Blessed to bless; judge to be judged!

WORD 2day: Monday, 12th week in Ordinary time

June 23, 2025 - Genesis 12: 1-9; Matthew 7: 1-5

Abraham was blessed to bless; Jacob was blessed to bless; We the people of God are blessed to bless! There are two messages here for us to note - first to understand that we are blessed, be what may the situation around. More often than not, we get so immersed into some troubles and difficulties that come our way, that we forget conveniently our blessings. We become so blind to those blessings so obviously present all around us. 

The second fact to remember is the call that is involved in every blessing that we have received. The call to recognise the blessings that we have received, is not merely for our own sake, but for the sake of the people. I shall make you a light house to the nations, I shall make you a blessing to the people... these are promises that the Lord has made to God's people. 

When we are blessed to bless, why do we curse and become a curse to the others? That is the key that Jesus wishes to present to us. See the blessing in others; do not judge them. When I judge the other for some simple shortcomings that I find in him or her, I magnify the curse that is between us and give into the power of that curse... that is why the Lord instructs us: judge not; and be not judged. 

When I judge, I give into the power of juegement and subject myelf to judgements! The positive formulation of that could be to find the blessing in the other, seek to magnify that blessing and thus become a blessing to the other! Let us remember we are blessed to bless! 

CELEBRATING THE SELF-GIVING GOD

Receiving, Remembering, and Remaining in Him! 

June 22, 2025: The Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ

Genesis 14:18-20; 1 Corinthians 11: 23-26; Luke 9: 11-17

I am the bread come down from heaven, one who eats of this bread will have eternal life!

Today we celebrate the solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, a celebration of the Self-Giving God... the total self giving of the Lord who came down from heaven, to remain with us!

The Word has prepared us during the week past, towards this great celebration... we have been reflecting about Christian giving last few days and today, we are invited to remain with that thought: Giving... Christian giving... what a challenging model we have, in the One who not only invites us to give, but also inspires us to give after his own model.  

I can give to receive... not merely a mundane reception of a return for my giving; but it could be a giving to receive something spiritual. To receive, may be a blessing from God , to receive an affirmation from the Divine Giver, etc. Melchizedek brought out bread and wine and Abraham gave him the one tenth... all these giving, in view of receiving the divine protection. This is a model of giving to receive, but let us look at the Lord's giving. 

The Lord who gave himself, is the only one who gave, only to be received... yes, only to be received! It is not giving to receive, but giving to be received! Hence the crux of the message is, that the Lord has given, and it is upto me to receive or not! On the part of the Lord, the Lord gives, to be Received. This is the element of salvation that the Lord has left in the sacrament of the Eucharist, for us to receive... there is so much in there, waiting for to be received! 

When the Lord, in that decisive moment, decided to leave a memory behind, he gave the bread and the wine, that is the body and the blood, and said... do this in remembrance of me... it is important that we pay attention here, he did not instruct us just to remember him, but to remember to do what he did, and do it in remembrance of him... that is, to give of myself as he gave himself totally, to give in remembrance of him... The Lord gives, to be Remembered, that he has invited me to give, and to give as he gave! This is the element of gratitude that the Lord teaches us in the sacrament of Eucharist, the heart of thanksgiving.

Yes, the Lord invites me to give, as he invited the disciples to give the people to eat... 'give them some food yourselves,' he said. It's only when we give to the people in need, we remain the Lord's disciples. To make us learn that we need to give always of ourselves to the others in need, He gives, in order to Remain within us... He comes to us to transform us into Himself, into givers, into givers who give of ourselves to others, without passing the buck on to someone else. This is the sign of charity, the bond of love that the Lord has left in the sacrament of the Eucharist, because of which the Lord abides in us forever, and we have the possibility of remaining in him.

Yes, the Lord gives himself everyday to me, gives to be received, gives to be remembered as the one who invites us to give, and gives in order that he can remain within us and we can remain with him, forever and ever, Amen! 

Sense of Suffciency - Sign of Sanctity

WORD 2day : Saturday, 11th week in Ordinary time

June 21, 2025: 2 Corinthians 12: 1-10; Matthew 6: 24-34

The rich and the poor, the affluent and the needy, the influential and the ordinary... they seem to be no different from each other! They wish for more and more and more. And at no point in their life they seem to have a sense of sufficiency. People with thousand pairs of footwears, a couple or more of private jets, scores of floors in more than a few apartments, are known facts today; and at a more ordinary level, people with a few cellphones and scores of sim cards, cupboard full of dresses and loads of wasted food... these are no rare sights too! There is no saying "enough," for the human mind today, or has it been so for all times?

St. Paul today explains the importance of the attitude of saying enough, the sense of sufficiency and considers it a sign of sanctity. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul considers himself 'blessed' with a sense of sufficiency, in plenty and in want (Phil 4: 11,12). In our families, in our personal lives, in our social life, in our religious communities... where does this virtue stand?

Be it Indian traditional spirituality, Western monastic spirituality, Eastern yogic spirituality... everywhere there is a strong point made for detachment, possessing less and learning to live with the minimum! Where do all these spiritualities go, in spite of the highly religious people who live! And the so called people of the religion, are precisely the ones who goad wealth, create a culture of promiscuity and indulge in frivolities unheard of - not many exceptions there, unfortunately!

And above all, the sense of sufficiency comes from and is a fruit of gratitude, a sense of having received enough and in abundance from God. Gratitude is a sign of a sense of sufficiency that one feels with God; and this sense of sufficiency, is obviously therefore, a sure sign of sanctity.

The heart, the eye and the lesson!

WORD 2day: Friday, 11th week ìn Ordinary time

June 20, 2025: 2 Corinthians 11:18,21-30; Mathew 6: 19-23

Jesus speaks of the heart and the eye and the importance of these to a being. St. Paul presents himself as a madman who is putting himself through so many trials. He knows more will be coming but remains ready to risk them all. We have hosts and hosts of martyrs who have died for what they believed in, Saints who lived for God and God's purposes till the last breath of their lives, and people who continue to risk their lives for causes they commit themselves to.

Where lies their strength? In their heart and in their eye, says the Gospel today. Heart refers to their Priority and eyes to their Perspective!

When God becomes my priority, nothing else would matter to me more than being Godly. Not my career, not my comforts, not my social status, not the conventional success, not the power and the position that everyone clamours for...nothing can deter me from living my life for God and God's purposes. That is my heart...and where my heart is there my treasures will be too!

When God becomes my perspective my whole world changes, because I begin to see everything the way God sees them. The jealousy of God that St. Paul spoke of yesterday is nothing but the way God looks at us: as God's own! Hence it is only right and just that we consider ourselves God's own too and in every way make ourselves so - that is becoming like God, in the way we see, think, judge and make choices. That is our eyes...and the way we look at others and at the world, will decide to whom we truly belong.

What is expected of us is, that we form our hearts and our eyes, that we ascertain our priority and clarify our perspective. May the Spirit of the Lord help us to become aware of our heart, our eye and the lesson that the Word gives us today.

Being One...not deceived into division!

WORD 2day: Thursday, 11th week in Ordinary time

June 19, 2025: 2 Corinthians 11: 1-11; Matthew 6: 7-15

One cannot but admire the pastoral heart of St. Paul, in today's first reading. A heart that bleeds to see his own people, his 'children' as they were, being assailed by other preachers, other gospels and other attractions, so easily and so readily! What about today, when we see brothers and sisters who so readily falling for eloquence in preaching, vivacity in worship, emotional satisfaction, logicality in reasoning, the capacity for quoting from memory, the free flow of words and phrases that are so beautiful and soothing to hear... our hearts bleed even today!

I, personally, have often been remarked by persons as being too conservative or fanatic about the Catholic Church... this is certainly not about that! It is about calling God, OUR Father and Mother... being ONE REIGN OF GOD, doing as brothers and sisters TOGETHER the will of God on earth as in heaven; it is about forgiving the shortcomings of others in the community, the shortcomings of the community itself and staying on, as one community, facing the struggles and temptations as ONE community, overcoming all evil!

Let us not today get lost in the beauty and the splendour of the Lord's Prayer - that is not the message of the Word... it is all about being a community that is worthy of praying that prayer! Evangelii Nuntiandi, the Apostolic Letter of Pope Paul VI (art.no.77) says, "the division among Christians is a serious reality which impedes the very work of Christ." Being of one heart and one mind, believing in the One Gospel that is handed down to us, is the highest witness we can give the world today, in every sphere of life!

The Christ-giving - a Way of Being

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 11th week in Ordinary time

June 18, 2025 - 2 Corinthians 9:6-11; Matthew 6: 1-6,16-18

The Word today continues the discourse of yesterday, about giving... which as we said yesterday, cannot be just an act, but a life style. The readings today go a step further to say, it has to become a way of being, that is the way we think and the way we feel at the deepest core of our being. 

The first reading points to us two most shallow levels of giving. 

First, giving with grudge - it is like some who give, but have within them exactly contrary sentiments, wishing bad for the other, lacking respect for those to whom they give or having a sense of vengeance while giving! This kind of giving is better not done, because it amounts to a sin at the end of it all.

The second type is giving without a choice - it is giving, having to give. If there were an alternative the person would not have rather given. This takes away any merit in the act of giving, although it is good! It has really no value behind it, because it does not come from within, not from a personal choice. 

The Gospel points out another type of shallow giving, which is giving with a hook - this is a very familiar category of giving. Consciously, sub-consciously or even unconsciously, when there is a hook attached to receive directly or indirectly from a giving, that giving cannot still measure up to a Christ-giving.

Christ-giving, giving according to the life style of Christ, is only giving in love! That is what God does and that is what God expects from us. Whether giving the other (in terms of charity), or giving God (in terms of prayer and penance), only when it is done out of love and love alone, it becomes a Christ-like giving and that alone makes us brothers and sisters of that Son who gave himself totally in love. 

The Christ-giving - a lifestyle

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 11th week in Ordinary time

June 17, 2025 - 2 Corinthians 8: 1-9; Matthew 5: 43-48

Continuing to reflect on the Sermon on the mount, today we have reached that place where Jesus teaches us about loving, loving like Christ, loving after the model of God's love - the love that considered only giving - never the conditions involved. In any giving there can be a few conditions involved logically - to whom, to what end, to what extent... and so on. Is that not simple and normal? Jesus breaks all those so-called norms, when he presents God's love as the model of our giving.

God loved us...and gave; gave everything. St. Paul explains that in the passage we read today: Remember how generous the Lord Jesus was: he was rich, but he became poor for your sake, to make you rich out of his poverty. Love is translated as "giving" and what type of giving? A Christ-giving! It is a life style presented to us by Christ himself - giving without measure, without conditions of deserving or not, and without any assurance of its return in whatever kind. 

That is what he meant when he said, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you! Give, because you wish to give; give because you have a heart to give; give because that is how you life. This is Christ.giving, a life style of love, a love that imitates God who gave everything, Christ who gave everything and the Spirit who gives up everything to reside within us!

Let us pick up this life style, the Christ-giving. 

The Proof for being God's people

WORD 2day: Monday, 11th week in Ordinary time

June 16, 2025 - 2 Corinthians 6: 1-10; Matthew 5: 38-42

pc: universalis.com

The Word today seems to answer the question: how do we prove that we are "God's people"? We claim that identity, and don't we have the onus of living up to it? At times we can gather ourselves us up to say, "yes we do have the responsibility," but only until we hear the teaching of the type we listen to today! Or at least that is what the world at large does... because, the teaching we hear in today's Word, is so unreal and quixotic to say the least, in the eyes of the world.

Being flogged, sent to prison, mobbed, going sleepless, starving... when such situations are affronted with fortitude we prove to be God's people! Our purity, our knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness, truth and righteousness even in the face of disgrace, blame, persecution and suffering, go to prove that we are truly God's people. This is what Paul explains, much in elaboration of what Jesus taught when he said: offer no resistance, show the other cheek, go an extra mile, give even to those who want to take away what is yours!  

Yes, being God's people is being so unrealistc, so impractical... so Christ-like, so God-like. We know what it means - God loved us and continues to love us when we least deserve even the tiniest fraction of the limitless love that God offers us; Christ was willing to die for us, even when we were sinners! We people of this God; we are disciples of this Christ - and what else could be expected of us? 

THE ABC OF HOLY TRINITY

We Are, we Believe and we Cling!

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity: June 15, 2025

Proverbs 8: 22-31; Romans 5:1-5; John 16: 12-15

We celebrate the feast of the Holy Trinity today! The Solemnity reminds us of, not only who our God is, but also who we are!

We ARE a communion!

Just as our God is a communion of three persons - Father, Son and the Spirit, we who are created in that image and likeness, are a communion too. We are neither body living in the spirit, nor a spirit residing in the body... we are a being created in such a communion of our natures that we are one, just as the three persons of the trinity are one. It is high time we undid the contrasts between the body and the soul and the mind! We are communion, we ARE Trinity.

We need to continuously grow out of a dichotomous or a segmented life where there is the public life and the private life, the so-called spiritual life and the ordinary life, the life from the Christian point of view and a parallel life of the standards of the world... this is totally contrary to integrity that is truly 'christian'...this integrity can otherwise be known as Communion within a person, an undivided state of life.

We BELIEVE in communion, not in contestation.

The three persons of the Trinity live in communion with each other and there is an eternal self giving that takes place among them, by which they stay as ONE. We believe in communion, dialogue, sharing, sacrifice and selfless service. Only that would make us One people of God.

Today the television channels have fallen into a craze - taking a current issue and calling up people from different camps of thought and making them debate, fight and contest with each other. Worse still, they name the show 'fight' or 'debate' or 'argument', parading the truth that they are more interested in contesting than arriving at a common ground that could promote happiness and fulfillment. The dangerous phenomenon is that the same kind of a mindset enters a family and issues are debated over, contested over but very rarely prayed over and discerned towards communion!

We CLING to the Trinity

In the Trinitarian God we have everything we stand in need of. The Father gives us love and mercy in abundance. The Son gives us the light and truth to live by. The Spirit gives us companionship and good counsel. All that we need to live our life to the full is given by the Trinitarian God. The Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are in eternal procession, teaches the Church's theology which means that every one of the three, upholds the other and empties oneself into the others for a unified, generative action.

It may sound a bit too theoretical, but in fact, it is just a life style that would create a paradise on earth wherever we are - if we trust one another and prove trust worthy to each other. That is the message, that we cling to the Trinity not just in asking for favours and fulfilling our needs but in our life style, in our way of relating to the other and making ourselves available to the other, to the community to the entire humanity and even the universe! What a challenging call it is!

As we celebrate this wonderful solemnity, let us take to heart the call and the challenge given to us by the Holy Trinity... to be, to believe and to cling on to the Most Holy Trinity.

Reconciliation: Oneness and Integrity

WORD 2day: Saturday, 10th week in Ordinary time

June 14, 2025 - 2 Corinthians 5: 14-21; Matthew 5: 33-37

The Word today has some oft cited quotes from St. Paul - the love of Christ overwhems us, those who are in Christ are a new creation, for our sake God made the sinless one into sin... all these amounting to that one key experience: reconciliation; that God has reconciled us to Godself in Christ. What does this Reconciliation mean.

The first level of its significance is apparent - very clearly and obviously explained by Paul in his letter: that God has reconciled us to Godself, non holding our faults against us! This is the oneness that God has effected, wanting is to be One with God - Reconciliation is that oneness with God, that belonging to God, that unity with God, which is a crucial meaning of salvation. 

There is yet another level of significance that this reconciliation can have - the reconciliation that is from within. When Paul declares, those who are in Christ are new creation, he insists upon this reconciliation, that we are reconciled within us, that we have no duplicity within us, that we have nothing within us that sports conflict. As Jesus explains in the Gospel - when we wish to mean yes, we say yes; and when we say no, we mean no! That is reconciliation, a simplicity that can be called Integrity. 

Integrity is a key element of new creations in Christ, the creations, the beings, the persons who have nothing that is in conflict within, or with anything else! There is this perfect harmony that can be a great spiritual experience, the unparalleled experience of salvation, a Reconciliation from within. When God reconciles us with Godself, we are called to grow into reconciled beings from within, persons of integrity - that shall indeed be a sign of the Ambassadors for Christ.