WHAT A MIGHTY GOD WE HAVE!

21st June 2015: 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Job 38: 1, 8-11; 2 Cor 5: 14-17; Mk 4: 35-41

Quiet! Be Still... and you will know what a mighty God you have!

We are so fond of lamenting, fretting, complaining, grumbling, panting and gasping, that we fail to notice the mighty presence of God right beside us as we struggle in the daily storms of life. It takes that moment when the Lord finally intervenes and says: Quiet! Be Still...I am here, right here, in the midst of it all. Don't you see? Don't you believe? Haven't you experienced my interventions in the past? Haven't you learnt that lesson yet? 

Behold! a New Thing... the mighty God is creating it for you!

At times the turbulence that you go through may be a new thing in the making! Yesterday while we were on a task in place near the East Coast, a person with me commented looking at the plaque on a building: if it were not for the Tsunami, we would not have had this building here! Though it may sound less sensitive to the disaster and its effects, the statement triggered an insight in me. At times the turbulences that we experience in life, may lead to newer and fresher outlooks on events. 

Be Urged by the Love of Christ... the mightiest experience of God!

In every thing and at every moment, be urged by the love of Christ; a love that so powerfully brings the presence of God into our life. Allow God into your life, feel the presence of God and enjoy the love that God continues to shower on you - a love so immense and unconditional. If only we taste that love of God, we would become so filled with that love that we will overflow with that love. Our words, our thoughts, our gestures, our relations, our interactions and everything in us will be flooded with that love and people around us will experience it. That love will urge me to be loving; that love will push me to reach out to the other in love; that love will not allow me to remain quiet about the goodness that I have experienced; that love will make goodness so contagious and ofcourse everything around me will be created anew! I can never forget a statement  made by one of the parents from a group I had just addressed: there is something about you Christians that makes you happy people! Yes... can we stand up and accept the challenge: The Love of Christ urges us!

WORD 2day : 20th June, 2015

Sense of Sufficiency - sign of sanctity!

Saturday,  11th week in Ordinary Time
2 Cor 12: 1-10; Mt 6: 24-34

The rich and the poor,  the affluent and the needy,  the influential and the ordinary... they seem to be no different from each other! They wish for more and more and more. And at no point in their life they seem to have a sense of Sufficiency.

St.  Paul places a lot of importance on this attitude and considers it even a sign of sanctity. In his letter to the Philipians, Paul considers himself 'blessed' with a sense of Sufficiency, in plenty and in want (Phil 4: 11,12). In our families,  in our personal lives,  in our social life, in our religious communities... where does this virtue stand?

Be it Indian spirituality,  western monastic spirituality, eastern yogic spirituality. ..all of these seem to harp upon having fewer and fewer attachments as a way to sanctity. Where do I stand in this virtue?

WORD 2day : 19th June, 2015

The heart,  the eye and the lesson

Friday,  11th week ìn ordinary time
2 Cor 11:18,21-30; Mt 6: 19-23

Jesus speaks of the heart and the eye and the importance of these to a being. St. Paul presents himself as a madman who is putting himself through so many trials knowing well they lurk round the corner but still risking them all. We have hosts and hosts of martyrs who have died for what they believed in, Saints who lived for God and God's purposes till the last breath of their lives, and people who continue to risk their lives for causes they commit themselves to.

Where lies their strength?  In their heart and in their eye,  says the Word. Heart refers to their Priority and eyes to their Perspective!

When God becomes my priority,  nothing else would matter to me more than being Godly. When God becomes my perspective my whole world changes,  because I begin to see everything the way God sees them. What is expected of us thus is, we form our hearts and our eyes,  that we ascertain our priority and clarify our perspective!

WORD 2day : 18th June, 2015

A God who Relates
Thursday,  11th week in Ordinary Time
2 Cor 11: 1-11; Mt 6: 7-15

St Paul wishes that the believers stand in front of the Lord as brides and Jesus proposes a parent-children relationship between God and humankind. A Christian vision of God would refer to God in terms of relationship believers have with the Divine,  rather than in terms of a power or an impersonal being.

This relationship should be characterised by two elements: Cordiality and Difference. Cordiality would be the closeness a person feels with the Divine according to one's experience and need. But closeness alone would not suffice because a genuine cordiality should lead one to a concrete difference in one's life and in those around.   A truly Christian life would be filled with meaningful relationships as we port within us the image of a relating God.

WORD 2day : 17th June, 2015

Value added deeds
Wednesday,  11th week in Ordinary Time
2 Cor 9: 6-11; Mt 6: 1-6, 16-18

I know a person, a good friend of mine,  who is a trainer. He does the training of the younger cadets of the organisation that he was trained in. He distributes training kits and accessories on his own cost to those young trainees and does not receive any payment for his services other than the train ticket for his travel up and down! This is going on for quite a few years now and I have not revealed his identity because he will not like it absolutely!

The true value of whatever we do depends more on why we do than on what we do. What we do will vary according to our ability and the context provided possibilities. But the why will never change whether what I do increases or reduces. What I would wish to reap I will reap; if it is popularity or publicity that I wish,  exactly that I will reap! If it is true satisfaction and divine interior joy that I wish,  precisely that the Almighty will grant!

WORD 2day : 16th June, 2015

God: the poor businessman!

Tuesday,  11th week in Ordinary Time
2 Cor 8: 1-9; Mt 5: 38-42

Among us friends we have a good laugh whenever we think of an elderly religious who was put incharge of the farm that belongs to a community. Every year at the annual audit he was used to repeating a remark, in his own inimitable modulation: "what put I get,  what I get I put...no profit, no loss,  no problem".

If we look at the love that God had lavished upon humanity,  he would not have got back even a tiny fraction of what he has put in! Incarnation is just one of the many mighty investments that God had made on our behalf (cf.  2 Cor 8:9)... but consider the dividends! God seems to be such a bad business person and the strangest part of it is,  Jesus invites us to follow God's logic! Nothing else is fitting enough for true God's children. Let's love without counting the cost.

WORD 2day : 15th June, 2015

Be compassionate-right here and right now!
Monday,  11th week in Ordinary Time
2 Cor 6: 1-10; Mt 5: 38-42

The better is the enemy of the good,  Don Bosco used to say, in the context of doing good to the other. At times I have caught myself lamenting the times and the conditions instead of doing whatever little I could to express my true compassion. If only I were someone else or if only I were somewhere else or if only I had such and such a possibility... these are the yearning for the better that neglects the good that is already available.

The Gospel today invites us to go out of our way to express or computation to the other and the first reading adds that now is the time and now is the hour for it. We may not be able to give or do great things for those whom we come across in dire need,  but we can always be compassionate, caring and respectful towards them,  wherever we are! Does that need a special condition or time? 

THE FAITH GROWTH MANUAL

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time: 14th June, 2015

Eze 17: 22-24; 2 Cor 5: 6-10; Mk 4: 26-34

After a long while we have a Sunday that is typical of the Ordinary Time...and the Word today invites us to reflect on a theme that is central to our Christian Living: Faith! Infact, the readings together present to us a Faith Growth Manual.

The Faith Growth Manual invites us to change our style of thinking, judging and living, all based on the faith that we have. Faith is not merely a set of beliefs that we hold on to, but it is fundamentally a way of life, the way I live my life in relations to the One who has called me. 

Let us begin with this: 

How do we understand faith? Try a definition in your hearts for faith... 

A theologically sound definition should come somewhere close to this: Faith is my personal response to a Self-revealing God. God continues to reveal Godself to me in various ways, and this revelation comes to me continuously, eliciting from me a spontaneous and conscious response and that precisely is Faith. When I experience God as the almighty creator out there, I spontaneously am filled with an awe and I am inspired to surrender as a response. When I experience the presence of God in a moment of trial personally and feel delivered from it, I am moved to proclaim God as my Saviour. At times when I am directed in ways so marvelous, I thankfully acknowledge a God who dwells with me and moreover, within me! This is faith. Beliefs are merely expressions of this faith. Formulations like the Creed and the Act of Faith are nothing but ways in which the experience from a tradition is consolidated.

Faith, therefore, is a personal relationship with the One who is the cause of our very being. And this relationship has to grow; it has to gradually mature! 

First step is to understand that we walk by faith and not by sight. That is, we are convinced that something is right to do or not right to do, directed by our relationship with God. It is to say that we have God as our guiding principle, our compass, our route map! What is right at a moment to do can easily be defined: what God wants of me at that juncture.

Second step is to judge a situation from God's perspective,that is judging by faith. What is valuable and what is not; what is desirable and what is not; what is wholesome and what is not; it has to be decided from God's perspective. What my relationship with God permits to be good, is good for me. What my relationship with God deems improper, would remain far from my life. The ethical choices and my value system has to be determined by the relationship I have with my God. Which tree is big or high and which tree is small or low, depends on how God wants to have it!

Thirdly, when I begin to walk by faith and judge by faith, I can be confident I am living by faith! We will receive a recompense according to what we do: good or evil, reminds the second reading. What we do, will be determined by what we are. When we live by faith, our choices will show it. We need not pay any undue attention to gaining the mercy of God, or contriving to win God's favour. All that we need to do is live by faith, live with our relationship with God at the centre of our lives. That will automatically take care of every other aspect of my life.

A simple but demanding programme presented to us by the manual today: Walk by faith, judge by faith and live by faith!

THE IMMACULATE HEART AND THE ANOINTED TONGUE

13th June, 2015

Remembering the Immaculate heart of Mary 

and St. Antony of Padua

The Immaculate Heart invites us to a pure and total dedication to God,  a consecration so pure and absolute that no stain could ever affect that heart. Even the piercing sword found no resistance because that heart was mild, meek and docile inspite of being so strong and firm in its affection for God.

The anointed tongue of St. Antony inspires us to think, speak and proclaim God and God's love with such passion that we would not have an end at all. If the one who believes in the Lord has eternal life, imagine the one who proclaims and witnesses to the Lord incessantly. St. Antony within his short span of 36 years, lived his life with such passion that he achieved what would take hundreds of years. His single minded focus was on proclaiming the Word and that is what earned him the glory that he possesses. 

HAPPY FEAST OF THE MOST SACRED HEART