Better check your seed!

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 8th week in Ordinary Time

May 29, 2024 - 1 Peter 1: 18-25; Mark 10: 32-45

A tree is known from its fruits, it's true! But the tree depends on its seed. What the seed, so the tree - the Word reminds us today.

The Word today presents to us two crops of people: one an old crop and the other a new crop, a newly born community of persons, born anew in the blood of Christ. The seed of the latter crop is the very blood of Christ! The Question is: which crop do you belong to? Which is your seed?

We see Jesus presenting to us the contrasting mentalities: the popular mentality of dominance and control and the Jesus' mentality of service and collaboration. One will not fit in the other, for they two are contrasting mentalities and the Lord wants us to make a choice and make it known! We see Jesus preparing his disciples in the Gospel, to be a crop of the latter kind. Of course, he finds it tough but he does not mind it and he will never compromise on it.

The challenge is, Jesus expects the same from us - to grow into a community of love, fellowship and service, not a structure of power, authority and dominance. What is that which excites us - power, position and possession? Or compassion, empathy and solidarity? That would define what kind of a community we are, what kind of a tree we are: we better check our seed!

Holiness: constancy and consistency our of conviction

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 8th week in Ordinary Time

May 28, 2024 - 1 Peter 1:10-16; Mark 10: 28-31

From yesterday's call to prove our mettle fitting the Reign, follows today's call to remain holy! 

Holiness is not merely an act, but an attitude; it is not merely a behaviour but a life style; it is not doing a few things in a manner that is considered popularly to be holy, but living our life, every moment of it, in a manner that is Godly. It requires constancy and consistency which are born out of sheer conviction!

We are called to be holy because the one who has called us is Holy, reminds us St. Peter today, resounding in our hearts, the call given in the book of Leviticus (19:1). When we decide for ourselves and choose to embark upon a sincere journey of holiness, Jesus promises us beautiful things - things that make us secure, persons who love and admire us, protection of God almighty that would guide us - but along with this, persecution... and ofcourse at the end of it all, eternal life, of which we partake already here and now by virtue of our Baptism!

Hence, the choice is ours: to choose God, remain in God and persevere through all trials or to give up and choose the desires of ignorance, as explained in the first reading, and lose our original identity and the dignity of children of God! Let us remember, salvation is not some magical act that the Lord performs for us, but it is our 'growing into heaven'. It is our daily maturity, by our constant faith, persistent hope and unfailing love - it is our choice for holiness, expressed in our constance and consistency, born out of personal interior conviction!

The Test by Fire

WORD 2day: Monday, 8th week in Ordinary Time

May 27, 2024 - 1 Peter 1: 3-9; Mark 10: 17-27

We need to prove our mettle, to say literally, we need to prove our metal! We need to prove that we are gold, when it comes to our dedication to the Lord. The days are such that compromises are not only permitted, they are the order of the day. Having compromises that do not glare at the face, is cosidered to be a special competence to be developed in the current society. That is, one is encouraged to become an expert in compromising one's values, without making major breakages. We need to adapt to the context we live in, they say. 

But can this be ever true, with the Lord? Never! With the Lord, even a minor compromise is a major breakage. This is the challenging factor of living our faith and our call. Every faithfulness is a demand that we be tested in fire, the fire of daily struggles and unceasing temptations. What comes out is gold... the problem is many a times we do not come out, we fall and we get drowned! That is why we are warned today by the Word to be attentive

We are called to be careful, atttentive, conscious, aware and vigilant, because without our knowledge we would have slid into a situation of compromise. And by the time we realise it, we are far into it. We cannot lose our focus. Go, sell everything - that was a prerequisite that Jesus gave for following him. At times, we are ready to follow Jesus, but we wish to hold on to what we have - our ego, our self glory, our achievements, our titles, our so-called trophies - we refuse to sell them, nor give them away! We think we can follow the Lord even carrying these on our shoulders and our minds! What a folly, and we complain that people are losing their fascination with faith! May be our lives are not fascinating enough, for the others to see the gold shining!

Let us be vigilant, for the devil is prowling round like a roaring lion!

MOST HOLY TRINITY - THE EPITOME OF RELATIONALITY

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

May 26, 2024 - Deuteronomy 4:32-34,39-40; Romans 8:14-17; Matthew 28:16-20

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit! Beginning everything in the name of the Triune God is a holy and happy tradition that we have been raised in, and it is something that should never be lost too, in order that we do not lose the very essence of our baptismal calling. Not only because we are made in the image and likeness of the Trinitarian God, nor merely because we are baptised in their Holy Names, but also because the very Christian experience of God's Self-revelation right from the very beginning and all that we believe in, draw their essence from the Most Holy Trinity. 

The more our human search for meaning deepens itself and varied experiences of problems and possibilities widen our horizons, the more we are brought to understand the fundamentality of relationality, be it in our day to day living or in the overall universal consciousness. And what other model can we have better than the Most Holy Trinity whom we celebrate today, which can be considered the epitome of relationality. The solemnity we celebrate today and the liturgy of the Word this day, offer us a splendid insight to understand our identity and call, as Christians, as people united by the Spirit and as children of the One God who has come across to us all through history, as a God who relates!

The Relating Person of God - Revelation

The first reading brings to our attention a God who relates, a God who relates in the sense of revealing Godself to us. This is exactly what Moses brings to the mind of the people of God, telling them that they have been chosen! That is a privilege indeed to be chosen; but it is also an onus placed on us to remain worthy of it, because when we can be chosen to state, we could lose that state likewise too! God has chosen us, to reveal Godself to us: God relates Godself to us. That is the greatest of all gifts that we as spiritual beings can every receive - to know our source, our origins, our maker and the one who animates us. 

God does not do that in any sense of domination or monopoly, and that is the most holistic aspect of a lifegiving relationship. There is freedom, respect and mutual affirmation involved in such a relationship. God has chosen us, not in the sense of having us caged within a perspective or a world view. God has chosen us and chooses to await our free and personal response to that choice. In that God has made Godself a bit vulnerable too; we could reject the offer, as did the people in history, as do people even today, as do we sometimes in our choices!

The Relating Spirit of God - Regeneration

The God who thus reveals Godself, empowers us with God's own Spirit of relationship with God - as God's sons and daughters, a sense of being the children and not mere servants; "if we are children we are heirs as well," says St. Paul. With all the temptations and crises that surround us in responding to the call that we have from God, we are called and empowered to share the glory of God, the glory of being related to God, the glory of relating to God. God not only reaches out to us, but empowers and enables us to reach back to Godself. This is regeneration, that we are reinstated from whatever state we have reached, to the native state of being children, being heirs of God. 

The Spirit renews and regenerates, relates once again to the God from whom we have our being. It is the Spirit who speaks within us, sparks our minds and ignites our hearts to seek God, in an attempt to find the very meaning of our existence and the purpose of our everyday life. Our relatedness to God, and the rediscovery of it, is the regeneration that we all stand in need of in our personal, familial and ecclesial lives. That we grow to be that people of God, who are mindful of who we are and from whom we come and to whom we shall return. 

The Relating Son of God - Reaching-Out  

Jesus, the Son of God, the Christ, the Paschal Lamb is the utmost of God's revelation as a God who reaches out, and who does not stop with that, but impels us to reach out too! The Gospel presents to us the parting commission that Jesus gave to us, his disciples, apostles and beloved brothers and sisters - co-heirs with him! If we are to be co-heirs, we have to share in everything: as much in sufferings and commitments, as in the glory and the Reign. Being children of the relating God, we cannot close ourselves within, we cannot not reach out. Reaching out to the other, is an essential part of being a Christ-ian. 

Go therefore! You believe, go therefore. You relate to God, go therefore. You have been chosen, go therefore. You have experienced the Lord, go therefore. Our encounter and relationship with God, is not to remain with it and on the basis of it, sit on judgement on others or the rest of the world. It is a commission to go therefore! To go in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, with an assurance that we are given: the Relating God is always with us, relating to us, empowering us to relate to God and enjoing us to relate to our brothers and sisters - relating to them about our relationship with God, relating to them in the Spirit that unites us and relating to them the glories we have encountered in Christ the Son and our Saviour. 

May the Most Holy Trinity the epitome of Relationality, help us today to understand the profound call we have received to relate, to build our communities into a bond of loving relationships and this world into a heaven of relationships. 

All glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and forever! 

Reign of God - a child's play!

WORD 2day: Saturday, 7th week in Ordinary Time

May 25, 2024 - James 5:13-20; Mark 10:13-16

Referring to something as a 'child's play,' we intend to say it is an easy task, or a no taxing job, or an uncomplicated project! The underlying fact is that it can be done by the adults, with their eyes shut, or their hands down! It is the classical despise of humanity for children as dependent and immature. 

In contrary terms, today Jesus calls the Reign of God a child's play... but meaning to drive home to us how difficult it is for the grown ups to arrive at it! There is this insistent call of Jesus to become like children, to have the heart of the children, to grow to be children!

The qualities that are underlined here by the first reading and the Gospel are: innocence of heart, unsophisticated dependence on God and non judgmental relationships! These are the very things we lose as we grow up: we become hypocrites at heart, complicated and self righteous in our rapport with God, self centred and calculative in our relationships. The challenge to us is remaining a child in these counts, which will alone make us worthy of the Reign of God. And that is why it is a child's play, not a grown up's game!

Can we grow up to be children, to be children of the Reign?

Being Christians Today

CELEBRATING MARY, THE HELP OF CHRISTIANS

Feast of Mary Help of Christians: 24th May, 2024

Mary Help of Christians, is a title that has been attributed our Blessed Mother right from the second century, but got its prominence in the 16th century and made popular in the 19th century! Looking at the historical significance of the title directly connected to the 16th century battle of Lepanto and the exile of the Pope in the 19th century, we tend to think today, that this title comes alive as the battle against the Christians is thickening all over the globe.

The vandalisms reported in many places on churches, on the faithful, on the very texture of harmony of India and worldwide, are a direct challenge to those who wish to live their Christian faith today. Apart from that, there are forces from within and external to the Catholic Church which seem to wage a war against the faith that has always been tested through the times. Speaking particularly about India, we seem to be marching towards a future that holds for us more and more troubles and testing, hypothesizing with the present run of the course. Against this background, Mary Help of Christians, is a title that is apt today and it calls for three immediate actions on our part as Christians: 

UNITE as Christians under One Lord who has called you!

UNTIE the knots that keep you locked from each other and establish seamless relations!

UNDERSTAND the true faith and its holistic meaning, beginning to live your faith everyday! 

May Mary Help of Christians, help us Christians today, to live true to our faith!

Haves and havenots - on a slippery ground!

WORD 2day: Thursday, 7th week in Ordinary Time

May 23, 2024 - James 5: 1-6; Mark 9: 41-50

Where your treasures are, there your heart will be, Jesus warned us well. The Word today insists that our treasures cannot be in our money bags or safety lockers! Wealth, of course is a blessing, the same can become a curse too, if it is not kept in its place! Much more radically thinking, the Word poses a fundamental question - who are truly "haves" and who are the "havenots"?

It is not only simplistic but even unwise to have an obvious answer to it in terms of wealth, possession and comforts hoarded. Someone who seems to have everything, might have really lost something basic that gives any meaning to life. Someone who has not, for the eyes of the world, might have something that no one can take note of - a solid sense of meaning in life. Is that not possible?

However, at times, unfortunately not merely at times but very often today, we see that persons with money are able to get what they want, without much ado! Even the judicial system lets them roam free despite their wrongdoings, merely because they have the money-power! Persons think they have everything when they have the money... but for how long? Would that money take us all the way? By the time one realises that he or she has over-depended on the wealth that is possessed, the person could be in a position from where he or she would not be able to undo the past mistakes! 

Isn't it high time, anytime in life, that we understand, placing our entire confidence on wealth and possession would make us tread on a slippery ground? The clarity on whom we depend is what will make us truly the people of God. 

Poor in Spirit, depend on God

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 7th week in Ordinary Time

May 22, 2024 - James 4: 13-17; Mark 9: 38-40

Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Mt 5:3). How do we understand the expression 'poor in spirit'? The Word today has a simple description: they depend on God. Two traits that are enlisted as opposition or rebellion to God are Pride and Jealousy! Pride claims illegitimate credits for things; Jealousy detests anyone being better in comparison to me.

James hits out against pride, which claims that we are in control of our entire life! I know of a person who has written down what he would be doing the next 25 years in succession! One thing is to have a plan, while it is totally another matter to be too sure about taking control of everything!

Jesus speaks of jealousy in subtle manner, without hurting the sentiments of his own apostles. He instructs them about not monopolising the role of being God's instruments! Anyone could be used by God, just as you could be! When you are used by God for God's purposes, rejoice and be glad. When someone else is used by God, give praise to God all the same! This comes from two important qualities we need to develop: stop comparing and place God at the centre, not yourself!

When we work out of these two temptations - of pride and jealousy, we would be well on our way to sanctity... for that is a sign that we depend on God, that we are poor in spirit, and the Reign of God belongs to us! 

The Battle Within

WORD 2day - Tuesday, 7th week in Ordinary Time

May 21, 2024: James 4:1-10; Mark 9:30-37 

We return to the Ordinary time after quite a while, and Word straightaway leads us to a reflection on the need to being faithful to our call on a normal basis, on a daily basis, without needing to have a special occasion to celebrate and manifest it. 

The discussion today is on a fundamental theme of our everyday life: the battle within. Both James and Jesus through the Word today, speak to us of the important battle that keeps waging within us, which determines much of the battles around us. The self seeking, self centered and self focused egoism, twists and twirls all our priorities and thus wrongly motivates our choices.

The worst of the conditions that we find today is the way the society prioritises. What is wrong if one thinks of one's own self fulfillment? The justification in terms of God-given capabilities and bringing them to their perfection is another rationalisation of this ego feeding. The Self or the Ego is being enshrined at the centre of human life as the most sacred thing that has to be preserved, promoted and pleased! Is this not idolatry? Some are so worried about use of images and icons as being idolatrous, while they make of themselves saviours, mouth pieces of God, indispensable dispensers of the god-element, the doorways to god and so on...

The question is clear today: have you compromised on the place given to God in your life? Is God the first priority in your life? Is God, God's plan and God's will the most important criterion in all the choices you make? If it is so, then you are on a winning streak in the battle within... Kudos! March on!

MARY, THE WOMAN, THE MOTHER!

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

May 20, 2024: Celebrating Mary the Mother of the Church

Genesis 3: 9-15,20; John 19: 25-34

Six years ago, in 2018, Pope Francis instituted this memorial, bringing to our attention a fact that has been celebrated right from the origins of the Church - naturally because Mary had a very special place in the hearts and homes of the disciples and the apostles as the Mother of their loving Master, Jesus Christ. It was a God-willed fact, because as we celebrated yesterday, the Father willed that she was among the Apostles when the Spirit came down upon them, as the Advocate sent by the Son. It is also a Christ-willed grace, as it was Jesus who gave her to us, the Church, as our Mother: behold your mother. 

One Word that can be easily seen repeated and seen as the link between the readings today is, Woman! There are three senses to that term in the Word today. The first sense is the human person that Eve was, the wife that she was. When Adam refers to her as his woman, and God-given woman, he speaks of her as his other half, his counterpart. Mary is that - a woman, a person like us, but God-given. 

The second sense is the Woman that God promises, whose seed shall strike the head of the enemy. That Woman is not anyone, but chosen by God and promised by God. Mary is not just one among us, but she was chosen by God, prepared by God and appointed by God to bear that One who would strike the enemy for the sake of our Salvation. Mary is that woman - a chosen instrument in our Salvation. 

The third sense is the Woman presented to John, as Mother. That Woman is not just woman, but mother; one who loves us, protects us, cares for us and nurtures and educates us. That is a Mother. When John took her home, she brought her to us, into our lives and into our daily struggles, that we may strive to remain faithful to the gift of salvation we are given as a Church, as children of God and as People of God. 

Mary, the Woman, the Mother, is our pioneer, our model and our guardian and she shall inspire and lead us to be forever, the Church, the People of God.