A Return to hope... beholding Truth

THE WORD IN LENT - Wednesday, Fifth week in Lent

April 9, 2025 - Daniel 3: 14-20,24-25,28; John 8: 31-42

After the image of Susanna and the bronze serpent lifted up in the desert, today we have yet another great symbol - the symbol of the three young men in the furnace! They were there tried to the extreme levels imaginable. They were destined to die... they infact went into death and came out unscathed. That was Jesus' death and resurrection prefigured. As we say in the Creed: he went down to the dead and he rose again. That is what Jesus is introducing us to - when you have the Truth with you, you go down to death and you will rise to Eternal life. 

The Truth will set you free, the Truth with liberate you, the Truth shall give you Eternal life - says Jesus today! So the secret to Eternal life is beholding the Truth! How do we do it: holding on to the Lord, as he himself declares - I am the Truth! The Lord challenges us to clarify our sense of belonging - to whom do we belong? Or to put it more directly: Do I belong to God or not? If I belong to God, my life should manifest that. There could be downfalls, breakages and discontinuities, but ultimately, do I belong to God, that is what matters. 

Sometimes, as Jesus is warning, we may think or we may claim we belong to God, through intermediate ways... Jesus chides the people who were arguing with him, that they thought they were Abraham's children (and through that they wanted to be God's children), but they were actually children of the Satan, the evil one who wants to kill and destroy... just as Nebuchadnezzar and his squad who wanted to eliminate those young men! But those who belong to God, they love, they listen to the Truth and they behold Truth!

We long to live in joy and hope...that is possible only by beholding Truth... in our innermost beings, beholding Truth.

A Return to hope... looking up to Him!

THE WORD IN LENT - Tuesday, Fifth week in Lent

April 8, 2025 - Numbers 21: 4-9; John 8: 21-30

These days the Word presents to us some symbols from the Old Testament that prefigures the culmination of the Salvation plan in the person of Jesus the Christ. Yesterday we came across Susanna, the innocent condemned by the wicked to death; today we come across the bronze serpent raised in the desert as the sign of restoration of life! 

Just as the bronze serpent in raised in the desert that gave life to those people, the Word tells us today - Jesus raised on the Cross is ready to give us life. The allusions of the image of the serpent to the evil one who deceived the first parents, and the tree from on which the serpert deceived them to the staff of the bronze serpent and later to the Tree of the Cross - it all amounts to one message: the Lord is out there to give you new life. But what have we to do?

We need to look up to Him - all who look up to him shall be radiant (Ps 34: 5), because we shall have new life. Looking up... and looking up to him, is the key here. To whom or to what do we look up to: our own capacity, to power, to possession, to happiness, to ease, to vain glory? At times we say we look up to Jesus, but which Jesus? The one who preaches eloquently, the one who has great things to say, the one who did miracles after miracles, the great hero? Or the Son of God, who gave up everything, gave up himself totally for the sake of the Will of his Father, and died for us there on that tree, lifted up and crucified? When we look up to him, we look up to problems, struggles, sacrifices but at the end of it all, life eternal. Are we prepared to look up to Him?

A Return to hope... Walk in the Light

THE WORD IN LENT - Monday, Fifth week in Lent

April 7, 2025 - Daniel 13:1-9,15-17,19-30,33-62; John 8: 12-20

The Word today raises to our attention some crucial theological issues - the suffering of the innocent, the unjust judgement of the powerful, the effect of the sin of some on the other, the final judgement to which everyone of us will be subjected to and so on! Now these issues may have very many ways of being treated - the Word today gives us two pivotal perspectives to consider: integrity of the inner self and the centrality of God's perspective.

Integrity of the inner self refers to our consciousness of ourselves. Reflecting on the Gospel yesterday, when Jesus said - let the one among you who has not sinned throw the first stone, the scribes and the pharisess left one by one, beginning with the eldest. There is ony point to be noted here, that they recognised that they were sinners, at least when they were reminded. The problem with the present times, there would have been persons to throw that stone today, because there are those who think they have no sin, that they are righteous and that all that they do is totally justifiable. This is why the late Pope Benedict XVI warned, that the worst of the problems of our times, is the loss of sense of sin! What matters most is becoming aware of the sin that resides within us and to accept it with humility and entrust ourselves to the mercy of God. 

The second perspective is looking at ourselves from the point of view of God. The story of Susanna today comes as an unssailable assurance that God knows you, if you find yourself helpless and sinned against! The centrality of God's perspective, in our self understanding and in the understanding of our mission, is what we are called to observe in the words of Jesus: You judge by human standards, but God's perspectives are God's own.

This might fill us with an anxiety, but the Lord assures us: do not worry, I am the Light; and following me, you shall always walk in the light.  

A RETURN TO HOPE - TOWARDS PARADISE

Persevere, Prioritise & Progress 

Fifth Sunday in Lent: April 6, 2025 

Isaiah 43:16-21; Philippians 3:8-14; John 8:1-11

A Return to hope... Celebrating Mercy

THE WORD IN LENT - Saturday, Fourth week in Lent

April 5, 2025 - Jeremiah 11: 18-20; John 7: 40-52

The Mercy of God is immense and immeasurable, and we cannot celebrate it enough ever. The Lent and the following events of the Pasch, are the peak of that celebration. We celebrate the love of God, the gratuitous love of God. We celebrate the mercy of the Lord, the prodigal mercy of God which is lavished upon us without any reason or justification, because the Lord has promised us to be our God - that is the covenant after all. 

But there is the other part of the covenant - that we will be God's people; are we? How many ways in which we have been unfaithful to that promise we have made in response to God's unfailing love? God never tires, however to continue to love us. For God loves us so much as to give God's Son as the sacrifice of our salvation. God's mercy never ceases, God continues to shower it upon us - as St. Paul words it: God "pours" that love into our hearts. But the story does not end there...

In our obstinacy, we insist to reject that love, that gratuitous love, that mercy, that mercy which we do not deserve in any way. How do we reject it? When we refuse to be merciful, when we refrain from forgiving, when we choose not to love some one, when we hate or ignore a brother or sister - leave alone harming them. The worse scenario is that we have no reason to do that sometimes - I can't even look at someone, I cannot work with him or her, I cannot even listen to his or her voice... "I don't know why!" This is what is happening in the Gospel today - they reject Christ, just for one reason - that he was from Galilee! What an absurd thinking we sometimes sport and we pride it around!

If we really want to be children of God, we need to celebrate the mercy of God - that means, we need to acknowledge our unworthiness witn humility, we need to promise to love everyone without partiality, we need to forgive and embrace each other with sincerity! Are we really prepared to celebrate mercy?

A Return to hope... to the right celebration!

THE WORD IN LENT - Friday, Fourth week in Lent

April 4, 2025 - Wisdom 2:1, 12-22; John 7: 1-2, 10, 25-30

There is no dearth for celebrations within our Christian tradition, enough to consider this whole year, called the Jubilee Year. But the question is, are our celebrations truly Christian Celebrations? This is a crucial point to reflect on, be it as families, or as entire community of faith. In what does a true Christian celebration consist in? The true celebration is when there is new life for the broken hearted, says the Word today. 

Most of the times a celebrations belong to the mighty, the powerful, the victorious, the successful, the greats of all times... they are unfortunately a show of pride and arrogance, regardless of whether they of religious or otherwise! We celebrate on the fall of the other, the destruction of someone, the defeat of another, the inability of someone - how can it get more cruel? The Word presents to us these cruel mentalities what awaited and even complotted the death of righteous, because they thought they were weak and despicable! How much the world today sports this attitude, we know it well.

The Word today teaches us that the Christian sense of Celebration consists in the revival of the dead, the renewal of the spirits, the enlivening of the broken hearted. We began the week with the Word reminding us of that beautiful parable - that of the prodigal. The son comes back with such a broken heart that a real celebration awaited him. There was the other son with such an arrogant and self righteous heart, that he totally missed that celebration. 

Christian celebrations belong to the broken, the fatigued, the low-spirited - the Lord is by their side to lift them up! Let us grow in our spirit of humility and we shall see what true celebration in the eyes of the Lord is. 

A Return to hope... to the Right Assurances

THE WORD IN LENT - Thursday, Fourth week in Lent

April 3, 2025 - Exodus 32: 7-14; John 5: 31-47

"You place your hopes on Moses, and Moses will be your accuser," warns the Lord today in the Gospel. Jesus comes to us as the ultimate mediator between us and our God, the God of Jesus (Eph 1:17), and our God, the Father of Jesus (Rom 15:6; Eph 1:17 etc.) and our Father! At times in our pride and presumption, we tend to think that we can get away with some of our terrible choices in life, because we do something, or we have some one who will cover for us. Just a simple second thought on such a proposition, will tell us how wrong we are. And that is what Jesus is telling us today.

Our penitential measures during the Lent, or our pilgrimages and charities on occasions, or our devotions and litanies to the Saints, should not become sources of assurance of our salvific hope. Intellectual study of scriptures, legal fulfilment of religious routines, diligent adherence to rules and regulations cannot claim the place of being the right assurances of belonging to God. Seeking each other's approval, looking for human respect, creating fake images of oneself to be presenting to the rest of the world, can never be assurances of our justification in the eyes of the Lord, for the Lord knows us through and through. 

The Voice of the Lord, the Will of God and the Works of our Saviour calling us to act and to surrender ourselves to the Lord - that is our only and absolute assurance! The world tends to lose itself to the false hopes built by appearances and baseless constatations, while the Word and the Lent challenges us to return to the right assurances, that we find only in the Lord. 

A Return to hope... towards Eternal Life

THE WORD IN LENT - Wednesday, Fourth week in Lent

April 2, 2025 - Isaiah 49: 8-15; John 5: 17-30

On our pilgrimage of hope, we are reflecting these days about the reasons that make us celebrate, even amidst this lent; the causes that makes us rejoice even amidst the hardships of life. First we said the Lord gives us new life, yesterday we said the Lord takes us towards wholeness and today we have the culmination of it... eternal life, the experience of salvation which is eternal life. From new life, to wholeness, being born to eternal life: all those who believe in me will have life eternal - that's the promise of the Lord and that is a cause of rejoicing, certainly. 

The Gospel today presents to us the tussle between the Jews and Jesus - Jesus who claims that he has the power to raise people from death, just as his Father does. That raising people from the dead, is what we call the perspective of eternal life, that which destroys death and defeats hell. Life eternal is not just a state of not dying, it is a perspective. It is the whole way of living that is spoken of here, not merely about dying. 

We can draw from today's Word, at least three indications of eternal life. The first indication is that we come from the Lord and the Lord never abandons us; we belong to the Lord: the first reading outlines this. We have nothing to fear, not even death, because the Lord never forgets us, not even if our own mothers do forget us.

Secondly, God has given us God's only Son, that we have eternal life. What else can come against us , or who? Apart from the very fact that we share the image and likeness of God, we have been "saved" by God - that experience of salvation is the promise of God's eternal existence, an offer that God makes us. However, it depends on us to take it or not, after all it is an offer, and never a compulsion. 

Thirdly, the way to behold the offer of eternal life, Jesus teaches us - is to listen to the Word, believe in the one who has sent the Word to us, and do the will of the One who has sent us! All the lenten practices are pointed to this ultimate growth expected of us. Jesus identified himself with the Father and that was why he never feared anyone who stood against him - for us too, that is the indication: that we identify ourselves with our source, that is God! That is the true perspective of eternal life! 

A Return to hope... towards wholeness!

THE WORD IN LENT - Tuesday, Fourth week in LEnt

April 1, 2025 - Ezekiel 47: 1-9, 12; John 5: 1-3, 5-16

When we are in the Lord we have a thousand reasons to thank God for, a million reasons to glorify the Lord, because the continues to give us countless opportunities towards wholeness. The first question here is whether it is true. The next question would be, in what way? And a third question is, how ready and prompt are we to recognise it?

Healing, wholeness ... comes not merely as a corrective to a problem, as if completing a lack. Of course it is so, but not just that. The fact is that, all of us need healing - in varied forms and levels. The promises this healing, as the life giving waters that flow towards us, as the Son of God who comes in search of us, to offer us that healing, just as we see in the Word today. The Lord wishes to give us the experience of wholeness and that is true - the whole of salvation history tells us that, the experience of faith lived and passed on to us vouches for that and on a daily basis the Lord expresses this intention of his, through the Eucharist and other sacraments and sacramentals. 

The real issue lies in our disposition to recognise this presence, this offer of the Lord, this salvific experience that the Lord is willing and eager to offer us - as children of God, as brothers and sisters of the Son, as dwelling places of the Spirit of the Lord. Just as that man who was longing to go the waters, did not realise the fact that the Life giving Water had in fact come to him, we too search for, look for God experience everywhere around! All that we need to do is, as the Psalmist teaches us: be still and know, be still and realise, be still and recognise the life give water that surges within us, because we are God's own.

A Return to hope... Celebrating New Life

THE WORD IN LENT - Monday, Fourth week in Lent

March 31, 2025 - Isaiah 65: 17-21; John 4: 43-54

Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth...be glad and rejoice, says the first reading today. What more hopeful message can we get? Be it as individuals or as a community, we do have regrets in life and history, and what a wonderful experience it is to hear that they will all be forgotter, erased from memory and that we could start everything anew! That is exactly what the Lord promises us. 

But we will not believe it, we will not take it for that the Lord says; we will try to find figurative meanings and compatible interpretations to the already existing mindset of negativity and hopelessness. What else can the Lord do? We are so familiar with the promises of the Lord that many a time, they do not really mean anything to us - take for example the promises like, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you', 'where there are two are three gathered in my name, I am there,'... how much do we really believe them? However, the Lord will not be surprised about it - we see that in the Gospel. Nor will the Lord give up on us. 

The Lord goes on doing more and more good...and hopes that one day we would come to realise and behold the new things that God has created, the new things that God is continuously doing for us! When we learn to behold them, we shall see ample reasons to celebrate. The Lord calls us to that celebration, to celebrate the new life that the Lord has prepared, and is preparing, for us every day. That would be truely the dawn of hope when we form ourselves and grow enough to behold, realise and celebrate new life from the hands of God.