Choice... the choice of God!

WORD 2day: Saturday, 15th week in Ordinary time

July 18, 2020: Micah 2: 1-5; Matthew 12: 14-21

Jesus was living dangerously. But he chose to do so, for the sake of the Reign of God. He stuck his neck out for the poor, for the oppressed, the marginalised, the ostracised, the exploited, the forgotten in the society. He believed that the Reign of God belonged precisely to them. His life was a hope to the least, the last and the lost. 

In this choice Jesus was making present the God of the Old Testament who sided the oppressed, who stood by the just in their struggles and who kept watch over the persons who strove to live according to God's will. The first reading points out the choice of God, the choice for the poor and the suffering. This predilection on God's part distinguished Jesus and the choices he made. His choice was, the choice of God. 

There were apparent and real dangers, and Jesus knew it well. Nothing could stop him from proclaiming the Reign of God for he knew he had come precisely for that, to establish the Reign of the God of Truth, the God of the suffering, the Lord of the least, the protector of the lost, the hope of the last. 

Look at the world today - the poor are the last to be thought of, if at all they are considered. The weaker sections are totally forgotten when it comes to economic development and national identities. A nation can execute decisions that would affect entire life of people, in hours' time and nothing is thought about what the homeless and helpless will do! They are almost non entities. What can we do for that, we may ask. If we remain silent we become equally culpable and our choices do not truly reveal our identity as people of God or people of the Reign. 

Our identity has to be our Choices, may they be forever in keeping with the choices of God!

Something greater is around!

WORD 2day: Friday, 15th week in Ordinary time 

July 17, 2020: Isaiah 38: 1-6, 21-22, 7-8; Matthew 12: 1-8

God deigns to do strange things for the love of the one who trusts in God! The first reading is one such episode. There are so many others, like the burning bush (Exo 3), the water from the rock (Exo 17), the sign of the fleece (Judg 6:36ff), and many more. These are merely to show that there is nothing or no one greater than the Lord and anything is possible with God!

When it comes to showing mercy to those who trusted, the Lord is lavish, prodigal and unreasonably generous, because God's love is unconditional and everlasting. That was a difficult message for Jesus to communicate to the law abiding, traditional and painfully legalistic Jews. Even today the Lord tries to impress upon us the same message, the message of how loving the Lord is, how unconditional God's love is and how far from judging the love of God is. 

No rule can be too big and no custom too important, than the love that the Lord has for you and me and the longing that Lord has for our total well being. When we have a tendency to be legalistic, when we find ourselves prone to judge, when tasks at hand draw our utmost attention, or the situation of stress and crisis tries to overpower us, let us realise: something greater is around us, something greater envelopes us, something greater sustains us - and it is, God's love, the love which became man and gave his life for our salvation. 

Our Blessed Mother of Mount Carmel

Dear Blessed Mother of Mount Carmel, Pray for us!

July 16, 2020

For inspiring details on the feast and 
the tradition of devotion to Our Blessed Mother of Mount Carmel...

visit... https://www.franciscanmedia.org/our-lady-of-mount-carmel/ 

Now... Come!

WORD 2day: Thursday, 15th week in Ordinary time

July 16, 2020: Isaiah 26: 7-9, 12, 16-19; Matthew 11: 28-30

The yearning of a Godless soul, the struggle of a people who have gone far away from God is intensely presented in the first reading today. The world today is treading that path indeed... trying its best to define life sans God; trying to convince everyone around that it is possible to live without having anything to do with anything called god! Worse still, the trend today advocates creating our own gods and creating gods of ourselves! 

We have been thinking for long that we have solutions for every problem and even for those that we do not have the solutions, we could create shortcuts that can keep the pain and the struggle away for the time being. Hardly did we realise that something can bring the whole world to a standstill for such long, persisting time! We are at a point where we do not know whether we would find a return or whether things will be again the way they have previously been!

This is not to frighten or threaten us, nor to discourage or dishearten us! The Word today presents to us the situation and the Lord's response - yes, you have gone far away from me, and caused so many grievous situations for yourself. But do not panic; do not fret; I have all this time been beside you just waiting for you to freely choose to come to me. Now, Come!

The Lord invites us today to the true consolation, the real solution, the authentic peace that can give meaning to our daily life and all its strife. He does not promise an absence of yoke, nor does he lure us with a negation of burden...he promises a yoke that fits us perfectly and a burden that proves really bearable: because we live it in the Lord's company. 'Come to me' says the Lord, because all the struggle is since you have moved away from me. 

Come to me...and learn of me...and you will find meaning, peace, consolation and serenity! 

All things belong to God... even you and me!

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 15th week in Ordinary time

July 15, 2020: Isaiah 10: 5-7, 13b-16; Matthew 11: 25-27

All things have been handed over to me by my Father, says Jesus today in the Gospel. 'God as the author of history', has been a concept so strongly evinced by the narratives of the Old Testament. Even the super powers like Assyria and Babylonia were considered to be commissioned by the Lord to make certain twists and turns happen in history. This is the background against which Isaiah chides Assyria saying, they think they are the masters of their own destiny and the authors of their success. They fail to understand that there is someone far beyond and above them, who "sits in the heavens and laughs"(Ps 2:4) at the folly of the proud. 

This is an ongoing reality even today. Humanity as a whole, the scientific community at times, the political and economic super powers many a time, fall prey to this folly and create and cause atrocities that we have seen all through history. But the saddest part of it is the fact that the worst affected section of the society would be the poor, the innocent and the weak. How many inhuman justfications we have ready to rationalise such follies.

The Word recalls to us - the Lord scatters the proud hearted and raises the lowly (cf Lk 1:51); God reveals things to mere children and sends the haughty empty! All things are God's and from God everything draws its life and its sense. If I approach life with this sense, my worries find a way out, my concerns cringe to my feet and bearing my burdens become a child's play! 

What a saving wisdom it would be to recognise that all things belong to God, yes... even you and me, and all that we dream... everything belongs to God, and in God we live, move and have our being!

Right Faith and Right Living

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 15th week in Ordinary time

July 14, 2020: Isaiah 7: 1-9; Matthew 11: 20-24

Unless your faith is firm, you shall not be firm. What is that which differentiates, sets apart a Christian in this world - it is not the name or the external signs or the identification by belonging to a group or the other; instead, it is a matter of faith, an internal disposition towards the Lord who has called you and commissioned you. 

Right faith has to create right living; right belief and right action are after all essentially dependent in so many of the religious traditions, as we know of. The Integrity that Jesus demands of us is basically one of right belief and right living. It is not enough to have theoretical correctness in what we believe, the essential factor is that this theoretical knowledge translates itself into a practical living.

Sometimes circumstances and situations can force us to take decisions or make choices that are not proper to the life that we have been called to. It is not so strange to commit such a mistake. But it is not only strange, even highly unbecoming of a child of God when he or she has received all possible warnings and all possible signs of God's directions but still makes a choice that is not worthy of a child of God. Worse still, if the person justifies that choice. And worst of all, nothing can help the one who decides to remain with that choice in spite of all this.

Faith which is not translated into right living and a living that is not guided by right faith, are totally alien to a true child of God. Even if the simplest of signs is given, a child of God will acknowledge it, make sense of it, hold on to the light that the Lord provides and and shape his or her life according to God's will. Where do I stand in this regard?

The challenge of Orthopraxis

WORD 2day: Monday, 15th week in Ordinary time

July 13, 2020: Isaiah 1: 10-17; Matthew 10: 34 - 11:1

What Hosea has been speaking to us the last week, Isaiah speaks this week...they both underline the importance of Orthopraxis! How do we understand that term? True Christian life does not consist only of worship and of adoration, it consists of truth, justice and charity. In short, it consists of love which is the concrete translation of worship and adoration into action. The action that blends well with love for God and love for one's brothers and sisters balanced with care, is called the Orthopraxis, in simple terms. 

It may sound simple but it is tough in two senses:

Firstly, I may feel out of place when I begin to take this 'orthopraxis' seriously, because the rest of the crowd seems to be busy doing what they believe to be 'normal' or 'ordinary'...and I shall be left alone seen 'out of the ordinary' or in plain terms, 'a stranger'. Even those who are with me, those who surround me at close quarters may not  totally approve of what I live by.

Secondly, it shall certainly be tough because orthopraxis demands that I mean what I pray... that whatever I do on a daily basis does not go against anything what I say in my so called 'prayer'; that what I do by way of 'prayer' may find its continuation in the rest of the things that I do during the day, that there exists no gap between what I pray, what I say and the way I conduct my daily life. 

In fact, my ways show the truth that is hidden in my prayer, and my prayers manifest the hidden truth about my daily priorities in life. Where your heart is there your treasure might be! Not in pleasure or in riches but in the holy will of God needs to be our true joy, in our steadfast life unto the law of the Lord, our unceasing dedication to the true love, that is God. 

Let us see our way to the Lord, laid out so neatly...there may surround thorns and thistles but the way is right... let our prayer and our works orient us onward. Let our prayer transform our daily life and may our daily life inspire our prayer!

THE WORD AWAITS

Good soil: receptive, perceptive and productive

July 12, 2020 -15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Isaiah 55: 10-11; Romans 8: 18-23; Matthew 13: 1-23

“The Word is active and alive” says the famous words from the letter to the Hebrews (4:12). Isaiah today, presents the same theme drawing our attention to the Word that comes from the Lord and does not return until it has accomplished the purpose for which it came! There is no doubt that the Word is active and alive, effective and efficient, powerful and purpose filled… but an indelible fact is that producing fruits depends on more than one thing! First and foremost of those conditions: it depends on the receiver, clarifies the Liturgy today. It is not that the Word will be automatically powerful and change-causing, independent of the one who listens to it. Right at the origin when the Scriptures deal with the creation narration, there is a difference made about the way the Word acted in relation to the human persons vis-à-vis the other creatures.

The Word awaits the response of the person in order to create in and through the person the desired effect. This is due to the Personal Freedom that the Lord empowers us with. The readings, the first and the Gospel, presents a beautiful analogy…the Word as Seed. The analogy is exceptional because it takes into serious account the crucial aspect of the readiness of the concerned person to respond, in order that the Word may bear fruit. The Word requires that the receiver is a Good Soil, so that the Word may have its way! What does it mean to be a good soil?

To be good soil, we have to be Receptive: Unlike the pathway that gives the seed away so easily, and does not have any room for the seed to penetrate, we need to be receptive in order that the Word may have some effect in us. The receptivity consists in our readiness to listen, our love to understand and the willingness to retain.

At times we seem to be listening, but actually we might not be listening at all. Very often in film making there is a convenient mode of story telling which is called the 'mind voice'. It is a peculiar phenomenon, where the audience are given to hear what the person on the screen who seems to be listening to the other, is actually not listening to the other, but listening to and speaking to oneself! The other person thinks that he or she is being listened to, unaware of what is going on really in the mind of the other who appears to be attentive! This can happen in our daily lives too: we may appear to be listening to the Word - we read the Bible, we listen to sermons (sometimes even preach), we recite psalms, we do umpteen number of practices of piety through which the Word comes to us - but in all these we are so filled with what WE are doing, that the Word almost ends up on the pathway and disappears in no time. What a sad situation that could be! How conscious are we about what the Lord wants to communicate to us? How receptive are we?

To be good soil, we have to be Perceptive: Receiving is not enough, states the parable. The rocky ground and the land covered with thorns did receive the seed, but were not deep enough or prepared enough to send down its roots. Being perceptive consists in spending time with the Word. Allowing the Word to sink into us, to spark insights within us and to challenge our present style of life… these are the qualities that a real listener of the Word will have. Otherwise we would be, as James warns us, fooling ourselves (cf James 1: 22-25).

Have you come across persons who are totally excited at moments when they receive a great favour from the Lord - may be a good word from some one, may be a long awaited fulfillment of a dream, may be a unexpected favourable turn of events, may be a solution to a long endured problem... yes, so excited that they cannot contain themselves. They rant and ramble of the goodness of the Lord to them and their overwhelming happiness, but only to be seen within a short while grumbling and whining at a small problem, or a confusion, or a disappointment, or a failure! They might seem to have forgotten totally all that they were exuberant about a while ago! Anyone who listens to them at that moment, might think what a wretched time the person is having all his or her life! Wonder why this extremities?  Purely because the experiences do not sink in, they remain at the periphery and get vapourised, disappear into the thin air, at the earliest! What a squandering of life's moments this could be!

To be good soil, we have to be Productive: True yearning for the Reign of God, as St. Paul refers to in the second reading is the mark of being children of God. That is, a longing for a lasting change, the eagerness to grow, the formidable energy with which the seed bores the soil to put its head out into the world. We have to moan with the pain of a woman in childbirth; we cannot be complacent with our ordinary, below average spiritual life, if we really want some change to happen within us. 

The Word challenges us towards this change. It is left to us, to our personal freedom and to our yearning for perfection, to make solid resolutions and follow it up with concrete actions. Most of the time, we may fail... that is no reason for discouragement, as long as we are ready, willing and earnest about starting all over again. The gift of life that God offers us, grants us innumerable opportunities to germinate, to grow and to produce fruit! All that we need to do is - stay receptive, grow perceptive ad live productive.

The Word awaits such productive grounds, that it may accomplish the task for which it was sent by the Lord. A receptive, perceptive and productive person, is the good soil on which the Reign will germinate, grow and spread into a great tree where birds of all kind will come, reside and rest. Are we?

It is the Master who sends...

WORD 2day: Saturday, 14th week in Ordinary time

July 11, 2020: Isaiah 6: 1-8; Matthew 10: 24-33

It is the Lord who sends; it is the Master who calls; it is the Teacher who commissions! It is not because I am worthy to be sent, or qualified to be called or skilled to be commissioned... but it is because it is the Lord who calls! As St. Paul says it in such simple terms: "those whom he called, he justified" (cf. Rom 8:29). However unworthy I am, when the Lord has appointed me for a mission, he makes sure that mission goes on through me. 

As soon as we speak of being called and being commissioned, let us not think of those in the ministry - the priests or the religious or the lay ministers or those who have some special responsibility in the faith community! The 'called', the 'sent', the 'commissioned' referred to here, are not those but every Christian who is called, commissioned and sent by the very fact of one's baptism in the Lord! 

Yes, we are called, commissioned and sent, each of us! And it is the Master who sends, the King who clothes us with his majesty and glory, adorns us with his identity and entrusts with his power. It is in the name of the Lord, that we go - not because we can go or we are competent to go - but because, the Lord, the King, the Master, wants us to!

On my part, the challenge is to be mindful of the fact that it is the Lord who has sent me and commissioned me and to be convinced that the Lord takes care of everything around me, provided I live my life faithful to the call. A thousand may fall at my side and ten thousand at my right hand, but nothing will come near me, for I have made God my refuge, prays the Psalmist (in Ps 91:7).

It is the Lord who has called me and it is Lord who has commissioned me, I am accountable to the Lord and only to the Lord. In this world and to those around me, I have nothing to prove! All that I need to do, is stand in awe at the majesty of the Lord, believe in the Lord's sovereignty and submit myself in total faith into the hands of God, saying "Here am I Lord, send me!" When the Lord does, we will see the glory of God revealed in marvelous ways!

God with us - in thick and thin!

WORD 2day: Friday, 14th week in Ordinary time

July 10, 2020: Hosea 14: 2-10; Matthew 10: 16-23

this sign in Indian tradition is called the Abhaya Mudra ,
the Lord assuring God's unfailing and protective presence

"Straight are the paths of the Lord"(Hos 14:10), declares prophet Hosea today. Straight, and therefore tough. Straight and therefore no compromises. Straight and therefore no confusions! Everyone knows the ways of the Lord; everyone knows what is acceptable to the Lord and what is not; it is made known by the Lord to every human person in their innermost self. No one can say, I was not aware that this is the right thing to do! Of course, every one knows it or at least has the possibility of getting to know it.

Further reflecting, the words of Jesus in the Gospel are quite frightening as we find Jesus trying to warn us against being good, against choosing the ways of the Lord and being God's disciples or apostles of the Word. He does not promise any prospects, instead persecution. He does not announce any offers, instead oppression. He says it very clearly that we will have to suffer for his sake, for the sake of the Word and for the sake of the Reign of God.

Each one knows what is good and what is right...and while choosing it, there is going to be problems and trials - unfortunately we know that too! Come to think of it: one knows saying the truth is the right thing, but doing it, he or she knows the consequences of being isolated; one knows being honest and sincere is the godly thing to choose, but he or she knows too, that it will only bring loss and lag, while the rest of the dishonest world seems to march ahead in victory and glory! So choosing God's ways seems to bring nothing desirable! 

Now listen to Jesus who assures the consolation of the Lord, the consoling and affirming presence of the Lord with us, always and everywhere. Because what we have chosen is the way of the Lord, we are certain to find the Lord present with us all the way. The way might be filled with pitfalls and climbs and hurdles and thorns and thistles... but we are sure amidst all these, the Lord walks with us, the Lord speaks on our behalf and the Lord acts in and through us. What a mighty consolation we have: in thick and thin, God with us!