Who is Christ?

Christmas Octave (Monday, 31 December 2018)

1 John 2:18-21. Psalm 96:1-2, 11-13. John 1:1-18. (Please click the following link for the above readings http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/123118.cfm.)

“He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who did accept him he gave power to become children of God.”

What if we’ve missed the point of who Christ is, what Christ is, and where Christ is? A Christian is simply one who has learned to see Christ everywhere, and in everyone. Understanding the Universal or Cosmic Christ can change the way we relate to creation, to other religions, to other people, to ourselves, and to God. 

The prologue to John’s Gospel is part of our reading today. John here is not talking only about Jesus; he’s referring to Christ. This great Universal Christ Mystery since the beginning of time now becomes specific in the body and the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The Word (Blueprint) has become personified and visible as a human being. Christ is present even before the birth of Jesus; Christ is present from all eternity.

Christ is not Jesus’ last name. The word Christ is a title, meaning the Anointed One, which many Christians so consistently applied to Jesus that to us it became like a name. But a study of Scripture, Tradition, and the experience of many mystics reveals a much larger, broader, and deeper meaning to “the Christ.”

Everything was made in Christ and through Christ. “Not one thing had its being but through him.” Similarly Hebrews 1:3 says that Christ “sustains the universe”: Christ is the radiant light of God’s glory and the perfect copy of God’s nature, sustaining the universe by God’s powerful command.

Like Saul’s experience on the road to Damascus (see Acts 9), we won’t be the same after encountering the Risen Christ. Many people don’t realize that Saul (Paul) never met the historical Jesus and hardly ever quotes Jesus directly. In almost all of Paul’s preaching and writing, he refers to the Eternal Christ Mystery or the Risen Christ rather than Jesus of Nazareth before his death and resurrection. The Risen Christ is the only Jesus that Paul ever knew! This makes Paul a fitting mediator for the rest of us, since the Omnipresent Risen Christ is the only Jesus we will ever know as well (see 2 Corinthians 5:16-17).

It is formally incorrect to say “Jesus is God,” as most Christians glibly do. Jesus is a third something which is the union of "very God" with "very man."  For Christians, the Trinity is God, and Jesus came forth to take us back with him into this eternal embrace, which is where we first came from (John 14:3), and this is what it means to have an eternal soul.

The following New Testament passages give a clear cosmic meaning to Christ: Colossians 1, Ephesians 1, John 1, 1 John 1, and Hebrews 1:1-4. Jesus is the union of human and divine in space and time, and the Christ is the eternal union of matter and Spirit from the beginning of time.

Whenever the material and the spiritual coincide, there is the Christ. Jesus fully accepted that human-divine identity and walked it into history. Henceforth, the Christ “comes again” whenever we are able to see the spiritual and the material coexisting, in any moment, in any event, and in any person. All matter reveals Spirit, and Spirit needs matter to “show itself”! Therefore, “the Second Coming of Christ” happens whenever and wherever we allow this to be utterly true for us. This is how God continually breaks into history—even before the first homo sapiens stood in awe and wonder, gazing at the stars.

In reality we may not at all be loving the Christ who is the Alpha and Omega of history; instead we love a little Jesus whom we can stick in our pocket. We fell in love with the symbol instead of what Jesus fully represented. To love “Jesus, the Christ” is to love both the symbol and everything that he stands for—which is precisely everything. (In fact, Christ is another name for Everything.)

Happiness

Feast of the Holy Family (Sunday, 30 December 2018)

Sirach 3:3-7, 14-17 (or 1 Samuel 1:20-22, 24-28). Psalm 128:1-5. Colossians 3:12-21 (or 1 John 3:1-2, 21-24). Luke 2:41-52. (Please click the following link for the above readings http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/123018.cfm.)

“When the parents of Jesus were on their way home after the feast of the Passover, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem without his parents knowing it.”

The well-known Russian author Leo Tolstoy starts his book Anna Karenina thus: “All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” There seems to be a common recipe for happiness, but there is nothing common about unhappiness.

Yet happiness doesn't mean absence of problems and imperfections. Joy or happiness doesn't mean all things are “going well” or “going right.” It just means things are “going,” and “going on” within you. It's an inherent, inner aliveness. Joy is almost entirely an inside job.

The Holy Family of Nazareth, whom we celebrate today, had their share of problems, tensions, anxieties, doubts, headaches, and heartaches. Joseph was thinking of divorce, the family was afflicted by poverty, they were fleeing to another country as refugees, Jesus was lost and is found only after three days, there seems to be some lack of understanding between Jesus and his parents.

Today’s gospel outlines the heartbreaking experience of Mary and Joseph when they lost Jesus. He slipped away from the family circle without informing his parents and stayed back in Jerusalem. Their joy in finding Jesus was dampened by his sharp words, “Don’t you realize that I must be about my Father’s business?” It was difficult for them to realize that he was growing up, coming of age and asserting himself outside his immediate family circle.

Later Jesus had a very important religious experience at the Jordan river; he never returned to live with his family in Nazareth. He did not enjoy his family's support. His immediate family did not approve of his activity as an itinerant prophet. They came to think that he had lost his mind, and was bringing shame to the whole family. As the gospels witness, Jesus left his home in Nazareth for good and went to Capernaum. Only later on some of his family members apparently joined his movement.

The Nazareth family therefore was by no means a perfect family, but a happy family (that grew in wisdom and favour with God and people). Joy in family life has little to do with external circumstances like money, achievements, good jobs, good careers, success, high status in society, popularity, good facilities, comfort and luxury. It has everything to do with friendship, love, freedom, and a purpose in life.

In this context, the Nazareth family inspires us to put God at the centre of our lives. Not money, not success, not things, not persons that are at the centre of their life, but God Himself.

We can see how Mary treasured in her heart all those incomprehensible and even difficult moments. Parents more than children have a contemplative role to play.

Children in our families have a special role: they come and go like strangers. Parents need to perhaps avoid the extremes of abandoning them or overprotecting them. Freedom is the name of the game called love. Parents for their part learn painfully that rearing children is a test of their own growth as adults. If they fail to keep growing as adults they will never understand their children growing up. Children, of necessity, have a life of their own which parents must not stifle by attempting to turn them into carbon-copies of themselves. They must be ready to place faith in their children, striking that delicate balance of slacking control gradually. The time will come when they have to let go altogether, as their children begin to assert independence and launch out on their own.

Even the roles of parents and of children become complementary. At times, children become parents, parents children or friends; that is, there are no defined roles: everyone teaches, everyone learns, everyone contributes.

Today are you going to pray God to take away your problems and suffering, or ask Him for wisdom and maturity to deal with those problems? Suffering (paradoxically!) seems to be the only thing strong enough to unite families. It is the only thing strong enough to break down your egos, control systems, sense of superiority, and pride. And, to borrow and modify Mother Teresa's wise words, suffering is God's most “distressing disguise.”

I tremble to say this, but shouldn't we pray for a bit of suffering for our families? (Or have we been gifted with it in plenty?)

A Sign of Contradiction

Christmas Octave (29 December 2018)

1 John 2:3-11. Psalm 96:1-3, 5-6. Luke 2:22-35. (Please click the following link for the above readings http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/122918.cfm.)

“Prompted by the Holy Spirit Simeon came to the Temple and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the Law required, he took him into his arms and blessed God.”

Yesterday's Christmas reading was from the gospel of Matthew, and today's from Luke. We need to remember that Matthew's Christmas narratives are considerably different from that of Luke's. Matthew and Luke have some common core elements, but they also have significant differences regarding the origins and birth of Jesus (while John’s “Word became flesh” is even more distinctive).

Throughout Luke’s account, the action centres on Mary much more than on Joseph, and the other main characters are not rich and powerful men as in Matthew’s Gospel, but women like Elizabeth and Anna. If men appear in Luke, they are mostly poor (shepherds) and/or elderly (Zechariah and Simeon). Moreover, the Lucan women often play roles that are as important as their male counterparts. When Baby Jesus is presented in the Temple, two old people encounter him. Although Luke does not record Anna’s words, only Simeon’s, it is significant that Anna is called a prophet and is the one speaking publicly to the surrounding people, whereas Simeon had spoken only privately to Jesus’ parents and in prayer to God.

Today's reading narrates the old man Simeon's prophecy that Jesus will be a sign of contradiction to the nations. This child is destined for the rising and the fall of many in Israel, and a sign to be rejected.

As we know from the gospels, contradiction and opposition were certainly the lot of Jesus. As Jesus began to share his mission, he forewarned the first apostles that they too would have to face opposition, rejection and persecution. “You will be hated by all men and women on account of my name” (Matthew 10:22). “If they persecute me they will persecute you too” (John 15:10).

For us too Jesus' disciples, growth in spirituality entails a foundational trust in the midst of suffering, some ability to bear darkness and uncertainty, and learning to be comfortable with paradox and mystery.

Light and dark are not opposing forces; rather, darkness is the absence of light. And when light enters in, there is no more darkness. In the darkness of our world and our lives, we need the true and lasting light that comes from Christ.

So if we don’t own our own evil, we will always project it elsewhere and attack it there. As we go through life, the hurts, disappointments, betrayals, abandonments, and the burden of our sinfulness and brokenness pile up, and we do not know what to do with it all. If we don't transform the pain and suffering within ourselves, we will surely transmit it to some others, usually to those closest to us: our family, our neighbours, our work partners, and, invariably, the most vulnerable—our children.

Therefore all the conflicts and contradictions of life must find a resolution in us before we can resolve anything outside ourselves. The people who hold the contradictions—and resolve them in themselves—are the saviours of the world. They are agents of transformation, reconciliation, and newness.

Our God is a God of contradictions. He does not abide by our human limits. He is able to exist in contradictions, and can shatter the limits of our perceptions.

Life and Death

Christmas Octave: Feast of the Holy Innocents (28 December 2018)

1 John 1:5—2:2. Psalm 124:2-3, 4-5, 7cd-8. Matthew 2:13-18. (Please click the following link for the above readings www.usccb.org.)

“A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loudly lamenting: it was Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted because they were no more.”

The stories around Christmas don't stop to amaze us, as with today's gospel stories of the Holy Family's flight into Egypt and the massacre of the boy children under the age of two in Bethlehem and its vicinity by the order of King Herod. Perhaps, on our part, we need to stop reading the gospel as we would a history book or a newspaper. Beyond the fascination and horror of these stories, we need to arrive at their meaning: what do I understand from these events and how do I take them into my living?

These infants became martyrs for Christ. Martyrdom is not about getting killed, but witnessing to Christ and proclaiming God's goodness and love. Such a witnessing is beyond a child's capacity or understanding, isn't it? Yes it is, but to be a martyr (=witness) no understanding is needed. God can use you inspite of you, inspite of your ability or disability. These children whom we celebrate today died in the place of Jesus, and so they are regarded as martyrs. Of course, Jesus himself would one day die for them and for all of us. Their deaths have deep significance for us.

Nothing is smooth about life. You can't get settled into an easy or sweet pattern in life. There are disorders, chaos and confusion at every turn of your life journey. Life is a struggle. But the good news is that your struggles—big and small, significant and insignificant, all of them—have meaning. God cares about them. God cares about you unceasingly. As the Holy Innocents teach, the life that our Lord gives is so big that it includes even death; it includes our smaller and bigger deaths. God's order includes even disorder and confusion. Our joy in life is found among our disorders, not away from them. Life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved.

As the first reading of today clearly states we are a mixture of both light and darkness, good and bad, life and death, positives and negatives. The tragedy of life is not about possessing darkness, but about denying it. All things on earth are a mixture of darkness and light. When we idolize things as totally good or condemn other things as totally bad, we get ourselves in trouble. Jesus simplifies this task by saying: “God alone is good” (Mark 10:18). Even the good things of this world are still subject to imperfection, wounding, and decay. We may find it very hard to admit, but often tragedies, struggles and misfortunes produce much good fruit and good people.

Happiness does not come from an easy and comfortable life, but from a meaningful and mature life that does not exclude sorrows, sufferings, deaths and tragedies. Everything in our life becomes an occasion for good and for God, if only we can surrender to life's mysteries.

As the poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote: “I want to ask you, as clearly as I can, to bear with patience all that is unresolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves. For everything must be lived. Live the questions now, perhaps then, someday, you will gradually, without noticing, live into the answer.”

Colour Blindness

Christmas Octave: Feast of St John the Evangelist (27 December 2018)

1 John 1:1-4. Psalm 97:1-2, 5-6, 11-12. John 20:2-8.

“He saw and believed.”

The apostle John saw and believed. But it is also true that he believed and then he saw. True belief begets true vision. If John saw the empty tomb, and the things within it, and then believed in Jesus' resurrection as today's gospel tells us, it is also true that John's belief and attachment to the Lord helped him see reality as it is. He was able to see that Jesus was alive. Alive, though really dead. He was able to see that it was a living person that he was searching for in the empty tomb. All because he had faith in Jesus, because he loved him and knew him. Faith gives birth to true seeing.

But as all religions and spiritualities tell us, we humans don't see that well. Many a human person has colour blindness or some kind of blindness—prejudice, bias, petty-mindedness, narrow-mindedness—that distort their vision. Therefore, we need to learn how to see. Otherwise we can make up reality, we can have hallucinations, believe in illusions, or we can live in an unreal world.

We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are. That's why we need to learn how to see. Praying is a beautiful way of learning how to see. A prayerful mind does not tell us what to see; but it teaches us how to see what we behold.

Very often we choose blindness over true seeing. We don't have the courage to meet reality as it is, or to encounter the pain and the confusion that reality could invariably bring. We close our minds to reality, and even become experts in selective seeing. Prayer and our attachment to the Lord can help us break the distortions within us. They can give us the courage to meet persons as they are, accept them as they are. They can give us the needed broad-mindedness and fortitude to meet reality in all its disorder, and even accept reality as it is.

We need the gift of new eyes, that our Lord is ever willing to give us. We need His gift to see this moment as it is. Only with His vision we will be able to see properly and better, without dictating to reality how it should be. The more open we are to the Spirit's promptings and invitations within us, the wider our seeing becomes. (Isn't this prayer itself?)

There is nothing that is not holy or not beautiful, for those who have learned how to see. The whole wide world becomes one Big Temple. Everything becomes sacred, and filled with God. Everything becomes filled with His goodness and mercy. Even our inner lives. Even the confusion and the disorder within us becomes beautiful and holy, becomes filled with God if we have learned true seeing.

Our God is ever ready to give the ability to stand back and calmly observe our inner dramas, without rushing to judgment. This is foundational for spiritual seeing. The God in us thus is able to meet the God in the world; the divine in us sees the divine in the world.

Incarnation

Christmas (25 December 2018)

There are four sets of masses/readings for the Solemnity of the Nativity: Vigil, Midnight, Dawn and Day Masses.

Please click the following link for the readings http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/122518.cfm.

These are only hints and guesses,

Hints followed by guesses;

And the rest is prayer, observance, discipline,

Thought and action.

The hint half guessed, the gift half understood,

Is Incarnation.

- T.S. Eliot, "The Dry Salvages."

Incarnation is a contradiction. It is the impossible union of God and Human, of Spirit and Matter, of God revealing His fulness in matter. It is a mystery that we are called to live and participate in, it is a mystery that we are called to understand more and more.

Christmas celebrates the mystery of incarnation in which God reveals Himself in Jesus. Love becomes a tangible human person. This is an instance of what Walter Brueggemann would call “the scandal of the particular.” He says in fact the entire biblical revelation is built on “the scandal of the particular.” Everything falls in place in one ordinary, concrete moment. We need to struggle with it there, fight with it there, resist it there, fall in love with it there. It’s a scandal precisely because it’s so ordinary. What is true in one place finally ends up being true everywhere.

God is always given, incarnate in every moment and present to those who know how to be present themselves. Strangely enough, it is often imperfect people and people in quite secular settings who encounter this Mystery of Presence. For it was to shepherds that the angelic message of Christmas was given. Forget all your religiously romantic ideas about shepherds. Shepherds were too dishonest and too smelly to be allowed into synagogue or temple services. They were among the outcasts. It is to them that God reveals Himself as an Infant.

That's the contradiciton of your lives. If you think you are pious, fervent and committed to a religion, then most probably you'll be slow to understand God's message. But if you think you're outside the structures of religion, then you may be one of the first to experience God. Therefore, people who can simply be present will know about God, union and even ecstasy, and they would not think of denying God's availability in the material world.

Therefore, God perfectly hides Himself in the material world, but also perfectly reveals Himself in this material world. This is incarnation. This is Christmas. Our God is an Incarnate God, Emmanuel, God-with-us always. (Please read again: Not just for 33 years, but ALWAYS!) Our heaven begins right here on earth right now!

Let us break this idea that God is far away, that God is not here. Authentic Christianity overcame this “God-is-elsewhere” idea through the Incarnation, God in Jesus became flesh—God visibly moved in with the material world—and through God as Holy Spirit, who is precisely known as an indwelling and vitalizing presence. We need to start believing this.

As T.S. Eliot in the above-quoted verse says, all these are only hints and guesses. We know and we don't know at the same time. The only adequate response to the Mystery of Incarnation is humility and adoration. In front of life's contradictions and mysteries, we humble ourselves, we adore this Mystery whom we call God.

Moreover, as Incarnation teaches us, being human is good, flesh is good, matter is good, sexuality is good, human desires are good. We are able to meet God in our sinful bodies. We are able to encounter the divine in the mess of our human lives.

But very many times the problem is that we don't like being what we are; and worse, we always want to be someone else. We're envious. We want to imitate someone else. We want to be a carbon copy of something or someone else. We've traded our instincts for aspirations, wishing we were thinner, or taller, or more handsome, or whatever, anything other than this little incarnation that we are for one gorgeous moment in time. We have a hard time finding grace in "just this"!

All I can give back to God, and all that God wants, is what God has first given to me: this little moment of incarnation, my little "I am" that echoes the great and eternal I AM in grateful awareness.

In the busy-ness of Christmas, don't forget to be conscious of God being incarnate in the every cell of YOU!

The Great Turnaround

Advent: 24 December 2018

2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16. Psalm 89:2-3, 4-5, 27, 29. Luke 1:67-79.

“The Lord also reveals to you that He will establish a house for you. And when your time comes and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your heir after you. Your house and your Kingdom shall endure forever before me; your throne shall stand firm forever.”

In the first reading we see that King David wants to build Yahweh a house to prove to Yahweh that he's a good boy. Through Nathan, Yahweh tells David, "I don't want you to build me a house. I will build you a house. I will give you rest from all your enemies. I will make you great. Yahweh will build you a house and when your days are ended and you are laid to rest with your ancestors, I will preserve your offspring until eternity."

This passage portrays the conversion or the "great turnaround" or the "necessary turnaround" of David. We all start by thinking we are going to do something for God, and by the end of our lives we know God has done it all for us. We start with a willingness to enter into this bilateral covenant with God, and eventually we know that it is mostly unilateral, and grace has filled in all the gaps!

At that turnaround point, we have David offering a beautiful prayer back to Yahweh: "Who am I, O Lord, and what is my house that you have led me as far as this?" It is similar to the prayer of Mary at the annunciation, "I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let your will be done." It is all about allowing God to have His way.

To allow yourself to be God's beloved is to be God's beloved. To allow yourself to be chosen is to be chosen. To allow yourself to be blessed is to be blessed. It is so hard to accept being accepted, especially from God. It takes a certain kind of humility to surrender to it, and even more to persist in believing it. Any used persons know this to be true: God chooses and then uses whom God chooses, and their usability comes from their willingness to allow themselves to be chosen in the first place. What a paradox!

God's love is constant and irrevocable; our part is to be open to it and let it transform us. There is absolutely nothing we can do to make God love us more than God already loves; and there is absolutely nothing we can do to make God love us less. We are stuck with it! The only difference is between those who allow that and those who don't, but they are both equally and objectively the beloved. One just enjoys it and draws ever-new life from that realization.

Isn't this the good news at Christmas? That God's love is so crazy, His grace is gratuitous, free, and always available. It is too good to believe, beyond our wildest hopes, and looks like wishful thinking. We don't want to fully believe it: are there really no terms and conditions for this love? There is nothing that I can do for meriting this love? Does God really love me so much that I don't have to do anything at all?

It may take a lifetime and even more to comprehend a bit of His love. And that's what God is and His love. Beyond all understanding and reason. Beyond all human calculation and expectation. Christmas for many of us might mean to allow God to be God, and not limit His saving love by our thinking and understanding. It would mean to allow God to love us as we are, and accept us as we are. Practically, it would mean to love ourselves as we are, and accept ourselves unconditionally as God Himself accepts us.

Can this Christmas be the Great Turnaround that we always imagined to have?

More Peace

4th Sunday of Advent - Year C (23 December 2018)

Micah 5:1-4. Psalm 80:2-3, 15-16, 18-19. Hebrews 10:5-10. Luke 1:39-45.

Elizabeth was filled with Holy Spirit and said, “Of all women you are the most blessed and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”

Christmas for some of us brings a lot of unbridled restlessness. There is something in us that is good restlessness, but there is something that is not-so-good restlessnes, which we (along with Ron Rolheiser) can call “unbridled restlessness.” This can be seen in our forwarding or replying WhatsApp or other social network media messages. We take time to forward even what is unimportant: I’d like to think about those false news or information circulated, or even those news items about Christmas cakes and trees and cribs which focus on the marginal aspects of Christmas (though this too may be needed at times). There is the danger that our Christmas gets identified with cards and cakes and chocolates and cribs, and we even forget the big “C”: Christ.

Let us take for instance our WhatsApp replies… a meaningless exercise at times. We don’t mean many of those words. We are in a perpetual hurry, trying to finish up the replies. Why can’t we take a few minutes to think about and feel with the person, and give a fitting reply to them, and leave alone our hurry and restlessness in order to focus on what we write or forward to them?

Here is an example of restlessness being forwarded: “The month of December this year will have 5 Saturdays, 5 Sundays, and 5 Mondays. It only happens once every 823 years. The Chinese call it BAG FULL OF MONEY. Send this message to all your friends and within 4 days the money will surprise you. Based on Chinese Feng Shui, the one who does not transmit this message can lose this great opportunity ... I do my part, you never know!”

The words of St Francis de Sales could help us focus: “Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.”

Today's gospel reading presents us the model of a woman who goes in haste to meet her relative Elizabeth. Mary teaches us how to be present to the other. I think this is one of the biggest presents that we can give to others. We should not forget our less privileged members of the society. Christmas is a social celebration of family, food and fun and its joy should not be spoiled by somebody being left out because they are not grand enough to take part in our festivities. Without family what is the use of all the food and the fun? Without importance given to persons what is the use of all the presents?

From Elizabeth and Mary let us learn to be present to each other, to be a blessing to each other, and to carry God wherever we go. Let us have a lot of inner peace this Christmas, and thus give more peace to others. Not our unwanted and unbridled restlessness. Lack of inner peace can make our Christmas dissipated and meaningless. Therefore, even if we answer fewer messages this time, let us mean them. Let us breathe that inner peace and calm into every message that we send.

Less forwards, but more peace!

Intimacy

Advent: 21 December 2018

Song of Songs 2:8-14 (or Zephaniah 3:14-18). Psalm 33:2-3, 11-12, 20-21. Luke 1:39-45.

“See my lover–here he comes

springing across the mountains,

leaping across the hills.

My lover is like a gazelle,

like a young stag.”

Today's first reading is from the book of the Song of Songs (also known as The Song of Solomon), a collection of about 25 poems or parts of poems about human love and courtship, suitable for singing at weddings. The protagonists are a bridegroom (Lover), bride (Beloved) and chorus. Although it is called ‘The Song of Solomon’ the actual author is unknown.

Strangely enough, the book has no obvious religious content compared to other books in the Bible and it can only be given such an interpretation by finding a deeper symbolism in its highly graphic language. Its inclusion in the Old Testament can be explained by the Lord being called the “husband” of his people (Hosea 2:16-19). In the Christian tradition, it has been understood as an allegory of the love of Christ for his bride, the Church (Revelation 21:2,9), or as symbolising the intimate experience of divine love in the individual soul. The links between mystical experience and sexual ecstasy are not so far apart. We should be grateful that such a beautiful work has been included in our collection of God’s Word.

The choice of the reading for today is obviously linked to the Gospel account of the Visitation of Mary and Jesus to Elizabeth and John. Perhaps we do not use this kind of passionate language when speaking to God but there have been mystics who have not hesitated to do so. One thinks of John of the Cross or Ignatius of Loyola and even more of Teresa of Avila.

As the passage opens, it is the Beloved, the girl who is speaking. She is living with her parents in the city. Not unlike the lover in one of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies, the Lover appears at the Beloved’s window. The door is closed and there is a forbidding wall. “He looks in at the window, he peers through the lattice.” He urges her to come away with him to the countryside. “Come then, my love, my lovely one, come.”

The cold of winter, which is also the rainy season is past. It is now spring, the time of new life. Nature is bursting out in leaf and flower and the migrant birds have returned to make their nests. The cooing of turtle doves is heard, the first figs are appearing and the vines are in fragrant flower. And, of course, for humans, too, it is the season of love.

The Beloved is hiding in the clefts of the rock, a euphemism for her home, a place inaccessible to the Lover. “Show me your face, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet and your face beautiful.”

Jesus, too, is still hidden in the womb of his mother. His mother’s voice is enough to create a joyful reaction in John, in Elizabeth’s womb. He knows that where the Mother is, the Son must also be close by.

It is important to realise that our Christian faith is not just a list of intellectual doctrines. Ultimately it is a life based on love, intimacy and affection for our brothers and sisters, and also for our enemies. For many of us, faith seems to be a matter of agreeing or disagreeing with a set of statements and doctrines. Without an experience of the mysteries involved, the doctrines could be harmless and fruitless words. We could say all the prayers, follow all the rules, but still have our heart missing in the process. Without the heart, without love and intimacy our religion is empty and meaningless.

At the centre of our religion lies the love of a Person, not a statement. At the centre of our lives there needs to be an experience of love, not merely doctrines and dogmas. And you cannot fall in love with an idea or a doctrine, but only with a Person who calls us His Beloved.

For a reflection on the gospel passage, please see “Love is the first evangelization,” https://anthuvanmaria.blogspot.com/2018/06/love-is-first-evangelization.html.

Emmanuel

Advent: 20 December 2018

Isaiah 7:10-14. Psalm 24:1-2, 3-4ab, 5-6. Luke 1:26-38.

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign: the maiden shall conceive and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel.”

The gospel passage from St Luke (of the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary) is the fulfilment of the prophecy spoken in today’s first reading from Isaiah. Among a number of bad kings, King Ahaz of Judah comes out as particularly bad. He revived the barbarous custom of human sacrifice. “He even burnt his son as an offering, according to the abominable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel” (2 Kings 16:3). He followed other religious customs of the neighbouring idolatrous religions. When the king of Syria attacked Ahaz’s capital of Jerusalem, he appealed to the Assyrians – “I am your servant and your son. Come up and rescue me” (2 Kings 16:7). He then took treasures from the Temple and sent them as a gift to the Assyrian king. He also made an exact copy of an altar he saw in Damascus and set it up in the Temple and removed the bronze altar of the Temple to one side. On this new altar, he made offerings in the Assyrian manner, which included throwing blood on the altar.

Ahaz’s reign lasted 16 years and he was succeeded by his son Hezekiah, whom the Bible speaks as being one of the best kings. His reign lasted for 29 years but it was a very trying period for the Jews. During it the famous Sennacherib “came down like a wolf on the fold,” laid siege to Jerusalem but his whole army was suddenly decimated by some highly contagious epidemic which swept right through it killing, according to the Bible account, more than 100,000 soldiers. The siege had to be called off.

All of this, of course, is only indirectly connected with today’s reading but it does give some idea of the context in which the prophecy was made. The reading begins with the Lord (through the mouth of Isaiah) urging Ahaz to ask for a sign either from God or from Sheol, the place of the dead. Ahaz, however, declines because he does not want to put his God to the test. Nevertheless, although God (and especially his prophet, Isaiah) is clearly not pleased with this rejection of the Lord’s offer, the evil king Ahaz will be given a sign anyway.

What is this sign? “A young girl is with child and will give birth to a son and he will be called Immanuel, which means ‘God-is-with-us’.” This is clearly meant to be an encouragement to Ahaz about the future of the kingdom now under siege from so many sides. (The original text does not say explicitly that it is a virgin who will give birth. The Hebrew word almah simply means a young girl.) This statement promises a king and an heir to David who will bring salvation to God’s people, who, at the time of Ahaz, are being attacked by the Syrians on one side and by the Assyrians on another.

Historically, Isaiah is thinking of a successor to Ahaz, namely, his son Hezekiah. But in this sign Matthew, the evangelist, sees a more decisive intervention by God and the establishment of a messianic kingdom in Christ Jesus. According to Matthew, the Child who will be born in Bethlehem does not only give us God’s blessings, or miraculous and divine liberation, but through him, God becomes present among humankind and the promises heard so many times come true: “I will be their God and they will be my people.”

We see the beginning of the fulfilment of all this prophecy in the gospel passage (though Luke does not quote this statement) which speaks of Mary being invited to be the Mother of the Saviour, who will be both God’s Son and hers. Even Isaiah is not likely to have dreamt of the implications of all this – when the Word was made flesh and lived among us as one of us.

Modified from https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/a1220r/.

A God of Interruptions

Advent: 18 December 2018

Jeremiah 23:5-8. Psalm 72:1-2, 12-13, 18-19. Matthew 1:18-24.

“When Joseph woke up he did what the angel of the Lord had told him to do: he took Mary his wife to his home.”

Christmas is fast approaching, preparations are in full swing: both material and spiritual preparations. Today's liturgy already focuses on Jesus' nativity by reading the passage of the annunciation of the angel to St Joseph.

Our God is a God of interruptions, a God of surprises, as Christmas evidences to this fact. Joseph and Mary have their plans, life-plans. But God interrupts them by giving them a different plan, a different life-mission. But, mind you, God does not destroy their plans, only subordinates their plans to His. Joseph and Mary are able to participate in the divine plan with full freedom, joy and obedience.

Joseph is embarrassed about Mary, who is with child. He has his doubts, confusion, anxiety, and problems. But, as any wise and mature person would do, he reserves his judgment, he does not condemn Mary or the situation. He does not blame God either. And, more importantly, he is open to God. When the revelation happens, he has no questions to God, but obediently and promptly accepts Mary. Joseph's is a silent, quiet life. There are no recorded words of his in the gospel. He accepts God's difficult plan, obeys God, does what God commands and goes backstage quietly, unnoticed. That's Joseph.

Not unlike the Joseph of the Old Testament, this Joseph too is active and alert, though silent. He, like the Old Testament visionary, is also a dreamer. He is alive to the situation, aware of the problems and difficulties if he takes Mary to his home. But all his uncertainties find meaning in the annunciation. The vision of the angel does not solve any problem, but puts his heart to rest. According to the angel, the child already conceived in Mary is not because of any human person, but this has happened through God's intervention. Joseph believes. And then there is no more indecisiveness or doubt, only action.

How must we welcome Christ in our midst? How must we prepare for Christ's coming (who comes to us in surprising ways every moment of our lives)? I suppose we have a beautiful and relevant model in the figure of St Joseph, the husband of Mary, as presented in today's gospel. He is a model of faith integrated into action. This does not mean that there is no room for doubts and uncertainties in faith-life. But there is a lot of scope for them, and they become a stepping-stone towards deepening our faith.

God's interruptions are not really interruptions. It just says that Christ is always coming, that God is always present. It's we who aren't! We need to wake up, be ready. We need to fully conscious and expectant. It's the key to all spirituality. Every now and then we need to shake ourselves, or rather allow ourselves to be shaken up and awoken by the God of interruptions.

Most of us repeat the same routines every day, and we're upset if there are any interruptions to our patterns. Yet God is invariably and ironically found in the interruptions, the discontinuities, the exceptions, the surprises—and seldom in the patterns. God has to catch us literally "off guard"!

We need to often say to ourselves, "Just this!" even amidst the things we don't want, we don't expect, and sometimes don't like—every now and then. In the eternal scheme of things, we discover that all God wants from you is "you." It's just so humbling, because it always feels like not enough, doesn't it? God does not destroy your plans and dreams, he fulfills them to their fullest extent.

Just this! Just me!

Lineage of Sinners

Advent: 17 December 2018

Genesis 49:2,8-10. Psalm 72:1-4,7-8,17. Matthew 1:1-17.

“Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of her was born Jesus who is called Christ.”

Today's gospel presents the genealogy and the ancestry of Jesus according to St Matthew. One of the most boring readings I guess. Some of us may be wondering why the Church presents this reading, except for the connection to Jesus' nativity. When we deal with this gospel passage, it is with good reason that we may feel a kind of embarrassment. Some might think that the reading of such a text is a meaningless exercise, an almost annoying repetition. Others simply read it rapidly, making it incomprehensible to the listeners; others abbreviate it by omitting some passages or names. Yet we know the list is significant because they form the mysterious plan of God's intervention in human history. (The Mother Church presents this reading at least twice a year: during Advent, and on the feast of the Nativity of Mary.)

Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan has a beautiful reflection on this passage in his work Testimony of Hope. He says the mystery of vocation, of the choice on God’s part, as seen clearly in this genealogy, is unbelievable and perhaps at times even scandalous. May we reflect on a few highlights that Cardinal Van Thuan offers us.

Abraham does not choose Ishmael his firstborn, but chooses his second-born Isaac, the son of the promise. Isaac wishes to bless his firstborn Esau, but in the end he blesses Jacob. Jacob’s firstborn son Reuben is not historically linked to the Messiah, but Judah, the fourth son, who is equally responsible for selling Joseph to slave traders. If we consider the names of the kings in the genealogy, we realise that before the exile only two kings, Hezekiah and Josiah, are faithful to God. The others are idolaters, assassins, and people without morals. Even among the kings of the post-exilic period, we find only two faithful ones: Shealtiel and Zerubbabel. The others are obscure figures or sinners. If we consider David, in him both sin and sanctity are mixed.

There are only five women named in this genealogy. We must understand that in Matthew’s Jewish world, genealogies typically mentioned only men. The inclusion of women in a list is itself something wonderful. But what is more suprising is that our Blessed Mother is named along with four other women who have somewhat spotty reputations. These women (in contrast to Mary, the mother of Jesus) evoke certain emotions. Tamar is a sinner, Rahab a prostitute, Ruth a foreigner. The gospel does not even dare to name the fourth woman; she is simply “the wife of Uriah,” who is Bathsheba.

These women, mostly poor, mostly misfits, widows, unimportant, unknown, sinful women who changed the course of history by their simple, obedient lives. One might suppose that the women in Jesus the Messiah’s genealogy should have all been the finest Jewish women, but they weren’t. Most weren’t even Jewish at all. And except for Ruth and Mary, they had tarnished sexual histories. They were ordinary women, trying to get life right, but missing the goal. In other words, they were women just like us: ordinary, tarnished by sin, unlikely to shape the course of history. They are in the Saviour’s genealogy to give us hope, and to foreshadow the kind of people Jesus the Messiah came to save.

The disturbing mystery of God’s choice in the line of the Messiah is a case in point. It also, of course, sheds light on the mystery of our own vocations. The river of history is full of sinners and criminals; the Matthean list of sinners does not scandalize us, but it exalts the mystery of God’s mercy. Jesus Christ comes from a lineage of sinners to save sinners. This gives us tremendous hope.

For God, problem becomes a part of the solution. God does not shy away from the disorder and mess of our human lives. Similarly, our wholeness is born only when we include the problem into the solution. If it is wholeness, then it is always paradoxical, and it holds both the dark and light sides of things. Christ is born into a line of sinners and imperfect people, perhaps just to reiterate His divine love. Nothing human, nothing sinful can stop the flow of divine love; we cannot undo the eternal pattern of God’s love even by our worst sin.

What must we do?

3rd Sunday of Advent - Year C (16 December 2018)

Zephaniah 3:14–18. Isaiah 12:2–3,4,5–6. Philippians 4:4–7. Luke 3:10–18.

“One mightier than I is coming. I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals.”

For the last few days we have been reflecting on the figure of St John the Baptist. And today too we continue to do so. We need to realise that the role of John, the cousin of Jesus, is more important than we imagined before. John is Jesus' starting point, therefore our faith and understanding of Jesus could very well start from an adequate understanding of this humble personality John the Baptist.

But some of you could get impatient and say that even without dealing with John, we could as well go straight to understanding Jesus. I agree. But if our Saviour (and consequently our church liturgy) has given enough time, space, and significance for John's role we too could do it. If the journey is important, the preparation for that journey is equally important if not more. Without having prepared well we could get stuck in our journey, or our journey could become uncomfortable. Jesus is the journey, John is the preparation for that journey. If Jesus is the main story of the movie, the supporting character John is in an introductory role. Picture shuru (the movie starts), but with John the Baptist.

Let us always remember that John's role has always been to point to the Lamb of God. John goes to the background as soon as we hop on to this message of his!

In today's gospel people approach John the Baptist with their questions and yearnings. “What must we do?” they ask. John replies in uncompromising language that the secret is to commit ourselves to God’s way and in so doing find our inner peace. Only God can give us true peace, but peace is not an end-product, it is a by-product. There is no way to peace, but peace is the way. If we want peace in our families we need to embrace peace in our language and behaviour, words and deeds. Praying for peace also means doing peaceful and gentle activities. That is the only way to achieve peace, though slow and gradual. There is no magical or automatic peace, there is only a process towards it.

Similarly, happiness comes from doing good, being honourable and showing concern for those in need. Experience shows that the giving of what we have will certainly make demands on us. John the Baptist is very vociferous and radical about the duty of sharing. He tells us, “Whoever has two coats should share with the person who has none. And whoever has food should do likewise.” If we live like John the Baptist, we will surely get into trouble. But that's Christianity for you. It is not meant for the faint-hearted, it is meant for those who are willing to give up their own selves. Following Christ is a radical option, no convenience by any stretch of imagination. Joy is attained by a life of sharing and caring, not hoarding and grabbing. No one who has ever experienced this joy would exchange it for all the pleasures and comforts of this world. That's why Jesus and his way are not yet outdated; and will never go out of vogue, I believe.

Our governments and nations worldwide need to do something urgently for the poor, but can't we start sharing our resources and abilities today with the less privileged? Instead of waiting for better policies and better governments in all our countries, why can't we start in a humble way a life of sharing? I know we can't do much to change the world scenario of poverty, but we can certainly make a difference to a family or two by our life of sharing and caring. It's not difficult, it only needs a willing heart!

He must increase

2nd Week of Advent - Saturday (15 December 2018)

Ecclesiasticus 48:1-4,9-12. Psalm 80:2-3,15-16,18-19. Matthew 17:10-13.

“Elijah has come already and they did not recognise him.”

The Gospel of today once again focuses on St John the Baptist, by referring him to as the Prophet Elijah who was to return. The passage follows immediately after the Transfiguration, when three of Jesus’ disciples – Peter, James and John – were given a glimpse of Jesus as the glorious Son of his heavenly Father. During that experience, they saw Moses, representing the Law, and Elijah, representing the prophetic tradition, speaking with Jesus and thereby clearly endorsing the mission of Jesus as Messiah, including what he had told them about his suffering, dying and rising again. A prophecy which had upset them very much.

On the way down from the mountain, the disciples ask Jesus, "Why do the scribes says that Elijah has to come first?" To which Jesus replies: "I tell you that Elijah has come already and they did not recognise him but treated him as they pleased." Jesus does not really answer the question but confirms that Elijah will come again. In fact, says Jesus, he has already come but he was not recognised and he was mistreated, just as Jesus himself will not be recognised and be rejected. The disciples immediately realised that Jesus was speaking of John the Baptist.

The role of the returned Elijah was to pave the way for the coming of the Messiah and that is exactly what John the Baptist did. The First Reading from the book of Sirach is about Prophet Elijah but much of it can be applied to John the Baptist.

What John teaches us is humility, and dying to our egos. "I must decrease, He must increase." We grow more by subtraction than by addition. So our growth is not a matter of accumulating more and better information, but a matter of letting go of our ego and "decreasing." Growth, paradoxically, in spiritual terms is not about increasing, but about decreasing. It is about decreasing our fears and our attachment to self-image. Spirituality thus is more about unlearning and unburdening, than about gathering knowledge. In other words, human development is primarily about being more, not having more.

John the Baptist knew who he was, and who he wasn't. We can come to such knowledge only by tapping the divine within us. We have no real access to who we really are except in God. Only when we surrender ourselves to God, can we find our true selves. Thus we can say a human person can only know herself from the inside out, not from an outside view. Both self-knowledge and God-knowledge are an inside job.

As we accept the witness of John the Baptist, let us also see ourselves in the role of John, sharing with him the responsibility of preparing the way for Jesus to come into people’s lives especially during this Advent. And, like John and as disciples of Jesus, we too can expect challenges, opposition and perhaps hardships. That is one way to say, "I am not important, but He is important." That is one way to die to our false selves, and rise to our true selves. "Unless the grain of wheat falls to the earth, and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much fruit" (John 12:24). Our carefully constructed ego container must gradually crack open, as we realise that we are not separate from God, from others, or from our true selves.

Traumatization of Spirituality

2nd Week of Advent - Friday; Memorial of St John of the Cross (14 December 2018)

Isaiah 48:17-19. Psalm 1:1-4,6. Matthew 11:16-19.

“Love consists not in feeling great things but in having great detachment and in suffering for the Beloved.”

John of the Cross was invited by Teresa of Ávila to join her in reforming the Carmelite Order by returning to a renewed fidelity to prayer, simplicity, and poverty. The priests of the order did not take kindly to the suggestion that they needed reform and demanded that John stop his involvement. John said that he would not stop because he discerned in his heart that God was calling him to continue with this work. The priests responded in a very harsh manner, capturing him and putting him in a small dark prison cell with little protection from the elements. For nine months John was imprisoned in a cell, which was so small that he could barely lie on the floor. During that time, on a number of occasions, he would be taken out of his cell, stripped to the waist, and whipped.

John felt lost. It wasn’t just because of the severity of his imprisonment. This was the Church! The priests who were mistreating him were people he had emulated. John went through what we could call the traumatization of spirituality, which can be described as a kind of dark night of faith in which we lose experiential access to God’s sustaining presence in the midst of our struggles.

Trauma is the experience of being powerless to establish a boundary between our self and that which is about to inflict serious harm or even death. It is one of the most acute forms of suffering that a human being can know. It is the experience of imminent annihilation. And so, when your faith in God has been placed in the people who represent God’s presence in your life and those people betray you, you can feel that God has betrayed you. And it is in this “dark night” that we can learn from God how to find our way to a deeper experience and understanding of God’s sustaining presence, deeper than institutional structures and authority figures.

For John of the Cross, his suffering opened up onto something unexpected. John could not find refuge from suffering when he was in his prison cell. But he also discovered that this suffering had no refuge from God’s love. God could take the suffering away, but rather, John clearly understood that, God's love permeated the suffering through and through and through and through and through. Love protects us from nothing, even as it marvellously sustains us in all things. Access to this love is not limited by our finite ideas of what it is or what it should be. Rather, this love is beyond our abilities to comprehend it, as it sustains us and continues to draw us to itself in all that life offers us.

This is why John of the Cross encourages us not to lose heart when we are passing through our own hardships, but rather to have faith in knowing and trusting that no matter what might be happening and no matter how painful it might be, God is sustaining us in ways we cannot understand. And we do not need to understand. John encourages us to learn how to be patiently transformed in this dark night, just when everything seems ost. It is at this time that we also learn we are being unexplainably sustained by the presence of God that will never lose us. As this painful yet transformative process continues to play itself out in our lives, we can gradually and certainly discover the peace of God that surpasses all understanding.

St John of the Cross

2nd Week of Advent - Friday; Memorial of St John of the Cross (14 December 2018)

Isaiah 48:17-19. Psalm 1:1-4,6. Matthew 11:16-19.

“God refuses to be known except by love.”

Today we celebrate the feast of St John of the Cross. He was born at Fontiveros, Avila, Spain in 1542. His father was employed by wealthy family members as an accountant, but they disowned him when he married a poor woman from the lower class. As a result of his family's poverty, John's family suffered greatly. His father died when he was three, and his older brother, Luis died two years after that, likely because of malnutrition. John's mother eventually found work weaving which helped her to feed her family.

As a child, John was sent to a boarding school for poor and orphaned children. He was given a religious education from a young age and chose to follow a religious path, even as a child. He served as an acolyte at an Augustinian monastery. As he grew older, he went to work in a hospital while attending a Jesuit school.

In 1563, he was able to join the Carmelite Order and took the name, John of St Matthias. He made vows the following year, and was sent to the university in Salamanca to study theology and philosophy. He became an expert in the Bible and dared to translate the Song of Songs into Spanish, an act which was controversial since the Church forbade the translation of the Bible from Latin -a measure to protect the original meanings in the scripture.

John became a priest in 1567 and considered joining the Carthusian Order where monks lived cloistered in individual cells. He was attracted by the simple and quiet life. However, he encountered Teresa of Avila, a charismatic Carmelite nun, who asked John to follow her. She persuaded him to pioneer the reform of the Carmelite order. This was a difficult and dangerous task. But John was attracted by the strict routine followed by Teresa, a routine she hoped to reintroduce to her order, as well as her devotion to prayer and simplicity. Her followers went barefoot, and were therefore known as the Discalced Carmelites.

On 28 November, 1568, Teresa founded a new monastery. The same day, John changed his name again to John of the Cross. In 1572, John travelled to Avila at the invitation of Teresa to become her confessor and spiritual guide. He remained in Avila until 1577. While there, he had a vision of Christ and made a drawing that remains to this day called, "Christ from Above." The little drawing shows Christ on the cross, looking down on him from above.

Around 1575, a rift within the Carmelite order began to grow and create controversy between various monastic houses. There was disagreement between the Discalced Carmelites and the ordinary Carmelites, over reform. The Discalced Carmelites sought to restore the original, strict routine and regimen that the order had when it was founded. In 1432, the strict rules of the order were "mitigated" relieving the Carmelites of some of their most strict rules. Some Carmelites, such as Teresa of Avila, felt this liberalization of their rule had interfered with their order and practice. Teresa, along with John, sought to restore the original rule. The Carmelites had been undergoing reform since 1566, under the direction of two Canonical Visitors from the Dominican Order, sent by the Vatican. The intervention of the Holy See as well as the political machinations of King Phillip II and his court, led to dramatic, even violent disagreement between the Carmelites.

In late 1577, John was ordered to leave the monastery in Avila and to return to his original house. However, John's work to reform the order had already been approved by the Papal Nuncio, who was a higher authority. Based on that, John chose to ignore the lower order and stay.

On December 2, 1577, a group of Carmelites broke into John's residence and kidnapped him. He was taken by force to the order's main house in Toledo. He was brought before a court and placed on trial for disobedience. He was punished by imprisonment.

A cell was made for him in the monastery that was so small he could barely lie on the floor. He was fed only bread and water, and occasional scraps of salt fish. Each week he was taken into public and lashed, then returned to his cell. His only luxuries were a prayer book and an oil lamp to read it by. To pass the time he wrote poems on paper that was smuggled to him by the friar charged with guarding his cell.

After nine months, John managed to pry his cell door from its hinges and escape. He joined Teresa's nuns in Toledo, and spent six weeks in the hospital to recover. In 1579, he was sent to the town of Baeza to be rector of a new college and to support the Discalced Carmelites in Andalusia.

In 1580, Pope Gregory formally authorized the split between the Discalced Carmelites and the rest of the order. This ended the rift within the order. At that time, there were about 500 members in the order living in 22 houses. During the last few years of his life, John travelled and established new houses across Spain. In 1591, John became ill with a skin condition that resulted in an infection. He died on December 14, 1591.

Shortly following his burial, there was a dispute over where he should be buried. So not just during his lifetime, but even after his death there was dispute about this humble, saintly man. The dispute was resolved by removing his legs and arms. Over the years, parts of his body were placed on display or buried across several places.

John of the Cross was canonized by Pope Benedict XIII in 1726, and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1926. He is the patron of contemplatives, mystics and Spanish poets.

John's dark nights of the soul are beautiful graphs about our own journey deeper into love. He says we get all tangled up in suffering, and we get all tangled up in searching for love. The root of suffering is the deprivation of love. Now in reality, there’s no such thing as the deprivation of love, because the infinite love of God invincibly pervades and gives itself endlessly to everyone and to all things everywhere. There is no such thing as a deprivation of love, but there is the deprivation of the capacity to experience the love that is never missing. Therefore, our spiritual practice is to look within for the places that are blocking my ability to experience the eternal flow of love that is endlessly giving itself to me in all situations.

Earth and Heaven

2nd Week of Advent - Thursday; Memorial of St Lucy (13 December 2018)

Isaiah 41:13-20. Psalm 145:1,9-13. Matthew 11:11-15.

“If you will believe me, John the Baptist is the Elijah who was to return.”

To understand Jesus we may have to understand John the Baptist and his role in the gospels. Jesus today has high words of praise for John the Baptist. John had a unique role which sets him apart from all others: he was the one to announce the long-awaited arrival of the Messiah. John is the last in the line of the great Old Testament prophets, men who spoke in God’s name pointing the way for God’s People, at times denouncing their behaviour and at others pointing to a great destiny ahead. John forms a kind of bridge between the Old and the New Testaments.

John the Baptist is described as "Elijah who is to come." We know that the prophet Elijah did not die a natural death. He was carried off to heaven in a chariot. However, it was a Jewish belief that some day he would return from heaven to this earth, and even have a normal death. But the important point was that his return would be the immediate prelude to the arrival of the Messiah. Therefore, in calling John Elijah, Jesus is clearly pointing to himself as the Messiah.

Even from his mother's womb John is called to prepare the way for the Lord. "As for you, little child, you shall be called a prophet of God the Most High. You shall go ahead of the Lord to prepare his ways before him" (Luke 2:76). John is a voice crying in the wilderness, calling the people to transformation and conversion. He baptises Jesus in the Jordan, and symbolises that God becomes as available as Jordan River water. It is after Jesus' Baptism that the heavens were suddenly opened. What does it mean to have the heavens opening? It means two worlds becoming one, the sacred and the secular coming together: the joining of earth and heaven.

The work of religion is to put together earth and heaven, darkness and light, night and day, death and life, and thus find they are one mystery. There is no separation between holy and profane, useful and worthless, good and bad. Lao-Tzu's Tao Te Ching, considered the wisest book ever written, says: When people see some things as good, other things become bad. That is to say:

If we see some things as good, then other things become bad.

If we see some things as beautiful, then other things become ugly.

If we see some things as blessings, then other things become curses.

If we see some things as miracles, then other things become ordinary.

If we see some things as God, then other things become not-God.

And such a vision is not real.

From God's point of view, nothing is worthless. This is what we need to learn. There is nothing that is not holy, there is nothing that is not useful or unworthy. Our Creator didn’t use gold, uranium, diamonds, or pearls when making the human body, but just dust (earth). Everything is holy and worthy if we have learned how to see.

Good things, bad things; good people, bad people. These opposites are valid only by contrast. Could it be that whatever seems bad to you is just something you haven't seen clearly enough yet? In reality—as it is in itself—every thing, every person, lies far beyond your capacity to judge.

As John the Baptist (the Elijah who returned from heaven to earth), we are called to join together earth (dust) and heaven.

Rest

2nd Week of Advent - Wednesday (12 December 2018)

Isaiah 40:25-31. Psalm 103:1-4,8,10. Matthew 11:28-30.

“Young people may grow tired and weary, youths may stumble, but those who hope in the Lord renew their strength and put out wings like eagles.”

Blaise Pascal once said, “All of our miseries ultimately stem from the fact that we cannot sit still in a room for one hour.” We pride ourselves to be human “doings,” more than human “beings.” Instead of trying to deal with ourselves, or changing ourselves, we change the programmes and events around us. We could move from one programme to another, and thus avoid dealing with our own shadows and growth. Instead of accepting the reality of ourselves, very often we try to fill in with more and more material things, or activities. We move from ego achievement to ego achievement, from entertainment to entertainment, excitement to excitement, engagement to engagement, employment to employment. Even our work could become an escapism.

This can point out to a restlessness in us, a restlessness without God, or a restlessness that is seeking God. As Christians, it is imperative that we find our rest in God. Let us remember St Augustine's words, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” These words are not for the future, after our death, but for now. We find our rest in God at this present moment.

But if you watch your mind, you will see you live most of your life in the past or in the future. The present always seems boring and not enough. The only way many people know how to motivate themselves is to create problems or to solve problems in their head. Even prayer becomes a problem-solving time. Don’t we use the word “prayer” mostly when we feel that our human limits are reached? Isn’t the word “prayer” more a word to indicate powerlessness rather than a creative contact with the source of life? Prayer is often considered a weakness, a support system.

The only problem that prayer solves is “you!” So if you can be positively present right now, without creating a problem, then that is the moment of rest—that is the moment everything in and around you becomes new. God is available in His full power and strength here at this present moment.

Jesus invites you and me via today's gospel, “Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest.” Our unbridled restlessness can only be healed by resting in God. Our restlessness can be transformed into life-giving action and compassion only in God. And without God our actions cannot become loving, joyful or peaceful.

The following words of Prophet Isaiah from today's first reading are some of the favourite verses for many charismatics.

The Lord is an everlasting God.

He does not grow tired or weary,

his understanding is beyond fathoming.

He gives strength to the wearied,

he strengthens the powerless.

Young people may grow tired and weary,

youths may stumble,

but those who hope in the Lord renew their strength,

they put out wings like eagles.

They run and do not grow weary,

walk and never tire.

We need to sit still, rest and rediscover our strength in the Lord: He will take care of everything in our lives!

For another reflection on the gospel passage, please see, “Come to Me,” https://anthuvanmaria.blogspot.com/2018/07/come-to-me.html.

If you are interested, here is a meditation of Fr Richard Rohr, “Becoming Stillness,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TGS-JD80nE.

The Stray

2nd Week of Advent - Tuesday (11 December 2018)

Isaiah 40:1-11. Psalm 96:1-3,10-13. Luke 18:12-14.

“Will he not leave the ninety-nine sheep on the hillside and go in search of the stray?’”

A woman had been raised in a religious home and had been a pious and regular churchgoer. During her years at university, however, her interest and practice in religion had progressively slipped so that by the time she graduated she no longer attended church or prayed. This indifference to prayer and churchgoing continued for several years after her graduation.

One day, some four years after having given up all practice of prayer and church, she flew to Colorado to spend some time with a married sister and to do some skiing. She arrived on a Saturday evening and the next morning, Sunday, her sister invited her to go to Mass with her. She politely refused and went skiing instead. On her first run down the ski-slope she hit a tree and broke her leg. Sporting a huge cast, she was released from hospital the following Saturday. The next morning, her sister again invited her to come to Mass with her. This time (as there wasn't anything else to do) she accepted the invitation.

As luck would have it, it was Good Shepherd Sunday. As chance would have it, there happened to be a priest visiting from Israel. He could not see her, complete with cast, sitting in the pews and yet he began his homily in this way.

“There is a custom among shepherds in Israel that existed at the time of Jesus and is still practised today that needs to be understood in order to appreciate this text. Sometimes very early on in the life of a lamb, a shepherd senses that it is going to be a straying character, one forever drifting away from the herd. What the shepherd does then is to take the lamb and deliberately break its leg so that he has to carry it until its leg is healed. By that time, the lamb has become so attached to the shepherd that it never strays again.”

“I may be stupid!” said this woman, “but given my broken leg and this chance coincidence, hearing this sermon woke up something inside me. Fifteen years have passed since then and I have prayed and gone to church regularly ever since!”

In a sense, there are no accidents or coincidences. Anything and everything that happens to us has a meaning. Why should so-and-so be the Prime Minister or the President at this time? Why should dad pass away suddenly? Why should my dear one be estranged from me? Why should this evil happen to my family, to this world? We don't (can't) have satisfactory answers. But only a faith vision can suggest that there are no chances from God's point of view; everything is put there (“arranged”) by God just for me, just us. Everything becomes an occasion for God and for good.

God comes to us in a thousand ways every moment of our lives. He reveals to us in everything that we encounter: this stone, that leaf, this rabbit, that tree, this sister of mine, that brother of mine, this stranger, that enemy, that star, that beggar... He manifests Himself in endless forms and faces. Everything we have ever seen with our eyes is the infinite self-emptying of God. Our job as a conscious human is ONLY to awaken (perhaps awaken early) to this inherent beauty and goodness. Why wait until heaven when we can enjoy the Divine Flow in everything we see now?

John of the Cross once said that the language of God is the experience that God writes into our lives. Divine providence, as James Mackey and George Santayana suggest, is a “conspiracy of accidents.” What this woman (in the above anecdote) experienced that Sunday was precisely the language of God, divine providence, God’s finger in her life, through a conspiracy of accidents. In her response, she read the signs of the times. The Divine Shepherd in His plan has no straying characters for long!

Solidarity

2nd Week of Advent - Monday (10 December 2018)

Isaiah 35:1-10. Psalm 85:9-14. Luke 5:17-26 (See also Mark 2:1-12).

“Seeing their faith Jesus said, ‘My friend, your sins are forgiven you.’”

In the above gospel story from Luke, we see that Jesus was teaching in a packed house. A larger group of men and women were standing in front of the entrance to the house. When some persons came with their paralyzed friend on a stretcher they couldn’t enter. Nobody gave way. Nobody was willing to give up their place. It wasn’t even fair to expect that they would. The newcomers climbed on the roof and managed to push and pull the roofing aside and make a hole big enough to lower the stretcher through and down into the house just in front of Jesus.

If their act is marvellous and beautiful, more beautiful is Jesus' response, summarised in the following verse: “Seeing their faith he said: ‘My friend, your sins are forgiven you.’” There’s that little word “their” in this gospel story. Jesus forgave and healed the crippled man because he saw their faith. He saw the faith of the paralyzed man together with the faith of his friends who brought him and who were so insistent on having something done for their disabled friend that they didn’t hesitate to break through the roof above Jesus’ head.

Jesus must have been amazed at what he saw. It must have been another sign of hope to him. He saw signs of a greater justice, a growing human solidarity everywhere. He often healed persons who were brought by others. Even more often, he healed persons who were introduced to him by others. In today’s text he explicitly forgives and heals because of the faith of those who brought him the paralyzed man. To Jesus it was a sign that conversion is possible, that differences can be overcome, that forgiveness can be granted. It was their togetherness, their solidarity, that prompted Jesus to forgive and heal.

The faith of the community is central to our individual lives. Many of us are kept in track because of the faith of the church and the believing community. Yet at the same time we need to talk of structural sin, not just individual sin. We need conversion, even structural conversion. As a church we need to repent of our structural sins, and be converted as a church. St John Paul II asked pardon for the many sins and atrocities committed by the Catholic Church. During his long reign as Pope, he apologized to Jews, Galileo, women, people convicted by the Inquisition, Muslims killed by the Crusaders and almost everyone who had suffered at the hands of the Catholic Church over the years.

As a family we need conversion; as a religious community or congregation we need conversion; as a nation we need to be converted from our biases and prejudices; as a cultural group or a linguistic or a tribal group we need to be converted from our group egoisms and elitist mentalities. Our structural conversion may be equally or even more important than our individual conversion. It is possible that as individuals we are good, but we may be participating in something that on the whole and as a system is evil. Perhaps as Christians we've too long neglected to establish a link between individual and structural sin. We have been busy the whole time condemning individual sin. But it's the institutionalized sin that's chiefly responsible for the world's injustice.

And the good news is that even group transformations begin with individuals. All conversions begin with me. When I am able to access the deepest and the most intimate place within me, then I am touching the place that is the most universal and global in scope. Here I am able confront and carefront not just my individual soul, but the whole of reality itself. Let me be the change that I want to see in the world!

Voice

2nd Sunday of Advent - Year C (9 December 2018)

Baruch 5:1–9. Philippians 1:4–6, 8–11. Luke 3:1–6.

‘A voice of one crying out in the desert:

“Prepare the way of the Lord,

make straight his paths.

Every valley shall be filled

and every mountain and hill shall be made low.

The winding roads shall be made straight,

and the rough ways made smooth,

and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”’

The nostalgia and romance of Christmas increase today with the proclamation of John the Baptist, and Isaiah’s prophecy about him. If we want to understand Jesus then we may have to start with the Baptiser. In all the four accounts of the gospels, John the Baptist is given prominence. He is probably far more important than we have realized. John is Jesus’ starting point too; Jesus is baptized by John—symbolic beginning.

If Jesus is a rebel, his cousin is doubly so. John is the symbol of religion’s need for constant reform, and the unhearable nature of the message. His was a voice in the wilderness. Now, who goes out into the wilderness, and yells in the wilderness? It’s like talking to a wall, or shouting into the wind.

John is in no way a gentleman. He refuses to wear the clothes of polite society, but only wears camel hair with a leather belt around his waist. His food was not just frugal, but queer and savage: he had locusts and wild honey for breakfast, lunch and dinner. How gross! Wasn’t he the madman, or one who was possessed? We too might have spoken of him the same if only we had the opportunity of encountering him, mightn’t we? The Baptist was not merely counter-cultural but primarily counter-religious. He had started his own rituals, more than tacitly usurping the religious authority of the times. Many delegations and committees from the-then “church” were sent to him. But John knew he was a voice sent by God. He needed no excommunication, it was self-imposed. But even such madness didn’t keep the crowds away. It was all because of the message, or authenticity of it.

What was the message then? Just this, metanoia: turn over a new leaf, be transformed, be converted.

John is a combination of sweet (honey) and bitter (locusts), of light and dark, of the yin and the yang. In him we see both the sweetness and the tragedy of life. Isn’t this wisdom? When we are able to hold on the contraries of life, then there is wisdom and maturity. When we are able to face both victory and defeat with equanimity (and even magnanimity) then we have achieved not just balance, but wisdom. This is essence of all spirituality. A madman now showing us the way!

We shall conclude this reflection with a metaphorical tale about another madman written by a famous atheist Friedrich Nietzsche (who too eventually became mad—and his message is no madness!). In the tale, Nietzsche describes a man running into the middle of a marketplace at the noon hour holding high a lit lantern crying out to the busy masses, “Where is God? Where is God?” The crowd pauses long enough to take in this strange spectacle and to ridicule him. The man smashes the lantern against the cobble stones and declares, “God is dead!” and he laments that he and the crowd are guilty of the murder, responsible for taking a sponge that has wiped away the horizon.

This story points out that Nietzsche was less the father of modern atheism as one of the first voices to cry out to believers for honesty and authenticity. Here is another John the Baptist, another madman to show us the way. It was Nietzsche’s deepest desire to know God, but he was desperately seeking him among the believing so-called religious people, only to come away emptier than before. What has happened to the honest experience of God that once so framed the whole of society? Where is our emphasis today—external conformism or inner authenticity?

We need more Baptists and Nietzsches and madmen today proclaiming metanoia, which literally means “to change your mind.”