Authentic Faith and Right Relationships

WORD 2day: Saturday, 31st week in Ordinary time

November 11, 2023 - Romans 16: 3-9,16,22-27; Luke 16: 9-15

Note the following words used in the first reading today - friend, fellow workers, fellow prisoners, compatriots, brothers and sisters - it is all full of relationships! Faith without relationships is empty. In fact, faith in itself is a relationship, a relationship with God that defines every other relationship in life. Yes, it is all about relationships, but the right ones. 

Faith and Right Relationships are connected to each other. Faith creates right relationships and right relationships mark authentic faith. How do we understand right relationships - they are relationships that are centered on God. They are not relationships that turn out to be possessive, selfish, self centered, self seeking, materialistic and mundane. They are relationships that center on God, that promote true selfless love, that respect the mutual dignity and freedom and that edify each other towards the spiritual maturity. These are Right Relationships, nurtured by Authentic Faith. 

When Jesus speaks of choosing one master and letting go of the other, this is what he means. By "money" he means all that is mundane, all that is materialistic and all that is merely utilitarian. By "God" he meant, all that is spiritual, faith centered and truly Divine. Relationships, if they are right, will surely lead us to this Spiritual Edification!

How long yet that they taste the Lord!

WORD 2day: Friday, 31st week in Ordinary time

November 10, 2023 - Romans 15: 14-21; Luke 16: 1-8

"Faith is a lie", "the church is finished", "it will no longer stand", "the church is living in the name of god"... these are some of the insults hurled at the Church today. Not just insults and curses but it is wish that many have today - that the Church be a bygone reality! We could only look with pity on these hapless persons and groups, and their bitterness that is so vividly portrayed in their expressions! 

How long yet that the bitter people of the world turn around and taste the love of God, especially through the community of faith that the Lord wished on earth? Just like the pagans that Paul speaks of and the steward in the Gospel who suddenly discovered his insecurity, the proud and the arrogant, the resentful and godless of today need to come back to the Lord. 

The role that you and I are called to play here is, to be reminders, signs, pointers, of that love and meaning that God alone can offer. For that we need to first take in that love as much as we can and hold it out to the world. As a community of faith, we are called to be reservoirs of this love of God, taste it and be filled with it, sharing it with others for them to taste it and be filled with it themselves. For as St Paul affirms, 'those who have never been told about him will see him, and those who have never heard about him will understand.'

The Temple that we are!

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

November 9, 2023: Dedication of the Lateran Basilica

Ezekiel 47:1-2,8-9,12; John 2:13-22

Today we commemorate the dedication of the Basilica of St. John at the Lateran. This basilica is special because it is one of the four major basilicas of the Church in Rome. It becomes more special because it is the Cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, which is the Holy Father himself.

Moving around in Rome, one can see churches, one mightier than the other, in every other lane of the city. An unofficial statistics says that the city of Rome alone has more than 2500 churches. Though at an apparent observation it might look to be an exaggeration of a period in time, still there is an insight that it can offer. Why did the people go on building churches after churches?

Churches meant for them, not just a place of gathering for worship; if it were merely that, they would surely not have needed so many. Churches, were temples, buildings from where the glory of God shone forth! That is why they built more and more of them, that the glory can shine forth more and more!

The Word today, and any feast of dedication of a Church, reminds us of this important vocation that we have. From the temple of the Lord, goes forth the glory of the Lord, "and that temple you are!" (says 1 Cor 3:17). From the temple of the Lord flows the water which gives life, which brings healing, we read from Ezekiel today! From our lives, from our words, from our acts, from our very being, should flow the grace of God towards others!

Jesus sets us the example, by being so conscious of being the Temple of the Lord. If we are his brothers and sisters, if we are to be known as his disciples, we need to be conscious too, that we are God's temple and God's Spirit dwells in us (1 Cor 3:16)!

Love is a battle... ready for it?

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 31st week in Ordinary time

November 8, 2023 - Romans 13: 8-10; Luke 14: 25-33

Love... it's a term that is by far the most spoken of, not merely from a Christian perspective but that of the whole reality today. But that is no statement that guarantees the right usage of the term, because more often than not it is misused and abused. A great percentage use it to mean a kind of feeling, a sentiment, an emotion that warms up one's heart.

But, is love all that? Yes, but not just that, isn't it? Love is very much, a decision, a choice, a commitment that would demand so much from me that, I would find myself in a battle. Yes, responding to the call to love, is like undertaking a whole expedition, against evil and hatred, for goodness and genuine fellowship. In a world torn my hatred and violence today, we are called to take sides? Whose side are we going to take? As followers of Christ, as child of the Loving God, the choice is categorical - we take the side of love! Love and love alone!

To accept to genuinely love, means being ready for any cost I would have to pay. After having launched myself into this battle, if I turn back and find myself wanting, I will be considered unfit for the Reign. On a daily basis let us hearken to this call to love...which insists that we take a commitment every day which could be dangerously demanding. Are we truly ready for it?

Belonging to each other

WORD 2day : Tuesday, 31st week in Ordinary time

7 November, 2023 - Romans 12: 5-12; Luke 14: 15-24

The Church is a reality in continuous evolution, it needs to grow into the Reign of God. What do we mean by "the Church evolving"... where is the Church or who is the Church? The key is there - Church evolving is we growing up into truly what God wants us to be. And in this evolution every one of the members who make up the Church, are expected to grow and evolve.

The desired and expected growth or evolution is from the state of being children to being the children of God; from being individuals who are worried only about oneself to persons who strive for communion with others; towards being persons who readily wish to identify themselves with the Reign, that Reign that that Lord invites them to be, to become and to evolve into.

We may have oxens to tend to, land to till or the new found family to cater to... they are not wrong! But the Reign has to come before them all. My private concerns cannot overrule the concerns of the Reign. My life, my choices, my priorities have to be those of the Reign... this will happen only when I manage to grow up to set myself aside and give the needy other a prominent place in my list of concerns because within the Reign, we belong to each other (Rom 12: 5).

What God wants of me!

WORD 2day: Monday, 31st week in Ordinary time

November 6, 2023 - Romans 11: 29-36; Luke 14: 12-14

Calculations of gain and loss, returns and rewards make an action limited to these considerations. This is the order of the day. Jesus, not only teaches us a consideration different from these, but lived it himself and challenges us to live by it, today. 

The consideration that he proposes is -'what God wants of me here and now'! 

Adopting that as my decisive criterion in life, requires of me two important attitudes: the first reading speaks of the first of the two attitudes - it is, an immeasurable awe and absolute entrustment to the Wisdom of God - acknowledging that that there can be no one more informed than the Wisdom of God and God who is Wisdom itself; secondly - placing others, especially the weak, the poor, the needy, the least and the last, as the center of my perspective on life, not looking at my own selfish and egoistic ends. 

When these two become my decisive attitudes, I can worthily say as St. Paul says in the reading today: 'From God and through God and for God are all things. To God be glory for ever. Amen.'

Being forsaken and Moving ahead!

WORD 2day: Saturday, 30th week in Ordinary rime

November 4, 2023: Romans 11: 1-2,11-12, 25-29; Luke 14: 1,7-11

At times we dare ask that question: has God forsaken me? All the expression of an endless love on God's part notwithstanding, I ask that question and wait for an answer - how cheeky! 

Forsaking, is not within the precincts of God. Being Forsaken -is an absolutely human parlance! God never forsakes, not even if it is the worst of beings that God is faced with. Because when God creates someone, God does so out of love! That love never changes, as does God's righteousness never change. 

God's righteous love, accepts me whatever state I might be in. But what truly happens is that I reject God, I keep myself away from God, I remain indifferent towards God and finally blame it all on God! I look for other things - human respect, worldly success, material affluence, social status and mundane glory more that what God matters to me! God is sidelined and forsaken. 

Jesus challenges us today: move ahead my friend! Grow up and realise that it is not God who forsakes you; you forsake God! Realise it... and then you will be truly able to move ahead and get on with God.

What stops me from doing good?

WORD 2day: Friday, 30th week in Ordinary time

November 3, 2023 - Romans 9: 1-5; Luke 14: 1-6

I would willingly be condemned if it helped my brother or sister, dares Paul. What if you criticise me for curing on the sabbath, I dont mind, as long as it liberates a son or a daughter of God, says Jesus in the Gospel. The message is loud and clear: doing good to the other cannot wait, much less, be stopped!

In fact, the passage of the first reading and the episode of the Gospel today, can lead us to reflect on one important question in our Christian living: what does stop me from doing good to my brother or sister? Let us reflect on top-three blocks that could be: 

The first is mindless self-centredness - because of which I fail to think beyond myself, my whims and fancies, my petty comforts and my comfort zones. I am unable to look around, look out or look up to anyone, unable to learn anew or change my perspectives in order to reach out to the other. This is what St. Paul points out in the first reading today. 

The second is infantile fearfulness - because of which, though I know what is right to be done, I fail to do it out of fear of criticism or fear of being ridiculed for the good I do. It may look too flimsy a reason, that is why it is infantile. But this is a very wide spread reason. Just imagine how many of us have this question before we do anything at all in our daily life: what will others think of me! Jesus challenges such a thinking in the episode we see in the Gospel today. 

The third is obstinate wickedness - because of which, I choose deliberately what is against good; I choose to do harm, hurt, destroy, exploit, use or abuse, the other for reasons known only to me! What a wicked way of life it can be! Sadly, there are many in this mode of thinking and living, which causes so much evil in the world. Here is where a true Christian has to make a real difference today in the world. 

Yes, the crucial question to me today is: what stops me from doing good to my brother or sister?

Hope - that makes us Christian!

All souls day - November 2, 2023

What is the difference between a Christian and an unchristian outlook on anything?

Hope! The difference is hope. It is hope that makes us see a possibility even in the worst of our daily problems. Hope gives one the serenity and tranquility to approach every day problems with grace. One big unsolved question for the whole humanity is how to understand the end of life and beyond.

For a Christian, life is changed, not ended; it is transformed not terminated, explains the preface of the Mass for the dead. Jesus' resurrection fills us with hope and that hope does not disappoint us. The hope is towards eternal life, it is the eternal destination that characterises the culmination of this journey on earth.

Death is just the horizon beyond which we are not able to see what really exists; for if we see, there is no more place for hope (Rom 8:24). All that we see is the Risen Lord, who lives with us and lights our path. And in the Risen Lord is our hope. We hope, to see every one of our brothers and sisters gone before us, united in the Risen Lord, as do the saints we celebrated yesterday. Our prayer today is that these brothers and sisters of ours join their ranks and that we, at the end of our journey, join that wonderful family, the family that is founded on faith, united in love and kept alive in hope! 

It is this hope that makes us truly Christian, everyday!

BEING SAINTS

It is not just becoming saints...

November 1, 2023 : All Saints Day

Revelations. 7: 2-4,9-14; 1 John 3: 1-3; Matthew 5: 1-12a.

O when the saints, go marching in,

I want to be in that number! -

... a simple but profound thought in those familiar lines of the song. To be saints: that is God's call to each of us. At times we think, becoming saints is reserved for a select few. May be the long and tedious process of canonisation of a person in the Church, makes us feel that way. But the fact is, each of us, all of us is called to be saints. St. Paul states that in clear and unequivocal terms in his letter to the Ephesians (1:4), Thessalonians (1 thes 4:3), and other places.

The question sometimes is, whether it is, being a saint or becoming a saint! We are created in the image and likeness of God (says Genesis 1:27) and this image and likeness of God is a "given", a nature that we have within us, as a gift. We are reminded of this image and likeness at our baptism. All the we need to do is to remain with that image in our lives. The beautiful symbol used in the rite of baptism, where the priest hands over a white cloth to the child and entrusts the task of bringing it, as it were, unsullied, intact in its purity to the end of days.That, dear friends, is the call - "to be saints"...and not merely to 'become' saints.

The readings today, develop the same thought in three wonderful dimensions:

Being Saints means... being aware of who we are! O Christian, realise your dignity! We are children of God, reminds St. John in his letter, in the second reading. God has chosen us from eternity, before the foundation of the world! This is an initiative from God our Father and Mother, who creates us and wishes that we share in God's love and ever remain in God's image and likeness, as children of the loving God.

Being Saints means... being washed by the blood of the Lamb! The Image of God within us, sometimes is disturbed, smudged, smeared or sullied by the choices we make misusing the human freedom that is granted to us. The evil one will be more than happy when we lose heart at such moments and give up. The Son of God, our Saviour Jesus Christ shed his blood that we may have victory over sin and death. In that blood we are saved, and in that blood we are made clean, each and every time we turn to the Lord in genuine repentance and willingness to regain our original image. Saints are those who have their garments washed in the blood of the Lamb, says the second reading.

Being Saints means... being 'blessed' in the eyes of the Lord! And the only way to be 'blessed', is to live by the promptings of the Spirit who dwells within us. Paying attention to the indwelling Spirit, we will know what it means to be blessed - to be poor in spirit, to be meek, to hunger and thirst for righteousness, to be merciful, to be peace-loving - these are ways of being persons of the spirit. In the ordinariness of our daily life, we have to be persons of the Spirit, looking at the reality different from the way the self seeking world teaches us to.

God's initiative in the call that I have received; Christ's redeeming act of Salvation; the Spirit's indwelling presence that guides me on a daily basis - these are compelling reasons why I need to think seriously about, not merely becoming a saint one day, but being a saint everyday, in my own way!