Gathering the signs!

WORD 2day : Friday, 32nd week in Ordinary time

November 14, 2025: Wisdom 13:1-9; Luke 17: 26-37

Every now and then in the story of humanity, a story makes its rounds that the end of the world is bound to begin shortly... in a week or in a fixed time foresaid... with three days of darkness and other demonic signs. Though there is a curiosity that these horror stories evoke, they are merely manifestations of a spirituality that seeks some excitement all the time. Isn't that a very weak form of spirituality?

Jesus invites us to grow in our capacity to gather the signs from the experiences of ordinary day to day life... the lessons arising from the clashes caused by evil tendencies, cravings incited by selfishness, inhumanities provoked by senseless egoism, insensitivities and indifferences that make this world a worthless place to live in! People who make of everything and every person, a commodity, a means to their own gain and a possibility of profit!

Look at the entire scenario of today's armed stand-offs all around the world: every one of those is human made and so miserably evil... leave aside the question who started it and who is perpetrating it! Every time there is a disaster, human made or natural, there are those who shamelessly draw profit from it... what kind of a human person would do that? Worse still, a follower of Christ falling into that mode of living, that is a senseless shame. It is a clear sign that they do not gather any signs of what God wants from them!

The call hence, is to gather signs and understand the invitation from God. It is not about when the end of the world would come... but what does God want of me here and now, right here and right now! It would be unwise to remain deaf or blind to the messages that the Lord sends... let's remain awake and read those signs and channel our courses towards one united goal: the Reign of God here on earth.

Me, the Spirit and the Reign!

WORD 2day : Thursday, 32nd week in Ordinary time

November 13, 2025: Wisdom 7:22 - 8:1: Luke 17: 20-25

The Reign of God is among you, says Jesus in the Gospel. While the first reading gives us the cue where to initiate it in concrete: from the Spirit who dwells within us. This is the crux of Christian life in the world today!

It is the Spirit's doing that initiates the Reign in this world. Hence the call that we have received to establish the Reign of God, begins with realising the Spirit within us. It is to become aware of the indwelling Spirit and live a life that is worthy of this inner presence, that waits to spread itself into a light that would lead the entire world from within each of us.

The second need is to keep the Spirit alive and nourish it with our choice for God on a day to day manner. When you sow flesh, you grow flesh; when you sow the Spirit, you grow in the Spirit, counsels St. Paul elsewhere. Our growth in the Spirit depends on the interest we manifest in feeding our selves with Spiritual nourishment. When the Spirit grows within, the Reign around me springs!

Thirdly, we are challenged to live that Spirit out, manifest that Spirit, bear witness to that Spirit, make the Spirit felt in our very beings, with courage and commitment, inspite of the threats and troubles around us. Once we choose to live our life in the Spirit to the full, the Reign of God begins to dawn on this world.

There is a crucial connection between the Spirit and the Reign, and the connection is ME!

Faith is... to respond!

WORD 2day: Wednesday, 32nd week in Ordinary time

November 12, 2025: Wisdom 6: 1-11; Luke 17: 11-19

The readings seem to converge on one thought today... that the Lord wishes, expects, and demands a response from us! 

Our God is a self revealing God... through signs and wonders, and prophets and wise persons, and finally through God's only Son, and continuously even today in and through God's Spirit, God continues to reveal Godself to us in various ways. The question is, do we pay attention, listen and acknowledge what is being revealed. 

The tricky fact is that, the more we are given, the more we are expected to respond! It is not to be misinterpretted as if God gives, and expect that we repay! No! But it is that, we are given so much, we are so filled with such goodness, we receive "grace upon grace" (Jn 1:16), that we realise it is right and just to give God thanks and praise to the Lord!

To know the right thing to be done at the right time and choosing to do it, is a gift of the Holy Spirit... we would be blessed to possess it. And the Lord says today, "set your desire on my words; long for them, and you will be instructed!" (Wis 6:11). Doing the right thing, at the right time, is a response that we give to the Lord and that response is what is expected from me - anytime, anywhere! When I don't respond, I waste what was entrusted to me: a gift, a treasure!

Our response to the self revealing God - that is our faith. Growing in faith is learning to respond more and more adequately. Failing to respond is dwindling in faith. Let us grow in faith everyday - let us be attentive to respond to the Lord in every way!

Bearing God's image within

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 32nd week in Ordinary time

November 11, 2025: Wisdom: 2:23 - 3:9; Luke 17: 7-10

The first reading today states a tremendous truth - we are made for eternity, incorruptible by nature, because we carry the image of God within us! That is the fundamental truth of salvation. We are all saved in the core of our being, none of us is destined to destruction, none of us is rushing towards perdition!

But let us beware! There is something which can change everything drastically! We have a responsibility to keep that truth alive, because it all depends on the choices we make. By nature we are God's own children, but if we by our daily decisions and life choices, resolve to break away from God and from the gifts that God has placed within us, we are ruining our own salvific core.

It is not as if we are doing something extraordinary or achieving unthinkable feats when we accomplish within our limits, whatever goodness we can! It is actually what we are, it is our very nature; because we are endowed with God's nature. And so, craving for recognition and appreciation, boasting about oneself and one's so-called achievements are a folly. St. Paul would remind us repeatedly of that. Jesus explains that today: when you have done all that you ought to, remember you have done no more than your duty.

The problem gets real bad, when we are not what we are created to be, we do not do what we are called to! We shield ourselves away from the salvation that God, from all eternity, has prepared for us. What a ruin that would be!

The Word reminds us today: we are called every day, every moment to go on living in faith founded on hope and guided by love, to live a life of love and mercy; and at the end of it say, 'we are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty!' 

Let us remember... God who loves us will never desert us, unless we decide to break away from God.

Holiness - faith lived at its core!

WORD 2day: Monday, 32nd week in Ordinary time

November 10, 2025: Wisdom 1:1-7; Luke 17: 1-6

Holiness is a matter of the innermost being. It does not consist merely of the external signs and public shows. Words not said, thoughts not expressed, acts merely contemplated, reactions withheld... these determine my holiness more than what the world around perceives me to be. That is why the strange link between faith and forgiveness in the Gospel today. Forgiveness too is an absolutely private truth; its genuinity escapes any external expression!

While Jesus teaches his disciples to forgive brothers and sisters, they respond saying - 'increase our faith!' It can sound strange, but only apparently so! One could say, should the prayer not be, 'Lord help us to forgive!' why do we see, the apostles praying: increase our faith? The connection is very profound, and typically Christ-ian. One cannot consider oneself to be a person of faith, holy and spiritual, if one's relationships with others is not right. If faith is relationship with God, forgiveness is relationship with my fellow beings! If the latter fails, the former is meaningless. If we want really to be spiritual, we have to forgive, accept, and love our brothers and sisters, as God does with us!

Let's ask the Lord to "Increase our faith" (Lk 17:5); increase in faith means what the first reading tells us: honesty, simplicity of heart, shunning deceit, being truthful, in short: being godly at the core of our being, not merely in the external show! Yes, holiness is faith lived at the core of our beings. Faith is our daily life lived in the presence of the Lord. 

The more we grow conscious of the continuous presence of the Lord the more holy we shall grow!

THE TEMPLE THAT YOU ARE

The Solemnity of the Dedication of Lateran Basilica

32nd Sunday in Ordinary time: 9th November, 2025

Ezekiel 47: 1-2, 8-9, 12; 1 Corinthians 3: 9-11, 16-17; John 2: 13-22

Temple. Temple of the Lord. Temple of the living God. Temple where lives God. That temple you are! And it is from here the Lord wants his glory to be spread far and wide, from the temple of our selves, from the altars of our daily struggles and sacrifices. The Lord's zeal for the temple flairs up today and that temple is not the structure that stands in places, but the persons that we are.

The dedication of the Basilica of St John at the Laterans gives us a great opportunity to reflect on the decadence of the divinity that resides within humanity. But before getting to discuss that, let us say a word on the Basilica itself.

The Basilica and the feast:

The feast that we celebrate today is the remembrance of the dedication (on 9th, Nov, 324 AD) of the Basilica that stands on the property which was called 'Lateran' because it belonged to that family but acquired and given by Emperor Constantine to the Church earlier. The Church which was built was dedicated to the two great John's of the Gospel: John the Baptist and John the Evangelist! This Basilica is one of the so-called Four Major Basilicas of Rome (the other three being those of St. Peter, Mary Major and St. Paul outside the walls). There is yet another importance attached to this Basilica because this is the Cathedral, that is the Official seat of the Bishop of Rome, that is none other than the Holy Father himself. Hence this is called the Papal Cathedral, and not the all-famous Basilica of St. Peter!

The Message:

Humanity is the sanctuary where Divinity resides: I need to realise that I am not merely what I see! I am more than me. There is the indwelling spirit that resides in me. The Divinity that is within me is the true dignity that defines me. First of all to think of it that the Lord chose to dwell within me; secondly to think of the mystery that I am made of! Both these should make me awestruck but what happens today is so loathsome.

The Robbers' den and the Market place: Such a sanctuary, filled with such extraordinary truths is made into a robbers den: a place where all evil resides; and a market place: where everything goes on except what is sacred! Exploitation of persons, decadence of moral dignity, human trafficking, sexual aberrations, killing in the name of god, violating the rights of the other, scheming to wipe out the races of people, keeping quiet at the face of blatant inhumanity that is perpetrated at large, buying and selling human labour without an iota of human respect, the swelling of the moneyed and the suffering of the exploited, the arrogance of the affluent and the insensitivity towards the downtrodden, the thousands and thousands of lives of the poor over whose graves walks the so called development today... these are the crimes against which the Lord would make a whip!

Realise that Blessing that you are: Cleansing the temple, the invitation that Lord has is fundamentally to realise the divinity that resides within us and the dignity that arises from the fact. To understand that the Spirit of the Lord dwells within us and that is the true stuff we are made of. To understand that we are a blessing to many, as Ezekiel points out about the waters that flow from beneath the Temple which makes fertile every land that it flows into. To understand the ways in which this sanctuary of humanity, is profaned by values that are demoralising to the core.

In simple words, we are called to be persons worthy of the Lord, communities worthy of our faith and societies worthy of the sacredness of the humanity.

Authentic Faith and Right Relationships

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

November 8, 2025: Romans 16: 3-9,16,22-27; Luke 16: 9-15

Let us pay attention to those 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!

The Urgency of the Reign

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

November 7, 2025: Romans 15: 14-21; Luke 16: 1-8

Jesus may be slightly intriguing in today's Gospel, as it seems as if he is justifying the shrewdness of the steward or approving of his lies. The point that Jesus is bringing forth is completely different. He wants us to realise how efficiently and time- consciously the evil doers proceed with their affairs, while those who are committed to the cause of the Reign, find themselves taking their own sweet time, hesitating, calculating, planning endlessly!

Isn't it true? Just think of the multinational corporates, the ideological lobbies and antidemocratic political forces which are dictating terms to the humanity at large today. Did they spring into existence, just overnight? Where were the so-called Reign thinkers and Reign persons all the time that these were brewing in the dark, to emerge so forceful and see the light of day! Certainly they were watching, warning each other, talking about it and reflecting on it al the time, but had not acted in such a way as to stop these forces of compromise. Even today, isn't the same happening? There are these forces of division, oppression, and antihuman politicisation, slowly gaining ground. We see it and what are we doing? In the name of creating support systems that can help on a difficult day, building defence faculties, devising and revising strategies, so on and so forth, are we failing to live up to the demands of the day?

St. Paul is given as our model today: a man with an urgency to make Christ known and with a compelling clarity as to what his task was: to take Christ to those who didnt know Christ. The Urgency of the Reign comes precisely from these three factors: Clarity of our task; Conviction that I have but a short time; and a Commitment unto death.

How strongly is imprinted on my mind, the urgency of the Reign of God? And how ready am I to respond to its demands here and now?

The Reign Persons

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

November 6, 2025: Romans 14: 7-12 ; Luke 15: 1-10

Two attitudes, in contrast today, bring out the quality of a person who belongs to the Reign of God. The so called sinners and publicans were seeking to be in the company of Jesus while the pharisees were busy complaining that Jesus was eating with sinners and meeting with the outcasts. Jesus says he cared two hoots about what the pharisees thought, because Jesus' task was so clear cut and absolute for him: the Reign of God.

Reign of God is a mindset fundamentally. It is a mindset that gives priority to the Lord, a mentality that considers nothing more important that the will of God, a disposition of welcoming all that pertains to God and a lifestyle of celebrating every moment of life, every person around and every possibility of promoting love through genuine relationships. Although eating and drinking, and feasts and gatherings are an important part of the spirit of the Reign, they are not all, decries Jesus! Righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom 14:17)... that's the Reign of God.

Reign of God consists of our choices, daily and radical choices, wherever we are - choices such as, whose company we seek; what do we decry; what is that which disturbs us when we look at the society today or our own life today, and so on... these are the pertinent elements that will make us truly persons of the Reign!

Ready for the battle?

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

November 5, 2025: 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.

Love is not all those.. love is 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 choosing love, I am challenged to reject a whole lot of evil that is so widespread and prevalent around me today!

To accept to genuinely love, means being ready for any cost that I would have to pay. At times I may find myself alone, with the whole society against me. While everyone acts on the logic of give and take, tit for tat and an eye for an eye...I will have to declare that I love the one who has hurt me, I love the one who keeps offending me, I love the one who is the cause of so much suffering. That does not mean I approve of what he or she does...but the person, I cannot reject or hate! Oh, what a complicated choice it is! Love does not rejoice in evil; it rejects evil. But it never judges anyone or rejects anyone; it is patient and kind, forbearing and forgiving!

As a Christian every follower of Christ is obliged to take up this battle of love! And 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. Am I truly ready for this battle?