Choose to be little

WORD 2day: Saturday, 19th week in Ordinary time

August 19, 2023: Joshua 24: 13-15; Matthew 19:13-15

To choose God, to choose God as the absolute, to choose God above all - these would mean...  choosing to be little! What do we mean? 

Choosing to be little means choosing to be laughed at, choosing to be jeered at, choosing to be labelled 'conservative' or 'irrelevant'. This is becoming more and more real as days go by! The culture in general is growing increasingly cynical towards anything spiritual. 

In fact, the cultures which were once so dominated by the God-talk, are today turning, if they have not already totally turned, "Godless". However, it is not our task to be sitting in judgement on the people around. Our task here is to take into account our personal daily life, our personal choices and priorities, and the elements of our daily life that truly matter to us. There we will have a clue - do we want to be accepted by the world and found relevant to the times or do we want to choose to be little, to be that little flock that surrounds the Lord, like children who feel secure in the embrace of a mother? 

What would our choice be? If I say 'I choose to be little', I choose to stick on to the Lord in spite of the attractions of the dominant images of the world today, I choose to hold on to the values that are Reign-related and not what is trending, I choose to be called an "outdated boomer" while the rest pose themselves as a progressive and advanced generation of humanity. We cannot but be inspired by the dedication which we find in Joshua's declaration today: "it is the Lord our God we choose to serve; it is God's voice that we will obey!" 

Enjoying the fruits that we never planted

WORD 2day: Friday, 19th week in Ordinary time

August 18, 2023: Joshua 24: 1-13; Matthew 19: 3-12

When a brother of the Islamic faith speaks in public, or even in a simple familiar gathering, invariably he begins with terms like, 'Insha Allah' or 'Masha Allah'... Certainly we have seen this atleast on the media screens. These terms simply mean 'if God wills' and 'God has willed' respectively. As much as we admire them for this courageous reference to God in relationship to their daily life, we need to wonder at our own Christian brothers and sisters, our own children and ourselves! How much of this sense of God do we possess and propose to the world? 

It does so much good to realise that everything in my life comes from the Lord - in the name of the Lord, and for the will of God. "What do we have, that we have not received?" challenges St. Paul (cf. 1 Cor 4:7). If all that we are and all that we have, is received from God, why not acknowledge that at every event of our lives - not just at failures and difficulties where we readily point to God, but all at sucessess and peaceful moments when we prefer to live on our own.

Dedicating oneself for God, for God's will, for God's task is a matter of choice, not merely on our part, but on the part of the One who is at the root of everything. Every good that we are blessed to carry out is a gift from God - according to God's will and towards fulfilling God's will. At times we make choices that serve our own ego and our own personal plans. But what matters is to realise that we are eating the fruits of plants planted once upon a time and be one such - planters of the tree of blessing. 

The call is to realise that we are being blessed constantly by the Lord and to understand clearly what our own blessings lead us to. Challenging moments, let us get ready to brave them. Pleasant moments, let us be mindful of the fact that we are enjoying the fruits of the plants we never planted!

The "Dry Ground" Phenomenon

WORD 2day: Thursday, 19th week in Ordinary time

August 17, 2023: Joshua 3:7-11,13-17; Matthew 18:21 - 19:1

The presence of the Lord with the Israelites was a solid and concrete presence - the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud that we have seen, and today, we see the splitting of Jordan when the bearers of the Ark step in. The presence made a great difference in the lives of the people and at times the Lord made it concrete because they were constantly forgetting the fact. 

Today we have the Jordan splitting itself - the upper Jordan and the lower; and they saw the dry ground. It is a repetition of the experience where they crossed the Red Sea with Moses, they had walked on dry ground even then. 

In our life too, there are experiences of dry ground - we walk through life's experiences without our feet getting wet or dirty or stained or soiled, not by our own merit but by the grand mercy of God. That is what Jesus is reminding us of - when you find fault with your neighbour, when you judge your brother or your sister, when you call them names, when you have your finger pointing at your fellow persons, remember the dry ground phenomenon. 

You are standing on a dry ground, your feet unsoiled because the Lord has had mercy on you. Remember, your dry ground is not your merit, it is God's mercy. When you are mindful of it, you will surely be a member of the Reign.

Neither Moses, nor Joshua, nor We

WORD 2day - Wednesday, 19th week in Ordinary time

August 16, 2023: Deuteronomy 34: 1-12; Matthew 18: 15-20

Today we listen to an account of the demise of Moses and the taking over of Joshua. Moses was a great prophet, an unparalleled leader, a person who related to God as if to a friend - but that does not mean he would go on forever. He faced his end. Joshua took over and there was an end to him too. None of us is indispensable - neither Moses, nor Joshua, nor you and me! 

We are all here to do the will of God, each one in our own way, in our personal life. And one thing that will remain to ensure continuity is the community, the faith community, the people of God! This is what Jesus teaches his followers today. The Faith Community, that is, my brothers and sisters in the Lord together as one, have an indispensable role to play. This is where the Church draws its importance. 

At times we belittle our faith, as if it is between me and my God. Yes, it is so, but it is between me and my God in the context of my brothers and sisters in the Lord. I cannot take the other for granted. I cannot be Christlike, if I claim my faith sans my genuine love for the other. 

Know the people of God whom you live with. Love your faith community. Be responsible towards the community around you. As a follower of Christ, I am called to express and live my faith, in and among a community, given to me by God. Let love reign!

Faith that Liberates

Favour, Faith and Freedom

August 15, 2023 - Solemnity of Assumption of our Blessed Mother and Indian Independence
Revelation 11: 19,12: 1-6, 10; 1 Corinthians 15: 20-26; Luke 1:39-56

Assumption of Mary into heaven is a celebration of the goodness, faithfulness and mercy of God and not that of an achievement of Mary. Though it is a Marian feast, we celebrate the mighty things that the Lord had done in her and for her! The celebration and the Word calls our attention to three important terms today: Favour, Faith and Freedom!

Favour... Full of grace, filled with favours - Mary was a predilected child of God, because wanted her to be an instrument to bring salvation to humankind through God's own Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. She was granted favours in abundance. Assumption is one last favour that God showers on her at the end of her earthly journey, so occupied with doing God's will and nothing but God's will. We are filled with favours too - to be born, to have life, to be born as children of God, to be loved by God and to have the Lord's presence ever on our side. Are they not enough favours? But what we do with them is a more pertinent question.

Faith... Here is where Mary shines forth as a person. Mary was filled with favours but her merit is seen in the fact that she always remained worthy of those favours by an absolute choice for God. That is faith - that absolute personal choice for God, and God's will. Inspite of all her difficulties and struggles, she stood faithful to the Lord, choosing God above anything else. That makes her a great model for us today. This absolute choice for God, created in her an attitude that kept her totally away from anything that could separate her from God. That attitude is what we celebrate today.

Freedom... the ability Mary had to choose on her own things that were acceptable to God is that which set her apart. That is what liberated her. That is true freedom, to choose God on my own, without any force or pressure, without any fear or threat. That freedom is not merely a freedom from but it is a freedom to... freedom to live my life to the full come what may, freedom to stick to what is right in spite of the repeated despise of the world, freedom to remain with God forever! Mary used her freedom and she was liberated forever! In the context of the Independence day that we celebrate today, this freedom becomes a crucial value to be reflected upon! How much freedom is promoted in the society today - that would determine the true dignity of every person in the society!  

The call is simple - a challenge to grow in our faith, in a faith that liberates!

Half a Shekel or Life to the Full?

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

August 14, 2023: Remembering St. Maximilian Kolbe
Deuteronomy 10: 12-22; Matthew 17: 22-27

Celebrating St. Maximilian Kolbe, is a challenge we accept to dwell on - a man who did not do anything for the sake of a rule, but for the sake of what his heart prompted him to do for the Lord who loved him. Paying half a shekel was a duty of a slave, according to Jesus. That is not what is asked of a Son or a Daughter. While a slave intends to pay the half shekel that is expected of him, the Son gives the entire life to the Lord, surrenders the totality of one's life, bringing that life to its fullness thus.

God is not to be bribed, declares Moses. You don't try to appease God by being calculative in what you give, trying to pay your due, for your due is your life, not just some money or some fulfilment of a rule. The heaven, the earth, everything that exists therein and my very life belongs to God and what can I possibly give the Lord - nothing less than the whole of my life!

Maxmilian Kolbe, a saint of our times, lived the words that we reflect on in the Liturgy today. He took seriously 1 John 3:16 - "... we ought to lay down our lives for our brethren." That is the sign given to us to testify for true love - as Jesus himself states in the Gospel, Jn 15:13 - "there can be no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends." It is a choice that Kolbe made, knowing well what is going to be the fallout of that choice. Right enough, Pope John Paul II declared him as 'the Patron Saint of our Difficult Century'. A saint from the greatest of all tragedies of the just gone century in the concentration camp of Auschwitz, where Kolbe chose to die in place of another(Franciszek Gajowniczek, who was present at the canonisation of the saint). Let our love be genuine (Rom 12:9); but if it were really so, sure we will have to be prepared for hard times and painful experiences!

When Fr. Kolbe decided to die for a man whom he knew not, he did not consider that act a great feat. For him that was what he could do, all that he had to give at the moment was his life and he gave it - he loved his Lord with the whole of his heart, with the whole of his strength, with his very life. I am called to give not just half a shekel, but my life to the full.

GOD IS

The invitation to Meet God...

August 13, 2023: 19th Sunday in Ordinary time
1 Kings 19:9a, 11-13a; Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14:22-33

It was a Religion class and the professor entered the class and wrote on the board: God is... and turned to the students and said, 'can some of you try completing that statement?' and asked them to come over to the board to complete it. Many tried replacing those dots with things like, God is ...love, Great, merciful and so on. Some ironically tried completing it with things like, God is ...absent, dead, forgotten, unnecessary, useless and so on! The professor at the end of it all smiled at them and said: 'I can complete that sentence even without touching a piece of chalk.' He went to the board and rubbed off the last two dots... and it read: God is. Not only grammatically, even theologically it is a perfect and complete sentence!

Whether joys or sorrows, trials or triumphs, celebrations or temptations, successes or struggles, THE LORD IS. God is with us! God is present with us and God walks beside our tossed boats. God speaks to us in gentle whispers and caresses in our moments of discernment and decision making. In moments of struggles and strivings he is there as our stronghold. 

How convinced are we about the Lord's presence with us at all moments: For all seasons... God IS.

However, it is our responsibility to meet God...

We are invited to meet God IN THE CALM OF OUR LIFE. At moments when everything is calm and quiet, serene and simple, we tend to miss the presence of God. Grateful hearts behold that presence instantly and childlike spirits rejoice in that quietude. The Lord invites us through Prophet Elijah to behold the Lord in the "sound of sheer silence" (as the NRSV translation phrases it 1 Kgs 19:13).

Isn't that true, when we enjoy good health we do not even think about out health, but when we are down with a simple fever or headache, our health is all the time on our minds! May be, when we are in good health, if only we pay attention to our bodily self, with balanced diet, sufficient exercise, good and regular daily habits... how much good it would do, even if a moment of sickness should come our way! Let us not extend that analogy too much, but the point is this: as the Ecclesiastes tell us - remember your creator, before the days of trouble come! God is... right there on our side, all our life. We need not wait for a trouble, or a crisis to call out to God.

We are invited to meet God IN THE STORM OF OUR DAYS. Of course, there are days of struggle. The specific crises of our lives apart, we never lack moments when storm clouds batter against our weak spirits. We shall not be moved, if we are sure of the Lord who is present with us. We shall remain strong and composed if we know that the Lord is around even if we are not able to 'see' God because of the darkness that surrounds and because of the deafening noise that threatens. At times we may be misled to look at God and suspect God to be a ghost, that is looking at things that are happening and villainise God, blaming God for every misery that is around. When things are settled, at hindsight we will recognise how good God is and how God has been with us all through those moments.

But our regular habits serve us at particular moments of need. Imagine if we have been feeling the presence of God close to us all through our regular routine of daily life, if we have lived the days with the Lord and surrendered our nights to God's protection every day, if we have been cultivating an ongoing relationship with God as a person who walks beside me everyday... will it be difficult for me to gather God's presence when I have a trouble? Will it be tough for me to hear the Lord whisper into my ears: fear not, I am around! How blessed it would be to feel the Lord close when there is storm all around, for the Lord alone can rebuke the storm, we can only stand around and shiver.

We are invited to meet God AS THE NORM OF OUR LIFE. In the calm of our life or in the storm of our days, we are invited to encounter the Lord as the norm of our lives! The episodes of life and miracles of Christ in the Gospels are not merely wonders and showpieces, for us to look and marvel at. They are lessons to be learnt, ways to be adopted - to live our life like him, with him and in him. In the second reading, St. Paul cries over the numerous signs that the Lord gave the Jews, which they utterly missed and totally squandered.

At times we may do the same too... miss it all. How many opportunities we get to learn on a daily basis! Let them alone, how many warnings we get in and through events that happen: ecological crisis, criminalities, war cries, terrorism, imbalanced depletion of resources, improper priorities and choices at the national and international levels, suffering humanity, abandoned sections of people... are all these not lessons for us to see and learn, for ourselves and for the entire humanity, for today and for ever! Let us not miss the lessons that come through on a daily basis... the Lord is our norm. We need to grow in God's image each and every day.

The Lord's invitation resounds as it does to Elijah, "Go out, stand and watch! the Lord shall be passing by! Don't let the Lord pass by." St. Augustine makes that inspiring statement in this regard: I fear the Lord, passing by. Let us behold the Lord always, because for all seasons, God is!!!

Mighty hand and Outstretched arms!

WORD 2day -  Friday, 18th week in Oridnary time

August 11, 2023: Deuteronomy 4: 32-40; Matthew 16: 24-28

‘By a mighty hand and an outstretched arm’ – that was the phrase the Israelites used to summarise the glorious care that God took of their ancestors. The readings speak to us of the ‘Glory’ of God that deserves all our obedience and allegiance! 

The covenant that Israelites had with Yahweh was not formulated on some imaginary terms, but was established on a concrete experience of a nation walking into freedom. Neither is the covenant we have with God based on an imagination – it is based on a concrete sacrifice of the Son of God, signed with the blood from the Cross and ratified with the death of the Lamb of God! At our baptism we have counter signed that covenant and it is upto us to honour it all our life. 

The terms are clear – to recognize the great deeds that God has accomplished on our behalf; to acknowledge the saving mysteries of the life, death and resurrection of the Son of God; and to behold the great gift of Resurrection that is promised us in the hope of this covenant. We can behold that resurrection in the Risen Lord, if we are ready to participate in the life of the Son of God – a life lived totally in obedience to the holy will of God. 

Carrying the daily cross – is the readiness to face the hurdles of each day and continue to feel the presence of God beside; to remain steadfast to what is true, right and just, despite the consequences that might prove to be tricky or troublesome; to be ready to lose the whole world, just in order to gain one’s soul!

The call to give - a life of fruitfulness

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

August 10, 2023: Remembering St. Lawrence, the Deacon-Martyr
2 Corinthians 9: 6-10; John 12: 24-26

The best of all giving, is giving of oneself! 

Giving of one’s abundance, giving of whatever little that one has and giving even if one does not have enough for oneself – these are praise worthy in their respective order. But the highest of all giving is Self-giving.

Celebrating the Deacon-martyr, St. Lawrence, we are reminded of the early Christian communities that were so much characterized by persons who were blessed with the special charism of giving of their own selves, apart from what they possessed. They were cheerful givers, and so we find their numbers kept growing unprecedentedly. The very spirit that they radiated held captive those who saw them and multitudes were drawn to emulate it. They were ready and willing to die to themselves that Christ may come alive in them! 

St.Paul’s words were true in so many of those early Christians – “I live, it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20) and “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21). These were not mere catchy sayings; they were true lived experiences and we witness it in great martyrs like St. Stephen, the apostles and St. Paul himself. 

St. Lawrence follows suit very closely later in the third century. After all, they had but one model who had invaded and conquered their minds, hearts and spirits - Jesus the ultimate personification of self-giving - the grain of seed that chose to fall to the ground, that it may abound in its fruits: we are the fruits and let us be worthy of the grain which has borne us.

As you sow, so you reap!

WORD 2day - Wednesday, 18th week in Ordinary time

August 9, 2023: Numbers 13:1-2,25 - 14:1,26-29,34-35; Matthew 15: 21-28

Faithlessness or Faith – As you sow, so you reap! 

Let us focus our attention on two phrases from the Word today: “As you have spoken I will do unto you!”-“As you wished it shall be unto you!” The two phrases, the former from the first reading and the latter from the Gospel seem similar, though they are not! Considering the contexts, they are infact contrary to each other – one a reproach from the Lord and the other an approval. However, the message is same – FAITH. 

The first reading seems to be a rationalization on the part of Israel, as to why they had to sojourn forty long years in the deserts of Paran – a simple reason: lack of faith! The Lord could not walk them to the land of milk and honey, as promised, because they were stubborn and hard headed, never yielding to the guiding hand of God. 

The Gospel pictures a woman whose request has apparently no place on the 'to-do' list of Jesus that day! But the list had to be changed by all means. Logically, as in another place we read, that due to lack of faith Jesus did not accomplish much signs and wonders, here Jesus could not but make that miracle happen because of the grandeur of the faith of that simple woman! 

How blessed it would be if Jesus were to look at you and me, and say, “My Son, My daughter, great is your faith!”