WORD 2day: 9th August, 2014

Just a bit of faith...

Hab 1:12 - 2:4; Mt 17:14-20

Righteous shall live by their faith!
Faith... if we have it we have everything; if we have everything but faith, there is  a lack that nothing else can complete. This is why Jesus expresses his displeasure in such plain terms to his disciples.

Prophet Habakkuk speaks of the great promises of the Lord and recommends the anxious awaiting hearts to faith and says, in faith the righteous ones shall see every word of the Lord come true! The delay that is involved in the designs of the Lord coming to pass, is a painful crisis to every expectant heart. We would be listed among the ranks of the righteous if we hold on in faith and have the patience of seeing the power of God shine through.

A bit of faith will make us strong, enduring, persevering, resilient, patient, persistent, serene, unassailable... yes, just a bit of faith! That is all it takes.

WORD 2day: 8th August, 2014

The true blessedness from God

Nah 2:1-3, 3:1-3, 6,7; Mt 16: 24-28

Today we hear the hope giving words of Nahum. But just a few days earlier we heard from Jeremiah a sharp criticism of the self proclaimed prophet Hananiah, saying the prophecies of prosperity can be accepted as such only after the things prophesied come to pass. However the words of Hananiah were soon  proved to be  mere search for popular acceptance!

Nahum's promise of the restoration of God's people comes combined with a call to be prepared, alert and girded. Jesus takes that a step forward to say, it takes a ready acceptance of the daily cross and a loving preparedness to walk in the ways of the Lord, to experience the true "blessedness" from God.

Prosperity, fame, popularity, joy, sense of fulfilment, peace and a sense of being loved... these are ofcourse signs of God's blessings...but they cannot be our focus in our daily life, instructs Jesus. When we strive to live acceptable in the eyes of God, all the rest will follow. What matters thus is..the true "blessedness"  in the sight of God!

WORD 2day: 7th August, 2014

A heart worthy of the Covenant

Jer 31: 31-34; Mt 16: 13-23

The day will come when you will not have to teach your loved ones to know God...for every one will know God in those days, promises the Lord. Jesus applauds Peter, saying his knowledge of Christ was exceptional, because it was God given! The day has come when Peter know who the Lord was, as we read in Jeremiah.

The reality is that, though God reveals Godself to us and we get to know God so intimately, our memories are so very fickle and short lived. We give into our human tendencies so easily and readily as if there were nothing so great between us and God! Our memories may be thus short, but not God's. God forgives, waits and and readily renews the covenant that God made with us. 

The Lord promises to give us a new heart, a heart of flesh, a heart that takes after the sensibilities of God, a heart that sees as God does, a heart that hears as God does, a heart that feels as God does, a heart that loves as God loves... a heart that is worthy of the covenant that God has made with us.

WORD 2day: 6th August, 2014

The Transfiguration of the Lord : The call to burn till we are consumed!

Dan 7: 9-10, 13-14;  2 Pet 1: 16-19; Mt 17: 1-9

"A lamp shining in a dark place until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts" - a wonderful comparison that St. Peter presents to us. It would apply to our faith, our life of witness, our trust, our commitment to the Reign of God and every bit of our faith and its expression here and now, all leading us towards that eternal glory that awaits us as children of God(Jn 1:12), co-heirs with Christ(Rom 8:17), people meant for the future glory (Rom 8:18). 

Our Christian life is rich and its richness will be lost if we lose the sense of mystery in understanding it. Mystery is not merely something that is unknown and incomprehensible, but it is something that is beyond all our rational calculations and empirical conditions; yet it is not totally alien from our experience; it is part of our lived experience, an experience we live on a daily basis, an experience that sustains our faith and offers meaning to our life.

The feast of Transfiguration is a symbol, a prefigurement and a surety of the glory that rests within us, as children of God. However, we are warned not to lose our grip on our daily living, on our concrete initiatives towards ushering in the Reign of God in the pretext of dreaming about a future that is glorious and splendid. 

In practical terms, to be people transfigured is to live our lives with our eyes fixed on heaven and our feet planted firm on ground, to never lose the hope that the Lord offer in Himself and to never rest from our efforts to build the Reign of God here on earth. It is a call to burn until we are totally consumed, totally consumed for the sake of the mission that the Lord entrusts to us, consumed living our daily life to the full, empowering every person to live it to their full. 

WORD 2day: 5th August, 2014

Growing recognizant of the faithfulness of God...

Jer 30: 1-2, 12-15, 18-22; Mt 15: 1-2, 10-14

"You shall be my people and I will be your God": everytime that I hear this statement...I am filled with an awe about the unfailing love of God. What are all my actions in front of this unbounded love of God? What do my so called great sacrifices and pious practices measure up to, in comparison to the immeasurable love of God? How worthy is my faithfulness to God vis-a-vis the faithfulness of God towards me? 

The only concern that should fill my mind is how to translate that awe into attitudes, attitudes of absolute gratefulness, total obedience and boundless humility. If these attitudes develop in us, how peaceful we can grow to be! They would reduce to the minimum our tendency to judge others or consider others unbearable. How irritable we get and how fast we lose our patience with people. Between husbands and wives, between friends, between colleagues, between collaborators of the same team...how forbearing are we? How patient and non judgmental can we prove to be! That would be a reflection of how recognizant we are of the unending love and unfailing acceptance of God!

WORD 2day: 4th August, 2014

Being true prophets: Remembering John Maria Vianney

Jer 28:1-17; Mt 14: 13-21

The readings today remind us of our call to be a prophet... by the way, do we really know that each of us baptised in the Spirit is called to be a priest, a prophet and a prince (or princess)? Of course, knowing is one thing, but being convinced of it is totally another thing.

Being a prophet is not speaking things that others would love to hear from us -like the so called fortune tellers and prediction prodigies do to woo more and more  customers. Jeremiah warns Hananiah today in the first reading against his false sense of prophecy! And we read the sad end of Hananiah. The Gospel has a symbolic message in the same lines.

Jesus chides his disciples for their lack of faith. It might look a bit too demanding on Jesus' part to expect the disciples to remain unperturbed when they are almost sinking. But the point that the Master makes is that his disciples should be perturbed by nothing, absolutely nothing! "Let nothing disturb you", he would say. In today's world so immersed in numerous kinds of concerns, wouldn't it be prophetic to live a life so unperturbed! John Maria Vianney is indeed a shining example in this.

THE LORD REMAINS... DO I?

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time: 3rd August, 2014

Is 55:1-3; Rom 8: 35, 37-39; Mt 14:13-21

Nothing can separate us from Christ, declares the second reading, because we are part of Christ and Christ is part of us. Christ chose to be so!

Christ INVITES us to come, eat and drink from his love, from his generosity, from his compassion. He provides in times of our need, in moments of our struggle, in moments of our crises. Christ reminds us here of Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides.

Christ CHOOSES not to part with us. In the Gospel account we find the disciples telling the Lord that they could send the people away. But the Lord insists that they give the people something to eat. It is that compassion that ends in a miracle. Christ chooses to remain with us  forever.

Christ REMAINS with us whether we are conscious of it or not. Nothing separates us from the Lord except our decision to keep ourselves away from Him. In our need, in our troubles, in our struggles, in our concerns...the Lord promises to be with us and provide us with every bit of care we need. Not even death, but our free choice against God can separate us from God. That places the entire burden on our part to remain with the Lord.

WORD 2day: 2nd August, 2014

The plight of a prophet

Jer 26: 1-11,16 ; Mt 14: 1-12

Constant threat to life, drastic insecurities of life, total unacceptance from the rest of the so called normal people, pressures of helplessness...these form part of the usual plight of a prophet, not just in the days of Jeremiah and John the Baptist but even today. That explains why real prophets are a rare phenomenon. However, it has often occured to me that, the difference between a true prophet and a self-righteous egoist is very thin and dangerously subtle.

The first element that can demarcate the two is the FOCUS. When Jeremiah spoke to the people and the princes, he never looked for support or people who can come to his defence. His focus was determinantly on what God wanted him to say and nothing else.

The second element is DETACHMENT from the result. Though the message is definitely pointed towards a change, a result,  the prophet is not excessively anxious about it. At times a self righteous person can be on a ego trip claiming credits and proving his point. A true prophet desists this tendency naturally.

The third element is absolute FEARLESSNESS. A fearlessness that makes them hard people to handle for the authorities and the hierarchy. But that fearlessness comes from their unwavering trust, confidence and hope in the never failing presence of the Lord!

WORD 2day: 1st August, 2014

Hearing what I want to hear 

Jer 26: 1-9; Mt 13: 54-58

Recently, I had been to a hearing test centre and the technician there was explaining to us: there are different kinds of deafness... mild hearing loss, moderate hearing loss, moderately severe hearing loss, severe hearing loss and profound hearing loss! At times spiritually too these hearing losses can be calculated in a similar fashion, but we need to add one more crucial type of hearing challenge. That is, Selective Hearing Loss! Hearing only what I want to hear, or refusing to hear what I do not want to hear merely because it causes me inconvenience. This is the syndrome that we see the people are in, in both the first reading and the Gospel.

When Jeremiah spoke to them about the impeding danger and their need to return to the Lord, they deemed him liable to death. When Jesus spoke to them on issues that really challenged their daily life, they looked at him with suspicion and despised him for the "ordinariness" from which he hailed.

The Word of God keeps rushing into our hearts. It would cleanse it, refresh it and fill it with life, if only we allow it to. If we are guarded, biased and suspicious, we would break no ground towards perfection. On this first friday of the month, let us allow the words from the Sacred Heart to fill us and challenge us, so that we may not fall prey to the syndrome of 'hearing merely what we want to hear'!

WORD 2day: 31st July, 2014

Remembering St. Ignatius of Loyola: Doing it God's Way

Jer 18: 1-6; Mt 13: 47-53

Have thine own way Lord, have thine own way

Thou art the potter, I am the clay

Mould me and make me, after thy will

while I am waiting yielded and still.

What a beautiful prayer it could be for us to make this day, inspired by the reading from Jeremiah and by the life of the saint we celebrate today - St. Ignatius of Loyola! 'Every thing for the greater glory of God' - that was the watch word that defined the life and works of Ignatius. Docility to the will of God was a sure way to sanctity proposed by Ignatius. 

In the parable that Jesus tells us today about the Reign of God, he brings out a fundamental element of either belonging to the Reign or not belonging to it. The angels will separate the good from the bad; the wicked from the righteous; the docile from the obstinate; the obedient from the rebellious; the discerning from the naive. It is said the hymn in heaven is, "I did it God's way"; while in hell it is, "I did it my way." The secret is here: doing it God's way! Living our life in God's way!