Joy - the sign of Christian life and ministry

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

December 27, 2022: Remembering St. John, the Evangelist
1 John 1:1-14; John 20: 2-8

The Christmas joy continues, even as we commemorate St.John the Evangelist today. "The Joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus," says the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, no. 1. Though the Gospel today draws our attention to the scene of the resurrection, the message is more focused on the all important encounter with Christ that redefines one's life. When a person encounters Christ in all earnestness, there is a choice, a categorical choice for Christ and Christ's mission!

As St. Paul affirms that it is no merit that an apostle proclaims the Word, but woe to him if he does not (1 Cor 9:16), today we see John explaining that in the first reading: I am called to announce Christ, not merely because others will benefit from it; but primarily that my joy may be complete (1 Jn 1:4). That is the Christmas joy too, the joy of beholding the revelation of God's love and sharing it with the other. 

For a Christian, a joy-filled proclamation of Christ is the only way to live his or her life - joyfully proclaiming Christ in every word, every action and every choice that is made, at every moment of one's daily life.

The Reign Dream

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

December 26, 2022: St. Stephen, the first Martyr
Acts 6: 8-10, 7: 54-59; Matthew 10: 17-22

Persecutions and Martyrdom have never been alien to Christian Faith. St. Stephen is the first Biblical evidence to it. Continuing in the line of the prophets and persons of God who have been treated at will by the world in the Old Testament, we see Jesus and most of his disciples facing the same end in the New Testament.

Religious fanaticism and the consequent discrimination and communalism is dangerously being justified these days as patriotism and conservatism! Be it the 'islamophobia' that is spread globally, or the anti-secular system that is being forced through the fabric of tolerance and conviviality in great enviable traditions, the hate speeches and hidden agenda... these are signs of anti-Reign elements in the world today.

St. Stephen knew what it meant to suffer for the Reign and die for Christ; it meant suffering for the things that really matter; it meant standing for true beliefs and convictions that can elevate your spirit to the heavens open and the angels coming down!

It was Stephen who also imitated his Master literally: while Jesus prayed for those who crucified him and offered his spirit into the hands of his loving Father, Stephen prayed for those who stoned him and surrendered his spirit into Jesus' hands. What an example for us to emulate! Not only praying what Stephen prayed but seeing what he saw: the open heavens - that is open hearts, high ideals, profound humanity, in short, the Reign dream.

CHRISTMAS WISHES AND PRAYERS

 

கிறிஸ்து பிறப்பின் வாழ்த்துகள்

 

Morning Star - saving us from death and darkness!

The WORD in ADVENT - December 24

Christmas Novena - Day 9
2 Samuel 7: 1-5, 8-12, 14, 16; Luke 1: 67-79

Awe is the third and most important trait to receive the Lord. Translated as fear of God, it is a sense of spiritual wonder, the capacity to be open to the doings of the Lord. Without a sense of wonder, no one can even perceive the Lord, let alone receiving the Lord.

Very often we think of our spirituality as doing something for God - going to the Church, saying prayers, participating in Mass... all these are important, yes! But more important is our openness to God, allowing God to work in us, listening to God, looking to understand what God communicates to us here and now! Is it you who would build a house for the Lord, asks prophet Nathan to David... God would build you a house!

David who was a simple shepherd boy was built into a house - the House of David: about which both the first reading and the Gospel speak of today. God built David into a house, a house, a lineage in which the Saviour of the humankind would be born. What an awesome feat of God. Imagine if David had rebelled and said, 'No I would by all means build a house for God', after all building the temple of the Lord was a noble thing. 

Doing a noble thing is good, but more important and crucial is doing what God wants us to do and the most noble thing is surrendering to the Lord and allowing the Lord to do what the Lord wants with us, with a sense of awe! At times in our busy 'doing' that we forget 'to be' in the presence of God. Let us keep this as the highest priority today... as we are just a few hours from celebrating the awesome mystery of incarnation, let us stay in awe, remain in wonder at the marvels of the Lord, the immensity of the Love that the Lord shares with us this Christmas! 

Let us open our heart and our mind, that we may receive the Lord in awe! The Lord is not just near... but the Lord is here!!! We celebrate the Rising Star, the Morning Star that announces the break of day! The Lord comes to rule in our hearts, not just the world... let us prepare ourselves... for the Lord is here.

Readiness to receive the Lord who is with us!

The WORD in ADVENT - December 23

Christmas Novena - Day 8
Malacchi 3:1-4,23-24; Luke 1: 57-66

Let us continue today reflecting on the necessary traits to receive the Lord who comes to visit us...the first trait we had said, was eagerness and the second trait that we see today is, Readiness! 

Readiness does not mean a mere passive waiting... it is an active preparation, without which one would miss the moment of truth. The preparation would consist, first of all, of knowing. It's the message we reflected this Sunday... Knowing and understanding, they form the first level of preparedness. 

Being prepared may not be enough. There is an interesting saying: it is not enough to be prepared, but one needs to be ready! There are many, for instance, who keep preparing themselves for a special moment but are never ready to really live the moment! 

The coming of the Lord is a moment of truth for us, and we have to be ready - which is, to be prepared in heart and mind, of course. But along with that, we need to be ready in spirit and in action. To know and to live by what one knows, to believe and to live by what one believes - that is being ready!

The first reading calls us to exactly to this - to be well disposed, to be refined as silver is refined in the furnace, to make our life worthy of the sacred mysteries we are about to celebrate. It is like the period of pain that Elisabeth and the time of muteness that Zachariah had to go through. For us, the sacrament of Reconciliation is a wonderful moment of refinement, a great sign of our READINESS to receive the Lord, this Christmas!

The antiphon of the Novena today, O Emmanuel (based on the famous prophecy of Isaiah 7:14), is the key to understand the mystery of incarnation. The presence of God with us is the greatest of all the promises that we can think of. Christ comes as the fulfilment and the most complete expression of that promise: as God among us. The symbol given is the virgin with the child in the manger. The manger is a lovely symbol that unites the heaven and the earth, the Divine and the human!

The prayer today is that the Lord our God, save us by God's saving presence... in simple words it is beseeching the Lord to stay with us, to live with us, to sanctify us, to make us worthy of God who is always with us! 

Our King - the source of joy and meaning!

The WORD in ADVENT - December 22

Christmas Novena - Day 7

1 Samuel 1: 24-28; Luke 1: 46-56

The spirit of exultation is in the air, we are close to the celebration of the joyful event of the incaration. The Lord came, in history, to ensure that humanity knew its the image and likeness in which it is made. The Lord comes in every experience and person which acts as the source of meaning to life and life's choices. The Lord shall come wherever and whenever there is a search for signifcance in life, a search that can offer hope to life that is ahead.

The Word made flesh who identified with us - a great reason to rejoice and exult. True joy comes from the fact that we are united in the Lord, from where comes our identity, the real meaning of our life. No success or failure, no social status or title, no accomplishment or lack can define me. It is only the image of God within me that can give me true joy! 

This day invites us to contemplate this image of God, made flesh, become human and nourishes as the source and spring of our very being and of its true joy.

The antiphon of the Novena today, the King of nations, based on Isaiah 9:6, 2:4 and 28:16, is a yearning of the people of Israel. They wanted Yahweh to be their king always, even when they had a human king ruling them. That is why they did not give in to the Emperor worship that was so widespread in the dominant cultures of their times. God is the king, forever and over all! The Symbol presented is the crown and the sceptre, that signifies the central place that God has in our personal and universal history; and the authority that rests solely with God.

The prayer today is to save the human kind, from slaveries of sin and death, and to lead to the freedom of the children of God, for that is what we are, children created in the image and likeness of God. It is to grow in this identity and dignity that the coming of the Lord invites us. Let our soul glorify the Lord, forever and ever.

Light - to see with the eyes of the Lord

The WORD in ADVENT - December 21

Christmas Novena - Day 6

Song of Songs 2:8-14; Luke 1:39-45

If we had noticed, we would be aware that we have been seeing some dangers of missing the Lord these days in the Word. From today, we shall reflect from the Liturgy, on some necessary dispositions to behold the coming of the Lord and to behold the Reign amidst us. 

One of the needed traits to receive the Lord, pointed out in the Word today, is Eagerness! Looking forward to meet the love of your life - that is the kind of disposition required if we really want to behold the coming of the Lord, counsels the liturgy of this day. The Song of Songs expresses the longing that one has for the beloved. Waiting for the Lord is not a passive waiting, but an active preparation, an active seeking, an active going towards the Lord. Waiting for the Reign too, is not an inactive procrastination, but an involved collaboration towards the Reign. 

The eagerness that we need to have for the Lord, is like that innocent sweet child who, at the end of her busy day of birthday celebrations, asked her father with a broad smile, "Daddy, when will my birthday come again?" That eagerness, that longing, that yearning like the parched land for water, like the deer for the running streams, like the drowning person for a breath above the waters... that is the eagerness we need to have, if we really want to encounter the Lord who visits us this Christmas!

The antiphon of the novena today is based on Isaiah again (9:2 and 60:1-2). O Oriens... the latin term literally means O Rising Sun or Dawn. For poetic sense translated as Morning Star, it refers to the power of God's light to lead us from ignorance to knowledge and from mere knowledge to enlightenment. The Symbol is the Rising Sun, which dispels the darkness of the night and wakes the light of the morning, inviting all to life and activity. The coming of the Lord for us is a wake up call, an invitation to live as people of the light and not of darkness!

The prayer today is for enlightenment, that in these times of confusion and crisis, confounding choices and staggering philosophies, we might remain always in the light of faith, that not only helps us see the Lord, but see with the eyes of the Lord (Lumen Fidei).

Liberation: the way opening to fullness of life

The WORD in ADVENT - December 20, 2022

Christmas Novena - Day 5

Isaiah 7: 10-14; Luke 1: 26-38

When troubles surround or challenges abound, we try to manage our lives with our own strength or seeking those who can give a solution, notwithstanding the fact that they themselves are persons with similar problems and puzzles. Fortune predictions, numerical calculations, geographical adjustments, material omens... how many substitutes we run to, instead of the Lord almighty who alone has the ultimate power! 

Ahaz, in the first reading, represents that world of reducing the Lord God to our thinking, our calculations and our predictions! How many times we keep pressurising the Lord, with our clamour for signs and demands for favours, all in the name of prayers! It is in this context that Mary stands a great a model and a challenge who is remarkable in her silent acceptance of the marvels of God which are beyond any of our imagination, even at the most trying moment of our lives.

The Word today warns us of yet another danger of missing the Lord who comes to visit us: It is reducing God to our own petty thinking, our human thinking, that when God acts in history we do not even notice the wonder of God's presence. We want God in our own terms, not in God's own terms!

The antiphon of the Novena today, based on prophet Isaiah (22:22, 9:7 and 42:7), makes a reference is to the sovereignty of God's Reign. That the throne shall have no end, is a Messianic prophecy that God will be always remain the Lord of history! Liberation of the oppressed and the fullness of life of all, is the sign of this Reign. The symbol of the key to signifies the authority that God has, in creating, changing and structuring the whole history.

The prayer today is for liberation... that the Lord opens the way that leads towards fullness of life, that is the experience of the Reign on earth. It is also a commitment to work towards, to contribute one's might and mite, towards establishing the Reign here and now!

To hope without limits

The WORD in ADVENT - December 19, 2022

Christmas Novena - Day 4: Judges 13:2-7,24-25; Luke 1: 5-25

The Word today presents to us two women, considered and categorised as 'barren', who miraculously bear their firstborns and dedicate them to the Lord! There is Manoah's wife, the mother of Samson and thereis Elizabeth, the wife of Zecchariah. The two newborns, Samson and John, even before they were conceived were meant to be God's messengers! One was a nazirite from the mothers womb and the other was capable  of identifying the One who comes in the name of the Lord, right from when he was in his mother's womb! 

What the world considers impossible, the Lord proves possible; what the world cannot even think of, the Lord has planned from eternity and executes in God's own time; what the world thinks natural and normal. the Lord manifests how spectacular and wonderful it is... life - a great gift from the Lord to each of us. 

When moments seem troublesome and weary, dark and dreary, confusing and out of control... we tend to give up hope, become desperate and fall into the danger of hopelessness! With the sense of desperation, one can miss the most obvious and grand signs of the magnificence of God that appears on a daily basis! This is a real danger that can push us to the state of missing the Lord who comes: a sense of desperation, the tendency to Hopelessness!

The Symbol is that of the shoot growing on a dry bark... signalling the hope that the Lord offers in times when everything seems dark and dead. The exodus event, the miracles in the desert, the water from the rock, the guidance by day and night - everyone of these was a sign of God's promises being fulfilled. The final fulfillment and the pinnacle of everything was - Incarnation, that which we are preparing to celebrate.

The prayer today is to reinforce that HOPE...that we may always look forward to the deliverance that the Lord can offer! Never let anyone rob you of your hope, reminds our Holy Father.