FIGHT GLOBALISATION OF INDIFFERENCE

LENTEN MESSAGE OF POPE FRANCIS - LENT 2015

Here is a power point presentation of Pope Francis' Message for Lent 2015
Prepared this to present for a reflection..
thought i could share it with those who would like to use.

God bless Pope Francis for the wonderful inspiration he keeps offering the world..
Lets join hands and FIGHT GLOBALISATION OF INDIFFERENCE

click the link below for the power point show

Presenting Pope's Message

THE WORD IN LENT -27

From sadness to gladness

Fourth week in Lent: Monday,  16th Mar, 2015
Is 65:17-21; Jn 4: 43-54

From sadness to gladness is the journey the Lord invites us to. It is surprising that many a persons find it a journey either unnecessary or unrealistic. They feel they can remain with sadness and that they are destined to remain with such sadnesses. Interestingly half of the journey consists in deciding to turn and walk,  as did the royal official in the Gospel account today. How long are we going to stand staring at problems and confusions and misgivings and misunderstandings in life?  The Lord says,  just believe and turn and walk towards the peace and serenity that I offer. Are we ready to set off with faith and hope,  on that journey: from sadness to gladness!

Undeservedly Deep!!!

4th Sunday of Lent: 15th March, 2015

2 Chr 36: 14-16, 19-23; Eph 2: 4-10; Jn 3: 14-21

For God so loved the world that God gave God's only Son, that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life (Jn 3:16)... the Word presents in this verse, the crux of the mystery of God's love! St. Paul would elaborate on this when he says, "God who did not spare God's own son, will not withhold anything from us!" (Cf. Rom 8:32). God's love for us has been so undeservedly deep! Have we ever been so worthy as to say, we deserved all the love that God holds out to us?

Undeservedly Deep Love of God, to us is a gift, a grace and a gamble!

A Gift, because I have not worked for it, I have not merited it, I have not earned it! It is given to me! It is poured into my heart. At times when we love, we expect that love in return; we are disappointed and discouraged when we do not get it in return atleast to some measure. But look at God: in the first reading we have the situation where it is said, people added infidelity to infidelity, but still God raises up a situation where people feel the amazing love of God, walking back to their freedom.

A Grace, because it is totally unexpected, illogical and beyond all rational calculations. As St. Paul expresses in the second reading, 'even when we were dead,  God raised us up to be with God's son, in eternal life...by grace we have been saved' (cf. Eph 2:5). I am reminded of an experience I had in the earliest year of my formation to priesthood, my novitiate days. During one of the morning meditations, I looked out of the window and saw a big tree cut down and the mighty bark lying dry and dead. Those were a bit trying days for me and I said to myself, I am lying around like that bark, so lifeless! Merely a fortnight later, through the same window and during a similar meditation hour, I looked out and the same bark caught my eye. What a surprise, in the dry bark from nowhere, a couple of tender leaves had sprouted! After all, I said, the Lord is able to raise a life from the lifeless! Elsewhere St. Paul would say, 'while we were still weak, Christ died for us' (cf Rom 5:6). It is totally an unexpected doing of the Lord, that I am loved! That love is indeed a grace!

A Gamble, because it is totally unconditional. God loved me not expecting that I will repay that love, not even knowing if I would choose to remain worthy of such deep love. The light is here, and it is upto us to choose the light. The salvation is near and it is upto me to subscribe to it for myself. God dares take a gamble on me, God invests all the love that God has for me, knowing well the risk involved: that I may totally turn against God. In his Lenten message Pope Francis had offered a beautiful metaphor. "In Incarnation, the gate between God and human person is opened... but the world tends to withdraw into itself and shut that door through which God comes into the world and the world comes to him." But God's love will never be surprised even if it is rejected,  crushed and wounded. So deep is that love,  so undeservedly deep! 

How God would wish we measure up to that depth in our own lives,  accepting this love in all is immensity and sharing it with our brothers and sisters in all its intensity. 

THE WORD IN LENT -25

Better than all sacrifices!

Third week in Lent: Saturday, 14th, Mar 2015
Hos 6: 1-6; Lk 18: 9-14

Sacrifices, after all,  are for the sake of humbling ourselves in front of the Lord that we may grow closer and closer to the Lord. If the same sacrifice puffs up my ego and takes me to a higher plane than my brothers and sisters from where I look down on them,  then that sacrifice not only fails to serve its purpose but takes me away from the Lord.

The Lord invites us to understand that our wish and effort to remain faithful to the Lord who has called us,  is much better than all sacrifices. Remaining faithful to that call would mean, becoming more and more like God. ... loving, compassionate and humble in our spirit!

THIS DAY... LAST YEAR...

13th March, 2014...
This day was special last year...
Pope Francis completed his one year of pontificate and
I was returning from Rome, back to India!
Thinking of one year back in India...
I thank God today for the wonderful experiences 
that the Lord keeps filling my life with!
I can never thank you enough O Lord!

THE WORD IN LENT -24

Getting nearer to the Reign

Third week in Lent : Friday, 13th Mar, 2015

Hos 14: 2-10; Mk 12; 28-34

The Word gives today the easiest way of getting nearer to God and God's Reign. It is through a life that is shared,  thanks to the pastoral courtesy of the Christian call. 'Return' is the call; to where?  To the believing community. The Lord awaits us there. Truly being nearer to the Reign would mean right relationships and mutual respect. Getting nearer to the Reign would mean,  getting closer to one another and getting more and more familiar with the One who has called me.

THE WORD IN LENT-23

With hardened hearts
Third week in Lent: Thursday,  12th Mar, 2015
Jer 7: 23-28; Lk 11: 14-23

The world today is living a life of indifference,  an inhuman and incredible indifference, so cold and selfish. That is why in his lenten message Pope Francis warned us against it. The Word today invites us to listen to the Lord speaking, speaking through the cries of the innocent victims;, the cries of the poor,  the tears of those e who have lost their dear ones to violence and crime,  the miseries of those who have never understood the meaning of enough!

Let's beware of branding the poor as lazy,  citing fate for the miseries of some in stark contrast to the filthy affluence of others,  brushing aside the sufferings of those who are victims of injustice saying we have nothing to do with it. ..when we do all these we are closing our eyes,  shutting our ears and hardening our hearts against God! With hardened hearts we will only be against God, scattering what God wants to gather.

THE WORD IN LENT -22

The Rock foundation

Third week in Lent: Wednesday, 11th Mar, 2015

Dt 4: 1,5-9; Mt 5: 17-19

The Commandments were nothing but the expressed wish of the Lord who brought the people up to their status of God's people. The Old Testament people felt assured that when they walked in the path of the commandments, they were on the right track. At times this assurance and the anxiety to hold on to this assurance made them even highly legalistic. Though Jesus stood tooth and nail against legalism, he too respected the commands of the Lord and taught his disciples how to make it humanly possible to abide by those commandments. The expressed wish of the Father, was something sacred and holy to Jesus and he declared that they are never changing, eternal and foundational for our faith. Our faith, our rapport with the Lord, our faithfulness to God has to be based firmly on something and Jesus offers the right solution: the Word of the Lord. The Word which contains the expressed wish of the Father, the word that will never perish, is the Rock foundation on which our faith has to be established! Whoever obeys and teaches these, will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

THE WORD IN LENT -21

It's our nature to forgive

Third week in Lent: Tuesday, 10th Mar, 2015
Dan 3: 25, 34-43; Mt 18: 21-35

The Word today invites us to understand the figure of the Lord as forgiving. The Lord gives and forgives;  if not,  we would die and perish. When the Lord offered us the greatest of all gifts,  God's own image and likeness,  God gave us the very nature the God beholds. We were made like God,  little less than the angels. God forgives and so we are called to forgive. It is our nature to forgive too. When we do not forgive we are negating our very nature; we become alien to ourselves,  we turn not only ungodly but even inhuman! Let us realise the image we bear and live up to that image! Let us forgive,  not just a few times or just when it is convenient but all the time,  amidst all tribulations. Seems a needed message for the present times!

THE WORD IN LENT -20

The call to reach out!

Third week in Lent: Monday, 9th Mar, 2015

2 Kgs5:1-15; Lk 4: 24-30

"Go to the existential peripheries", invites us the Holy Father repeatedly! But why the insistence? One reason I find very close is, because for God there are no peripheries! For God every one is "chosen" in his or her own way; every place is a "chosen place" in its own manner! For God each and every person is at the centre of existence, no one at the existential peripheries, where we have pushed them to. We may brand someone 'strange', 'alien', 'outcast', 'unacceptable' or 'not-worth-relating to'... but let us understand they are at the centre of the universe that God beholds. Be it the widow of Zarephath or Naman from Aram, they were under God's care! Reaching out is a marked call of Lent, to reach out to the other in need! Reaching out means expressing God to the others. When we reach out to the so called marginalised, the so called persons in the periphery, we are actually in the footsteps of the Lord who chose to be with them, chose to be one among them. Let us reach out today, atleast to one person whom we have not considered within our circles of relationships.