WORD 2day : 19th April, 2016

They were called Christians

Tuesday,  4th week in Easter
Acts 11: 29-36; Jn 10: 22-30

In Antioch they were called Christians,  the Word says. They did not call themselves Christians,  they were called Christians by the rest of the population. Our life has to gain that name for us. There was Paul or Saul with them and Barnabas,  but they were called "Christians"!

You don't believe me because you are not my sheep declares the Lord. To be his sheep, to listen to his voice and be guided by his ways, that is the way to be called Christians.

Remember the world should call you a Christian!

WORD 2day : 18th April, 2016

Standing in God's way?

Monday, 4th week in Easter
Acts 11: 1-18; Jn 10:1-10

I have come that you may have life, life in all its fullness. The Lord has come, the Lord has encountered us, and the Lord has done everything best. Have we received the fullness of life that the Lord brought us? Aren't we still given into frustrations and discouragements,  meaninglessness and immaturities?

In the first reading today we have a clue to understand this. While the Lord was ready and willing and all set to shower the Holy Spirit on everyone,  there were some who were standing on the way! Peter challenges it among them,  who are we to stand in God's way?

We allow a lot of things to stand between us and God... it could be our pride, our ego, our laziness,  our malice or could be anything that resists receiving the grace of fullness of life! If we become aware of what it is that stands on the way,  we can grow to be true sheep of the Divine Shepherd.

COME AND BELONG

4th Sunday in Easter

Acts 13: 14, 43-52; Rev 7: 9, 14-17; Jn 10: 27-30

When I am lifted up, I shall draw everyone to myself said Jesus when he was around. And after his resurrection that is what he did. He drew everyone to him. It was not merely incidental, it was always part of God's magnificent plan. Yes, it is a plan for the whole humanity, beginning with the Jews as St. Paul would often point out! But what happens depends on three considerations: the call, the choice and the condition!

THE CALL is given to every one, there is no Jew or Greek, Christian or not! The first reading today speaks of that shift that took place from the Jews to the entire world, within the salvific plan of God. Paul and Barnabas heed to that call...the call to go to the entire world, the call to be the light to the nations, the call to reach out to the ends of the earth. The call to belong is universal, every one is called to come and belong! Recently speaking to a group of youngsters, I found them struggling to understand how everyone will be saved, if only those who believe in Christ could be saved. I almost had to shove it down their throat to believe that the Father wills the salvation of ALL.And yes, salvation is through Jesus Christ alone! And the Father will see to it, that the whole creation is reconciled in Christ Jesus our Lord. The call to belong is for every one!

THE CHOICE is mine to make! I have to make a choice and when I don't  make a choice to belong to the Lord, ofcourse the Lord misses me, but loses nothing; whereas I lose everything! The apostles tried their best to impress this upon their fellow Jews, but nothing would change them. They would make a choice for their own supremacy and their own comfort and their own life style! What is my choice today? To belong to the Lord or continue in the way I think best?

THE CONDITION that the Lord places is just one: that I listen! I should know my Master and listen to my Master's voice. Isaiah has a very pointed way of saying it, when he says even the donkeys know their stable and the asses their master! At times we are very enthusiastic and we COME...the sad fact is that we fail to BELONG. My own know me, and they follow my voice, says the Lord. When we come,  stay on and belong to the Lord there is so much joy and we are filled with the Spirit. These are the two signs of our total belonging to the Master: being Joyful and being Spirit-filled. 

WORD 2day : 16th April, 2016

The Word,  the Spirit and the Eternal Life

Saturday,  3rd week in Easter
Acts 9:31-42; Jn 6: 60-69

The Disciples were graduating! From listening to proclaiming, from believing to witnessing,  from doing what the Lord said to doing what the Lord did!

It first began with their acknowledgement of the Word. Peter's statement today: where would we go Lord,  you have the words of eternal life is the starting point of their graduation. It brings out their willingness to stick their neck out for Christ.
The second level of graduation comes from the Spirit promised by the Lord. With the Spirit they felt the power of Jesus present within them. They cured the sick, raised the dead and stood before anyone without fear or trembling. They were different from what they used to be!

Finally there was something that made them completely unbeatable : the perspective of Eternal life. This is what Jesus their master wanted them to have! They learnt that no one could take their eternal life away from them. They were convinced that the joy that the Spirit gives and the peace that the Risen Lord gives, no one could snatch away from them. That was a life changing perspective!

With the Word, in the Spirit and with the perspective of eternal life,  we too can overcome the world as our Lord and saviour has done for us.

WORD 2day : 15th April, 2016

Drawing life from Life

Friday,  3rd week in Easter
Acts 9: 1-20; Jn 6 : 52-59

As I draw life from the Father, you draw life from me offers the Lord today! The life giving Lord takes the initiative to encounter us and offer us the precious gift of life and the wondrous gift of eternal life. The question that remains is: are we ready to behold that encounter? Saul was!

Saul, though he was in a totally contrary mindset, was ready to encounter the Risen Lord and respond promptly and absolutely. He listened to the Lord and gathered the Lord's call and went ahead to love it in his life. He was fundamentally a person who lived his life to the full and that is why when the Lord offered him the true life, he grabbed it with all his heart.

Paul is such a great model of Christian living that he was able to challenge his fellow Christians: be imitators of me as I am of Christ (1 Cor 11:1). That is what Jesus too expects from us - that we draw life from him as he does from his Father!

How hungry are you?

WORD 2day: 3rd Thursday of Easter

May 9, 2019: Acts 8:26-40; John 6:44-51

Christ proclaims himself to be the food,  the nourishment of our being. I am the bread. ..the flesh that I give is for eternal life. The Word is made flesh and it is there for our taking. But how intent are we on taking in the nourishment?

Today we see the Eunuch who encounters the Word through Philip. Though it was the Spirit who led Philip there and initiated the process,  it was the person's interest that propels the entire process of conversion and transformation. He invited Philip onto the carriage and he asked for the explanation and he demanded to be baptised. He was hungry for the Lord. He yearned for the nourishment. It was there and he claimed it for himself.

Anyone who eats of the bread that I give will never hunger and he who drinks of my blood will never thirst, says the Lord. The world is, and teaches us too to be, hungry for so many things in our lives - money, name, fame, power, possessions, prominence, ego, success, domination and manipulation! There is but just one thing we need to hunger for - the Lord, and only that will remove every other needless hunger! 

The question is,  how hungry am I for the Lord,  for the life giving bread, for the ever living  Word?

WORD 2day: 13th April, 2016

Without Hunger or Thirst

Wednesday, 3rd week in Easter

Acts 8: 1-8; Jn 6: 35-40

Luke presents a very dramatic account today of two contrasting movements gaining ground: one, the persecutions against the new believers in Christ and the other, the community of believers growing stronger by the day both in quantity and quality. They were persecuted, they were killed, they were dragged to prison, they were flogged and stoned...but nothing disturbed them. How is this possible?

Jesus gives us the answer in the Gospel: because they have no hunger nor thirst. They do not hunger for anything other than the nourishment from the Lord. They do not thirst for anything other than doing what pleases the Lord. The model for us is Jesus himself who said 'my food is to do the will of the One who sent me'.

If we truly eat the body of Christ with ardent faith and absolute and conscious understanding, we would not hunger for anything more, nor thirst for anything else. Our needless yearnings and disproportionate cravings are because we have not understood the real treasures that we have in our faith, in our spiritual covenant with the Lord.

WORD 2day: 12th April, 2016

To become the bread!

Tuesday, 3rd week in Easter

Acts 7:51 - 8:1; Jn 6: 30-35

'I am the bread that has come down from heaven', declared Jesus! Jesus becomes the bread that we may have eternal life. The bread that comes down from heaven, that is, a self giving from the beginning. To become the nourishment for humanity, in accordance with the will of the Father - that was Jesus' very purpose in life. When Jesus announced that he was the bread of salvation, he was offering himself as the ransom for our redemption.

Stephen today imitates Christ to the minutest details, even to the words that Jesus used. 'Into your hands I commend my spirit'. And the heart to forgive those who intended to kill him, imitating the gesture of Christ from on the Cross. Stephen was becoming another Christ. Stephen was not merely imitating the Bread that came down from heaven, but he was offering himself to be transformed into that bread for those around him. Saul who was looking on, was fed by that bread of faith and soon he was becoming that bread.

Today, you and I are called to become that bread: by allowing ourselves to be crushed for the sake of the Lord, ground in the din of the daily witness and made into one bread that would make nourish the Body of Christ: the faith community. We have a great responsibility towards the faith community and the way we build up that Body of Christ. By our acts, thoughts, ideas and priorities, we care called to become the bread, become another Christ!

WORD 2day : 11th April, 2016

The Rise of the Nex-Gen 

Monday, 3rd week in Easter

Acts 6: 8-15; Jn 6: 22-29

The Word begins to present to us the first generation after the Apostles! Apart from the apostles who were with Jesus, there were ardent disciples for Christ and the true people of the Way that Jesus showed. They began to imitate Jesus to the detail: an excellent example is Stephen, whose face shone like the Angel!

Jesus gives us the reason his face shone so: because he believed in the One who was sent! We too believe... yes! To what extent? Upto death? What does believing mean in practical terms: to follow what the Lord said and live what the Lord lived! Do we live after the example of the Lord? Do we carry out the Lord's teaching to the details?

Or are we clamouring after miracles and running after signs? Are we working for merely material well being or are we concerned about our own spiritual maturity? Looking at the Nex-Gen of Christ...should we not take to our heart to be truly Christ-ians in our thought, word and deed?

WORD 2day: 9th April, 2016

The uncompromisable Priority

Saturday, 2nd week in Easter

Acts 6: 1-7; Jn 6: 16-21

Jesus was with the disciples, speaking to the people all through the day and after having fed them and been in all that din, he sends the apostles away to the other shore but he himself goes alone to pray. He was very firm on his priority!

The Apostles as they began their ministry amidst the new found faith, they had their model clear and loud: Jesus! Their priorities were challenged at every step and thoroughly. But they had a Master and Friend who never gave up on his priorities. The first reading brings to us one occassion where the apostles seem to keep to the uncomprimisable priority: the primacy of God. 

Nothing can substitute a personal relationship with God: we may claim to be working for God and working in the name of God...but a personal relationship with God is not the same as the aforementioned. Our priority for primacy of God cannot waver,  cannot be compromised! It is a relationship that is spoken of here...the human-divine relationship out of which I receive 'grace upon grace' as St. Paul would claim.