WORD 2day

1st July, 2013

The first reading of today is a bit confusing! It presents a scene which looks as if God is waiting to destroy and Abraham is trying to appease the wrath of God. Though apparently that is how it is narrated, the message communicated is quite different. Sodom and Gomorrah were cities filled with filth and sinfulness, wickedness and devilishness and on account of these, they were cities that were running themselves into destruction! It is like the ecological crisis and the nuclear risks that we have created today! One day or the other we are to reap its fruits! The Wisdom of God in warning against this and pointing the right way is either rejected or belittled. The natural law and the divine law that is imprinted on our spirits, is the only guarantee towards a peaceful life. But we have ruined our prospects disrespecting and discarding any law that comes from God! When Jesus discourages one from following him and chides the other for not following him, he knows exactly what is good for each of them. God has set laws and order, keeping in mind the needs, wants and requirements for peaceful living of the entire humanity. In human pride, irrational greed and ruthless selfishness, we have made a mess of the world entrusted to us. The warning is to all of us today, if we do not mend our ways and return to the ways of the Lord, we are leading ourselves and our world into destruction. As he did with Abraham, the Lord is negotiating with and through every good willed person even today!

NO TURNING BACK...

30th June 2013: 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time 

To follow or not to follow: that is the question!

Today, following is a term which is found all over. You can decide to follow someone on Facebook, on Twitter, on Google Plus, on WhatsApp... here, to follow is to get to know all that the person is doing and have your own comment to pass, or your like button to press or not! Following, in Jesus' terms is not that simple! When Jesus tells you, Follow me - that is a serious affair. The Readings today lay bare to us the elements of a real following, in Jesus's terms. 

First of all to follow Jesus, is to leave your past behind!

There can be no compromise, no mere walking the line, when it comes to following Jesus. I am challenged to go all the way. Today, Elisha is given as the model for us - he kills the bulls and burns the yoke, and follows Elijah - a call for us to leave our past behind and follow Jesus. It is a symbolic act and St. Paul develops that same symbol for us in the second reading - never to return to the yoke that Jesus has freed us from! The yoke of slavery to sin, to worldliness, to love of comfort. We are called to leave behind these yokes and walk in the liberty that Christ gives us. It is Faith that helps us to make this leap. Whole of last week, we have been reading about Abraham, who took that step in faith, he left everything and walked in the way that God showed him.

The second element of the following is to look to the future!

To leave behind something that we have always held on to, is not that easy. One needs an impetus to really take that decision. Jesus offers us the impetus in the Reign of God. Jesus calls us to be sons and daughters of the Reign, to look forward with Hope the coming of the Reign, and not just that, but to proclaim, promote and make present that Reign wherever we are. That is the meaning of being a follower of Christ, who lived and died and rose again to make us the liberated Children of the Reign. To go and Proclaim the Reign is the mandate that Jesus gives each of us and He expects that we do it everyday, through our words, our gestures, our attitudes, our priorities, in short, through our testimony. Amidst the crisis and the gloom that we find ourselves in, we are called to remain people of Hope and announce a future that is found only in the Lord!

Thirdly, to follow Jesus is to live the present in His way!

Leaving the past and looking to the future, is to ensure that we live our present fully and in the way that God wants us. St. Paul underlines the mode of living when one chooses to follow Christ. It is to walk by the Spirit, to be led by the Spirit! It is love of God, through love for one another, loving one another, reaching out to the needy - all done in Love.

It is not an easy journey on the road map laid out here! It calls for challenges. Jesus does not hide anything. He says everything in clear terms - if you wish to follow Christ you may not have anywhere to lay your head; you will have to lose things that you consider dear, you will have to walk towards your own suffering! Inspite of all these, there should be NO TURNING BACK... If you turn back, you are not worthy of the call that you have received. The trophy is only at the end, the finish line is the last part of the race, the end finishes the journey... our job is to keep on walking, to keep on running, to keep on journeying with the Lord... that is truly following the Lord.

As I thought of this no turning back I was reminded of the famous story told of Hernán Cortés, the Spanish Conquistador, about burning the boats. That is the true sense of following the Lord. May be to end the reflection you can hear the story narrated by Andy Andrews. 

Burn your Boats

God bless Pope Francis!!!

WORD 2day

29th June, 2013

Feast of Apostles Peter and Paul. Being an apostle is no privilege, it is a challenge; living my life as an apostle is no accomplishment, it is a duty! That is why Paul said, "Woe to me if do not proclaim the Gospel"(1 Cor 9:16) and Peter said , "we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard" (Acts 4:20). They are apostles because they were "sent" in God's will to be the stones on which the communities of believers will be built. Everyone baptised is called to be an apostle, and the way to be an apostle is outlined so vividly by Peter and Paul today... to proclaim the Gospel even at the point of death; and to be stones on which the community will be built and not be the crack from which the community will be divided! Killing the apostles pleased the Jews - those were the times when the first apostles braced themselves to stand for the goodnews of Christ. They found themselves at the point of being sacrificed, but nothing discouraged them from bearing witness to Christ and his message! It is a fight, a race - not just a glamorous show to be an apostle today. The lion's mouth, the evil that surrounds and the powers of death are certainly to be found, when I begin to understand, accept and live fully my call to be an apostle... but at no point will the Lord's deliverance be lacking! When I decide to run the race, to fight the good fight, 'the Lord will rescue me from every evil and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.' 

WORD 2day

28th June, 2013

"Lord, if you will..." the Will of God is mighty, complex and all-encompassing. All that I need to do is submit to that holy will. Because it is mighty and complex, at times I don't understand it. When a little is revealed to me it already looks too big and marvelous, sometimes even difficult to believe in. At times the plans look too fantastic to be real and we begin to suggest to God something that is simpler and more feasible. Or as it happened to Abraham today, it may even seem ridiculous to believe in that will. But precisely in believing that will, we become chosen to behold the magnificence of God's doings! Sarai becomes Sarah, Abram becomes Ahraham - it is because they believed in the will of God and God's will transforms them into new persons who walk before the Lord and are blameless. What makes us covenantal people is our capacity to believe in God's will or God's plan that is eternal; the plan which is always towards our welfare. What it takes to believe in this Will on a daily basis, is the humility to submit to God, the patience to wait on the Lord and the perseverance to keep walking in way of the Lord.

WORD 2day

27th June, 2013

Not everyone who says Lord! Lord!, really belong to the Lord! There is an invitation today to check... between authenticity and duplicity. Let's talk of three categories of persons - Pretenders, Performers and Professionals! Pretenders are those who try to be something that they really are not, but everyone can see it so obviously that they actually are pretending. These are amateur actors, but they can perfect themselves in the act. The Performers are those who perform to the occasion, to the audience, to the moment. Though they are not actually what they act to be, their performance comes very close to reality. The Professionals are those who live the character they want to be for the short moment to such a perfection that people begin to equate the character and the person! We could be any of these three in our Spirituality - trying to pretend to be someone that people see so clearly that we are not; or performing at certain moments with perfection that comes with practice and repetition; or being professionals who can be taken so easily to be what they appear to be, though it may be solely for certain punctuated moments. None of the three is SUFFICIENT to be an authentic disciple of Christ... What he want is an integrity where there is no pretension or performance or professional role playing. The integrity that Christ demands, requires a ready acceptance of the crosses that come my way once I have chosen a definite way of walking with the Lord. Abraham is given as a model today, as one who struggled his way all through with contradictions, conflicts and difficult choices to make, but he remained faithful. The key is Integrity in the choice for God!

WORD 2day

26th June, 2013

The Tree and the Fruits! Abraham, was a man of God, he was the father of the covenantal people! Abraham listened, obeyed, believed and remained loyal to the Lord who called him. The Covenant the Lord made was the tree and Abraham's life choices were the fruits. The eternal covenant that is made in the blood of Jesus Christ, is the guarantee of the grace and the gift of faith within us. While it is God's action that God has transformed us into God's children in our baptism, our daily life and regular choices have to bear fruits that will make it visible to the world and to ourselves. An anonymous author reminds us, 'you may be the only gospel that some one reads! So be careful with the way you live your life!' I am a Christian not merely in my activities and responsibilities; but in every choice of mine, every thought and expression of it, every word and deed at every moment of my life. I remember a question once a preacher posed during a retreat, 'if today they detain you for being a Christian, will they find enough evidence in you to implicate you?' A powerful question, extremely simple in its categorical demand that before you call yourself a Christian, prove it!

WORD 2day

25th June, 2013

It is a theme that repeats itself over and over again; a theme that is fundamental to understanding what faith is. Abraham, often figured as the father of faith, offers us today a beautiful role model in two of his choices. The first choice is to give up his claim as the elder brother, and allow Lot to make his wish. Lot takes the greener, wealthier and the promising part! The second choice was to walk in the way that the Lord showed... and in these two choices we see the first steps of Abram, towards becoming Abraham!!! Faith is all about the choices we make on a daily basis! To fret or not to, to despair or not to, to forgive or not to, to love or not to, to give or not to, to proceed or not to, to let go or not to, to remain serene or not to - these are choices that we have to make everyday, at various moments of our waking hours. And at the end of the day, we can surely evaluate whether we have walked through the narrow gate or the broad gate during the day. And the next day is yet another opportunity to begin anew, with all the choices once again in front of us! Our Faith is a habit of choosing to do what God wants, choosing to walk the way that God shows, choosing the narrow gate that is tough and less trodden, in simple terms, choosing to walk with God... it is in walking with God that Abram grew up to be Abraham!

WORD 2day

24th June, 2013: Feast of St. John the Baptist

The Gospels narrate a long list of similarities between the stories of John and Jesus... the apparently 'impossible' conditions in which the mothers conceived, the direct intervention of God in the conception, the apparitions of the angels to the fathers, the prior choice of the name of the child to be born - one simple message is the image of John the Baptist as the precursor of Jesus. But the birth narratives of John and Jesus, together have another important message to reveal to us and that is, we are not here by chance! We are part of a complex plan, an eternal design of God. We are willed into existence by God; we are loved into existence, by the Creator! We have a purpose, because God knew us right when we were being formed in the womb of our mothers! We have a special mission because, it is the Lord who has called us by name, even before we were born! We are chosen in the eyes of God, because as St. Paul says, God has chosen us before the foundations of the world in Christ Jesus, to be holy and blameless! We are created, called, commissioned and destined to usher in the Reign of God, as John announced the coming of  Christ. Let us become aware of our call, our purpose and our destiny, which is much larger than the petty preoccupations of our daily worries!

IN CHRIST...

23rd June 2013: 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Apparently the liturgy of this Sunday looks like it answers the question, 'Who is Jesus?' That is not what Jesus intends to prove today - that he is Christ... but Jesus looks to treat a question much deeper and more crucial - it is about who we are, in Christ. 

Yes, the Word teaches me today, who I am, IN CHRIST... 

IN CHRIST, I BELONG TO GOD...

The readings depict the longing of the people of Israel to identify themselves as, 'the house of David', 'inhabitants of Jerusalem', 'Abraham's offsprings' and 'heirs according to promise'. David, Abraham, the prophets...and the covenant that was made through them by God with the people was their proof of heredity. In Christ, there is a New and Everlasting Covenant and in our Baptism, St. Paul reminds us, 'In Christ Jesus you are all sons (and daughters) of God.' Our heredity is determined by the blood shed for us, on the Cross; and our identity comes from the Baptismal fountain that was opened to us in Christ.

IN CHRIST, I AM CLEANSED...

The Lord promised the people of the Old Testament, to pour on them the spirit of compassion and supplication, the fountain to cleanse themselves from sin and uncleannesses... In Christ the fountain of forgiveness is opened forth for us, through faith. The blood of Christ washes us clean, as clean as the falling snow! It is this forgiveness and faith, that is offered to me freely in abundance, that invites me to 'put on Christ.' 

IN CHRIST, I JOURNEY TOWARDS GOD...

No one can come to the father, unless through me! For I am the way, the truth and the life, declared Christ. In Christ we have the way to the Father, but Christ's path is Calvary, and his company is the Cross! Unless through Calvary and the Cross, one cannot reach the Glory of the Everliving God! Death and Resurrection form one reality in Christ! One should die to be risen! One should die to oneself to be risen to God! One should die to selfishness to be risen to genuine love! One should die to avarice to be risen to compassion! One should die to egoism to be risen to life, a LIFE IN CHRIST.