SPIRIT UNITES

Principles of Unity: Communication, Conciliation and Christ

Solemnity of Pentecost: 4th June, 2017

Acts 2:1-11; 1 Cor 12:3-7,12-13; Jn 20:19-23

We are people of the Spirit - that is the reminder we are given with today! We are people of the Spirit - in contrast to the people of the world (if we can make that distinction). But being people of the Spirit is not merely a namesake understanding. Our life has to show that we are people of the Spirit. The fruits and the gifts of the Spirit that we are well aware of, inspires in us a lifestyle that is ideal and an inspiration to everyone around. If we were truly the people of the Spirit, it has to be seen, seen in our daily life, our daily choices, in our very way of life. Infights, ego clashes, misunderstandings, jealousies, misgivings - these are signs of the lack of Spirit. Even some so-called spiritual people give into these deficiencies and that is a clear sign that they are spiritual people only in their name and title. 

There are certain principles of unity that the Spirit ensures in a Spirit-filled person. The first of those principles is Communication. Simple blocks in communication among persons are the primary cause of the big unresolved issues. Husband and wife, parents and children, brothers and sisters, kith and kin, friends and neighbours - when communication stops, understanding disappears. communication stops due to blocks like prejudice, taking the other for granted and ego trips. Even when one talks, the other doesn't really understand because the other is listening from his or her own prejudice or pre-understanding. When each one hears only what one wants to hear, there is either lack of communication or gross miscommunication!

Christ is the invincible principle of unity. The Spirit unites us in the Lord. We become one, one in the Lord, one body of Christ and this is possible only through the Spirit. Believing in Christ, has to unite us not divide us. As St. Paul would complain, do not say, I belong to Paul, I belong to Apollos or I belong to Cephas...saying thus you are dividing the Lord. Today the factions that we have among the believers and the way one group vies with the other to increase their numbers or prove their strength is an outright counter witness to the One Lord and that is why, a divided church is the greatest scandal in the world. If we truly believe in  One Lord and pledge our allegiance to that One Lord, where does the division and fight come from? 

Conciliation is an important principle of unity. We are human persons, each with our own limitations and weaknesses. We cannot avoid little misunderstandings and misgivings, but what is detrimental is, not finding a way out of these misunderstandings and misgivings. A truly Spirit-filled will take the initiative of reconciling with the other. He or she will not look for reasons to blame the other or excuses to prolong the stand off. The Spirit-filled persons will find ready reasons to reconcile, to rebuild relationships and build up the Body of Christ. In a recent meeting with the President of the US, Pope Francis gave him an icon of peace, and insisted that he be promoter of peace and not war! That is the sign of a Spirit filled person.

A true sign of Spirit filled persons is the person's longing for unity and his or her concrete initiatives towards unity! 

WORD 2day: 3rd June, 2017

What does it matter - You Follow!

Saturday after Ascension Sunday

Acts 28:16-20,30-31; Jn 21: 20-25

What does it matter when we are called to proclaim the good news of the Lord - nothing should really matter: whether we are free or bound, whether we are threatened or encouraged, whether we are rewarded or taken to task, whether we are in good health or in sickness, whether we are supported or not - nothing should really matter! Paul and Peter today give us a beautiful message: proclaim the good news in season and out of season. 

What do we really need to announce the good news but our loving words, caring attitudes, sensitive heart and meaningful relations! We have persons around us and we have an opportunity to deal with them. That is all we need to proclaim the good news - the news that God loves us. This is what Jesus did and today he calls you and me to follow. What does it matter to us - let us follow the Lord!

WORD 2day: 2nd June, 2017

Where you would rather not go

Friday after the Ascension Sunday

Acts 25: 13-21; Jn 21: 15-19

With the Spirit in you, you would go where you would rather not go, you would do things which you would rather not do, you would say things that you would rather not say...you would become so unpredictable, as surprising as the Lord Himself. The Spirit empowers you to be as powerful as the Lord is! 

Paul does something like that today - he appeals to the Emperor! Jesus predicts it for Peter and it is seen in Paul...he does something that one would rather not. The courage for that choice comes from the Spirit. It is not only that the Lord is unpredictable, even those who are in the Lord are unpredictable. They would take the world by surprise. People would stand in awe at the choices made, because they would make choices that people would rather not make. 

WORD 2day: 1st June, 2017

Expect the Unexpected - with the Spirit

Thursday after Ascension Sunday

Acts 22:30; 23:6-11; John 17:20-26

Jesus prays that we be one in the Spirit, that we become one people under one Lord, by the action of the Spirit. The Spirit unites, binds, builds! But we see in the first reading, the Spirit inspiring the Apostle to say something that divides the Sadducees and the Pharisees...just like the division that happened at the tower of Babel. Here the Spirit seems to divide, but dividing the evil and making it powerless before the good. After all the risks, dangers and resultant suffering when Paul straightens up, the Spirit tells him: it is not over, you have yet to bear similar things at Rome. The Spirit always surprises us...when we are ready to be surprised, when we expect the unexpected and carry out exactly what the Spirit wants us to, we will surely be powerful witnesses to all the world.

WORD 2day: 30th May, 2017

Glorifying, in the Spirit

Tuesday after Ascension Sunday 

Acts 20: 17-27; Jn 17:1-11

People long  to be glorified today. The giant flexes and the wall paintings so keen about names and faces, the schemes announced and credits misappropriated... these are effects of this longing for glorification. Jesus declares, 'now is the time for the son of man to be glorified'... Paul looks for a glorification too; but this is a glorification  in the Spirit.

Jesus gets ready to take up the cross and Paul says the Spirit has foreshown  him sufferings and persecutions. Glorification in the Spirit would be accepting the will of God in total surrender, without trying to change it or adapt it to our convenience. The Spirit alone can empower us towards such a disposition.

WORD 2day: 29th May, 2017

The Graduation time

Monday after Ascension Sunday

Acts 19:1-8; Jn 16: 29-33

It is graduation time now...you ask a child this season - which class are you studying? You would get a typical reply, something like: fourth to fifth. smiling? Yes...it is graduation time.

In the Word today we see people graduating to the next levels...Paul introduces Apollos and others to the Holy Spirit; Jesus finds his disciples finally beginning to believe him. The call is the same to us today: as we have celebrated the feast of Ascension just yesterday, to graduate. To grow into people of the Spirit. The journey is begun, we would travel till coming sunday, reflecting towards being people of the Spirit. It is graduation time, we have to grow to the next level. We cannot just remain moderate and nominal Christians, we need to be Spirit filled Christians. Are we ready. Let us begin that week long journey today...towards being Spirit filled Christians!

Gone... to be with us!

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

Acts 1: 1-11; Eph 1:17-23; Mt 28: 16-20

Just after the vigil mass of Ascension, a youngster came over to me with a question. She said, 'Father, why did the disciples just let Jesus go? They should have created a ruckus and made sure Jesus couldn't go. I would have done it, if it were me!' I thought it was a good point for me to start explaining what Ascension of Christ truly means. Jesus has not abandoned us, as he himself had promised. Jesus' ascension does not mean Jesus has gone away but Jesus has gone up to be with us more than before. If Jesus had continued to stay on in that incarnate form forever (just an hypothesis), he would have remained in Jerusalem, Judea and the surroundings. But Jesus went up to the Father and thus he has begun to stay with every one worldwide. As Jesus promises in the gospel today: I shall be with you till the end of times. To be with us, Jesus had to go; he went, that is what we celebrate today: the Ascension.

Going to the Father did not mean for Jesus, distancing himself from us! It was a way of involving himself more into our lives. To be close to all, and not just to a few! Jesus goes, so that he can be everywhere and with everyone and always! 

Going to the Father did not mean for Jesus, forgetting his self emptying! Jesus gave up the status of being God and emptied himself. Going back to the father is not taking up once again the Godhood but becoming the mediator. We have a mediator par excellence!

Going to the Father did not mean for Jesus, that he is done with the humanity! Jesus continues to challenge humanity to grow up, and follow him to the Father's house. Jesus gives us a roadmap, a precedence, a clear plan of life. Keep growing until you ascend to the Father.

WORD 2day: 27th May, 2017

Coming and Going - should it affect?

Saturday before Ascension

Acts 18: 23-28; Jn 16:23-38

Past two days have been totally different days in the past three years, for me personally. I had handed over a ministry that was entrusted to me three years ago, to another confrere of mine. I remember, when it was handed over to me - my predecessor was going; I was coming in. Now it is my turn to go, and there is someone else who has come in. Paul went and Apollos came. Aquila and Priscilla were there to accompany both of them. Coming and going are natural truths of life, and should they affect. In some places it does and that is a sad part of affairs.

When will it affect anyone's coming or going? When it is Doer-centered, anything that is done will be affected by the coming or going of the one who does. One may be a better doer and the other a different kind of a doer - it will surely affect if this is the center of the considerations. How talented or not a person is, how capable or not a person is...these are the considerations that will affect. 

It will affect also when it is Action-centered. Being action centered is the priority or prime importance given to what is done. Though we do not give the centrality to who is doing, but to what is being done, still what is being done depends much on how is it being done. The results matter and the dividends matter. Should these matter or affect when it comes to what the Lord wants us to do, when we have been called by the Lord.

When the Lord calls, it is for Ministry. What is central here is not the you or me who is called; nor is it what I do or how I do. The central consideration is what does God want here and now. This is God-centered: there is no place for the ego of the doer or the success of the action. It is not a project to be done and reported, it is a Ministry to be lived and here it does not matter who comes and who goes...what matters is what God wants. Let us do all the good that we can!

WORD 2day: 26th May, 2017

The path of perfect perseverance

Friday before the Ascension Sunday

Acts 18:9-18; Jn 16:20-23

Today's Word led me to think of two phrases quite familiar in everyday parlance. The first one is 'the path of least resistance' - In the name of being natural and spontaneous, going with the trends, keeping with the times, the numerous compromises that are made and values that are lost belong to this thinking.

The second phrase quite equally popular is 'the path of least persistence' - advocating the theory that there is no virtue in insisting on making something work, while in practicality it does not. It is the famous mindset of trying out. Just give it a try, and that is all about life. The first failure, people quit.

The path of least resistance or the path of least persistence seem to be the trends of the world today. But the Word today, insists on the path of perfect perseverance. It is the path of least resistance to the Will of God and the path of least persistence to one's own whims and fancies. 

We see the Apostles and the their disciples do that...when the Lord instructs them to do something they offer no resistance at all. With all the sufferings that come their way, they keep persevering, though they certainly had moments dark and dangerous. Nothing stopped them because they were on the path of perfect perseverance.

WORD 2day: 25th May, 2017

Sorrow or Joy - what is your choice?

Thursday before Ascension Sunday

Acts 18: 1-8; Jn 16: 16-20

What would be your choice, your natural spontaneous choice: sorrow or joy? Of course, we would choose joy or that is what we think. Today, there is so much sorrow in the world because we think we choose joy, while in fact we are constantly adding to our sorrows. Is that confusing? Not really. It is an easy perspective that the Word offers today to understand our situation today. Let us contrast these as the perspective of the world and the perspective of the Word.

The perspective of the world says, with a faulty understanding of the phrase 'here and now', choose what gives you utmost happiness at any given moment and that will add to your joy. This is why people end up frustrated, ruined and wrecked in their life, making all the wrong choices possible, adding to their own woes and to the others'. The disciples could not understand what Jesus was telling them, because they only had a limited perspective of the here and now, until the Spirit arrived to open the eyes and their hearts.

The perspective of the Word says, have the ultimate Joy, the Joy that the Lord alone can give, in your mind. You would then be ready to choose at a given moment even a bit of pain and struggle, because you know you have a joy, a glory, an eternal happiness that awaits you! Look at Paul, Aquila, Priscilla, Titus Justus... they were wantonly choosing trouble and opposition, because they had their ultimate joy in perspective. Paul said that emphatically: I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us (Rom 8:18).

Now let us consider that question again- what is our choice: sorrow or joy?