PEACE IS THIRSTING FOR GOD

PEACE-LENT 2023: Third Sunday of Lent

March 12: Exodus 17: 3-7; Romas 5: 1-2,5-8; John 4: 5-42

Life is beautiful, no doubt; but it never lacks its share of problems, difficulties, confusions, traps and temptations. The beauty lies precisely in the manner in which a person lives these peculiar moments more than the happier ones. Especially, anyone claiming to be a person of faith, has to manifest a level of maturity that shows him or her capable of living with a constant thirst. Although this thirst itself is a lack of internal peace, true and wholesome peace can come only from a thirst, a thirst for God. The liturgy today invites us to reflect on this aspect of one's faith life: thirsting for God, as a way to peace!

Life has its own patches of dryness and no one's life is an exception to it. The dryness could be more severe in some, when compared to the others. What matters is not actually how much more or how much less, but how a person handles one's own share of dryness in his or her life. Handling aridity in life is a faith-skill. In the first reading today, we see the people of Israel in their driest patch of their history - the sojourn in the desert. They are brought forth from slavery across the Red Sea, with great and mighty signs and wonders. But once in the desert, they complain for every little thing, lacking patience to the core. They long for the onions and the garlic of Egypt, they long for the flesh and meat they once had in plenty, they fret that they are without a drop of water! It is easy to laugh at them or judge their impatience, but we will do well before that to think of ourselves and our lives. 

Issues in the family, the employment issues, the financial crisis, the relationship issues, sickness, misunderstanding... as soon as a problem begins in our lives don't we begin to complain too? The Lord teaches us - to TURN TO THE ROCK, when struggling to handle aridity in life. Dying without water, the people get water from the least expected source... in the dry parched desert and worse still, a dry boulder of a rock in that desert. If we turn to the Lord, our Rock... we will see solutions to our problems, clarity to our confusions, help in our difficulties, from the least expected quarters. Let us turn to the Rock.

The second reading instructs us how to comport ourselves while feeling the thirst. When in the thick of a problem or in the eye of the storm, where do we fix our gaze? There could be varied ways of interpreting one's problem and seeking a way out of it. One way is to fix our minds on the problem, but that will only magnify the problem. Another way is to fix our eyes on ourselves, but that will only make us more and more depressed in self pity. Yet another way is shift our attention to something else in life, but beware, the problem will continue to be there only to return at another opportune moment to torment us. 

St. Paul invites us to fix our gaze on Christ, on the Lord who, even while we were undeserving sinners, was ready to lay down his life for us. Such is the love of God for us and should we fret when we are in a crisis? We are invited to TURN TO THE SPRING, to the saving grace that loves without measure, the love that has been "poured" into our hearts from that Spring. It is from this spring that we shall fill ourselves, our hearts and our being with that peace we are thirsting for.

In the Gospel, Jesus speaks of a thirst with which we should all live! It is not the thirst for a material good, not a thirst for a interim peace, not a thirst for a breath of temporary relief but a thirst for eternal life, a thirst for perennial peace, a thirst for fullness of life - a life-giving thirst. He offers to give us the living water, the spring "gushing up to eternal life" (Jn 4:14). "All who are thirsty, come to me and drink" he declared elsewhere (Jn 7:37). We are called to live with that thirst, constantly longing for God, looking for that peace that can come from God alone. 

Like that deer that yearns for running streams, like the parched land that longs for rain, our soul should thirst for God, teaches the psalm (42). Let us thirst for God, let us thirst for a deeper and stronger relationship with God. Let us thirst for the Spirit, let us thirst for the fruits of the Spirit, let us thirst for a life that is united with God, let us thirst for a life that is filled with God. Let nothing disturb us... let nothing separate us from God... neither hardships nor distress nor persecution nor famine nor perils nor sword, not even death; let nothing separate us from God. Let these days of lent help us to TURN TO LIFE IN GOD.

True peace is a thirst, a thirst for lasting good in life, a thirst for the only unchanging aspect of our life, yes, it is a unending thirst for God. The more we thirst for God, the more shall we seek peace and the more shall we be disposed to true peace. Peace be with you! Shalom!

PEACE-LENT 2023 - Peace is belonging

The WORD in LENT - Second week, Saturday

March 11, 2023: Micah 7:14-15,18-20; Luke 15: 1-3,11-32

Yesterday we reflected on the assurance that God loves us... to say the Lord loves me is to trust in the goodness of the Lord; and to say I love the Lord is to dare to belong to the Lord. The former is far more easier than the latter which requires a great effort on my part to be true.

In the first reading today, Micah speaks to God with a right of a child who belonged to the Lord, though he acknowledges his own shortcomings. In the parable that Jesus narrates we have the younger son who fell short of perfection but soon realised that he belonged to his father. They both dare to declare to the Lord that they loved the Lord. It is from that sense of belonging to the Lord that true peace can be born. 

It was indeed very daring of the younger son to declare his sense of belonging to the father, which the elder son dared not do. He did not feel that sense of belonging to the father, though he lived all the time with the father. He was there right beside the father and had everything at his disposal, but did he have peace within! Was he capable of celebrating that moment? 

What a lesson to learn - it is not to be taken for granted that I belong to the Lord, just because I am most of the time around him. Even if I were to stray a bit away from the Lord occasionally, it is important to feel that strong sense of belonging to the Lord, only that will bring me back to him. Only that will bring peace back to my heart. 

Only in a strong sense of belonging to the Lord, can I have and celebrate the peace that the Lord alone can give! 

PEACE-LENT 2023 - Peace is assurance

The WORD in LENT - Second week, Friday

March 10, 2023: Genesis 37:3-4,12-13,17-28; Matthew 21:33-43,45-46

"Come let us kill him" - that is the common phrase in the two readings today. There are always persons and situations which are against us, no matter where or when. And life itself is full of such varied episodes - there are ups and there are downs, there are moments of exuberance and there are moments of dullness, there are moments of strength and there are moments of trials, there are moments of grace and there are moments of crisis... how we face these varied moments, depends on the perspective we choose.

If we choose to believe that we are loved - as did Joseph and as did Jesus - whether we are in situations of want or in situations of plenty, we would have that peace that every one longs for. Peace comes from assurance! The greatest of all assurances that we have is that God loves us. The Word seems to tell us today: Be calm; you are Loved!

When we know and we are convinced that the Lord loves us, then we have peace in our hearts. And the vice versa is true too - when we learn to be calm and to surrender, we would see that the Lord loves us with an immense love and that we are called to recompense that love, pay back in fruits.

Instead, when we are not mindful of that fact - we get anxious and make irreparable mistakes. What matters is to be calm and see not only the fact that we are loved but also the fruit we need to bear: that is, to love in return and to love each other. Our life, its meaning and its peace, comes from the assurance that we are loved. And our love becomes an assurance of further peace!

PEACE-LENT 2023 - Peace is Lord-centered

The WORD in LENT - Second week, Thursday

March 9, 2023: Jeremiah 17: 5-10; Luke 16: 19-31

Happy the one who has placed one's trust in the Lord. The Word today draws home to us an important consideration regarding peace of mind and heart, in our daily life. Let us reflect on it in three steps.

One. Peace first of all cannot be achieved, much less can it be achieved by a self centered way of life. "Me, myself and mine" can never allow me to think of the others and of their good. What matters to me would be the absolute for me: my career, my personal wishes and desires, my personal dreams etc.! The one who lives his life just at my doorstep would matter nothing to me for it is never within my perspective. Whatever peace is there, is really precarious!

Two. Not even an other centered life would lead me to true peace, because it would make me dependent on the other, the other's choices and idiosyncracies! My values would be warped and influenced greatly by the goodness or the wiles of the other. I would relativise everything because of the other and I would have no absolute reference point to guide myself. Would that make my life truly peaceful, guess it won't.

Three. The right way to true peace is, to live a Lord-centered life. This kind of a life, Jeremiah compares it to a tree planted on the banks of a river! Maybe we can think of another imagery too - a forest of trees, each of their planted and stuck in their places, but underneath, beneath the soil, all their roots point towards, strive towards, stretch towards one direction, the same direction, the direction where there is a source of water! That is nature! That is true peace - when we stretch towards the Lord, when our life is centered on the Lord.  Here the Lord shall be the absolute reference point and nothing would be relativised. There would be absolute peace. 

It is a Lord-centered life that can take me to true peace. Let us check if we are engaged in a Lord centered life, and peace would find its place without much difficulty!

PEACE-LENT 2023 - Peace is Courage

The WORD in LENT - Second week, Wednesday

March 8, 2023: Jeremiah 18: 18-20; Matthew 20: 17-28

We have two persons today who are well aware of their imminent death - not just death, but a killing. Jeremiah and Jesus, both of them know that people are plotting against them. But they are not in a panic, although they could be perturbed a bit in their hearts. Jeremiah expresses that in his prayer and Jesus expresses that in his further teaching! They both become for us a great illustration of the fact that peace consists of courage!

Without courage we cannot think of peace - peace is not an escapism from problems and conflicts, it is not a hide and seek! It is the capacity to face the conflicts, not in the sense of avenging the trespasser, nor in the sense of retalliating with force. It is taking on the conflicts with the faith that God is our strength, with hope that everything is within God's divine plan and with love that I would continue to serve come what may! 

Courage in terms of the Reign is not the bravery that the world advocates, where I prove myself, establish my supremacy and tell everyone that I am in control of everything. It is remaining firm in the Lord, never losing hope in the love of God and never ceasing to exude that same love in my service to my fellow brothers and sisters. Peace is born there - in that courage! 

When I see Jesus, even at the face of death, insisting on the fact that he has come to serve and shall serve without any hesitation; when I see Jeremiah, at the face of hatred, still appealing to the loving protection of God without agitation, I am given to understand that peace is born out of courage, out of the courage of the Reign - which is undoubtedly filled with faith, hope and love. 

PEACE-LENT 2023 - Peace is Orthopraxis

The WORD in LENT - Second week, Tuesday

March 07, 2023: Isaiah 1: 10,16-20; Matthew 23: 1-12

"Do what they tell you but do not do what they do" - how would I feel if someone said this of me! However, the world is not far from saying that to us Christians. When Mahatma Gandhi said, 'I like Christ, but not Christians', what he meant was exactly this - that we call ourselves Christ-ians, but we seem to be far, far away from the way of life that Christ stood for. Look at the in-fights we have and the kind of stand we take on very many issues. Are they not indicative of this hypocritical discrepancy?

My deeds have to speak the words of faith, and my faith has to be demonstrated by congruent and consistent deeds - this is where peace shall be born. This situates us at the centre of a dialogue between Orthodoxy or right belief and Orthopraxis or right living. Believing the right thing, understanding what I believe and my earnest effort to live daily what I believe, will lead me to doing the right thing and standing by right values. And there shall be peace!

Orthodoxy and Orthopraxis are two things that cannot be separated one from the other. Humility, Mercy, Forgiveness, Compassion and True Love...if these do not describe my person, I am no Christian! The more I grow in these, the more I grow to be a Christian. Have a look at those verbs that Isaiah presents to us today - wash, clean, learn, search, help, be just, plead, come, walk and listen - that is a recipe for orthopraxis, which is an essential constituent of peace - peace in my heart, peace where I am and the world peace!

Orthopraxis, or the right way of life, gave Jesus the authority to stand up and speak, be it in the Sanhedrin or to the Herodians or before the Roman Governor. Indeed, if my Christian life has to have real meaning, I need to pay attention to my way of life, my orthopraxis, and only that shall lead to true peace!

PEACE-LENT 2023 - Peace is Godliness

The WORD in LENT: Second Week - Monday

March 6, 2023: Daniel 9: 4-10; Luke 6: 36-38

Being compassionate, not judging, not condemning, forgiving with mercy, giving without measure... in whom do we see all these? The Gospel says that right - be compassionate as your heavenly Father; never judge or condemn because God does not; forgive because you are forgiven; give because you have been given. The message is clear: be Godly, that is the way to peace!

Humanly speaking peace is not too easy - depending on the level that we are referring to, it gets proportionately complicated. Peace does not come naturally within a person; it does not happen automatically between two person, much less between groups and much more complicated with groups with differences and diversities. In all these contexts, that which offers the possibility of peace is the Divine!

Unfortunately these days, what is seen is just the contrary. The name of God is used to divide, polarise, oppress, violate and even to kill! But is this Godliness? Is this true spirit of knowing God, relating to God and experiencing God. One who has truly experienced God, cannot hate, cannot hurt, cannot divide, cannot disrespect, cannot oppress, cannot degrade, cannot calumniate, cannot hold grudge, cannot avenge! Because God is love, God is mercy, God is compassion and God is peace!

If only God were to treat us as we deserved, just imagine our predicament. That is what the responsorial  psalm reminds us of. Prophet Daniel too reminds us of how undeserving we are of the compassion, forgiveness and the covenantal love of God. But inspite of these, the Lord has loved us and the Lord continues to love us. The call and the challenge is just one: that we become aware of the need to become more and more God-like: be compassionate as your Lord is compassionate! When we become more Godly, there will be peace all around us, for peace is Godliness.  

PEACE IS REFLECTING GOD

PEACE-LENT 2023: Second Sunday of Lent

March 5: Genesis 12: 1-4; 2 Timothy 1: 8-10; Matthew 17:1-9

We are on the second Sunday of Lent and the Word! Just like the last Sunday that brought to our attention a specific event in the life of Christ - the experience of his temptation, this Sunday too presents to us a remarkable event - the experience of transfiguration! While the former happened at the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, the latter happens at the near end of his short but eventful life of ministry. Jesus takes three of his apostles and gives them a taste of what is to come! What is particular about this timing...why did Jesus choose to do it... these have been a subject of discussion for many scholars who offer us enlightening insights. But that is not what we are interested in today. What matters to us today is, what does this event have to tell us in this season of Lent? 

The message is plain and clear, when the three readings are taken together. The first reading invites us to reflect from the perspective of Abraham, one of the pioneers in our faith. The epistle presents Jesus as the Lord of light who shines on us. The Gospel presents to us that Jesus is the Light, our Light who shines! And putting these together we can understand what peace is for the world today - it is simply, reflecting God, reflecting the light of God. 

Speaking about the timing of this event of transfiguration, at times we think that the passion of Christ began when he accepted the cross, or when he was arrested, or at the most when he began to sweat blood in the garden of Gethsemane. But that interpretation is bit faulty, don't you think? Jesus' life was one long stretch of passion! Already at the temptation, the beginning of his ministry, as we saw last week, his passion had begun. All through his life Jesus chose to suffer - for the sake of the will of God, for the sake of the mission entruste to him and for the sake of the children of God entrusted into his salvific care. Misundertsandings, rejection, maltreatment, hatred and animosity - there was no dearth of these all his life. But he was not moved! It is amidst these hurdles and hinderances that this event of transfiguration takes place - and that has a very specific message to us, in three simple affirmations that go to explain how we exude peace when we simply reflect God. 

The first affirmation is that the Glory of the Lord is always present within us. All that Jesus had to do was to merely go up the mount by himself. The Glory of the Lord is ever present within us and all that we need to do is to make time to be by ourselves. Amidst the din of daily life and trying responsibilities, we may not manage to really be by ourselves. Even our prayer moments could be so filled with thoughts and preoccupations that we fill them so much with words, figures and plans which take away the space that we could share alone with God, who wants to speak to us! 

Being by ourselves... is an important spiritual exercise towards peace... call it meditation or contemplation or merely prayer or retreat or recollection or whatever. It is when we are by ourselves that we can really turn to that glory of the Lord which resides within us, and that leads us to peace!

The second affirmation - Understanding the Glory sends us back to the daily life. Experiencing the glory of the Lord is not to get stuck there, reminds us Jesus. Peter's spontaneous response is usually what we wish in life - when we experience the Lord's presence close to us, may be at a miraculous happening, or a mysterious turn of events, or a joyful coincidence. But in fact it is merely a preparation for a moment that is trying, for a moment when difficult things happen, for a moment which cannot be explained in normal logic, for a moment when we need an extraordinary strength to remain faithful. The transfiguration of Jesus would have been running through Peter's mind all the time during the moments of darkness - the death of Jesus, the crisis of faith and the hidden life in the upper room. That is why he writes in his letter about this event (2 Pet 1: 17-18). Peter wanted to remain in that glory when he saw but Jesus reminds him to return to his daily life! 

Spending time with God, is not to remain there in that sanctuary, rapt in glory and praise, but it is to return to our daily life and live it more meaningfully; it is to take that experience into the daily life and make meaning out of it. It is to identify that light of the Lord glowing within us and allow it to emerge, shine from within. That is a manifestation of the peace within.

The third affirmation is that the Glory of the Lord sheds new light to our days. The experience on the mount could have strengthened Jesus to walk with assurance towards Jerusalem. The experience of the disciples would have given them a new insight into who Jesus was. In a life filled with normal commitments and extraordinary sufferings, the experience of God's glory can clarify and illumine our path, preparing us to live them with newer meaning and fresher strength. St. Paul reminds us of that in the second reading today, asking us to derive strength from the Lord to bear our share of hardships. Every Eucharist we celebrate is a transfiguration event, and it is an invitation to learn to live our life with increased meaning and commitment. Should we remain the same after a Eucharistic Celebration, either we have not been by ourselves on that mount or we have been blind to that resplendent glory that shone. 

Listenting to the Voice that resounds at every Eucharist that we participate: This is my beloved Son, Listen to Him" - that is the key to true peace. In listening and obeying that voice we gather the real meaning of our life. If we manage to gaze at the glory of the Lord and listen to the voice of the Lord, our life will be transformed and transfigured. We shall become reflections of God!

To turn to the glory that resides within us, to return strengthened to live our life with increased commitment and to continuously learn the real meaning of the life of faith: that is the way to peace, that the Word presents to us today. Let us realise that true peace is in short, reflecting God and let us intensify our Lenten Journey and may the Spirit inspire us ahead.

PEACE-LENT 2023 - Peace is a lifestyle

Saturday, First week in Lent - March 4, 2023

The WORD in LENT: Deuteronomy 26: 16-19; Matthew 5: 43-48

The first reading today focusses on the figure of Moses, as the one who gave an identity to the people. What was the identity he gave them? The identity of the people of God! Moses in fact acts as a mediator between God and God's people, creating within the people a sense of the people of God. How did he do that? Through the law that he taught them from the Lord.

In the Gospel we have another grand figure, that of Jesus, who dies to give us a renewed identity! What is the identity? The same - as the people of God, and the people of the Reign of God. Jesus is the Mediator par excellence between God our Father and Mother and us. How does he renew that identity? Through upgrading the law that Moses had given - the upgraded law is called LOVE! 

Love and love alone can be our identity and that is what Jesus tells us. He did not give us the law as the basis of our identity, but our identity is itself the law, the law of love! We shall be people of God if we love; we shall not be so, if we do not love. There is no asking: whom should I love? There is certainly no meaning in the question, to what extent should I love! Yes, love is the very grammar of our life as people of God and people of the Reign.

Love is a lifestyle indeed... and that is the lifestyle of peace! Peace cannot be bought or brought to anyone or any setting. It has to be lived and experienced. It has to be shared not created. It has to be developed and evolved, not negotiated and contracted. Peace is certainly a lifestyle, the lifesyle of the people of God. 

PEACE-LENT 2023 - Peace is Forgiveness

Friday, First week in Lent - March 3, 2023

The WORD in LENT: Ezekiel 18: 21-28; Matthew 5: 20-26

Peace is reconciliation, we said right at the beginning of our lenten reflections! Today there is a prerequisite of that: peace is forgiveness. How can we think of reconciliation without forgiveness? The Word today presents to us this fact, from two complementary perspectives - one, that there can be peace only where there is forgiveness; and second, that the model of forgiveness is none other than God, our merciful Father and Mother.

Jesus in the Gospel explicates the fact that it is not enough to refrain from killing, instead a disciple of Christ has to refrain from anything that hurts - even a simple word that would hurt the other. But what if someone hurts me? Jesus says, forgive! This is an easy way to peace: do not hurt, and forgive those who hurt you! But one may protest: it appears to be such a weak character to refrain from hurting but readily forgiving those who hurt me! Before considering that protest, objectively think to yourself - will it not lead to peace when I don't hurt and forgive those who hurt? Now coming to the objection, Jesus says, "forgive because you are forgiven."  

That is infact the second perspective and we see that amply represented in the first reading by Ezekiel. As a prefigurement of the theology of mercy that would be later preached by Jesus, Ezekiel speaks of a God who wishes that we live rather than die, that we change and become good rather than be condemned, that we have always a chance to restart or begin again rather than being damned to destruction by destiny or fate! God who forgives us endlessly, in a way demands that we grow more and more forgiving towards others. That is a sure way to peace, because peace is forgiveness.