WORD 2day

26.04.2013
'Let nothing disturb you' was a constant counsel of St. Teresa of Avila! 'Let nothing upset you' Don Bosco used to repeat! The source is here, as the Lord declares today - "Let not your hearts be disturbed." Crises and confusions, discouragements and disappointments, temptations and tribulations make life so difficult - but one perspective can set everything in order - the perspective of faith: "believe in God and believe in me." Invariable of what is happening around me, what matters is for me to understand, everyday of my life that God is in-charge. God knows what is coming and where i am going, for the Lord declares - "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life!"

WORD 2day

25th April – St. Mark
‘The Lord worked with them’ reads the last verse of the Gospel today! The Apostles had this privilege it looks like, as we read the Acts and the letters…the Lord worked with them. The words, I will be with you till the end of times, was a concrete experience of the Early Christian Communities. Specially, the apostles are found to be so fiery, fearless and focused because they saw, experienced and were convinced that ‘the Lord worked with them.’ St. Mark, apart from being the evangelist that he was, represents the generation that immediately followed the apostles and received the Christ-ian heritage – a reminder for me that even today, if I am conscious and convinced, the Lord works with me!

WORD 2day

24.04.2013

One who believes in me will never be in darkness. How many times i find myself in darkness, in confusion, in a state of indecision! Who is to be blamed? The Situation? The times? Or persons around me? If i really believed in the Light... i would have known that the Light has always been there with me! How capable am i to listen to the Lord's voice, with the certainty with which the First Christians do as the first reading suggests today. They set apart Paul and Barnaba, because the Spirit of the Lord wanted them to. Its only with the eyes of faith that one can behold the Light of Christ, which bears the presence of the Trinity as a whole! Its only when i am in a position to behold the Light, i can safely think of being a light to those around me!

WORD 2day

WORD 2day:
They were already affected by persecution yet, there they were proclaiming the Lord... they knew their life had changed forever from the very moment they encountered the Risen Lord! They had become the flock of the True Shepherd, they had heard his voice, they beheld his presence and they followed him with all their heart. What an example for me, to challenge myself, whether I really belong to the flock of the Divine Shepherd!

WORD 2day

The metaphor of the flock and the shepherd continues. we are called to be God's flock, the flock that is gathered by the Lord and led by His hands, protected by the Lord and called in the Lord's name to gather everyone into one fold. We pray today that our words, our actions and all that we are, make us worthy to belong to the flock of the Divine Shepherd.

We are God's Flock?

4th Sunday of Easter: 21 April, 2013.

The Shepherd presents to us
the criteria to be called the Flock of the Divine Shepherd...

- to LISTEN  to the Voice AS A COMMUNITY (Gospel)

- to be a FLOCK that is OPEN TO ALL (I Reading)

- to be a FLOCK that is TRANSFORMED by the LAMB (II Reading)

Do you love me?

UNLESS I SEE…

II SUNDAY OF EASTER, YEAR C, 07.04.2013.

The Invitation to see... the invitation to believe

A week later (Jn 20:26)… yes we are celebrating the day, a week later! A week after that great event, which is still fresh in our mind, that event which gives meaning to our Christian life, a week after the day which had a dawn that gave light and hope to the whole human kind, a week later we celebrate today the Low Sunday, or the end of the Easter Octave.

Today the Liturgy has two verbs that dominate the message… to see, and, to believe. The first reading presents to us what the faithful saw when the apostles were around; and what the people saw in the Christians! The second reading speaks of the things that John saw revealed to him by God, as things seen and yet to be seen! The Gospel presents to us Thomas, who wanted to see in order to believe and Jesus who invites him to see and to believe! The Liturgy invites us to see and to believe!

There can be five kinds of people: those who don’t see and so don’t believe; people who see but don’t want to believe; people who want to see in order to believe; people who believe and therefore see; people who believe no matter what they see! It’s important for us to know to which category we belong to.

The first category is almost an impossibility…today everyone is given to see. But this fact notwithstanding, if someone has not seen the wonders of the Lord, and has no clue as to believe in the Lord, it is not the person’s mistake.

The second group is abundant today… they see but are adamant not to believe. Pride, Negative Influences, Arrogant Independence makes these persons purposely turn down the Divine Revelation.

The third group is where majority of us fall into. We would like to see, we long for signs and wonders, we rush to places to catch a glimpse of reported miracles, we storm the heavens with a prayer for a sign, we pick up news and reports that indicate something extraordinary, we look for something that will provide a justification for what we want to believe.

The fourth group is the exemplary group that keeps the faith community going! The persons who believe so fervently, that they see things so wonderful and inexplicable around them. They believe ardently and so they begin to see and the more they see the more they believe.

The last category is where we are invited to be; to be persons who believe no matter what they see. During the holy week I would have heard the confessions of over 300 hundred persons, and so many of them struggling with what they see in their own life on a daily basis – problems, concerns and crises. There are those who see what is happening to the innocents who suffer, the just who are stifled, the kind who are trodden over. The world today has countless instances of unjust policies, inhuman practices, usurped justice and unheard cries. In spite of all this we are challenged to believe! 

Dear Friends, Thomas was someone who loved Jesus to the core, he wanted to go with Jesus and die with him; he was convinced that Jesus was dead, Jesus was killed for the sake of Truth, for the sake of liberating the people from meaningless ritualism and slavish faith. He was so sure of the death and suffering of Jesus that the wounds of the nails and the lance were the absolute proofs for the identity of Jesus. But Jesus comes with all his mercy to assure him of the same, that he died, that he was killed, that he was wounded… all because he wanted them to believe –, to believe in the unlimited forgiveness of God, to believe in the unconditional love of God, to believe in the Mercy of God! Right enough in the year 2000, Blessed Pope John Paul II initiated the tradition of celebrating the Divine Mercy on this Sunday, the Sunday when the Risen Lord appeared with such merciful understanding to strengthen his disciples in faith.

Today the same Risen Lord invites us to see, to see and to believe! To see him present in our lives and believe that he wants us to act on his behalf everyday! To see him wounded in every person who is in need, who is troubled, who is depressed, who is broken…and believe that it is the Lord beckoning us to act with mercy and love. If we respond to the invitation, we can rightfully proclaim with all our heart, My Lord and My God! 

May the Divine Mercy fill our hearts and make us ever merciful to all those with whom we live specially among them, those in need.

 

St. Joseph and Pope Francis

19th March 2013... Feast of St. Joseph and Inaugural Eucharist of Pope Francis

to live without egoism and to be ready to listen to the other!

There are a few things that I have always admired in Saint Joseph.

The first is the fact that he was an example of a person who was not dominated by his ego.  If he were egoistic, he would have denounced the girl whom he was to marry, when he found her pregnant. If he were egoistic, he would have thrown the dreams and the visions that God gave and done what he willed. The very fact that we do not hear anything about Joseph in the Gospels is evidence to the fact that he lived his life without any attachment to his ego.

The second admirable aspect is the quality of listening... when Mary narrated the visit of angel Gabriel he listened, when the angel came and delivered him the message he listened, when the boy Jesus spoke in the temple, his mother questioned him, but Joseph listened!

The World today is in need of these two qualities... to live without egoism and to be ready to listen to the other! Imagine if today's spouses had these two qualities...how low the number of divorces will be; imagine if today these two qualities reigned in religious communities, what a witness of the Reign of God that would be; imagine if these two qualities were found in today's political leaders and international relations, what a world of peace we would create.

Let us imitate St. Joseph in these two - the Spirituality of a Egoless personality and Listening Mentality.   It goes well with the event of Holy Father's inaugural eucharist and with his motto, miserando atque eligendo, the first part recognising the gratuitous mercy of God and the second part the fact of having been called by God to a specific mission! In a translated version the motto reads… Lowly, yet Chosen!

Pushing our Ego aside, lending a listening ear to God and to God's people, let’s walk together as people of God, let’s build together the Church of God and let’s profess our faith, loud and clear through our everyday life.

I am glad today I will be part of the people of God at St.Peter’s Square 
thanking God for this new leader given unto us.
St. Joseph, pray for the Pope and protect him always!

THE CALL TO JOURNEY WITH HOPE

17^th March, 2013: 5^th Sunday of Lent: Year C.

THE CALL TO JOURNEY WITH HOPE

A roadmap for the Journey:

Persevere through Problems...

as Israel did, to walk through the desert...and find the promised land across.

Prioritise Christ...

as St. Paul considers, everything else as a loss, before the surpassing value of knowing Christ.

Progress as Pilgrims...

forgetting the past, focussing on Christ and Progressing towards that fullness brought and promised by Christ... to that home where God our Father and Mother, awaits us... to progress as pilgrims, with joy and with hope

A Call to Journey with hope: The roadmap for the Journey.

We are at the end of such a significant week! We have loads of thoughts to reflect on and take to heart. Expectations, Celebration, Gratitude, Mystery, Wonder, were the feelings that dominated the week that has passed! And today the dominant note is one of HOPE. The Liturgy of the Word too invites us to the same sentiment of faith. Last week the Liturgy called us to Celebrate. Every celebration is to reinforce the energy within a person or the community to go on with life – and following it right on, the Liturgy today calls us to Journey with Hope.

Holy Father Pope Francis, when he greeted the faithful gathered at St.Peter’s Square said it in simple words, “Iniziamo un cammino, il vescovo e popolo!” – Let’s begin a journey as the Bishop and his people! A journey, he said!

In his first homily as the Supreme Pontiff, at the Eucharist celebrated with the Cardinals, he presented a beautiful project, in three words – “Camminare, Costruire, Confessare” – To Journey (walk), to Build and to Profess!  Journey… is the central theme today, it is the central theme for a Christian Spirituality. St. Paul points it out in his letters with various terms, we run, we journey, we press on, towards to goal, with hope.

A Journey needs a roadmap… and today’s Word of God provides us with the Roadmap in three words, in three ‘P’s – Persevere, Prioritize and Progress.

For the Hebrews under slavery and burdensome labour, the prospect of journeying to the promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey, was a fantasy. When they actually undertook it, they could not believe their own selves. The Psalmist expresses it so well, “When the Lord restored the fortunes of Israel, it was like in a dream!” (Ps 126:1) When they embarked on that journey it was in no terms easy… they were faced with the endless desert, with no food and no water, they were faced with a sea with freedom on the other side and death approaching them from behind, they were faced with treachery within and immorality that abounded…but those who stuck on to the journey crossed the Jordan into their promised land. Persevering through Problems, is an important ingredient towards success in faith. We see, in the first reading today, how this faith was rewarded for the people of Israel. The journey of Christian life is not different – with its own share of deserts and seas and temptations and death – but a disciple of Christ is called to Persevere right through these problems, and journey in faith.

What if we lose the vision, the direction, the energy… it is St. Paul again who instructs in various words…set your hearts on the thing above and on grace that Christ brings, he instructs. I consider everything as a loss, as a trash, as a garbage… because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ. The second dimension of the roadmap to real faith, is Prioritising Christ above anything or anybody else in our daily life. When our self considerations of comfort and career, or our considerations of attachments and allegiances become more important than God, Christ and all that pertains to our circle of faith, we can easily lose direction, lack vision and get lost in the mire of daily concerns and personal glory. What we need to do is fix our gaze on Christ, look to Him and be radiant (Ps 34:5). Thus we will journey on!

The third dimension of the roadmap is the most important! With the lost direction, with the lost time and with the negative experiences we can be caught up in the past. We see today a group of people who brought that lady to Jesus today… they we so impressed with themselves that they caught that lady sinning, they were so caught up with the law of the Moses given in the past, they were so involved in the fact that Jesus had insulted them so many times in so may ways, all things of the past… that they failed to see what was going on in the mind of that woman. The grief that was crying out from her eyes, the shame that was constricting her heart and her body, the anger that was swelling in her mind, the guilt that was tearing her apart – nothing mattered to those people who stood with stones in their hands. Jesus saw what they did not see! The person who was there on the ground waiting for the stones to be pelted, thinking to herself, it was better to die than to live, it was better to be stoned than to be looked at with the past in reference. It would have been easier for Jesus to send those self made judges away than to reassure that woman of her worth! Without a word on her burdensome past, Jesus tells her – Go and sin no more! Go… Go… Go on… To go on, with Christ in focus, to press on forgetting the past and to progress in the path of Christ…that is the call today!

With the hope that God awaits us where we are headed to, we are called to progress. Falls, faults, failures and fake successes…let them not deter us. To rise, to restart and to resume our journey is an act of hope. That is what Jesus calls us to. To journey with hope, to never be discouraged but persevere through problems, to prioritise Christ without losing our focus, our vision our direction, to progress constantly towards that fullness that Christ wishes to offer us. Like pilgrims set on a journey towards the house of grace, we are called to journey on!!! The Compass is set… Christ is the coordinate points… Christ is the direction… God our Father and Mother awaits us at home… lets journey in the path that Christ has traced, with joy and with hope.