18 SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
IN HIS HAND EVERYTHING IS PLENTY

For our reflection, this weekend we have a great story of God’s caring and compassionate love। Jesus communicated this message though the miraculous feeding of the crowd.

Before He began His public life, Jesus spent forty days in the desert praying and fasting। He felt hungry. Saten tempted him, saying,”You have the power to perform miracle. Why can’t you change these stones into bread and eat?” Jesus rejected the wisdom of Satan. He refused to use his god given power to satisfy his needs. However, as we heard from today’s Gospel reading, when Jesus saw the crowd in the desert and realized that they had nothing to eat, He used his power to perform a miracle. He multiplied bread and fed the crowd. Jesus used His God given gifts and talents for the good of others. This underscore the basic Christian principle: We are here for others and we belong to one another.

Even though Jesus had the ability to do it alone; however, he used the help of his disciples। He asked their fair share. Jesus asked them: Bring to me whatever you have. Jesus wants to do the same today. Our community has several needs. Community does not have gifts, only individuals. No single individual has all the gifts. Together we have more than what we need.

Often time we think, we do not have enough। At times, we refused to take the initiative thinking that the problems are too huge and it is beyond our reach. God do not expect us to solve the problem alone. He is there for our help. God expects us to offer whatever we have. Nothing is too little in His hand. Five loaves of bread is more than enough to feed five thousand. “In his hand water is wine”.

“With God we are somebody, without God we are nobody” St. Therese. “Nothing is impossible with God” John the Evangelist. Let us ask this question: What are my gifts and talents? How am I using it? Am I afraid of failure?

17 SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

If Jesus comes to you today and tells you: I am going to grant you one of your wishes, what is that you are going to ask?
Our first reading presents a similar situation. God came to Solomon and said,”Ask any one wish, I will grant you”. Any king aspires for three things: long life, wealth and victory over the enemy. However, Solomon asked none of these. Instead, he said,” Give me wisdom….the ability to discern what is best”.
Wisdom means divine knowledge.
Today we live in a complicated and complex world. At times, we do not know where to turn and what to choose. Push/ Pull- I have seen these two words on the door of different offices. It happened to me different times. Instead, pushing the door, we pulled it and instead of pulling the door, I pushed it.
More than ever, we need wisdom today.
Wisdom helps us in three ways.
1. Like the person in the first parable, it helps us to discover the real treasure of life. The three wise men from the east find the real treasure when they find Jesus. Jesus and his Kingdom is the real treasure.
2. Like the person in the second parable, wisdom gives us the courage to give up what is less important in view of the priceless treasure of life. Again, the three magi gave up there palace and all other material comforts to posses Jesus, the real treasure.
3. Like the person in the third parable, wisdom help us to be aware of the attractions that distract us from focusing on what really matters. For example, the Magi took a different route after meeting with Jesus.
Let us pray for the wisdom to know the way and the courage to stay focused and the perseverance to reach the goal.

17 SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
IN PERSUIT OF WISDOM

Once a Genie appeared to a man and said, “You may ask any one wish that you think more precious for you. I will grand it.” My brother is dying. I want to reconcile with him before he dies. Please grant me the gift of reconciliation”, he replied. The Gene was impressed with his request. Out of curiosity, the Gene asked him, “Definitely it is a great wish! What motivate you to reconcile with your brother at this last moment?” “Oh he is worth for one billion”’ he answered.

Our first reading is about a promise. God said to Solomon, “Ask anything! I will grant it for you”. What did Solomon ask? He did not ask for wealth or power, instead he said, “Grant me the wisdom……” He knew the power of the wealth of wisdom.

All the three Gospel parables talk about people who understood what really matters in life. They talk about people who found the real treasures of life. We all treasure certain things! Do we treasure what really matters? This is important, as our heart is where our treasure is. Our life centers on what we values the most. I remember this incident. Tom was a businessperson from Mumbai. I met him about 20 years ago. He was a no practicing Catholic. On a number of occasions, I invited him to the Church. One day he said, “Father, Church and religion is for people who are over 65 years old”. A few months later, his wife died in a car accident. It devastated him. He came to the Church on the same evening, crying and grieving. He said to the pastor, “I lost my wife. My wealth and influence could not save my wife. The very thing I trusted failed me…Help me”

We know what matters in life. The treasure that sustains our life is Jesus, the Word incarnated. The question is: Do we take necessary steps to achieve it? The people in the parable not only discovered the real treasure of life but also sacrificed everything else to achieve it. Let us pray for the wisdom to discern God’s ways and the courage what is right. As Paul says, “ Everything will work for the good for those who put their trust in God.

YOUR KINGDOM COME
16 SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

I was reading this story from the life of Bl. Theresa of Calcutta. One day, on the way to school where she was teaching, Bl. Theresa saw a dying man on the street. He seemed to be abandoned and helpless. She felt pity for him. Like the Good Samaritan, she nursed him and took him to a care center. She had a similar experience in the following week. These experiences made her to reflect…Little by little she realized that God had placed in her heart a compassion for the abandoned. She did not ignore that feeling. She reinforced it by responding to every similar situation. The tiny seed of compassion grew big. Bl. Theresa became a universal symbol of compassion and kindness….

Today Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God. What is the Kingdom? Obviously, it is not a territory, a social or a religious structure. It is reign of God in human hearts. It is a situation where God’s will materializes here on earth as it is in heaven. It is a situation where peace, justice and fellowship flourish.

Kingdom of God does not happen all of a sudden. Kingdom becomes a reality when every individual person finds out his/ her God given virtues and uses it for the good of the community. The truth is that every person has some divine sparks in him/ her. It may not be very explicit. Like a mustard seed, it may be very tiny. However, if we nourish it, like a mustard seed it has the potential to grow big. Bl. Theresa was not born as a symbol of compassion. She discovered her gift, nurtured it and used it for the good of the community.

What is the gift that I have? Every gift whether it is small or big has a social dimension. The gift is given in view of a community. Even if you do not have any gift, believe me you yourself is the gift. Your presence, the way you conduct yourself….can inspire and bring hope to many. When we recognize it then the Kingdom of God takes root in our society.

ON THE ROCK OF THE WORD OF GOD
15 SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

I have a cousin. He was not practicing his faith. Recently he attended a Bible Retreat. After the retreat, he called me and said, “Father I was touched by the retreat. I am a new person today. I would have gone to the retreat much earlier. I should have listen to the whispering of the Holy Spirit long before. Now I realized what I was really missing.”

All the readings this Sunday, especially the Gospel passage, talks about listening. There are two kinds of listening.

1. Listening without passion and having no interest of changing one’s heart. The seeds fell on the stony ground, seeds fell on the way side and the seeds fell among the bushes represent this kind of listening. They are OK with either way. They are halfhearted people. One day a priest visited a dying man to administer the sacrament of anointing. The priest asked him, “Do you denounce Satan?” He did not give any answer. The priest asked him again. Still there was no response. The priest was curious,”Why don’t you respond to my question?” “Until I don’t know where I am heading to, I don’t want to take a risk”, the dying man responded.

2. Listening with a passion for Change. The seed fell on the good soil represents this kind of listening. Listening is a process. The Hindu Gurus talk about a Mantra: Sravana Manana Nithithyasana ( listen, meditate and personalize.). Listening with passion consists of these three steps.

A person who actively listens to the Word of God and acts upon it is like a person who built his house on solid rock. They also reflect the Word of God in their lives.

TRINITY SUNDAY

Today we celebrate the feast of the Most Holy Trinity. We, Christians, believe in one God. We also believe that this one God has three persons- God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. This is, however, a difficult notion to understand. As we do today, people in the past had difficulties in understanding the mystery of the Trinity. People always ask: “How is it possible to have three persons in one God? or How does one God become three persons?” Our traditional answer is that it is a mystery. Of course, it is a mystery but a reality as well.

The notion of Trinity was developed based on human experience and divine revelation. In the past people experienced God as a Creator, someone who is beyond human reach. In the New Testament period, people had a different experience of the same God, namely, God as Emmanuel, as someone with them. Today we experience God as Spirit, someone who is within us. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are different forms or expressions of the one God. They are different levels of God’s Existence and they are different expressions of God’s Love. At least one place in the Bible the whole trinity made an appearance. This was at the time of Jesus’ Baptism.

What helps us today is not the ontological discussion of the nature of the Trinity, but the message of the Trinity. The message of the Trinity is love and Relationship. The notion of relationship is important for two reasons.

RELATIONSHIP: THE BASIC SACRAMENT

God is a communion of three persons. God is a relationship. Therefore, relationship is the medium through which God operates. So He formed the community of Israel. Jesus himself made it amply clear when he said’ “When two or three are gathered together in my name I will be in their midst.” Consequently, to have a God experience we must be in community. Thomas missed seeing Jesus when he made his appearance after the resurrection because he was not in the community. The importance of community is evident from the working style of Jesus. The very first act Jesus did after his baptism was to form a group of disciples. The last thing Jesus did before the crucifixion was the institution of the Eucharist, the perfect symbol of fellowship. The first thing Jesus did after his resurrection was to gather the scattered disciples. Similarly, when Jesus sent them on a mission he sent them in twos.

To receive God’s grace, we must be in communion with one another. Therefore, question for our reflection is: Am I in conflict with anyone? What am I doing to improve the quality of my relationship?

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PENTECOST

Salvation History can be divided into three periods: the period of God the father, the period of God the Son, and the period of the Holy Spirit. The Era of the Holy Spirit began with Pentecost. Pentecost is the feast of the Holy Spirit. It is the Birthday of the Church. Today we celebrate this major Feast.

A NEW BEGINNING…!

Pentecost means the 50th day। Originally, it was a Jewish Harvest Festival. Jews within the boundary of 30 miles of Jerusalem gathered together once a year to show their gratitude to God for his blessings upon their agricultural labor with favorable climate and an abundance of fruit. As a sign of their gratitude, they offered the first fruit of the wheat crop on this day. Later this celebration acquired a new meaning: Renewal of the covenant. The Israelites received the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai on the 50th day of their departure from Egypt. With the reception of the Law they became a new people and others (non-Israelites) became no people. On the day of Pentecost they commemorated this event and renewed their covenant with God. Eventually, the day of Pentecost became a day of renewal and a new beginning for Israel. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit 50 days after the Resurrection of Jesus marked the beginning of a new Israel, the Church.

TRIPLE FUNCTIONS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

The Holy Spirit, the third person in the Trinity, is presented in numerous ways in the Scripture. It requires volumes to explain the significance, functions and fruits of the Spirit. Therefore, in this reflection, I would like to focus on three important roles of the Spirit in our life. They are: the life giving function; the unifying function and the guiding function.

1. Life Giving Function

The first book of the Bible (Genesis) opens with this interesting statement: the spirit of God was hovering over the water... In the second chapter of the same book, we have the creation account of Adam and Eve. The Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being. The New Testament also depicts a parallel story. After the resurrection, Jesus breathed on his disciples and said, “Receive the holy spirit.” In this act of Jesus, they experienced a new beginning. In short, all through the Bible, the Holy Spirit is pictured as the breath of God or as the life giving principle. We share in the life of God through the reception of the Holy Spirit. Sin separates us from God whereas the Spirit reconnects us with God. The Holy Spirit sanctifies us, fills us with Grace and makes us fully alive for God.

2. Guiding Function

Our life is a series of choices. Options are unlimited. The dilemma is how to make a right decision that will lead us to growth. Being the wisdom of God, the major function of the Spirit is to lead us down the right path. This role of the spirit is well presented in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. In fact, this book is also called the Book of the Holy Spirit. The Hero of the Early Church was neither Peter nor Paul but the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit intervened at every critical time with insights and wisdom. The Jerusalem Council, for instance, is the telling example of how the Spirit led the early Church from crises to growth. It was the Holy Spirit who asked the Church to set apart Paul and Barnabas for the gentile mission. The greatness of the apostles was that they had listening ears and willing hearts. If we, individually or collectively, are facing crises, it is due to our failure in listening to the whispering of the Spirit. We need to ask constantly: Where is the Spirit leading us? What is our mission? What are the talents gifted to us by the Spirit to accomplish this call?

3. Unifying Function

Every human being craves for relationship. Relationship is the matrix of growth. We find meaning and relevance in communion and fellowship. Unity does not mean uniformity or speaking the same language. Unity based on uniformity can lead to ethnocentrism, an oppressive attitude and exclusivism. Unity separated from God is destructive as well. Similarly, pluralism, though desirable, can be dangerous too if one culture pitches against the other.

What matters truly is unity in diversity; a culture of accommodation. What makes unity without threatening diversity is the desire for the Kingdom of God. Any attempt to be united for a Godly purpose will last. Two stories are narrated in the Bible to substantiate this point: the Tower of Babel and Pentecost. The Tower of Babel explains the story of a People who came together to make a name for themselves. They were of the same color, culture and language. Their attempts, however, proved to be disastrous. Not only did they fail in completing their project but they ended up in conflict and division. They started talking differently. The reason for their failure was God’s absence in their effort. It was a project outside of God. On the other hand, on the day of Pentecost, even though the crowd was a collection of different colors, cultures and languages, everyone understood everyone else. The Holy Spirit filled their hearts with a new language, a language of love. Love is the third eye. Any one who looks through the third eye will see the image of God in every human being regardless of their differences whatsoever.

Finally, Pentecost clearly reveals the universality of the Church. The Law was given only to Moses where as the Holy Spirit was given too all. Pentecost abolished the division between the people of God and no people.