Peace is Child's Play! It's Obedience!

Advent 2024: A Pilgrimage of Hope towards Peace - the Journey Explained!

Second Friday in Advent - December 13, 2024

Isaiah 48: 17-19; Matthew 11: 15-19

Peace is child’s play, seems to suggest the Word today. We mean it… in the very sense of the idiom – it is a child’s play, if we are keen about understanding the commandments of the Lord and ready to live it to their spirit. That is what Jesus said – I have not come to abolish the law, after all the changes that he was bringing in, like the fire he wanted already ablaze. Yes, he wanted the fulfilment of the law, the summation of all the commandments, in love!

In the Gospel today, we see Jesus narrating that parable to bring home to us the classic difference between what is childish and what is child-like! To become like children is not to become childish – wanting to do all that one wishes to or feels like, and worse still, wanting every one to do what one wants or desires! Growing childlike, is growing in obedience. Is that not why, one of the most oft-repeated instruction to a child, in any society, is: be obedient to your elders. Obedience is the essence of childhood! 

Peace, therefore, is child’s play, or a child’s way of living life. Obeying the commands of the Lord – listening to the Word and making it our life – that is a sure way to Peace. It is obvious, because by obedience we do away with anxiety, preoccupations, burden of judgement, temptation of egoism and occasions of rebellion. In short, we become children… and for children, peace is an ordinary state of being.

Peace is inheriting the Reign

Advent 2024: A Pilgrimage of Hope towards Peace - the Journey Explained!

Second Thursday in Advent - December 12, 2024

Isaiah 41: 13-20; Matthew 11: 11-15 

We began this week with the prophecy about the voice in the wilderness, John the Baptist and the readings prepare us to encounter the person of the prophet, the greatest of all born of women! It is very clear that John is brought in to underscore the proximity of the coming of the Lord. And what Jesus seems to say is, the ultimate aim of everything that we say or do, is to arrive at the Reign, to inherit the Reign – by doing that, we become no less than the great Baptist himself.

So, what do we do? Not much! Because the Reign is God’s doing, says the first reading. In that short passage of the reading, we see a rampant self-reference of God – I the Lord, I will do, I will help… it is simply a means to make us understand how the Reign of God, is God’s making. All that we can do is, listen, cooperate, and behold the Reign. Those who do that, inherit the Reign, they inherit peace! 

We could fret to do a million things, and finally feel helplessly empty, when we are up to our own designs. That is what the world suggests today in the name of self-realisation! But what is important is that we choose God, and choose God’s designs, with a trust that God shall work everything out in God’s right time, and we shall experience peace, we shall inherit the Reign

Peace is resting in the Lord

Advent 2024: A Pilgrimage of Hope towards Peace - the Journey Explained!

Second Wednesday in Advent - December 11, 2024

Isaiah 40: 25-31; Matthew 11: 28-30

On our journey of hope, towards understanding what peace is all about, we are instructed today: peace is resting in the Lord. Resting, not in the sense of passive inaction, but in terms of active surrender to the Lord. There are two reasons given today to surrender to the Lord apart from the one usual cause – our helplessness. We try all our possibilities and resources, and when we find everything is failing, then we turn to the Lord and say, we surrender. That surrender is a sign or result of failure and it will not have anything to do with peace or serenity; it will be filled with remorse and revenge.

The real peace-giving surrender to the Lord, instead comes from, first and foremost the profound belief that God is my strength, as the first reading teaches to us. This is the fundamental disposition that I need to grow in – simple measures that we have been taught from our earliest age: beginning anything we do with a prayer, beginning the day with the act of faith, the act of love etc., are means to remind ourselves that the Lord is our strength. All the capacity that we have comes from the Lord, without whom we are nothing. That is one unfailing source of peace. 

A second reason for surrendering to the Lord is a realisation of our limitedness. Our limitedness need not disturb us, discourage us or dissuade us from our ongoing journey! For when the Lord is with us, we shall run but shall not grow weary, we shall walk and never tire, because “His Grace is sufficient for us.” When we rest in the Lord, our hearts are at peace! “Come” the Lord invites, that is an invitation to surrender ourselves in hope to the Lord. How disposed are we?

Peace is inclusion, not seclusion

Advent 2024: A Pilgrimage of Hope towards Peace - the Journey Explained!

Second Tuesday in Advent - December 10, 2024

Isaiah 40:1-11; Matthew 18: 12-14

At times in the name of peace, we play the game of closing our eyes. It is like when we wish to urgently clean a surface, we push the rubbish under the rug and make everything appear neat on the floor. That cannot be peace. When we have a problem, the solution is not, to do away with all those who seem to be creating the problem. The solution would be to find out what really is the problem and what could be the right way of solving it. That alone can lead us to true and lasting peace.

The Lord never rejects us just because we are problematic, or because we are unfaithful or faint hearted. The Lord goes on trying with us endlessly; the Lord never grows tired of being merciful or of consoling us. In spite of knowing how fragile and vulnerable we are, we go on with our haughtiness! But the Lord never gives up; like a shepherd feeding his flock, the Lord gathers us in his arms and leads us to rest.

That is the peace we are promised. That peace will come only when we decide to come back to the embrace of the Lord. The Lord shall never forsake us, nor reject us. But we need to come back to the Lord, when we stray away from him; we need to get back to the bosom of the shepherd, like the sheep that lost its way. Then there shall be peace. 

Peace would not come into a house, or a family, or a community, by trying to eliminate the one causing the problem, we do not arrive at peace! It is the same with our selves too – by eliminating or hiding or repressing that part of ourselves which causes problem, we do not grow up to the salvation promised by the Lord. The Lord calls us to an integral conversion, a total transformation after the heart of the Lord – from where our peace shall come!

The Way to Peace is Compassion

Advent 2024: A Pilgrimage of Hope towards Peace - the Journey Explained!

Second Monday in Advent - December 09, 2024

Isaiah 35:1-10; Luke 5: 17-26 

From the week of hope, we pass on to the week of peace, as the Sunday indicated to us. Rightly, the responsorial psalm indicates to us: I will hear what God proclaims: for he proclaims peace to his people. But what kind of peace is the Lord announcing? That is an important point to clarify to ourselves. It is a peace that comes out of a change, and not from status quo, out of a radical change!

We hear of that change in the first reading today - the blind shall see, the deaf shall hear, the lame shall leap and the mute shall shout for joy! Your sorrow will turn to joy and your hopelessness shall turn to a salvific experience! This is the kind of change that the Lord is speaking to us about. This is the peace, a joyful and fulfilling peace, that the Lord announces to us.

But how will this change come about? The Gospel responds: when we really care for each other! Just as those brethren brought that man to Jesus amidst all odds, when we go out of our way to address the sorrows and heartaches of our brothers and sisters - these changes shall take place and peace shall flourish. Unlike the pharisees and the scribes who were sitting around there waiting to judge, if we really feel the compassion that Jesus felt for the other, peace shall certainly flourish. And we shall turn out to be instruments of peace, channels of the peace of the Lord.

Immaculate Conception and the Advent Journey

Mary - God's part of preparation! 

Solemnity of Immaculate Conception - December 9, 2024

Genesis 3: 9-15,20; Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12; Luke 1: 26-38

We celebrate the solemnity of Immaculate Conception today... it is indeed an important feast, not to be missed even for the sake of the Advent that we are living through these days! Moreover, specially in the background of the season of advent, this feast takes a very special significance. As advent is basically a preparation towards the commemoration of the first coming of the Lord, one of the most significant preparations on the part of God, was the immaculate conception of our Blessed Mother - God was preparing a place, a place worthy of the Son to come. This was God's part of preparation, reminding us to be diligent on our part of preparation too!

The Word presented to us on this feast is intense and profound. We could look at it or reflect on it in terms of various interesting schemes: the promise (1st reading) - the fulfillment (gospel) - our commitment (2nd reading); or the problem (1st reading) - the solution (gospel) - the lesson (2nd reading); or the initiative of God (1st reading) - a model of response (gospel) - the response expected from us (2nd reading)... interesting, aren't they? Whichever scheme we choose to apply, one common line of reflection would be that the feast of immaculate conception is not merely about Mary, it is about the entire salvific plan of God, the greater picture of the salvation of humanity. 

This feast, as we said right at the beginning, is not to be left out owing to the Advent that seems to be claiming priority, instead it has to be double emphasised, as it has a strong imprint of being a truth very close to the Advent message. One of the most familiar themes of advent is, "expectation" - and the immaculate conception begins the end of a long expectation of humanity; finally the promise given to the human race was beginning to unfold, in the figure of Mary, entering into the world of beings. Another advent theme that is strong is, "preparation" and as we already hinted at, Immaculate Conception was a mode of God telling humanity (although at that time no one would have beheld it), that the time was now ripe for the promise and the prophecies to be realised. 

Finally, this feast is a strong reminder of what we have been called to: to be holy and blameless, to be immaculate  in the eyes of the Lord. That second part is the most consoling and equally challenging part - in the eyes of the Lord. Yes, Mary was immaculately conceived - who knew it? No one, and even today there are those who ridicule this truth, saying it is an invention of the human reason. Be it so, but the fact is, the Lord was preparing her to be the mother of the sinless Son of God... how else can it be, than she be immaculate right from the beginning! Only God would have known it, God could do it, and God certainly has done it! Even for us... we are called to be immaculate, not to be proving to everyone that we are better than the rest of the world, nor to be putting up an appearance of it. We are called to be intrinsically immaculate, choosing God above all and everything, which is known to God without any mediation. And God sees our efforts, not our results. 

Immaculate Mother, help us to imitate your total dedication to the Lord and the Lord's will. Amen.

A PILGRIMAGE OF HOPE TOWARDS PEACE

The Journey Explained

Second Sunday in Advent - December 8, 2024

Baruch 5: 1-7; Philippians 1: 4-6,8-11; Luke 3: 1-6

We began a pilgrimage of hope last week with the commencement of the season of Advent. If the Word last week, commissioned us to the journey, this week the Word comes to explain to us what this journey is all about - it is a journey towards peace! A pilgrimage, a devout journey towards peace - that is what Advent is all about. Hence it becomes categorical that we clarify to ourselves what this peace we refer to is, how we arrive at it and when we would truly get there - may the Word speak to us!

Peace... what: Integrity. Let us begin with a question what this peace is. A phrase or a term we come across more than once in the first reading from Baruch is, the integrity of God that God wants to adorn us with. That is the peace that is denoted by the term "shalom", which means wholeness, fullness, absence of insecurity or anguish, a serenity at heart which affects our whole being and our entire milieu. That can be given only by God and we know that. 

How much the world and the humanity longs for peace today: wars everywhere, and violence in all corners, confusions within nations and coflicts at the borders... these are the scenarios that we are facing these days increasingly. Not just these, but even within communities, families and ourselves, there are so many instances of peacelessness and we long for peace. It seems to return, but for a flicker of a moment, and then we are back to the experiences of struggle and strife. The Lord says, I wish to give you peace; I want to make you shine with joy; I want to fill you with my spleandour. The peace that the Lord gives is integrity; and therefore it cannot be automatic. It has to be achieved...but how?

Peace... how: Invest. If we need to experience peace, we have to invest in it. Invest our desires and interests, invest our efforts, invest our energies and invest our whole life in it. If not, peace cannot be a possibility. No peace that is achieved from outside can be lasting. Peace has to arise from within, and that is why investing in it is inevitable. 

The Lord who wants to give it to us, is ready to invest in us - we read in the first reading, in the words of Baruch, the Lord is ready to level everything up and straighten everything that we may have peace. It is the Lord's initiative, as always. And we are required to respond - the message of John the Baptist comes in here - that we need to level things up and straighten everything out. It depends on how ready we are, to heed to the call given to us - as the second reading points - to be pure and blameless for the Lord. At times we are attached to our ways, our priorities and our ego that we are not ready to level or straighten anything. Peace has no possibility there. Advent is a time to level things, not just for the coming of the Lord, but also for us to get in touch with the Lord, to journey towards the Lord, towards peace. 

Peace... when: In God's time. When will this peace be possible? Peace is possible only when we are able to surrender ourselves to the Lord in everyway. The message of John the Baptist was that. Today we are presented with the figure of the Baptist, and next week we shall hear him speak to us. The very person of John is a message, a reminder, a call, a challenge - to become the people of God. Here is the place of hope, the hope that never disappoints. 

The Lord shall never disappoint us, we need to endure. Endurance is not staying put; it is an active investment of the self and of the efforts! And in that active endurance, we shall be already levelling the ground, raising the fallen and empowering the weak. That is the Reign... that is the true peace, the integrity of the Lord that we long for, in the making. Let continue our journey with earnestness and endurance, a journey of hope towards peace!

Preparing the Destination

Advent 2024: A Pilgrimage of Hope - the Commission of the Journey! 

First Saturday in Advent - December 07, 2024

Isaiah 30:19-21, 23-26; Matthew 9:35 – 10:1,5,6-8 

The journey has been commissioned and we are almost at the end of the first week of our Advent pilgrimage of hope. The entire week has been reminding us of the destination towards which our pilgrimage leads us, not just symbolically this week alone but in our entire life of faith; this is the chief task of the Word.

Reflecting these days on the destination, the journey towards which we are engaged  in… the Word underlined to us the importance of beholding, seeing and visualizing the Reign – the Word today reminds us, about the peculiarity of our call: freely you have received, freely you give. The concrete exercise that the commissioning of this journey, invites us to, is not just to passively await the ‘coming of the Reign’ but to actively prepare it, nurture it, grow it from our hearts.

Isaiah speaks to us of all the privileges that God has for those who belong to God, despite the times of sadness, grief and strife that they may be going through presently. Jesus in the Gospel endorses that, and goes a step forward to instruct us to build the Reign, together as the people of the Reign, that we grow it, that we nourish it and that we give it to this world.

Reaching out to the other is an essential ‘Reign-quality’ that we are given with and we are called today to act in the name of the Lord, on behalf of the people of the Lord, for the labourers are few and the harvest is abundance. We are called not to just wait for the Reign, instead we are sent to seek the Reign, prepare the Reign, usher in the Reign by our words and deeds of witness. 

Visualising the Destination

Advent 2024: A Pilgrimage of Hope - the Commission of the Journey!

First Friday in Advent - December 06, 2024

Isaiah 29: 17-24; Matthew 9: 27-31

Our hearts bleed today when read those references today to Lebanon and its woes… because we are naturally led to connect it to the sad and treacherous happening of these days – be it in Lebanon, Syria or even elsewhere there, or around the planet. But this has been going on for centuries! Is there no stop to this? Violence, war, terrorism, rebellion, revenge, killing and destruction – will they never end? This reflection unfortunately coincides this day, with “the dark day” 22 years ago in India, a day which announced with a bang, the change of an era in this land of tolerance and secularism.

With all these working on our minds, it is very just to cry out to the powers out there in the society at large, who are determining this awful situation. But is that truly warranted, when we have so many issues to settle even within our small little societies, our families, our communities, and above all within ourselves – a situation of conflict and contestations, an indubitably peace-less experience.

The pilgrimage of hope invites us to see, to behold, to visualize the destination proposed to us, the Reign open to us, the Reign present amidst us, and grow into it. We are reminded that hopelessness is blindness, and we need to recover our sight, to behold the Reign. It is not that easy and those who do it are not always judged smart – they can be considered dreamers, delusive, “out of their minds”. But the challenge remains to stand firm in hope and visualize the destination, and behold the Reign that is there within us, to strengthen it, sustain it, promote it, grow it and present it to the world.

At the gates of the Destination

Advent 2024: A Pilgrimage of Hope - the Commission of the Journey!

First Thursday in Advent - December 05, 2024

Isaiah 26: 1-6; Matthew 7: 21, 24-27

 

The commissioning of a journey, with its destination well defined, needs to also single out the way to reach the gates of the destination. The image of the “gates,” stand out in the Word today and that augurs well for the discourse that we are having these days – to enter the Reign.

The way to enter the gate is not to stand around and cry out to the Lord; it is simply   knowing the will of the Lord and being ready to translate it into action in our daily lives. Doing the will of God gives me the “gate pass” and the gate is always open for those who have been with the Word and the Will of the Father.  This indicated way is the sure ground to remain in the Lord – the rock that makes our hopes come true.

Being pilgrims of hope is not going anyway and anywhere blindly believing we will reach the Lord and enter the Reign. The way is determined. And before anything, one needs to know the way: know the Word, listen to the Word and understand what the Word requires on a daily basis, in the concrete situations of life. 

It would not suffice to know! The further step is to act on what I know. There is no other way for reaching and entering the gates of the Reign. Although the gates are open wide for me, out of the love that God has for me, I need to have the ticket to enter and that is my life based on the Word – which is compared to a house built on the rock. The Rock will never fail me!