Wealth - the right attitude to it

WORD 2day: Saturday, 31st week in Ordinary time

November 7, 2020: Philippians 4: 10-19; Luke 16: 9-15

Wealth: is it good or bad? 

Money and God...won't they go together?

Then how do we ask God for wealth and consider prosperity as a blessing from God? The Word today speak to us about the right attitude to develop towards wealth. Just three points to begin with...

1. Wealth is given.

It is a gift and should be treated as such. We are given and it should fill us with gratitude and not arrogance.

2. Wealth is given to be given.

It is never given for yourself...you are a custodian of what is with you. You possessing the wealth is a blessing; the wealth possessing you is a curse!

3. Wealth is given to be given to those who cannot give.

The only purpose today wealth is used, apart from fulfilment of needs, is to make more wealth. It is a sickening tendency that is the cause of the growing selfishness, cruel exploitation and demeaning inhumanities.

Wealth and power are good as long as they are instruments. When they begin to use and dominate persons, dehumanisation begins! God sees the heart, says the Gospel and everyone will see a heart that is filled with God.

The Unchanging Criterion

WORD 2day: Friday, 31st week in Ordinary time

November 6, 2020: Philippians 3:17 - 4:1; Luke 16: 1-8

Prudence is a practical virtue; it is the capacity to discern the most effective option from a set of available options. At times in life, we seem to have quite many options to choose from. And a confusion is bound to arise. But today we are reminded of a fact: when we have Christ as our choice, there need be no confusion regarding what to choose and what not to! 

When Christ becomes our absolute, our standard, our criterion, then there would be no confusions nor any more options. We would have an absolute to live by, a standard to judge by, a criterion to choose by. The steward presented in the Gospel today, was praised, yes. But what was he praised for? For his shrewdness and not for his goodness! And some confuse saying, Jesus praised him! Jesus is narrating that the master in the parable praised him! 

For Jesus, what matters here again was... giving away, not getting stuck or attached, looking at everything as a way and a means to be acceptable in the eyes of the Lord. You realise you have collected dishonest wealth - give it away to the needy and get back to the Lord. You realise you are not really on the track towards your call, just shake yourself up and change your course! For doing all this you have one absolute criterion: Christ, the mind of Christ, the lifestyle of Christ - doing the will of the One who sent me, not my own!

St. Paul lived by this choice and presented the same to the others. Be imitators of me as I am of Christ ( 1 Cor 11:1) said Paul, as we read in today's first reading too. We would be judged truly and absolutely prudent, if we choose that never failing criterion: Christ! Because it is the Lord and the Lord alone who does not change. Christ is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow (Heb 13:8).

In mutual seeking...

WORD 2day: Thursday, 31st week in Ordinary time

November 5, 2020: Philippians 3: 3-8a; Lk 15: 1-10

The initial lines of the Gospel today say it all: the tax collectors and sinners were seeking the company of Jesus and the pharisees were complaining against it. And Paul explains it in bare terms... what really matters is not circumcision or not...but the relationship one has with the person of Christ. Enough lessons to formulate a whole lifestyle, a Christ-ian lifestyle.

Past glories, handed down traditions, legalistic requirements, ritual uprightness, fulfillment of duties ...these will not take you any far, however good and right and just they could be. However precious you may consider these, without a living relationship with the person of Christ, what will become of these? Rubbish, trash, refuse, just waste! 

What is expected of me, as a true disciple of Christ is to get nearer and nearer, closer and closer, more and more in personal relationship with God, in the Spirit, through Christ. Do you have doubts if you really can work on that? Do you think in it is difficult to create and get going a relationship with God? Do you feel it is not so easy, because I am lost in my daily chores and millions of commitments? Lost...? but do not worry... there is someone who is looking for you, seeking you!

Yes, God keeps looking out for us, just as the parables present to us in the Gospel today, the shepherd and the woman looking out, seeking! All that we need to do is become aware of our call, to be with God; to earnestly wish the presence of God in our lives; to seek the presence of God, as did the tax collectors and the sinners!

And when God sees our efforts, God doubles it up with grace! God fills us to our brim. God gives us in abundance. God comes to us with a flood of love and compassion....that is Grace. Grace, which is in simple terms of our relationship with God, in the person of Christ, by the gift of the Holy Spirit. Grace...amazing grace, before which everything else is mere trash.

Call yourself a Christian? Better be one!

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 31st week in Ordinary time

November 4, 2020: Philippians 2: 12-18; Luke 14:25-33

If you call yourself a Christian you better be one, says the Word today. You want to construct a tower but you don't want to procure the material; you want to fight the battle but you don't care to gather the soldiers; you want to be called a Christian but you don't want to take in all those things that make up being true to that name! What a shame!

What does it take then, to be a Christian? 

To be a light when every one around is getting used to the darkness! Everything seems alright today - corruption, discrimination, political vendetta, development that tramples underfoot the poor and the helpless, the rocketing cost of living, the exorbitant demands of medical care, the manipulation of education system...everyone has gotten, or are getting, used to these. A light cannot but expose things around, it cannot hide unless it is blocked or blown off. 

To carry the cross with love when every one around you is waiting to shake off even an extra speck of dust on them! The Cross reminds us of the love that was involved in the pain that the Son of God suffered for our sake. The reminder is also a challenge: how much of love is involved in the way your bear your daily cross, your burdens of life, your share for the sake of others? 

To be holy and blameless while everyone around is losing the very sense of those terms! How easily we find compromises, justifications, rationalisations, that exempt us from the way of life that God has called us to. How easily we place an yes and a no together, while Jesus' style demands that an yes be an yes, and a no, no!

That is what it takes to be a Christian - to be a light in the darkness, to carry my cross with love and to be holy and blameless before God. O Lord Jesus Christ, give us the strength, the courage and the light to walk in your footsteps, carrying our crosses and and making a difference in every life we encounter. You are our light and our salvation.

Enter the dinner or not!

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 31st week in Ordinary time

November 3, 2020:  Philippians 2: 5-11; Luke 14: 15-24

We can find any number of reasons or excuses to keep ourselves from doing what is the right thing to do, as long as we keep doing it, as if we are doing it for the sake of some one else. It would already be too late when we realise that we have not really lived our life. Our minds will be filled with too many if's and but's to make real sense of it. 

Instead, when we know ourselves, accept this life as a gift from God and live our life understanding its sacrality, and true to the vocation given to each of us: we would be in paradise dining with the Lord already now. But it does involve, suffering and sacrifice endured in a joyful spirit of fulfilling one's vocation.

We have just celebrated two lovely days... the first day with those who have done it all and entered that dinner already; the second day with those who are on their way, and need a bit more of mercy from the Lord to inherit that grace that God has promised them, and us; and today, here we are...learning the truth once again for ourselves. This truth is nothing new - we know it so well and we know it for so long. But what matters is that we act on what we know; that we let this information, form us and transform us, towards sincere discernment and right decision making. 

And who is the inspiration, model and the ideal, for all these three categories of persons: Christ himself! St. Paul gives the picture of Christ, who lived his mission, the personal vocation that he was given and through that he redeemed the whole world - the living and the dead. In living that call and mission, in carrying out that commission and task, he faced tough times and turmoils. Right till he reached the right hand of the One who had sent him, he went on with his life and life task!

When we live our personal lives true to our vocation and at the depth of its meaning, we too will turn out to be instruments of God's salvation, to ourselves and to others. We are given the gift of life and given the invitation to live it to the full... the choice is ours: to enter the dinner of the Lord or not!

It's all about relationship!

All Souls Day: November 2, 2020

Wisdom 3: 1-9; Romans 6: 3-9; John 6: 37-40

The 1st of November, we celebrate the memory of the saints... those among us who have gone before us all the way! They shine as they have reached the destiny prepared for them. They are the Triumphant Church, radiating the HOPE that Christ brought to humanity.

The 2nd November, we keep the memory of those among us who have gone before us, but not yet all the way! They await the mercy of God, to join the band of those who share the glory of the Eternal Light. They are the Penitent Church, united with us in FAITH, the one faith in which we were all baptised, the one faith in which we have a duty to offer our prayers and suffrages. 

Tomorrow onwards we are back to our daily living, as we make our way, amidst the struggles and temptations of the daily life. We are the Militant Church, fighting our way ahead on a daily basis, with LOVE - love for God who constantly accompanies us and love for brothers and sisters with which we accompany those who are around us.

It's all about relationship... we are One Church with the One Lord, with one baptism, one call and one destiny... all of us related to each other. Even the thought of death or of the dead, does not fill us with fear or anxiety, for we are all on the same journey at different stages of the course. The three tier Church is such a holistic view of our life on earth, that it renders every bit of our life and all its struggles so meaningful. It is within this framework of relationship that we think of those brothers and sisters of ours who have gone before us, signed with the same Holy Spirit, that they may receive the eternal reward they have always longed for. But that would be an incomplete exercise, if it does not challenge us to live our life with more hope and more love, here and now that our faith may throw its light on our concrete everyday. 

We are all related - in the Lord, in the mysteries that believe in, in the death that await us and above all, in the life that we possess in the Spirit! Yes, we are all related. Let that be the message that the day offers us. Let us march on with love, with hope and with faith towards the eternal joy prepared for us.

BEING SAINTS

The ABC of being Saints!

November 1, 2020: Solemnity of All Saints 
Revelations 7: 2-4, 9-14; 1 John 3: 1-3; Matthew 5: 1-12 

There is an ever loved and oft quoted anecdote about this sweet little boy who was taken to a traditional Cathedral for the first time by his mother. The boy was tremendously impressed with the splatter of colours on the floor due to the rays that shone through the stained glasses on the walls (remember those classic cathedrals, don't you... and they are becoming endangered specimen these days, with some of them converted to mosques and some others to public halls and themed restaurants!). Coming back to the boy, there for the first time, seeing all the splendour in glowing natural lights, he with his eyes wide open looked at those stained glasses and asked his mother...'mamma, what is this?' So used to his constant questions, the mother pointed to those stained glasses and replied in short, 'Oh... they are the saints!' The boy could not take his eyes or his mind off those pictures on the stained glass. That stuck to the boy's mind, not merely until he returned home but even further. And the next day at school when the catechism teacher asked, who are saints... he shouted out in excitement, "yes I know them." And when the teacher happily turned to him, he continued, "saints are those who let the light shine through them!"

I think that's the best definition for a saint by far. A saint is the one who lets the light, the light of the Lord, shine through him or her. The colours and the shades are exotic, but the light is from the Lord. The shapes and contours are all varied and impressive, but the source is one and the same, the light of the Lord! What a lovely image we have today, of all the saints standing in one choir, as one family, as one community of brothers and sisters, giving praises to the Lord! A grand day and a proportionately important reminder to each of us: you are called to be one of them, you are called to be a Saint!

The Word this day, read attentively, can provide us with a fundamental understanding of what it means to be a saint. They get us thinking, not only about all the saints we have out there, but also about the saint that we have to nourish and nurture within each of us. The Word furnishes us with an ABC of being saints, in our daily life, here and now!

A saint is one who ACKNOWLEDGES the supremacy of God, allowing God to take charge of one's life. This seems to be the most challenging task for human beings as centuries get past us. Human beings, as individual persons and as communities of persons, wish to become more and more autonomous, from everything and every one, even from God, considering God as someone who could infringe on our freedom, our decision making and our authority on our own lives. But all it takes is just a simple recollection of what has happened to humanity in history due to pride and self glory, to understand we are wrong to think of keeping God away from this world. We will be drastically failing. 

The responsorial psalm today invites us to reflect on this absolute supremacy of God. Everything takes its existence from God. How can we ever think of doing away with the Master, as long as we hold on to what the Master has made and programmed and keeps sustaining? The first ever attitude that can bring us towards true sanctity, obviously, is acknowledgement of God's authority over everything, and specially, over my entire self. The more we acknowledge the primacy of God, the more grateful we become; the more grateful we become, the more holy we grow - that is the secret of being saints!

A saint is one who BELONGS totally to God, placing God at the centre of his or her life. Certainly, it does not suffice to acknowledge the authority of God over everything and over me, there is something more to it, when it comes to being saints. In simple terms, it is feeling close, feeling intimately connected, feeling totally grafted on to God - a bond which is like that which exists between a mother and a child, that connectedness that is not merely peripheral, but something that penetrates my very being! I am connected to my God, at the core of my being, at the depth of my soul, at the essence of my spirit, because it is from God I take my life, my image, my entire existence. I belong to God, totally.

In the second reading, John reminds us of who we are - we are children of God, that is what we are! Whether the world acknowledges or not, whether we acknowledge or not, the fact remains that we are children of God, and God will never renounce us, even if we do! God has loved us in to existence and loves us from all eternity. This love was manifest in the incarnation, when Christ came to show us whose image we bear, and to what image we should liken ourselves to. We belong to God who created us, the Lamb who has washed us and the Spirit who consecrates us into children of God, treasured possessions of God, images and likenesses of God, here on earth! The more we realise to whom we bleong, the more we understand who we really - that is the way of being saints!

A saint is one who COMMITS oneself to God's cause, to God's people, to God's will, on a daily basis! That we come from and belong to God, is truly a privilege, a great honour; but it is at the same time, a great challenge too, a call to commitment. As children of God, as people of God, as persons who acknowledge God and belong to God, we are called to manifest that in our daily life, in the ordinary choices we make and in every major decision we take! You will be criticised for it, calumniated against, painted as a threat, called names, jeered at, pictured as an outdated fool, useless misfit...yes! But can you give up? You just can not! There will be mighty forces lining up against you - the economic forces that tend to reduce everything to numbers and currencies, the political forces that are ready to do absolutely anything for the sake of power and position, the anti social forces that take joy and pride in disrupting peace of the people, the immoral forces that perpetrate corruption of everything including the souls of human persons...all these are mighty and they will stand against you! But can you give up? You just should not! Because you are from God, you belong to God and you are the Blessed of the Lord!

The Gospel outlines a way of life that is so surrealistic...that is indeed our roadmap to true holiness. Today, as Pope Francis repeats to us so very often, holiness does not consist in keeping ourselves aloof as refrigerated beings, we need to get down into the slush, get ourselves dirtied, fight our way, stand for the truth, march for justice, rise for the oppressed, reach out for the marginalised, voice out for the voiceless, live for peace, die for love and finally, shout for joy! We are blessed, we are blessed children of God, we are blessed family of the saints, we are blessed followers of the slain Lamb, we are blessed witnesses to God wherever we are! We are on our way to heaven, and we need to get our roadmap right. We need to be in their numbers - in that throng that is in eternal communion with the Lord. That is what we have been created for, that is for what we have been washed and made clean in the Blood, and that is what we are challenged towards in the Spirit - and that is the challenge of being saints!

Let us get this ABC of Being Saints, clear in our minds today... that we Acknowledge God, Belong to God and Commit ourselves to God's cause and we shall be counted in their numbers, in the number of All Saints!

Between death and life, there is living!

WORD 2day: Saturday, 30th week in Ordinary time

October 31, 2020: Philippians 1: 18-26; Luke 14:1,7-11

Paul speaks to us of a popular dilemma that all of us are caught between - the dilemma between death and life! At certain points in our life, this dilemma is strong, at other points it is mild, but it never ceases to exist, given the nature of the certainty of death and the uncertainty of its time or mode! These days with the global health crisis and the frequent news about sickness and death, brings this dilemma more to the limelight.

Which is better... to die or to live? Truly life is a gift! We have it and we treasure it. But there are times when troubles come, unnecessary concerns cloud our days and necessary burdens weigh us down. There are moments, invariably in every person's life, when he or she, at least for a fraction of a second thinks, of what use it is to live! At the same time there is an insatiable anxiety within us to live, to live on and to live forever.

God has given us a gift of death too! Though many do not look at it that way, that is, death as a gift, it is in fact true. Imagine, there were nothing called 'death'? How many problems and how many queries to fend for! Death, in the Christian parlance (in another day. we shall be beginning with the month dedicated to faithful departed), is the gate through which one has to pass to encounter the Lord, for that ultimate face off. Can there be any other reason more exciting and inviting than that? 

We know all this,  that life is a gift and death is equally a gift, but we find it hard to accept it- be it for our own sake or for others. Paul clarifies that dilemma to us today: his statement simply is, that it is a wrong question to ask which is better, life or death - because it is neither death nor life, instead, what comes between the two: living! How we live our life - that is truly what matters. 

There are three clues to living that life: one, from the hands of God: living our life from the hands of God, realising the gift that it is, and striving to realise all the time its true purpose - be it immediate purpose or ultimate purpose; two, living with our eyes fixed on God: that God may call us back anytime and God alone is the author of life and God alone can instruct us about what is best for us at any given moment; three, living for the glory of God: that God be glorified in everything I am and I do!

Between death and life, there is our call to live, our commitment to live to the full, and our opportunity to live for the glory of God. When we do that, we would be able to say with Paul: for me to live is Christ, to die is gain!

Busy about our Father's business?

WORD 2day: Friday, 30th week in Ordinary time

October 30, 2020: Philippians 1: 1-11; Luke 14: 1-6

Jesus went about doing good! Doing good was his way of being the Son of God. This work that he started nobody could stop, because his Father was leading it towards its completion! Neither the so-called religious heads, nor the oppressive political heads, or the discouraging responses of the people - nothing deterred him; because he was not doing his work. "My food is to do the will of the One who sent me!"

St. Paul grew into the same groove... the work he was doing was the Lord's work - the good work that the Lord began in him, the Lord was bringing to its fulfillment no matter if Paul found himself in house arrest, in chains, under the law! And nothing deterred Paul, because he knew he was not just doing good work, but he was doing God's work! 

Work, good work, God's work... is it not important for us to differentiate among these in our own life? At times we may be busy doing what we want, what we think can establish our name, what we consider will make people remember us. But beware even the worst of politicians and bureaucrats have this motivation! So just some work, is not good enough. Does our work create good, good for the other, good for all, the common good? Then it becomes more acceptable! 

But is anything that is good, good enough? St. Paul speaking elsewhere about doing everything for God's glory would say, "all things are lawful, but not all things are beneficial; all things are lawful but not all things build up" (1 Cor 10:23). There are so many things that we can call good... but is that enough reason for us to engage in it? Is that sufficient for us to embark upon a whole life journey based on that opinion? Is something more needed... the Word answers today: Yes... not enough to be doing good work, but we need to be doing God's work!

We need to be busy with God's work, the work that God wants to accomplish in us. Each of us needs to explore, understand and get in touch with what the Lord wants to accomplish in us. Once we are clear of that, nothing, no one, can stop us! Some times the very things that people wrongly understand as holy and sacred could stand in opposition to what the Lord wants from us: Jesus understood that perfectly. That is why he had the guts to stand even against the sabbath. St. Paul inherited that clarity from his master, and that is why he could throw away all traditions like the circumcision.  

A very timely lesson for those of us who are passionate about doing something for God, and find that we are not able to... because of whatever reasons it may be... if it is God who has initiated that desire in us, God will bring it to its completion. Let us not fret! Let us be genuinely busy about Our Father's business, and everything will happen in God's own time.

Being a Christian today: is it simple?

WORD 2day: Thursday, 30th week in Ordinary time

October 29, 2020: Ephesians 6:10-20; Luke 13: 31-35

Our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens (Eph 6:12). Yes, our life is a struggle! Yes, we are the Militant Church...the church that is fighting its way through, towards the eternal life, with eyes fixed on that sure crown that is promised to each of us. 

The Triumphant Church, who are the saints who have gone before us, is our shining model and an inspiring example.The message that they give us, and the clear tone of the Word today, is that of Lk 12:4 - Do not fear those who can kill your body, but can do nothing to your soul! And Jesus lives that teaching in the Gospel today, when he says: 'Go tell that fox'...meaning Herod...'that I will be here today, tomorrow and the third day!'

Jesus feared no one, because he was certain that God was with him. Being a Christian means exactly that - to live our life fear-free, not because we are all powerful, but because we have with us someone who is all powerful; to live our life with conviction and determination, not because we are always right, but we are guided by that Spirit who will instruct us and convict us as soon as we go wrong, if we are attentive; to live our life to the full, not because this is the only life we have (as some justify sometimes), but because we have the certainty of the eternal life given to us by our Lord on the Cross, that eternal life which has to be begun already here in our values and priorities. 

How can we live fear-free, convinced and to the full? In other words, how can we be truly Christians in our daily life: St. Paul today gives us a whole armour to put on, every kind of protection against every kind of danger. The Lord is our stronghold, the Lord is our refuge; whom should we fear? All that we need to do is stand firm in faith. Let us not deceive ourselves saying, being a Christian today is simple or natural; it is not! Neither shall we lose hope saying, we cannot! 

Jesus teaches us by his example today the technique of a Christian fight: Keep alert, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong! (1 Cor 16:13).