The Name above every name: JESUS

January 3, 2019

Celebrating the name of Jesus

1 John 2:29 - 2:3; John 1:29-34

There was a moment when Peter looked at a lame man who begged at the temple gate, 'In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk" (Acts 3:6,16) - that was the first moment of realisation as to how powerful a name we have been gifted with! 

Jesus - the most beautiful and powerful name on earth and heaven, name above every other name (Phil 2:9), a name that would bring peace and solace to the disturbed and fear and trembling to the evil minded (Acts 4:17, 18). 

Celebrating the name of Jesus can bring us three messages to remember:

1. Jesus is the name that revealed God to us (Jn 1:18)

2. Jesus is the name given to the entire love of God shared with humanity

3. Jesus is the name in which we have received the power to call God Abba Father!

Yes, in celebrating the name of Jesus, we are celebrating the fact that we have known, and we know God! As John the Baptiser proclaims with such clarity, we need to tell the world: Yes, we have seen God; yes, we know God; yes, we have experienced God, because we have known Jesus! 

God has revealed Godself to us in and through the name of Jesus. This is both a gift and a challenge to us. As John invites us in his letter, if we have known God, then we must resemble God! In our thoughts, words, deeds and every day life we are challenged to resemble God, only then can we be called children of God. Jesus is a powerful name given to us, but we need to live worthy of that  name; knowing, loving and imitating God! 

Live in Christ, live in truth

January 2, 2019

1 John 2:22-28; John 1: 19-28

The identity of Jesus as both God and Human was a major issue of controversies in the early Church. The first reading we have today is an indication to such feuds that existed. What matters, as John so rightly points out there, is not the philosophical and theological justification of who Jesus is,  but the personal experience of the person of Christ.

John warns the people against confusing what is truth and what is false! He says, if we have to know for sure that we are in truth, then we have to live in Christ. We need not wait to be told, because our anointing, our being in Christ, will itself reveal the truth to us. It did, to John the Baptist. When he had an ample opportunity to enjoy a bit of glory and adulation among the people who would have accepted him to be the Christ, he made it point blank that he was not the messiah! John knew the truth and stood for it. 

Knowing the truth, believing in it and living firmly holding on to it, are the signs of living in Christ. We have just begun a new year and we might be fresh with a lot of resolutions yet - why not think of this: living in Christ and living in truth!

HAPPY 2019

SOLEMNITY OF MARY, THE MOTHER OF GOD

January 1, 2019

Let us begin the new year 2019 with grateful hearts. Here are 3 messages we can start the year with...

1. Obey the Mother; Follow the Son:

We start the year with Mary the Mother of God. She is intent always on leading us to her son...Do whatever he tells you (Jn 2:5) : that is her refrain all the while. When the Church Fathers at Ephesus, in 432, thought of resolving the confusion whether Jesus was God or Man, they thought of defining a dogma on Mary... what a way to understand the nature of Jesus through the vocation of Mary! She was called to be Mother of God and that is what she is... Mother of God, Mother of us all, Mother of the Church. Obey the Mother, and you will automatically be following the Son. Beginning the year with the mother is a guarantee of walking it through with the Son!

2. Open your hearts; Begin with God:

Happy New Year we wish each other: just look around and tell me, what is new? Same old house, same old people, same old things and same old problems... aren't they? There was this kid whom the Parish priest met a week after Christmas and found him very sad about Christmas... and he asked the kid why? Did your parents not give you gifts? No they gave, he said. Did they not buy you new clothes? Hmm..that is the problem, he said. They bought... but the same colour as last year! We cannot help smiling at it and say to ourselves: how often we think as that kid did. We are so adamant not to see things in a brighter light. Every time we have something that would stop us from being happy. We are so judgmental with everything, specially with people, that we cannot see anything new. As Mother Teresa would say, we are busy judging and so we do not have the time to love. Look at every person every time with a new open heart and you will see life will be much more blessed. 

3. Own up; Give Peace a Chance:

Today is also 52nd World Peace Day celebrated by the Church. Pope Francis declares to us this day, "Good Politics is at the service of Peace"! It is easier to read this message with the politicians and leaders in our minds; if we are that, we better take this message seriously. But for the majority of us, it might sound not connected to, if we are not diligent enough to see through the message! Calling us to be at peace with ourselves, with others and with the entire universe, Pope Francis means by 'politics', a much greater reality than merely party politics or even governance. It is the call and commission we have to live as responsible citizens of the world, loving fellow persons to the entire humanity and a grateful part of God's amazing creation! That is the key to peace. We cannot do anymore with threats and pressures and sanctions at various levels; it has to become a conviction and a challenge to each and every one of us, to take up the cause of peace and give peace a chance, wherever we are and in whatever way possible!

Happy New Year 2019! May God be with us, accompany us and grant us peace!

To be Christ amidst Antichrists!

Mentality of the Last days...?!

The last day of the year 2018

1 John: 2:18-21; John 1: 1-18

As you go through the readings of today, do you get a feeling of tearing the last leaf of the calendar, or turning the last date on your diary or opening the last page of a novel... that is very dramatic! But the truth is, life goes on! It is good to end something and start something anew. That should begin from our mindset. 

Today as we look back at 2018, we find so many events and happenings that in a way disturb our minds - the political roller coasters, the economic manipulations, the legal tragedies, the social calamities, the religious inhumanities... all of them pose a big question in our minds : is the end near? Yes, the end is here, for the year; but yet another will be born anew. And nothing will change if our mindsets don't. 

John speaks of the antichrists who have already come - there is no doubt about it. It is no useful task for us to start investigating who is the antichrist that has come. What matters is to believe and to make it true that the Word has become flesh and has come to dwell amidst us. In and through us, the Word has to live on, even amidst the antichrists who are possibly all around us. That is the call: each of us, to be Christ amidst the antichrists in the society. It means a challenge, a personal, social, communitarian, ecclesial challenge for us to make Christ present here and now. That alone will amount to the mindset of the last days, not fear nor recklessness. With discernment and determination let us resolve to be Christs amidst the antichrists today.

WHAT MAKES YOUR FAMILY HOLY?

Humble, Obedient and Loving You

December 30, 2018: Feast of the Holy Family
1 Samuel 1: 20-22,24-28; Colossians 3: 12-21; Luke 2: 41-52

The Feast today presents to us the model of the Holy Family... especially at a time when the Church, led by the Holy Father, keeps reflecting so much about the vocation and mission of Christian families in the world, we have a clarion call: to grow to be like the Holy Family. 

The Question is, what makes your family HOLY?

It's Humble, Obedient and Loving You that makes your family H.O.L.Y.

The family will not become holy by itself... it is YOU who has to make your family holy! Rarely do we take that onus on our own selves. We look for someone who is failing in his or her duties, someone with some weakness to shove all the responsibility, and go ourselves burdenless. 

Humility versus Blame Game

Humility is the first ingredient of holiness. Humility is all about truthfulness and there can be no holiness without truthfulness. Humility is to understand the reality that is me and accept it as it is. It is neither overrating myself nor trampling myself. Joseph and Mary, stand out in this  humility, as they knows exactly what their role is as parents in the holy family and play just that. They never overdo, nor do they shirk in anyway their responsibility.

Obedience versus Ego Trips

Most of the times the fights in a family are not about what is right and what is wrong, it is about who is right and who is wrong. Authority is what is contended here... who has the final word? Should the wife always obey the husband? Or is it fine to have an henpecked husband? The solution is not wife obeying husband or husband obeying the wife; it is not about children obeying the parents or parents complying in everything with children; it is about husband, wife and children all obeying God! Knowing exactly what God wants of me, and doing that in peace and unity. It is important to be on our Father's Business!

Love versus Self Seeking

Whether Mary or Joseph or Jesus, there is something that dominates the picture - true and genuine love. Love never seeks its own good! Love is always concerned about the other: Joseph about Mary, Mary about Jesus, Jesus about the people... it is always about the other, not about oneself! The less I concern myself with my self, the more loving I become. Jesus who is Word made flesh, Joseph who takes charge of the holy family merely because God wanted him to, Mary who said that yes without even calculating the risks involved... all the three are epitomes of the love of God. 

The feast of today has a special invitation to us- to grow into holy families... each of us holy unto the Lord, each of us into a humble, obedient and loving persons, forming families that represent love, families that bear the name of God!

Light and darkness, love and hatred!

5th day in Christmas Octave

December 29, 2018: 1 John 2: 3-11; Luke 2: 22-35

This is a sand art, which is made at
the Vatican St. Peter's Square as Crib for this year

Christmas is not over yet, we are still in the Octave! There is a gradual revelation of the Son who has come into the world - Simeon today identifies the Light that has come into the world: a light of revelation for the gentiles and glory for Israel (Lk 2:32). The light, which makes us see the right facts, the light which helps us understand the real meaning of our life, the light that Christ is, the light that Christ brought into the world - that is LOVE: whoever claims to be in light but hates his brother or sister, is still in darkness (1 Jn 2:9)...they have still not seen the light, the true light, the Christ, the Son!

Being in the light is love and any form of hatred is a groping in the dark. It may seem so clear that you are getting rid of your enemies, overpowering the weak and establishing your own dominion! Soon you shall realise your folly and come to know that love alone can truly rule. Every thing else is fear and threat, which shall find its own destruction. God is love and the world today seems to more and more consider God a superfluity, some even consider God unnecessary. The choice however remains before you and me... the light or the darkness? Love or hatred?

Light and darkness, Love and hatred...everything is around us today in every situation. What is our choice - to accept the light and to behold the Christ? or to abide by the world and remain in darkness? Light is love, hatred is darkness. Amidst the vast crowd that does not mind being in darkness for reasons known only to them, let our light shine - because we have beheld the Lord, because we have seen Love!

Innocents - Massacred even today!

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

December 28, 2018: Feast of the Holy Innocents
1 John 1:5 -2:2; Matthew 2: 13-18

Innocents - those who are unaware of anything wrong, those who are unaware of the evil that surrounds them, those who are untouched by the sinfulness that threatens to swallow them. The feast today is a remembrance of millions of innocents who are sacrificed even today on the altars of selfishness, licentiousness, irresponsibility and insensitivity! The Church remains so strong with regard to abortions, because of the inviolable dignity that life possesses, right from its very beginning. 

The world is running swift into a dungeon of selfishness and cruelty, which does not even think of the others, leave alone wishing the good of the others. There are persons and systems which work together to exploit the innocent and the ignorant. As a people of God, we need to stand against such systems and uphold the inalienable rights of every child of God. 

When the Church comes up with a stand for life, there is a select group of people (with all possible 'isms' as their tags) who come against it making a hue and cry in the name of rights. Whose rights are they talking about? Their own. Then what about the right of the affected? Isn't that selfish? Yes, let us not deny the numerous cases of child abuse that is brought against certain sections of the Church - without doubt these are to be detested too! Nothing, absolutely nothing can go against the innocents!

People of God cannot be against life, specially the life of the innocents, because life belongs to God and God stands without doubt with the innocents! Innocents are sacrificed  today in the name of modernity, development, forward thinking, rights and what not! Can we take a stand here and now? Can we open our eyes to the innocents who are massacred even today!

Why Proclaim?

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

December 27, 2018: Celebrating St. John the Evangelist

1 John 1:1-4; John 20: 1a, 2-8

Evangelisation has been a commission given to us by the Lord himself - through the disciples and apostles that Jesus had and handed over to us in time: Go and Proclaim! But look at the world today, beset with a terrible problem of religious violence and religious fundamentalism - killing, persecutions, attacks, polarisation and even wars in the name of God! Is evangelisation needed today? Is it so important to proclaim one's God at the cost of life, peace and harmony? Don't you get that question very often in your heart? 

If you do so, you are one step closer to understanding what evangelisation means. Is evangelisation, proselytisation? Is evangelisation adding to our numbers by hook or by crook? Is evangelisation a crisis management of making sure as many as possible are somehow drawn into the safe zone that we called 'the saved'? Is evangelisation brainwashing the other, specially he weak - economically, spiritually or socially? These questions are current and they need to occupy the mind of a person who wishes to understand what truly evangelisation is!

John, whom we celebrate today, puts it in such simple terms: "I write this, that your joy may be complete!" He would put it so, because he had in fact heard it from Jesus himself (eg. Jn 15:11): "I say these things, that your joy may be complete". Here lies the key to understand Evangelisation and its necessity.

We are called to share our experience with the world, so that the joy of the world, the joy of each person around us, the joy of the entire humanity be complete. Why proclaim: so that the joy that God truly wills be complete! But that requires that those who proclaim, possess that joy and then go on to share it! That is evangelisation - not judging, nor coercing, nor frightening, nor canvassing but sharing, sharing the joy that one has experienced.

Hence, called to proclaim, do I possess that joy? If I do not have it in me, how can I give it to the world? Having experienced that joy, do I feel the urge to share it? My joy becomes complete when I share it. The joy is the message, the joy is the person that I have in my heart: the Word made flesh!

The Birth of Christians

THE WORD AND THE SAINT 

December 26, 2018: Feast of St. Stephen,  the first Martyr

Acts of the Apostles 6: 8-10, 7:54-59; Matthew 10:17-22

No it is not a mistake... it is meant: the birth of Christians...just after the day that we celebrated the birth of Christ

I was amused when I looked at this picture of St. Stephen when I was looking for something to post... amused because the picture spoke what came to me as a reflection of the readings today.

If anyone read the Gospel of today and complained that they did not understand what exactly it meant, they could be directed to the first reading and that would make an elaborate and concrete explanation with example, of what Jesus says in the Gospel. 

Holding the Book (the Word) and the Stones together, with such serenity in the face and an olive branch in the other hand... portrays Stephen to the detail. Accepting to be a disciple, to belong to the apostolic community and to proclaim Jesus through service (Stephen was a deacon), was a bold acceptance of the consequences that Jesus spoke of already. Stephen seems to have accepted that demand, along with a firm faith in the promise of the Lord : do not search for what to say or what to do...the Spirit will enlighten you as to that! Stephen, enlightened by the Spirit, does exactly what Jesus did on the Cross: prays for those who persecuted him! 

To celebrate the feast of St Stephen immediately after the Christmas day also brings out a sharp message: yesterday was the birth of Christ, today is the birth of Christians...yes, the first time some one died to belong to Christ forever!

BORN UNTO US

Not just a child!

CHRISTMAS 2018: Isaiah 62: 1-5; Acts of the Apostles 13: 16-17,21-25; Matthew 1: 1-25

We are gathered here to celebrate a birthday, a birthday that initiated a new birth to the entire humanity, a birthday of a very special person! We are not here to celebrate the birth of a helpless infant or a chubby child who would be playing with a globe in its hands...It is not just a child who is born today!

We are here to celebrate the birthday of the One of whom Isaiah spoke: for unto us a child is born, a son has been given to us...he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (Is 9:6) 

If it were a mere child, why should the King be so alarmed? Why should the world fear? Why should the world wonder what is in store? The Kings are in fright because the one who is born is a Prince, the Prince of Peace! It was 1914, this very same day, the Christmas eve, it was a friday, the morning was noisy with bombshells and bullet rounds but the evening came and there was a total silence. The darkness thickened as the silence deepened, with Germans on one side and the British and French on the other. But something strange was happening...something was breaking through that darkness - a small lit candle appeared on the German horizon...what a foolish thing to do in the war front - betraying your location making oneself vulnerable to the guns of the enemy! As the British rose to an alert yet another strange thing happened breaking the silence of the night - a solemn orchestra began a lovely hymn : Stille Nacht, Heil'ge Nacht... It took just a few seconds for that beautiful sound to reach the opposite camp! The British were wonder struck and the guns went down while the voices rose singing the same hymn - the beautiful carol Silent Night, Holy Night. Very soon the French began in their language Douce Nuite, Sainte Nuit...One carol followed the other and more candles appeared. The Germans walked over the fence and the British and the French did the same and soon they were in the No-man's Land shaking hands, embracing each other, exchanging gifts - strange gifts like their uniform buttons and cigars, smoking pipes and lighters - there was an unofficial, unauthorised, unarranged and unprecedented ceasefire! Not a shot was fired all night...In one of the zones the ceasefire continued for the next one week! The whole battalion had to be reassigned to another region in order that the war be continued in that place. This is called the Great Christmas Truce in history. The next year in many zones on the border they tried to observe this truce and it was not as successful as in 1914. In 1916 there was a strict and deliberate prohibition for the truce! It's over a century since then...the world is afraid of this prince of peace! If he can bring peace to the warring factions - can he not bring peace to your hearts, to your families, to your relationships...make peace, allow the prince of peace to be born!

If it were a mere child, why were the shepherds notified and why is it that they were given such a prominence in the story? Because the One who is born is a shepherd, true shepherd who is born to die, born to lay down his life for his sheep, the Divine Shepherd! Why should God  be born to die! Why? God could have made one of his prophets die for us - why should he die himself? A friend asked another this question and the argument went long...the friend was not convinced. They went their way. The other friend one day invited the former to an outing and asked him to bring his beloved little son along. The outing consisted of a boating on a lake and in the middle of the water, the friend pushed his comrade's son into the water. Shocked and angry the friend jumped into the water got his son brought him to safety and was about to charge on his friend...he stopped him and asked him, why did you jump? You could have asked me to save your son, or the boatman to save or called for a security personnel...while the man shouted back - because he is my son and I love him more than anything in this world! He concluded - that's the same with God. For God so loved the world that God gave God's only son. For God so loved the world that God decided to come into the world in and through God's son. That is the Shepherd we have -who is not worried about making laws that are merciless and insensitive, who is not worried about establishing his own ego and prove to the world that he is capable of things that no one can imagine, who is not power mongering or money minded... he is a shepherd who is love and compassion, who decides to be born to die. Every one is born to live, there was only one who was born to die and that was God's only son! In his death he brought us life!

If it were a mere child who is born today, why should the world fear this child? Why should everyone look at this Child and the philosophy that this child brings into this world, as a threat? Because the One who is born is a wonderful counselor. If only we heed to His counsel! The world has a counsel, an advice - make sure you get your share and a little more if can be, never less than that. Make sure you get and get, and keep getting without anyone cheating you! Doesn't matter what you do, make sure you succeed, you gain, you stand to win! The Child born today has a different counsel. Have you heard of these two brothers - one was married and had two kids, the other remained single. They had a common farm, their inheritance. And they worked together on the farm producing every year grains in abundance. They shared equally the produce. One night the married brother thought on his bed, 'it is not fair that we share halves. He is single and he needs a future that is secure. After all, I have my family to stand by me if anything happens in case!' So, from that day he would get up in the middle of the night take a sack of grain from his barn and quietly slip it into his brother's barn. The single brother thought to himself one day, 'it is not fair that my brother and I share the produce equally. After all I am single while he has three more people to fend for." And he began to transfer quietly a sack every night into his brother's barn from his own. Both of them on their own, were wondering why after all these nights of transferring sacks of grains there has been no difference...until one mid night they bumped into each other, each one with a sack on his shoulder walking towards the other's barn. They dropped those sacks, embraced each other and cried in love. That is Christmas giving! Can we bump into each other with sacks of what we want to give the other? What a place this world would be if we were to take this counsel seriously: Give! Christmas is giving...that is the Christmas advice - give and give and give. That is the most fundamental characteristic of love.

The One who is born is the Prince of Peace, the Divine Shepherd, the Wonderful Counselor - are you ready to accept that birth? Then, Merry Christmas to you!