Peter, Paul and Francis...

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

June 29, 2021: Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul
Acts 12: 1-11; 2 Tim 4: 6-8, 17-18; Mt 16: 13-19

The Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, marks the day of their martyrdom...of course they were not martyred together; neither were they martyred in the same place or manner! But they were both martyred in Rome and Rome has these two principal apostles as its patron. There is one thing told of these two apostles in the readings today. They were called, and given a specific task. You shall be the rock... you shall be my instrument to take my name to the gentiles... these were the words with which the Lord invited them. And the Lord constantly protected them and rescued them, while they were on their part ready to give up anything, including their very lives, for the sake of the task entrusted to them.

However, why is this twinning...Peter and Paul? Because they were two solid pillars of reference in the early Christian Community. The Tradition of Papacy is a combination of both these apostles: Peter referring to the governance and the Paul referring to the doctrines! Both of these are equally important as roles of the Holy Father. This is the reason, this day is celebrated in many places as the "Pope's Day."

It is a day to celebrate the great God-given gift of Pope Francis! It has been 8 years! We are well aware of the numerous forces that are up in arms against the present Holy Father... from other domains of the world other than faith and religion, many from other denominations and some even from within the Catholic Church. But at a closer study and understanding it is easy for one to realise the amount of good that the present Holy Father is doing to the Church and to the world in the name of the Church.

Pope Francis seems a beautiful combination of Peter and Paul - making his mark in the governance of the Universal Church and having recourse to deep doctrines to make sense of the ordinary day to day experiences. Today, let us keep the Holy Father in our special prayers! God bless our Pope!

Our choices punish us, not God!

WORD 2day: Monday, 13th week in Ordinary time

June 28, 2021: Genesis 18: 16-33; Matthew 8: 18-22

The first reading today is a bit confusing! It presents a scene which looks as if God is waiting to destroy some cities and Abraham is trying to appease the wrath of God. Though apparently that is how it is narrated, the message communicated is quite different. Apart from an important learning from today's Word, there is an important unlearning that has to happen. 

Sodom and Gomorrah were cities filled with filth and sinfulness, wickedness and devilishness and on account of these, they were cities that were running themselves into destruction! It is like the ecological crisis and the nuclear risks that we have created for ourselves today! Anything goes wrong anywhere, it is going to affect a large section of humanity. One day or the other we are to reap its fruits! We already are facing the brunt of such foolishness, with the pandemic that is draining the life out of  us these days!

The Wisdom of God in warning against these kind of craziness and pointing the right way is either rejected or belittled. The natural law and the divine law that is imprinted on our spirits, is the only guarantee towards a peaceful life. But we have ruined our prospects, disrespecting and discarding any law that comes from God! 

When Jesus discourages one from following him and chides the other for not following him, he knows exactly what is good for each of them. God has set laws and order, keeping in mind the needs, wants and requirements for peaceful living of the entire humanity. In human pride, irrational greed and ruthless selfishness, we have made a mess of the world entrusted to us. The warning is to all of us today, if we do not mend our ways and return to the ways of the Lord, we are leading ourselves and our world into destruction. As he did with Abraham, the Lord is negotiating with and through every good willed person even today!

Now coming to the learning and the unlearning: to learn the laws of the Lord inscribed on our hearts; to unlearn any misunderstanding that God punishes or God destroys! God does not punish, our own choices do!

WHO IS YOUR GOD?

A relevant question today!

June 27, 2021: 13th Sunday in Ordinary time

Wisdom 1:13-15,2:23-24; 2 Corinthians 8:7,9,13-15; Mark 5:21-43

Who is your God? This is a question the people of Israel were asked every now and then, by those who surrounded them. And the people would say: the one who brought us out of Egypt, the one who gave us bread in the desert, the one who gave us water from the rock, the one who saved us and the one who made us into a people. That was the experience of the people of God - an expeience of the God of alliance who promised them: You shall be my people and I shall be your God. But the problem began when people underwent some trials - they made wrong choices and were reaping the fruit; they lived by wrong priorities and it was getting back on them; they needlessly depended on the forces that they thought would save them but when it misfired they were submerged in troubles - they were trying to make sense of one question: but where is God during these moments? They thought and interpreted that - God had abandoned them, or that God refused to care for them, or worst of all, that God was punishing them! Was it really the right answer or the right way of looking at God?

No!, says Jesus emphatically in his thoughts, words and deeds. This was one of the life tasks of Jesus: to reintroduce God to humanity...to clear the wrong interpretations of  God, to make people look at God from God's perspective and not from human perspective, to make humanity really understand the Love of God and its boundless nature. Jesus had to struggle for it... when Jesus had to explain to the people that God has no favourites, and God's favourites are those who are renounced, negated and relegated to the peripheries of human existence. He had to tell people that God's nature is to forgive, all that they could manage was a maximum of seventy times seven; he had to insist every now and then, that God is a merciful father and mother, but all they could think was rewarding the good and punishing the evil! 

Today, after so much that God has done for us and after all that Jesus has done to reveal the true sense of God to us, do we really know God? Do we really understand who is our God? The experience of the pandemic and many other elements around it, even today, challenges us - do you really know who is your God? 

The pandemic has not ended...it is on and it continues to challenge us in many ways! One of the reflections, as inspired by the Word today, is to understand how compatible our image of God is, with the God that Jesus wishes us to see, experience and believe in.

God of life or death

The first reading speaks to us of the God of life... and we very often make of God, a god of death. Our God is a God of life - life, new life and endless life. We need to work out of the temptation to think of God as someone who has the noose in his hands, threatening us with death. There are two things that we need to understand here from Christian point of view: Death is not destruction! The end of our life here, is not the end of all! The Lord who gave us life, awaits us after life too! And death is not the obliteration of a person. Secondly, anything that appears to be a destruction or a ruin does not come from God, it comes from the evil one. An untimely death, a gruesome death, a painful death, an unexpected death - though the experience they give us is pain and sorrow, for the person who has that experience it is, another experience of his or her existence. It may be difficult to understand, but that is life. In the perspective of eternity, the fact is, whether we live or we die, we are with God. Even in the pain of separation from a person, this is what we need to believe and understand. Reflect on the first reading taking time with God. 

God of prosperity or poverty

The second reading points to us the folly of looking at God as someone who gives is prosperity! This is all due to the craze of the humankind which has prioritised prosperity and idolised the sense of having! Why is it that having in plenty and having in abundance is better than, having what you need and being happy with just the minimum! It looks like a thought out of the world, a thought that does not work! How easily we accept a statement like: you believe in God and you will have every thing you need in life; you submit yourself to God and you will have all the blessings that you think of...what a fallacy it is! St. Paul reminds us today: we believe in a God who made of Godself so poor, a God of total self-giving. God so loved the humanity that God gave everything including God's only son for our salvation; the Son so loved us that he gave us everything, including his own body and blood; the Spirit so loves us that the Spirit has deigned to make us the dwelling place! God became poor that we may feel enriched, blessed, filled with graces. So what should be our mentality? To seek to receive as much as we can? Or to give of ourselves as much as we can? That will decide whether we hold on to a god of arrogant prosperity or the God of loving poverty!

God of healing or punishment

The Gospel speaks to us of the consoling God of healing...specially in these days when everywhere the talk is about disease and death, the God of healing is a great consolation indeed. It is so disheartening to hear some, although they call themselves persons of God, or prophets, or preachers, or evangelists or whatever title they wish to give...but speaking words like: this pandemic is a wrath of God, a punishment from God and so on! How I wish these were dumb, for God's sake! Jesus connects us to the God who is Love. Love does not wish the pain of others, love wishes nothing but good. At times there are things which come as a consequence of our actions, a collective damage that we create for ourselves, the effect of the greed of some which affects even the others and the innocent...but can we attribute that to God? Punishing God was an interpretation that the people of Israel often had recourse to, to explain their sad and unfortunate predicament...but Jesus trashed it...Jesus overthrew it...Jesus has challenged us to grow over it. Whether we touch God as the woman with hemorrhage did today, of God touches us as Jesus did to the girl on the death bed...the result is healing, wholenses, life! God is a healing God. God gives wholeness! God gives life. God gives health! God gives meaning! God gives purpose! God gives eternal life!

Who is my God? God of life! God who embraced poverty out of love for me! God who gives me healing! Can we rest with that question today: who is your God?

When the Lord enters...

WORD 2day: Saturday, 12th week in Ordinary time

June 26, 2021: Genesis 18: 1-15; Matthew 8: 5-17

The Word today has the leitmotif of the Lord who enters homes and when the Lord does that, there is something marvellous happening. 

The Lord enters Abraham's house, and the childless Sarah bears a child. The Lord enters Peter's home and Peter's mother in law rises up from her fever. The Lord's presence makes things come anew. There is a third episode here which brings the same theme to the next plane: a mere Word from the Lord can make things beautiful.

The Word, is the living presence of the Lord... it represents the entirety of the Lord to us, for two reasons: Incarnation and the Mystery of the Trinity. 

Incarnation, is the Word becoming flesh and coming to live among us. That initiated a new relationship between us and God. A God who was of course loved and respectfully acknowledged all through the Old Testament, was still a powerful Other who was out there setting everything up for our wellbeing. But with the Incarnation, God becomes One among us, someOne who can empathise with us! That is the Word.

The role of the Word in the mystery of the Trinity is something beautiful and sweet...because, it is through the Word that we know God. Word is not merely about words spoken or written, but it is all about Communication. The Communication of God, is what makes us truly children of God... no one has known or seen God, but the Word introduces God to us and the Word is the Spirit at work...what a great gift we have in the Word of God. 

If we allow the Word of the Lord to enter our homes, everything will be renewed testifies the Centurion in the Gospel. Allowing the Lord to enter our homes is a marvellous thing to do; but it involves a great risk too. Things will not be the same anymore. We will have to be ready to forgo of a few things because, when the Lord enters everything is renewed! Are we ready for the renewal?

The folly of a Back-up plan!

WORD 2day: Friday, 12th week in Ordinary time

June 25, 2021: Genesis 17: 1, 9-10, 15-22; Matthew 8: 1-4

At times we act smart. Though we ask God for a favour, we begin making a back up plan...if in case we do not get what we ask! That actually spells a doom in most of the cases and instead of backing up, it backfires. 

We see Sarah, wife of Abram, making a back up plan of begetting a child through the maid servant and how it backfired. Today, even as he listens to God communicating his plan, Abraham is intent on having a back up plan, seeing Ishmael as his progeny! Abraham has still to grow in his faith, true and total faith. He will grow and he would soon be an epitome of faith, but not yet.

Faith is not having a back-up plan! It is a total entrustment to the Lord. How preapared are we? How many times we make back-up plans in spite of telling the Lord - Lord you are my all, my refuge and my fortress. Just imagine when a person asks you for a favour, and you get to know the person has asked a number of others too, for the same favour, how would you really feel?

In the Gospel today, we have an instance that shows us what it means to believe without a back up plan. ..'Lord if you wish. ..' An attitude of surrender, a total surrender that is not tempted by the folly of having a back up plan. Alternatives are in the hands of God. ..it is not for us to make back up plans when we believe in God, but to make an act of faith and leave everything into the hands of God. 

As children of God, would we realise that a back-up plan, in terms of faith, is really a folly!

Call, Purpose & destiny

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

June 24, 2021: Solemnity of the nativity of St. John the Baptist

Isaiah 49:1-6; Acts 13: 22-26; Luke 1: 57-66,80

The Gospels narrate a long list of similarities between the stories of John and Jesus... the apparently 'impossible' conditions in which the mothers conceived, the direct intervention of God in the conception, the apparitions of the angels to the fathers, the prior choice of the name of the child to be born - one simple message is the image of John the Baptist as the precursor of Jesus.

The birth narratives of John and Jesus, together have another important message to reveal to us and that is, we are not here by chance! We are part of a complex plan, an eternal design of God. We are willed into existence by God; we are loved into existence, by the Creator! In fact nothing happens by chance and there are no coincidences... if we look harder, if only we spend more attention, we can certainly see the hand of God, a miracle therein!

We have a purpose, because God knew us right when we were being formed in the womb of our mothers! We have a special mission because, it is the Lord who has called us by name, even before we were born! We are chosen in the eyes of God, because as St. Paul says, God has chosen us before the foundations of the world in Christ Jesus, to be holy and blameless! Many of us, how blind and lazy we remain, not willing (not that we are incapable) to see what God really wants of us! If only we grow in our eagerness to respond to God's will, we shall be living miracles of God, wherever we are.

So, we are created, called, commissioned and destined to usher in the Reign of God, as John announced the coming of Christ. Let us become aware of our call, our purpose and our destiny, which is much larger than the petty preoccupations of our daily worries! Troubles, disease, and suffering - where can they at the most lead us to? To death! Even that is won by the Lamb, whom John foretold. All that we need to do is become more and more intensely aware of our call, our purpose and our destiny.

Before you call yourself a Christian, prove it!

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 12th week in Ordinary time

June 23, 2021: Genesis 15: 1-12, 17-18; Matthew 7: 15-20 

The Tree and the Fruits! Abraham, was a man of God, he was the father of the covenantal people! Abraham listened, obeyed, believed and remained loyal to the Lord who called him. The Covenant the Lord made was the tree and Abraham's life choices were the fruits

The eternal covenant that is made in the blood of Jesus Christ, is the guarantee of the grace and the gift of faith within us. It is the sap of the tree that we are, as God's children. While it is God's action that God has transformed us into God's children in our baptism, our daily life and regular choices have to bear fruits that will make it visible to the world and to ourselves, that we are trees of God. 

An anonymous author reminds us, 'you may be the only gospel that someone reads! So be careful with the way you live your life!' May your fruits identify who you are, not merely your self-trumpetting words. Let not your fruits betray who you really are, in spite of all the over-blown claims that you have about yourself - as a child of God, person of God, instruments of God and so on and so forth!

I am a Christian... and that has to be a fact not merely in my title or in my words and claims, not merely even in my activities, responsibilities and external duties that I carry out; but in every choice of mine, every thought and expression of it, every intention that gives rise to my word and my deeds at every moment of my life. 

I remember a question once a preacher posed during a retreat, 'if today they detain you for being a Christian, will they find enough evidence in you to implicate you?' A powerful question, extremely simple in its categorical demand that before you call yourself a Christian, prove it!

Fairness and Justice: a sense of God

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 12th week in Ordinary time

June 22, 2021: Genesis 13: 2, 5-18; Matthew 7: 6, 12-14

I was impressed by a child in the train during one of my trips. She had her younger brother with her and every time the mother was giving anything to her or buying something for her from the vendors, she instantly would turn to her younger brother as if asking her mother, what about him? The curious climax was, when she returned the biscuit packet that she was sharing with her brother, to her mother with just one biscuit remaining in it. When the mother asked her why she left just one biscuit behind there, she said there is only one, how we two will take it? The simplicity of that innocent mind...just blew me away. I began wondering where has this kind of a spirit gone, in the world today!

Selfishness and greed, jealousy and competition has become the order of the day. Hardly anyone wishes to do anything if that does not bring them dividends atleast in some measure or kind. Notice the way Abraham dealt with his brother Lot. And pay attention to the golden rule: doing what you would wish others do to you. These are narrow doors. Those won't be the kind of behaviour that you can expect the mainstream humanity to choose spontaneously, especially today. However, as disciples of the Lord, our choice has to be precisely this: a choice for fairness and justice, that would be the right sense of being a person of God.

To let go!

WORD 2day: Monday, 12th week in Ordinary time

June 21, 2021: Genesis 12: 1-9; Matthew 7: 1-5

We will be presented with Abraham for our reflection for the next few days. But what was so special about Abraham? From the very first moment the Word clarifies that. Leave your country and your people, calls the Lord and there he is doing it with such confidence. He lets go of everything, everything that gave him an identity.

The Gospel presents to us a similar and greater challenge: to let go... of our opinions, judgements and prejudices about people and to be open minded. At times we become so handicapped, not because of any physical or mental disability, but the spiritual incapacity to remain open, so filled with our own opinions and judgements. 

We decide on seeing a person, what kind of a person someone is - and worse, we boast about it saying, 'I can say what kind of a person someone is, at the very first sight!'. With one experience with someone, we decide everyone from that background or from the same context, will be the same and we become cautious or judgemental about them! When someone does something we are alright with it, but if someone else whom we do not have a great opinion about, does the same thing, we make a hue and cry as if the whole world is crumbling!

How many new experiences we would have lost because of our opinionated approach! How many enriching encounters we would have lost because of our prefixed judgements! How many growth experiences we would have lost because of our prejudiced mindset. How prepared are we to let go of our opinions and judgements and look at persons and realities everytime with fresh eyes? It is truly a spirituality, to let go!

WHAT A MIGHTY GOD WE HAVE!

Be still, behold and be urged... 

June 20, 2021: 12th Sunday in Ordinary time

Job 38: 1, 8-11; 2 Corinthians 5: 14-17; Mark 4: 35-41

Be Still... and you will know what a mighty God you have!

But is this so easy to do in times such as these...when all we hear is about sickness, contagion, disease, death, ICU, emergency, lockdown, second wave and third wave, virus, variant and vaccination! It seems so difficult to think of God in terms of God's benevolence and might.

Even otherwise, we are so fond of lamenting, fretting, complaining, grumbling, panting and gasping, that we fail to notice the mighty presence of God right beside us as we struggle in the daily storms of life. It takes that moment when the Lord finally intervenes and says: Quiet! Be Still...I am here, right here, in the midst of it all. Don't you see? Don't you believe? Haven't you experienced my interventions in the past? Haven't you learnt that lesson yet?

It is one of our regular unfortunate experiences - that we do a series of good, a long list of acts of love and compassion, and every duty of ours to perfection until one mistake, or one misunderstanding, or one misfired act... people react as if we have always been that way! We begin to wonder, all the good and the perfect things that I did so far, do they count at all? At times, we put God through that kind of an experience too! When things go wrong, when things are out of control, it is important to 'Be still, and know that the Lord is!'

Behold! a New Thing... the mighty God is creating it for you!

At times the turbulence that you go through may be a new thing in the making! You know how the east coast of Chennai was affected due to Tsunami. Yes, that was a big tragedy. But once going for some work to a place near the East Coast, the person who was with me commented looking at a mighty building there: if it were not for the Tsunami, we would not have this building here! Though it may sound less sensitive to the disaster and its effects, the statement triggered an insight in me. At times the turbulences that we experience in life, may lead to newer and fresher outlooks on events.

Loss of job, crisis in a work place, calamities that affect daily life, transfers, change of leaderships...these at times may look like big hurdles. But as times goes by and when we overcome these situations for good and experience a new lease of life, we would realise how through what was once thought of as a problem, we have had pleasant surprises, experiences of growth and an opportunity to live life more intensely. But if we do not reflect we would miss it all. When Socrates said it - an unreflected life is a wasted life - he did have a great sense, particularly in the spiritual sense. It is our responsibility to behold the new things that the Lord deigns to make for us. It is easy to miss them all.

Be Urged by the Love of Christ... the mightiest experience of God!

In every thing and at every moment, be urged by the love of Christ; a love that so powerfully brings the presence of God into our life. Allow God into your life, feel the presence of God and enjoy the love that God continues to shower on you - a love so immense and unconditional. If only we taste that love of God, we would become so filled with that love that we will overflow with that love. Our words, our thoughts, our gestures, our relations, our interactions and everything in us will be flooded with that love and people around us will experience it. That love will urge me to be loving; that love will push me to reach out to the other in love; that love will not allow me to remain quiet about the goodness that I have experienced; that love will make goodness so contagious and of course everything around me will be created anew! 

Yes... can we stand up and accept the challenge: The Love of Christ urges us, to be still and recognise the presence of God, to behold everything new that the Lord is creating for us and to be urged by the love of Christ, to share the same loving presence of God with everyone in need! If only we realise, what a mighty God we have!