God's ever present guidance

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

October 2, 2021: Celebrating the Guardian Angel 
Baruch 4: 5-12,27-29; Matthew 18: 1-5,10

The readings today speak to us of the experience of the people who walked away from God, who rejected God and when they were down in the drudge, they repented of their choices. They felt and were convinced that it was because they went against God that they faced all those bitter experiences that they had to face. They express their conviction and beseech God for mercy! God made them realise that inspite of all their unfaithfulness and imprudent choices, God has always been with them and God wants to be with them! This was another powerful experience that the people of Israel had. 

When they were in the desert, they felt God walking with them, being with them, leading them to the new land... these experiences of God that people had, became the watershed of their history / a God who was present, who inspired and who accompanied them. This is the experience that is consolidated in the belief in the Guardian Angels: God's incessant presence and unfailing guidance. Jesus refers to that phenomenon in the Gospel and invites us to believe, accept and respect the presence of God through the Angels with us in our daily life.

When we stand by the little ones, guide the confused, redirect the faltering, strengthen the tired, hold firm the drooping, uplift the downtrodden, encourage the heart broken, we would be playing Angels to these because we would be doing exactly what the Lord wants to do to them, we would be representing God's presence to them. This is what the Lord wants us to do - to feel the presence of the Lord when we are on a down trip, and to be the presence of the Lord when we notice someone on a losing ground. 

Let us believe in the Guardian Angels, experience the guardian angels and play guardian angels to whomever we can!

Integrity is to remain children!

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

October 1, 2021: Remembering St. Teresa of Child Jesus 
Baruch 1: 15-22; Luke 10: 13-16

Integrity belongs to the Lord proclaims prophet Baruch. We have only responded with our weakness, the prophet laments. But despite that the Lord has always considered us God's children, who fall, fail and falter but are always in the heart of the merciful God. God wishes to keep us in the heart, but are we humble enough to remain?

All good things we begin with a great spirit, as children who are excited about the new uniform and new books and notebooks for the school, but soon get tired of them and wish to get rid of them as soon as possible. To remain children is a special capacity. It is a capacity to acknowledge the love of God, a readiness to be open and attentive to the Lord's commands, and an eagerness to hold on to the relationship that God offers us on a daily basis and do all that we can for the sake of God's will.

This is what Jesus meant when he said, unless you become like children you would not enter the Reign of God. We need to be attentive to the Lord and listen to God's will... God's will shall be brought to us through various means, especially through the persons around and events that happen. If we listen to them, we welcome God's presence; if we refuse to listen to them, we reject what the Lord wishes to communicate!

St. Teresa of Lisieux lived just 24 years, never crossed her convent walls but today is known as the patroness of the missions... because the center of her life was the Word to which she paid a close and loving attention. She lived a life centered around the Word- that is the life that the Lord has invited us to: to listen to the Lord and grow in our integrity. That is, to remain children, to remain God's children all our life.

The Book and the book of life

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

September 30, 2021: Celebrating St. Jerome

Nehemiah 8: 1-12; Luke 10: 1-12

Celebrating Jerome, we are reminded of how he dedicated his entire life for the Word of God. Vulgate, the famous translation and the most diffused of the versions for a long time in the Church, was majorly a work of Jerome. We see in the first reading the Book being openned and read in public and all the people passionately responding to it. This is a prototype of what a Church has to be, provided already in the Old Testament - the people of God united in the Word of God and together responding to the Word saying: the law of the Lord gives joy to the heart! 

The Book - has always remained the source of meaning and joy for the people of God. The Book here is not merely a set of printed papers bound together, but it refers to the living Word enshrined in the faith tradition of people and the community. It is the Word, who lives and moves amidst us, enlightening our minds and hearts, as to how our life has to be organised and celebrated. 

When the Word is listened to wholeheartedly, and it is put to practice, gradually the Book gets translated. It gets translated into the book of life... The Bible may be the Book of life, but it has to give rise to the book of my life, for every one around me to read, understand, experience and get to know God. With just reading the Bible, one does not become a son or a daughter of God, but in becoming the book, in tranlsating the Book into daily life choices. 

Hence the feast of today and the Word invite us to a coherence between the Book and the book of life, between the Word of God and the way the Word is lived by each of us. Look at Jesus preparing his apostles to be sent to proclaim the Word - he does not give them a training on how to proclaim, what scheme to follow and how to frame the announcement! He  simply tells them "proclaim the Reign" and rest of what he  says is all about how to live, where to stay, what to eat and wear, whom to meet and with whom to stay! In short, Jesus is focussed on their life and life practices, as he gives them the commission to proclaim the Word.

That is true of us too... We have the Word which has to determine our daily life; the Book that has to be the source of the book of our life - then we shall worthily be called God's people, sons and daughters of God. 

The felt presences of God

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

September 29, 2021: Celebrating the Archangels
Daniel 7: 9-10, 13-14; John 1: 47-51

Angels - how do we understand them? Angels are of various types and categories in various traditions. Every faith tradition speaks of angels, and each from its own perspective. As we well know, the Christian understanding of Angels is much drawn from the Jewish understanding of Angels, which in turn was much influenced by the Egyptian understanding. However, the Catholic teaching has gone through much refinement and we should thank God for the continuous revelations that we have had right through our faith tradition.

Angels are the extensions of God; they are infact the felt presences of God. When a person needs to understand what the Lord wants of the person, the One who speaks those words is Angel Gabriel, the message of God. When a person badly needs a healing, a boost of health to carry out his or her assigned tasks in life, the One who brings that healing or the necessary strength is Angel Raphael, the healing of God. When a person feels weak and worn out, unable to withstand the tiresome world, the One who strengthens them is Angel Michael, the strength of God. 

How many persons we come across on a daily basis, in our homes, our families, our communities, our workplaces, who long to hear a good word, who look for a soothing balm for their hampered hearts, who long for a sustaining assurance! Think about the moments in which you were yourself in those typical situations... how much you would have longed for such a 'help from above'! Anyone who came up exactly at those moments with exactly what we needed, are part of a divine intervention. They are indeed angels! 

The question now is, not what I am in need of. But, what am I going to do for those in need around me today: for the least, how much time am I ready to spend with them? What good words do I have in store for them? What encouraging gesture of mine is going to strengthen them in their endeavours? 

In short, how do I plan to start being a felt presence of God to my neighbour?

Knowing God is from within...

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 26th week in Ordinary time

September 28, 2021: Zechariah 8: 20-23; Luke 9: 51-56

Though Evangelisation is one great mission that is entrusted to every person who knows God, it is not a means to force anyone to get to know God. One cannot know God by force - neither by brutal force nor other milder moral force! In fact, attempting to make people know God by any force only works against the very objective. 

Knowing God has to happen! It should come from within. The concerned person should feel the presence of God in and through the persons around, the situation around and the experiences that happen. Hence evangelisation essentially, is not making people know God but making people see what I have known about God, how I know God and as what I know God!

It is not forcing someone towards knowing God, but creating a situation, enabling experiences, that would enable people to know God and experience God. The key and the secret here is that my life has to be so encompassed by the presence of  God that those around me find a clue to experiencing God in our day to day normal relationships. It is not to do with some exceptional moments or miraculous happenings but with my daily life, normal choices, habitual words and my spontaneous outlook on life events.

Once I really experience God, know God and fall in love with God, people around me see the experience that makes such a difference for me, and they wish to get to know God from me and begin to love the One whom I love! This is true evangelisation, and that comes from within because, without any doubt, knowing God is from within.

The Lord calls us 'My People'

THE WORD AND THE SAINT 

September 27, 2021: Remembering St. Vincent de Paul

Zechariah 8: 1-8; Luke 9: 46-50

The Word time and again reiterates that the Lord shall be our God and we shall be the God's people. To be the Lord's people, we have to make some definitive choices: for an instance, there are two grounds presented in the Word today. 

One, that we behold and recognise the presence of the Lord amidst us! To behold the Lord's presence we should be worthy and prepared. To recognise the presence of the Lord we should be open and eager to experience it. And finally to cherish the presence of the Lord we should be humble and docile, to listen to the challenges posed by that presence, in our daily life. That leads us to the second ground.

The second ground is, to choose to live our life according to the values and criteria that are given by the Lord and worthy of the Lord. As St. Paul would often remind us: not conforming to the standards of the world but being recreated in the image of Christ (cf. Rom 12:2) and putting on Christ (Rom 13:14). Putting on Christ who is the visible image of the invisible God, is to become as merciful as possible, as loving and compassionate as possible, as other-oriented as possible. 

Here the saint we commemorate today, St. Vincent de Paul, stands a great example to us. He was someone who challenged himself and shaped his entire life towards becoming like Christ to the needy, the poor, the suffering, the neglected and the least in the society. That is the absolute criterion of becoming like Christ, that is becoming truly God's people, in imitation of the Son of God!

Yes, the Word and the Saint of today pose this question to us: the Lord calls us "My People"... are we prepared and worthy to call the Lord with courage, "My God"?

THE REIGN PEOPLE

Solidarity in the Lord

September 26, 20215 - 26th Sunday in Ordinary time

Numbers 11: 25-29; James 5: 1-6; Mark 9: 38-43,45,47-48

We are living, not just in the time of plurality, but in a time of post-truth plurality! Are you wondering what this term 'post truth plurality' is all about? We shall first reflect on it, clarify it first and then enter into the Word of God for this Sunday, because the Word has a challenging call to give us! We know what plurality is - specially if one is from a context like India - we experience plurality on a daily basis. Plurality of religions, languages, proveniences, socio-political ideologies and so on, are our normal life situation and it is a universal condition. But what is this post-truth plurality? 

Avoiding a whole lot of philosophical excursus on what 'post-truth' means, we can simply understand it in these terms: it can be a precarious stand that persons (or societies at large) take when it comes to truth, accepting what vibes with their convictions as truth and insisting that they should have the freedom to hold it so, but at the same time not allowing the other/s to have their opinion or their judgement on things. It is a kind of relativism that is self-centred or autoreferential. Now taking off from that description, post-truth plurality is - affirming and appreciating a plurality that is convenient to oneself and failing to see the goodness or the possible positivity in another similar experience of plurality! Don't we have realities today which boasts of 'unity in diversity', but looks at difference as a problem, diversity as a threat, plurality as a dangerous multiplicity and not a richness! Why all these discussions - simply to hightlight the fact that we, the so-called people of God, that is 'Reign people,'  cannot have such a mentality of pseudo-openness of convenience or hypocritical and empty dicourses of being one people of God but in fact, feeling divided and egoistic. The readings bring out this message with such power, in three exhortations today.

Intracommunitarian Solidarity: The first exhortation from the Word, to be Reign people is, to practice Intracommunitarian Solidarity, that is, solidarity with those who are with me, my fellow believers in the Lord. In the first reading, when the enthusiasts with Moses get upset with those two of their fellowmen - Eldad and Medad - because they were getting popular by themselves, Moses grabs the opportunity to give them the lesson: we need to live in solidarity in the Lord. It is not about who does what, but about for whom we do what we do! Within a believing community, it has to be for the Lord, only then we are truly Reign people. How many times within our parish communities, religious communities or even within the family, there arise problems because some one is doing good! Our ego and our sense of jealousy makes us uncharitable to our own brothers and sisters, making every one's life sad and miserable! How can we be called Reign people?

Intercommunitarian Solidarity: The second exhortation towards being Reign people is, to promote intercommunitarian solidarity. This has to be lived in varied levels - taking a family as the fundamental unit of a people of God, it takes the form of a sense of solidarity among families; solidarity among one believing community and others (as St. Paul used to insist with the early Christian communities); interdiocesan communities or among religious congregations... at whatever level, without love and unity, we fail terribly in our vocation. The worst scandal we can give the world is our disunity. Just imagine the interdenominational or interconfessional problems we create and nurture, without understanding all these differences will turn obsolete in the presence of the Lord, in the Reign of the Lord. Jesus teaches this in the Gospel - you should not stop them from performing miracles, anyway they did it in my name, isn't it, he asks the disciples who looked so apprehensive about someone else taking away their coveted place. Jesus' point is , to be Reign people, we need to transcend all these demarcations and convince ourselves, that we all belong to that One, Powerful, loving God!

Extracommunitarian Solidarity: The third exhortation towards being Reign people, is to be, as Pope Francis repeats so often, 'being a Church that reaches out!' We cannot be closed in within ourselves, if we need to be truly people of God, authentically persons of the Reign. Looking out and reaching out, in particular to the poor, the exploited, the oppressed, the down trodden and families in crises. James begins with a conceptual painting of partiality in a community, dual standards in treating people and so on...and ends with this teaching on woe to those who are insensitive to the other. This is in fact one of the essential criteria for a Reign person - to have the capacity to see the sufferings of the other. Jesus taught it in clear and lucid terms, and the apostles learnt from it. To reach out to the needy, to help and empower the poor, a kind word to the worried, a simple smile to one who is sad and lonely, these are some simple  gestures endorsed by the Spirit of the Lord who works through anyone, absoluetely any one.We cannot let the black clouds of hierarchical thinking, chosen-people syndrome, and fear of the Truth, obscure the light we have within us as children of God. 

To be Reign people, in short, is to grow in communion with the Lord, with the rest of our brothers and sisters, and with the entire universe. That communion is really the Reign of God that we are called to proclaim and make present. doing that we shall grow to be Reign people. 

God and God alone

WORD 2day: Saturday, 25th week in Ordinary time

September 25,2021: Zechariah 2:5-9,14-15; Luke 9: 43-45

Beginning with last Sunday the Gospel has been dwelling on the theme of Jesus announcing his suffering. However, it is not yet the close of his ministry, if we carefully watch the context of the passages reflected upon. What then is Jesus proposing to teach? 

Life with the Lord is not a career, it is not a life securing strategy. It could be infact, on the contrary, a challenging self giving. When we make a choice for God, we are taking a risky step of giving away our traditional concepts of security, social upward mobility, self satisfaction and so on... but beyond all these insufficiencies there is the only Reality that can give meaning and fulfillment: God and God alone! 

I shall be a wall of fire for my people, says the Lord, an unassailable protection with an undying love. What a great guarantee we have in this promise of the Lord. But let us beware, it does not happen automatically. It is not that we are in that protection by default. We need to positively and by choice submit ourselves to that protection, it involves a definitive life style and deliberate daily choices. When we whole heartedly submit to the Lord, the magic happens - the wall of fire surrounds us, our divine shepherd guards us.

It is this underlying conviction based on the almighty presence of the ever living God that gives joy to a God's child, happiness beyond all struggles, calmness beyond all anxieties, loveliness beyond all brokenness. God and God alone, can fill our beings truly!

Shake Up the World

WORD 2day: Friday, 25th week in Ordinary time

September 24, 2021: Haggai 1:15 - 2:9; Luke 9: 18-22

A little while now, and I am going to shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land, says the Lord in the first reading. Shaking up was a characteristic experience that Jesus gave to those who were around him. Jesus' self understanding and his consciousness of the Divine mandate was so strong and clear that it shook the earth and heaven; not merely that once when he died on the cross rejected and condemned, but every time he came in touch with an old fashioned clichéd concept of spirituality. 

He shook up the pharisees, the saducees, the high priests, the lawyers, the herodians, the traditional Jews...and among those whom he shook, some became his followers and some others disciples and apostles. There were some who could not accept it and they wanted to do away with him and they did it, when they tried him and nailed him on the Cross. But all that remained was another shake up for them! It is Jesus' characteristic mark, to shake up those who are with him.

The same shake up happens everytime a follower of Christ lives up to his or her call and mandate. A follower of Christ, that is a Christian, has to be filled with the glory of the Lord from within. Look at some people who have lived very close to our times: Maxmillian Kolbe, Oscar Romero, Mother Teresa, Cardinal Newman or the thousands of Christians who stand up to their faith even if it were to cost their lives. 

The call for us today, is to be mindful of every situation or opportunity that would give us the possibility of manifesting the glory of the Lord enshrined within us, and by the shake up the world wherever we are! Can we?

Rebuilding the Body of Christ

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

September 23, 2021: Remembering Padre Pio of Pietrelcina

Haggai 1:1-8; Luke 9: 7-9

It is important to know that the house is in ruins and more important to know the reason. The world today is experiencing that ruin in many fronts. The wounded peace, the wrecked ecology, the neglected humanity, the despised helpless, the insensitive power centres and added to all these the ravaging pandemic... these are the experiences of ruins. If we carry on our lives paying no attention to these, but trying to live our religious lives as mere ritual requirements, we will be like Herod who was more curious to see Jesus than earnest to see himself in the light of Jesus.

The Saint we celebrate today, a saint of our times - hardly fifty years ago did he die. He stood as a reminder to the world, calling attention to the ruins of humanity, the ruins of human soul, the ruins of total wellbeing. As a dedicated pastor, he vehemently opposed the hypocritical practice of religious traditions and called people to an uncompromising commitment to Christian vocation. He stands today a great testimony that challenges every Christian to question and appraise oneself and one's commitment to the Lord. He reminded everyone whom he came across that we belong to God and as one community we build up the Mystical body of Christ, here on earth.

Today, to reflect on our house of ruins is not merely to criticise ourselves or everyone else who is around, but to look at ourselves in the light of Jesus and his Mystical Body. The Mystical Body of Christ is the communion of believers, the communion of human persons, a true communion of heart and spirit. Are we building up such a presence amidst us? If not, Jesus' body, the house of God, is in ruins! It is important that we know that the house is in ruins and more important that we analyse to see where really lies the problem. 

A bit of sincerity and a lot of dedication will set this house back in order - am I doing my part in it?