JOY OF THE REIGN - THE LIFE IN THE SPIRIT

Sharing, Simplicity & Sincerity

December 12, 2021: Third Sunday in Advent
Zephania 3:14-18; Philippias 4: 4-7; Luke 3: 10-18

Gaudete Sunday... the call is to Rejoice! Rejoice, Rejoice in the Lord, shouts St. Paul today to us and that is what the first reading calls usto do - to shout in joy! Why all these Joy? Because the Lord is near; and we are half way through the preparation that we began towards encountering the Lord, who comes to meet us. 

The call to Rejoice comes to us in a time that may not so easily concede us the possibility to rejoice... with the pandemic fears still looming, with new virus threat that is keeping the world still quizzing, the increasing uneasiness with regard to immigration and climate crises...these are some urgent concerns that may instill more fear anxiety than joy, naturally speaking! Exactly... naturally speaking, it is so... but spiritually speaking?

Spiritually speaking, we are called to Rejoice! And it is possible to rejoice, whatever be the situation around us! And not just that, as Pope Francis says, "The Christian life is “joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom 14:17), for “the necessary result of the love of charity is joy; since every lover rejoices at being united to the beloved… the effect of charity is joy” (Gaudete et Exultet 122). Pope Francis instills in our minds the centrality of Joy in Christian vision of life - the Joy of the Gospel, the Joy of love, Rejoice and be glad... these exhortations of the Holy Father reminds us what it means to live as Christians in these times.

The Word this Sunday explains to us, we are called to rejoice and it is not merely having all fun. It is as reflected in Rom 14:17, joy in the Holy Spirit. It is the Joy of the Reign! The Joy of the Reign is all about, Sharing, Simplicity and Sincerity.

The Joy of the Reign is about the joy of Sharing! It is not having all the fun, as we reflected already. It is spreading happiness, making people smile, standing with the poor, joining hands with the just, fighting for the exploited, seeing the weak strengthened! That joy is not a selfish hedonism. The tendency to hoard on, the selfishness of grabbing, the wickedness of exploiting... these are diametrically opposed to the sense of joy in the holy Spirit. When the Baptist was asked to counsel the people about what to do, for the imminent coming of the Lord, he said - Share! To share what one has is to feel for the other, to give up what one has for the other, to feel compassion for the other - what else is the Reign of God, but this! To Share...not from our abundance, but from our love and care for the other. Once we begin to care for the other, the Reign begins to flower!

The Joy of Reign is about the joy of Simplicity! Simplicity is being without complication; being straightforward; being what you are without pretence. When the tax collectors asked the Baptist for what they should do, there was a bit of pretence in it...they were not in anyway ready to leave their jobs as tax collectors. But just because they wished to show their enthusiasm of the moment, they dared ask him that counsel. And he spared no one: you need not be what you are not! You are tax collectors, collect just tax and no more, he said. In our jobs and life situations, we are in a particular context and within that we have the choice to be righteous or not! The choice that we make there, clear and straight forward, would give us a peace of mind, out of which shall be born true and simple joy, the joy of the Reign.

The Joy of the Reign is about the joy of Sincerity! John the Baptist had every opportunity to enjoy a popularity and recognition that really did not belong to him. He need not have claimed to be the Messiah, enough to have been silent, they would have given him all the honour and respect. But what mattered to him was, his sincerity and that is what made him a person of the Reign, and one who was greater than anyone born of a woman! Sincerity is all about knowing the truth, sticking to the truth and daring to live by it. Sincerity is the source of true joy of the Reign. 

There is a baptism that we are called to, invited to, challenged to: the baptism of the Spirit. The Baptism of the Spirit leads us to a life in the Spirit: a life of sharing, a life of simplicity, a life of sincerity! The Joy of the Reign is what the Lord promises us, provided we are ready to wait on the Lord, behold the Lord's promises and live by the Spirit. Let us rejoice, we have the Lord with us!

Peace... and the fire within us!

THE WORD IN ADVENT

December 11, 2021: Ecclesiasticus 48:1-4,9-12; Matthew 17: 10-13

Elijah is taken up in fire...Elijah was gone! But the glory that was involved in the event, made people believe that he would come back! And Jesus explains what it means: that Elijah would come back... in fact he had come back! And he would come back again... in us!

The fire within Elijah that was seen all his life when he lived a prophet amidst his people, was seen also when he returned to the Lord at the culmination of his life time - he was taken up in fire! Whenever the same fire returns in someone, the Elijah returns! That is why Jesus idenitified in John the Baptist, the Elijah who had to return.

While John identified Jesus as the Lamb of God and pointed out to the people, Jesus identified John as the Elijah who had to return according to the traditional prophecy! People of God identify each other, in the Lord and the Lord-given mission. 

Each one takes on oneself the responsibilities that the Lord entrusts, with all the difficulties and with all the sacrifices involved. The readiness and the eagerness with which one takes up these sacrifices, is the fire that burns within! As long as this fire burns within, there will be perfect peace too! There would be no anxiety or fear, even when the worst of experiences have to be encountered.

The real preparation for the Reign is to kindle and sustain that fire within us! It would fill us with peace within and inspire peace all around us, a peace that glows with the fire within us!

Peace is born in the Light!

THE WORD IN ADVENT

December 10, 2021: Isaiah  48: 17-19; Matthew 11: 16-19

We are a privileged people, not because we have a special status or that we deserve it... it is because we have a Lord who sheds light on our daily life on a constant basis. While there are so many persons who have great trouble deciding what to do when, we have a clear and focussed light on our life that guides us, and helps us make choices.

One might disagree with this statement, saying, 'no sometimes even we are not certain what to do!' But just take a minute and reflect... should we really have a confusion? If the confusion because we do not know what to choose or are we not ready to choose what we know to be right? At times we reason in such an infantile way - I like, I dont like, It is very pleasing to me, something does not give me pleasute - are these truly the right way to discern?

This is what Jesus complains against: we act and think like children! Our desires, wishes and pleasures take more importance than what is right, just, pleasing in the eyes of the Lord and the most loving thing to do at a point of time. This is where we falter and fail. The Lord keeps revealing to us, as the first reading tells us, the will of God. What is right and what is proper to be done is always clear right before us, in the light of the Lord; and Peace is born exactly in this light!

Peace comes from that presence

 THE WORD IN ADVENT

December 9, 2021: Isaiah 41,13-20; Matthew 11:11-15

We fret and frown when we helplessly witness violence and wickedness in the world and ask, where is God! When things similar were happening, Jesus said I am here! The first reading is not to be interpreted as something like every thing will drastically change when God comes into our lives. There are two issues here: God never leaves us whether we acknowledge it or not, so we need not foresay an auspicious moment when God shall be there. Secondly, even while we are going through hard times, especially in those times, the Lord stays close to us - blessed are those who realise this, they will have peace! 

God's Plan: Not Magic but Mystery!

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

December 8, 2021: Immaculate Conception of our Blessed Mother
Genesis 3: 9-15, 20; Ephesians 1: 3-6, 11-12; Luke 1: 26-38

Today's feast is not so much to celebrate the Blessed Mother of God, as to celebrate the Eternal plan of God. God has a plan for each of us, from before the foundations of the world, reminds us the Liturgy today. At times we look at this plan as something magical and try to guess it through means of mediums and methods of all sorts: palmistry, star signs, fortune tellers and prediction professionals! God's plan is not a magic for us to manipulate; it is a mystery to be lived. God's plans unfold moment by moment, as and when we live.

Today we see, in time immemorial the promise that God made that he will set a woman and her offspring against the evil tempter of the world. And we celebrate how this plan at the foundations of the creation, unfolded in total obscurity, in the womb which bore the womb that would bear the Son of God. What a great mystery!

It is not for us to guess God's plan or calculate God's moves: that is a radical impossibility. But we are called to believe in the God's plan, accept it and cooperate with it! God has chosen us before the foundation of the world and therefore we are not here by chance; God has willed us into existence! It is our task to discern what God's plan is for us at any particular given time and carry it out, as did our Blessed Mother all her life.

The aspect we celebrate in our Blessed Mother today is the total cooperation that she offered to the plan of God, because of which she lived all her life, holy and blameless. Let us fix our minds on the Word today: that we are chosen before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before God in love.

The ultimate peace - in those arms alone!

 THE WORD IN ADVENT

December 7, 2021: Second Tuesday in Advent

Isaiah 40: 1-11; Matthew 18: 12-14

As individuals, as communities or society and as humanity as a whole, we are constantly in search of something; either we are in search of, or we are made to be in search of! It is sad when a person is constantly in search of something which he or she thinks can give happiness in life, but repeatedly comes to realise that it really does not give that happiness that was longed for. The more sad part is this: that some are made to be is search of, by the mainstream society, the so called majority...but slowly they forget the fact that they are pushed into that predicament, but begin to fully immerse themselves in that inutile search. 

We search for things that we think will give us that peace and joy in life, but in the bargain we lose ourselves! Someone has to come in search of us! The Lord does search for us - through sacraments, seasons and special moments of renewal. We are searched for, but do we let ourselves be found by the Lord... if we are lost, we shall be found; but if we hide ourselves, we would not be found, isn't it? 

When will I really let myself be found by the Lord...only when I realise that I am running behind things that will not last, things that may not give me exactly what I am looking for, that unending joy! Indeed that eternal joy, that sense of fullness, that ultimate peace can be attained in those arms alone!

The voice that speaks of peace - Get up and Walk!

THE WORD IN ADVENT

December 6, 2021: Second Monday in Advent

Isaiah 35: 1-10; Luke 5: 17-26

The Word of the Lord is voice that speaks of peace, and the Lord comes to heal and save us, giving us peace and integrity. And that is why the psalmist exclaims that mercy and faithfulness have met, justice and peace have embraced,  and we have peace that follows our steps! The first reading too, brings us so many hopeful promises of peace and tranquility, serenity and prosperity that comes from the God who comes to meet us. But what are we to do?

We need to take the paralysed humanity to the Lord, just as those men carried that paralysed men to the Lord who was waiting with words of eternal life: your sins are forgiven, Get up and Walk. There are three things we are focus on: 

First, to Get up...never to be bogged down by the struggles, difficulties, crisis, hardships and sometimes, even losses! We cannot let these situations get the better of us, instead we need to get up every time we are pulled down.

Second, to Walk...to keep walking with our hand in the hand of the Lord; the Lord is aware of all that we are through on a daily basis - we need never to doubt that! With all the things that weary us out, let us keep walking!

Third, to carry to the Lord...just as those men carried the paralysed to the Lord, with so much faith on which the Lord himself marvelled, so are we called to do. The Lord is ready to tell us too: Get up and Walk, but first we need to learn this great way to cope with challenges in our life (as that famous hymn suggests) - carry everything to God in prayer!

PEACE - THE FRUIT OF TRUE COMMUNION

Integrity, Justice and Faith

December 5, 2021 - Second Sunday in Advent

Baruch 5: 1-19; Philippians 1: 4-6, 8-11; Luke 3: 1-6

After the week of hope that we celebrated, today we initiate the week of Peace! Peace be with you, was the constant salutation that the Prince of Peace preferred to use at most of the moments... and Shalom was an expression very close to the biblical people, even during Jesus' times, and it remains so, for us too! We are indeed awaiting and preparing these days for the prince of peace, the highest good and happiness that we can ever think of!

Peace... how much we lack in the world today! With the anxieties of every day that one witnesses we find peace far far away, not in the light of any vicinity. At all levels, personal, interpersonal, communitarian, social and global, peace seems to be an endless dream that eludes invariably everyone! In the season of expectation and wait, the Word today offers us a lesson on what true peace is all about! 

Peace is fruit of Communion! The Lord is the Prince of Peace, because the Lord who comes is the God of Communion! The perfect communion that exists between the persons of the Trinity, is the communion that is placed within the core of the human being. When the human being can discover the worth of that core, humanity will find its true meaning and there will be peace everywhere! All that is happening these days, the human greed and craze of materiality, the social problems and mutual exploitations, the international conflicts and warmongering... all these keep persons away from that possibility of communion that exists within themselves!

Reflecting on this communion that the Lord is, the communion that the Lord brings and the communion that the Lord offers us, we are given with, three key terms to understand the peace that the Lord offers.

Peace is fruit of communion, communion within oneself: we call that integrity! Where there is balance and equanimity within, there is peace. Between my wants and my situation, between what I think and what I speak, between what I say and what I believe, between what I am and what I do, when there is a consistency and coherence, it results in peace. This is personal integrity, a core characteristic of God. As long as I am torn within myself between conflicting tendencies, I cannot find peace, not only within me, but nowhere in the world. This is one reason why some persons, wherever they are, in whosever company they are, in whichever situation they are, they always find themselves in the midst of conflict and tension - may be the problem is within! I need to mend my ways, fill the pitfalls and level the mounds of pride and that will my personal integrity. Where there is integrity, there is peace!

Peace is fruit of communion, communion with each other: we call that justice! It is not merely  compassion or mercy, it is not some individual virtue or goodness that is at the fount of mutual communion. It is justice! Being just is a key element of Divinity...and that justice invites and challenges me to be just in my ways, in my ways of thinking, speaking, acting and the ways of making decisions. The more I am in communion with the other, the more I contribute to common peace. Individual mutual relationships are the schools at which we learn universal harmony. Without the former the latter will remain always a wishful thinking! Justice is respect of the other; it is valuing the significance of the other and pledging my role in the well being of the other... in short it is promoting the true communion with each other, thus promotion of peace.Where there is justice, there is peace!

Peace is fruit of communion, communion with God: we call that faith! Peace seems such a costly and rare experience to create for oneself and offer for others, because it springs from the relationship that I have established with the source of my being - my Creator. The world today seems to be making the utmost effort to wean itelf from its Creator! It wants to do away with faith; it wants close the churces down; it wants to put an end to all spiritual affiliations that the society has had throughout history - simply because times are changing and we are growing! But there is an increased restlessness and inquietitude in the human soul, for it shall never rest unless it rests in the Divine, who is the source of its very being and meaning. The Candle of Bethlehem that we have lighted this week, reminds us of two persons who were totally in communion with the Lord and because of which the great mysteries of heaven came down to earth: Mary and Joseph...the most perfect couple who  on earth. Their faithfulness to the Word, their faith in God brought salvation not only to their family and their people, but to the entire world, to the entire human race. Only when humanity learns to give the space and honour due to its Creator, ultimate communion would be born; where there is faith, there is peace!

May the call to prepare the way of the Lord, be a strengthening of our commitment to respond to the Lord of communion, to promote communion, and thus give peace a chance!

Our Hope towards Fullness - In the Lord and Lord alone

THE WORD IN ADVENT

December 4, 2021: First Saturday in Advent

Isaiah 30: 19-21,23-26; Matthew 9: 35, 10:1,5,6-8

Happy are they who hope in the Lord - just imagine what happens when we hope in someone else or something else!

When we place our hope in the powers and authorities of this world, we know how we shall be taken for a ride! Just look at the way the world is going today...so battered and confused, taken for granted and exploited to the core. When we place our hope in money and riches, we know the dismay we would bring on ourselves, possessing things but so far from serenity and true joy.

In the Lord there is compassion and love. The Lord wishes my good, and gives me freely. The Lord comes in search of me, offering me the fullness in life which I do not ask, I cannot ask, or I do know know to ask for. Cures, healings, signs and miracles are just indicators to the fullness that God wishes to offer me! How prepared am I to receive them?

When will I receive this fullness that God has prepared to give me: on two counts. One, when I place my hope in the Lord and surrender myself totally to the Lord and Lord's ways! Second, when I become the bearer of this hope to others. The harvest is plentiful, the need is tremendous, the work to be done is so much... but there are very few who are ready to join hands with Jesus. This part is the concrete expression of my faith - that is where I reach the fullness of life; in every good we do to the other, with an unassuming sense of gratitude to God, we progress to that state where we hope in the Lord and Lord alone.

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?