PEACE-LENT 2023: Peace is Compassion!

Friday after Ash Wednesday - February 24, 2023

The WORD in LENT: Isaiah 58: 1-9; Matthew 9: 14-15

Satyagraha! Peace marches! Marathon for peace! Fasting for peace! How do these really function? Have you ever given a thought to it? What does it matter if you and I fast or go for a march or take up some campaign for world peace? How does it work, that one in one end of the world is fasting or going on a march for peace in another end of the world? Does it work at all?

Fasting during the lent - how does it affect the Community of faith? Is it only the money that is saved that matters, that we can give it to someone in need? What does it really do to me and to the rest around me, when I fast? And why should we fast at all? These are some questions that arise, everytime we celebrate this all important season of lent. 

Fasting is a sign of compassion. It is a sign of utmost participation in the sufferings of others - be those sufferings caused by external reasons or internal. Fasting for the sake of itself, may help oneself in self-control and self-discipline, but that is not the principal motive of fasting! This is what Jesus brings out in his critical presentation of fasting, not to say about the prophetic voice of Isaiah.

Fasting will have done its real contribution to humanity - to persons and the community at large - only when it inspires compassion in the heart of persons. This compassion is feeling for the needy other, the suffering other, the weeping other, the languishing other... it is this compassion that will render our fast a real Christian act. This compassion alone can lead to peace - in our hearts, in our society, in the whole of humanity. 

There can be no peace until I begin to think of and to worry about the other and their needs: because peace is fundamentally, compassion!

PEACE-LENT 2023: Peace is a Choice!

Thursday after Ash Wednesday - February 23, 2023

The WORD in LENT: Deuteronomy 30: 15-20; Luke 9: 22-25

Very often we complain and lament on things that go wrong in our lives, blaming it on someone or something! Without uncompassionately brushing aside the pain that is involved in the experience of trouble or loss or difficulty, if we seek to find the real cause, the root cause, the ultimate cause... we shall find there, a choice! 

When situations of conflicts arise, when persons around create a crisis or events of life rake up problems... what matters is not actually what happens, but what we choose! We make choices that, may not be immediately, but eventually take us to where we find ourselves at the end. If everything is a choice, just so or more so, peace is a choice!

If I wish peace in my mind, in my heart and in my life - I have to choose it. If I choose ego, if I choose success, if I choose prosperity, if I choose profit or my own material growth, I choose them! Yes, I choose them, and not peace! Choosing peace sometimes, or most of the times in fact, costs! I have to be ready to pay the cost. That is what Jesus means by "taking up my cross" - it is choosing to pay the cost, for the divine peace that we can find only in the Lord and in the salvation that the Lord has planned for us. 

We may think we are choosing life, or  that we are choosing prosperity... but in actuality we might be choosing death and disaster! We need to pay attention. What matters is not immediate gratification but the ultimate good. At times it might require sacrifices and mortifications. If we need peace, we need to choose it, because peace is a choice!

PEACE-LENT 2023: Peace is Reconciliation

Ash Wednesday - February 22, 2023

The WORD in LENT: Joel 2:12-18; 2Corinthians 5:20 - 6:2; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

Be reconciled to God - that is the crux of the message given to us at lent. We begin today this year's lenten journey... this year we shall celebrate the Peace-Lent. 

Peace is a yearning that everyone has today world over. In fact the whole creation is thirsting for this peace! The ecological crisis, the economic crises, the political unrests, the human right violations... every one of this experience is a reminder of the lack of peace, the lack of shalom! The message of reconciliation that is central to the season of lent, is a key towards peace.

The varied terms in which the Word expresses the message of the whole of lent: come back, turn to the Lord, order a fast, assemble and gather, be reconciled, pray, fast... all these terms refer to the peace journey that we are invited to make. The peace journey is all about reconciliation, returning to the fullness that we are gifted with! 

Peace is reconciliation, a getting back to the holistic relationship with myself, with others, with the Ultimate Other, my God who loves me without measure.

Growing Up to be a child!

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 7th week in Ordinary time

February 21, 2023: Sirach 2:1-11; Mark 9: 30-37

'Grow Up!' - people say, when they are upset with someone's attitudes found wanting, when someone behaves 'childish' and immature, as it is said. Grow up, yes... but, grow up to what, grow up to be what? Growing up would always means to go towards some state advanced or ahead...but here we have another perspective to reflect on.

The Word today invites us, to grow up... to grow up to be children. Cling on, trust, hold on, wait on the Lord... in short, grow up to be true children, true children of God! Is this rightly, 'growing up' - how do we understand?

Who can wait on the mercies of the elders but a child, for when we consider ourselves grown up we crave to be independent. Who can cling on to someone else and keep trusting in their goodness, hoping to be led in the right path? Who can abandon their cares into the hands of someone else and remain light and care-free, but a child! Who but a child can look up to others and understand that he or she is the least of all who are around and helpless of the lot?

Jesus invites us - grow up to be a child... let go of your ego, learn to depend on the goodness of the Lord, allow God to take hold of your hands and you will find the true peace, the peace of a child. And so, grow up constantly, to be a true child!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Faith and Wisdom - Gifts from God

WORD 2day: Monday, 7th week in Ordinary time

February 20, 2023: Ecclesiastes 1:1-10; Mark 9: 14-29

Knowledge can be obtained by effort and hardwork but wisdom comes from the Lord. We may read, listen, think and increase our knowledge, but putting various pieces of knowledge together to arrive at a decision is wisdom and that cannot be acquired by purely hardwork or merely human effort.

It is a gift from the Lord, because Wisdom as the first reading tells us today, belongs to God and whom God deigns to grant it, and the measure God wills to grant it.

Belief is born from what we learn and what we understand, while Faith is not merely our lonesome job. It is our personal response to a self revealing God. If so, it is the Lord who grants us this faith as a gift and helps us grow and mature in it too.

'Lord I believe, help my unbelief"... we come across that profound prayer today. It would do a great good to us to make this prayer a regular and daily prayer, everyday in the morning asking the Lord to help our unbelief and make us truly the Lord's faithful sons and daughters!

HOLINESS - THE IDENTITY OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD

From God, of God, and like God!

February 19, 2023: 7th Sunday in Ordinary time
Leveticus 19:1-2,17-18; 1 Corinthians 3: 16-23; Matthew 5: 38-48

What makes one a Christian? Take a pause and answer this question within your hearts!

Is it Baptism? Yes, ofcourse, but only if it were received with a personal choice and every promise given at the proper moment is lived to the full everyday of one's life.

Is it being enrolled in a parish? Yes, but only if the belonging to the parish makes one feel one with the Universal Body of Christ, the Church.

Is it some sort of symbols that you sport, like a cross or a rosary or a scapular? Yes, but that identification would be just temporary, and would last only till my first word, or first act!

That which makes Baptism efficacious, our belonging to a parish meaningful, and makes us truly Christians is our realisation of our identity as people of God - a realisation that has to be manifested in our personal holiness and in our holiness as a community of believers.

Holiness is not a super-human quality. It is definitely not alien to being human. Because it can be seen at our very origin. God made us in God's own image and likeness says Genesis (1:27). So, holiness is our original nature, not sinfulness; Holiness is the core of our being, not sinfulness. Sin and Sinfulness have come to mar and obstruct our original nature. This is why to the chosen people, God says through Moses, "Be holy, because I the Lord your God am Holy." Because I am holy you can be holy too. Yes, dear brothers and sisters, we ought to be holy because we are FROM GOD.

Holiness is our choice, a choice made not once for all, but at every moment, at every circumstance, at every crisis. It is a choice made for God, because we realise and gratefully acknowlege choice that God has made for us. You did not choose me, I chose you, says the Lord (Jn 15:16). It is the Lord who had chosen us. It is not that we loved God but it is God who loved us first, reminds us St. John (1 Jn 4:9,19). God has chosen us and God has loved us abundantly! And our response is Holiness, because we belong to God, we are OF GOD.

Holiness is not an act, it is an attitude; it is not a set of actions but a habit; it is not merely an appearance but an internal becoming! Holiness is a daily effort to become more and more like God. It is returning to the image and likeness of God, the image in which we were formed, filled with love, by God. Holiness is certanly not an imaginary ideal proposed - it is a challenge that is life-long, however concrete. Right before our eyes we have the Lord as our model... in our words, thoughts, acts and choices of daily life, we are called to become LIKE GOD.

Our Blessed Mother and the Saints are our examples and Jesus is our Way. St. John traces that course for us when he says, 'we will be like him because we will see him as he is" (1Jn 3:2). We are called not to be merely good people but God's people. Every word and act of our's has to reflect God's presence to those around us.

We are People of God and our very identity is Holiness. If we miss out on holiness we lose everything. We are from God, We are of God and We are called to become like God - because we are the people of God, because we are the temple where God chooses to dwell, because we are the presence of God that the world so badly needs today!

We are the People of God - that is a mighty big mission that we have been entrusted with, a mission that flows from our very identity -that we become the presence of God! The ultimate challenge is that, in and through our daily life, we grow in our holiness, because that is our identity as people of God. 

Tranfiguration - a daily call

WORD 2day: Saturday, 6th week in Ordinary time

February 18, 2023: Hebrews 11:1-7; Mark 9: 2-13

Faith is a call to be transfigured daily - amidst the troubles we have, amidst the things that occupy our minds on a daily basis, that moment when we raise our eyes and our hearts to the Lord offering ourselves up in total surrender becomes a moment of transfiguration, when we are able to feel a presence that is so real and so sustaining! 

If we are lost in the worries and concerns, digging deep into our sorrows, we are not to be considered bad people, but just that we are unfortunate! We become persons without that supernatural eye that the Lord graces us with, in faith. In faith, we learn to see what exists beyond, beyond our struggles, weaknesses and difficulties. 

If we possess Faith... we possess an ever present light, an unending light, an ever new light, for life. That light illumines the every corner that is dark and unexplored in our lives, driving out fear from our hearts.

If we possess Faith... we have a host of people with us who have gone before us and who stand by us today, we are never alone. In that communion, in those relationships we are granted a wisdom beyond measure, clearing off all confusions from our minds. 

If we possess Faith, we possess the Lord, who would communicate with us, constantly and clearly, by voice and by words, by affirmations and appreciation, doing away with any doubt in our spirits. 

Liberated from fears, confusions and doubts, with faith, we shall be transfigured every day!

Ego - the Antonym of Christian Love

WORD 2day: Friday, 6th week in Ordinary time

February 17, 2023: Genesis 11:1-9; Mark 8:34 - 9:1

Christian definition of Love is 'wishing the good of the other' and if this is what love means, its opposite is not hate but Ego! 

When I begin to look at me, mine and myself, when I begin to do anything to achieve my end, when everything around me is only an object for me to use, for my good and even persons are means to my ends, that is Ego - and that is absolutely UNCHRISTIAN.

The Word enumerates what one loses when the ego in the person grows... the person loses God, the person loses peace, the person loses the other! Godlessness, Division and Hatred - these are the three dominant viles that the humanity faces today.

Godlessness, that has made the human person arrogant, thinking of oneself as the master of everything and claiming rights over everything, even life - one's own and other's too... leading to inhumanities and killings.

Division that makes humanity broken, leaving us so despicable among the creatures on the face of the earth - not living our life and not letting others live their life, creating a hell out of the earth that is entrusted to our care - killing each other and destroying everything.

Hatred that keeps tearing apart humanity on a daily basis; making us inhuman and cruel, wishing the death of the other and in the mean time promoting and perpetrating a culture of death and decline!

Jesus challenges us to throw this ego behind and walk towards genuine love, pick up the daily cross for others' sake and walk with the Lord. Ego mattered the least to him because he was filled with God; and that is why Ego is the antonym to love accoding to Christ. 

The Spirit and the satan!

WORD 2day: Thursday, 6th week in Ordinary time

February 16, 2023: Genesis 9:1-13; Mark 8:27-33

The Spirit of the Lord is upon us... for the Lord has created us in God's own image. We bear the name of God. The first reading today reiterates the fact in many ways - saying God created everything for the human beings, God gave human beings an ascendancy over the rest of the creatures and explicitly stating once again God created human beings in God's image, infused with the Spirit of God!

In the Gospel, we come across Peter, who is seen to be filled with that Spirit of God and he rightly points out who Jesus was- the Son of God. Jesus observes that the right response from Peter, was because of the wisdom and illumination from the Spirit; Yes, we possess the Spirit of the Lord within us and we have the great possibility of illumination and wisdom.

That is not all! There is a danger we are warned about: the fact that we need to be aware of - that the Satan is all the time lurching around the corner waiting for a time to pounce on us and draw us as far away as it could, from the Spirit who resides within us. That is what happens to Peter - one moment he is filled with the Spirit and the very next moment he thinks and behaves under the influence o the satan. This is a constant struggle within us, and we need to beware of it. 

Is it not true that right from the first moment of the creation this enmity is on? But it all depends on me, it depends on where I belong, to whom I belong - the Spirit or the Satan: whose side am I on?

Noah's Ravens!

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 6th week in Ordinary time

February 15, 2023: Genesis 8: 6-13,20-22; Mark 8: 22-26

I was reminded, reflecting on today's first reading, of an expression a good friend of mine is fond of repeating. He would call some people, 'the Noah's ravens' - when they take up a task and set about it with all enthusiasm, but never return to report the progress or the lack of it. It is indeed an interesting perspective to think from, isn't it?

Anything good or healthy we take up to, has a gradual progress and we need to follow it through. And to do that, there could be three requirements...

Firstly, we should not be impatient as to expecting everything to happen in a jiffy. Noah was patiently waiting to get the right sign and the right time. In our personal lives and in our families, when we live through some trying times, how many impatient moments lead us to choices that are not truly divine?

Secondly, when we set off on the task we should be resolute enough to follow it through till its very end. Quitting and giving up are signs of lack of faith and trust and we are called to surrender into the hands of the Lord.

Thirdly, we should not forget those who are involved with us in the task... beginning with the Lord who initiates everything that is good. Unlike the ravens that were lost in their own amusement, forgetting the purpose behind the task taken up; we are called to be attentive to the Lord and wait on the Lord. The Lord will deign to offer us the right direction to renew our lives!

This is why Paul wished: that the Lord may bring to completion the good work that God has begun in you!