history books or from memorised formulae; it was an experience of recognition of the Risen Lord and a realisation of the Lord's presence. 

We see those phases of her recognition of the Lord - when her preoccupation of what "she wanted to do" was so high she was not even clear as to whom she was speaking to: she was all lost in searching for the Lord who was not there according to her; when her accusation, complaint and anger of the other about what they had done to them was so high, she was taking every one around her for someone who had wronged her: even the Lord looked like a stranger and a threat; finally when she listened to the Lord, her eyes were opened to recognise finally the Lord whom she had been seeing all this while - Rabbuni, she exclaimed! She recognised and realised that the Lord has all the time been with her.

The same is expressed by the people in the first reading. They were all the time given the grace of beholding what the Lord was and what the Lord wanted to reveal to them. But their eyes, their hearts and their lives were so filled with what they were occupied with, that they never managed to listen to what they were hearing. Finally, after all that took place with Jesus and then with the disciples, they open their ears and their minds, they listen and they Recognise the Word coming over to them. 

This Recognition is not just a matter of fact or a passing event... it leads to a realisation, a realisation that leads in turn to transformation. People of Resurrection, just as the women, the disciples and the apostles were, are people who recognise and realise, recognise the presence of the Lord and realise what the Lord is doing for them!   

PEOPLE OF RESURRECTION - WITNESSES

The Monday of the Easter Week

April 1, 2024: Acts 2:14, 22-33; Matthew 28: 8-15

The Word in this week of Easter celebration - yes, it is a week-long celebration - shall speak to us of some of the characteristic traits of the Easter people, or the people of Resurrection. Today we are invited to reflect on the quality or the call to be witnesses!

Go and tell my brothers - that is the commission given. First of all, the commission itself is crucial. That we need to Go and we need to Tell. Go and Tell - this is the crux of the Christian mission. It is clear that we are called to go to the ends of the earth, which begins with where we are! Secondly, there is a detail to be noted here. Those who were given this commission to go and tell, were not the so-called "apostles" but the women! They were not even known as 'disciples', though they were actually that. But the message is - you don't need a special title as a disciple or an apostle to feel the mandate of "go and tell". That commission is given to every one who encounters Christ, the Risen Christ. 

Therefore, the two fold point of reflection that is given to us is - whether we are open to an encounter with the Risen Christ; and whether we are ready to accept the commission that encounter would give to go and tell, to be witnesses of this experiences. 

The apostles become an example of this after the pentecost experience. We see the words of Peter today from the Acts, who declares with clarity: "all of us are witnesses to that", to the Christ-event, to the difference that Jesus Christ has made to the whole of humanity. 

The people of Resurrection are primarily witnesses, those who stand and speak, who share their experiences with courage and conviction. Let us fine tune our capacity to witness!

ALLELUIA! HE IS RISEN!

THE GOOD FRIDAY

 

THE MAUNDY THURSDAY

 

THE BETRAYAL WEDNESDAY

THE WORD IN THE HOLY WEEK

March 27, 2024: Isaiah 50: 4-9; Matthew 26:14-25

The disciple's tongue to speak and the disciple's ear to listen - that is what the Lord has given us; but whether we use the faculty or not, depends so much on our choice! Jesus had given all the needed warning – a long time warning about having right priorities and a proximate warning about cruciality of personal choices to make. But nothing deterred Judas from following the way of ruin. This Wednesday reminds us of the unfortunate choice that Judas had made – that is why it could be termed the Betrayal Wednesday… when that definitive negotiation and choice was made for the evil! He has begun looking for the opportunity to hand Jesus over to Jews!

Betrayal is not failure – it would not have been a betrayal, if Judas had tried and failed. Trying and failing is a disciple’s way – he or she will however realise and restart, because the priorities have not been lost, but only forgotten for a little unfortunate while. The disciple’s ear is attentive, at least at a second moment he or she will pick the right: the disciple would soon feel: did we not feel our hearts burning when we listened to Him?

Betrayal is not weakness – it would not have been judged his fate, if what Judas did was his weakness. Peter’s act was a weakness; the apostles’ desertion was a weakness; but it did not come against their identity as disciples – they came back with vigour to announce the Lord they loved – the disciple’s tongue is the expression of one’s love for the Master. It is making it clear – making a choice, an absolute choice for the Lord.

Betrayal is a choice – a choice, a deliberate choice to go into the dark night, to let the evil rule, to go with something that you think will lead you to your goals while you are actually losing your original call and the love with which you responded to that call. The strong reminder given to us today is that discipleship is all about our priorities and our personal choices!