Branches of justice...all for the Reign!

THE WORD IN ADVENT

Third Thursday in Advent - December 18, 2025

Jeremiah 23: 5-8; Matthew 1: 18-24

Getting closer to the great event of Christmas, the Word introduces  us to the person of Joseph - the son of David, the heir of David chosen for the coming of the Son of God, the just man chosen for the rise of the branch of justice from David. 

The name of David repeats itself in the Word today - and we know the significance of that person in the history of Israel... apart from Moses whom God called a "friend", David is the only person that God expressed a sense of belonging calling him "my servant" (see 1 Kings 11). Because, in spite of his weaknesses and fragility, David's filial attachment to God never diminished from the beginning till the end. That is why he shines as the epitome of God's promises.

The virtue of justice is referred to constantly today - not in the sense of justice and injustice but in the sense of being virtuous. Here it means being attached to God, choosing God above all, and doing everything from the perspective of God, the summum bonum. Virtuosity hence is godliness, that is being mindful of God and being led by God in all.

Joseph is brought to light against this background - that of David and that of justice. Joseph, the son of David, just man: just man because he was totally by the side of God. What God wanted he carried out, not counting the trouble nor seeking his comfort or convenience. He knew he was on the right, when he was on the side of God. 

As pilgrims of hope, with the Reign as our hope, we are called too - to choose the Reign, to stand by the Reign and dedicate our life and mission, all for the Reign.  

WISDOM - the Promise of the Reign

THE WORD IN ADVENT

Third Wednesday in Advent - December 17, 2025

Genesis 49: 2, 8-10; Matthew 1: 1-17

The joy of the Reign consists in the unfailing promise of God, the eternal faithfulness of God - the Sacrament of this promise is the Wisdom that comes as a fulfilment of the promise to the generations... Jesus Christ who comes in our midst, as one among us, born in the lineage of the humans to save the entire humanity, beyond any lineage or generation! 

Wisdom of the Most High, who comes to teach us the way of truth is the eternal promise of God. The Reign is this promise made concrete... it may look utopian or too ideal to be true, but it is the test of truth that we have; the proof of our faith; the exercise of our hope. It is the promise of God, that God will never leave or abandon us, especially when the times get rough or tough. 

The Genealogy presented in the Gospel passage today, leaves us wondering whether it can really be true - the continuity that is observed here. But that is not the message! The message is - what is happening is the fulfilment of the word of the Lord, the Wisdom that alone can save humanity was promised at the beginning and it is here, very close to us, right amidst us. 

The moment we accept the sovereignty of Wisdom, and acknowledge the presence at work amidst us, we shall experience the joy of the Reign... the salvific experience of the God with us. Wisdom is the way of truth, and we are given with the possibility of accessing it - that is already a great sign of hope, a great promise of the Reign. 

CHRISTMAS NOVENA - Day 2 : O Wisdom!

Day 2 - December 17: O Sapientia...

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High

reaching from one end to the other,
mightily and sweetly ordering all things:
Come and teach us the way of prudence.

Based on Isaiah 11:2-3 and Isaiah 28:29... the antiphon recalls the most popular attribute given to the Spirit of the Lord and the Word of God which is seen active in creation and order of the universe. It is this Word, who becomes flesh to dwell among us (John 1:14).

The Symbol used is often...the eye within the triangle, which symbolises the Omniscient God...the Wisdom of God. The Jewish or the Davidic lampstand (with 7 sticks) is used to refer to the Wisdom of God which has accompanied the people of God right from the origins of history!

Wisdom, we know is slightly different from knowledge and could be even considered a level higher, because even a person who lack the so-called knowledge may possess the finest wisdom, while a person with all possible knowledge may prove miserably unwise! Wisdom would be that capacity to not just know, but to use what we know at the right moment in the apt manner. In our daily decision-making it amounts to actually, prudence!

The Prayer today is for PRUDENCE... to be guided always by the Lord, the Lord who dwells among us.

CHRISTMAS NOVENA - a tradition so lovely

Day 1: December 16

Novena...'O' Antiphons...Oh what a Tradition we have!!! 

Naturally the last days of the Christmas preparation are a great excitement...

The Church has a beautiful tradition of
the Novena in preparation of this wonderful festival of LOVE...

And within this novena...
leaving out the first day and the last day...
there are 7 verses from the prophecies from the Old Testament (Isaiah)
which announce the coming of the Lord's Messiah...they are named "O" Antiphons.
each of these antiphons, so meaningful and beautiful...

We pray them as Antiphons before the Gospel at the Eucharist these days...
those who pray the daily prayer of the Church (Breviary) pray it in the evening
with the hymn of our blessed mother, the Magnificat.

16th of December begins the Novena...
on this day, the antiphon, though not an O Antiphon...
sets the tone for the next 9 days...

WE BEGIN A SPECIAL SEASON OF WAITING FOR AN IMMINENT COMING OF THE LORD

The Choice for the Reign: Internal and Integral

THE WORD IN ADVENT

Third Tuesday in Advent - December 16, 2025

Zephaniah 3: 1-2,9-13; Matthew 21: 28-32

The Joy of the Reign is a choice to be made, the Word told us yesterday. Today, the reflection continues to establish and impress on our minds that this choice has to be necessarily internal and integral! Internal, because no amount of external appearance can manage to delude God to conviction; Integral, because a choice one makes has to remain coherent with his or her entire life! 

Zephaniah speaks about the famous inversive logic of God - the haughty shall be no more, the humble shall find their voice, the remnants of Israel shall begin to shine and the suffering servant shall rise in glory. It is an apt manifestation of the presence of God - for in that presence, there are no rich and the poor, the oppressed and the oppressors, the powerful and the simple... they are all reconciled in Christ - in the Reign. 

However, that requires a choice, a choice made for God... and that choice as we have already said, has to be internal and integral. It cannot be a choice out of force, fear or some sort of luring with the fortune. It comes from an internal choice, that does not care about what others think or say, how they judge or what they comment. It does not even count whether there will be a blessing as a consequence of my choice. The Choice has to be drastically internal, personal guided by a sense of clarity and dare. 

The choice thus made, has to be integral, because it cannot be conditional or provisional, nor can it be  partial. It cannot be changed when conditions change nor can it be true for some parts and not applicable for the others. The choice has to affect my entire life. I cannot go by convenience, comfort or compliance. It has to be a convinced, radical choice which I am prepared to carry out come what may. That is the reason Jesus declared, one who puts his hand to the plough but turns back, cannot inherit the Reign of God.                                                   

The Joy of the Reign: a Choice against the Ego

THE WORD IN ADVENT

Third Monday in Advent - December 15, 2025

Numbers 24: 2-7,15-17a; Matthew 21: 23-27

Balaam praises the Lord for what he sees, while not all really see what he saw! That is being a prophet... prophets are those who are gifted to see beyond. They are able to see something that we do not see, because they choose to see. They choose to see what the Lord wants them to see, not merely what they are able to or what they wish to see! A star from Jacob and sceptre from Israel... is the sign from the Spirit of what the Lord was doing for God's people. 

The joy of the Reign to which we are called this week, comes not from just situations that change or settings that favour - but from a definitive choice; a personal choice to accept and acknowledge the Divine, as we were instructed by the Word on Sunday. Most of the times the block to the joy that God wishes to grant us is - we ourselves, our selves, our self! 

We see that explicated in the Gospel today - the scribes and the pharisees come asking Jesus about his authority. They are not worried about the rightness or wrongness of his works, the rationality of his behaviour, the truth or not in his teachings... they are worried about his authority. They were feeling threatened, their authority at stake. They saw Jesus overturning the so-called order that they had created in their own authority... in fact that overturning order was the recognition of the order of God, the authority of God. 

To choose God over one's own Ego; to choose what God wills and not one's own wish; to obey God's command and not one's own whims and fancies; to choose the Divine plan in spite of the difficulties involved and inconveniences foreseen... that is choosing the joy of the Reign. It is ascribed as the joy of the Reign, because it has to be differentiated from the popular understanding of joy which is doing what I like and the way I like. The joy of the Reign, instead, is a choice against the God... the choice for God's ruling.  

REJOICE AND BE THE REIGN

Accept, Acknowledge and Announce

Gaudete Sunday - December 14, 2025

Isaiah 35: 1-6a, 10; James 5: 7-10; Matthew 11: 2-11

We reach the third Sunday of Advent, and we know the special significance of it. While the first Sunday invited us to 'stay awake for the Reign,' and the second Sunday called us to 'dare to behold the Reign,' the third Sunday deepens the call, and bids us to "Rejoice and Be the Reign"! It is a necessary growth process to shift from looking for the Reign out there, to Being the Reign, or growing to be the Reign. It takes a mighty commitment, but before that it requires that we joyfully accept the Reign and acknowledge its presence; thus our life shall become a joyful proclamation of the Reign that we behold and that we are!

To Accept the Reign is to see the signs and attribute them to the Lord's doing. It requires optimisn and hope to look at what is around and accept it as our context... while we see what dominates is a negativity, lamentation, blame game, self centredness and dissipation. The Lord declares - happy is the one who is not scandalised to accept me as the Lord and Saviour - that is where the Reign begins. To look around and pick up from the numerous possibilities, the possibility that is inspired by faith, that is, those which are inspired by presence of God and our rapport with God. 

To Acknowledge the Reign is to accept that the Reign has come, and to see the Reign already at work. The Reign is not a finished reality that would come into our world! That would be a faulty idea, when it comes to the mind of Jesus - the Reign is amidst you; the Reign is you. That is what Jesus would say. Get up, pick up your mat and walk; your faith has made you whole; go, show yourself to the priests... these were his statements, where he underlines the 'already and not yet' that his revelation stood for. The Reign is already here, and that which is not yet fully here, because I need to grow into it. The call and the challenge is therefore to become the Reign, to be the Reign. But how do we do it?

By our transforming love for the other... making the voiceless speak, making the weak strong, making the faint hearted pick up courage, making the insensitive feel the other, making the indifferent warm up their hearts... in short, by filling this world with the joy of love, the amoris laetitia! Filling this world with joy, would require that I possess that joy and that is why the prophet today cries out: rejoice! Paul in his letter to the Philipians would resound it: again I say, rejoice! Rejoice always, without ceasing because the Lord is with us and he come once again to be with us. We are people of the Reign and the Reign cannot be made present here on earth, except through us. When we are filled with that joy and we grow to be the Reign, we become the proclamations of the Reign.

To Announce the Reign - that was the mission of Christ, and that is the mission that Christ has left us too. To announce is not merely by words, we know. It is the announcement through the very persons we are, our ideals, our priorities, our values, our life, our choices, our entire being. Hence the call to BE the Reign... of course, it is a process, a process of growth, a process of self-transformation, a process of bulding up humanity, a process of spreading love and the joy of loving! The world stands in need of this love today, in need of genuine love that centres on the other, the others, the Other - that is the key to understand the Reign! 

As pilgrims of hope, reccognizant that as pilgrims our hope is the Reign, we are invited to accept and acknowledge the Reign, becoming the Reign ourselves and announcing it to the world with joy and with love!

The Zeal for the Reign

THE WORD IN ADVENT

Second Saturday in Advent - December 13, 2025

Ecclesiasticus 48: 1-4,9-12; Matthew 17: 10-13

Prophet Elijah rose like a fire, like the flaring torch... introduces the first reading today, opening a discussion on Elijah and John the Baptist in particular and on prophets in general. 

The fire of Elijah was the fire that could save us from the wrath of the fire of God according to the Ecclesiasticus... the message is: Elijah is harsh with us, so that we could save ourselves from something that could more harsh - the anger of God on injustice and inhumanities. That is the reflection to be made. Of course there is a big question here at bay, whether we should speak of the wrath of God...but let us rest it, for not losing our focus. The focus is the fire of Elijah that is for our salvation, for our wholeness, for our ultimate destiny - for the Reign. 

The fire of John the Baptist which is compared to that of Elijah is the last minute preparation for the coming of the Saviour... the moment of truth, as it were. An advent message in its core, the call is the prepare ourselves to meet the Saviour any time...and that meeting if it has to be the experience of the Reign, we need to be fired with the zeal of Elijah or John, they who burnt for the Reign. 

Be it they or prophets in general, they were all for God and God's message. They counted nothing more important than carry out the task given to them, announcing the message entrusted to them, inaugurating what we reflect today as the Reign of God here on earth. That is the call of Jesus - towards which John wants to prepare the humanity. 

Hence the concluding reflection for this week - to dare to behold the Reign is to be fired with the zeal for the Reign...if we are not fired by it, how impossible it is for us to behold the Reign, understand it, interpret it and decipher it where it is already making its inroads. Just as even the disciples who did not recognise the Elijah in John, we may fail to recognise the Reign in Jesus, or the world may find it hard to recognise the Reign in our lives... the key is this - that we be fired with the zeal for the Reign! 

Reign willed by God

THE WORD IN ADVENT

Second Friday in Advent - December 12, 2025

Isaiah 48: 17-19; Matthew 11: 16-19

Daring to behold the Reign is all about protagonism on behalf of the Reign, that is taking responsibility for it and making it present wherever we are. However, such a task runs into a danger when someone, in the name of protagonism, makes it a personal project, according to his or her own whims and fancies!

Just imagine some great political leaders today who in the name of making their country or society great, have recourse to policies that are highly personal and arbitrary - wanting to promote one's own causes, interests and popularity; much worse, to the detriment of the others and to the destabilisation of a wholesome future. Can this be justified? That is exactly what Jesus explains with that parable of the children playing in the market place - who are worried about nothing more than what they wish and desire, for themselves and from others. 

As psychology would have it, one of the marks of maturity in a person is the capacity to distance oneself from one's own subjective feelings and finding the space for the other. Spirituality would add to the other, an Other! For us in Christian parlance, it is opening ourselves to the Will of God... Reign in fact is the Will of God being done - on earth as in heaven. Is that not what Jesus taught us?

The Lord speaks to us through Isaiah today, assuring us that it is not all together impossible to know what God wants of us - because, the Lord himself teaches us, the Lord himself leads us in that way, the Lord shows us by so many different ways and means what we need to do and what we need to choose, to do the will of God. Reign of God is the will of God executed with readiness and joy... indeed, it is fullness of our lives, the radical living of what God wants of us and that fullness is truly the Reign that God has willed for all, and for each of us. 

The Rule of the Reign

THE WORD IN ADVENT

Second Thursday in Advent - December 11, 2025

Isaiah 41: 13-20; Matthew 11: 11-15

Daring to behold the Reign is, almost always, interpreted in terms of power and capability to transform. Indeed it is, but the power and the capacity here comes from a very strange source - from our simplicity and the recognizance of it... that is the real rule of the Reign. 

Jacob the worm, Israel the dust... they are not phrases that demean the dignity or identity of those who belong to the Lord, but a reminded or who we really are in comparison to the might and majesty of the Lord. It is precisely this might and power that renders us powerful and capable in the presence of the Lord. 

Jesus described this in terms of John the Baptist, who seemed powerful and tremendous in the sight of the people. Even he is null in front of the simplicity of the Reign, says Jesus, declaring the fact that the real strength of the Reign comes from the One and only Strong: the Lord of the Reign. 

We may be weak or simple, but we are reminded that the right hand of God is stretched out to us and our help comes from the Lord. The first reading repeats that and similar phrases - I will help you, I will answer you, I will hold you, I will not abandon you... these are the assurances and the promises that make Simplicity, the rule of the Reign. 

The fact to be underlined here is - the simple shall be ruled by the Reign and the simple shall be the rulers of the Reign... they are the signs of the Majesty of the Lord among us, and Simplicty shall be the rule of the Reign.