WORD 2day: An experience that grips

Wednesday,  III week of Easter: 22nd April,  2015
Acts 8: 1b-8; Jn 6: 35-40

When things were getting worse the believers were getting stronger. They were scattered, but once in diaspora they continued their witnessing. There was something in them that made them just reckless about their new experience. That experience was so gripping that it made them forget all the pain they had to go through.

We keep receiving news after news of people who are ready to give up their life at the hands of the heartless fanatics these days. They too are capable of it because they are gripped by the experience they have had of the Risen one.

Just yesterday read about a preacher who wishes to go to Syria, to be of assistance and consolation to the people who are being persecuted for their faith. What a radical decision -  will it be possible without being gripped by a life changing experience? For me today Jesus has to become that experience,  that experience which grips me to a total transformation that I will fear nothing, for I know my Lord will raise me up on the last day, come what may!

WORD 2day: A chip from the same block

Tuesday,  III week of Easter: 21st April, 2015
Acts 7:51 -8:1a; Jn 6: 30-35.

Sometimes when I speak to the youngsters about the suffering that Jesus underwent, about his endurance of passion,  his capacity to surrender into the hands of God,  his capacity to forgive etc.,  they tend to retort saying: 'but he was son of God!" That is a heretic way of thinking,  I used to threaten them.

Yes Jesus was the Son of God but he was a human person and fully so. He was not appearing to be a human being,  he was a human being. As the letter to the Hebrews says,  he was like us,  a human being in everything! That is infact the most challenging part of our faith. That Jesus lived our life,  he went through all that we experience ourselves: feelings and temptations,  sufferings and anxieties,  irritations and all of human realities. The challenge is that we live in his footsteps.  The early Church was highly conscious of this call and we have today in the first reading the fruit of this.

Stephen was a chip from the same block as Christ. That is what we are called to be,  a chip from that same block.

WORD 2day: Shining in the Lord

Monday, III week of Easter: 20th April, 2015
Acts 6:8-15; Jn 6: 22-29

His face shone like an angel. But they decided to kill him all the same! They saw the great works and words that Jesus had but they ran after him only for the food they could get. At times we kill the things that pertain to God not only by being against them but by even not being attentive to the true spirit of it.

It is easier to ward off dangers from the quarters that are known to be contrary to us. But the more dangerous ones are those that seem to take a neutral stand within us and amidst us,  they can be real spirit dampeners and blind leaders.

Christ: the Fulfillment

III Sunday of Easter: 19th April, 2015

Acts 3: 13-15, 17-19; 1 Jn 2: 1-5a; Lk 24: 35-48

What am I upto? What is happening in my life? Why am I going through all that I am going through in life? I have always been very obedient to the Lord and in spite of that I am through so many things in life...but why? - these are some questions we often come up with or listen from people. 

What is the meaning of suffering? What is the ultimate purpose of life? Will I be totally certain of it at any point of time within my lifetime? If yes, then where is the element of mystery that makes my life so rich?

Very rarely does a Sunday Liturgy lack any reading from the Old Testament. If you notice today, all the three readings are from the New Testament. And there seems to be a logical reason behind it. The readings are all taken from the new testament to draw home to us the fact that Jesus Christ,the Son of God, is the fulfillment of the promises from the initial promise at the Garden of Eden right through the law and the prophets! The first reading and the Gospel establishes that in clear terms. When the fullness of time had come (Gal 4:4), God sent the fulfillment of God's promises.

If Christ is the fulfillment, we are called to be fulfillments too. It is true that Christ is the fullness of Revelation, the climax of God's revelation and the entirety of all that is to be revealed about God. But that Revelation to the world is going on,in progress even today, continuously, in and through you and me. That is what God wished and Jesus initiated. that we become the continued fulfillments of God's salvific plan. Jesus made us living testimonies of the unfolding plan of God. We are not finished products and God's salvation plan is not a closed chapter. The salvation is wrought by the blood of Christ, but that salvation history is being written, chapter by chapter, a page a day!

Yes, our everyday is a page of our salvation history. Our choices, our lifestyle, our decisions, our assents and our negations - everything is part of the holisitic salvation history being written by God, in and through my life. The question is, how flexible am I in the hands of God; how faithful am I to the mind of God; how freely do I submit myself to the plan of God? The teachings of the Lord, that comes our way through the various elements of our faith life, like the commandments, the traditional expressions of faith, the need to find time and space for God in one's life, the obligation to express that importance of that time and space, through our thoughts, words and deeds of love towards our neighbours, the invitation to live our daily life with the perspective of eternity always before our eyes: that everything finds its fulfillment only in God... these are those elements which make our everyday a fulfillment of God's plan and project. 

Christ, the fulfillment of all the promises so far, invites us to be the continued fulfillments of the salvation history that he brought to its perfection, on a daily basis by knowing, recognising and submitting to God and God's designs!

The stir in the sea: COMPLAINTS

Saturday in the II Week of Easter: 18th April, 2015

Acts 6: 1-6; Jn 6: 16-21

When we get together, we will surely have misgivings and clash of opinions, unless we fail to think freely and forget our individuality. We see in the first reading today the earliest of misunderstandings and complaints that arose in the new born church! The way the apostles dealt with it, was so Christ-like.

When the sea was stirred with the storm that arose, and the hearts of those in the boat were disturbed too, Jesus walked up to them and said: It is I; do not be afraid. He assured them, the stirring will cause no damage, if you understand the Lord is with you. The storm will not upset the boat, until you know that it is the Lord who is in charge! 

The Apostles were not alarmed, they were not reacting to the complaint. They knew that it was a sign the Lord was giving them for their own growth. Confusions, complaints and contradictory opinions were instrumental moments through which the Lord effected solid evolution in the Christian faith experience post resurrection. 

Today in the parish communities, or in the basic christian communities or in the families or in the Religious communities, how do we look at differences of opinions? Is there a true freedom of expression? Are we matured enough to look at these as experiences of growth? That requires a true mindset of faith.  

The test of time: ENDURANCE

Friday in the II Week of Easter : 17th April, 2015

Acts 5: 34-42; Jn 6: 1-15

One term that unites the two readings today is the term "test". Jesus himself is tested with such a big number to feed. He tests his disciples with a task given them. And in the first reading we have Gamaliel setting up a test of time for the believers! All of these are tests that bring out the quality of Endurance.

If Jesus were to have taken an escapist mode of reaction to the situation,  or the disciples the shirking mode,  or the first believers a comfort seeking compromise mode... we would have nothing of what we believe and belong to today.

Endurance is the time tested virtue that enables us to stand the test of time. The Martyrs of old,  great saints in history,  the holy ones of our times,  all of them stand proofs to one fact: Endurance helps faith mature and endurance is a mark of a mature faith!

The promptings of the Spirit: OBEDIENCE

Thursday in the II Week of Easter

Acts 5:27-33;Jn 3: 31-36

We must obey God rather than men; we must obey God's directions rather than men's directives; we must obey the promptings of the Spirit rather than the rulings of men! What a clarity on the part of the disciples. If only we had today that same clarity! 

Do not conform to the standards of the world; rather renewed in Spirit conform to the mind of Christ, instructed St. Paul well in this line (cf. Rom 12:2). At times we justify conformity and compromise on the grounds of peace in the house; other times we create division and sport rebellion under the pretext of being unique and convinced, while it could just be a way of promoting one's own convenience! Our own innermost self is our judge, and ofcourse the one who resides there: the Spirit of the Lord! 

Obedience is not merely conformity to the rule; nor its opposite mere negligence of the rule. It is all about being sincere to the innermost promptings of the Spirit. Being understood when one follows that promptings, is not always guaranteed. Being misunderstood cannot prevent me from being sincere to those promptings. One who obeys will see life (cf. Jn 3:36).

The Spirit frees : TOWARDS LIGHT

Wednesday in the II Week of Easter

Acts 5: 17-26; Jn 3:16-21

From the prison to freedom,  from the chains to an unfettered spirit,  from fear to total commitment. .. the Spirit strengthens one to walk towards the light! At times truth hurts and at times it costs much,  but if in the Spirit, we would count nothing too demanding.

People like Bro. Mario of Chalakudi fame who have risked their lives for the sake of Christ in their lives are living illustrations of the episode from Acts that we read today. Another youngster in my life who has inspired me is one known to me who chose to be a Christian and chose to become a priest and threw his engineering post in a firm and disappeared from his family to join a religious congregation, because they were mad at him in the family.

If I have the courage to see the Truth,  accept it and live for it,  nothing can stop me, not even death;  because I have within me eternal life.

The Key: FROM ABOVE

Tuesday in the II Week of Easter

Acts 4: 32-37; Jn 3: 7B-15

The first Chrsitian Community gives us a challenging example today, a prophetic witness! Just imagine that to be the state of our parish communities, or our basic christian communities...or even the Religious Communities of Consecrated life... can this model be emulated today? It is easy to brush it aside, calling it an outdated model, or an impractical ideal, or a time proven failure! But the challenge remains.

Jesus provides the key to the challenge: live your life as if from above. We have received our life and everything in life as a gift from above. And when it is time for us to report back from where we come, we will go without anything in our hands. When we see things from above then, we would laugh at our folly as does the Lord now from heaven (see Ps 2:4). Just look at your life, even as you live it today, a little from above! You will understand how foolish we can be... with our attachments and avarice, jealousy and treachery, and every other inhumanity for the sake of things that do not matter at all!

The key is: live life as from above. Learn to look at life from above!

To be shaken and to shake up!

Monday of the II week of Easter

Acts 4: 23-31; Jn 3: 1-8

A fundamental requirement to be born again is to be shaken up!  When the Spirit of the Lord stirs hearts and souls a new being is born and that new being is what Jesus proposes today as the being born again;  being born of the Spirit.

As individuals,  as families, as faith communities we need to shake ourselves up,  allow ourselves to shaken up and to shake up each other! Let's be renewed in the Spirit and live our faith to the full.