Desert: to be traversed together

THE WORD IN LENT - Saturday after Ash Wednesday

February 17, 2024 - Isaiah 58: 9-14; Luke 5: 27-32

Through the desert God leads us to freedom. Certainly the desert is not a place to make our home! The last two days we have been reflecting on the deep impacts that the experience of the desert can create within us, and how desert is not something from which we should run. That in no way makes desert a place to be comfortable with. Pope Francis reminds us in his message: God shapes his people, he enables us to leave our slavery behind and experience a Passover from death to life. Passover - that is the key to understand. 

The Word today invites us to develop three specific attitudes towards the deserts of our life, that we may experience this Passover:

The first is "through the desert" - that we have always our eyes fixec on the horizon. The Passover experience is there, when we have passed through the desert. We cannot run the danger of making ourselves comfortable in the desert. It is a place of discomfort and dissonance that makes us constantly yearn for that perfection, not with a negative suppression of the present experienced but growing through them.

The second is God leads "us" - we are led as children together. We cannot make it a singled handed show! Doing away with the yoke, giving bread to the hungry and relief to the oppressed, restoring the ruins - these are ways proposed to get through this desert. We are called to pass over this desert in compassion and communion. Without these I cannot get through to the other side, let us beware, we may be building our castles right in the desert itself!

The third is the journey to "freedom" - that freedom comes with our decision making! We have to decide to leave everything behind and follow the One who leads; we have to make that absolute and clear choice, for whom and with whom we are! Jesus made that decision and paid the price. If we are his, we would make that decision and find true freedom, the freedom of the Spirit, the freedom the children of God. 

God detests to see that we choose the desert and decide to die therein! The call is that we traverse it, we cross over, and move towards that passover experience, to that real freedom, to that experience of resurrection. The desert is to be traversed, traversed together! 

Desert - a place of growth and realisation

THE WORD IN LENT - Friday after Ash Wednesday

February 16, 2024 - Isaiah 58: 1-9; Matthew 9: 14-15

Through the desert, God leads us to freedom... therefore, the desert is not a place to be detested. However, it is difficult it could be, it is indeed a place of growth as it leads to a profound reflection and a resultant realisation. When we decide to go through the desert, it offers us a great opportunity to look at ourselves, reflect and arrive at realisations that would create changes within us for life, changes that would amount to a happy growth from within. Instead, if we look at the desert as something we enter with fear and reluctance, in our preoccupation with mere getting through it, we may miss all the opportunities for growth. 

The Word today presents to us the difference between these two attitudes in reference to the lenten penances we would have probably commenced with, in this holy season. Is it a painful starving or a pressurised abstinence that really matters for God? If these acts of penance, for instance, increase within us our irritability, or self-righteousness, or our sense of pride - of what use are these acts? Aren't they detrimental to our very personalities? That is why Jesus, along with those words of the first reading, redefines what a godly penance would be!

It is not about starving or going around with stern faces, but it is about relating to the other, having compassion for the other, speaking affectionately to the other, reaching out to those is need, keeping away our small joys in order that we can make someone else joyful, taking up a little cross in order that someone around me can really experience the love of God that was shared to them from the Cross by the Saviour. Our acts of penance should make us grow; they should make us more godly. Only then, they are Christic!

Pope Francis in the Lenten message reminds us of the two questions that are posed by God to us, two questions that God posed in the events of Genesis: where are you? and where is your brother? The former underlining the need to become aware of our interior dispositions and latter inviting us to open our eyes to the needs of the others and not get lost in our ego trips. This season we need to respond to those two questions - they would lead us to realisation and they would help us journey towards growth!

Desert - the reminder to Choose!

THE WORD IN LENT - Thursday after Ash Wednesday

February 15, 2024: Deuteronomy 30: 15-20; Luke 9: 22-25

Through the desert, God leads us to freedom! The desert here is that experience when we are faced with a choice to make, a decisive radical choice. Behold, I place before you death and life, disaster and prosperity, the people are told today in the first reading. What is life and prosperity all about - obeying the commands of the Lord; and death and disaster is wantonly choosing what does not lead you towards true progress, towards freedom. 

Pope Francis in the lenten message draws our attention to the tendency of the people to be lost in nostalgia of their past, knowing well how enslaving and demeaning it was. They were crying out when they were there, but now they wished to go back. The reason, because they found challenges and difficulties, hurdles and hardships here on their way to freedom. The analogy is clear: the way to freedom, to perfection, is filled with tough and trying moments. The Lord invites us to it, leads us through it but will never force us into it. The choice is ours!

The desert is obviously a hard plain, a difficult terrain, a lonesome place... but the Lord never abandons us provided we choose the Lord; that is, choose to journey through the desert to freedom. There could be other choices: one to get back to the old ways, which is giving up; the other is to compromise with the ways of the desert, make of it a comfort zone, make friends with the situation here, which Jesus calls us today to renounce! The choice to walk through the desert is, taking up the Cross, but let us not be faint: we called only to follow, which means we are not alone, we are not the only ones! The Lord has walked before us, and we shall follow him. 

What difference would it make to our lives if we were to go back - that is, choose the so-called ways of the world and get lost in the crowd, following the fad of the day? What would we have achieved if we run mad after the craze of power, popularity and possession that would in fact take us far, but only far from true life! The desert reminds us to make a choice, a choice for the Lord, a choice for the ways of the Lord, the choice for the Cross... and we shall walk secure in freedom towards freedom!

THE LENTEN JOURNEY 2024

THE WORD IN LENT - Ash Wednesday

February 14: Through the desert, to Freedom... God leads us.

Joel 2: 12-18; 2 Corinthians 5:20 - 6:2; Matthew 6:1-6,16-18

We begin the holiest of all seasons within the liturgical year: the season of Lent. This year the Holy Father invites us to reflect on loving reminder - that through the desert God leads us to freedom.  

Broken hearts, fasting stomachs, weeping eyes, mourning spirits, trembling hands and bending knees - these are not signs of fright nor attempts to appease; these are responses to a recognition of the mercy and compassion of God, the tender love and affection that the Lord extends to you and me despite the dull and drear that have set in, between God and us. It could be either because of our irreflective activism or spiritual lethargy! The reason be what it could, the fact is God has never failed to listen to us at the favourable time, on the day of our salvation! 

Indeed, this is the favourable time; this is the day of salvation. Let us begin this journey, the journey of reflecting on the journey of our life! Yes, Lent is not a journey that starts and ends in itself. It is a journey, a special phase of journey that is given to us every year, to reflect on the spiritual journey of our life, where through the desert, God leads us to freedom. 

The deserts are spiritual patches of the journey, special moments of grace however difficult  and trying they are. Lent comes to make us understand how important these deserts are, that we may really journey through them with the spirit that the Lord wishes us to have. That we may understand that deserts are not places where we feel deserted, but they are places where we desert everything that binds us, to lift our eyes to the Lord, to refocus our minds on the original call, to resume our ontological journey towards that communion with the Lord, the true and total freedom. And another important element not to be forgotten, it is God who leads us! God leads us by hand, even in the midst of the desert, specially in the moments of the desert. 

Let us wish each other a profound and peaceful journey, a journey through the desert, where God leads us to freedom, the freedom of the beloved children of God. 

Do we really understand?

WORD 2day: Tuesday, Sixth week in Ordinary time

February 13, 2024 - James 1:12-18; Mark 8: 14-21

How agitated Jesus gets today with his disciples! But why? Jesus expects them to rise above the ordinary or the normal. As Jesus warns us repeatedly: if our perfection does not surpass those that of the scribes and the pharisees, that is if we do not rise above the 'usual' way the world looks at reality, we will not be considered fit for the Reign of God! 

The so-called normal attitudes of the world, the value systems propagated as "normal" by the world, the life style of the so called successful that stands counter to what the Gospel teaches... these are the temptations that we have today! Of course, they do not come from God, reiterates St. James. Our desires, temptations, sin and resultant death: this is the cycle that Jesus wants us to understand, resist, surpass, and triumph over. 

None of us can ever say after an act of unrighteousness, that we were not aware at all, of its nature! Let us not deceive ourselves! We know what we are surrounded by, we know what we go through on a daily basis and we know what is appreciable and what is not worthy of our call to be children of God. Inspite of all the graces that we have received and the gratuitous gifts that we have received from the Lord, if we still insist on giving up on our call to commitment and righteous living, we will soon hear that question addressed to us by Jesus: do you still not understand?

The Lord our Rock!

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

February 12, 2024: James 1: 1-11; Mark 8: 11-13

During his life and ministry, Jesus was convinced that he had nothing to prove! He was what he was - the Son of God, the Word Incarnate. He spoke what he believed and lived what he spoke. That gave him an authority that the Pharisees and the Scribes could never understand. It came from his holistic self-understanding, an understanding in terms of the One who had sent him: "For I and the Father are one", he declared (Jn 10:30).

Many a time we identify ourselves with the riches we have, the social status we enjoy, the titles and the offices we hold, the adulation from others and the image that others have of us. These are like the drooping flowers and the fading beauty, reminds St. James in his letter. What will all the titles and possessions, achievements and accomplishments become when at that one moment we are no more!

Our identity rests in one thing that never changes: the truth that we are sons and daughters of One God, that we are created in the image and the likeness of that loving God who has loved us into existence. When we get this fact imprinted in our hearts... no trial or no doubt, no suffering or no shock will ever affect our perseverance (James 1:4).

It takes a lot of inner strength to found ourselves on the unsurpassed foundation, the unshakable ground, the one unchanging source of meaning we have... let our life be founded on that insurmountable refuge, the Lord, our Rock!

Divided lives?!?

WORD 2day: Saturday, Fifth week in Ordinary time

February 10, 2024 - 1 Kings 12: 26-32, 13: 33-34; Mark 8: 1-10

For the people of Israel there was no difference between their political life and their religious life. For them everything was just one; an integral mode of living as people of God; forever the people of the Covenant: 'I shall be your God and you shall be my people'. But at a certain point, as we read in the first reading today, the misery befalls them - Politics and Religion part their ways. 

Further, something that happens makes things worse: using religion for political ends or politics for religious reasons. It becomes almost an unjust alliance and remains so even to this day - how many instances we can cite from the events of the day all around the world. 

That is about the society around us, but let us remember, it can happen in our personal lives too: the division between our religious life and our civil life, and worse still if we use one for the manipulation of the other. 

Jesus is totally against this division and considers it always an hypocrisy. One cannot call oneself a shepherd and still remain untouched by the miseries of the people. One cannot call oneself a 'Christ-ian' and live a life that is totally insensitive towards others. One cannot call oneself a child of God and look down on his brother or sister, or much worse ill-treat, exploit or oppress them. If one does that, he or she is giving into idolatry, claiming to belong to Christ but divided within oneself, externally professing Christ but totally against Christ at the level of the inner self. 

Do you think we can still be God's children, Christ's disciples, if we lived such divided lives?

Pride, Rebellion and Obedience!

WORD 2day: Friday, Fifth week in Ordinary time

February 9, 2024 - 1 Kings 11:4-13; Mark 7:24-30

The Word today speaks of two kingdoms... one that was ending and the other which was rising. Prophet Ahijah instructs Jeroboam about the role that he has to play in the fall of David's kingdom. And in the Gospel we see the people who rejoice at the coming of the Kingdom of God, the signs of the Reign being that "the deaf hear and the mute speak." That phrase was symbolic and indicative for the people of the Intertestamental times (the time of waiting between the Old Testament and the coming of Christ). For them it meant, the coming of the Reign of God amidst the people of Israel. 

The message is obvious - it is an invitation to turn away from a tendency of human pride and rebellion and place the absolute dominion always in the hands of God. Right from the beginning (explained by the stories of Adam and Eve, the tower of Babel and so on), the ruin of humankind has been due to human pride; the entry point of sin into humanity has been rebellion.

It is in that rebellion and pride that we make gods of ourselves and gods for ourselves - making gods of our own ego, of our successes, of our plans and projects, of our prospects and the social ladders, of our attachments and cravings. At times, only when drastic things happen we realise our folly! Then it shall be too late and there would be time only to cry over the lost opportunities.

The Lord reminds us today: I am the Lord you God, hear my voice... let us make it our habit to hear the Lord's voice and live by it everyday and in every way.

Saints who surprise God!

WORD 2day: Thursday, Fifth week in Ordinary time

February 8, 2024 - 1 Kings 11:4-13; Mark 7: 24-30

The most dangerous character of sin is, it takes over little by little that, all too soon we find it to be too late! 

Solomon who was a sign of God's glory in the early days of his kingship, soon finds himself in a point of no return, because he had given away his heart little by little to ways that took him away from God! 

In simple words sin can be understood as a rebellion against God... a lack of surrender into God's hands. The remedy is: a childlike surrender into the hands of God; following God unreservedly as did David (1Kgs 11:6); a faith that becomes a humble surrender to God's Will, like the Syrophoenician woman that we see in the Gospel. 

The Syrophoenician woman becomes the prototype of the saints who surprised God... who surprised God by their total surrender... like St.Paul, or the early martyrs, or the later saints like John Maria Vianney, or Maxmillian Kolbe, or great models like Blessed Oscar Romero, Blessed Sr. Rani Maria... the list goes on, and the challenge is that we add our names to that.  

Let our surrender to the Lord be so total, that in God's pleasant surprise miracles abound. Can we surprise God by our surrender?... that will be a wonderful sign of growing in holiness.

About out interior life!

WORD 2day: Wednesday, Fifth week in Ordinary time 

February 7, 2024 - 1 Kings 10: 1-10; Mark 7: 14-23

"That they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father" - that is the grammar of life that Jesus has always taught us.  

Today in the first reading we see Solomon exemplifying this claim to honour. We read that the Queen of Sheba, looking at the wisdom and splendour of Solomon, said "Blessed be the Lord your God!"(v.9). What actually matters is not what is seen merely on the outward appearance, for we cannot put up a show all our life. 

Let us just imagine, if we have to create an image of ourselves just for the sake of the others and live up to it all our life - how tiresome and fatiguing it can be! At some point or the other, to someone or the other, the truth will be manifest and that will be the ruin of everything. 

Instead, Jesus invites us to an authentic living that is built from within, from those which comes out from within - our thoughts, our attitudes, our priorities, our judgements and opinions about others and about issues, the feelings and impulses we give into, the kind of persons we identify ourselves with, the sort of people for whom our hearts are moved, the readiness with which we go out of ourselves in true love and selfless compassion. 

Let us pay attention to our interiority. The core of our self defines who we are, and at that level of our being, we cannot deceive ourselves! Let our hearts enshrine the presence of the Lord and let that presence illumine every bit of our life... specially our interior life.