Dawn

“Then the upright will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”

In today's gospel (Matthew 13:35-43), we have Jesus' explanation on the parable of the wheat and weeds, that we read a few days back. It’s good for us to know that “all causes of sin” will be collected out of the kingdom and burned. That means all the sinfulness within me that has kept me from loving the way I ought, and the way I need, will be removed. And all that has kept others from loving the way they should and the way they wanted will be removed. God is love, and when we are fully in God, then we will be fully in love with one another. We are not perfectly loving people, but the more we allow God into our lives and loves, the truer will be our love for God and for others.

How can this happen? Prophet Isaiah gives us a clue: “This is what pleases me—it is the Lord who speaks—to break unjust fetters, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke, to share your bread with the hungry, and to shelter the homeless poor, to clothe the one you see naked, and not run from your own kin. Then will your light shine like the dawn, and your wound will be quickly healed over” (Is 58:6–7). Our sinfulness and woundedness can be healed by our active involvement with the poor.

We are asked to be a people after God’s own heart, acting as God’s love and justice in this world. It is our light that should start shining like the dawn over a dark world that badly needs light. St Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), whose feast we celebrate today, shows us the importance of discerning God's light in our lives. Discernment is a choice between two (or more) goods. It is not a choice of good over bad. (Naturally, we are not called to choose the bad.) Discernment, therefore, is paying attention to what is deepest and best within us, and acting faithfully in accordance with what is deepest and best. That's what God's light is all about.

As God's patience and tolerance were highlighted in today's parable, St Ignatius had undertaken the task of Reformation in the Church "without hard words or contempt for people's errors." Thanks to his inspiration, the Society of Jesus (SJ) founded by him is the largest religious congregation in the world today.

Linen Loincloth

"Go and buy a linen loincloth."

These are the words of the Lord to Prophet Jeremiah, part of the first reading given to us today (Jeremiah 13:1-11). The Lord, very strangely, instructs Jeremiah to buy and use a loincloth (an underwear), and eventually He draws some hard lessons for his people, especially against the arrogance of Judah and Jerusalem. Jeremiah obediently follows all the instructions with regard to the loincloth: Do not dip it in water, Wear it, Bury it, Retrieve it. It's anyone guess now: the loincloth was spoilt, good for nothing. (The unwashed loincloth was to represent the guilt of the people unpurified by any real contact with the "clean water" of repentance.) Then the Lord says, "I had intended the whole House of Judah to cling to me like the loincloth, but they didn't; they haven't listened. This evil people who refuse to listen to my words, who follow the dictates of their own hearts, who have followed alien gods, and served them and worshipped them, let them become like this loincloth, good for nothing."

It was usual with the prophets to teach by signs, sometimes as in the above passage by some strange signs and gestures. The people of Israel had been to God as this underwear. God's Law to them expected their close connection and relationship with Him, confirmed by the prophets He sent among them, and the favours he showed them. But the people by their idolatries and sins had corrupted themselves, and were so corrupted that they were good for nothing.

This is also to show that the Lord communicates with us each and every moment; he has a message for us from every event that takes place in and around us. At times His messages or His styles of communication are very strange. If we are proud of our wealth or of our learning, of power, popularity, and outward privileges, then there is every possibility all these will become good for nothing. Our talents and good things are useful only insofar as they are connected to the Lord. If we are not in conscious relationship with God, even all the good things are useless. Our minds should be awakened to a sense of their danger. Humility is the only appropriate response to the Mystery of God, and to His gifts to us.

One Small Boy

It all started with the real hero of that story—a small boy. There were all those people: five thousand men and, most probably, at least double that number of women and children. It was an adult gathering, not the sort of place a little boy would choose to spend his day as if it were a picnic. It is Jesus who says: "What are we going to do? How are we going to feed them?" "There is a small boy here," Andrew informed the others. And with this insignificant detail an extraordinary miracle began to take shape. With all innocence, the little one must have proudly displayed to Andrew the contents of his lunch bag – two fish and five barley loaves – and offered to share it. Most adults in a similar situation would have been more circumspect. "What is that between so many?" Adults wouldn't even have offered to reveal what they had. Some even could have thought of finishing it up, before someone could ask for a share from it. But the little lad offered whatever little he had to Jesus, and behold there was a great miracle. Incidentally, this is the only miracle narrated by all the four evangelists.

Today’s miracle should help restore our lost confidence. Even small details in our lives have a meaning. The Lord used the little contribution that the small boy generously parted with. The boy would never forget this as long as he lived, that he had contributed to a miracle. We should not forget either. Overwhelmed as we may be with the might of technological progress, we should always remember that it is with our little efforts that God chooses to make his greatest miracles. God and little sacrifices (efforts) together make a formidable combination. He can use our littleness for his greater glory. Unimaginable things can happen if only we are willing to part with our little things. Finally, and interestingly, they collected twelve basketfuls. There is always excess if we trust God's work. When you are asked for something you think you are unable to give, think of that small boy, of his story, and think of the twelve basketfuls of food left over. Everything has a place in our lives, if we are ready to open ourselves and share it with the Lord. Miracles begin with just a little generosity!

Gentle Powers

“Let them both grow till the harvest.”

Whenever I read the passage of Matthew 13:24-30, given for today's liturgy, I cannot but admire God's patience, and a divine logic that is way beyond ours. We have the awful tendency to wage war on war; we think we can use violence in order to deal with violence. War has something to do with old apocalyptic ideas: heaven should open and destroy everything that hinders us. God should be some kind of a superhero Rajnikanth or Rambo to avenge all the evil ones.

Jesus’ companions thought in those terms. When a town in Samaria didn’t wish to receive them, James and John asked Jesus, “Lord, do you want to call down fire from heaven to destroy them?” Jesus rebukes them. That isn’t his approach. He doesn’t believe in that type of force. He prefers another power, the fantastic power of a seed, the penetrating power of yeast, the gentle power of resurrection achieved at death and sacrifice. He prefers energies that change things from within. We often think that change can come from outside, that you can force it upon people as you can force it upon things. Jesus asks us to trust the soft powers in ourselves, in others, and in the world.

The kingdom of God begins with an inner potential that is given to everybody, something that will grow. If stimulated correctly and gently it will overgrow the weeds and all evil. Jesus has a bold gentleness that demands great courage but also great self-control and humility. In Jesus we see that God has a gentle confidence in our inborn goodness and possibilities. When we reflect on the humble yet marvellous life of St Alphonsa Muttathupadathu, we see God's gentle strength that bloomed in her to make her a Saint full of love and innocence in spite of all the terrible sufferings that she encountered. Her tomb at Bharananganam (ever since her death) pays homage to God's gentle powers through the innumerable miracles worked in the lives of so many pilgrims.

Let us trust those gentle powers in ourselves and in others. Let us stir them up in ourselves and others.

Seed of the Word

The parable of the sower is interpreted by Jesus himself, as we see in today's gospel reading. There are six kinds of soil: three good kinds and three unproductive ones. The productive ones are those that produce 30-fold, 60-fold, and 100-fold. The unproductive soil types are the pathways, the rocky places, and the thorny places. All of us in one way or another find ourselves in one of the six types at various stages of our lives. To welcome the Word of God in our lives is paramount.

The Word of God is the seed, it is not the fruit itself. So, in this context, we can say that the Bible is a text in travail. It is pregnant with meaning and significance. Only our interaction with the Word of God and our acceptance of it can give birth to its meaning, that will lead us to produce fruit in our Christian lives. So, in the Bible, don't look for conclusions or answers. You need to struggle through the journey. It's an adventure. You need to experience it yourself, and offer your lives as evidence to its fruitfulness.

Moreover, we read the Bible as we are. That is why some of us find is very useful and inspirational. Others don't. That's why we can say that Scripture, like us, is fully human and fully divine. If we read the Scripture with hateful and vengeful attitudes, then we may misuse it for condemning others, and judging others. The only way, the best attitude, to read the Scripture is to read it with love. Only then can we produce great fruits, and be effective in the Christian living of God's Word.

Mind you, God speaks to us through many ways: not just the Bible, but also through our parents, dear ones, nature, the Church's tradition, through other religions, cultures, even through our so-called enemies. He speaks to us always and everywhere. "Speak, Lord, your servant is listening."

Fountain of Life

"Two evils have my people done: they have forsaken me, the source of living waters;

They have dug themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that hold no water."

Today's first reading from Prophet Jeremiah beautifully describe the root of sin and sinfulness. “People have gone after worthlessness, and have become worthless themselves” (Jer 2:5). The Bible never tires of repeating that evil is evil because it hurts us. Sin is self-punishment, self-destruction. It is worthlessness. There is nothing nice about sin. Nobody actually enjoys being in sin. Sin hurts us; it makes us suffer. Sin destroys us. Sin is missing the mark (hamartia). It is ultimately nothingness.

Sin is about forsaking the Lord, who is the source of living waters. It is about digging for ourselves leaky cisterns that hold no water (Jer 2:13). We, human beings, need to worship God. Otherwise, we will put ourselves at the centre, and worship ourselves. When our agendas and endeavours take the upper hand, God is sidelined. When our time is filled with our own worries and anxieties, without any place to God, then we become gods unto ourselves. We will be going after worthless idols created by our own minds. Very often we want a God who reflects and even confirms our culture, our biases, our economic, political, and security systems.

Let God be God. It takes a long time for us to allow God to be who God really is. Our natural egocentricity wants to make God into who we want God to be. Let us allow the Word of God to keep us free for God and to keep God free for us. As the Psalmist sings, we need to acknowledge, "In you, Lord, is the source of life" (Psalm 36:6-11). God is the source of everything. Without Him we would all return to nothingness. "O Lord, how precious is your love. In you is the source of life and in your light we see light." Yes, dear friends, we can see only in God's light. He/She is the fountain of life.

Saints Joachim and Anne, Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Pray for us!

St James, Apostle

St James, the son of Zebedee, belonged to the inner group of Jesus' apostles. He was the brother of St John and, like him, a fisherman. Along with John, he promptly left his occupation and his family in order to respond to Jesus' call to be fisher of men and women. James was one of the favoured three who had the privilege of witnessing the Transfiguration, the raising to life of the daughter of Jairus, and the agony in Gethsemani (but slept through most of the time). James and John were nicknamed by Jesus the “sons of thunder.” This was evidenced when the Samaritans would not welcome Jesus because he was on his way to hated Jerusalem. “When the disciples James and John saw this they asked, ‘Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?’ Jesus turned and rebuked them…” (Luke 9:54-55). But this incident also showed their closeness to their Master Jesus. James was the first of the apostles to be martyred, being beheaded by King Herod Agrippa I to please the Jewish opponents of Christianity in the year 44. He was buried in Jerusalem. This James, sometimes called James the Greater, is not to be confused with James the Lesser or with the author of the Letter of James and the leader of the Jerusalem community.

According to a tradition, the relics of St James were brought to Spain after his martyrdom, and his shrine at Compostela in Galicia grew in importance until it became the greatest pilgrimage centre in western Europe. In many countries there are churches of St James and well-known, well-trodden pilgrim routes. The scallop-shell, the emblem of St James, has become the emblem of pilgrims generally.

Today's gospel passage (Matthew 20:20-28) has the mother of James and John requesting Jesus, "Promise that these two sons of mine may sit one at your right hand and the other at your left in your kingdom." The other disciples became indignant at the ambition of James and John. Then Jesus taught them all the lesson of humble service: The purpose of authority is to serve. It is about authenticity, and also about sharing the cup of suffering that Jesus was to drink. They are not to impose their will on others, or lord it over them. This is the position of Jesus himself. He was the servant of all; the service imposed on him was the supreme sacrifice of his own life. The way the Gospels treat the apostles is a good reminder of what holiness is all about. There is very little about their virtues as static possessions, entitling them to heavenly reward. Rather, the great emphasis is on the kingdom, on Jesus giving them the power to proclaim the Good News. As far as their personal lives are concerned, there is much about the patience and wisdom of Jesus purifying them of narrowness, pettiness, and fickle-mindedness. Do we allow Jesus to transform us deeply? Are we ready to drink his cup?

New Definition of Family

Jesus creates a new definition of family in today's gospel passage (Matthew 12:46-50). Jesus is on the inside of the house teaching his disciples; Mary, his mother, and his brothers are standing outside the house. "Who is my mother, my sister, my brother?" Pointing to the disciples, to the inside, Jesus says, "These are my brothers, my sisters, and my mother. Anyone who does the will of my Father is my brother and sister and mother."

Jesus turns the situation upside down. No kinship, no tribalism, no culturalism, no bloodline. Who is my mother, my brother, my sister? Those who do God's will. To challenge the idea of family was really shocking to a culture based on the kinship system. Blood relationship is secondary to Jesus.

Jesus has in a moment turned upside down the whole bloodline family system, even at the risk of slighting his mother! Mary with regard to the bloodline may be on the outside; but she becomes an insider, a disciple: one who does the will of God. She belongs to the inside group as disciple, as mother to God's beloved, as mother to the disciples.

Jesus says it's not blood that makes family, but it's trust, union, and commitment. This is the new defintion of family. Jesus opposes conventional wisdom so much that he has redefined the family in terms of a universal family based on discipleship and love. He has broken that addiction to false patriotism, loyalty and nationality. Everyone is a God's beloved child. Everyone is a bearer of the divine image, containing in herself/himself the inherent dignity that s/he is created in God's own image and likeness. No exceptions. No more boundaries of races and countries. No more narrow-minded nationalism, but only internationalism without boundaries. All people are God's own people, every land Holy Land, all times and places sacred to the Lord.

To act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly

"And what does the Lord require of you? Only this, to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:6-8).

The Lord asks only these three things: justice, love and humility. He does not ask for offerings and sacrifices; they don't please the Lord. Justice is giving another one her due. It is recognizing the inherent dignity of being a God's child in the other, as in oneself. But if I hate myself, I can't love the other. If I am able to give myself my own due and dignity, and realise that I am God's Beloved, then I will be able to do it in the other. I will be able to love her as she is, and accept her too as God's child. Grace builds on nature; it does not avoid or destroy nature. You are created in the image of God from the very beginning (Genesis 1:26-27). This is the basis for God’s justice: Since everyone is made in the image of God, then we need to recognize, honour, and respect the image of God in everyone. No exceptions.

Secondly, life is about relationships. And truest relationship is love. What Prophet Micah gives us is to love tenderly, or to love mercy. God's nature is love, absolute relationship itself. God's other name is mercy. In our being, and thus in our action, we are called to love, to be merciful. Nothing human can stop the flow of divine love; we cannot undo the eternal pattern even by our worst sin. This is God's love for us. This is what we are called to imitate. To participate in the divine circle dance of love, and thus through us proclaim and include others in this divine dance.

Finally, humility is the honesty to be oneself, and to accept oneself with all the imperfections, and thus have the courage to accept others as they are with their imperfections. Humility is the mother of all virtues; it is mother of all growth. To be humble is to be honest. Humility and honesty are essentially the same thing. One who is humble is brutally honest about oneself and is open to truth. The only people who grow in truth are those who are humble and honest. Without these two qualities, we don't grow. The only honest response to the mystery of life is a humble one. Humility is the only appropriate response to Mystery: the mystery of life, the mystery of God.

Sign of Jonah

“The only sign it will be given is the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was in the belly of the sea-monster for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.”

The expectation of the scribes and Pharisees was silly. Calling them “an evil and unfaithful generation” showed Jesus’ exasperation. How could they ask him for a sign while they were surrounded by the signs he gave them? Wasn’t he God’s sign to them?

Yet Jesus gives an interesting sign for them and for us: the sign of Jonah. The sign of Jonah is Jesus’ primary metaphor for transformation in the gospels. God used Jonah inspite of himself. Jonah was trying to run away from God. But God uses him for transformation of the people of Nineveh.

By getting into the belly of the whale (or sea-monster), Jonah becomes an agent of transformation. For us too, this is way to transformation according to our Lord. Getting into the darkness, pain, grief and misery is the way towards maturity, growth, change and transformation. Therefore, by avoiding darkness we may avoid God himself. We may avoid God’s plan of transformation for us and for others. But by accepting cross and pain, we accept God himself. At times, we may be called to live without meaning, in darkness. Along with patience and endurance, and by embracing meaninglessness and darkness we shall find life. This is the paschal pattern of life that we are called to embrace. If we want to grow, we need to accept pain as part of the plan.

Even death is part of life; failure is part of success. Even doubts become necessary for faith; uncertainties needed for certainty. Everything has its place. Nothing is ever lost; everything is transformed.

Solitude

Living in cities and large towns, many of us know what it is to live surrounded by noise. Is there any of us who is not irritated by the traffic congestions on our roads? All kinds of pollution assail us, paralyze our movements and our lives. The car honks, can we just get used to them? Now, through all our waking hours, we are bombarded by sounds and noises created by our machines, screaming for our attention. We are the first of our race to be warned about dangerous levels of decibels. But strangely we seem to like noise: we like our headphones even during our morning walks and jogs, and aerobic and yoga sessions. We are ready to face the world only when armed with a set of earphones. The soaps and serials on TV accompany our busy housewives all through the day and the night. The youngsters seem to like only loud music. The end-of-the-day news sessions seem incomplete without Arnab Goswami like loud and shouting-at-each-other debates. We are all wired for sound.

Amidst the hustle and bustle of our day to day living, is there time for silence? In the noise-cluttered lives of ours do we give space to ourselves and to God? I believe many of us do want some kind of escape far from the madding crowd. In our busy lives do we make time and space for solitude? Even when we have some time for ourselves, what do we do? We pick up our cell phones, busy ourselves with WhatsApp, Facebook or other social network media. These have a knack of killing our solitude. They are not just waste of time, but they are potentially harmful and dangerous if abused.

Yet those who seek God are more likely to find Him in solitude. Silence is the language of God; everything else is poor translation. The importance of becoming still, can we ignore? You will agree with me when I say that we need at least 20 minutes a day for ourselves, and for God: not for "saying" more prayers or completing our restless novenas, but to sit in stillness and silence. This is a time for enjoying God, or perhaps even enduring God if we have issues with Him.

Christ told his apostles, "You must come away to some lonely place all by yourselves and rest for a while." He is telling us the same. In our hectic activism, Jesus invites us into silence and solitude. He does not want us to be always in a movement mode, always in a service mode. He wants us to rest with him. For Jesus prayer seems to be a matter of waiting in love, returning to love, and trusting that love is the bottom stream of reality. That's why prayer isn't primarily words; it's primarily a place, an attitude, a stance, a state that precedes “saying” any individual prayers. That's why Paul could say, "Pray always," and "Pray unceasingly." If we read that as requiring words, it is surely impossible. We've got a lot of other things to do. We can pray unceasingly, however, if we find the stream and know how to wade in waters. The stream will flow through us, and all we have to do is consciously stay there.

The most challenging aspect of our Christian lives, I believe, is not about finding more work or service to express our Christian vocation, but finding that lonely place for solitude, prayer and reflection in our busy lives. Workaholics do not find a model in Jesus. He doesn't want workaholics, he wants centred people imbued with his spirit. He merely wants instruments, not master-builders or messiahs who will plan others' salvation. He himself is the Messiah already, he wants convinced people to be with him, and to be sent out into the world. But he will plan everything, we only need to second the motion. Are we ready?

Servant

"Here is my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved, the favourite of my soul. I will endow him with my spirit, and he will proclaim the true faith to the nations. He will not brawl or shout, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. He will not break the crushed reed, nor put out the smouldering wick till he has led the truth to victory: in his name the nations will put their hope."

The Gospel of today (Matthew 12:14-21) quotes the first song of the suffering servant from Isaiah 42:1-4. Matthew sees this prophecy being fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, the Anointed One. If I am a disciple of Christ, then I am called to imitate in his sweetness, gentleness, humility, non-violence, and above all in his servanthood. Being a servant means becoming unimportant in this world. It is nice to be important, but it is more important to be nice. How many of us can accept this? How many of us can just play the second fiddle, be backstage? Being a Christian does not make us important. We are like the leaven hidden in the dough. We are like the treasure hidden in the field. We are only seeds planted in the soil, but can give growth to the mighty Kingdom of God.

As Christians we are called to give up pomp and power. We choose powerlessness over power. Like Jesus we are called to be bridge-builders between power and powerlessness. Bridge-builders, including Jesus, usually start building a bridge from one side. You can't build a bridge from the middle, as engineers would tell us. We had better start from the side of powerlessness, not power. Because if we start on the side of power we'll stay there forever. As followers of the Gospel, we will always be in a minority position. But that's how we shall have greater access to the truth. We in our time have to find our way to disestablish ourselves, to identify with our powerlessness instead of our power, our dependence instead of our independence, our communion instead of our individualism.

Paradoxically, our humility or powerlessness is that which gives us power. Tao Te Ching says, "All streams flow to the sea because it is lower than they are. Humility gives it its power." In our helplessness we become powerful instruments of the Lord. Only in emptiness can a vessel be filled. The emptier the vessel, the fuller it can be filled. God can use our nothingness, more than our talents and capacities. He can use our vulnerability and our woundedness for His greater glory.

Lord of the Sabbath

"I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath" (read Matthew 12:1-8).

Many Catholics still confess that they have not gone for Sunday Mass because they had been sick. Or they might even confess that they have not kept a few rules because of some reasons. Yet others confess all the rules that they have broken, but forget to think about the weighter matters of our religion: love. "Have I loved sufficiently? Have I given space to love and compassion in my life?" I realise that I am not loving very well. I am meeting only my needs, which is nothing but “co-dependency.” This kind of love is impure and self-seeking. Perhaps a lot of what we call love today is not love at all. I think this kind of consciousness should be the context for our confessions, not merely our breaking of rules.

I'm afraid, for many of us, Christianity is a mere collection of rules. We seem to miss the whole point. We seem to miss the central aspect, the Person that makes our religion. Do we follow the Lord of the Sabbath or just the Sabbath of the Lord?

Following Christ is about desiring mercy and compassion; it is about supporting the innocent and having a big heart for others. Big-heartedness always draws close to the other, and it always draws the other close. Our God is a God of love. He is a God of relationships. If God is Trinity, then God is Absolute Relationship, even inside of God. (And the truest relationship is love.) And every time God shows mercy and forgives, He is saying that relationship is more important than His own rules!

Let our religion be one of relationships: with ourselves and with one another, with creation and with nature, and with God. Our relationships give meaning to our life. As Jesus gave primacy to relationships, let us also give first place to them in our lives.

Come to Me

“Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest.”

In today’s gospel passage (Matthew 11:28-30), Jesus invites us to come (go) to him with our burdens and sorrows. So we should go to him and, indeed, we will find our rest. These are some of the most comforting and consoling words of the gospel. And Jesus means it.

During his lifetime on earth, we see that people went to Jesus and were refreshed. Having met Jesus, they found new meaning in life and new ways of living. He restored their human dignity, helped them to overcome their obstacles, healed them, and forgave them. In short, Jesus freed them from their burdensome pasts, their troublesome lives.

All of us have our share of worries and anxieties. We even feel weighed down by our life at times. What about the sleepless nights that we have endured? What about the restlessness and the tensions that we may carry around? There might times we carry our burdens without having time to share them with our family members or close friends. We know life is beautiful, but at the same time life is difficult. The moment we are able to accept both these sides of life, we are able to live in relative peace and joy. This is what Jesus offers us when he invites us to his side. He doesn’t promise the removal of the yoke or of the burden. He rather tells us, “My yoke is easy and my burden light.” This is the effect of Jesus in our lives; he helps us to carry on with our lives joyfully. Amidst our sorrows, we will find joy and happiness. Are we ready to lighten our burdens?

We too can have Jesus-like effects on others who are suffering. If anyone starts to tell you of her worries, what do you do? Do you take time to listen to people in distress? Do you lighten the burdens of others? Do you give them comfort and consolation? Let us shoulder Christ’s yoke, and learn from him. Let us above all learn his gentleness and humility. How sweet, and how beautiful!

Wisdom of Life

“I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to little children.”

It is as if Jesus is here on a kind of anti-intellectual tour, something Paul seems to do, too, when he makes almost the same remarks about the foolishness of those wise in the eyes of the world, and the wisdom of those wise in the eyes of God.

The true goal of spirituality is not intellectual insight, but divine wisdom. A mere intellectual grasp of spiritual things is insufficient. What Jesus recommends in today's reading (Matthew 11:25-27) is childlike openness to God's mysteries. God himself is a mystery. Without an ever-open attitude to the mystery of God, we could easily miss him. What is a mystery? Mystery isn't something that you cannot understand—it is something that you can endlessly understand!

We're standing in the middle of an awesome mystery—life itself!—and the only appropriate response before this mystery is humility and childlike openness. Let us go into the mystery: not to hold God but to let God hold us. Not to hold reality but to let reality hold us. Let life hold us. And, mind you, God comes to us disguised as life itself. The myriad forms of life in the universe are merely parts of the One Life—that many of us call “God.” Let's not miss Him. Let's embrace the mystery of Life, or rather be embraced by Life itself!

God refuses to be known, but can only be loved and enjoyed. All we can do is jump on this train, which is already moving. All we can do is to enjoy the flow of the river, which is already flowing. Let us not push the river! But just enjoy the flow.

The Repair of the Broken World

Jesus summoned his disciples, made them share in his authority, and told them to go out to clean and repair the world (Matthew 10:1-7).

As the followers of our Lord, we have been given power over evil and sickness. We often don’t accept our own authoritative power over misery, sickness, and evil. Matthew says explicitly that Jesus summoned his followers by name and gave them authority over unclean spirits with power to drive them out, and to cure all kinds of diseases. This passage is not about working miracles and wonders, as normally people understand. It is rather about our own inner authority to deal with falsity and evil, and about offering our healing touch in compassion to our brothers and sisters.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We could do all kinds of things, but we don’t. It isn’t unwillingness on our part. What hinders us most often is the poor idea we have of our own influence, of our own weight and authority. Yet, we are charged with God’s Spirit, and with the mission Jesus left us to bring God’s reign to life among us.

We are put in this world as participants and executors in God’s creative and salvific project. We have to execute this project in the place and situation where we are engaged as parents, educators, religious, priests, children, students, youngsters, or retired senior citizens. We should also take into account that there is always a great demand for volunteers chasing the evil from our world. (There are so many associations in our parishes and societies: Red Cross, Legion of Mary, Jesus Youth, Third Orders, MSF, Catholic Relief Services, etc.)

We should start at home. The temptation is always to blame the evil in the world on others, scapegoating them. We as Jesus' disciples become his partners in the universal restoration work he himself had come to do. Our honeymoon is over, the work needs to begin. Let us not forget that we are "wounded healers"—we are healers but at the same time wounded and broken like others. The repair of our own inner broken worlds has to go on simultaneously with our social interventions.

Sheep Without a Shepherd

The Pharisees believed a person’s afflictions were the result of sin. In their view, people had to suffer as a result of their own evil. They had to suffer, as a just punishment. Therefore, to heal them was in a way letting them off the hook so that they didn’t suffer the consequences of their acts. The Pharisees were indignant with Jesus, because he healed those kind of people. Instead of allowing them to suffer, according to the Pharisees, Jesus "cancelled" their debt of punishment and suffering. They accused Jesus of being in league with the devil because he seemed to be giving people license to sin with impunity (Matthew 9:32-38).

Jesus saw things differently. He had compassion on afflicted people and did what he could for them. That involved the forgiveness of their sins. He showed them true freedom, and made them taste it. To have compassion means to feel with the other, to suffer with the other. This is God's compassion, God's mercy: He even suffers with us. He doesn’t look at our faults, but at the places in us that are trying to say “yes.” As we ourselves do the same with our children, He looks beyond our naughtiness and failures to look into those places where we are open to the divine. He sees beyond the “no” to the abiding “yes.” He sees the divine image in us as we see our image in our children.

God’s mercy is so powerful to bring about righteousness in us. The Muslims have a saying. They say that no one can escape from the power of God, and the power of God is his mercy.

Courage, My Daughter!

“Jesus turned around, saw her, and he said to her: ‘Courage, my daughter, your faith has saved you!’”

In today’s reading (Matthew 9:18-26) a woman in the crowd around Jesus touches the fringe of his cloak. She isn’t supposed to do that. She wasn’t even allowed to be in a crowd, because, according to the Law, her sickness made her impure. According to that Law everything she touched became unclean as well. But she took the risk, thinking “even if I only touch his cloak I shall be saved.”

At the moment of that touch everything else around Jesus seems to fall away. It doesn’t count anymore. What counts is that woman and no one else. Jesus turns around, looks at her, and says to her, “Courage, my daughter, your faith has saved you!” And for some strange reason, Jesus seems to praise faith even more than love in the gospels.

She was for that instant the only one who counted for him. He gave his whole self to her. W.B. Yeats once wrote: “The love of God is infinite for every human soul, because every human soul is unique; no other can satisfy the same need in God.” It is that unique love of God for each of us that should make us halt in the crowd we live in and look at one another and at ourselves with greater care. God loves you infinitely at this moment. Do you believe?

Prophets

Most societies attach an inordinate importance to conformity. Observance of conventions is often rigorously insisted upon and those who step out of line can sometimes be severely ostracized. Beneath the charm of a village, there often lurks a lethal intolerance. Is this why many youngsters seem so eager to escape into the anonymity of the city?

Returning to his home-town Nazareth, Jesus discovered that he was not accepted there. Jesus was even amazed at his own country men and women's lack of faith. A prophet is not welcome in his own village. In fact, nobody is welcome who seeks to disturb the time honoured conventions. Truth and religion have long since been domesticated into a cosy conformism. Nobody is allowed question the reigning orthodoxy.

Yet Jesus' whole life is an assault on conventional wisdom, or "normalcy." It is this very normalcy that keeps people from God. Eventually it was this normalcy that crucified Jesus, foreshadowed in today's Gospel reading of Jesus' rejection at Nazareth (Mark 6:1-6).

Little has changed since Jesus' time. Prophets still go unrecognized in their own times and in their own homelands. Some, like Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi, had their voices silenced by an assassin’s bullet. Others, like Andrei Sakharov, after a life-time of prison and persecution, die almost within sight of the promised land. Nelson Mandela lived to see it, after spending twenty-seven years in prison. But his persecutors scarcely learned their lesson. His prison silence resounded throughout the world. Prophets such as these often seem fated to receive the recognition abroad that they are denied at home. And those distant admirers who crown them with accolades, make sure to keep their own radicals on a tight leash. Prophets are uncompromising. Prophets are those who comfort the disturbed, but certainly disturb the comfortable. Their demands are not negotiable. That's why prophets are always unpopular.

We are all called, by our baptisms, to be prophets. Not just to be queens/kings and priests. We celebrate the feast of Christ the King, even remember his Priestly interventions. But what about a feast for Christ the Prophet? Is Christ the Prophet still unpopular and unwelcome in our own Christian Churches? As prophets, we too, like Jesus, should stand up and speak out against the injustices of our time. It matters little whether people listen or not. Perhaps, this is one best way to honour Christ the Prophet.

New Wine in New Wineskins

The passage of Matthew 9:14-17, contains the short parable of New Wine in New Wineskins: we can't put new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise it would mean a double ruin: both the wine and the wineskin would be wasted. The parable points to the impossibility of conversing with old mentalities. In the same passage, there is also a comparison of the old and the new cloaks. No one tears a new cloak to stitch on to an old cloak. Otherwise it is a double ruin.

The new wine is the symbol of Jesus' actions and teachings. This new wine needs new mentalities and attitudes. You can't have the old forms of religion to contain Jesus' spirit, and these forms need to be flexible like new wineskins. New wineskins imply flexibility, and the ability to breathe. The document published by the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, on January 6, 2017, uses this parable as an inspiration to give us guidelines and orientations related to the challenges of consecrated life. It says, “Institutional, religious, and symbolic forms need to be flexible always. Without the necessary flexibility, no institutional form, no matter how venerable, can withstand the tensions of life or respond to the appeals of history.” Change is the only way forward. The only reality that is constant is change itself.

To follow Jesus is to follow a Person, not a set of rules and concepts. His spirit can't be contained in words or structures; we need to be ever flexible in our mind and in our religious forms in order to be faithful to him. He himself is the Way! One cannot fall in love with concepts, but only with a Person.