At a recent faith sharing session we discussed how we have grown to want our personal space and to protect our privacy. We reminisce growing up in the 60’s and 70’s when our home doors were opened from sunrise to sunset. Children from neighboring homes would be running in and out throughout the day, making themselves welcomed. There was not a thought about privacy.

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family. I ponder how family units have become as we grew over the past 50 years. Home doors began closing to one another quite a while back. We became more aware of our personal self as an individual with rights and began drawing boundaries to keep within what is perceivably ‘mine’. It has been a gradual erosion but we can argue that we cannot stand still in time.

Yet we must not allow ourselves be carried by the tides of change without being conscious of what it is doing to us. Through development and progress, we have become more affluent and comfortable. Shelter, clothing and hunger are no longer our main issues. We have time to quarrel over other things. We have enough to barricade ourselves behind the boundaries of privacy.

We close the door to our family home. We hardly know the names of people who live around us, maybe not even our next door neighbor. We mind our own business, tending to the business of taking care of our family. Perhaps it is the way homes are built these days but designs do tailor our lifestyles. Behind the closed door we are tending to family matters.

On this feast day of the Holy Family it is good to look inwardly and ponder about our own family units. The family unit is most important. The Pope reiterated this, something the Church had been evangelizing throughout history. It is a unit of love.

We must be concern if the flow of love is contained only within our unit. We must be careful that the boundary of privacy does not become an excuse for us not to truly love our neighbor. We must come to realize that loving our own family only may merely be an extension of our individual ‘self’. Behind that closed family door, are we protecting or hoarding what is ‘mine’? Have the tides of time push our boundaries of selfishness out further to include our immediate family members?

“If you love those who love you, what credit can you expect? Even sinners love those who love them. Instead, love your enemies and do good to them.” (Luke 6: 32)

The world is changing at an accelerated pace. In the middle of this whirlwind something has been a constant throughout time. This is the Love of God and what true love truly means. Our family is holy when we profess this core value in our lifestyle. And we cannot be a holy family when the ways of the Son of God is missing in our family unit.

Our boundary of self must be pushed out even further not only to include family but also neighbors.

And we cannot be a holy family when the ways of the Son of God is missing in our family unit.

Feast of the Holy Family

Honestly it is difficult to write a spiritual reflection on the eve of Christmas. It is always a time for me to get away from my routines, to let go and not be bothered about the past or care about the future. Christmas for me is very much about the now and the wow. The “now” in the sense that I wish that the present will stand still so that I could enjoy the “wow” for a longer period.

Because Christmas brings on revelry and put aside rivalry. Everyone is more chill and nicer during this period. Around mass timings, I admit my schedule is dotted with party timings. For me, Christmas can be a more difficult day than Good Friday to focus and reflect on faith. Ironically because Christmas is joyful. But can it quite be that our humble and generous Savior is joyful for this to be so even if we sometimes forget him as the reason for the season?

It has been easier for us to focus on the Savior on Good Friday. But the real danger here is that we get stuck at the foot of the cross. Religion, Christianity, faith run the risk of being equated only to suffering. So come Christmas some people are reluctant to allow the Savior to enter their hearts and lives because accepting him and embracing faith mean a life of suffering devoid of joy. From the life testimonies of many who accepted this gift of Christmas, there is nothing further from the truth.

As I stood at this spot taking today’s photo, I thought of this parallel that course through our life, this intertwining journey of joy and suffering. Detailed scrutiny of this photo shows a little bridge linking both sides, and there were more bridges further up. I was then struck by a deeper meaning of the parallel paths.

The Savior does not impose himself on us. He does not demand obedience or belief through authority or law. He allows us the freedom to walk our path in life. Unseen and unknown to us, he walks step by step alongside us on the path close, and parallel to the path we choose. He patiently wait for the opportunity for us to allow him to come across the bridge to enter our life. And he will patiently wait and journey each step till we reach the end of our earthly path. Such is his faithfulness to us.

“He will stand and feed his flock with the power of the Lord” (First Reading)

Sometime in life we will come to encounter this powerful presence of the Savior in our life. It is likely to come in an event in our personal life that brings about some suffering and grief. The Holy Spirit will be like a little bridge linking suffering to joy. When that happens my soul in me will leap for joy.

‘Of all women you are the most blessed, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Why should I be honoured with a visit from the mother of my Lord? For the moment your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leapt for joy. Yes, blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled.’ (Today’s Gospel)

Our Savior want to visit us in our life events. As we walk on the path of life, know that at every “now”, at every moment, the Savior is present for us to embrace. Christmas can be with us for our entire life journey when we become fully aware of the parallel path he is walking on to guard and feed us, to turn suffering into joy. Let us revel in His presence.

Merry Christmas!

4th Sunday of Advent

Give us your change. Spare a thought for the needy. If everyone were to drop in their loose change, collectively it will go a very long way for the needy. Indeed. This Christmas when, and if, we give, let us spare a thought for our ‘self’. Are we only giving our spares? Are we too busy to pause and ponder about the needy? There is a gift that awaits every ‘self’; it lies in our giving.

“‘What must we do?’ he answered, ‘If anyone has two tunics he must share with the man who has none, and the one with something to eat must do the same.’” (Today’s Gospel)

“What must we do?” is a question of the spiritually needy. It is a question that comes from deep within our ‘self’. It is a searching question. It is seeking answers that will bring happiness and peace into our life. It is a question out of tiredness and hunger. Many of us have more than spares to give away. We are materially comfortable, yet we are un-quenchable. We are thirsty for the meaning of life.

We drop our change without sparing a second thought. We are engulfed with issues about ‘self’; our own happiness, our work and our family. Or we are indulging in our self-achieved success, our material comfort laming us of a need for God. Either way we are headed into a dead end, a cul-de-sac, where we find our ‘self’ lost, and wondering about the meaning of this life.

The meaning of life is found in giving and sharing. When we truly give beyond our spares, we can impact the life of others. We attain a fulfilment not experienced in the material world, and certainly not through accumulating everything for ‘self’. We gradually begin to feel that our ‘self’ is satisfied, our inner thirst quenched. We arrive at our epiphany when we realize that the meaning of life is found in the ‘other person’. Giving opens the door into this realm.

Effective giving goes beyond material. It must go beyond spares. It must be thought provoking, soul searching for ‘self’. For many of us our more precious possession is not found in our vault. It is time. Our busy schedules tell us we have no time. Or is it our hidden selfishness that we say we have no time to give? The time we have to live is our life. When we give time, we give our life. In today’s more affluent world, apart from the materially needy, there are many who are in need of our time. Give time is give ‘self’.

Beyond the spare tunic, what every ‘other person’ need is true love. When we give beyond spares, we open the tap of love. Many people, poor and rich, need love. Only when we give our ‘self’ to the ‘other person’ can we truly love.

Love is the truest reason for Christmas. “For God so loved the world that He gave us his only Son so that whosoever believe in Him shall have eternal life”. He gave his only Son whose life was not spared out of love. But with it he brought us gifts of happiness and peace.

“I want you to be happy, always happy in the Lord; I repeat, what I want is your happiness. The Lord is very near, and that peace of God, which is so much greater than we can understand, will guard your hearts and your thoughts, in Christ Jesus” (Second reading)

The next time you drop your loose change, spare a though for your ‘self’. Giving is effectively fulfilling. When we share love, we receive the gifts of happiness and peace. In that realm we find the true meaning of our life.

3rd Sunday in Advent

Change your gift, give the gift of change. This Advent, spare a thought for the spiritually homeless. These are people who find themselves distanced from Christ. Once active Christians, they went away for many a reason. Some merely drifted, lulled by distractions. Others, dissatisfied, vented anger and left. Willfully or unintentionally, they now find themselves marooned, unable to come home this Christmas on their own.

We all travel the roads of life. Along the way we encounter many people and pick up many experiences. These change us and influence our choice of roads we travel on. Some of us will set off in a new direction when we lose our belief in Christ. We can go on merrily for years without Christ as long as we are energetic, healthy and wealthy. Then there are some of us who set off with a backpack of bitterness feeling that Christ has let us down. One reason or other, this is the season to make straight the road for these to come home.

We are all bearers of the Good News, entrusted to spread the Gospel. This Advent season we are called to become “John the Baptist” in our daily life to the people we are blessed to meet.

“Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight, and all mankind shall see the salvation of God”. (Today’s Gospel)

Many people who are now disconnected from God may want the opportunity to return. They are tired and wearied by their life journey. Many are wounded and hurt. They have a backpack full of confusing emotions and they can no longer recognize Christ on their own. They are unsure, hesitant and fragile. They may be filled with uncalled for guilt and unworthiness. They are all full of doubts and in need of healing. This Advent may be the opportune time for us to lend a helping hand.

Let us change our gift for this Christmas and give the gift of change to the spiritually needy. People who want to come home need a personal encounter with Christ. Their emotions and needs need to be addressed first. In their fragility, they must first encounter Love in the form of a real experience.

“Every valley will be filled in, every mountain and hill will be laid low, winding roads will be straightened and rough roads made smooth”.

Christmas. Christ want to enter the lives of the spiritually needy. He wants to reach the marooned. To turn it into a real experience, he needs us to be his instruments. He wants to use us to enter the lives of others. He desires to touch them, and can through us. He is calling us to go meet them where they are emotionally and offer them comfort and love. Only when they experience Christ to be real will they begin their journey home for Christmas.

We can be these gifts. We are like mini-John the Baptists going into the wilderness of people’s lives to accompany them home like a bridge over a broken road. This Christmas, change your gift, give this gift of change.

We are like mini-John the Baptists going into the wilderness of people’s lives to accompany them home like a bridge over a broken road. This Christmas, change your gift, give this gift of change.

2nd Sunday of Advent

We take our first step into Advent; into a season of waiting and preparation for Christmas. It is a time for a pause, to reflect where our daily life is taking us spiritually. I had been missing from this blog for the last two Sundays and today I am a day late. I had a text from a friend this morning to check if I was OK. It awoke my spirit and returned my discipline.

What we do and focus on in daily life can easily take us away. It can create many openings to lure us down a path of spiritual dryness. There is nothing wrong with daily life but we must watch how we allow it to affect and control us, which can eventually bring us to ruin. I had been pulled away by work demands on my time. Without pausing, I allowed the tide of daily life to carry me, faraway enough to be then lured further away by distractions and then into an undisciplined lethargy towards God.

“Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life, and that day catch you by surprise like a trap.” (Gospel)

The season of Advent reminds me of the coming of Jesus, who already is here but is often forgotten and lost in the motions of our daily life. Pausing to reflect is the call of every Advent for us to check on the focus of our daily life. “We urge you and appeal to you in the Lord Jesus to make more and more progress in the kind of life that you are meant to live: the life that God wants”. (Second reading). This is an appeal to be good; to allow love to flow through us to love the other.

“May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all” (Second reading).

We live in a relative world. Being good is actually not that tough but rather being bad is all too easy. Imagine a world where everyone is good, where love freely flows in that we truly love one another. In that spiritual energy, it would not be difficult to also be good. But this real world isn’t that ideal world. In this reality the forces of bad pull us away from true love into the confines of self-absorption.

This is the physics of spiritual life. Our daily life must always be in the motion of doing good deeds to allow love to flow through us. Spiritual dynamics does not allow us to stand still, where we are not bad but also not proactively doing good things because the forces of reality will drag us into the lull of spiritual dryness. In that lull we will forget that Jesus has come into our lives; a forgetfulness that will lead into the dangers of disbelief.

Advent has its reasons. Pausing and reflecting on where we are in daily life allow us to reset the course of our life. Jesus is always coming, we need to be always returning. Pressing pause helps.

“Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man.” (Gospel)

First Sunday in Advent 2019 (Year C)