The Reign: End or Beginning?

WORD 2day: Tuesday, Last week in Ordinary time

November 26, 2019: Daniel 2: 31-45; Luke 21: 5-11

If you have already noticed, you would find that this week's readings have a bi-dimensional orientation - a preparation towards advent (a new beginning) and at the same time a reflection on the end times. This is a truly Christian disposition: a bi-dimensional approach to life. 

A reflection on the end times has to be radically open to the new beginnings, lest it becomes a vain curiosity or a hopeless negativity. This is what is noticed around very often: all the talks about the nearing end of the world and the kaliyuga and the messianic stories of saving the world from destruction, the deterministic submission of one self and one's life to stars and stones and simplistic soothsayers! You can look at everything as a frightening hopeless end!

The end we are speaking of is the new beginning of the God's Reign - something that we are working towards on a daily basis! A focus on the new beginnings, the new earth and new heaven, on the definitive coming of the Reign should have a mature openness towards the end time perspective, lest it remains a simplistic dream of an all-bright future, without any personal commitment to it. With the Reign-perspective even the so-called end here becomes a new beginning! 

Dreams, visions, apparitions, messages and extra natural phenomenon have no value in themselves, unless they help a better living here and now, and a preparation for a more holistic future. The Word today reminds us of this need - the need to question ourselves on our life style, our criteria and choices in daily life - whether they are really worthy of the Reign, that we are called to announce to the world as disciples of Christ! 

Ask yourself: Is the Reign, a beginning or an end!

Chosen for the choice!

WORD 2day: Monday, Last week in Ordinary time 

November 25, 2019: Daniel 1:1-6,8-20; Luke 21: 1-4

So many were lining up dropping a bit of their possessions into the temple treasury, but Jesus picked on a poor despicable widow to compliment. In spite of the state of slavery and meekness,  Daniel was picked up for the glory of God to be revealed. Why were they chosen?  What makes these special?  Their choice! They were chosen because they were explicit in their choice!

It is true that our Christian life is a call, for that matter life itself is a call. We are called by our very life to be human beings; and added to that in our baptism we are called to live our life as Christians. There is a call, with which we have begun - this call presents me with innumerable calls, every moment in my life where I have to choose! Every time I do or say something, I make a choice! 

Look at these choices - is it possible to every time, for every small step, that I stop, think and make a choice? It is too tedious! But we make so many choices on a daily basis - how do we do it? Because we have a choice, a big choice, an over all choice that we have made and that choice leads us to the individual, little choices we make on daily basis, sometimes without even giving a serious thought to it. Hence the need to check that big choice, that over all choice - that is what we call our life choice!

The widow chose to give away even the little placing her trust that God will fend for her. Daniel gave up the sumptuous food and drink and all comforts promised in order to remain faithful to the Lord, for he was convinced every blessing came from the Lord. They made a choice - a life choice for God; So God chose to raise them up!

The choice they made sets them apart. Entering the last week of the liturgical year, we would see this thread running through the coming days to remind us of our own priorities and choices. What is my life choice?

JESUS CHRIST IS KING

And I am His Ambassador

Solemnity of Christ the King: November 24, 2019

2 Samuel 5: 1-3; Colossians 1: 12-20; Luke 23: 35-43

Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever! Jesus Christ is the king - yesterday, today and forever! We celebrate the Kingship of Christ this Sunday - what a wisdom for the Church to invite the faithful to end the liturgical year with their King. And next Sunday we would begin a new liturgical year. Today, the readings invite us to reflect on the kingship that Christ holds and the way he exercises it! How many types of leaders we have - there are those that showcase themselves to be 'saviours' of human kind but make choices and alliances that promote nothing but their own interests, there are those who show themselves to be champions of rights and turn out to be no different from the oppressive ones when it comes to certain situations, there are those who are outspoken but at times totally unaware as to what they speak builds or breaks, and unfortunately there are a majority who care truly nothing about those whom they would rule or govern and specially those in need or those difficulties but fend for themselves and their own! How many.... and how many colours they change! We are presented today with Jesus, who remains the same yesterday, today and forever!

St. Paul summarises the entire feast that we celebrate today, in just three verses in the second reading - Col 1: 17,18,20.

CHRIST IS before all things, and in him all things hold together (Col 1:17). The first reading establishes the kingship of Jesus in the line of David - God makes David the king of Israel and promises that his line will never end. In fact, in God's mighty plan, the kingship seems eternal, without beginning or end, for God places David a king, to rule in God's name and for Israel it was always Yahweh, who was the King! When Jesus claimed, 'before Abraham ever was, I am' (Jn 8:58), they were unable to grasp it; let us not blame them, even we do not grasp it. Because, we human beings cannot think out of the categories of time and space. God is eternal, which means timeless! God has always been... and that is from where everything good comes.

Every leadership in Christian community therefore derives from God; it is an invitation, a commitment to act on behalf of God, at the service of God's people! Jesus Christ is King, Jesus Christ has been king from eternity, as the first-born of all creation, to him all glory and majesty! True Christian leadership is a participation in this ministry that Jesus carried out while he lived on earth: the ministry of love and service.

CHRIST LIVES in each of us, through him God is pleased to reconcile all things on earth or heaven (Col 1:20). The verse speaks to us of a future, of the universal harmony in the One Lord, One God, the new earth and new heaven where only Love will reign, that is, only God will reign, for God is love (1 Jn 4:8). Everything that moves towards harmony, peace, love, fellowship and universal brotherhood and sisterhood, resembles Christ. And anything that militates against these values of reconciliation, is against Christ.

Jesus Christ is King, Jesus will be forever the king. Everything, everyone is moving towards that union with God, in Christ our Lord. It fills us with a hope, despite all the tribulations we go through here and now. But it is not automatic, it all depends on the choices we make today. If we choose the Lord, we endear the Lord. On the contrary, if we choose the passing glories and fleeting pleasures of the moment, that is what we will have. As St.Paul instructs us elsewhere, if you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit (Gal 6:8).

CHRIST RULES as the head of the body, the church (Col 1:18). The Gospel presents us a strange sort of a King. Jesus is the one who rules...who rules from the Cross as his throne, who rules with the thorns as his crown, who rules  not with the sceptre in his hands but with the marks of nail on his hands, who rules not with laws but with love, a love that abounds without any measure whatsoever. 

The most important truth to reflect on today, is the fact that the ruler has appointed you and me as his ambassadors - the ruler is not understood, so will we be -not understood; the ruler is not welcome into the schools and public places and the moral arena in the world today, so will we be not welcome to voice our opinions for truth and for justice. But as his ambassador, what should I do? What am I ready to do? 

Yes, Christ is King, but  I am his ambassador, wherever I am... in my service of love, in my witness of faith, in my joy of hope, in my testimony of humility, in my commitment to truth and in my yearning for justice, I have to prove myself that I am the ambassador of that Eternal King. How worthy am I of the king whom I represent! How faithful and loyal am I to the King who has died for me, and who calls me to do the same! You are the people of God, Royal Priesthood says the Word, yes, that is what we are...we share the kingship with Christ - a kingship that consists in loving service to humanity and loving surrender to the Lord!

Long live my King! And let me today live my life worthy of my King!

God, right next to us!

WORD 2day: Saturday, 33rd week in Ordinary time 

November 23, 2019: 1 Maccabees 6:1-13; Luke 20: 27-40

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

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

We are fond of living on a spiritual nostalgia of an experience 'once-upon-a-time' or we are fond of looking at a bright light some time, some day. Like the people we see in the bible who thought of their ancestors or thought of a future splendour, but missed the great and moving presence of the Lord amidst them, in their daily events and difficult moments, let us not end up making up stories and throwing questions at the Lord. 

All that it takes to experience God right now and right here, is being still. Be still and know that I am (Ps 46:!0). Being still would be the famous "mindfulness" that is making its rounds now among the psycho-spiritual gurus...it is all there in the Word. If only we can open our eyes and our hearts to allow the Word to speak to us and the permit the Spirit to inspire us, we shall behold them all, here and now.

Become aware of all that you are involved in - what you are doing, why you are doing that which you are doing, what is the ultimate purpose of all that you are doing - become aware, and see that the Lord is right there beside you in everything and at every moment. Let us be still and experience the presence of the living God, the God of the living, living right next to us!

Be consumed by your Zeal

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

November 22, 2019: Remembering St. Cecilia 

1 Maccabees 4: 36-37,52-59; Luke 19: 45-48

Clicked at the Shrine of St. Cecilia in Trastevere (Rome),
the principle Shrine of the Saintly martyr.

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

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

How easily we give into the pressures of this world and the so-called 'developed' society! Does this prided 'development' in anyway promote true and lasting happiness of humanity? Does this 'developed' society in anyway assure the dignity of every person or speak up only for the moneyed and the muscled? How much of individualism and materialism it keeps perpetrating? 

The saint we celebrate today, St. Cecelia is a third century martyr, who suffered for the absolute love that she had for her king, Our Lord Jesus Christ. She was burning with zeal for the love of God and wanted to belong to Christ and Christ alone. 

If we think of our Christian life in terms of king-subject relationship, our love for Christ is our allegiance to our King... let us be filled with zeal for our king! And for that we should have truly and absolutely accepted our Lord as our King!

Identify your King!

WORD 2day: Thursday, 33rd week in Ordinary time

November 21, 2019: 1 Maccabees 2:15-29; Luke 19: 41-44

Though there is a choice of celebrating the presentation of our Blessed Mother - that is the occasion of Joachim and Anne presenting the child Mary in the temple - we shall continue with the week day readings, because they have an important message and prepare us towards the great feast we look forward to at the end of this week!

Who is your king? – yes, that is the crucial question that will be asked these days of the week running up to the Solemnity of Christ the King. The parable we heard yesterday of the return of the king who demands an account, the siege of Jerusalem that Jesus speaks of today in the Gospel and the call of Mattathias to gather in his leadership against the persecuting forces… all these present a crisis situation; a situation demanding a definitive choice. The scheme with which the week began continues... the first reading presents the crisis and the Gospel indicates our response! 

Sometimes external pressures like the work ambient, the political milieu, the personal addictions or the overpowering temptations can present a crisis situation to us… a situation that actually offers us an opportunity to make a radical choice for God or against God! Even a simple affair like the choice of words we use, or an ordinary decision we make on a daily basis, can determine the radical belonging to or rejection of God in our lives! May our everyday choices be such that the Lord never need to weep over us, as he did over Jerusalem!

Hence, an all important question for me to answer: who is my king, the king after whom I would be able to go, just as the people do in the first reading today: leaving behind everything, just everything! That requires that i firmly, in my daily life, identify my kind!

Take yourself seriously!

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 33rd week in Ordinary time

November 20, 2019: 2 Maccabees 7: 1,20-31; Luke 19:11-28

The end time disaster narration continues in the first reading, while the recommendation given today is: take yourself seriously! Look at your life, look at what you are, look artwhat you have, look at what you are given, look at the tasks entrusted to you and take them seriously! The urge to be faithful to God is never a question of maintaining the status quo. 

As spiritual masters always warn us, not to progress in spiritual life is to regress! Faithfulness to God is not lived or manifested in remaining where we are (maintaining status quo) or merely in moments of legal fulfillment of rules and routine practices of piety. It takes fundamental radical choices at crucial moments to tell not just the Lord but the world too, that I belong to the Lord, to the One who has created me, the One who has called me and commissioned me. 

Like the young lad, who as his mother and 6 other brothers, in the first reading chooses God over everything that the king promises and over his very life, our choices need to speak for themselves; not just the choices of life and death, but the choices of what we want to do with what we are - the talents, the gifts that the Lord has given us, the choices of what we want to do with every moment of life that God has gifted us with. 

We can choose to enrich them and enhance them, or  just bury them and be inactive! We could easily fall into the category of 'you-wicked-servant', if we are not mindful! The choice today, is mine - would I be ready to take myself seriously and keep growing!

Allow the Lord to touch you!

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 33rd week in Ordinary time

November 19, 2019: 2 Maccabees 6: 18-31; Luke 19: 1-10

The Sunday liturgy this week called our attention to end times and the theme follows on during the week. If you pay a keen attention to the readings these days, the first reading continues to talk about the disasters of the end times, while the Gospel would offer a recommendation, as to how to confront them. Yesterday, the recommendation was to have a new vision: O Lord that I may see! Today the recommendation is to allow the Lord to touch you.

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

As Pope Francis says, 'Faith is not just to see Jesus, it is to see with the eyes of Jesus' (Lumen Fidei 18). When our faith is authentic, the whole perspective changes. What seems to be important, what seems to be necessary for someone may seem totally secondary to me, because I see as the Lord does, because I think as the Lord does, because I love as the Lord does. That happens only when I allow the Lord to touch me.

Eleazar in the first reading demonstrates the same to us - 'such pretense is not worthy of our time of life' (2 Mac 6:24), he says, caring the least to safeguard his life, because he did not want to lead the others astray from God. A life touched by God, cannot be contaminated by anything ungodly! What matters is that we allow God to touch, to touch our selves, to touch our innermost being!

Blind trust or Singular focus?

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

November 18, 2019: Dedication of the Basilicas of St. Peter and St.Paul

Acts 28: 11-16, 30-31; Matthew 14: 22-33

St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican

Basilica of St. Paul outside the Walls

Just last week we celebrated the memory of the dedication of the Basilica of St. John at the Lateran! Here are two more (of the 4 major basilicas) - the Basilicas dedicated to these two Pillars of the Church - to Peter at Vatican (the famous Vatican St.Peter's Church) and to St. Paul outside the walls of Olden Rome. 

The Gospel presents to us Peter, who did not mind the turbulent sea, the raging waves, the frightening darkness... all that he heard was the call of his Lord, beckoning him, "Come." He steps on to the sea and begins to walk. The limitedness of his faith notwithstanding, he was a man who trusted the Lord blindly! 

The first reading presents to us Paul, arriving in Rome! Not a pilgrimage or a tour, he reaches as a prisoner... and remains in house arrest. He doesn't seem to bother at all about that, because his only concern was to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ - and that he was able to do, peacefully! For him that was all which mattered. In prison or free, under prohibition or not, he could not but preach the Gospel. "Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel," he said (1 Cor 9:16).

As we thank the Lord for the gift of these great apostles Peter and Paul, let us pray for the gift of the blind trust they had in the Lord and total dedication they demonstrated for the WORD. Actually, it was not blind! It was blind only in as much as it did not see the dangers, the risks, the stakes, the difficulties, the hurdles, the challenges, the hindrances, the blocks and pitfalls that lay around. But it was because, their eyes, their ears and their hearts were fixed on just one point: the Lord, the Lord's goodness, the Lord's love for them, the Lord's commission which had to be carried out by any means. More than calling it blind trust, we would do well to call it, the singular focus!

THE END TIMES

How do I confront?

November 17, 2019: 33rd Sunday in Ordinary time

Malachi 3: 19-20; 2 Thessalonians 3: 7-12; Luke 21: 5-19

Reflecting on the third World Day of the Poor

Today is the last Sunday in the Ordinary time, and next week we would be celebrating the solemnity of Christ the King. And the Word this week reminds us of the second coming of the King, that is the END times! Some get a strange a kick out of talking about the end times and spiritually terrorise those who listen to them. There have been cases of people who had bought trenches to secure themselves when the mystery stories did their rounds in 2012...about the end of the world! Let us remember dear friends that we have been living in the end times for the past 2000 years!!! Even St. Paul had to warn the Thessalonians not to make too much of these!

For a true Christian what should the 'end time' mean? Should it be terrorising? Should it make one go into a delirious tantrum or a plaguing paranoia? Those are in no way Christian responses to the thought on end times. Because for the one who believes in Christ, the Lord who has overcome the world (Jn 16:33), the Lord who has gained victory over death (Rom 6:9), the end time is not dreadful, it cannot be a threatening darkness! The first reading says so plainly, "but for you who fear my name, there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays!" (Mal 3:20). 

Pope Francis has thought of a proactive and truly Christ-ian way of approaching the End times... and that is why he proposed three years ago to punctuate this Sunday as the World day of the Poor! That adds another live dimension to our central theme here.

Hence, the Word and the reflection on the poor in the world today,  instruct us on how we should confront the end times. What if the end of times were tomorrow, or today or now! We have begun our life journey, a journey of perfection towards union in Christ and this journey has to necessarily end, and that end is nothing but union with Christ. How my soul should long for that: like the deer that yearns for running streams, so my soul longs for you, my God! (Ps 42:1) 

The first reading tells me, what I need to do first and foremost, to prepare myself for the end times is to LEND my ears to the Lord. When I hear the word of the Lord and live it with all my heart (Jas 1:22), not beset by occasional set backs but ever trusting in the mercy and goodness of the Lord, I need to fear no one; I need to fear nothing, not even the gates of hell! But the secret is eagerness to lend my ears to the Word of the Lord.

The second reading challenges me to AMEND my ways in the Lord, go on living my every day life with serenity and peace. There is nothing to worry or fret as the Thessalonians did, for my soul finds rest in the Lord, and my salvation comes from God (Ps 62:1). All that I need to do is remain mindful of my ways! A sincere humility and daily conversion leads me to a genuine Christian life. When I begin everyday in the presence of the Lord planning my life and end it in God's presence evaluating it on the basis of God's teachings, I come to know of the things that I can be happy about and the things I need to grow in. A saint is not someone who has never failed, but is someone who has never remained the same after a failure! The secret is my willingness to amend my ways to walk in the light of the Lord. It is here that the reflection on the world day of the poor can be located: the hope of the poor shall not perish for ever (Ps.9:19). The world today has to reconsider its understanding of development, progress and economic growth! It is such an inhuman phenomenon to just ignore and take for granted an entire percentage of persons, for the sake of the pleasure of a few! What has been my role in this?

The Gospel invites me to TRANSCEND all fears and trust in the Lord. Humanly speaking, I cannot end all my fears, but I can transcend every one of them. When my heart trusts in the Lord, when my eyes are fixed on my Saviour, when my hand rest in the hands of the One who leads me, I can transcend all my fears - like Peter who dared to step on to the turbulent sea and walk, like Paul and Barnabas who stood before the angry Sanhedrin and spoke, like the apostles who defied every authority and spread the message of Christ... they were all once filled with fear... they were the same weak men but with the Spirit they could transcend all fears! Nothing - no threat, no punishment, not even death - could frighten them. The secret is my capacity to transcend all fears with the Spirit of power, love and self-discipline (2 Tim 1:7). Not giving into pessimism is a crucial Christian trait and we need to grow in it. Looking at the economic discrepancies that exist, the digital divide that dehumanises, the capitalistic globalisation that makes exploitation ever more prevalent, can we give up our hope? We cannot. Every Christian and every Christian community has to make a difference - only then the Lord's wish today, that the hope of the poor shall not perish for ever, shall come true!

The End of times is near... in fact we are living in the end times... it is not a matter to be spoken of in alarm or in whispers... the message of end times is, a call to lend my ears to the Word of the Lord, a challenge to amend my ways in the ways of the Lord and to transcend all fears with the Spirit of the Lord! Let us live every day of our life, as if it were the last day of our life, every moment as if it were the last. Let us live our lives to the full, ever acceptable in the eyes of the Lord!