WORD 2day: 1st October, 2014

Is it right to say: Man proposes; God disposes?

Job 9: 1-12, 14-16; Lk 9: 57-62: Remembering St. Teresa of Lisieux 

Lord's ways are unique and the best thing that can happen to us is God's plan. Job today explains how a radical surrender into the hands of God is the best way or the only sound way of living human life. Man proposes; God disposes - we have heard this often. It is unfair to state it that way, because it is God who is the Master; God proposes! The best thing for us is to accept that proposal, without minding the momentary inconvenience it may cause. 

The Little flower whom we remember today reminds us of the same child like attitude. She would say: 'what matters is not great deeds, but deeds with great love'! The Little way that she proposes is simply a total, loving and radical surrender into the hands of God; allowing God to propose and being ready to dispose ourselves to those divine plans.

We see a collection of episodes in the Gospel today, which illustrate this truth. What we are called to do is not great work, but God's work. It is the Lord who created us and it is the Lord who commissions us! At times we think we are the masters of the things that we are involved in, but it is the Lord who is using us and if only we become aware of it, great will be our happiness! The Little Way, Job's life and Christ's demands to his disciples: these are just different ways of saying- be attentive when God proposes and that is the best thing that can happen to you!

WORD 2day: 30th September, 2014

A God who suffers

Job 3: 1-3, 11-17, 20-23; Lk 9: 51-56

The readings today have a very different kind of a message to give us! James and John wish to bring fire down from heaven to punish the people who did not accept Christ. Job's friends pressurise Job to curse God and get done with God, for all the suffering that God has caused him! Jesus rebukes James and John and Job refuses to give into the counsel of his friends. Job is presented as the prefigurement of the suffering servant that Jesus was to be!

It is not just a suffering servant's figure that we see here, but the image of a compassionate God who suffers on our behalf. It is not true that it has happened just once in history...it had always happened, and it keeps happening that the Lord feels so much when we are adamant, arrogant and whimsical: a compassionate God who is so madly in love with us!

It is 'Christ'ian maturity and 'Christ'ian mindset, to endure our suffering not blaming God or complaining to God, but seeking to find God during those moments of suffering. When we seek God, we will find God so close to us that we would understand that even God suffers along with us! "When you search for me you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart I will let you find me, says the Lord" (Jer 29:13). Our God is not a God who makes us suffer, but a God who suffers, when we suffer! Let us learn to feel the Lord's presence and draw strength from it, during our moments of struggle!

WORD 2day: 29th September, 2014

See Angels; Be Angels! - Celebrating the Archangels

Dan  7: 9-10, 13-14 (or) Rev 12: 7-12; Jn 1: 47-51

Celebrating Archangels, Michael, Gabriel and Raphael gives us an opportunity once again to remind ourselves of the significance of the angels within the Christian tradition. Angels in the Old Testament were considered the extensions of God... when the angels came, they said, 'the Lord visited' them: take the case of the visitors to Abraham (Gen 18) or the case of Jacob fighting with the man of God (Gen 32) etc. Michael, as the strength of God; Gabriel as the messenger of God and Raphael as the healing of God, is a well known understanding of the Angels and their functions.

Celebrating the Archangels today gives us two lessons - To See the Angels and Be the Angels:

To see the angels, is to see the hand of God at work in our everyday experiences, not to be blind to the daily miracles that happen around us.  It is a special grace to perceive it and God is active on our side all the time; it is left to us to acknowledge it and gain the advantages of it.

To be the angels, is to be extensions of God's presence to the others, to be extensions of God's love to the others. When we stand by someone in trouble, when we side with the oppressed and the victimised, when we speak out for the truth and bring God's message to people, when we empathise with those who are suffering and bring healing to them, we are being angels to those persons. That is our call, to be angels to the others, specially the needy and the weak. 

PUTTING ON CHRIST

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time: 28th September, 2014

Ezek 18: 25-28; Phil 2: 1-5; Mt 21: 28-32

Have in you the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus! That is the invitation, the liturgy today offers us! In short it can be understood, in Paul's own terms: to put on the mind of Christ. The readings also offer the graded way of putting on Christ, putting on the New Man, to have the mind of Christ! 

The first way of putting on Christ is doing good: to do good is easy, though one has to choose to do it. What one does is noticed, appreciated or criticised, analysed and evaluated. In receiving those appreciations,Jesus would conclude that you have already received your reward.  According to the mind of Christ, doing something externally is good, but not good enough. External signs were considered by Jesus as hypocrisy! 

The second level of putting on Christ is being good: doing good alone is not enough according to the mind of Christ. An excessive insistence on doing things, can easily lead to hypocrisy, legalism and ritualism. We are called to be good, that our actions flow out of the person that we are; that from our internal goodness people experience a goodness that brings them to experience the goodness of God. Ezekiel points out in the first reading today that God does not see one's actions but the inner disposition from which those actions proceed. We may be doing the best of things at a given time, but a wrong intention or a imperfect motivation behind can make the whole affair totally unchristian. That is why, though doing good is so important, being good becomes something very crucial.

The third level of putting on Christ requires not only that we are good, but we remain good. It is a reminder that our goodness has to be something that is sustained and not sporadic, constant and not conditioned! To remain good, is a challenge. At times we can be good and do good; but to remain good always is a demanding task; but putting on Christ means precisely that. Here we are dealing with the grace of perseverance. It is hard to persevere in being good. Saying 'yes' to his father, the son fails to do what he accepted to do: it is like the seeds that fell among the thorny bushes or those which fell on the shallow rock. The initial fervour dies and soon every thing becomes so monotonous and meaningless. Instead, with the grace of perseverance, every new day is a renewed challenge to remain with the Lord, to remain good, to really put on Christ.

Putting on Christ is a matter of doing good, but more than that it is being good, being good all our life and every moment. Are we ready to take up the task? We would do the right thing to pay heed to the life task that God gives through St. Paul today: Have in you the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus!

WORD 2day: 27th September, 2014

Live; love and experience God

Eccl 11:9 -12: 8; Lk 9: 43b-45: Remembering St. Vincent de Paul 

Life is short and life is limited, but it offers ample opportunity to do things that are remarkable. It never forces anyone, leaving far behind every one who complains of a life of boredom and monotony. For a Christian, life cannot be boring because he or she has a life task to accomplish and daily directions to carry out, from the Lord. That is why St. Paul would write saying, "do not grow weary of doing right" (2 Thess 3:13). It might invite criticism, jealousy, opposition, persecution and even crucifixion! But what matters is to do the will of God, and do it willingly. On a day remembering St. Vincent de Paul, who dedicated himself to serving the poor with a compassionate heart and a self sacrificing spirit, this lesson to do will of God at whatever cost becomes more demanding. 

The other day, I happened to see the video uploaded by someone, of the boy who was eaten by the white tiger, in a zoo. Such a long time that the boy was going through the trauma of hanging between life and death. What did the crowd do? What did the officials do? There was a crowd there, screaming and going mad, and a few among them recording it on their cell phones. But what did they do to save that boy? It was a crucial time, a crucial issue of life and death, a crucial moment of taking decisions and making choices. In fact I myself was traumatised looking at that video; imagine the trauma that boy would have gone through!

Life is short and life is limited; let's live it to the full, let us do all the good that we can to every one around. Let us not waste our life in envying, calumniating, gossiping, judging and spreading hate! Let us live to the full, love each other and experience God close to us!

WORD 2day: 26th September, 2014

IN GOD'S OWN TIME

Eccl 3: 1-11; Lk 9: 18-22

Two great enemies to spiritual health, as spiritual masters point out are: Anxiety and Curiosity! Anxiety is against faith because it points to a lack of trust in the Lord; And Curiosity is lack of patient acceptance of the present.To both these, and to many other spiritual ailments the corrective given is Surrender!

In short, surrender can be described as the assurance that in God's time everything will happen. Patience, trust and the unfailing confidence in God's goodness, are the ingredients of this mentality of surrender. Especially when things aren't going the way we would want them to, we need this quality to remain sane and secure.

In the Gospel today, we find Jesus as a personification of this quality. He was neither curious nor anxious about his mission on earth. That is why he was more interested about their personal conviction than the public opinion; and he was stern that they don't go about frenetically spreading their conviction and forcing it  on people, but to let them arrive at that conviction through their own experience too! That serenity on Jesus' part comes from the attitude of Surrender, an assurance that everything will be made beautiful IN GOD'S OWN TIME.

WORD 2day: 25th September, 2014

From Vanity to Sanity, towards Sanctity

Eccl 1:2-11; Lk 9: 7-9

TINNUTS... one of our formators used to sigh often, when we were in our initial formation. And the expansion of it goes this way: There Is Nothing New Under The Sun.The first reading speaks of vanities in life. Labour, dreams, experiences, senses...everything is a vanity if they are not in the right perspective.

The Gospel presents to us a personification of vanities, Herod! Herod had every opportunity to realise the vanity with which he was living. But he made no use of them, he even put an end to them. That would surely affect him all his life. That is why the Gospel says, "he kept saying, I beheaded John."

Are there vanities which surround us today? Aren't there opportunities offered to realise them and to do away with them? From Vanity to Sanity...that is the ordinary journey we are expected to make, to embark upon the extraordinary journey towards sanctity!

WORD 2day: 24th September, 2014

In plenty and in want...

Pro 30:5-9; Lk 9: 1-6

Recently I heard of a young man, barely reaching his forties, who resigned his promising and colourful job. The reason: they were paying him unreasonably high! The first reading speaks of a mindset of this sort- a man who wants to live neither in want nor in plenty. Not in want, because he will not think of shortcuts to get rich; nor in plenty, that he does not forget the one who gives. 

Jesus instructs his apostles on being a messenger of God. The crux of his instruction is not merely about whether to have or not to have, whether to possess or not to possess, but it is all about depending on God or not! Poverty within the worldview of the Reign of God, in terms of Jesus' thinking, is a fundamental dependence on God. Being grateful for what God gives, and being expectant like a child to be given things in love. 

It is more than what proverbs suggests, while the passage from the proverbs carries a tinge of cynical realism, the Gospel offers a proactive sense of dependence out of true human freedom, that defines a true disciple and a dedicated apostle. This is the same as St. Paul suggests, to learn to live in want and in plenty, because we can do anything through the one who strengthens us (cf. Phil 4:12,13).

WORD 2day: 23rd September, 2014

The Right thing to do...

Pro 21: 1-6, 10-13; Lk 8: 19-21

Doing the right thing is better than sacrifice says the first reading today. And the right thing is imprinted in our hearts. The Word of God, comes to us through various ways: direct proclamation is just one among them. There are situations and persons whom we come across who bring us a challenge to face and respond to. The Word of God comes along, instructing us what is right and what is to be avoided. There is the inner voice within us, that "sound of sheer silence" (1 Kgs 19:12), which tells us at the right moment the right thing to do. 

All that we need to do is first of all, be attentive: attentive to the Word that comes across to us. Secondly, be sincere: sincere to admit that we have received the word and to recognise the demands that it places. At times because of the demands that the Word places on us, we pretend not to have heard, or not to have understood the real meaning of the Word. It would serve no purpose and we in fact deceive ourselves by doing it. Thirdly, our task is to be diligent, in carrying out amidst all struggles, what the Word tells us. 

The Gospel today assures us that when we do all the three we would be considered not merely disciples, but mother, brother, sister, in short, coheirs with Christ to the Reign of God. But when we stop short of them, we would be deceiving ourselves warns the letter of James (1:22).  

WORD 2day: 22nd September, 2014

Think good; Do good; Be good!

Pro 3:27-34; Lk 8:16-18

The first reading today has a wonderful set of practical tips for a happy living. Those tips can altogether be summarised in the phrase: think well of all; speak well of all; do good to all. This is the runway to happiness, but rarely taken by many! We prefer to complicate our lives, make it distrustful, enigmatic and suspicious. Neither are we happy nor do we allow others to be happy. 

Recently, I asked a person who came to me with a problem at home, "What is you choice: to be happy or not to be?" And the person said, "ofcourse, to be happy!" and immediately added, "but I am afraid I wont be able to do the things that you told me to. They would take me for granted and make me more and more a fool!" Then I concluded, "so, you choose to be unhappy!"

At times, that is the fact! We choose to be unhappy and we are experts at making ourselves unhappy over anything at all. Jesus today seems to tell us, "you want to be happy? choose it! manifest it! Let it be seen in your lives, in your choices!" Lighting the lamp and putting it on the stand, is the metaphor to living a life that is God-worthy and making it known to others that they may be challenged. The simple formula to begin with is what is said in the first reading; in other words: think good! do good! be good!