WORD 2day: 1st July, 2015

With Open Eyes...

Wednesday, 13th week in Ordinary Time

Gen 21: 5, 8-20a; Mt 8: 28-34

Hagar had almost given up. For her it was all over. She found no scope of living on and no chance of surviving that desertedness. All that while the well was just round the corner. She was so filled with self pity that she was not able to see the ample opportunity just there for hers to take. All that God did was open her eyes that she may see the well. However, finally she does see unlike the people of Gerasene who never saw till the end, who it was that had entered their village. Their self pity of having lost their swine in thousands blinded their eyes from perceiving the great and wonderful blessings that Jesus had in store for them. What a great miss it was, they asked Jesus to leave! If only they saw who they were rejecting; if only they beheld the blessings that he brought! If only they lived their lives with open eyes...

Announcing God? or Scaring Away from God?

Is this winning persons for God or shooing people away from God?

Just yesterday I received a friend request on the social network and I after the usual careful analysis of the profile accepted the request. In no time there were series of questions as obvious as, are you a christian, do you have a bible and so on. Before I could make out where it was all leading to, came the question: are you born again! And I went straight ahead to unfriend the person and block the id. It was then I began to wonder, when I analysed the profile, I saw the Word of God posted all over and thought to myself, that it is going to be a person in the Lord. But with the ready break out of the judgmental approach, I was forced to draw myself back, not from the Lord but people who claim to be spokespersons of God. As Francis of Assisi would instruct, let us proclaim the message all the time, but use words only when necessary. Our actions, our attitudes, our approach to people should gather them together under one banner, not shoo them away from God who unites. Our God is a God of love and love is unity, let love reign, let unity be built on mutual respect and human dignity.

WORD 2day : 30th June, 2015

No looking back

Tuesday,  13th week in Ordinary Time

Gen 19: 15-29; Mt 8: 23-27

'Do not look back' instructs the Angel, in a symbolic message to us Christ's followers today. Wars and persecutions, perversions and promiscuity, scandals and slanders abound and they are on the increase by the day. Though just a minority are involved in all this, the vast majority is left helpless and affected, tormented and tired of the whole turn of events. What are we going to do? Lose heart? Become desperate? Join the party? Let our principles and values fall? Give up our determination on our journey? I need to forget what lies behind and strain forward towards what lies ahead (Phil 3:13), St. Paul would suggest. And the angel tells us today: Do not look back!

You have decided to have Jesus on your boat or rather you have decided to jump on to Jesus' boat, then why worry of the storm and rain around; why panic about the tossing wind and the turbulent weather; why lose your focus and look back at what is following you... fix your eyes on the One who is there with you. No looking back, just keep wondering what an awesome God he is, who has called you. Just surrender; be still and feel the presence of the Lord in your life! Inspite of your boat that is being rocked, you keep rocking!

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

29th June, 2015: ST. PETER and ST. PAUL

Acts 12: 1-11; 2 Tim 4: 6-8, 17-18; Mt 16: 13-19

The Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, marks the day of their martyrdom...of course they were not martyred together; neither were they martyred in the same place or manner! But they were both martyred in Rome and Rome has these two principal apostles as its patron.

There is one thing told of these two apostles in the readings today. They were called, and given a specific task and the Lord constantly protected them and rescued them when they were ready to give up anything, including their very lives, for the sake of the task entrusted to them. 

You shall be the rock... you shall be my instrument to take my name to the gentiles... these were the words with which the Lord invited them and in similar terms we are invited too, with a specific task, with hurdles and burdens yes, but the Lord is there all the way. 

Let us resolve to become aware of the special and unique call that the Lord has placed within us! 

LIFE, ME & GOD

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Wis 1:13-15, 2:23-24; 2 Cor 8:7,9,13-15; Mk 5: 21-43

Life is a precious Gift from God. The first link that we have with God as someone outside of us,is the the link that we have from the fact that it is God who has given us life. Can we think of what is life? What constitutes life? Can we create life... yes, we can multiply, clone or enhance life, but creating it from nowhere, from nothing... Can we?

GOD OF LIFE
God is the author of life and the God we have is God of life, not God of death, says the book of Wisdom as we read today. Anything that enhances life and promotes it, comes from God. Anything that militates against life, in whatever way, it is contrary to God. The World today is being filled with forces that threaten life: unbalanced development, inhuman godliness, inauthentic means to living, unfettered exploitation of the other, disoriented conception of oneself... these are all principles in today's world that go against life. Abortions, Suicides and Genocides are dubbed as assertion of rights! 

LIFE OF GOD
The life that we have is the life of God, reminds us St.  Paul in the readings today. God has given us life, not only that,  God has given his own life that we may live! It is like that twin child who as told by the parents, your brother is dying and we need that you give him blood that he may live on! And the child after much frightful moments, said 'yes'. And once that blood was given to the ailing brother, the twin turned to the parents and asked: 'okay, now that I have given it, when will I die?' Giving blood that child thought, was to die and give life to the sick brother! God did exactly the same. The Son of God gave us his life to redeem us. The life we have is the life of God. We are living a life that is lent to us. We have brought in death into the world and into our own lives, by our faulty choices and warped priorities; but God has given us life so that we may live on in spite of our iniquities. Our life has been leased to us!

LIFE IN GOD
Whether we touch God or God touches us, God gives us life, a renewed life, a holistic life, a life that is abundant. I have come that you may have life, life in all its fullness - declared Our Blessed Lord. Reaching out to the Lord, or the Lord reaching out to us, we receive a new lease of life! All our brokenness, our sinfulness, our sicknesses, our infirmities, our inner conflicts... everything will be whisked away with that one glimpse from the eyes of the Lord. All that we need to do, is surrender into the hands of God and receive life from God's hands. At times we think or act as if 'my life belongs to me'! And in that vision of life, I will have added nothing but pain and meaninglessness to my life, which will show up at a moment when it would seem a point of no return. And then would follow depression, desperation and desolation. But if from the very moment that I realise, if I would begin to live my life, as a life lived in God, I would save myself a life that is so meaningful and wholesome.

The God of life has given me the very life of God, and all I need to do is resolve to live my life IN GOD.

WORD 2day: 27th June, 2015

When the Lord enters. ..

Saturday,  12th week in Ordinary Time
Gen 18: 1-15; 8: 5-17

The readings today have the leitmotif of the Lord who enters homes and when he does that,  there is something marvellous happening. The Lord enters Abraham's house, and the childless Sarah bears a child. The Lord enters Peter's home and Peter's mother in law rise up from her fever. The Lord's presence makes things come anew.  There is a third episode here which brings the same theme to the next plane: a mere Word from the Lord can make things beautiful.

If we allow the Word of the Lord to enter our homes, everything will be renewed testifies the Centurion in the Gospel. Allowing the Lord to enter our homes is a marvellous thing to do;  but it involves a great risk too. Things will not be the same anymore. We will have to be ready to forgo of a few things because,  when the Lord enters everything is renewed!

WORD 2day: 26th June, 2015

The folly of Back up Plan

Friday, 12th week in Ordinary Time
Gen 17: 1, 9-10, 15-22; Mt 8: 1-4

At times we act smart- though we ask God for a favour,  we begin making a back up plan...if in case we do not get what we ask! That actually spells a doom in most of the cases and instead of backing up, it backfires. Yesterday we read of Sarah making a back up plan of begetting a child through the maid servant and how it backfired. Today,  even as he listens to God communicating his plan,  Abraham is intent on having a back up plan,  seeing Ishmael as his progeny! Abraham has still to grow in his faith,  true and total faith. He will grow and he would soon be an epitome of faith but not yet.

In the Gospel we have an instance that shows us what it means to believe without a back up plan. ..'Lord if you wish. ..' An attitude of surrender,  a total surrender that is not tempted by the folly of having a back up plan. Alternatives are in the hands of God. ..it is not for us to make back up plans when we believe in God but to make an act of faith and leave everything into the hands of God.

WORD 2day: 25th June, 2015

Good to All alike

Thursday,  12th week in Ordinary Time
Gen 16:1-12, 15-16; Mt 7: 21-29

Speaking of his Father,  Jesus would say,  "the Father makes the sun shine upon and the rain shower upon the good and the evil." Heaven and earth may pass away but the Word of the Lord shall never! Making this Word the foundation of one's life is the best of all possibilities - what a great God is our God. God is good, not only all the time, but even to all persons. It does not matter, who the person is,  God's love extends itself when they cry out in agony. How much more will it support and sustain us,  if we consider ourselves loving children of God!

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

24th June,  2015: Birthday of St. John the Baptist

The Gospels narrate a long list of similarities between the stories of John and Jesus... the apparently 'impossible' conditions in which the mothers conceived, the direct intervention of God in the conception, the apparitions of the angels to the fathers, the prior choice of the name of the child to be born - one simple message is the image of John the Baptist as the precursor of Jesus. But the birth narratives of John and Jesus, together have another important message to reveal to us and that is, we are not here by chance! We are part of a complex plan, an eternal design of God. We are willed into existence by God; we are loved into existence, by the Creator! We have a purpose, because God knew us right when we were being formed in the womb of our mothers! We have a special mission because, it is the Lord who has called us by name, even before we were born! We are chosen in the eyes of God, because as St. Paul says, God has chosen us before the foundations of the world in Christ Jesus, to be holy and blameless! We are created, called, commissioned and destined to usher in the Reign of God, as John announced the coming of Christ. Let us become aware of our call, our purpose and our destiny, which is much larger than the petty preoccupations of our daily worries!

WORD 2day: 23rd June, 2015

Fairness and Justice: a sense of God

Tuesday, 12th week in Ordinary Time

Gen 13: 2, 5-18; Mt 7: 6, 12-14

I was impressed by a child in the train the other day. She had her younger brother with her and every time the mother was giving anything to her or buying something for her, she instantly would turn to her younger brother as if asking her mother, what about him? The curious climax was, when she returned the biscuit packet that she was sharing with her brother, to her mother with just one biscuit remaining in it. When asked why she left it behind there, she said there is only one, how we two will take it? I began wondering where has this kind of a spirit gone, in the world today!

Selfishness and greed, jealousy and competition is the order of the day. Hardly anyone wishes to do anything if that does not bring them dividends atleast in some measure or kind. Abraham's dealing with his brother Lot and the suggestion of doing what you would wish others do to you, are narrow doors. Those won't be the kind of behaviour that the mainstream humanity will choose spontaneously today. But as disciples of the Lord, our choice has to be precisely this: a choice for fairness and justice, that would be the right sense of being a person of God.