Easter People - Cornerstones...

Easter Octave - Friday

April 26, 2019: Acts 4: 1-12; Jn 21: 1-14

Annas, Caiaphas...we are still familiar with these names because we have just a few days ago heard those characters speak. They are back again... not with a similar case as Jesus whom they crucified recently but with the same case. They should have ended up with a fear as to how far it is going to take them. Rightly so, because it has been over 2000 years and that one single case is not yet written off. This is what Jesus wants to impress upon with his disciples.

They thought they had discarded him; they had in fact buried him as the cornerstone on which the whole edifice would rest for ever. The Cornerstone joins two walls: the jews and the non jews, the living and the dead, the sinners and the righteous...all these binaries are dissolved in Christ. In Christ, we become one people, one Church, one Body, one heart and one mind.

Today, Jesus makes it a point to prove to his apostles that he is not yet over! The haul of fish, the breakfast set up and the words of proof that Jesus gave them - it was all meant to tell the apostles who thought everything was over, that it is not yet over! Jesus wants his presence to continue. The responsibility is on our shoulders. The more we become one people, one in heart and mind, we would make the presence of Christ more and more felt in our midst and we shall rest forever as cornerstones!

Let us remember, Easter People grow to be Cornerstones!

Easter People - Real Witnesses

Easter Octave - Thursday 

April 25, 2019: Acts  3: 11-26; Luke 24: 35-48

"You are witnesses", declares the Lord in the Gospel and "We are witnesses", proclaims Peter before the people! 

We are Witnesses! We would become witnesses only when we have seen, we have experienced, we have been touched and we are so affected that we want to shout it out! 

Can I claim that I have seen the Lord? Do you think it is difficult to see the Lord?

Can I say that I have experienced the Lord? Have you really capitalised on the continuous presence and protection of the Lord? 

Do I feel touched by the Lord? What does the Lord mean to my daily life?

How much am I affected by the Lord? How are my priorities and principles shaped and transformed by the Lord?

These are some self ruminations that can make us true witnesses. Are we ready to take up the challenge of being witnesses to the Lord? It is an interesting proposition to know that the Greek root word for witness is, 'martyria' which is also the root word for Martyrs! This is only to say that the zenith of a witnessing life is being ready to even lay down our lives for the sake of the Lord and the Lord's Reign. Amidst the tough situations of today's world, how prepared, ready and eager are we to be real witnesses?

Let us remember, true Easter People are by nature real witnesses!

Easter People - Upgrade Post-Resurrection

Easter Octave - Wednesday

April 24, 2019: Acts 3:1-10; Luke 24: 13-35

The Apostles and Disciples discovered their real selves post-resurrection: it was not just a continuation but a graduation, an upgradation. From doing what Jesus said, they began to do what Jesus did and what Jesus would do! When they were with Jesus around Galilee and Judea, whatever Jesus wished they carried out - Jesus sent them on errands, on missionary journeys, he directed them at every step as to what to do, and they carried out orders. Now, when Jesus is with them after Resurrection, they seem to know exactly what is to be done! This did not happen all of a sudden... they were schooled... they were prepared... they were transformed and they were Upgraded and they Graduated!

They learnt things from Jesus, they learnt things about Jesus and they learnt to be Jesus! The Gospel presents to us the methodology that Jesus followed to educate his followers: the methodology of walking with them ("pedagogy" sounds so close to this meaning). Jesus walked with them and they learnt to grow into Jesus. They were able to understand what Jesus had spoken till then, they were able to do what Jesus did in their presence and they did it all, in the name of Jesus!

We are disciples and apostles of the Post-Resurrection era and we cannot behave still like those before. Let us graduate, from merely obeying rules to becoming like Jesus, from merely carrying out orders to understanding the mind of Jesus, from merely doing what Jesus wants to acting in the name of Jesus! We should make Jesus present today wherever we are.

Let us remember, Easter People upgrade post-resurrection!

Easter People - Where do we go from here

Easter Octave - Tuesday

April 23, 2019: Acts 2: 36-41; John 20: 11-18

We were out celebrating the pasch with a group of youngsters during the Easter Triduum and at the end of the 3 days of experience the group was exuberant in their gratitude and vociferous in their admiration of all that was done during those days. Without throwing a wet blanket on their normal exuberance and the expected exhilaration, we had to ask them this crucial question : WHAT NEXT?

Many of our faith experiences and adventures of spiritual nature will go worthless, if we do not ask ourselves, 'where do I go from here?' This is what the people ask Peter, and this is what the Risen Christ directs Mary about. You have seen the Lord, you have experienced the Lord, you have tasted his living presence... do not stop with it... think, listen and discern: where do you go from here? 

Go all out and share it with the others. Go all around and fill the earth with that love. Go to everyone and speak to them of what your Father and their Father has done to the whole of humanity. We are people with a spiritual experience. We are people with a never dying faith. Let the world know! 

Let us remember, Easter People constantly ask a question to themselves: where do we go from here?

Easter People - Grow amidst struggles

Easter Octave - Monday

April 22, 2019: Acts 2: 14, 22-33; Matthew 28: 8-15

There has been no dearth of conspiracies and controversies right from the beginning of the Christian Faith. The Word today brings out the very first controversy, a controversy about Christ's resurrection itself. But the same passages point also towards the fact that there was a constant increase in the number of people who wanted to be part of this new found faith! That is the message, both of today and of the season of Easter!

We will grow amidst struggles, if we are convinced that we are growing out of the will of the Father. We would be stifled by even the smallest hurdle if we are growing out of our own necessity, and for the sake of proving our own selves!

At times in our personal lives, or in our life of ministry, or in our professional lives, we feel like pushing our way through with plans and projects. Sure, they will see the light of day, but only to soon find its way out - may be due to failure or lack of true significance. If we want something to be established, we are taught today: we need to allow things into God's hands! Amidst all controversies and calumnies, judgments and prejudices, we are challenged to be founded on Risen Christ, grow in our faith and deepen ourselves in hope!

Let us remember, Easter People grow amidst struggles!

Holy Week 2019: The Silent Saturday

THE TASK: REMAIN

April 20: No Eucharist Celebration this day!

The Lord rests in the tomb this day...everything is silent! There will be a dawn very soon...but until then we are invited to Remain Silent, Remain Patient and Remain Waiting.

Discussing, a youngster once asked, what happened after Jesus died and before he rose? What was he going through? What did he do: He was silent! He was waiting! He just remained! This is the call of this unique day of the year in the Church: this is the only day in the whole of the Church when no Eucharist is Celebrated...the altar remains stripped, the tabernacle remains empty and the Church remains silent: waiting in patience to see what is going to happen next.

It is not so easy to remain silent in a moment of crisis. Multitudes of questions, thousands of thoughts will pass by our mind breaking our silence. Only the one who has an unwavering faith in the Lord can remain silent at these moments.

We have grown slaves to instant results. We seem to have have lost the natural patience of our forefathers, in the name of development and technology. Only the one who hopes in Someone greater than oneself, can remain patient and see things happen.

Compare waiting for a public utility, may be a transport or one's turn in a crowded office, with waiting for one's beloved! While former seems irritating, the latter looks exciting. The difference is the love that is involved: Only the one who loves the Lord immensely, remains waiting, for the Lord to act on his or her behalf.

Today is the day to remain...to remain silent, to remain patient, to remain waiting, because the Lord is getting something beautiful ready for us!

Holy Week 2019: The Good Friday

THE TASK: SURRENDER

April 19: Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12; Hebrew 4: 14-16, 5: 7-9; John 18:1 - 19:42

Into your hands Lord I commend my Spirit... that was not merely words said by Jesus at the end of his life, it was an attitude with which he lived his entire life. That is precisely why even his death proved to be a triumph. The first and the second readings bring out the hand of God the Father of Jesus Christ and our Father and Mother, in the salvific plan that was unfolding in the life, suffering and death of God's only Son! Yes, death was not an end, it was a passing stage within the plan; not a foiling of Christ's project on earth but an unfurling of the Eternal plan of God to which Christ had totally surrendered himself, while he lived.

Surrender, is the task presented to us today, by Jesus from the Cross!

Surrender is not an inaction or a passive submission, it is an active assumption of a role or mindset that makes me look at purposes higher to my personal ones. Today we have so many personal plans, future dreams, expectations and aims that what God wants from us, what is God's plan for us, the purposes that God wants to achieve in and through us, mean almost nothing to us. Jesus throws a challenge at us today, lifted high on the Cross - if we look up to the One who is lifted up we shall live. The challenge is: Surrender, Surrender wholeheartedly to God our Father and Mother.

Jesus is the High Priest, the Sacrificial Lamb and the Sacrificial Altar at one and the same time. The Sufferings of Christ become the salvation of our beings. The Cross becomes the sign through which we are saved.

Sufferings in our lives have to be faced with a sense of surrender, that they may serve to be instruments that reveal the very significance of our life to us. The call is three fold: At times of struggles, to Surrender to the Lord and learn the ways of the Lord; at times of others' struggle to Surrender ourselves in the service of the Lord, by empathising with, remaining with and sustaining our brothers and sisters so that they begin to learn the goodness of the Lord; and at all other times to Surrender to the Lord's ways that we may be convinced that what matters most in life is God's will, even if it means to face hardships.

God, my Father and Mother, I surrender into your hands my spirit, my mind, my entire self, that I may live always giving glory to your Most Holy Name and making you known to all around me. 

Holy Week 2019: The Maundy Thursday

THE TASK: SERVE

April 18: Isaiah 61:1-3,6,8-9; Revelations 1: 5-8; Luke 4: 16-21

Maundy Thursday - the very name reminds us of the mandate we have from the Lord and Master, a mandate that is so compelling because it was not given merely in words, but in and through a life that was lived! All the three events we remember today have the same message in different forms!

THE LORD'S SUPPER:

The First event is the Lord's Supper...not so much what and how they did it, but what transpired in the mean time becomes the first mandate to us. It is the same with our families and communities too... not so much what we have at table and the variety of the spread that really matters, but what transpires around it. How many of us enjoy our table-time, in contrast to merely respecting time-table! The former concerns persons and the latter, programme. 

Jesus uses the encounter at the table, not merely here, but with Zacchaeus, with Simon the Pharisee, with the disciples of Emmaus and so on, for a spiritual encounter, an encounter that would transform the life of the other. How many of our table encounters have ended up as spiritual enrichments? Here again he uses this table-time to bring a strong lesson to the disciples: LOVE IS SERVICE!

THE EUCHARIST:

The second event is Jesus giving us his body and blood... an anticipation of what is about to happen on Calvary. Jesus anticipates the blessing of the sanctifying act, the salvific self-giving in inviting his disciples to eat his body and drink his blood. What gruesome agony he underwent on those following days - all for the love that the Father has for us; all for the love that Christ wanted to manifest to us. Jesus infact exemplifies the mandate that he gave just a while back. The lesson is so clear: LOVE IS SELF-GIVING!

THE PRIESTHOOD:

The third event is the institution of the Priesthood... as the ministry of making present this mandate given and exemplified. Priesthood is a gift to the Church, a gift that makes present the mercy of God to God's people. It is a ministry that perpetuates the self emptying of God. The Son of man who came to serve and to be served, continues to minister to his beloved flock. Priesthood becomes thus a standing reminder to serve and offers a splendid lesson: LOVE IS LIVING FOR THE OTHER. 

The task that is given to us is loud and clear: to serve! Being a Christ-ian is to serve and not to be served!

Holy Week 2019: The Spy Wednesday

THE TASK: TRUST

April 17: Isaiah 50: 4-9; Matthew 26: 14-25

Today can be called the Spy Wednesday within the Passion week... because it would have been this day that Judas approached the Jewish authorities and offered to hand Jesus over to them. The plot is darkening here!

Let us have a look at the key player today: Judas. He can easily be presented as the epitome of the ills that the present society is infected with. There are three tendencies in Judas that we are called to beware of:

- What will you give me? Looking for a gain, a personal gain, a sordid gain, a material gain, from whatever the situation be! The society today is growing in this tendency, that not only persons see each other as potential gain or loss, but they manipulate the other towards one's own gain!

- Is it I Lord? Not really getting the grips of oneself. The society today is quick to blame the others for all evils, unable to point to oneself and get in touch with the personal limitations that add to the social scourge! Issues that affect our society like corruption, caste, creed and other discrimination... aren't they arising from individual insensitivities?

- It was dark outside... because he did not have God in his heart, he had only the money bag in his mind. As John symbolically adds at the end of his account of this episode, it was dark outside. When Judas left, it was not only dark outside, but much more dark within him! He was going through a tough time: whether to trust God or to take things into his own hands and push it forward - a likely temptation that many of us undergo: to trust God or push our way forward! 

At times we think we are more practical than God, we are more precise in responding to a situation than God and so we make hasty decisions and then lament when we face the repercussions! This is a common tendency we see in the world. The lesson is clear; the Lord knows best and the Lord has a plan for everyone and everything! Why don't we allow the Master of the creation to take control of things and situations?

Let us learn to Trust God and wait on the Lord's will.

Holy Week 2019: The Preaching Tuesday

THE TASK: LISTEN

April 16: Isaiah 49: 1-6; John 13: 21-33,36-38

After Jesus cleansed the Temple and drove the money changers and vendors out of it, he did not hide himself somewhere safe, but he intensified his preaching among the people. He was seen talking to people, instructing his disciples and challenging the folks. This day he went around preaching amidst the people and probably this was the last day that he was seen preaching, because tomorrow, that is Wednesday things would already begin to develop towards the end!

As the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah spoke of the people, in spite of all his passionate preaching, the people did not really understand what they heard, though they were hanging on to the lips of the Lord. He spoke to the disciples about the imminent things to come, but they were equally unprepared when things began to happen. Jesus did not want them to be caught by surprises, but they were not keen enough to grasp all what Jesus said.

The invitation is also to us today: to Listen. 

To listen and not merely hear. We hear the Word so much but nothing in us changes. We hear and speak and discuss but fail to grasp the essential meaning of the Word or fail to see the transformation that it can create within us and to yield to it.

To Judas, to Peter, to the disciples, to the people, Jesus speaks his heart out but they are all so occupied, or rather so preoccupied, with their own thoughts and plans that nothing of what Jesus says really makes sense to them. They only come up with insensitive doubts and unrelated questions. They were hearing all that Jesus said, but were finding it so difficult to listen to.    

To listen and to be truly transformed, to listen and to understand the Word in its essence, to listen and to put it into practice in our daily life - that is the task entrusted to us today!