WORD 2day: 16th September, 2014

Compassion or Comparison?

1 Cor 12: 12-14, 27-31a; Lk 7: 7-11

Each of us is given special gifts from the Holy Spirit, special gifts according to the special calling that we have. If we become aware of the call that we have received, we would also become aware of the gift that is given to us, to live up to that calling. To be prophets, or to be apostles, or to be teachers, or to be leaders, or to be interpreters... these are all different calls which are lived out by means of various tasks that we are called to carry out. But the fundamental purpose of all these, the call underlying all these calls is just one: to be holy and blameless, before God in love (Eph 1:4). 

The readings today, taken together, give us this all important Christian lesson for life: be compassionate and do not compare! As St. Paul instructs, to rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep (Rom 12:15), that is the way we can realise, that we are One People! Comparisons will lead to jealousy and fights which will make us enemies, and we would lose our very identity of being God's people.

WORD 2day: 15th September, 2014

Remembering the Mother of Sorrows

1 Cor 11:17-26, 33; Lk 2: 33-35 or Jn 19: 25-27

A heart pierced with an arrow is a famous symbol today, a symbol very romantic. But there was a heart that was once told: one day a sword shall pierce you! And that heart remained patient and bore that piercing for the sake of that one "yes" that was pronounced at the beginning of the string of those events. The Mother of Sorrows is an icon that challenges us to understand the meaning of Christian living. As St. Paul would say, 'the reign of God is not a matter of food and drink, enjoyment and fun, a romantic feeling or a colourful happening'. It is a matter of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (cf. Rom 14:17). Righteousness, requires a hunger and thirst for it (cf Mt 5:6); Peace and Joy in the Holy Spirit consist of doing the will of the God, come what may. 

Following immediately the Exaltation of the Cross, the feast of today, establishes the truth that, in living a Christian life, there are a certain things clearly difficult and demanding. It requires an absolute choice to live a truly 'Christian' life  to the full. Mary made that choice and stuck to it right up to the end and that is what we celebrate today. She has shown us what it means to be a disciple of Christ, the Lord of the Cross! May our Blessed Mother, strengthen our spirits, increase our endurance and deepen our faith. 

Look up to the Lord and be Loved

14th September 2014: Exaltation of the Cross

Num 21: 4b-9; Phil 2: 6-11; Jn 3:13-17

We have today a beautiful remembrance, the celebration of the Christian symbol of Love: the Cross. The Cross is taken more often than not, as a symbol of suffering! Yes, it was a symbol of suffering, until the loving Lord took it into his embrace, on his shoulders and climbed on it to give his life for us...all this out of the limitless love he had for us! He changed its meaning and ever since, the cross has come to symbolise love, the unconditional, limitless and boundless love that the Lord has for us.

Hence the feast that we celebrated today gives us a fundamental lesson for living our daily life: Look Up to the Lord and Be Loved!

Look Up: 

At times we are lost in the troubles that we have, in the daily struggles and everyday chores; so lost in those that we have time only to murmur, to lament and to complain. We do not have the patience and the capacity to look up! Look Up, look beyond, look upon high and you will see the horizon that will give you hope. Our troubles are big, our concerns are challenging, but the horizon is there, the silver lining is there...we have to look up to notice that. Hope is the key to Christian way of life. 

Look to the Lord:

Let us look to the Lord; it is from the Lord that our help comes! The Psalms further insist: Look upto Him and be radiant (34:5). 'Looking Up' alone is not enough, we can be deceived or distracted or misled. Looking to the Lord is the key to Christian Problem Solving. Unless through the Son of God who has come down from heaven, no one can go to the Father who is in heaven, says the Gospel today. The real solutions to our problems lie in the hands of God: it is in looking to the Lord that we will have life, life in all its fullness. It is a call to refrain from telling the Lord that our problems are big; but a call to tell our problems that our Lord is big and mighty!

Be Loved:

The Lord is filled with love, a total self emptying love that does not count the cost! God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that we have eternal life. The Son so loved the world that he gave everything up, and showed his love in the total self-giving on the Cross. We are promised a measure of love that no human mind can comprehend, because it is eternal and limitless. Such is God's love for us, but nothing can be done if I keep myself away from it. When I claim that love, in total obedience and surrender unto the Lord, I feel loved! When I rebel and keep myself away, I prevent myself from experiencing that love which is so present all around me. The key is allowing myself to be loved by God, seeing myself as being loved by God, identifying myself as the beloved child of God. 

As we exalt the Cross today, as we sing praises to the One who is lifted high for our salvation, let us resolve to Look Up, to Look to Him and to Let ourselves be loved! 

WORD 2day: 13th September, 2014

Differences, disputations and dialogue!
1 Cor 10:4-23; Lk 6: 43-49

We live in a world of pluralism today. Not just we in India, but almost every one all over the world lives in a context and culture of pluralism. Everyone finds one's neighbour different, different in his or her creed or convictions or value systems. In such a situation, what should be a true Christian disposition? Can it be one of disputation, debate or delirious defence? The result would range from a kind of disrespectful cynicism to a hateful dissent. Are those fruits proper to a tree that is Christian? How can anything be its fruit other than love:  for by this they will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for each other.

If so, what would be the right disposition? Compromise? Relativism? An anything-is-ok mentality? No, Never, says St.Paul in today's first reading. Between Controversies and Compromise, there is something called Comprehension. That, that alone, is the need of the hour today. An attitude of mature Dialogue.

What is the use of talking so much of God as love and of Christ's teachings of a forgiving and forbearing love, if we dont begin to live it? Will we not be foolish builders, building our beach side castles? Let us form ourselves into solid bulidings of enduring love and never failing faith, that we may teach the whole world the lifestyle of true love.

WORD 2day: 12th September, 2014

The need to be 'trained'
I Cor 9:16-19, 22b -27; Lk 6: 39-42.

The readings today insist on the need to be trained in being an apostle. An apostle we are, each of us by virtue of our baptism. That call is not merely a privillege, it is an obligation, a duty and a demand placed on me. Considering it merely a matter of boast leads to some unfortunate developments within the faith community, situations such as infights, ego clashes, jealousy and unchristian 'politricks'... The Gospel calls these: blind leading the blind and both into the pit!

Instead, taking the call seriously leads one to a fuller realisation of the gift that it is and of the demands it places. One of the important demands is to be trained! Both St.Paul and Jesus, today speak of this training. It would consist of fundamentally three things: humble acceptance of the call to be an apostle; attentive listening to the Word that comes to us; and diligent practice of the Word that is heard. Falling short of these three steps would make us either arrogant bigwigs or pretentious bullies but never trained disciples. The need to be trained is precisely, to gradually grow after the image of the Master Himself.

WORD 2day: 11th September, 2014

The Crux of Christianity

1 Cor 8: 1B-7, 11-13; Lk 6: 27-38

The readings today have a practical summary for Christian living; it offers for our consideration and reflection the crux of christianity: LOVE, love in all its concrete sense. In fact in the context of the letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul is slowly building up towards the presentation of the all important hymn of love. 

Christian life has to be defined by love: love understood as sensitivity towards the weak and vulnerable; love understood as the compassion towards the needy and suffering; love understood as a non judgmental acceptance of the other; love understood as giving without counting; love understood as going an extra mile; love understood as forgiveness and love understood as relationship shared in the One God, the One Father and Mother of all. At times it might look very simplistic to propose love as the solution for all problems in life, but giving a serious thought to it, everything boils down to that. Love is the only answer to all the problems in life, in the world and in the whole of existence. True love (only what is true is love), true love alone can set the world back to its perfect mode of happiness and meaning. 

Anything else can  find only pseudo remedies and temporary face-lifts. It is love and love alone that can offer true salvation to humankind, because truly, the crux of Christianity is nothing other than, true love!

WORD 2day: 9th September, 2014

Conforming to whom?

1 Cor 6: 1-11; Lk 6: 12-19

Do not be conformed to the standard of this world, but be renewed in spirit and create a counter culture, reminds St. Paul in his letter to the Romans (cf. 12:2). In today's first reading he chides the Corinthians for their behaviour which was no different from that of the others. He does not denounce them for the disputes they have, but loses his patience with them because they are not able to handle that dispute among themselves. It was a clear sign of the absence of something that was essential to their identity, according to St. Paul: mutual esteem inspired by love. Instead what dominates here is mutual competition provoked by ego. It is a reality, obviously, even today in our faith communities where there is an un-Christian understanding of authority and inhuman practice of domination! 

Aren't there churches which are closed down because of factions? Haven't there been clashes between different groups within the same community of faith? Aren't there leaders disrespected or rejected or maltreated just because of some differences, however flimsy and fiery those differences may be. The call is clear... as a son or daughter of God in Christ's footsteps, to whom do you want to conform? 

Biblical Icons for Family Living - #3

My contribution in the September issue of
DON BOSCO BULLETIN

Happy Birthday Mamma...

Mic 5:1-4a (or) Rom 8:28-30; Mt 1:1-23

The readings chosen for the day do not speak to us directly of Mary... but they have a truth which our Blessed Mother teaches us very strongly. The truth is that of the choice that God has made of us! As St.Paul would say writing to the Ephesians, God chose us in  Christ before the foundations of the world! The Birth of Mary signals in  utter silence the beginning of the climax of God's plan of salvation. No one knew when this girl was born that she was destined to be that woman of whom the son of God will be born in the fullness of time.

That is the mystery we are. We enshrine within  ourselves a marvellous design which we ourselves are not aware of. Mother Mary is a splendid example for us to learn from. From eternity God has chosen us for a particular purpose and each of us has to discern that purpose.

Today as we sing a happy birthday to her, our Blessed Mother will sing to the glory of the Lord for the great things God has done to her. The same things God continues to do for us and wants to do more, but our readiness to surrender and our capacity to ponder in silence are those which matter.

True Love

7th September, 2014

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time