A Good Man in the Spirit

THE WORD AND THE SAINT

June 11, 2024: Celebrating St. Barnabas, the Apostle
Acts 11: 21b-26, 13:1-3; Matthew 5: 1-12

Barnabas exudes some excellent traits that are essential for a Christian Apostle or a Christian leader today:

1. A Good Person: To be called 'good' in the Word of God, is a great matter of fact. Only a few in fact are given that attribute...we could count them on our fingers ...like Moses, David and so on. Barnabas joins that list!

2. A Person of the Spirit: He was filled with the Spirit and that was again another great trait of an Apostle. Barnabas, along with Paul, though he was not with Christ was accepted into the ranks of the Apostles because of the passion he had for Christ and the Good News!

3. A Person of Faith: A person who had an intimate and solid relationship with God and made it his priority in life. Antioch witnessed his attachment to the person of Christ; no wonder people who followed Christ were called for the first time 'Christ-ians', there at Antioch.

4. A Person all for God: Barnabas brought Saul into the band of Apostles and when Paul became more popular and more vociferous, that did not disturb Barnabas. There is a clear sign of an ego under perfect control. That is so essential for a Christian Leader today.

5. An Obedient Servant: Barnabas 'stayed' and 'was sent'...He just followed orders, orders from the Lord, through the needs of the times! When he had to stay, he stayed! When he was asked to go, he went! For him what mattered was, what the Lord wanted.

THE RIGHT FREQUENCY!

Finding the voice that defines my identity

June 09, 2024 - 10th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Genesis 3: 9-15 ; Corinthians 4:13 - 5:1; Mark 3: 20-35

When we travel in a flight, we are asked at the moment of take off and of landing to set our electronic devices to flight mode, or sleep mode. The reason is that the frequency of the radio waves that connects the pilot to the control room, can be disturbed if in case the frequency of the device intercepts that of the flight. This is called the communication interference! In our Spiritual life too, we could have this communication interference at times, an interception of unwanted frequencies that can disturb the clarity of communication. But the challenge is to find out which is the right frequency to tune in to. 

Those of us who are of the old school, still lingering on with our experience of radios at home, could easily relate to this frequency problems. In fact, I remember as youngsters, we were used to, during our entertainment programmes, an imagination of two or more frequencies that interfere and overlap causing a mess of the information communicated, thus creating fun and laughter! Seriously, it could lead to some crucial problems, if we reason out in detail. But coming back to the message of the Word today, we are called to develop the competence to know the right frequency, tune in to it, and listen to the right voice that can define our identity. 

The fact of our experience that is referred to here, is that we could hear many voices around us, each with its own frequency. It depends on us to tune in to the right frequency, to hear the right voice, because the voices that we listen to, and pay attention to, will define our very identity. There could be atleast three broad categories of these voices, as presented in the Word today.

The demonising voices

There are these voices which are demonising. That is, they highlight the evil around us - either justifying it, or threatening us with its alleged omnipotence, or trying to push us to a sense of helplessness in the face of evil that pressurises us from all directions. These voices compel us to see only the dark side of the reality that surrounds us, and makes us go to the point of hopelessness. This is what Adam and Eve felt when God was calling out for them - it was God's voice, but they did not hear God's voice - they heard the voice of the evil one and that is why they were in fear. The voice that had deceived them already, was interfering with the voice that was coming through to them now. 

The same voice was trying to overpower Jesus too - but he did not pay heed. He just turned them down. They said: Beelzebul is in him; he has the prince of devils; he is possessed! They were demonising him! These are exactly the demonising voices we hear in the world today: every thing is gone to decay; nothing can return to normal; things can go only from bad to worse - these are demonising voices. Are we going to tune in to their frequency, listen to them and find our identity there? Jesus tells us - that is blasphemous. It is against the Truth; it is against the Spirit.

The patronising voices

More perilous are the voices which are patronising, because they seem all good, but they are deadly! They are "more" dangerous because they appear to be good, but they are venomous and invariably lead to death. Just as the voice of the tempter that deceived Eve, and eventually Adam too, as if it were trying to make them more than what they were. It was leading them to death... it was leading them to eternal damnation... thanks be to the voice of God, they are brought back to the state of hope, to look forward to the salvation promised. These are 'patronising' voices, because they look like they are doing us good, but in fact they make us misunderstand, misjudge, compromise, mix up and confuse truth with half-truths which are nothing less than falsity. 

One reason Jesus could have reacted the way he did, to the relatives who had come to take him, could be because they were patronising - they were intending to care for him but they were truly giving in to the falsity that was spread about Jesus, that he was out of his mind. There will be voices around us to say - do not be too serious about your religious principles; do not exaggerate about your faithfulness to God; do not be scrupulous about faith, values and morals... aren't these the voices we hear today in abundance in the society? These are dangerous, leading to relativism, hedonism and depravity! How many priests and religious, leaders and pastors today of the flock of God, are taken astray by these voices and what a damage they cause to the identity of the people of God!

The Empowering Voice

Jesus teaches us - there is one frequency, the only frequency to tune in to: that of God. Those who do the will of God, they are my brothers, my sisters, my mother, my people! St. Paul in the second reading affirms this. There is an interesting contrast in the first reading and the second, which can give us an insight. In the first reading we hear the blaming of Adam and Eve - however the summary is: that they believed in the evil one and they had to hide themselves! In the second reading St. Paul courageously quotes the scripture saying, "I believed in God and therefore I speak." When we believe in the Lord, we can stand up and speak, we need not fear, we need not hide, we need not feel ashamed, we can lift up our heads and speak, because the grace of the Lord abounds even where, and especially where, sin wants to rule. This defines our identity! Jesus was so clear about his identity as the Son of God, that nothing of these judgements or condescensions ever affected him. 

That is the right frequency for us - the voice of God, the will of God. While we ask the Lord to listen to our cry, to listen to our voices, we are today instructed by the Lord to listen to the empowering voice of God. This voice makes us overcome the weaknesses and the trials we could be faced with. It would make us understand the importance of understanding the difference between the visible and invisible, between our inner self and the exterior manifestations, between the demonising or partronising voices and the truly empowering voice of God. Let us seek the Spirit of the Lord, that we may be schooled in this technique of tuning in to the right frequency, and listening clearly to the voice of God and not to any other deceiving voice. 

The right frequency is the empowering voice of God, and listening to it and doing what God wants alone would make us truly children of God, brothers and sisters of our Lord and Master, Jesus the Christ. 

The Memory of the heart - the Marian Spirituality

THE WORD AND THE FEAST

June 08, 2024: Celebrating the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Isaiah 61: 1-11; Luke 2: 41-51

To Remember is a Spirituality in itself! 

And in the normal parlance, when something has to be learnt to memory, it is termed - learning by heart! An interesting terminology...to remember is to keep something in the heart...not just the mind. The memory of the heart... it is a spirituality in itself, indeed. 

Mary's heart is exalted today because she remembered; she kept everything in her HEART! Abraham, Moses, and the Prophets...they all exhorted the people to remember, and presented that as the criterion to be blessed people of God. They themselves remembered; they remembered the good that the Lord had done to them, and God remembered them and blessed them without end!

Just after the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Church proposes that we remember the Immaculate Heart of Mary, because a heart that resembled the heart of Jesus.

Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart. Mary observed that heart from close, infact she had her part in forming that heart... and she herself treasured a heart that resembled that meek and humble heart of the Lord! 

She kept everything in her heart! To remember the goodness of the Lord, to remember the great things done to us by the Lord, to remember the mighty presence of the Lord ever in my heart - that is the spirituality that Our Blessed Mother teaches us today!

When I remember all the good that the Lord has done to me, the hurdles and heart aches that come to me sometimes will look much smaller. All I need to do, as the responsorial psalm instructs today, is rejoice and exult in the the goodness of the Lord, because to remember is a spirituality in itself, a marian spirituality!

CELEBRATING LOVE

Love - the Heart of Christian Faith

THE WORD AND THE FEAST
June 07, 2024 - Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Hosea 11: 1,3-4,8-9; Ephesians 3: 8-12,14-19; John 19: 31-37

The Feast of the Sacred Heart is the feast of the very heart of Christian faith, that is Love; the feast of Love, the Love that God is. The feast invites us to meditate on the love that God has for each of us, to realise how unworthy we are at the same time as we are gifted, and to make a choice to strive towards becoming bearers of the same love to everyone around us. The Word and the feast, offer us a reflection on three important dimensions of this Sacred Heart which inspire and challenge us today!

The Parent-Heart

The Sacred heart comes across to us as a parent heart, the heart of a Father who longs to hold us close, guide us by our hand, lead us on the path of righteousness, as Hosea speaks of. It is presented as the heart of a mother who longs to nuture her child and see the child grow safe and sound right in her arms. It reflects the heart of the creator who made the creature and owns every bit of it and rejoices in its life and well being.

The Parent-heart loves us every moment, however we are and whatever we are upto. As we reflect in the words of Hosea, the Lord draws close to us and longs to draw closer - depends on us to really receive that love and be filled with it. The sad fact is that majority of us reject that love - some knowingly and others unknowingly. The grades of this rejection range from an absolute disregard for the love of God which consists of speaking against God and demeaning the image of God, to an insensible choice for ungodly ways of life being taken up by the immediate pleasure and ephemeral excitement. But the Lord never rejects us - as the imagery that Jesus gives us in his famous parable, the Parent-heart awaits with arms wide open for the return of the prodigal children.

The call that we have here is to GRATITUDE... to thank the Love of God, so caring, so warm and so unassuming! To thank the Love of God shared through persons so close and so far - those who are in the family and those who are friends; those who are unknown but still do so much good and those who come by in such miraculous ways to share this love with us! All these are ways in which the Parent-heart reaches out to us and should we not be grateful for it? 

The Powerful Heart 

The Sacred heart is certainly meek and humble, but definitely not weak nor little! It is the heart that reveals the mightiness of God in its simplicity and humanness. As St. Paul indicates, all sovereignties and powers are subject to it, and they learn from this heart the comprehensive Wisdom of God, a wisdom that is planted in love and built on love - not in haughtiness and cruel arrogance. We do not possess the capacity to grasp the breadth or the length, the height or the depth of this love, a love beyond all our knowledge. 

The Powerful heart, is large and powerful, mighty and all-embracing. It is a heart that loves without measure and boundaries, loves all, everyone indeed. It knows every move that we make and every choice that we pick, and even the motives and the intentions, however hidden they might be! How powerful and awesome it is. The awesomeness does not consist merely in knowing everything, but in the fact that despite knowing it continues to love and embrace us, in genuine and sincere care! 

The call that we have here is to AWE at the immensity of this love. At times, it is so unfortunate that persons and groups are prone to presenting God as avenging, retaliating, self-protective, ego-conscious and even arrogant! Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart; come to me and I shall give you rest... this is the type of heart we are reflecting on today: this is the true power to be celebrated, to be awed at. It is important to unlearn the terror-instilling images of God and learn to stand in awe at the unfathomable love and the incredible mercy that God is. The power of the Sacred heart is its meekness and mercy! Should we not truly recognise and realise with awe the fullness of God that we are surrounded by, in and through this heart? 

The Pierced Heart 

The Sacred heart is the pierced heart, the heart to which we look up for grace and mercy, for forgiveness and acceptance into the life-giving embrace of God. As the Gospel points to, the Sacred heart is a giving heart, a heart that gave of itself until the last drop of blood and water. The water that flowed washes us and the blood that oozed gives us life - a washing away of the past and a promise towards a future, which is the crux of the hope that Christ our Lord promises us, as children of God. 

The Pierced heart, is broken, torn, hurt, injured, battered... all because of our insensitivities and our narcissistic tendencies. The heart bleeds due to our rejection and refusal to understand the obvious facts. The heart remains hurt by our self-centred choices and egoistic tendencies, considering ourselves the most important in the entire universe, expecting everything and everyone to serve our needs and our pleasures, and never opening our eyes to the needs of the other, even after it is brought to our notice in varieties of ways! 

The call that we have here is to develop a DETERMINATION to reach out, to go out of ourselves, to feel for the other, to understand and empathise with the other and never take the other for granted. For God so loved us, that God gave us the Son who would die to save us, to make us children of God. The pierced heart commissions us to flow out, to stop looking at ourselves and our own private lives and needs and to take the love of God to the others, to our brothers and sisters, to our friends and neighbours, to the so-called strangers and every one who stands in any need! It is this determination that will make us and our faith truly Christ-ian. It has to be seen in our choices and priorities, in our decision making and daily lives, in terms of the heart of Christain Faith - Love! 

The Sacred Heart, which is a Parent-heart, a Powerful heart and the Pierced heart, invites us to celebrate love, in our daily lives, in our personal faith and Christian community living. Let us realise that today in celebrating the Sacred Heart, we celebrate the heart of Christian faith: Love!

Faithfulness - an ever-flowing Stream!

WORD 2day: Thursday, 9th week in Ordinary Time

June 06, 2024 - 2 Timothy 2: 8-15; Mark 2: 28b -34

Even if we are unfaithful the Lord is faithful, because he cannot deny himself! 

God is faithfulness personified. Our faithfulness to the Lord is a response that we give to the faithfulness of the Lord. We love because, God loved us first. We are faithful because the Lord is faithful to us! In fact, our faithfulness is our readiness and our commitment to be faithful to the faithfulness of the Lord!

In fact on wedding days, ordination anniversaries or anniversaries of religious profession, I personally never feel comfortable sending a 'Congrats' note to people! It is not merely a moment of merit... but a moment to be grateful, grateful to the faithfulness of God. It is a sign that God has been faithful to us, in spite of all our weaknesses and unfaithfulness. It sounds more apt to wish those persons, all the best in celebrating the goodness of the Lord.

Our life is one long celebration of the faithfulness of God. Every time we fail, it is not that we are failing God but we are failing ourselves, we are losing the grace of the faithfulness of God - such a gratuitous and gracious gift that God keeps giving us. The sweetest of the news is that: that faithfulness of God will not be denied to us at any point of time. Even at the last moment of his life, the thief who was crucified beside Jesus was able to inherit paradise! 

As the responsorial psalm affirms, the faithfulness of God is a never drying stream and an ever flowing river - all that we need to do is make ourselves capable to drink of it!

Fanning into a flame, the gift of God

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 9th week in Ordinary Time

June 05, 2024 - 2 Timothy 1: 1-3,6-12; Mark 12: 18-27

There is a beautiful expression that Paul uses today, which explains the truth of Christian faith: fanning into a flame the gift of God. 

Let us just imagine the embers, which look all out and gone, but when you fan it, there arise a flurry of ashes and then a small little spark that flickers from beneath, and in no time blazes into a devouring fire! That is faith. That is Christ; that is the Risen Lord.

This is an imagery of hope, an imagery that Resurrection has left in the heart of every disciple of the Risen Lord. Everything seemed dead; the apostles and disciples and the pious women along with Mary, were still and quiet - when the flame was fanned into a blaze - the Lord arose and everything changed! 

In our life too, when there are sorrows and failures, troubles and downfalls, and every thing seems down and out, we are encouraged to remember the fire that is lurking beneath - the fire of power, love and self control; to remember that when that fire be fanned in time, it shall turn into a flame of faith which shall strengethen us with a tremendous endurance!

Those who think of nothing but failure and finding fault, judging and criticising, discouraging and demotivating, are people who "neither know God nor understand the Word." If we truly understand the Word and know God, we would rise above all petty considerations, childish bickerings, worthless competitions, lifeless relationships!

We are called constantly to be aware of the God of the living, the God of life, the God of marvelous gifts and keep fanning into a flame that gift of God, the gift of the Spirit: Our Faith!

Seeing and Being Seen

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

May 30, 2024 - 1 Peter 2: 2-5,9-12; Mark 10: 28-31

No one is an island. Much so, one cannot live a Christian in isolation... that is the crux of the message today! Because being a Christian involves a lot of seeing and being seen. 

As a Christian, as a disciple of Christ and a son or daughter of God, I need to see myself... that is, look at myself regularly, understand who I really am, and be attentive the inner movements that are taking place within me. Secondly, I need to see things around me, hear the helpless cries of people readily and be touched by it sincerely. I need to see who I am surrounded by and understand clearly why I am wherever I am. I need to see what really matters in a given situation - maintaining the decorum or causing a disorder towards a greater sense of life and love!

That would not suffice, because being a Christian involves being seen a lot too! Being seen as different, as honourable, as trust worthy, as reliable, as outgoing, as sensitive, as dedicated, as capable of true compassion, as persons with a definitive but a different set of priorities, as people who make a difference for the rest of the world around them. Without making a difference, what does it matter if I am follower of Christ or not, if I am a child of God or not?

Seeing and Being Seen - they are both equally important and intrisically interrelated. Our Christian call invites us to learn to see, and be prepared and worthy of being seen, as the One who called us wants from us!

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!