LOVE-LENT 2017 - THE WORD IN LENT #7

Love - the Power to Transform!

Wednesday, First week in Lent - 8th March, 2017

Jon 3:1-10; Lk 11: 29-32

Jonah was given as the sign to the people of Nineveh - but what was the sign? The sign was that the Lord loved the people of Nineveh, however sinful they might have been. Ordinarily they should have perished and that is what Jonah wanted - that the sinners perished. But with the Lord that is never a solution because God is love, and love alone has the power to transform. Jesus comes as the personification of that love, to transform the world and make us children of God. 

Secondly, Jonah was intent on going away from the plan of the Lord, not because of malice but because he feared that the people of Nineveh will escape from the punishment that was their due. But the Lord's love and insistence transforms Jonah's heart and Jonah takes the message of the Lord to the people. Love awaits to transform each of us and set us up as agents of transformation for the people around us. Are we filled with that love which is the power to transform? 

LOVE-LENT - THE WORD IN LENT #7

LOVE-LENT 2017- THE WORD IN LENT #6

Prayer - A loving rapport with the Lord!

Tuesday, First week in Lent - 7th March, 2017

Isa 55: 10-11; Mt 6: 7-15

There are various definitions and explanations for prayer. Over and beyond all these explanations, the importance of prayer is something that is known to everyone. Prayer is also presented as one of the most fundamental elements of the Lenten practices. If so, this lent calling our attention to love, what does it say of prayer?

A simple and inevitable understanding of prayer is, perceiving prayer as a loving rapport with the Lord. Having a loving rapport with the Lord would mean, first of all to label that relationship - who is God for you: Mother, Father, Friend, Guide, Protector...? That rapport would ensure an attitude of respect and intimate connectedness, praising God and doing everything worthy of God's glory and dominion. The loving rapport ensures that all our needs are met, like a mother would do for her child. The rapport does not stop with the Lord but is made meaningful only in loving rapport that I have with my brothers and sisters, inspite of their weaknesses and limitations.

Our prayer when it is truly a loving rapport, it can do marvels! Yes, as the Lord assures that God's Word does not return until it has accomplished its purposes, so should our prayer be! Love is an energy that makes things possible. Love makes life possible, love makes care possible, love makes forgiveness and acceptance possible - when we say prayer can accomplish anything, it actually means the loving rapport with the Lord will illumine every situation here on earth - because prayer is nothing but the loving rapport that I have with the Lord.

LOVE-LENT 2017: THE WORD IN LENT #6

                                      

LOVE-LENT 2017 - THE WORD IN LENT #5

Love - Giving the other their due!

Monday, First week in Lent - 6th March, 2017

Lev 19: 1-2,11-18; Mt 25: 31-46

If you love me...many begin their demands this way today...those who are in love, those who are married, the parents to the children and vice versa and even friends. Love is not mere words, it is not merely some feeling, but it is a way of being, a mode of identification for a true Christian. 

The fundamental truth that has various forms is that to love is to give! Giving the other their due without grudging. Love is not looking to receive; it is always looking to give, give with cheerfulness, give with generosity and give without calculation. Violence or war, abductions or protests, litigations and demonstrations ...where do they come from? From a person, or a system or a mechanism that refuses to give the due to the right person! Let us refill this world with love, meaning to say, let us give each one their due and the world will be a better place.

LOVE-LENT - THE WORD IN LENT #5

TO LOVE IS A CHOICE

LOVE-LENT 2017 - THE SUNDAY SCHOOL

Sunday 1: 5th March, 2017

Gen 2:7-9: 3:1-7; Rom 5:12-19; Mt 4:1-11

Why did God make the tree, if God wanted them never to eat of it?

Why should that fruit be there first of all, if God knew it would not help them?

These top the list of FAQs that arise from today's Word. This lent we are called to look at this reality from the point of view of love. What stands out is the fact that to love is a choice!

God chose to gift us with the capacity to choose, yes Choice is a gift. If we get to see, it is this capacity to choose is the fundamental element of human dignity. Freedom and Autonomy are two things that define a human person. When they are missing there is a breach of human rights, loss of human dignity and a crisis of very humanity. This is what is happening in many a places today where this freedom and autonomy is not given, or controlled or hunted out. God made us human persons out of love; in love God has given the capacity to choose!

God made a choice to love us and gave us a sign of God's love in that choice, yes Choice is a sign. Choice is a sign that we love, that we give importance to someone. The Word today establishes how God made a choice to love us and gave us a sign of that choice through Jesus Christ the only Son of God. For God so loved the world that God gave the only Son that the world may have life. A Sign of God's everlasting love is the fact that God chose to love us regardless of what and who we are.

God invites us to take up the same call to choose to love authentically, yes Choice is a challenge. The world claims it loves, but it loves things and uses people. The true love that the Lord teaches us is to love persons and use things. But that is a choice, a choice which is a challenge. We need to make a choice to be authentic come what may, we need to forego of our ego, we are called to put the Other and the others much before me and mine. 

Yes...to love is a choice...a choice which is a gift from God; a choice that has been given s a sign from God. a choice that challenges me to put God and my neighbours before myself. May this season of Lent help us to grow in this love.

LOVE-LENT 2017 - THE WORD IN LENT #4

Sabbath - Taking time to Love!

Saturday after Ash Wednesday - 4th March, 2017

Is 58: 9-14; Lk 5: 27-32

Sabbath for the Jews, we know, was sacred and there was a beautiful lesson within it. People are busy making a living, that they forget truly living their life. Jesus did not despise Sabbath, but brought strongly home the lesson behind this observance. Jesus teaches us : Sabbath is the time taken to love - to love God and to love neighbours! It is a time to forget about me, mine and my job and look at the Lord, the persons around me and spend time with them. 

Today in our hectic lives, we are so busy running after our work, our so-called progress and our career that we lose sight of so many beautiful things in life - like a filial relationship with God, a loving relationship with our families, a rejuvenating time with our friends...even these have become some corporate affairs to be planned and executed, lacking its spontaneity and warmth. Recently, when I had rung up to a caterer asking for a meal to be arranged for a big group of persons on a Sunday - he bluntly told me that he cannot, because it was Sunday. "It is enough you arrange it later during the day", I insisted. But he replied with the same determination and clarity of priorities, "I go to Church in the morning and the rest of the day I spend with the family, I don't take up orders". He is not one of those top notch business persons to forego an order so lucrative, but he was clear about his priorities - he was absolute about the time set apart for God and for his loved ones.

We would do good to look at Sabbath not as a legal requirement or the Sunday obligation but as Jesus insists, as does Isaiah - taking time to be with people, to spend time with persons, to share love and be rejuvenated. Sabbath therefore is not one day, or certain days; it is a mindset, an attitude, a love with which we give importance to the Other and to the others. Just as this season of Lent, Sabbath should be a time taken regularly to refill our lives with love. 

LOVE-LENT - THE WORD IN LENT #4

LOVE-LENT 2017 - THE WORD IN LENT #3

Fasting - Christian love in Action!

Friday after Ash Wednesday - 3rd March, 2017

Is 58: 1-9; Mt 9: 14-15

Fasting is such an important element of Lent and it is considered so important that people use a phrase like 'when does the lenten fast begin' referring to the very season itself. In the Word today Jesus is relativising it, to the horror of the Pharisees and the Scribes. The hypocrisy of the Pharisees and the Scribes is actually in taking offence at what Jesus seems to be saying. Yes, it is hypocritical because, Jesus has not said anything new! He only lives in action what Isaiah said in words. What Isaiah says and Jesus lives is: Fasting is not merely, not eating...fasting is taking up pain on yourself that you may add to the comfort of someone, taking up a sacrifice that you may make someone cope with their suffering, taking up an extra burden on yourself that you may ease the fatigue of someone, giving up something that you consider dear that you may make someone feel wanted - all these because you love that someone!

If fasting makes you angry, frustrated, depressed, self-righteous or judgemental - that is more a sin than a virtue! Who gains from what you don't eat, if you are not going to give it to someone! Will giving alone make you holy - definitely no. Giving with true love, giving with joy and giving without counting the pain -that is true fasting! In fact, fasting is true love in action!

LOVE-LENT - THE WORD IN LENT #3

LOVE-LENT 2017 - THE WORD IN LENT #2

Choose life and Lose Life - True Christian Love

Thursday after Ash Wednesday - 2nd March, 2017
Dt 30:15-20; Lk 9:22-25

The Word today sets one thinking, even a bit confusing. The first reading tells us to choose life and the Gospel challenges us to lose life! Do we choose or do we lose it? 

The confusion will be cleared and we will understand that both these injunctions - to choose life and to lose life - are one and the same, if we look at it from the point of view of love!

True Christian love is about choosing and losing life at one and the same time: choosing life which is God and ready to lose our life for God, for others in the name of God. The two pronged love that Christ stood for, advocated, lived and died for, is what is spoken of in the Word today. Choosing God is choosing life; not to choose God is choosing death! Losing life is being ready to give up one's life for having deliberately chosen God. Choosing life is to choose to love God; losing life is to choose to love God so much that one is ready even to lay one's life down for God and for God's purposes.

Love teaches us to choose God as a way to choose life; it prepares me to lose my life for the sake of those whom God has entrusted me with, specially the most needy and the most suffering. Love makes my life precious and it is the same love that makes me capable of giving up that life! The school of love is on. 

LOVE-LENT 2017 - THE WORD IN LENT #2

LOVE-LENT 2017 - THE WORD IN LENT #1

Lent - a school of Christian Love

Ash Wednesday - 1st March, 2017

We begin the Lent for this year. Let us take a look around. There is hate in the air. A few days ago, there was a video going viral on the social network of two men in islamist garb breaking the statue of our blessed mother. Recently the news agencies reported the use of anti-blasphemy law in Denmark after 46 years, against a man who burnt the Holy Koran. The recent unveiling of the statue of adhiyogi a few days earlier in Coimbatore has been embroiled in religious, socio political and ecological controversies for too long, inspite of the overwhelming support from the power centers. The anti-migrant stance of some major nations has created a sort of unrest in the minds of many. In fact there is hate in the air - for more than a few reasons. The socio-political and religio-cultural turmoil that the world is witnessing today makes life so fear ridden and devoid of meaning! 

What does the Lord expect from us at this juncture, as we begin a brand new season of prayer, reflection and renewal? It is a call to return to the Lord, to return as children, to return as persons filled with love, not ego! Rend your hearts not your clothes, the Lord says - feel sad for having filled this world with lovelessness. Refill the world with love! I believe that is the task given to us this lent - to refill the world with love. That is why beginning today we will reflect from this perspective making this the season of LOVE-LENT 2017.

Lent can be a school of Christian love - a season when the love of the Lord is made more and more manifest  than a season where we concentrate on taking upon ourselves more and more pain that makes no difference. 

Let this lent teach us to love, to love until it hurts. 

Let this lent teach us to love, ready to lay down our lives for the well being of the other.

Let this lent teach us to love, without counting the cost or expecting returns.

Let this lent teach us to love, ready to suffer for the common good and stand up for truth.

Let this lent teach us to love, putting the other before our personal likes and dislikes.

Lent can be an exceptional school of Christian love - Love shall be the Master, love shall be the methodology and love shall be the subject! Let us begin this journey of learning to love so that we can skillfully carryout the task of refilling this world with love.

WORD 2day: 28th February, 2017

Rewards of the Just Judge

Tuesday, 8th week in Ordinary Time

Sir 35:2-15; Mk 10: 28-31

That the Lord is just, is not always a convenient thing for us. At times even the best of things that we do, may not really be deigned as good owing to the intention that is behind its doing. We may act kind to someone, expecting something in return. We may try to please someone because we wish to obtain a favour from the person. We may close an eye to a fault of someone merely because we like the person and make a mountain out of molehill just because we may not like the person. All these are not factors that are known to an apparent eye; but the Lord knows them all. The Lord knows us through and through. Considering that the Lord is judge, the rewards may not be always what we like or enjoy, but the rewards will always be a means of enhancing the goodness in a child. 

In simple words, what we do is important; but why we do what we do and what we want to achieve through what we do, they matter a lot. I am not what I do, but I am what I think as I do whatever I do. 

WORD 2day: 27th February, 2017

Come, Come back, Come home

Monday, 8 week in ordinary time
Sir 17: 20-28; Mk 10:17-27

The messages have begun to invite us back home. Soon there will be lent and this message will be all the more stronger. The invitation points out to the fact that all of us need a home that is permanent; that we belong to a home that is permanent where we are ourselves and not waiting to be invited. Let's heed the invitation of the master and turn back home as early as possible.

The Reign is our home and let us  beware not to distance ourselves from it too long.  The love for our home should pull us back from wherever we find ourselves. Come, Come back,  Come home invites the Lord - with the right perspectives and right actions.