Presence

Day 1: Homily: PRESENCE. Retreat to the FMAs, Bellefonte Outreach, Shillong.

Elijah at the cave

The Lord was not in the wind, or the earthquake, or the fire. “And after the fire there came the sound of a gentle breeze. And when Elijah heard this, he covered his face with his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then a voice came to him, which said, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ He replied, ‘I am filled with jealous zeal for the Lord of Hosts.’” (1 Kings 19:9-16.)

God revealed himself to Prophet Elijah in the murmur of a gentle breeze. Very often, God’s inspirations are subtle and gentle. Only when we are able to attune our ears and hearts to His presence and voice, can we hear his soft-spoken voice. Very often we may have to slow down from the maddening pace of our daily lives in order to meet this God of ours. His voice is gentle, He will never force Himself on us. That is love. Love is not love if it is not free. His presence is almost an absence. His presence is filled with absence, and his absence is full of presence.

God’s presence is an Invisible Presence. This is the secret shape of our God. We can easily miss Him, if we are not conscious. If we are not careful, we might miss his message too. God very often does not blast his presence into me, it is so gradual that I need to keep saying “yes” to Him. This is the jealous love (jealous zeal or zealous love) like Prophet Elijah that I need to have when dealing with this Mystery called God. Unless I am present to the here and now, and consciously make efforts I will not be able to understand God’s marvellous designs in my life. “Where can I go from your spirit? If I am climb the heavens, you are there. If I lie in the grave, you are there. Even darkness is dark for you” (Psalm 139:7-12). Lord, you are the Hound of Heaven.

Martha and Mary

We carry our obstacles in our pockets now, vibrating and notifying and emoji-ing us about everything and nothing. And let’s be honest: most of our digital and personal conversation is about nothing. Nothing that matters, nothing that lasts, nothing that’s real. We think and talk about the same things again and again, like a broken record. We do everything possible to avoid being in the present, and even “kill” the presence by means of more and more entertainment, more and more highly excitable and sensational stuff. We need always something that entertains us, that excites us more and more because being in the present is boring.

Even the videos that we share and the picture-quotes that we share have to excite us on the sense level. We are not worried about the truth. Remember how we shared the news about Fr Tom’s crucifixion, the sudden death of Jackie Chan or other celebrities… we don’t know what is true, what is false. Our television channels keep bombarding the news that are negative (sometimes only negative), sensational, and their business seems to concentrate on all the “bad” news in the world, and also gossips about movie stars and sportspersons.

It’s amazing that we have enough and more time for WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and all social networking. At our dining tables, we give more attention to the messages received than to enjoying the food at hand or in our mouth.

We even have stopped eating broilers… we keep changing our diets according to the whims and fancies of our WhatsApp groups. Someone said he even stopped reading books, there is enough and more stuff on WhatsApp. Wow. We have become restless. We don’t know when and how to end a digital conversation. Superstitions galore. Please pass this message to at least 20 more idiots, otherwise something bad will befall you. The black cat era has not passed yet.

If some of us can be blamed for gossip, I think almost all of us can be blamed for “detraction.” If gossip is about falsity and evil, detraction is about spreading evil though it’s true.

We feel in ourselves the compulsion to answer each and every damn thing. Otherwise what will they feel? When were we so needy for love and attention?

Haven’t we become more ego-centric? Hasn’t the already fragmentated consciousness breaking up even more? We are easily distracted. We boast ourselves with our capacities for multi-tasking. What does it mean? We are not able to do one thing properly, are we? Even our meetings (especially the boring ones) warrant our cell phones out… “I’d better reply some messages now, and thus use my time!” And this is no laughing stock!

Aren’t we like Martha “distracted” with all our serving? We are serving the Lord, but we are distracted. Martha is doing the reasonable, hospitable thing—rushing around, fixing, preparing, and as the text brilliantly says, “distracted with all the serving” (Lk 10:40).

Martha was everything good and right, but one thing she was not. She was not present—most likely, she was not present to herself, she was not present to her own feelings of resentment, perhaps her own martyr complex, her need to be needed. This is the kind of goodness that does no good! If she was not present to herself, Martha could not be present to her guests in any healing way, and spiritually speaking, she could not even be present to God. Presence is of one piece. How you are present to anything is how you are present to everything. How you are present to anything is how you are present to God, loved ones, strangers, those who are suffering.

Unless you are present to yourself, you can’t be present to others, or to God.

Jesus, in the same passage of Martha and Mary, doesn’t lose the occasion to affirm Mary, “who sat at his feet listening to him speak” (Luke 10: 39). Mary knows how to be present to him and, presumably, to herself. She understands the one thing that makes all other things happen at a deeper and healing level. Prayer is not one of the ten thousand things, but it is the one thing necessary to see all those ten thousand things. It is the presence that is needed to live those ten thousand things in a healing way.