LENT 2025: A Return to Hope

THE WORD IN LENT

March 03, 2025 - Ash Wednesday

Joel 2: 12-18; 2 Corinthians 5:20 - 6:2; Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-18

We begin the most precious of the liturgical seasons today - the season of Lent. 

My way of interpreting LENT is - Living Enthusiastically the Need to Transformation. First and foremost this transformation is certainly not an one-time event, but a life long process. A season like that of Lent, is a loud reminder of the original journey and the need to get back to the right itinerary, cost what it may. Today, beginning this season for this year, we are left with three key words to dwell on: Return, Hope and Journey!

Return - that is the overwhelming call, not only of the Word today but of the entire season that we begin today. Return, is not just a new turn, but a re-turn... a coming back to the origins, a resuming of the original state. That is why, the return is actually a reinstatement - where we give God the rightful place, give the other the rightful place and give ourselves the rightful place, in our daily lives. 

Hope - that is the key for this year, the Jubilee of Hope. Hope is the crux of the experience of Resurrection. If that is what we are preparing ourselves towards, in and through all that we are involved in this season, then we need to dwell on it, everyday all through this season. We are called to find the source of this hope, for ourselves, for all those who are around and especially for those who have lost it or are on the verge of losing it. 

Journey - that is the leitmotif of the Jubilee... as pilgrims, we are all on a journey. Reflecting on the symbol of Hope, the anchor, comes to us as a powerful symbol. Thinking of it  we cannot but think of the vessel that it is meant to hold firm, nor can we miss thinking about a voyage, a journey and on this journey, we are not alone - there are so many "other"s and above all there is the One who calls us to this life! 

Let us begin this journey, a return to hope, a hope that the Risen Lord alone can give. Let us fix our gaze on him, as we embark upon a journey of return to the Lord, return to the core of our beings, return to the nature with which we were created, a return to Hope! .  

Rewards of the Just Judge

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 8th week in Ordinary time

March 04, 2025 - Sirach 35:2-15; Mark 10: 28-31

That the Lord is just, is not always a convenient fact for us. At times even the best of things that we do, may not really be deigned as good owing to the intention that is behind its doing. We may act kind to someone, expecting something in return. We may try to please someone because we wish to obtain a favour from the person. We may close an eye to a fault of someone merely because we like the person and make a mountain out of molehill just because we may not like the person. 

All these, are not factors that are known to an apparent eye; but the Lord knows them all. The Lord knows us through and through. Considering that the Lord is judge, the rewards may not be always what we like or enjoy, but the rewards will always be a means of enhancing the goodness in a child. 

In simple words, what we do is important; but why we do what we do and what we want to achieve through what we do... these matter a lot more. I am not what I do, but I am what I think, as and when I do whatever I do!

Come, Come back, Come home...

WORD 2day: Monday, 8th week in Ordinary time

March 3, 2025 - Sirach 17: 20-28; Mark 10:17-27

The messages have begun inviting us back home. Soon there will be lent and this message will be all the more stronger. In the first reading we see atleast thrice a term referring to return, repeating itself. And then there is the call the find ou way home to the Lord. 

Apart from the invitation to return from the first reading, we see the invitation to follow from the Gospel. In fact the invitation is the same... to get back home to the Father, Jesus is the way back. 

The invitation of the Word today, points to the fact that all of us need a home that is permanent; that we belong to a home that is permanent where we are ourselves and not waiting to be invited. Let's heed the invitation of the master and turn back home as early as possible. And the way is, to follow the Lord.

The Reign is our home and let us beware not to distance ourselves from it too long. The love for our home should pull us back from wherever we find ourselves. Come, Come back, Come home invites the Lord - with the right perspectives and right actions, let us get back home, following our loving Lord.

FRUITS

Fake, Faulty or Fullness...

8th Sunday in Ordinary time: February 2, 2025

Ecclesiasticus 27: 5-8; 1 Corinthians 15:54-58; Luke 6: 39-45

Fruits - it is by fruits that a tree is known! What we are, is judged by our fruits but beware what you put out as your fruits! 

Today when we look around people are looking for fruits, and persons look to prove themselves to others showing off their fruits. Not just the advertisements or the publicities that are made, which are almost totally fake, but there are other modes in which even individuals and groups wish to show themselves off to others, as something that they are not, to gain, or to be popular or to have their way! Facebook, Instagram and Twitter handles are filled with photoshopped facts and filtered snaps, all to impress others and make oneself desired at all costs. The same happens in life too: we show ourselves to others the way we wish to, we manifest our fruits; the question is, are these but true fruits?

Fake Fruits: the culture of death

Living our life merely as living up   to the expectations of the others, the demands of the society, the requirements of the trends and identifying oneself to this way of life is, putting out fake fruits: they can give meaning neither to me nor to anyone else! In our spiritual life too, we create appearances, we put up shows for the sake of those who are around and rejoice in being appreciated for what we are not, in being praised for what we do not deserve, in being identified as someone or something that we are not. This is a culture of death - where what is not is so much hyped and appreciated and what is true is made insignificant and uncared for. We are so caught up with the unreal that the real does not matter at all. We are happy with just appearances and fantasies. Our Christian life can never be this!

Faulty Fruits: the blind life

Living our life, all the time concerned about our external image and the opinion of others, we might forget to live it from the core of our beings. We may make so much effort merely to prove ourselves to others that we may lose sight of the real life that is being wasted in the meanwhile. We become so blind to truth! Being blind we can never be guides to others, but we keep shouting to the others to follow us, we keep drawing attention of the others as if we are the models to be proposed to the world, models of so-called 'success', 'achievement' and 'excellence'. We are so blind to the fact that we are not living our lives, we are so blind to the fact that even others see through and notice quite soon the emptiness that is there within us! By the time, we realise that emptiness ourselves, it seems too late and too far beyond redemption. We give up! Do not give in, or do not give up, instructs the Word today... live on, live deep and move to the next level.

Fullness: the fruit of life

Living our life to the full is the natural fruit we are called to bear: bearing fruit is never a goal, it is just an outcome. The goal is, living our life to the full. The fruit follows. The more we concentrate on the end of showing out fruits to the others, the more meaningless and hollow our life becomes. The focus has to be on living our life to the full, living it in our depth, living it at the core, living it with integrity - that every thing we think, everything that we say and everything that we do, has a congruence about it. It is in this fullness that we shall be able to notice the log that lies in our eyes and clear it so that we can help the other to remove he splinter in his or her's. Life has to be embraced in its ups and its downs, in success and in challenges, in its glory and its grief... with hope and that is the sign of being a people of resurrection! This is being people of victory, people of the Risen Lord, appreciating and celebrating life, life in all its abundance. 

Bearing Fruit is the sign of being united in the Lord, but the quality of the fruit matters the most - not fake fruits that are actually not there at all, not faulty fruits that last just a while leaving behind a unfathomable void, but fullness where fruits abound, inspiring many more to give thanks and glory to God! Yes, let us pray hard and live to the full that we may bear fruit - but nevertheless, let us beware of what kind of a fruit we put out.

 

Power to the Children

WORD 2day: Saturday, 7th week in Ordinary time

March 1, 2025 - Sirach 17:1-13; Mark 10:13-16

The first reading brings out the majesty of being a human person. That glory and splendour arises from the fact that we have been given the very image and likeness of God. 

At times we create complexes within us or among us that we are fair or dark, or tall or short, or beautiful or handsome or ugly... all these do not matter at all because fundamentally we are made in the image of God, the image that resides deep within us. 

There can be no preferential treatment or despise on the basis of gender or colour or the social roots... that would be an utter foolishness and totally ungodly! Because the fundamental element, the kernel, the core of our being is the same - the image of God. 

The children do not have any trouble in understanding it. That is why the Lord declares today the power of the Reign is given to the Children. Without becoming a child (of God) I cannot inherit it - that's the Father's style: the Power to the Children.

Relationships - the heart of Christian faith

WORD 2day: Friday, 7th week in Ordinary time

February 28, 2025 - Sirach 6:5-17; Mark 10:1-12

It is not rules, regulations and rituals that are at the center of Christian life and practice, but persons, community and relationships. Genuine and sincere relationships at all levels is the true sign of Christian faith. 

Relationships are a mark that proves that a person is mature - because the person is able to think beyond oneself, is capable of looking beyond one's own likes and dislikes, or needs and wants, and is able to accommodate the other into one's own world. This is the psycho-social truth of human reality. This is equally true on a spiritual plane and much more so from a Christian perspective. We know how Jesus cyrstalised all law and prophets in one simple command - the command to love. 

The Word today invites us to reflect on two long standing relationships in any person's life: Friendship and Marriage! In both these what is expected of a person is faithfulness, to be sincere, genuine, authentic and integral. A faithful friend is a sure shelter and beyond price; whoever has found one has found a rare treasure! Instead of beginning to search you friendlist for the one who is such to you, begin thinking: to whom are you such a treasure! It is high time today, specially for the younger generation, to leave the portals of the virtual friendship and enter into true, life changing, long standing, meaning giving relationships.

Another insight this reflection can leave us with is the fact that these two above mentioned relationships (friendship and marriage) have been used as metaphors for our relationship with God - that is a crucial call too, to care about and focus on developing a personal relationship on a daily basis with the person of Christ, the image of the invisible God. 

Justice of the Lord

WORD 2day: Thursday, 7th week in Ordinary time

February 27, 2025 - Sirach 5:1-10; Mark 9: 41-50

The Word today is quite hard and as soon as we hear it we feel like saying, this is an old teaching, too rigorous and too bleak in hope. But as the wisdom of Sirach warns us, it can turn into an excuse for not changing oneself. We could have, in the name of modernity and culture, over the centuries lost some fundamental sense of faithfulness to the One, the Truth and the Goodness. 

The Lord knows the ďeepest of our thoughts and the most secret of our intentions. It is not possible to fake allegiance to the Lord as people do to each other. The Lord cannot be one of the options, that when all is done we have resort to the Lord. We say we trust in the Lord, but when? Maybe, when everything else is out of question and we have exploited all our so-called resources... without realising right from the beginning that all the resources we have, are from the hands of the Lord! 

However, the Lord is not only all knowing and compassionate, the Lord is also just and righteous. We would be at fault to think that we can appease the Lord with some legalities, some rituals and some compensations that are peripheral... nothing short of a true intention and a sincere dedication in our efforts to become acceptable in the eyes of the Lord, can make us God's own people!

Let us not only count on the mercies of the Lord, but also strive to live by the justice of the Lord.

Exaggerated Loyalty or Easy Lethargy?

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 7th week in Ordinary time

February 26, 2025 - Ecclesiasticus 4: 12-22; Mark 9: 39-42

We have an identity as people belonging to the Lord and there is a rightful sense of feeling proud about it, which is expressed in our gratitude to God who has called us and made us God's own. But the danger is that sometimes we might take this sense or identity to two extremes, both of which are equally bad.

The first extreme is an exaggerated loyalty, that thinks as if we have the monopoly of God, and all that belongs to God - like truth, authority, judgement, righteousness etc.! We tend to dictate terms to the 'others' and feel a kind of superiority that is absolutely in no way Christ-ian. Today we see one such incident in the Gospel, where the apostles claim a patented right for doing good; Jesus talks them out of it.

The second extreme which is seen in the life of many so-called 'nominal' christians of today: where they live a life of abject lethargy, not conscious of their identity, not owning up the responsibility that comes with it and not really living up to the standards set while accepting that identity! There is no concrete sign that many of us are truly Christ-ians.

The solution to this lies in the relationship we have with Wisdom, the Counsel of the Lord, the Holy Spirit who sets our hearts to abide by the right balance. Neither exaggerated loyalty nor easy lethargy, but a humble and loving recognition of our identity and a faithful and committed living out, of the same.

Growing up... to be a true child!

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 7th week in Ordinary time

February 25, 2025 - Sirach 2:1-11; Mark 9: 30-37

'Grow Up!' people say, when they are upset with some people's attitudes found wanting, when people behave 'childish' and immature, as it is said. Grow up, yes... but, grow up to what? The Word today invites us, to grow up to be children. That may sound a bit contradictory, or at least confusing to say - to grow to be children.  

Cling on, trust, hold on, wait on the Lord... in short, this is what we mean by learning to be true children, true children of God. It is a quality to grow in, to become children of God, true children of God, persons with a relationship like a child with its parent.

Who can wait on the mercies of the elders but a child, for when we consider ourselves grown up we crave to be independent. Who can cling on to someone else and keep trusting in their goodness, hoping that they will be led in the right path, but a child! Who but a child can look up to others and understand that he or she is the least of all who are around and helpless of the lot?

Jesus invites us - grow up to be a child... let go of your ego, learn to depend on the goodness of the Lord, allow God to take hold of your hands and you will find the true peace, the peace of a child. Grow up constantly, to be a true child!

Faith and Wisdom - gifts from God

WORD 2day: Monday, 7th week in Ordinary time

February 24, 2025 - Ecclesiastes 1:1-10; Mark 9: 14-29

Knowledge can be obtained by effort and hardwork, but wisdom comes from the Lord. We may read, listen, think and increase our knowledge, but putting various pieces of knowledge together to arrive at a decision is wisdom and that cannot be acquired by purely hardwork or merely human effort. 

It is a gift from the Lord, because Wisdom as the first reading tells us today, belongs to God and whom God deigns to grant it, and the measure God wills to grant it. Wisdom is basically the capacity for discernment   and we know well how much it is the gift of the Holy Spirit. 

Belief is born from what we learn and what we understand, while Faith is not merely our lonesome job. It is our personal response to a self revealing God. If so, it is the Lord who grants us this faith, as a gift and helps us grow and mature in it too. It flows from the gift of discernment, the capacity to see the right sense from all that is presented to us in the name of knowledge and information.  

'Lord I believe, help my unbelief" ...we come across that profound prayer today. It would do a great good to us, to make this prayer a regular and daily prayer, confiding ourselves in the Lord, beckoning the Lord to help our unbelief and make us truly faithful sons and daughters!