To destroy and to build; to stop and to proceed!

WORD 2day: 28th November, 2017

Tuesday, 34th week in Ordinary Time
Dan 2: 31-45; Lk 21: 5-11

This week's readings have a bi-dimensional orientation - a preparation towards advent (a new beginning) and at the same time a reflection on the end times. This is the real Christian disposition: a bi-dimensional approach to life. A reflection on the end times has to be radically open to the new beginnings, lest it becomes a vain curiosity. 

A focus on the new beginnings, the new earth and new heaven, on the definitive coming of the Reign should have a mature openness towards the end time perspective, lest it remains a simplistic dream of an all-bright future, without any personal commitment to it. 

There is no use raving about the last days, the end of the world, the Armageddon,  the judgement and so on and so forth, as if talking about a football match or a cricket tournament. Dreams, visions and extra natural phenomenon have no value in themselves, unless they help a better living here and now, and a preparation for a more holistic future. 

The first reading and the Gospel today remind us of this need - the need to question ourselves on our life style, our criteria and choices in daily life - whether they are really worthy of the Reign, that we are called to announce to the world as disciples of Christ!

The call that today we are given is to be daring enough to accept a break down in your life and an eventual restart; to effect a rupture from the old habits and to begin anew; to  destroy the old and to build anew; to stop and to proceed. Am I ready?

Choosing God in little things!

WORD 2day: 27th November, 2017

Monday, 34th week in Ordinary Time

Dan 1: 1-6,8-20; Lk 21:1-4

The world has stereotypical criteria of what is good and what is better; social standards of what makes one good and what makes the other better! The temptation to conform to that social stereotypes is very high and dangerously subtle. Many a times we fall into the trap, though the Word very often warns us, "Do not be conformed to this world" (Rom 12:2), because, "the Lord does not see as the mortals see" (1 Sam 16:7). 

That is why, the two tiny coins that the widow drops quietly into the treasury seems more valuable to Jesus than the bags and bags of wealth that the others dump there. To be his disciples, "let the same mind be in you, as it was in Christ Jesus" (Phil 2:5) instructs St. Paul. We begin to read from today from the book of Daniel, every day increasingly reminding us of the imminent choice we have to make for the Lord and not for the convention of the world.

Daniel was special because of this, that God's mind was in him, the wisdom of the Lord was in him, that made him shine to the rest of the world. He knew what to choose and what to let go. He knew what really mattered and what did not. He knew what it meant to be faithful to his Master, the Lord, the Almighty. 

Maybe, I need to ask the Lord today, to give me that wisdom to see things as the Lord does, with the same mind that was in Christ Jesus and choose the right things and let go of those that are immaterial. Choosing the little that truly matter, will win me all that I need - the all, that is God!

THE KING: In Him we have the Victory

The Solemnity of Christ the King

26th November, 2017

Ezek 34:11-12,15-17; 1 Cor 15: 20-26,28; Mt 25: 31-46

To proclaim Christ as King today, is not an easy task - while nations wrestle with each other for supremacy and individuals do anything to keep the crown to themselves! It is a challenge to a true Christian flock today to identify its shepherd as the King, and not just that, King of all kings! The Solemnity of Christ the King reminds of the fact that it is in this King we have the victory. 

The King, in Him we have the victory! That is the song on our lips today, but can that be truly meant? This what I wish to share today. Can we truly and fully mean it, when we say, In Him we have the Victory? If we have to, then we need to understand fully what we say by that proclamation.

The King = The Thorns + The Crown.

When we call him the King, we know that he is a king of a different kind; but are we conscious of it? Are we conscious of whom we are proclaiming as king and the consequences of it. He is not a merely a king with a crown and a throne, but a king with a crown of thorns! Yes, it is only through his thorns did he finally win over the kingdom. If we call him our king, we need to look at the priorities of our life - success, dominance, honour and power: can they be my priorities? They are... for most of us. Shouldn't we become a little more conscious of it. Let us not think of some distant political leader or a disdained pastoral minister. Think of you and me - our little successes, our dominance in our own small relationships, our seeking of honour and recognition, our secret lust for power...these are all priorities against our type of the King! This king will ask us to look at not success but justice, not dominance but service, not honour but humility, not power but sacrifice as our priority! Can we... if we accept that we are of his flock, if not we are on the other side!

In Him = Through Him + With Him.

In Him we have the Victory, we say. But what does it mean - In Him. In Cristo, is a very specific term that we need to understand. We see its depth of meaning in the Paul's assertion: "There is no condemnation for those in Christ" (Rom 8:1). No condemnation is what we mean by victory! The term can be understood in the other two terms: through Him and with Him. 

First of all, we need to understand that we are, through Him. Everything is, through Him. When we declare Christ the King of the Universe, we are affirming the fact that Paul teaches: through him everything was created and for him they exist (see Col 1:15-17). When we feel we are doing everything by ourselves, when we begin to attribute all the good to ourselves and all the ills to God, we forget that fact that we are what we are, through Him. The world is full of that tendency today - anything they achieve they take the credit. A problem crops up, they start questioning God and everything that is related!

Secondly to say we are in Christ, we have to be basically with Him. With Christ, is to make the choices that Christ would make, to speak those words that Christ would speak, to do those actions that Christ would do, in short to have the mind of Christ in us. To be with Christ means to step into his shoes, to follow his footsteps, to step on to his feet and be carried in sync with it. 

When we are aware of the fact that we live through him and with that consciousness decide to be with him, we are in him and the victory is certainly ours!

Victory = Righteousness + Salvation

In Him we have the Victory, we say. But what is this Victory? Is it comfort and prosperity? Is it shining lives and glamorous future? Victory we speak of here is righteousness on our part and the gift of salvation that the Lord confers. Righteousness is our life of truth and love, without counting the cost. Yes, at times we think of being righteous as a means to winning something from the Lord - no, it is not! Being Righteous is our call and it is our very being, because we are created in the image and likeness of the Lord. Salvation comes as we get closer and closer to God and in that intimate oneness with the Lord, salvation happens. Salvation is not to be procured - as some keep asking that dumb question: 'are you saved'? Everybody is! But I need to make that salvation my lifestyle, my daily experience, my oneness with the Lord! That is the Victory that Christ makes so natural and easy for us, when we are IN HIM. 

Yes... we have a wonderful, majestic and compassionate King, in Him we have the Victory!

BEHOLD THE GOD WHO IS LIVING

WORD 2day: 25th November, 2017

Saturday, 33rd week in Ordinary Time

1 Mac 6: 1-13; Lk 20: 27-40

It is easy to glory in a God of the past, recount miracles and remember feats. It is also not difficult to think of a God of the future, dream dreams of prosperity and share stories of great tidings. The real challenge is to believe in the God of the present, the God of the moment, the Lord of my life, the God of the living. 

The strength of my spiritual self is seen in my ability to relate to God on a daily basis, on a momentary basis. When Jesus today reminds us of the God of the living, and not a God of the dead, he is inviting us to experience God and live with God every day, every moment! 

We are fond of living on a spiritual nostalgia of an experience 'once-upon-a-time' or we are fond of looking at a bright light some time, some day. Like the people we see in the Gospel who thought of their ancestors or thought of a future splendour, but missed the great and moving presence of the Lord amidst them, in their daily events and difficult moments. 

Let us not end up making up stories and throwing questions at the Lord. Let us be still and experience the presence of the living God, the God of the living, living right next to us!

PURIFY AND DEDICATE YOURSELF TO THE KING

WORD 2day: 24th November, 2017

Friday, 33rd week in Ordinary Time

1 Mac 4: 36-37,52-57; Lk 19: 45-48

Zeal for his house will consume him - Ps 69:9 - that is what John refers to when he recounts the event that we hear in the Gospel today from Luke! Judas Mattathias in the first reading and Jesus in the Gospel are presented as burning with zeal for God, for God's house. Both of them want to purify and rededicate the Temple to the Lord.

When we accept God as our king (the theme of this entire week) we should be burning with zeal for God, for things that belong to God, for values that stand for God, for persons and their dignity that directly springs from God, for life and love that signify God...we should burn with zeal to preserve, promote and uphold these! 

Today there are forces that are bracing threats against the Church, persons who want to see the downfall of the Church, people who call names and insult the Church and all those who stand for the Church - now the question is, what is your response? Fear and withdrawal? Compromise and justification? Or stand up for what you believe and purify yourself and rededicate yourself unto the truth?

If we think of our faith in terms of king-subject relationship, it is our allegiance to our King...let us be filled with zeal for our king, that is if we accept our Lord as our King! Let us purify and rededicate ourselves to the King.

WHO IS MY KING?

WORD 2day: 23rd November, 2017

Thursday, 33rd week in Ordinary Time

1 Mac 2: 15-29; Lk 19: 41-44

Who is your king? – that is the crucial question that is being repeatedly asked these days of the week running up to the Solemnity of Christ the King. The parable we heard yesterday of the return of the king who demands an account, the siege of Jerusalem that Jesus speaks of today in the Gospel and the call of Mattathias to gather in his leadership against the persecuting forces… all these present a crisis situation; a situation demanding a definitive choice. 

Sometimes external pressures like the work ambient, the political milieu, the personal addictions or the overpowering temptations can present a crisis situation to us… a situation to make a radical choice for God or against God! Even a simple affair like the choice of words we use, or an ordinary decision we make on a daily basis, can determine the radical belonging to or rejection of God in our lives! 

How many times we stand convicted by our choices which contradict the principles we claim to stand for! How many times we eat our own words to justify ourselves and save our face before others! How many times we compromise on true values and make convenience a criterion for our decisions! 

Our choices would demonstrate more than to us, to the the world who our king is! If my king is my Lord -my daily choices would reflect that. May our everyday choices be such that the Lord would never need to weep over us, as he did over Jerusalem!

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

MY CHOICE FOR GOD

Remembering St. Cecilia: 22nd November, 2017

2 Mac 7: 1,20-31; Lk 19: 11-28

The urge to be faithful to God is never a question of maintaining the status quo. As spiritual masters always warn us, not to progress in spiritual life is to regress! Faithfulness to God is not lived or manifested in remaining where we are or merely in moments of legal fulfillment of rules and routine practices of piety. It takes fundamental radical choices at crucial moments to tell not just the Lord but the world too, that I belong to the Lord, to the One who has created me, the One who has called me and commissioned me.

Like the young lad, as his mother and 6 brothers, in the first reading chooses God over everything that the king promises and over his very life; like Saint Cecilia whom we remember today who chose to give of her whole self - her body, soul, spirit and very life for God, our choices need to speak for themselves. 

Not just the choices of life and death, but the choices of what we want to do with the talents, the gifts that the Lord has given us, the choices of what we want to do with every moment of life that God has gifted us with. We can choose to enrich them and enhance them, or to just bury them and be inactive! 

My choice for God has to be seen in my daily little choices - Cecilia is often celebrated as patroness of musicians (by the way, let us pray for all the singers and musicians and wish them well), and at times her heroic sacrifice and choice for God has been eclipsed. She decided to giver her whole self to God and she kept that choice till her death. 

Just like the mother in the first reading today, Cecilia saw her husband and her brother in law die, but remained unmoved in her choice for God. In my daily events and ordinary tasks, I have to manifest this choice for God, if only I wish to inspire the world today. The choice today, is mine!

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

The Primacy of God and Quality of our Faith

Remembering the Presentation of Mary in the Temple - 21st November, 2017
2 Mac 6:18-31; Lk 19: 1-10

Zacchaeus' episode in the Gospel is an evergreen example of an encounter that transforms a person. As St. Paul would say, 'if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation'(2Cor 5:17). When we allow the Lord to really encounter us, the Lord transforms the whole person. Nothing remains the same, everything is new because we begin to see everything from the perspective of the Lord. 

As Pope Francis said in his first encyclical Lumen Fidei, Faith is not just to see Jesus, it is to see with the eyes of Jesus (LF 18)! When our faith is authentic, the whole perspective changes. What seems to be important, what seems to be necessary for someone may seem totally secondary to me, because I see as the Lord does, because I think as the Lord does, because I love as the Lord does. 

Eleazar in the first reading demonstrates the same to us - 'such pretense is not worthy of our time of life' (2 Mac 6:24), he says, caring the least to preserve his life, because he did not want to lead the others astray from God. 

Today we remember the event of Mary being presented in the Temple - why does the Church remember this event though it is not part of the Biblical account. There is a very important reason - highly spiritual and simply logical. Mary, as far as we see in the Gospels, seems to be totally resigned to God's will and absolutely obedient to God's voice. Where does this begin from - the answer is the memory we celebrate today. The parents offered her, thus inculcating within her mind and heart that she belongs to God and that is reflected all her life. 

Even for us the message is same today: the primacy of God in our life defines the quality of our faith.

TO SEE THE REIGN

WORD 2day: 20th November, 2017

Monday,  33rd week in Ordinary Time 

1 Maccabees 1:10-15,41-43,54-57,62-64; Lk 18: 35-43

Personally I stand much for Interreligious dialogue and inculturation of faith. Some persons have found fault with me at times saying, 'you stand for interreligious dialogue and inculturation, but you do not allow such and such a thing. Is it not a discrepancy? '

It is important to realise what is an integral process of dialogue and inculturation. If only 'all becoming one' is the objective, then today we should be comfortable with what is happening around... all, in every field, everyone is becoming one in their selfishness and self seeking tendencies! It is our call to become one, but which one? Not anyway one... but One in just one way! 

Becoming one as a humanity, bound by true and wholesome values, standing for real freedom, dignity and solidarity, that is our task. That is what the Reign is all about. At times it will look impossible and totally a dream, an utopia, a fable and a fairy tale. But in faith, it is not! We are going to hear of the end times beginning from now for the next two weeks - not about the end of the world or end of the times but it is the end of hopelessness and end of misery. Because we are convinced the Reign is at hand. 

That conviction requires an eye of faith; let us cry out for it and the Lord will grant us! Jesus Lord, have mercy on us, that we may see, that we may see the Reign!

A 3G ON THE WORLD DAY OF THE POOR

GRATITUDE, GUILT AND GIVING - The 3 sensibilities provoked!

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time: 19th November, 2017

This Sunday is commemorated as World Day of the Poor, heeding to the request of Pope Francis at the end of the Year of Mercy, calling us to keep alive the sensibilities that were provoked during reflections of that entire year! Here this Sunday's Word brings home to us the same sensibilities and we shall dwell on them in 3Gs.

Gratitude - because what I have is given by God! 

The parable that Jesus narrates speaks of each one having what was given them by the King and what they do with that is what the story is all about. Whatever I have, I have it because it is given by God. You may protest - no, I earned it, I merited it...could be. But the opportunity, the contacts, the success...do all have it? If I had it, I was more fortunate than so many. Without giving into a boisterous 'theology of prosperity', I need to admit that if I am blessed with comforts, with conveniences that many do not have today, I have to be grateful. When I complain, I cannot be grateful. We know of that famous saying - I complained of not having shoes until that day when I found one not having his legs! Gratitude is one important sensibility that we are called to possess - Gratitude is a sign that I acknowledge what I have received and I realise the value of what I have received. The last man was not grateful, he was afraid, lazy and crooked and that is why what he received did not fructify.

Guilt - because what I have is not only mine!

Some may not like this word used here - I am sure! It is not even to alliterate with the G's that I chose this as the second sensibility but with a lot of consciousness. Pope Francis when he invites the world to observe this day as  World Day of the Poor - do you think he is saying, now all of us rich get together and pool in some money to give to the poor? No! He is raising a big question - why are they poor? At times I feel so, when I travel around, when I encounter poor people with nothing to eat or nothing to wear or nowhere to stay! I feel guilty of the well pressed clothes that I wear, of the well presented recipes that I enjoy, the well planned travels I make, the well guarded house that I live in. Am I going to leave all these and go to the streets - it may not happen! But that little feeling of uneasiness within me, that has to be there. That uneasiness drove Francis of Assisi to sanctity; that uneasiness dragged Mother Teresa out of the confines of her convent to the peripheries of the world. I don't wish to soften the word to 'being sensitive' or to 'being aware'...it is being guilty! I don't want to get into poetic discussions like. 'everyone is poor is some way' and so on. It should pain me to see people poor; it should pain me to see persons suffer. The world today has to feel that guilt of having pushed its children to poverty and misery. When that third servant failed to be fruitful, the worst fact was not that he was not fruitful, but he was not even guilty about it. That was the most miserable fact. The king just could not digest that!

Giving - because that is why I have!

If I have anything, it is a clear sign that I am called to give! That is what a Christian life should be - Christian life and hoarding wealth for its own sake cannot go together! Oh what a statement that is to make - I am aware of it. But that is the fact. I cannot say, God has blessed me and therefore I am going to be happy! Yes I am happy with the blessing - but I am given to give! The beautiful philosophy of Stewardship that God has been insisting on right from creation, has widely been forgotten, negated and dumped down the drains. How can I not give when I know someone needs it and I have it. To add to that, I have it more than I need! In a country like India for an instance, or wherever in the world, we can see the rich getting richer and the poor becoming poorer - can things remain the same? How long are we going to be happy collecting something from somewhere and giving it elsewhere? Giving has to be a duty! Giving has to be our essence! Giving has to be our being! I should give, if I want to be seen as a child of God, because God gives.

Not merely in words...in deeds let us show our conviction to eradicate poverty. Not merely in deeds...but in convictions let us challenge the world against poverty. Not merely in convictions... but in our solidarity and integrity let us get down to fight for justice that every child of God has what he or she needs!