WAITING IN THE LORD WITH JOY FOR THE REIGN

Faith, Hope and Love

Third Sunday in Advent: December 16, 2018

Zephaniah 3:14-18; Philippians 4: 4-7; Luke 3: 10-18

An expectant couple, a lover on the park bench, a child on the birthday eve, a starved person on a set table... these are vivid snapshots of the joy of waiting! There is a pain involved, but a pain that is part of the joy. There are myriads of reasons to be disturbed and be restless about, but they are all overwhelmed by the joy that resides beneath. That is the picture that the Church wants us to contemplate this Sunday: Waiting in the Lord with Joy for the Reign. 

This Sunday is called the Gaudete Sunday (Gaudete in latin simply means 'Rejoice')... taking off from the entrance antiphon which invites us to REJOICE, because the salvation of the Lord is near. Note the colour of the vestments today... they are not merely the violet, but purple or pink... to add the necessary element of joy to the waiting! A Christian waiting should be joyful, the liturgy reminds us today.

The whole creation groans as with pangs of childbirth...for a peaceful, prosperous, perfect world. Every religion and every spirituality is a yearning towards that state of existence, called in various names. We believe it to be the Reign of God; "We are seeking God's Kingdom" reminds the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium(180) of Pope Francis. This waiting, this Christian waiting for the Reign of God is a joyful waiting, not a miserable waiting, not a servile waiting. The readings today bring to our attention the marks of this waiting: 

The first mark is the Assurance of FAITH. The first reading is full of words like, gladness, joy, exultation, rejoicing, shouting, dancing, singing... all these words of Zephaniah was used by the people of Israel in their liturgy because it consoled them in their times of exile... the prophet reminds them the day of the Lord is near! What fills their hearts and their lives is faith - a joyful and total abandonment into the hands of God, one who creates and directs history. A total assurance that the Lord is for them; the Lord stands in favour of them and the Lord will lead them to the prosperity that they are waiting for. Our life, to be truly Christian, to be truly worthy of the Reign, has to be based firmly on this assurance of faith, that the Lord is with us and the Lord is for us. When at times things go wrong in our lives - a break of relationship, or a repeated failure in career, or  a disillusionment with one's dreams... we need to remember in faith: When God is for us, who can be against us!

The second mark of a joyful waiting is the Aspirations of HOPE. Hope is not an empty dream or a fanciful imagination that things will dramatically and miraculously change over and everything will be fine at a point of time. Hope is the aspirations of a heart, the desire for a better world, the yearning for a bright tomorrow, the thirst for justice and truth, these are infallible signs of the Reign. That is what we are invited to.. to hope, and only that hope will thrust us into action, into doing our little bit, our essential part in making those dreams come true! We need to do our bit: John the Baptist instructs those people what to do and what not to do. Today, we have each of us our part to reflect upon and do... to change the world in our own way. Are we going wait for some change to come from somewhere without we doing anything for it? Or are we going to be filled with that vision, to reach the promised land, each and every one of us hand in hand.

The third mark is Associations of LOVE. When is a person filled with such joy while waiting? Only while the person is waiting for the love of one's life! This is the chief characteristic of our waiting. We are not waiting for something to happen, but we are waiting for someone to come, someone whom we love with all our heart, someone whom we know so well. We are waiting with joy because we know the person would bring us exactly that - joy, joy without ending! The love that fills our hearts, fills our lives too and that is why our life changes while we are waiting. In fact the waiting is for the change to happen within us, that at the moment of coming we are in the best of our selves to encounter the moment, meet the person, enjoy the love and grow into the Reign.

We are waiting... we are waiting for the Reign... but the Reign is already here, the wait is to make it more and more visible! Hence, each of us has the responsibility, to make the Reign of God felt, here and now, through living with an abundance of assurance of faith, with limitless aspirations of hope and divine associations of love with each other. The joy of waiting for the Reign, has to radiate that joy to every one, everyday in every way.

The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #14

Look, Listen and Renounce Arrogance

Second Saturday in Advent: December 15, 2018

Sirach 48: 1-4,9-11 ; Matthew 17: 9a, 10-13

Living the Reign here and now requires that we look, listen and renounce our arrogance so that the Lord can have his way! One of the sayings tough but totally true is: you can wake up someone who is asleep, not the one who pretends to be sleeping. The question of Elijah comes up and Jesus responds more than a bit in those terms. 

Jesus lays bare the arrogance that the Jews had, which was instrumental in doing away with such numerous prophets. Jesus knew all the while what awaits him with such stiff necked people. Before we go ahead to blame those people, let us direct the question to ourselves: how prepared are we to receive the revelation from God, even from those quarters that we may not totally like! 

At times our likes and dislikes determine what we would consider to be true or not! Can truth me so relative, that when someone whom I like tells me I believe it and when someone whom I don't like says it, I scorn! As the ancient Indian wisdom would say: Let truth come from all directions! We should be able to look at the reality around and listen to the messages that abound. For that we need to necessarily shed our arrogance!

In our arrogance, we would miss the Lord passing by, we would miss the words that can give us new life, we would remain stunted and dwarfed in our spiritual life. Renounce arrogance to receive the Lord, because the Lords stands at the door knocking... if we have to listen, we need to wake up and look. In doing so, we shall begin to live the Reign here and now.

The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #13

Just live, you have nothing to prove

Second Friday in Advent: December 14, 2018

Isaiah 48: 17-19; Matthew 11: 16-19

Living the Reign here and now is just living one's life! The world insists on proving yourself to everyone around and that is where all frustrations arise. Most of our happiness is short lived because much of it depends on whether or not others accept me, whether they affirm me or not, recognise me or not, appreciate me or not! Even if not dancing to the tunes of the others, we are most of the time conditioned by what the others say, what the others feel and how the others judge me. At times this goes to the extent that I forget to live my life, I live someone else's opinions and prejudices!

We are given with a great gift, that is our life. And every one of us has come into this world with a purpose, however small or big you judge them to be. The Lord however has always a new insight into the entire journey. The more we consider people's opinion as leading criteria or directions to decision making, we cease to live our life. 

The Lord bares the foolishness of this way of life as he says in the first reading today - that the Lord himself has taught us how to live and how not to. If we follow the precepts of the Lord, we would live an upright life and we would not need to cringe at anyone's feet! As the Word instructs today: the vindication shall be from none other than the Lord! All that we need to do is, as St. Paul would suggest in 2 Thes 3:12, just go on quietly doing your work and earning your living. 

This is one of the hardly found Reign value among the so called people of the Reign...whether Christians or not, we are unduly conditioned by the opinions and judgments of the others. Would we dare grow out of it and begin to think only of living upright, knowing well that we have nothing to prove? All that we need to do is live in the presence of the Lord and when we do that we live the Reign already here and now!

The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #12

Learn at the School of Suffering

Second Thursday in Advent: 13th December, 2018

Isaiah 41: 13-20; Matthew 11: 11-15

Living the Reign here and now requires that we learn to suffer with hope! The poor and needy ask for water and there is none, their tongue is parched with thirst. These lines from the first reading today, bring to our minds the pathetic scenes of poverty stricken nations, refugee camps, relief camps, war torn zones... where people are in dire need of food and water, looking up to someone who would come to their aid. Why do they suffer? Merely natural reasons? Justified political reasons? Is it all of their making? Today people suffer so much more due to human made calamities than due to those that are natural. 

The ones who suffer are not merely the greedy and the trespassers, the wrongdoers and the offenders, but majority of them are the innocent, the poor and the vulnerable! There are only sufferers and those who make them suffer today; there are only oppressors and the oppressed today - you are in either of the group! Where exactly am I?

The first possibility is, you stay off from being part of the causes of the problem, that is being  part of the group of exploiters and oppressors! Then you are oppressed, suffering and bearing the brunt of the callousness of the world. 

The second possibility is, you are part of the cause of the problem. You are in a way, however small, a cause of the sufferings of the innocent, the vulnerable! What reward do you expect for yourself? Do you really think this is what your life was made for!

But surprisingly, a majority of us like to be in the third group, calling ourselves 'in the middle'. Beware, nothing of that exists! You are  part of either the first or the second! If you say, I do not actively oppress anyone, see if you passively approve of it. Even if you are comfortably and conveniently silent about the wrongdoers and the wrongs, you are part of the cause of the problem!

It takes true courage to suffer and suffer with hope! To tell the world, that there is something that is incomparable to all these suffering that awaits us: the Reign. In fact, at the school of suffering we learn to live the Reign here and now.

The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #11

Dare to Soar on the Lord's wings

Second Wednesday in Advent: December 12, 2018

Isaiah 40: 25-31; Matthew 11: 28-30

Living the Reign here and now is to soar like the eagle, whatever the situation may be! Those who seek the Reign of God with all their hearts, in their weariness and helplessness will find the rejuvenating wings of the Lord uplifting their spirits. 

To feel the Reign present amidst us is to dare and not to droop! The Reign is in fact a promise of lifting the spirits of the drooping hearts, showing the way for those who grapple with life for meaning and purpose.  The Lord stands by those in a special way, assures the Word.

The Lord says,  come to me all who are heavy laden and take upon yourself my yoke and my burden. He never promised us,  come to me and have no burden or no load. No. Hence the call today is two fold:

One, to dare, to be strong to bear our burdens. Strength is seen not in moments of celebration and victory but in moments of trials and heartaches. To be strong is to feel the closeness of a support, to feel I am not alone and be sure of a shoulder to lean on. That is what the Lord promises in the Gospel today. 

The second call is to rise above, to soar: if we have to look square at the troubles around us and understand whether they are real, whether they are necessary, whether need to be attended to at all, we need to rise above them, take a distance and observe and reflect. Only God's people would do that. Because each of us knows that one has his or her own legitimate share of troubles to face. If we are truly strong in the Lord we will run and not wear out;  we will walk and still not tire, because the burdens from the Lord are light and the yoke that the Lord offers is sweet. And we shall soar like eagles, on the comforting and empowering wings of the Lord and thus we shall live the Reign here and now!

The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #10

Choose to Surrender to the Shepherd

Tuesday, 2nd week in Advent, 2016

Is 40:1-11; Mt 18: 12-14

Living the Reign here and now means living a way of life that is worthy of the King! The imagery that is  common to both the readings  today is that of the Shepherd.  The shepherd who is promised by the Lord through Isaiah and the Shepherd who is presented as a model by Jesus. 

The promise is  the Shepherd will carry you... I was reminded of that icon we have been seeing for one whole year in 2016... the icon of the year of mercy, where  Christ the Shepherd carried Adam on His shoulder. Explaining its significance the Holy Father had said: the Shepherd is ready and willing to carry us;  are we willing to allow ourselves to be carried?

The message to Israel through Isaiah and to us  today is the same:  allow yourself to be carried.  From drudgery of life to fullness of life;  from a world of compromises to a world of true convictions; from a culture of death to an experience of resurrection... allow yourself to be carried. 

Allowing myself to be carried is to go where the shepherd wants me to and not to go where he does not want me to; it is to do what he wants and not to do what he wishes I don't; it is to live the way he wants me to and avoid anything that would bear a counter witness to his person! But all this the Shepherd never forces on me, it my choice! It is my choice to go, to do, to live the way my Shepherd wants; it is my choice to be his sheep or not; it is my choice to surrender to the Shepherd... and when I dare to make that choice, I begin to live the Reign here and now!

The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #9

Perceive and Anticipate the Incredible

Second Monday in Advent: December 10, 2018 

Isaiah 35:1-10; Luke 5: 17-26

Living the Reign here and now is perceiving the presence of the Reign wherever we are. When the Reign comes you witness the incredible!  The Lord is around and when you let the Lord into your life, things you consider incredible just happen from nowhere. It's Isaiah's prediction and made true by the event in the Gospel and the reaction of those high priests and scribes.

In our lives too the Lord stands knocking at the door to change things and to change the way we see things... it is upto us to let the Lord in.  We would let him in when we are able to anticipate the incredible things that are possible and at times not possible too! 

The Prophets have always been giving the indications of the Messianic times. The dumb speaking, the lame walking, the possessed freed and the captives liberated... the people saw all these happening with Jesus around. But they stopped with seeing. The people around could not perceive the message beyond all that was happening around them! 

We too see a lot happening, but we are called not just to see, but to perceive. To perceive the signs that the Lord gives us - to build up the true Reign of God... not our petty kingdoms, not our ego centers, not our brand building and not our monopoly. 

If we do not begin to perceive, we will miss the whole message! Without perceiving, miracles wont be miracles... we will only see strange things, as in today's Gospel! With perceiving we not only see what is happening, but we anticipate even the incredible. Only when we perceive and anticipate the incredible, we shall be prepared to live the Reign here and now!

PREPARING FOR THE MOMENT OF TRUTH

Living the moment in love!

Second Sunday in Advent: 9th December, 2018

Baruch 5: 1-9; Philippians 1: 4-6,8-11; Luke 3: 1-6

'PREPARE' is the call that dominates this season! Every time a natural or social disaster pays us a visit, there is a widespread feeling that we were not prepared enough for it in spite of the warnings we have had. Almost immediately, discussions and finger-pointing fills all news channels and daily pages. The second reading and the Gospel today invite us to prepare, while the first reading and the Gospel tell us how to prepare! Yes, we are preparing to celebrate the coming of the Lord, and we are preparing for the coming of the Lord too, that is the coming of the Reign of God... but what does this preparing truly mean and what is its real end!

Preparing: I remember as young lads, just out of our secondary schooling but in the seminary, once we had a serious discussion (at least we thought it was serious!). It was this: On the 15th of August we would stage every year a 3 act play and that would involve at least two months of preparation, at the end of which we would stage the 2 hour play and everything would end with it. The discussion was that we found it disproportionate that we "waste" two months on something that would just be done and dusted in just two hours: the memorising of the script, the rehearsals, the making of the scenes, the gathering of the props, the publicity, and every thing, just for two hours of a show? And as if we were more serious than our formators in using our time well, we argued that it was a waste of time and a fruitless labour! It is not the argument that I remember as much as the lovely explanation given by our formators. It is not about the play that your are preparing for, the very preparation is a drama that you are learning from! I think of this every time I feel a process gets tedious. We are preparing too: not to celebrate that day, December 25th and forget about it and keep busying ourselves with the next act in the play. This preparation has to become an experience in itself.

The Moment: Whatever we may say, all preparation is towards a moment and it is the depth of that moment that justifies the amount of preparation that goes into it. This is natural. And we are preparing for a moment; not just any moment but a moment of truth. A moment that would redefine entire history and renew every bit of the reality. If we mean preparing is getting ready in advance for the sake of facing a situation, then it involves imagining what that situation is going to be, understanding the various elements that would be involved and habituating oneself towards those situations already now... in short, it is living that moment already now! The Lord has instructed us time and again, to be prepared for the coming of the Lord in glory. The 'Coming' is going to be glorious and demanding too... because we would have to render an account for everything that we were given with and the way we have responded to it. Imagine someone you respect much, is about to visit your personal room: what would you do? You would be pushing dust under the carpet, stuffing clothes into the closet, dumping books into our cupboards and make the room look presentable. But this is not the preparing that we are called to today. Preparing cannot be a cosmetic alteration that stays just skin deep. It is a fundamental transformation because what we are preparing towards is not just a passing event or a momentary experience, it is the ultimate end, the climax towards which everything is going, the Reign which every one and every being is longing for. Hence it is a moment, but a moment of truth that is going to change every other moment that would follow!

Living the moment in love: To prepare, in Reign-terminology would be, to live the moment here and now... that is the task that St. Paul entrusts to himself and to us. The only preparation that is good enough for the coming of the Lord or the only preparation that can truly lead us towards the coming of the Reign of God, is beginning to live the Reign right here and already now. And that is done by growing in true love... love which means giving and not getting, reaching out and not receiving, leveling and not proving oneself; it is straightening and not manipulating, simplifying and not complicating, feeling for and with the other and not feigning sorrow; it is making life better for the other and not making a life out of the other. True love is a forgetfulness... a forgetfulness of harm done or good left undone, a forgetfulness of the struggles one has gone through while coming to face with the present struggles of another, a forgetfulness that does not so much think of repaying as of responding to the present need of a person. 

After all the reflection, what do you think? To prepare - does it not mean, to live the moment in anticipation? Let us heed to the Word. Let us prepare...prepare ourselves for that moment of truth, a moment when our whole world will be transformed in true love. Let us keep growing into God's people, towards being signs of God's Reign here on earth, living the moment, here and now, in love! 

Celebrating the Immaculate Conception

The WORD and the FEAST

8th December, 2018: Genesis 3:9-15,20; Ephesians 1: 3-6, 11-12; Luke 1:26-38

3 Lessons from the Feast of Immaculate Conception of Our Blessed Mother:

- In God there are no Compromises: Mercy of God does not mean compromises. In our normal parlance, God does not make adjustments. God sets things right, expiates and blots of offences in God's mercy but when it comes to being in the presence of the Lord there can be no compromises. I remember in our early seminary days, there used to be a way of saying, going back to Don Bosco's times, that this day Mary will sweep the salesian house. Though we used to poke fun saying we need not do our daily chores, we all understood the point. The purity and integrity of the persons in the house will be put to check by our Blessed Mother - that was the trust. Just to say, this feast is all about an absolute choice for God.

- In God there are no Impossibilities: Giving an unassailable justification a Doctor of the Church would say about Immaculate Conception God could do it and God did it! Keeping a person totally safe from the trace of original sin is purely grace! Mary received this grace for the sake of and by the merits of the Son of God whom she was destined to bear. It was a choice of this person called Mary, as St. Paul puts it, 'before the foundation of the world'.

- In God there are Wonders: God has great wonders in store for us. All that we need to do is give our humble and total assent. How many graces we miss with our stubbornness and selfishness. Though it was grace that kept Mary away from Original Sin, it was Mary's choice of God and God's purposes that kept her pure in her day to day life. That was her 'Yes' to the call of God. 

Mary herself proved the veracity of this truth taught by the Church through the great progress of events. It was in 1850 that the dogma was defined by the Church and Mary made an uneducated, little peasant girl Bernadette use the same words merely four years later - at the series of apparitions in Lourdes in 1858 (that strikes... 160 years). May our Blessed Mother continue to inspire us to remain pure, joyful and grace filled.

The WORD in ADVENT - Living the Reign here and now #6

Open your eyes and truly see

First Friday in Advent: 7th December, 2018
Isaiah 29: 17-24; Matthew 9: 27-31

Living the Reign here and now, requires that we open our eyes and truly see, see what the Lord continuously does for us, see all the goodness that still rests around in spite of, and right in the midst of, all disastrous events that surround us. 

Continuing to speak of our troubles, I cannot forget that moment when I met a family in deep misery after a monstrous flood. They had their house filled with 3 feet water, rendered homeless; they stood with their two children on the street with knee high water flowing past them. I was wondering what sort of bitter experience they would harbour, after all  such scenes of misery and vulnerability. To my surprise they said, even before I spoke: God be praised, for so many things far worse from which we have been spared! They had some special eyes, I felt!

For, he shall see what my hands have done in his midst, says the first reading today. It is a special capacity to be able to see the hand of God in our daily experience. We should be given the vision, healed from our blindness and the Lord alone can enable us in this regard. All that we can do for ourselves, and for those whom we know to be totally blind in this regard, is to pray ardently to the Lord, "Lord that we may see!" Because only when we open our eyes and truly see, can we begin to live the Reign here and now!