CELEBRATING GOD'S LOVE

The Solemnity of the Birth of the Lord, 2014

Today, we celebrate love! Christmas is a festival of love, the love that God has for us! This love is not something that we can easily understand, not a love that we can easily explain nor a love that we can easily imitate! Because it is a scandalous love! Yes we celebrate a Scandalous Love today! What makes this love so scandalous are the three negatives that this love is characterised by. Let us dwell a bit on those...THREE SCANDALOUS NEGATIVES...each negative more scandalous than the previous.

First negative is: UNCONDITIONAL. This love has no conditions, absolutely no conditions. That is why even after repeated failures and faithlessness on the part of the people with whom God had made the covenant, God still continues to love humanity. Christmas, the mystery of incarnation, is an ample exposition of this 'unconditional' love; a love without any conditions absolutely. Infact, with conditions it would not be love, isn't it? 

How many conditions we pose to love a person: he or she has to avoid this or do this or that; he or she has to take me seriously; he or she has to love me in return to the same extent I do, if not more; he or she has to fulfill a list of duties and measure up to the responsibilities given to the person... and what not. As you keep following those lines, I am sure you were wondering if you can just relieve a person of all these binds. As humans we feel, we cannot. These conditions seem legitimate and necessary. But God's mind would respond in the negative: whether you keep to your call  or not, whether you live up to your identity or not, God loves you and there can be no second thoughts to it. It disturbs our mind to think of such a love: that is the scandal involved in this love. God loves us scandalously! God's love is Unconditional!

The Second negative is: ILLOGICAL. There is no logic to God's love. In the love that God has for us or in the love that the Lord teaches us to have for each other, there is no logic whatsoever. Humanity takes God for granted and abandons God's ways at the first occasion that presents, God draws ever nearer and sends more prophets and finally even God's own Son! For God so loved the world, that God sent God's only Son, that all who believe in him will be saved.

The world teaches us a flawless logic: some one is good to you, try to be good to them, but it may not be absolutely necessary, because what matters is what you will gain. If something leads to gain, choose it; if something leads to a loss refrain from it, reject it: whether it is a person or a thing. This is the logic of the day! Without this logic one would be considered, unfit, incapable, useless, impractical, loser, inefficient and so on! But God's love is illogical and it is the same love that God manifests today at the manger, that Jesus taught us: love your neighbours; love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Today, seeing the insane stand that the present political faction is taking against the minorities in our nation, we may be inclined to hate them, wish their ruin and see their end. We may be harbouring hatred and praying for their downfall. First command that the Lord gives: Love them. "It is illogical", you may shout! Yes, that is what it is: God's love is completely illogical. And we are born of that Love (Jn 1:13). If it is so for the society at large, take our families! Your brother may be doing everything against you; your sister may be totally ungrateful for all that you have done; your mother-in-law may be the worst for understanding you; your daughter-in-law may be totally disrespectful towards you; your spouse may not care for you at all...You are called to love that person! Love that person truly! That is the call of Christmas.

The third negative: UNREASONABLE. God's love has no Why? True love has no why! Ask God why God should love humanity...there is no reason for it. God made humanity and that warrants that God could deal with humanity in any manner, as tyrant task master or a domineering boss, but God gives us absolute personal freedom and loves us every moment! But why? That question can never be answered. 

There should be reason to whatever we do, says the world today. I love my children, I love my parents, I love my spouse...because they are what they are to me! But why should I love my neighbour, why should I love a stranger, why should I love a person who is far away on some other part of the planet, why should I love the next generation to come, why should I love the child which is yet to be born, why should I love the nature: should I demand a reason for these, I would not be truly 'Christ'ian. The love that Christ stands for or the love out of which Christ is born today, is an unreasonable love. This is the highest of the scandals we have: a love without reasons! God had so many ways of manifesting God's saving prowess in the past: Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Samson, Deborah, Gideon, David...and so many who were such great powerful instruments of God. But why should God finally decide to send God's son? Was there a need to send the Son and get him killed! Why couldn't God find some other person in the line of those prophets and kings? Any number of those why...would only meet with silence; the Silence of this holy, calm, mysterious night, where God is made Man! Such an unreasonable love.

The question: Are you prepared to imitate that scandalous love of God, so Unconditional, Illogical and Unreasonable? If you do, your life would be a daily Christmas - mysterious, miraculous and meaningful. If not, we would miss the point of today's celebration: the celebration of God's Scandalous love!

WORD 2day: 24th December, 2014

Fourth Wednesday of Advent
2 Sam 7: 1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16; Lk 1: 67-79

Celebrating the Promises

Christmas is a celebration of the promises, remind the readings today. On the day immediately before Christmas, this message comes as a call to understand what Christmas is really: it is to remember that the goodness of the Lord never ceases. God's love is everlasting. It is unconditional and counts no cost. That is the message of Christmas; that God gave God's only Son that we may all be given the power to be God's children (Jn 3:16; Jn 1:14).

Christmas shines as a proof of the fact that God has still not given up on you and me! As Pope Francis often says, God is never discouraged with you. It is important that we don't give up on ourselves. We are loved and that fact will pull us up from any level of existence. 

The Rising dawn, is the imagery for today! The dawn... the sign of hope... the light of day... the warmth of God's love invites us to live our life to the full. The Lord is near, it is time to Arise and Shine (Is 60:1).

WORD 2day: 23rd December, 2014

Fourth Tuesday of Advent

Mal 3: 1-4, 23-24 ; Lk 1:57-66

With the hand of the Lord...

What would this child be? What would I grow up to be? What would be my destiny? We are reminded of that famous song: Que Sera, Sera! When a child is born a bundle of mystery is born. We would do well to receive it with that reverence and wait on it to unfold itself in its own time! But at times that seems very puzzling, or even frightening as if we are at the mercies of something or someone else - as the song we referred to says. Christian hope is not exactly that!

Our sense of mystery does not come from the mere fact that the prospects are hidden, but from the truth that it lies in the hands of God, who has willed us into existence, with a specific plan for each of us. John the Baptist was foretold as the Elijah to come and prepare the way; the son born of a young maiden was foretold to come and rule the world for ever; each of our birth too has been forethought by God from all eternity. 

The hand of the Lord accompanies us, as it did with John and with all other persons of God we come across. It would be our task to recognise this Hand in everything, accept its pointings and walk with love in justice and truth! The Coming of the Lord is at hand!

WORD 2day: 22nd December, 2014

Fourth Monday in Advent
1 Sam 1: 24-28: Lk 1: 46-56

Grateful Hearts and the Saintly song!

It is a saintly song to sing in exultation for the great things that God does to us. Today we have Hannah and Mary singing to their hearts' content. Only a grateful heart will have reasons to exult and only a heart that finds reasons to exult is truly saintly. There can be no sorry saints; even the worst affected of all exults in the great things that the Lord has done for her or for him. Mary is an epitome of such a saint and Hannah is her foreshadow!

Mary and Hannah have a lot in common: they bore their child in strange circumstances, both ran the risk of being misjudged, both realised that the Lord had seen with pity on their lowliness and both offered their child to God without reserve. Hannah sang the song of exultation and Mary adapted it! The most important of all similarities is their grateful breaking forth into a song of exultation.

As we near the Christmas day, the readings invite us to count our blessings and name them one by one. We will be surprised to see, how long and how many of them escaped our attention! Let us sing from the depths of our hearts a song that is new and glorious: My soul magnifies the Lord!

H.O.M.E

4th Sunday of Advent: 21st December, 2014

27: 1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16; Rom 16: 25-27; Lk 1: 26-38

We are in the last Sunday before the all important feast we have been preparing ourselves for! Just 3 days to go for Christmas. Today the readings speak of the importance of getting ready with a home for the Lord. David in the first reading is concerned with building a home for the Lord and in the Gospel we see God preparing a worthy home for God's son to be born into this world, the worthy home being Mother Mary's immaculate womb. And it leaves us with one pertinent question: have I prepared a home to receive my saviour yet?

How do I prepare a home, a worthy dwelling for the Saviour who visits us? We can prepare a home by growing within us and among us the four qualities that are exemplified for us in the readings, by the persons involved.

Humility: Being humble is the first quality we are required to have. Mary is presented to us as the epitome of this humility. She acknowledges her lowliness before God and thus she is exalted high above all. The Lord teaches humility to David,through Nathan. The king David as a humble son, learns from God and accepts his state of unworthiness. We are called before the Lord to realise our state of mind and state of life, to be grateful and to acknowledge the goodness we have felt from God.

Obedience: Being obedient is the next important criterion for God to visit us. 'Be it done unto me, according to your word', said Mary. She knew the best thing that could happen to her was the Will of God for her life and so she submits herself totally to God's will. David too may have been rebellious at times but he was an obedient son, who always returned to listen to God and obey God's commands. We need to be obedient to the Lord to really receive the Lord into our lives- there can be no doubts about this!

Mercy: Being merciful, is the third important quality towards making a place for the Lord, worthy of the nature of the Lord. St. Paul brings out how the eternal mystery of God's love and mercy, was being manifested in the coming of the only Son of the Father. It is because the Lord is merciful, that in God's eternal mercy, God deigns to reveal Godself to us and thus come and dwell amidst us. 'Be ye merciful as your heavenly father is merciful', invited Jesus. Yes,that is the only way we can invite the Lord and make the Lord's presence felt among us.

Empathy: Being empathetic towards the needy, the suffering, the homeless, the lonely the least, the lost, the last, the hurt and the broken, is the most apt way of welcoming the Lord home! That will be the home that the Lord best loves, rather than homes that are merely spic and span because no one has entered that home; than the homes that are elegant because there is so much of money spent merely on external pomp and splendour; than the homes that are closed and secured, out of reach for the poor and the dirty, the needy and the clumsy. The Lord comes to identify himself with the poor, the sinners, the outcasts, the least, the marginalised; it is there the Lord would dwell. If we empathise with these, we would as well receive the Lord!

Humble, Obedient, Merciful and Empathetic, we can make a HOME for the Lord and there is no much time left: let us get into action NOW!

WORD 2day: 20th December, 2014

Third Saturday of Advent

Is 7: 1-14; Lk 1: 26-38

The Trustworthy Lord with us!

The world today seems lost and dissipated because by and large it has lost any solid foundation on which to base itself. Everything and everybody seems so flimsy and fragile that the moment you begin to feel secure things fall apart. And there is only one thing that we can stand firm on: Christmas says it all - the promises of God!

We stand on the promises of God. They alone do not fail us, come what may. The readings today bring this out in such vivid fashion that we do not need any interpretation to it. The first reading presents the promise made in King Ahaz's time and the Gospel presents the realisation of that promise. And in all this, Mary finds a special role. Her yes did not stop with the Angel disappearing but it continued all her life; she founded herself on the promises of God and as Elizabeth declares, "Blessed is the one who believes that what God promised will come true!"

Emmanuel, the Lord with us, is the foundation living with us. It is the Lord who resides with us and strengthens our confidence in this life through the promises and through the trust we have that the promises will come true. May this Christmas be a moment for us to rediscover this trustworthy Lord with us!

WORD 2day: 19th December, 2014

Third Friday of Advent
Jdgs 13: 2-7, 24, 25a; Lk 1: 5-25

The announcements and the precursors 

The readings from today would draw our attention to the various announcements and the numerous precursors that God sent in preparation for the climax of the salvation plan which is soon to begin unfolding! The two whom we see today: Samson and John the Baptist are announced! They have more than few characteristics that they share: both their mothers were considered barren or atleast already old; both were nazarites, that is set apart for God; one we see in the temple and the other we see in the wilderness but both in total union with God; both were chosen messengers of God and they play that part more than well.

Their life and their calling have something precise to communicate to us: your birth is not by chance, it is by choice. God has willed you into existence and has wished that a specific task be carried out by you. Our life has to consist in understanding this call, unraveling this specific task and living upto it. How attentive are we to the numerous announcements made by the Lord to us, the numerous messages that the Lord passes on!

YEAR OF CONSECRATED LIFE #7

WORD 2day: 18th December, 2014

Third Thursday of Advent
Jer 23: 5-8; Mt 1: 18-25

Emmanuel,  our justice

The most challenging of all attributes of God is what Jeremiah notes today: the Lord our justice. It was the experience of God that proved salvific for the people of Israel and it was the same experience that proved their detriment when it was to deal  with their way of treating the strangers, the orphans,  the widows and the helpless.

The Lord showed them his preferential love because they were exploited  and those who exploited he reduced them to nothing. Today the Lord lives,  the Lord lives with us and we are invited to acknowledge that presence of the Lord amidst us. In acknowledging it, we acknowledge the call that each of us has received in the Lord- to be instruments of this special presence of the Lord.

Joseph received the instruction as to how to be that special presence. He carried it  out diligently and secured his irreplaceable niche in the marvellous plan of God.

WORD 2day: 17th December, 2014

Third Wednesday of Advent

Gen 49: 2, 8-10; Mt 1: 1-17

The Lord of History

Every time one reads the part of the Gospel presented by the Word today, one is filled with an awe at the wisdom of the Lord of History. History is in the hands of the Lord; the Lord creates, shapes and determines the history of humankind. How  foolish of us to think that we are making history or we are writing it ourselves. 

There are two aspects of the genealogy that impresses us at the very outset: 
First, the faithfulness of God from time immemorial. God promised something and he remained faithful to that promise for centuries and centuries together. It is this fact that inspires St. Paul to declare that even "if we are faithless, he remains faithful"(2 Tim 2:13). This faithfulness is underlined in today's Word from the first reading.
Second, the fact that the genealogy presented includes names such as Rahab the prostitute; Ruth, a non Hebrew woman; Bathsheba, an illegitimate connection and so on! It is an unparalleled statement made by God that anyone can be God's instrument in creating history and writing it, provided God wills it.

Let us believe: in and through us, here and now, the Lord is writing a history! We would do well to surrender ourselves totally into God's hands and be docile to God's promptings that we would be worthy elements of that history.