Leading, Leading astray and Leading together

Monday,  32nd week in Ordinary Time

November 12, 2018: Titus 1:1-9; Luke 17:4-11

The Word speaks of three aspects of leadership in a community...

First is leading,  leading after the heart of God,  being inspired by the Holy Spirit and guided by teachings of the Lord. When a person involves in such a mission, leading one's brothers and sisters in the Spirit, there will be loads of opposition but the person will find oneself so fearless! That is the amazing sign... oppositions, plotting against, fault finding, false accusations - nothing will ever shake the person, because the person is in the hands of the Lord.

Second is leading astray,  where the evil one is active at play.  That has been the quality of the evil one,  right from the beginning of humanity. Temptor, as the evil one is identified, uses people under influence to draw others to evil and against good. But there will be no signs of evil around, everything will seem so practical, pragmatic and acceptable but the evil resides somewhere in the corner, leading us astray.

The third is leading the community together to unity,  harmony and loving understanding.  One of the most important tool in this regard would be forgiveness.  No community or family can be built without daily and unfailing forgiveness. At times we get so caught up with doing right and standing for the right that we forget that forgiving and marching ahead is much more important, without which we shall be sitting in judgement on each other already here!

Everything seems complicated and so difficult. But when there is faith, that is when there is the assurance that we are walking with the Lord, we shall sail through. All that we need to do is pray as the Gospel teaches us today: Lord, increase our faith!

WHAT TYPE IS YOUR GIVING?

To gain, to get or... ?

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time: 11th November, 2018

1 Kings 17: 10-16; Hebrews 9: 24-28; Mark 12: 38-44

The widow at the gates of Sidon, the widow in the Temple of Jerusalem and God who gave God's only son as a sacrifice are given to us as models of giving, in today's Word. Giving is one act that can be done out of many a kind of motivation. Not all giving are of the same kind or type or degree! Analysing the models presented to us, we are called to reflect on our type of giving... reflect along and find out at the depth of your heart, what type is your giving!

Giving to Gain: 
There is a lot of giving that is going on today. There are people or agencies or corporates who give even tons of money, but they are particular about what they stand to gain. They calculate the gain and then proceed to give: it could be a tax exemption, or a favour in return, or an end to achieve, or a popularity to earn! But apparently it is seen to be an act of generosity, an act of great magnanimity! But the hook is attached to the indirect returns - that's a gain.

However big and enormous this giving is, it would not be truly giving; it is in the final analysis, a getting, a begging, a receiving, a business, a gain! At times when we give, however small it is,  from our time or energy or effort, if we are particular about our calculations of gain, our plots of selfishness, then our giving has no value in itself, its value is merely what we have gained. 

Giving to Get: 
This is the safest form of giving, where one is sure what one gives is not merely thrown in the air but it will return. I do a favour to someone expecting a favour in return; I be nice to someone expecting the person to be nice to me in return; I claim to love someone with the expectation that i will be loved in return! This is so direct - giving, inorder to get! 

Though it is not about gain or profit or expecting a glorious image of oneself, this is a plain give and take, a barter mentality. There is no giving actually involved in here! It is an investment technique and when the plan fails people cry, shout, curse, claim, fight, sue, and make all noises possible! Forget giving, this is simply investing.

Giving to Give: 
This is truly divine, truly Christ-ian! I give, because I find fulfillment in giving. I don't stand any chance of getting it back or I don't think anyone else will ever know, but I give, I give whole heartedly, of my time, my effort, my energy, my concern, my resources, because it is in giving that I find the true meaning of my life. During the last week Jesus instructed us, when you invite people to feasts, invite the poor, the maimed, those on the streets...reason, simple: they cannot invite you in return!

God gave God's only Son because God loved the world to that extent; it was an expression of God's love, not an expectation of the same in return! Jesus gave his life, his body and his blood, and what did he expect in return? This is true GIVING... giving after God's heart, giving after Christ's mind.

Just become aware of some of the phrases we hear (or sometimes say):

     I am doing all this for him or for her or for them, what am I going to get in return? 

     Oh, I did all these to you, and is this how you respond?

     Is it safe to give this, or do this, for this particular person, will it come back?

     I did this, with so much of effort and money, and they don't even thank me in public!

These kinds of statements are candid indicatives of 'giving' that is not after the heart of our beloved Lord and Saviour. Because with the Lord we are called to give without measure. Freely freely you have received, freely freely give! Here the giving is not to gain, not to get it back; it is just to give, and nothing more!

Wealth - Handle it with care!

Saturday, 31st week in Ordinary time

November 10, 2018: Philippians 4: 10-19; Luke 16: 9-15

Wealth: is it good or bad? Money and God...won't they go together? Then how do we ask God for wealth and consider prosperity as a blessing from God? The readings today speak to us about the right attitude to take towards wealth.

1. Wealth is given.

It is a gift and should be treated as such. We are given and it should fill us with gratitude and not arrogance. If it is given it can leave us anytime, and therefore a bit of detachment from it is safe!

2. Wealth is given to be given.

It is never given for yourself...you are a custodian of what is with you. You possessing the wealth is a blessing; the wealth possessing you is a curse, beware! I have seen persons around who, as soon as something substantial arrives, start planning the various beneficiaries and due recipients! What a blessed attitude!

3. Wealth is given to be given to those who cannot give.

The only purpose  wealth is used today, apart from fulfilment of needs, is to make more wealth. It is a sickening tendency that is the cause of the growing selfishness, cruel exploitation and demeaning inhumanities. Wealth for its own sake is a sickness, a gruesome sickness! 

Wealth and power are good as long as they are used as instruments for good. When they begin to use the persons dehumanisation begins! God sees the heart, says the Gospel; and everyone will see a heart that is filled with God!

The Temple that we are!

The Solemnity of the Dedication of Lateran Basilica

November 9, 2018: Ezekiel 47: 1-2,8-9,12 (or) 1 Corinthians 3: 9c-11,16-17; John 2:13-22

The dedication of the Basilica of St John at the Lateran gives us a great opportunity to reflect on the decadence of the divinity that resides within humanity. But before go to discuss that, let us say a word on the Basilica itself.

The Basilica and the feast: 
The feast that we celebrate today is the remembrance of the dedication (on 9th, Nov, 324 AD) of the Basilica that stands on the property which was called 'Lateran' because it belonged to that family but acquired and given by Emperor Constantine to the Church earlier. The Church which was built was dedicated to the two great Johns of the Gospel: John the Baptist and John the Evangelist! This Basilica is one of the so-called Four Major Basilicas of Rome (the other three being those of St. Peter, Mary Major and St. Paul outside the walls). There is yet another importance attached to this Basilica because this is the Cathedral, that is the Official seat of the Bishop of Rome, that is none other than the Holy Father himself. Hence this is called the Papal Cathedral or the Cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, and not the all-famous Basilica of St. Peter at the Vatican! 

We are the Temple: 
The Word speaks to us of the Temple today. Temple of the Lord. Temple of the living God. Temple where lives God. That temple you are! And it is from here the Lord wants his glory to be spread far and wide, from the temple of our selves, from the altars of our daily struggles and sacrifices. The Lord's zeal for the temple flairs up today and that temple is not the structure that stands in places, but the persons that we are. 

Such a sanctuary, filled with such extraordinary truths is made into a robbers den: a place where all evil resides; and a market place: where everything goes on except what is sacred! Exploitation of persons, decadence of moral dignity, human trafficking, sexual aberrations, killing in the name of god, violating the rights of the other, scheming to wipe out the races of people, keeping quiet at the face of blatant inhumanity that is perpetrated at large, buying and selling human labour without an iota of human respect, the swelling of the moneyed and the suffering of the exploited, the arrogance of the affluent and the insensitivity towards the downtrodden, the thousands and thousands of lives of the poor over whose graves walks the so called development today... these are the crimes against which the Lord would make a whip!

Cleansing the temple, the invitation that Lord has is fundamentally to realise the divinity that resides within us and the dignity that arises from the fact and to understand that we are a blessing to many, as Ezekiel points out about the waters that flow from beneath the Temple which makes fertile every land that it flows into. In simple words, we are called to be persons worthy of the Lord, communities worthy of our faith and societies worthy of the sacredness of the humanity. 

True Loss and Real Gain

Thursday, 31st week in Ordinary time

November 8, 2018: Philippians 3: 3-8a; Luke 15: 1-10

The World today judges everything against categories like gain or loss or profit or returns! Which is the true loss and what would be real gain - the Apostle today clarifies it in no uncertain terms. I consider everything as a loss or as rubbish, when it comes to knowing Christ, gaining favour with the Lord, growing in relationship with the Lord. 

Past glories, handed down traditions, legalistic requirements, ritual uprightness...these will not take you that far, however good and right and just they are. All that is expected of us is to get nearer and nearer, closer and closer,  more and more in personal relationship with God. God keeps looking out for us as presented in the parables in the Gospel- the shepherd and the woman! And so evidently the initial lines of the Gospel today communicates it: the tax collectors and sinners were drawing near to Jesus and the pharisees were complaining! What really matters is not circumcision or not...but the relationship one has with the person of Christ. 

Entering into a personal rapport with the Lord means being moulded into the Lord's ways. The question fundamentally is about one's choices and priorities. The Gospel clarifies the choices and priorities of the Lord...for the Lord, God's children matter the most! Whether one has been into sin all one's life (like the sheep that stray), or one considers oneself worth nothing (just a single dime); for the Lord, that one person is worth the whole world, is worth giving up everything, even God's only son!

True loss is the loss of relationship with the Lord and Real gain is gaining life in the Lord. Whether we live or die, we do it for Christ.

Called Christian? Better be one!

Wednesday, 31st week in Ordinary time

November 7, 2018: Philippians 2: 12-18; Luke: 14:25-33

If you call yourself a Christian you better be one, says the Word today. You want to construct a tower but you don't want to procure the material; you want to fight the battle but you don't care to gather the soldiers; you want to be called a Christian but you don't want to take in all those things that makes up that name! What a shame! 

What does it take then, to be a Christian? 
To be a light when every one around is getting used to the darkness; to carry the cross with love when every one around you is waiting to shake off even an extra speck of dust  that seems to weigh on them; to be holy and blameless while everyone around is losing the very sense of those terms. That is what it takes to be a Christian!

To be perfect children of God is to resemble God, to receive the shining light that the Lord is and share with the world, to stand up there in the midst of all those who are searching for the truth, worse still, among those who are sworn to destroy and obscure truth, and bear the light that the Lord is! Can we? Are we prepared? Do we dare?

Let our prayer today be: O Lord Jesus Christ, give us the strength, the courage and the light to walk in your footsteps, carrying our crosses and and making a difference in every life we encounter. You are our light and our salvation. 

Can you really stay there?

Tuesday, 31st week in Ordinary time

November 6, 2018: Phil 2: 5-11; Lk14: 15-24

We can find any number of reasons or excuses to keep ourselves from doing the right thing to do, as long as we keep doing it as if we are doing it for the sake of some one else. It would already be too late when we realise that we have not really lived our life, in the way it could have been! Our minds will be filled with too many ifs and buts to make real sense of it. 

Instead, when we know ourselves, accept this life as a gift from God and live our life understanding its sacrality, and true to the vocation given to each of us: we would be in paradise dining with the Lord already now. But it does involve, suffering and sacrifice endured in a joyful spirit of fulfilling one's vocation. 

The parable Jesus narrates today, presents us with a man who had no big merit to be there at the wedding feast but he was there; but to remain there he had to have done a bit of preparation - did he? In our coming into being, we had nothing to do; but in living that life to that full, we have a great deal to choose! In our being chosen as God's people we had nothing much to do, because the Lord chose us from eternity; but in remaining truly God's people we have a lot to do, on a daily basis!

St. Paul gives the picture of Christ, who lived his mission, the personal vocation that he was given and through that he redeemed the whole world. When we live our personal lives true to our vocation and at the depth of its meaning, we too will turn out to be instruments of God's salvation, to ourselves and to others. We are given the gift of life and given the invitation to live it to the full... the choice is ours: we have entered the feast of the Lord...but can we really stay there!

From Competititon and Conceit to Comprehension!

Monday, 31st week in Ordinary time

November 5, 2018: Philippians 2: 1-4; Luke 14: 12-14

It is so important that we do good to others, to the faith community and to humanity as a whole. But it is more important to be attentive to why we do what we do! Yes, the motivation behind the good we do, determines whether the act is truly good or just tolerable! This is the call the Word has today: to determinedly  move from competition and conceit and discerningly grow towards a comprehension that Christ alone can make possible.

Competition makes all the good that I do, a mere external show and seeking the approval of fellow human beings. It begins to use the others, the needy and the ones to whom I reach out to, and makes them feel like 'objects' of someone else's or some others' goodness and prowess. 

Conceit makes one oblivious of the rest of the persons around and what really matters to them. All that matters to me is 'me'! (Recently I heard a quack speak of his 'me' speaking to  ' his me' in the other... so full of himself! That is only within parentheses.) I am so full of myself that even the good that I do for the other is a manifestation of myself and not truly a reaching out to the other. How many politicians and so-called philanthropists we have seen who wish to highlight themselves making their service a pretext.

Comprehension...is the understanding, the oneness of mind that leads to looking at the One Lord who unites me and the others and everyone else. There is no distinction here; when the other suffers, I suffer. When I do something good for the other, there is nothing to be proud about it because I am doing what I ought to; after all if I suffer, won't I seek a remedy?

One heart, one mind, one spirit, without competition or conceit...when I do good for someone, I do not count the cost, I do not look for a return, nor do I lament the effort. After all, we are one in the Lord!

HEAR... MY CHILD

With your Ear, Heart and Spirit 

31st Sunday in Ordinary time: November 4, 2018

Deuteronomy 6: 2-6; Hebrew 7: 23-28; Mk 12: 28-34

Hear O Israel... we read those words repeatedly today! Hearing... is one important faculty physically; we would talk about it in another occasion when Jesus restores in a deaf man his capacity to hear! Today we are more concerned with the spiritual faculty of hearing, a hearing that becomes fundamental to a truly spiritual person, to a son or a daughter of God, to a true child of God! God who is heard more than just a few times in the Word, crying out to God's people: Hear O Israel, Hear O my people, Hear my beloved, speaks to us today, those very same words: Hear, my son, my daughter, my child... hear me today!

How can we hear God? The spiritual faculty of hearing has three levels of perfection through which we are challenged to grow everyday. 

Hear with your ears... that is the fundamental requirement, the physical hearing, the basic openness to what is around, what can be perceived, what is told, what is shared, what is right in front of one's eyes and one's ears. This is sympathetic listening...to what one says and what one communicates. There are so many who cannot really hear, what is said. They hear what they want to, what they have already made up their mind to hear. Even before a person opens his or her mouth to say something, we have heard what the person wants to say. That is, we have a bias that does not allow us to hear what is said! We are so prejudiced that we cannot really hear what the other person is saying, what the other person is sharing. About everyone around me, I have already made a judgement within me, that I am not able to hear what they are saying at all... all the time I am busy hearing what I want to hear, what I have prerecorded in my mind. Have you heard the sad story of a mother who thought her kid was trying to bunk school crying that his shoes were hurting, and forced him to go to school, only to receive a call from school a little later that the kid died of a scorpion bite, a scorpion which was in the shoes!

God communicates everyday through so many persons and events. If we do not really hear what is being said, If we do not perceive what is being communicated, we are missing a great lot of God! Can we really be God's children if we do not hear with our ears?  That is why the Lord call our attention: Hear O Israel, hear my children, hear what I have to tell you everyday! However, hearing does not end here... this is just the first level, the sympathetic listening. We have to grow towards the next level...

Hear with your heart... 'heart' has an 'ear' within it: look at how it is spelt... h-ear-t; interesting isn't it? We are called to hear beyond our ears, not with our prejudices but with our genuine openness; yes, we are called to hear what is not said, what is not shared, what is not verbalised. This is empathetic listening... to what is communicated without words, in silence, with tears, with reactions, with some choices! This is a higher level of hearing, which is so attentive that I am able to hear not just what is said, but even what is not said, even what is stifled within, even what is meant by the simple words or gestures! This can happen only if I feel myself in the position of the one who is sharing, not when I stand in judgement of the other. A real educator will know that the naughtiest of the kids in the class is the most needy of attention; a true liberator of the oppressed will know that even the sheer silence of the oppressed is a big hue and cry for emancipation; a real prophet will know that every experience of suffering is a sign of hope from the Lord. Hearing things with the heart, would go beyond the events and understand its meaning, it will go beyond words and understand the experience. 

God sends God's message through a myriad of experiences that come our way everyday. If we do not hear beyond what is said, beyond what is seen and beyond what is apparent, we are missing an important message that we are given from God. Jesus saw these, heard these and experienced these and that is why no one could dare question him or find fault with him. Today if we hear beyond the words that are spoken, if we see beyond the things that are noticed, the Lord will tell us too: 'you are not far from the Reign of God'. You are not far, but you haven't reached it yet...and therefore the need for the next level...

Hear with your spirit... hearing with your spirit is, hearing from within. This is Spiritual listening, that is listening to the Spirit who speaks from within! Jesus who has offered himself once and for all, as our redemptive sacrifice, has given us the Spirit who dwells within us: the Spirit who speaks to us, the Spirit who directs us, the Spirit who calls us from within. Are we in touch with this Spirit? If we get in touch with this Indwelling Spirit, and only if we do so, we can be considered people of the Reign, because we will make the Reign of God present wherever we are. This is why Jesus said in another place, Reign of God is within you (Lk 17:21). 

Hearing with our spirit is being in touch with the Lord, being in communion with the Lord, remaining in constant relationship with the Lord. Do you think these are too big a matter to think of - then consider a simple term that explains all of this in one single word: PRAYER. Prayer is hearing, hearing what the Lord has to say to us, hearing with our ear, our heart and our spirit. Hear, my child, invites the Lord - are we ready?

Pick your place with Christ

Saturday, 30th week in Ordinary time

November 3, 2018: Philippians 1: 18-26; Luke 14: 1,7-11

There is a funny saying in Tamil which goes thus - there are some who wish to be the bridegroom if it were a wedding house and the dead body if it were a funeral house! The former is attractive but the latter is fearsome, but of course for someone who longs to hog the limelight anywhere and all the time, nothing is too big. Such persons go to any extent. But does that give one the true joy of life, a joy that lasts and a joy that adds meaning to life? 

Jesus speaks of this with a simple example of our tendency to pick places in gatherings!

Protocols, rules, regulations, respects due and hierarchy are considered sacred these days, more sacred even than the Sacred! This is what Jesus is reminding us of and Paul is confronting us with! Paul speaks of his vision of life and death: according to him both are important but never before Christ! Before Christ, nothing else matters - neither well being, nor success, nor life, nor death, nothing, absolutely nothing! For me, to live is Christ and to die is a gain - what a statement to make!

Speaking of picking places, it is a sound imagery that we can propose to ourselves questioning our priorities in life. What matters to us: honour in the face of persons around, riches to fill our lives with, titles to adorn ourselves with... or Christ for whom we are ready to live and to die? If Christ matters to us the most, we have won over everything else: honour and dishonour, pleasure and pain, comfort and persecution, life and death! 

Just yesterday we remembered our dead loved ones, and prayed that they find their place with God in eternity! Don't you think it begins here? Yes, let us pick our places with Christ here and now, and we shall be guaranteed a place with him in eternity!