Hope is Change - but change is personal!

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

December 3, 2021: Celebrating St. Francis Xavier

First Friday in Advent: Isaiah 29: 17-24; Matthew 9: 27-31

The first reading today presents a hopeful picture for the people who were so much in suffering and oppression. Today this reading can really mean a lot for a world that is so burdened under pain, stress, suspicion and fear! Would this present situation of crisis and confusion change? The first reading tells us, it will! But in the Gospel Jesus, asks a question: do you think I can do it for you? 

What would be our answer to that question of Jesus: do you think I can do it for you? They, those persons with vision impairment, said, "Sir we do, we do believe that you can do it!" That is the sign of hope! Do we really believe that God can do it for us! There are more and more voices of hopeless despair who keep repeating things like - things are never going to be normal again; this is the end of everything and so on! What is my disposition? Hope is Change! 

Hope is Change! When they said they do believe that the Lord can change, the Lord can cure, Jesus said: 'let it be done to you according to YOUR faith'... Jesus seems to say, "Yes, hope is change; but change is personal! It begins from you!" If at all we wish to see a positive change in humanity, in the world and in the universe, it has to begin from every individual. The first reading too lays that down: the erring spirits will learn wisdom and the murmurers accept instruction!

This is what is witnessed to by St. Francis Xavier - a man who changed himself, who transformed himself from an ambitious young man to a passionate soldier of God. That conversion, that change was translated into hope for multitudes, specially in Asia, who came to know the Lord through him. Hope is change, but change is personal. It depends on each of us, what becomes of the world around us. Are we ready to take that responsibility upon ourselves?

Enter the gates - if you are founded on the Rock

THE WORD IN ADVENT

December 2, 2021: First Thursday in Advent

Isaiah 26: 1-6; Matthew 7: 21, 24-27

There are two words that link the first reading and the Gospel, and they are the key to understand the message of the Word today.  The two words are: to enter, and the Rock!

To enter the gates, to dwell in the house of the Lord, to inherit the Reign of God - that is our destiny. All that we do here on earth and all that we wish to accomplish with our lives, however short or limited they may be, is to prepare ourselves to enter into that eternal communion with the Lord; nothing else matters more! The desire to enter and the dream to enter is expressed in the first reading while the Gospel explains how! How to enter those gates, those gates which are narrow but ever open! How to enter them? 

Being founded on the Lord, our Rock, is the only way to enter those gates, not merely crying out Lord, Lord. Our so called prayers become empty words if we do not have a lasting relationship built with the Lord. When we have a loving and passionate relationship with the Lord, every thing we say or do, becomes a prayer; even a simple sigh becomes an extraordinary communication with the Lord, because we are founded on the communion with the Lord! Calling out 'Lord, Lord' may not be needed, because we shall feel the Lord ever present and so near! 

This is the simple and strong message that the Word gives us today, as a directive for advent preparation: Trust in the Lord your Rock, listen to the Lord and do what the Lord wants you to do, and you shall find yourself in front of those gates, the beautiful and brilliant gates of heaven, which shall be opened to you by the Lord your Rock! 

Hope and Promise - In the presence of the Lord

THE WORD IN ADVENT

December 1, 2021: First Wednesday in Advent

Isaiah 25: 6-10; Matthew 15: 29-37

This is the Lord, our God in whom we hoped! The Lord is the only one in whom we can hope! For hope is not merely the passing away of a troublesome experience here and now. It is not the disappearance of the difficulties we have at a given moment. Hope is about the sense of eternity; it is an experience of salvation; a dwelling forever in the house of the Lord. 

The promise of the Lord to prepare a banquet of rich food and fine wines, is not merely a promise of food and drink. As the Acts of the Apostles clarifies the mind of Christ to us: Reign of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. In short, it is Shalom! The fullness, the sense of tranquility, the sense of no-want, the sense of stillness where there is no anxiety of looking for one's needs, where there is no suffering of having to go through experiences of hurt and pain, where there is no craze to prove oneself or dominate the other for the sake of hogging limelight.

Jesus who multiplies the bread today to satisfy the people with him, does not consider it as some kind of an ultimate good that he is doing for them. He does it as a matter of fact... he cured the sick, he consoled the suffering, and he fed the hungry! For him all these were important...not just the food which mattered a lot to the people! That is why Jesus had to chide them once: do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life. He had to instruct them, time and again: a person does not live by bread or food alone! But these signs and miracles were exactly signs, signs that pointed to a reality more profound that Jesus wanted to introduce them, and wants to introduce us to.

The ultimate reality towards which the Advent preparation guides us, and the only lasting reality that can make us really fulfilled, is the eternal dwellings of the Lord - that is precisely where our hopes lie and what the promises of the Lord consist of... the promise and the bountiful grace of the Presence of the Lord.  

A Lesson from St. Andrew's Cross

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

November 30, 2021: Celebrating St. Andrew the Apostle

Romans 10: 9-18; Matthew 4: 18-22

We celebrate St. Andrew today! Though it could be a digression from the Advent journey that we have begun, still it offers us a special occasion to reflect on our life of discipleship and apostleship! St. Andrew is known in the Gospels for two important things - firstly for being the younger brother of St. Peter, and secondly as a person who brought people to Jesus (in fact John records in his Gospel, that it was Andrew who brought Peter to Jesus).

Apart from these, Andrew is known for his Cross - the Andrew's Cross. Incidentally, both the brothers had a similar request to the persecutioners  - Peter asked to be crucified in an inverted cross and Andrew asked to be crucified in a saltire cross (or a X shaped cross); both of them had the same reasoning: that they are not worthy to die on the Cross, just as their Master and Saviour did. 

By the way the inverted cross which was traditionally referred to as St. Peter's Cross, nowadays has come refer to the Cross of the Anti-Christ - this is totally false, ambiguous and absolutely a misrepresentation of facts! Certain antichristian occult groups use it with disdain against the people of God. Now coming back to St. Andrew's cross, we can have atleast two messages to learn from therein.

The first lesson is the absolute dedication and total submission that the apostles had towards their MAster Jesus Christ. They were ready to suffer to any extent - as the Acts of the Apostles reports, when they had to suffer more for Christ, they were more joyful! It reminds us of the immeasurable abyss that lies between the way we reflect and theologise on suffering and in the way we face them in our concrete experiences! 

The second lesson is the true spiritual humility that governed the Apostles' way of following Christ. Today when Pope Francis speaks so much against clericalism, against the so-called Christian faith sans compassion, against closing ourselves within the Church as a fortification instead of opening up the vistas, the Holy Father is challening us towards finding every means of witnessing to the message of Christ, in all its fullness, among the most incredulous of persons.

May St. Andrew who brought so many to Christ, help us to be instruments in this modern world to bring hearts to the One Saviour and Lord.  

The Advent Journey - walking in the Light!

THE WORD IN ADVENT 

November 29, 2021: First Monday of Advent
Isaiah 2: 1-5; Matthew 8: 5-11

We have begun our Advent journey for this year... come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord! That is a perennial call that we have as people of God: to go up to the mountain of the Lord. Lord who can climb your mountain, who can dwell in your tent - those who walk blamelessly and do what is right, and speak the truth from their heart, says Psalm 15:2.

We begin this journey as said yesterday, with hope on the promises of the Lord. The Lord's promises are consoling: I will come myself and cure, says the Lord. It is the centurion who said those inspiring words, which we repeat everyday - Lord I am not worthy to have you under my roof, but only say a word and the healing shall take place! That is Hope! How beautiful to become aware of the promise and the hope!

A beautiful imagery that the Centurion speaks of today: the imagery of the servants who carry out the will of their master. That is what we are - servants of the Master of the Universe, humble children of the Father of all creation, the One who created us and calls us to be God's children, in our image, in our likeness, in our life and in our very beings. That is a hope and a promise together: the hope that the Lord is there with us telling us what to do and when to do! It is our duty to promise our obedience, that this hope will lead to the fulfilment of God's promises, that one day we will find ourselves on that Holy Mountain of the Lord!

Let us accept this call, pledge our obedience and begin our journey with hope, walking in the light of the Lord!

HOPE: THE PROMISE THAT DEMANDS

Promise, Project & Prophecy

First Sunday in Advent - November 28, 2021

Jeremiah 33:14-16; 1 Thessalonians 3:12 - 4:2; Luke 21: 25-28, 34-36

 

A very happy new year! May the new liturgical year that unfolds today, bring us closer to the Lord, in and through an ever-increasing love for the Word, the Word become Flesh, the Word become human, the Word who wishes to dwell not only amidst us, but within us! That is the promise; a promise that leads to the hope that everything will be reconciled in the Word; a promise that is consoling but at the same time demanding!

The Word and the Liturgical significance of this day, give us three key terms to reflect on: promise, project and prophecy!

PROMISE: The first reading brings to our mind, the theme central to the new liturgical season that we begin today. Advent is all about promise! Blessed is the one who believes in the fulfilment of what the Lord has promised. The book of Jeremiah, just as any other book of the prophets, enshrines within itself the promises of the Lord, and Jeremiah as one of the latter prophets underlines the imminence of the promises of the Lord.   

The promise of Salvation comes from the Lord of Integrity, the Lord who values truth and justice more than mere pacifying sacrifices and empty rituals. That is where the promise gets exigent – because I am challenged to measure up to the Lord who has created me and who has called me. The Lord promises salvation to me, salvation that comes with my dedication and commitment to integrity; that quality which makes my faith and my daily life one and the same, my words and my works coherent with each other, and my expectations from the other and my disposition to them corresponding to each other. The promise attains fulfillment only in as much as I am committed to the process in the core of my being.

PROJECT: A promise is an element of hope, in as much as it sets in motion a project! The Lord has not given me only a promise, but a project as well. The second reading from the letter to the Thessalonians, reminds me of this project that the Lord has initiated in me. The project of becoming holy and blameless in the sight of God, is a life-long project and on it depends so much the fulfillment of the promises given to me!

The project of holiness, involves love – loving each and every one, the entire humanity, and especially those who do not have anyone who could give them this love! That is the type of life that we are called to live – ‘make progress in the kind of life that you are meant to live’, says St. Paul. As people of the promise, we have a life that we are meant to live, when we fail in living up to it, we fail to be people of the promise! We can have a myriad of reasons – that everyone out there is so selfish and greedy, that everyone is trying to plot and exploit, that no one deserves my love, that no one really loves genuinely as each one has a hidden reason to all the goodness they manifest… none of these reasons can stand their ground before the love of the Lord who has given us the promise and who has given us this project. Because the Lord loved us even when we were sinner; and when we were still sinner, God deigned to send God’s only Son, that we may be saved and loved forever. That is the source and the summit of hope: God’s love.

PROPHECY: Apart from the Word, the liturgical significance of the day today, adds a splendid element – the prophecy! We have lighted the candle of the Prophets this week, and it suggests that the event we are preparing to celebrated was not one isolated event that took place on a particular cold night in Bethlehem. No, there lies a long history, in fact the entire story of humankind, behind that event in that starry night.

The prophecy of the Coming of the Reign, requires that we stay alive, active and alert! That we watch ourselves, our words and our works, our choices and our priorities, our wishes and our prayers! When we pray, ‘your kingdom come’, what do we mean? Do we really mean what Jesus meant: that we be protagonists of the Reign and not those who are surprised by its coming! When problems arise, crises spring up and injustice seems to have its sway, we are called to remain alert to notice it, to remain ardent to denounce it, and thus remain apostles of the Reign who propose a counter culture. By our very lives and our daily choices, we are called to propose a counter culture to this world, and not helplessly and slavishly conform to this world. It is there we see the coming of the Reign and out lives become a prophecy. That is what Advent calls us to: to live lives of prophecy that would announce to the world that is tired and wearied, that the Lord is coming; that the Lord of salvation is coming; that the Lord of integrity is near!

We are called to be prophets of hope today, persons and communities who behold the promises of the Lord, who live by a project of life from the Lord and who hold out a prophecy to the world, that the Lord and our salvation is near! Come Lord Jesus, may your Kingdom Come!  

Stay Awake... in every sense!

WORD 2day: Saturday, Last day of the Ordinary time

November 27, 2021: Daniel 7: 5-27; Luke 21: 34-36

Stay awake!, shakes us up the Gospel today... and the first reading explains, why to! Let us begin with the latter part...that is, why to stay awake? Then we shall see what it means to stay awake!

Why to stay awake - because there is so much happening around me! There are those who are conniving and plotting against goodness and godliness; there are things happening that are fast ruining the little good that has been built up by traditions of ages; there could be impacts created within me wherein I, even without my knowledge, unwittingly giving into fear, psychosis and pessimism! I need to Stay Awake. 

Staying awake is Seeing: seeing within me, around me and into others, that I am observant about the changes happening and am conscious about the effects of these changes on myself. Without really seeing, I cannot understand what is being communicated to me, by the Lord in and through time. 

Staying awake is Syncing: syncing with the whole reality - with the Divine, with the cosmos, with the neighbours, with the entire humanity and all that is! We are not created as isolated beings, nor are we created above everything else! The Creator has given us a privilleged place within the creation, yes! But that is no license to destroy, nor an excuse for dominance; it is a role of care, concern and compassion! To the extent I am able to sync, I shall be godly, for our God is a God of communion!

Staying awake is Standing up: standing up against all the odds that are perpetrated by the godless with disdain - those who are heartless, merciless, senseless, shameless in siding with injustice and truthlessness! How can we stand up against them without staying awake; how can we call ourselves awake, if we really do not stand up againt anything that militates against truth, justice and love!

Let us strive to stay aware, stay awake in every sense! 

Never to pass away!

WORD 2day: Friday, last week in Ordinary time

November 26, 2021: Daniel 7: 2-14; Luke 21: 29-33

A pain reliever statement suggested by many in today's world is, 'this too will pass'. Specially these days battling against the pandemic, every one, whether he or she believes it or not, whether one is convinced of it or not, atleast as a hopeful wish, keeps repeating that mantra: 'this too shall pass'! But, though it may seem contrary, a more stronger promise is the recurring theme of today's Word; it is a reference to something that is here, never to pass away... the Lord's Word, the Lord's Reign, the Lord's sovereignty.

Things may appear to be going totally out of sway, or nothing may seem to be really under the control of anything that is spiritual... but never lose heart, God is incharge; God is in control. There are people who make statements about this pandemic, saying, we shall never return to what was 'normal'; even if we return to normal, it shall be a 'new normal'! As children of God, however bad the readings of the times is, we cannot be too anxious!

The Word speaks to our hearts today: your Saviour knows you and to the the Lord's Reign there is no end. Be firm in faith. Hold on to the One who has formed you, One who has called you and One who loves you infinitely - the One whose Words will never pass away; the One whose Reign shall never pass away, the One whose will shall never pass away...let your faith too never pass away.

With heads held high!

WORD 2day: Thursday, last week in Ordinary time

November 25, 2021: Daniel 6: 12-28; Luke 21: 20-28

Let me begin with a personal note today! Within the circle of our friends, if some one said the words, 'look upon high', it would draw a roaring laughter instantaneously! It is because of a veteran trainer whom we know who would give a famous 'thought-for-the-day'. He would have his ages old notes in his hands and look into it and read the thought for us. There was a funny moment always when he would say 'look upon high' and immediately look down into his notes for the next part! The readings today reminded me of those days from our student life.

Living with heads held high, is a deep imagery offered to us today. Some names like Oscar Romero, Mother Teresa, Sr. Rani Maria, Mrs Gladys Staines or the recent addition of Fr. Stan Swami...these are well known to us not for the great power they wielded or prominent posts they held, but for the endurance they had! The threats and violence and opposition that surrounded them never managed to swallow them in. Because they lived with their heads held high. 

Daniel in the first reading today and Jesus himself from the Gospel, are offered as Biblical models for living with heads held high...never losing sight of that source, from where our help comes. Our help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth - those are familiar lines for us. Let it not remain a mere phrase, but a real conviction that come what may, I can stand tall, stand tall with my head held high. Because I do not depend on this world or even the best of my well wishers that I find here on earth! They are my sources of sustenance, in as much as the One who us ultimately concerned about me, has ordained this persons, circumstances and systems to be of assistance to me! 

Yes, my help comes from the Lord, and from the Lord alone! Hence, even in the worst of my situations, I can never lose hope! Amidst all the struggles of our daily life, we can live with our heads held high!

The Writing on the Wall

WORD 2day: Wednesday, last week in Ordinary time

November 24, 2021: Daniel 5:1-6,13-14,16-17,23-28; Luke 21: 12-19

Let us have a look around! The pandemic is still ravaging parts of the world and the rest of the world seems to be in fear and anxiety. There is the crisis of climate change and just a few days ago the summit at Glasgow was over, warning us of the imminent and treacherous dangers of the global crisis. Inspite of all these there are the political forces, at loval levels and at international levels who are going on with their inhuman plotting against a peaceful and just human existence. What are we to conclude from here?

The writing on the wall is very clear: we are heading towards an event of mass destruction! Everything seems to indicate the fact that we have already reached a point of no return. That feeds the imagination of many quacks and gullibles who give vent to their talents of fantasising these days. We see predictions and warnings and to-do prescriptions galore! That is not the point...our faith, the gift of the Holy Spirit should help us to make the reflection that Jesus inspires in us today. In fact, Jesus makes a silent point: 

Keep Calm and Go on being Children of God. 

Terror Around? Violence at your doorstep? Fire above your head? Pain and Sickness in the air? Death and dangers all around? Keep Calm; Endure it...can you? Let us pray for that strength, that strength to endure and we shall have our reward - here and now, peace of mind; in eternity, the inheritance of the children of God.