Encounters

WORD 2day - Monday, 14th week in Ordinary time

July 10, 2023: Genesis 28: 10-22; Matthew 9: 18-26

Encounters with God - the Word presents three of them today; Jacob's encounter with God, the ailing lady and the little child encountering Jesus. Two messages that stand out in the totality of today's events. 

Firstly, any encounter with God rejuvenates. Jacob was given a new vision of life; the lady with the hemorrhage was given a new life; and the little child was given back her life! One cannot remain the same after having encountered God. 

The second message, which is carried specially by the Gospel account, is about the special encounter through TOUCH - It is interesting to note the two accounts of Luke which seem to point to a fact: whether you touch God or God touches you, the fruits are the same! The lady sad and suffering touched Jesus, and Jesus touched the little child dead and gone... the effect was the same - a new lease of life. Touching God or God touching us, they are the same - for they are fundamentally an encounter and "Faith is born of an encounter with the living God who calls us and reveals his love" (Lumen Fidei, 4). 

May be another important feature can be underlined too - that God met Jacob on a ground and while he slept; Jesus encountered the diseased lady on a road and amidst a jostling crowd; Jesus touched the little girl in a room and while she lay dead! It does not matter where we are, or what we are upto, the living God can encounter us anywhere and anytime, provided we are ready and willing to accept and behold the encounter. Behold I stand knocking at the door, says the Lord!

Struggles - aren't they salvific?

WORD 2day - Tuesday, 14th week in Ordinary time

July 11, 2023: Genesis 32: 23-33; Matthew 9: 32-37

It's puzzling! Among a few puzzling details of the Old Testament is the likes of today's account from Jacob's life. The Lord (!?!) wrestled with Jacob, says the reading today - and elsewhere we see a similar account of God trying to kill Moses (Exo 4:24). Whatever may be the exegesis, the first disclaimer here is not to take these lines literally. There is a symbolic or a interpretative meaning to these happenings! 

One thing we can guess here is that these men had something really to struggle with, a struggle of life and death! But they stood firm on the side of the Lord who had called them and after that struggle of life and death, there is something remarkable, a change that is radical, a happening that defines history forever. For, Jacob after that struggle comes to be called Israel, a name that would define the People of God forever. Incidentally, Moses after that struggle comes to establish a new covenant with the Lord in the sign of circumcision - again something that would define the People of the Covenant, ever since. 

Jesus had a similar struggle, constantly there were people who followed him as there were the others who tried their best to demonise him (Mt 9:34). The struggle went on right till the cross - the struggle of life and death, but he stood by the Father who had sent him. And after that struggle, he was not anymore merely Jesus, but Jesus the Christ; there came the event that changed the World for ever, it changed the history not only of the world but of you and me! 

Today we are saved, in his struggle, in his death, in his wounds, in his blood and in his Resurrection! The question to me is - how ready and willing am I for a struggle?

KNOWING GOD

As God reveals...

July 9, 2023: 14th Sunday in Ordinary time

Zechariah 9: 9-10; Romans 8: 9,11-13; Matthew 11: 25-30

Do we know God? That is a very complicated question, isn't it? Anyone, needless to be humble, enough to be realistic, would say, knowing God is not a human task. It is almost impossible. That is why God comes to our aid, with God's grace! It is sheer grace that we get to know God. Yes, it is always a "given"! Only by God's grace, and God's self revelation do we get to know God, despite our inability and our limitedness. This is a grandiose gift, but at the same time a risky terrain. What is the risk?

Being a grace and a supernatural gift, in the process of knowing God, we might sometimes settle for what is a limited understanding of God, if not an erroneous understanding. Attributed to the philosopher Xenophanes is the saying which goes: "if cattle or horses had hands and could draw, then the horses would draw their gods like horses, and cattle like cattle." The danger pointed out here is, if we are not sincerely attentive to God, we might paint God the way we are, the way we think and the way we wish - instead of getting to know who God really is, and what God reveals Godself as. 

This is one challenge that Jesus had during his life time - and God continues to have even now - to make people understand who God really is. People who thought that they knew everything about God, that they were very close to God and closer than anybody else, that they were true authorities on God-talk, actually did not know God. Instead, those who were, and who are, simple and innocent, unsophisticated and humble, find God much closer and much clearer to themselves. That is the way of the Lord and that is why Jesus glorifies the Father today: I bless you Father, Lord of heaven and of earth!

It is imperative to know God, but know God as God reveals, not in the way we wish to imagine God. At times we create our own god, which could be far away from what God truly is, and what God reveals Godself as. Jesus' primay aim within the incarnational design was to reveal God to us and to receive that revelation fully, the Word traces us a way, a passage, an itinerary that Jesus intended to teach us. This itinerary, to know God, can be presented in these three terms:

From power to peace:

I bless you Father, God of heaven and earth... the words of Jesus in the Gospel portrays a fundamental understanding of God - the God of heaven and earth, the God Almighty! But look at this God almighty... God renounced that mightiness, made Godself so vulnerable in the event of incarnation and came to live amidst us - to show us how much God loved us. That is why the Prophet Zechariah, in the first reading speaks of a God who is victorious and triumphant, but humble and riding on a donkey, a God who banishes chariots, horses and bows of war, a God who proclaims peace for the nations! 

God prefers peace to power! God chooses compassion instead of glory, as the psalm says. That is the God we are introduced to, by Jesus the Christ - a God who is compassionate, loving, caring and peace-giving, and not power mongering, competitive, egocentred, self promoting, exploitative and arrogant. If we have to truly know God, we need to move from a power-oriented thinking to a peace-centred mentality. Blessed are the peace makers for they shall be called the children of God. 

From death to life:

There is a constant struggle between the unspiritual and the Spiritual, not just out there in the world, but within us every day. When we feel tempted, angered, tired or anxious, there is this conflict within us - what to choose the easy way of the unspiritual or the long-winded way of the Spiritual. That is a choice between death and life - death, not in the sense of the end of life, but in the sense of it absence. Many choose to die, way long before they are buried, a culture of death that keeps threatening the humanity. 

There is a tendency and a propaganda in the world today, to make everything easy. Why should we think of a consequence that might come after a few decades? Why should we think of remote effects on persons whom we may or may not know? Why worry about a so-called unknown future, while we have the concrete presence right in our hands? These are the modes of thinking propagated by the culture of death. Are we going to give into these? If we wish really to know God, we would dare choose life; we would choose to move from death to life! But that is not as easily done as said. With all the mindblowing campaigns around, it could be absolutely tiresome. And that is why the next passage that Jesus suggests...

From fatigue to freedom:

When we find it tiresome to choose life, when we find it hard to choose peace, when we find it exhausting to know and understand God, Jesus says: come to me, and I shall give you rest! learn from me, for I am meek and humble. It is in this meekness and humility, that you will find God and Godliness, for God has chosen the meek and the humble! Those who pride in power and authoritarianism, those who gloat in glory and pomp, those who crave for luxury and splendour, unfortunately are far from God, far from knowing God. And that is a very serious warning that Jesus gives us!

What we need to have is the rest, the calm, the serenity, the peace, the freedom that the Lord alone can give! Not in a frenetic search or an anxious scampering that we would know or discover God, because it is God who reveals... it is in the calmness and stillness that we can know God. Isn't that the meaning of what the psalm 46 tells us - be still and know that I am God! Come to me, I will give you rest, and learn from my meekness who God is - that is the invitation of Christ today. To know God not though our fatigue, but in freedom. It might sound logical to say, as soon as I know God, I will surrender myself to God. But the truth is other way around, when we surrender ourselves in freedom to God, we begin to know God. 

It is only in our choice for a life giving lifestyle, our preference for peace and our free submission to God, we shall know God, know God as God reveals. 

Privileged! Loved!

WORD 2day: Saturday, 13th week in Ordinary time

July 8, 2023 - Genesis 23: 1-4,19, 24: 1-8, 62-67; Matthew 9: 9-13

Cursed be everyone who curses you and blessed be everyone who blesses you! To be God's "predilected" child (if we can use that term) is an incredible honour; and that is what we are. How beautifully John expresses this in his letter (1 Jn 3:1-3)! In the corrupt culture of the day, it is pretty easy to understand this predilection... a VIP's son or daughter, or a person who has the backing of a key personality in the society gets above anybody and everybody else to win favours in the society! 

Jacob was the chosen one, he was the one picked to bring forth the 'predilected' people of God. And because he was chosen, everything works in his favour. Unjust! Unfair! Undeserved! - we might say all that and all that is true! God's love that is 'poured' into us (Rom 5:5: not just given but poured into our hearts); it is unjustly given, unfairly lavished, undeservedly heaped on us. What a way to communicate that truth via the story of Jacob - a cheater yes, but who becomes an identity for God on earth - God refers to Godself as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and God of Jacob! 

This logic, however, is totally different! This logic will not fit into the usual logic of the give-and-take, the cause-and-effect; this is a totally different logic of God's love, God's prodigal love for each of us. And if we try to fit this into the normal logic we will be frustrated, like pouring new wine in old skin, or old wine in new skin or stitching a new cloth to an old shrunken one! 

The call is to be drenched in this entirely unconditional love of God, and to understand how privileged we are to receive this love; and the most important of all, to exhibit that awareness in concrete, day to day actions and attitudes. One basic truth has to rule our lives, we are privileged, we are loved! 

Mercy not Sacrifice

WORD 2day: Friday, 13th week in Ordinary time

July 7, 2023 - Genesis 22: 1-19; Matthew 9: 1-8

Mercy and Sacrifice actually stood for two paradigms that were in confrontation as a result of Jesus' life and teaching. God and one's relationship to God was explained purely in terms of sacrifice, sacrifice which stood for fulfillment of the requirements based on regulations and customs. The challenge is alive even today - that we do not make our spirituality a sacrifice-based spirituality. Fulfillment of the precepts, keeping the commandments, making vows and carrying out the same, offering suffrages and being faithful to our prayers to be 'said'. 

Mercy, instead, is fundamentally a relationship. The Scripture scholars attribute the meaning from the Hebrew word for mercy - rahamim (or rachamim) which comes from the root, rehem (or rechem) which means "womb". Biblically, as Jesus uses, mercy refers to a compassion that one feels to a child in the womb or a bond very intimate that arouses a warm feeling towards the other! 

Far from doing something to help the other or giving something to someone in need, Mercy is to feel one with the other, specially someone who is in real need. That is why the statement of Jesus: I have come not to call the righteous but the sinners - a feeling one with the needy! When we really feel one with someone in trouble, or difficulty, or temptation, or a struggle, much before branding that person a 'sinner' or a 'weakling' or a 'traitor' or a 'infidel', we would stay close to him or her, find out what actually is going on and share moments of solidarity that would walk that person right out of that situation. 

That is what Jesus did and that is what he expects of you and me - to go and learn what it means... Mercy not Sarifice!

Faith amidst perplexities

WORD 2day: Thursday, 13th week in Ordinary time

July 6, 2023 - Genesis 22: 1-19; Matthew 9: 1-8

Abraham and his story has reached its climax today! An episode that escapes all rational discourse on God, God's will, God's mercy and Faith. If it is so difficult for us today as we read and reflect, it is not difficult to imagine the perplexity of a man who could possibly in Abraham's shoes. He would have been battling in his mind as to what really God wants from him, why does God give and why does God want to take it away so prematurely! 

Perplexities are more for one who believes more and one who believes more is prepared for more perplexities. Abraham personifies this fact - but in all his perplexities - he gives us a definition of what means Obedience of Faith (that later becomes a key word for St.Paul in his letters). 

Obedience of Faith, in simple terms is putting God first. Placing God's will before anything else, before my will, my desire, my plans and projects, my dreams and my treasures! It is perfect submission to God's will, even when I really do not understand what that actually is. Abraham never understood what God's will was, just as the pharisees and the Scribes never understood who Jesus was. But the difference was, Abraham was ready to submit but the latter did not want to. They held on to their judgments and prejudices, which did not allow them to see God's presence and action unfold right in front of their eyes.

The Word today invites us to make this loving leap of faith in God as did Abraham, without doubting the presence of the Lord at any point of time. Faith is a total, loving and unquestioning submission to the Divine Will, not when everything is well, but particularly amidst perplexities.

With open eyes...

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 13th week in Ordinary time

July 5, 2023: Genesis 21: 5, 8-20a; Matthew 8: 28-34

Hagar had almost given up. For her it was all over. She found no scope of living on and no chance of surviving that desertedness. She had cried enough, she thought. All of a sudden she finds a well, the source of her life. All that while the well was just round the corner. She was so filled with self pity that she was not able to see the ample opportunity just there for hers to take. All that God did was open her eyes that she may see the well. 

However, finally she does see unlike the people of Gerasene who never saw till the end, who it was that had entered their village. Their self pity of having lost their swine in thousands blinded their eyes from perceiving the great and wonderful blessings that Jesus had in store for them. What a great miss it was, they asked Jesus to leave! 

At times, for the sake of our self pity, due to our self indulgence, and for the fear of losing something so insignificant, we lose God, or rather we reject God. Just like the persons we meet in the Word today, if only we saw who we are rejecting; if only we beheld the blessings that choosing God would bring into our lives, if only we lived our lives with our eyes open... we shall be truly blessed. 

Be still... and know that God is!

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 13th week in Ordinary time

July 4, 2023 - Genesis 19: 15-29; Matthew 8: 23-27

Fire and brimstone all over, but Lot and his family in perfect safety... all because of, the scripture says, one man who walked in the presence of the Lord - Abraham! It was on Abraham's account, due to his faithfulness to God and his unswerving decision to live in the presence of the Lord, that Lot is saved! But even there, nothing could prevent the perishing of his wife, a typical representation of the category of persons who have lost their heart and soul to overly attachments. 

How closely parallel the scene is, in the Gospel today - storms and waves all over, but disciples in perfect safety... all because of one person who was the presence of the Lord - Jesus the Son of God! They had nothing to fear, for the Lord was with them. But there was panic and desperation, for their heart and soul was not focused on the Lord who was with them... they were focused on themselves and their problems and their dying prospects. When Jesus rose, he first rebuked the disciples; only then the storm and the sea.

Today, don't we find ourselves in a similar situation too? Problems and Weariness all over, but we are in perfect safety... all because the Lord's presence is with us! The Lord journeys with us, lives with us, and acts on our behalf... all that we need to do is like Abraham, "Be Still and Know" that God is!

The Apostle, the Church and the doubts

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

July 3, 2023: Celebrating St. Thomas, the apostle to India

Ephesians 2: 19-22; John 20: 24-29

Feast of St. Thomas leaves us with three lessons...

1. We are One Church built on the Apostles.

The feast of every apostle is a reminder of the essential unity that is not only a characteristic but a mandate given to the Church, the mystical body of Christ. As Paul so vehemently opposes (cf. I Cor 1:10-13), right from the earliest times division has always been a dreaded scandal within the Church. This reality notwithstanding, even today the divided body of Christ drains the Church of its witnessing power and evangelical authority. That is indeed a motive for concern and prayer for us always. 

2. The Church in India has a special responsibility.

The Church in India, boasting a direct handing over of faith by an apostle, has a special responsibility towards establishing the Reign of God on earth. It is unfair to claim privileges but refrain from the duties that come with it. Every person who has received the gift of faith in this country of ancient heritage and culture, has to stand firm in witness to the Gospel thus received, challenging the society towards a holistic transformation, ushering in the Reign of God here and now. 

3. Doubts don't matter as long as the Lord remains close to us.

Thomas was not only the one who wanted to touch the wounds that nails made and put his hand into the hole on Jesus' side, but he was also the one who said, "let us also go, that we may die with him" (Jn 11:16). His personal attachment to Jesus covered up for his obstinacy not to believe when the rest of the apostles reported Jesus' resurrection. In our lives too, when doubts assail, when clouds gather over our heads and we tend to be overwhelmed by them, the only thing that can sustain us is our personal relationship with Jesus!

May St. Thomas show us Christians in India, the most fitting way of living out the Gospel in our context, so that we may be ambassadors of the Reign of God, here and now.

THE CHALLENGE OF RECEIVING GOD

God, God's message and God's messenger

July 2, 2023 - 13th Sunday in Ordinary time

2 Kings 4: 8-11, 13-16; Romans 6: 3-4,8-11; Matthew 10: 37-42

Are we ready to receive God? We would say immediately an enthusaistic "yes"! But before saying that let us just take a moment to reflect on what it would actually cost us. 

Just yesterday we reflected on 'the Lord who passes by' - with the example of Abraham who received God who was passing by and the centurion who went to encounter the Lord who was passing by. The imagery today is not the Lord who is passing by, the Lord who wishes to accost us. The Lord comes to meet us and what would our response be? Get busy in what we are upto and lose God; or dare to Receive God? Yes, we have to dare to receive the Lord, because it is indeed a challenge... not just one, but atleast threefold. 

First of all when we intend to receive the Lord, we shall be challenged by God, by the very presence of God... because anyone who prefers a person or a thing or an ideology or a ritual or a sacrifice to God, we shall be deemed unworthy of the Lord. When we let God enter our lives, we cannot remain the same. 

We can think of any number of examples... for instance the personality that we have been thinking all through the week - Abraham. He was an unknown man of  Ur living with his people and Yahweh enters his life. From the moment Abraham received the Lord into his life, he had undergo many sacrifices... to give up his place, give up his people, give up his private life, give up so many things because he received the Lord. But his faithfulness paid. He is today the Father of our faith and held high in the eyes of faith. 

Instead the people of Gerasene, refused to receive the Lord - we see that episode in the Gospels of Mark and Luke. They refused to receive the Lord because they were not prepared to face the challenges the Lord would bring to them - challenges that would change their life style, their life priorities and their values in life. Just like they missed their swines, we may be attached to some of our own typical attachments and fixations. We may be willing to receive the Lord, but are we ready to be challenged by the Lord. Our life style, our priorities and our value system are they compatible with the Lord whom we wish to receive? That is a challenge. 

Secondly, when we are are ready to receive the Lord, we shall be challenged by God's Message, and that message shall be the cross on which we shall die, to be born anew, to be born to eternal life! God's Message is not always a soothing balm, it can be fire and brimstone at times, calling into question a number of factors in our life.  

When Paul speaks of 'cosidering ourselves dead to sin,' he indicates a radical choice for God - a choice between life and death. Just as Paul himself, and all the other apostles, who were almost all of them, destined to lay down their lives for the Message of Christ. They were ready for it. They received the Lord and they received along with that the challenge too. Peter who tried to deny Jesus, all other apostles who ran for their lives, Paul who was against Jesus...every one of them, laid his life down for the believing in and proclaiming the message.

Unlike Herod whom we see was happy to listen to John, but did not want to change himself, we are called to accept the challenge of God's Message if we are truly ready to receive the Lord. It may cost our simple pleasures, or our convenience, or our acceptability in the eyes of the world, but we would have to take up the challenge, if we are sincere about receiving the Lord. 

Thirdly, one who is ready to receive the Lord, shall be challenged by God's Messengers - be it blessings or curse, be it difficulties or graces, be it troubles or miracles, we have to endure it for the sake of the Lord. The question here is who are God's Messengers.

As long as someone does good to us, does things that please us, fulfils our curiosity and feeds our necessities, we are happy to accept them as Messengers of God. The moment someone begins to challenge our ways, criticise our so-called customs and traditions that are not in anyway 'godly', we begin to reject the person, critique the person and even plan to get rid of the person as far as it is within our capacity. Just as Jesus says, if we give even a single cup of water to the persons who are sent to us, we shall be blessed,  so shall we be despicable in the presence of the Lord if we despise persons who are in need and who come to us for help.

Assisting those who come to us for help, reaching out to those who are in need even without their asking for it, wishing the good of the other in so much as being crushed in the heart to see someone somewhere suffer, doing whatever is within my power to counter hatred and injustice in the world, making way for peace, harmony and justice - these are various levels at which we receive the Lord. When we receive persons in the name of the Lord, we receive God, and only by that we become persons of the Reign of God.