With the Holy Spirit - it starts all over!

WORD 2day: Saturday, 7th week in Easter time

May 22, 2021: Acts 28:16-20, 30-31; John 21: 20-25

Don't you find a sense of winding up in the readings today? A type of 'and-they-lived-happily-everafter' narration! Paul seems to settle down for good in Rome as an honoured guest in house arrest, while Jesus seems to be bidding his final bye and the book of John comes to an end, with the concluding note of the author... But the end is for a new beginning... because the Church awaits the all important feast of the Pentecost tomorrow, an outpouring of the Spirit that led to a renewed life and radical witness.

With the Spirit, everything begins all over! It may look like an end, or as if everything is done and dusted. But the Holy Spirit is someone who renews the face of the earth, renews it constantly, with new life, new vigour, new enthusiasm, new power and new energy! All that we need to do, is resolve to follow Christ, to remain in Christ and be open to the Spirit.

Yes, the message today is our call to 'follow Christ' in season and out of season, whether we are free or captive, whether we live or die, whether we eat or drink! Good news has to be announced by all means and the responsibility is ours, irrespective of our state of life or situation at present. Our readiness and submission to God is sufficient, the Spirit is there to renew, energise and recreate  us!

Come Holy Spirit! Come renew us! 

Christian Leadership - a crucial gift of the Spirit!

WORD 2day: Friday, 7th week in Easter time 

May 21, 2021: Acts 25: 13b-21; John 21: 15-19

Jesus seems to be preparing the second level of leadership. Peter he appoints already before he goes and Paul he seems to be taking to all the ends of the earth that he may bear witness, true to his promises. These leaders prepared by Jesus, and the way they are prepared and the qualities expected of them can also be contrasted with the other leaders who are implicitly present in the readings today - Festus, Felix and Caesar, the Roman officials and the Jewish leadership which did away with Jesus and now wants to do away with Peter, or Paul or anyone else who has got something to do with Jesus.

In his mode of preparation and commission of his second line leaders, Jesus offers us an insight into Christian leadership: it does not consist in power and position but in bearing witness and serving the community of faith. Infact, in such a perspective, every baptised person is called to play a role as a leader in their own level - witnessing to the goodness of the Lord and serving the people of God.

Today, taking a look at the context - our communities, be it parish communities where the laity scheme their way to positions of honour and fame, or the members of religious congregations or the clergy playing political games and construing divisive plots... true understanding of Christian leadership seems to have taken a back seat. With the pandemic wrecking an havoc, we are getting to see the colours of true Christian leadership and self-centred pseudo leaderships! 

The Gospel Acclamation reminds us today that the Spirit will teach us the truth and all the truth. May the Spirit of the Lord rekindle our faith and lead us towards true sense of Christian leadership, because it is indeed a crucial gift of the Spirit!

Spirit, the love dwelling in us!

WORD 2day: Thursday, 7th week in Easter time 

May 20, 2021: Acts 22:30 - 23: 6-11; John 17: 20-25

As in Jerusalem, so in Rome! Just out of one danger in Jerusalem, Paul is promised more of them, in Rome! Courage! says the Lord. We can live our life with courage and confidence because the Lord dwells in us, or atleast wants to dwell in us! He prays to his Father, 'that I may be in them!' 

Jesus is praying for us, as he says... I pray for these and those who will come to believe through the words of these. We have come to believe and the Lord wishes to dwell in us - the sign of his dwelling, is the love of the Father: that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and so that I may be in them. The love that exists between the Father and the Son, is the Holy Spirit...the indwelling Spirit.

The most concrete sign of the indwelling Lord is not so much performing miracles or speaking in toungues, as living united to the Father in Christ, it is being united to each other in love! The more we grow to be one, as Jesus prays today, the more we become people of the Spirit. All that we need to do is remain united, remain one, witness to the oneness we see between the Father and the Son. 

Jesus prays that we may be one because, that would be the first witness to the Reign that he longed to establish on earth - that we live to be one, that the world sees us one! Jesus promises us the glory that God alone can give, that comes from the perfection of being one! That determination, that decision to remain before the world one and bold, will be the work of the Spirit who is the fellowship between the Father and the Son. 

Wherever we are, let us be aware and convinced that we possess the glory that the Lord has promised, and live up to that glory, to that gift, to that person who has called us to be one; one, in the Spirit, the love that dwells within us!

The Spirit that makes us One!

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 7th week in Easter time

May 19, 2021: Acts 20: 28-38; John 17: 11b-19

From parting mood to prayer mode... the Word today captures both Jesus and Paul praying for and praying with their beloved followers. They invoke the Spirit who unites, and they warn the followers of the spirit of discord. Both those, the invocation and the warning, are a lesson for us today!

How we can discern the right direction to take in the face of differences among us - that is the question that the Word answers today. Be it in a family or in a community of faithful, given the fact that we are thinking individuals, there is bound to arise differences of opinion. First of all, the conviction to grow in, is this: that differences of opinoins are not a problem. They are a richness! They enrich the point of view, but as along as the motivations are right and well oriented. 

The differences, as long as they are from the Spirit, they shall lead only to growth and renewal, enrichment and empowerment. Hence we are invited today to invoke the Holy Spirit on ourselves and on our communities, not to abolish all differences and make us monocultural and monolithic in nature, but to help us see the oneness through the difference, to discover the harmony that exists in the diversity that we celebrate. 

We are warned here against the differences caused by the ravenous wolves and treacherous beasts. Ruled by ego, dominated by envy, and animated by competition, these differences are aimed at destroying the unity of the people of God. It does not enrich, impoverishes; it does not empower but enfeebles the community; it does not harmonise and build but breaks and destroys! It is clearly from the evil one.

Anything that comes from the Spirit unites us, for the Holy Spirit is the Spirit that makes us one! Let us remain in the Spirit and remain united in love above everything else. May we live worthy of the prayer that Jesus made for us: that they may be one!

The Spirit of Extraordinary Courage!

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 7th week in Easter time

May 18, 2021: Acts 20: 17-27; John 17: 1-11

We see both Paul and Jesus in a parting mood; Paul is sensing an imminent trouble and Jesus is sure of a fast approaching end. But both have a sense of having completed the task given to them. I have glorified you on earth and finished the work that you gave me to do, says Jesus praying to his Father (Jn 17:4); Paul is seen to be speaking of finishing the race and having done the task of proclamation entrusted to him. 

Besides this parting sentiment, both have a note of passing on the mission to those around them - Paul to the presbyters and elders, and Jesus to the apostles.They both are seen to be challenging the followers, to a life of commitment and endurance. And here it is that one thing can be found common to both cases of encounter that ensures the continuity: the One Spirit, a Spirit of extraordinary courage.

The same Spirit that was in Jesus, he gave to his apostles, to Paul and then Paul to the elders...the Spirit of courage and strength. As Paul would explain in 2 Tim 1:7, the Spirit of power, of love and of self discipline. Power, which makes us fearless; love which makes us feel for the others; and self discipline which enables us to do the will of the One who calls us, come what may!

Amidst difficulties and struggles, oppositions and spirit-dampening events, with persons around who wish our downfall and our discouragement, if we have to go on with courage and strength, we cannot do it by our efforts alone! It takes what the Spirit can offer us: courage and strength, power and authority, love and empathy, and composure and serenity! This is what we need to learn from Jesus, as did Paul. Let us continue our journey, preparing ourselves to celebrate that Spirit of Extraordinary Courage, promised us by Christ.  

The Spirit of the Conqueror

WORD 2day: Monday after Ascension Sunday

May 17, 2021 - Acts 19:1-8; John 16: 29-33

No one probably understood Jesus when he was around. They were only making their guesses, putting together things that they saw, the things they heard and the things that were being reported. Today, in the Gospel, as many other times Jesus confronts them with the truth! When the disciples presume that they knew and understood what Jesus was saying, Jesus makes them realise their folly and their weakness - not out of despise - but out of genuine concern and fraternal love.

We are beginning a new phase of our liturgical year, a short but very important phase...when Jesus has ascended and the Spirit has not yet descended...it is the interim phase when the disciples had to be patient and strong, holding on to the teachings that they have heard from their Master. They still had not known the Spirit, just as those persons of Ephesus whom we come across in the first reading. 

Jesus begins to introduce to them and speak to us of the continuous presence of God, which is the indwelling Spirit. It is with the coming of the Spirit that the apostles come to understand Jesus and all that Jesus said while he was with them... it is only with that they became conquerors, because the Spirit they received was the Spirit of the Conqueror - the one who had conquered the world and even death!

Beginning today, we are invited to contemplate on this Spirit of the Lord, who will make of us too, conquerors of the world and all its wiles. The Spirit will make us understand things plainly - with a lot of things happening around us today, we are unable to understand anything in life! We need the Spirit all the more to plainly understand the meaning of all that is happening and be calm and serene, because the Spirit promised to us, the Spirit who lives in us, the Spirit that awaits to take control of our lives, is the Spirit of the Conqueror....let us be brave!

LOOK UP, BUILD UP & RISE UP!

The Solemnity of Ascension

May 16, 2021: 7th Sunday of Easter

Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians 4: 1-13; Mark 16:15-20 

Why do you people stand here looking up into the sky, asks the Messenger of God... and we still stand there looking up to the Lord, ascending to his Father! In fact, looking up, we grow! Looking up to the Lord, we learn, we understand, we receive and we grow! 'Looking up,' as a phrase can mean to find, to discover, to search to arrive at... these are the cues we have today, about the relationship that we need to have with the Risen Lord. To look up to the Lord and find an inspiration in him, to look up to the Lord and understand the meaning of our life, to look up to the Lord and realise what we are called to and what we are made of. 

At times we get lost in a puddle of water that we have created with our tears, thinking we have the worst of situation in the whole world. All it takes is just to look up, see the others who are suffering, those who are going through times so much more tough than ours, and then we will realise our folly! If this is the case with those around us, looking up to the Lord, is the ultimate hope-giving, and meaning-making exercise that we can ever do in our lives, that we may have meaning in life. Look up at the Lord who, as Paul reminds us in the second reading, came down, reached low, descended...that is why we can speak of ascension! 

From the sky to the earth, from the earth to the cross, from the cross to the grave, and from the grave to the skies...a lovely lesson from the Lord. We are destined for greater heights, we are called to be the people of God, we are called to be part of that eternal banquet, and nothing else matters more! Everything is passing, and the Lord alone is the constant in our lives...we are bound to that permanent abode and Jesus goes before us as we look up to him!

How do we follow there? We cannot follow there alone! We reach there by building ourselves up, building up the Body of Christ, says the second reading today. When we build up the Church, the People of God, the Mystical Body of Christ, we are paving our way to where we are destined, the presence of God. We are not at times, disposed to build up because we have lost track of our destination. We lose our sight, we lose our focus, we lose our way and think this world and this life is all we have! That seems so factual, justifiable, rational and concrete - to say, this world is all we have! The Lord and the Word today remind us of the fallacy that is involved therein. Looking up is understanding that fallacy.

Building up is working on what we see when we look up! Looking up alone is not enough, at times it can lead to an endless procrastination and escapism from acting here and now. Looking up has to be followed immediately by efforts to build up. Looking up at the Lord would instantly beckon us to turn towards our fellow believers...and that is what happened with the first Christian community...as soon as they began to follow the Way, they sold everything they had and brought it to the Apostles and gave it for the community (see chapters 2 to 5 in Acts of the Apostles). Building up is not merely an extra commitment we have, but a fundamental call as a baptised child of God. It does not also mean doing some extraordinary things for the good of the other, but as fundamental as living a life that is worthy of  one's own call. And that call is to rise up!

Rising up, to be truly children of God. To rise up from the selfishness of daily life, from ego driven choices in life, from pleasure governed practices of the society today, from comfort centred concept of life, from satisfaction based outlook of life, one is called to rise up to an other-centred life, to truth driven choices in life, to virtue governed practices in daily life, to righteousness centred concept of living and to vocation based outlook on life! Jesus goes before us, to show us the way!

Jesus lived a life that was other-centred, truth-driven, virtue-governed, righteousness-centred and vocation-based. Casting out devils, speaking in tongues, picking up snakes, healing persons...these are gifts that are experienced when one rises up. Jesus goes up, challenging us to rise up, and promises us a help, an advocate who will counsel us to rise up in our personal life and our life as a community of faith. When we rise up, our very lives become a proclamation to the world. We need say no words, our life shall shout out loud by itself, to the whole world. 

Look up to the Lord, build yourself up and build the Body of the Lord, and rise up to be true follower of the Lord...that is the parting message that the Ascending Lord gives us this day. May the Lord ascended into heaven, strengthen us in our daily journey in life!

God's Venture

WORD 2day: Saturday, 6th week in Easter time 

May 15, 2021: Acts 18: 23-28; John 16: 23-28

Apollos, Priscilla, Aquila, Paul... there is a band of apostles, all working in the name of the Lord. Among themselves and when in company of others, they did not consider their ego as something inviolable. They were ready to give in, to be corrected and to be taught. We see this lived out beautifully in the first reading today. Priscilla and Aquila as elders in the Lord, take Apollos an upcoming preacher aside, and give his further instruction!

This reminds us of the fact that five days ago (on May 10), Holy Father Pope Francis has come out with a Motu Proprio, Antiquum Ministerium, which institutes the Ministry of Catechists in the universal Church, that is giving an official recognition in the hierarchy of the Church, for those who involve in the minstry of Catechesis. Priscilla and Aquila were probably exceptional catechists in their community! However, the point is - how the Church, the faith community, is God's venture! God willed this faith community, so that the Reign of God can be made present here and now. This is accomplished in the very fact that the members of the Church lived in union of heart and mind.

Jesus in the Gospel too, offers himself and the Father as an example of living in union of spirit. They were one and the same - one who sees me sees the Father, one who accepts me accepts the One who sent me, those who love me will be loved by the Father, for the very fact that you love me! Exceptional statements of Christ on the importance of our relationship with him and with each other. 

The first christians, the disciples and the apostles understood this perfectly well. They lived united in heart, mind and spirit. They were able to think alike, plan alike, protect each other, provide for everyone and thus they formed a worthy part of the salvific band of God. 

Have we, you and I, the readiness and the will to be united in heart and mind, to be single-mindedly concerned about God's ventures?

I Chose you!

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

May 14, 2021: Celebrating St Mathias, the Apostle

Acts 1: 15-17, 20-26; John 15: 9-17

Every relationship is a response! Relationships can never be forced upon persons. I wish to relate to a person, I choose to relate to the person and then I leave the response of the person, to the freedom of that person! Only then there is a healthy relationship that blooms. It is the same with God's choice too!

You have not chosen me, I chose you!, reminds Jesus today. With the beautiful example of Mathias and Barsabbas, Jesus brings out another element of the election theology! When God chooses, God chooses individuals (not masses), for a unique purpose and specific plan. As God reminds us through Jeremiah, God has a plan for each of us (Jer 29:11) and God alone knows what the plan is and how it would come through. All that we need to do is submit, surrender to that plan and walk by it.

And when God chooses, God chooses not for merely conferring a privilege, or a position or power; but for commitment, suffering and for giving one's life for the other! As the readings of the past Sunday reminded us, we cannot stop with thinking we are chosen therefore we are special! We are chosen, we are special... but it entails further, that we are specially chosen to strive, fight, struggle, suffer and thus, usher in the Reign of God, wherever we are. 

Mathias is today counted into the band of apostles. Of course a privilege, but with that came the burden of being a Messenger of the Word, the burden of being the Elder in the Community and the burden of being a Shepherd of God's flock. St. Mathias is an inspiring example which tells us, the Lord counts on us... the Lord has chosen us and wishes to count us into the number of his apostles!

Yes, the Word and the Saint of today speak to us: You are chosen! Are you ready for all that it entails?

Sorrow or Joy... your choice?!

WORD 2day: Thursday, 6th week in Easter time

May 13, 2021 - Acts 18: 1-8; Jn 16: 16-20

What would be your choice, your natural spontaneous choice: sorrow or joy? Of course, we would all choose joy or at least that is what we think. Today, there is so much sorrow in the world, because we think we choose joy, while in fact we are constantly adding to our sorrows. Is that confusing? Not really. It is an easy perspective that the Word offers today, to understand our situation today. Let us contrast these as the perspective of the world and the perspective of the Word.

The perspective of the world says, with a faulty understanding of the phrase 'here and now', choose what gives you utmost happiness at any given moment and that will add to your joy. This is why people end up frustrated, ruined and wrecked in their life, making all the wrong choices possible, adding to their own woes and to the others'. The disciples could not understand what Jesus was telling them, because they only had a limited perspective of the here and now, until the Spirit arrived to open the eyes and their hearts.

The perspective of the Word says, have the ultimate Joy, the Joy that the Lord alone can give, in your mind. You would then be ready to choose at a given moment even a bit of pain and struggle, because you know you have a joy, a glory, an eternal happiness that awaits you! Look at Paul, Aquila, Priscilla, Titus Justus... they were wantonly choosing trouble and opposition, because they had their ultimate joy in perspective. Paul said that emphatically: I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us (Rom 8:18).

With all the situation around us in perspective, now let us consider that question again- what is our choice: sorrow or joy?