Unconditional belonging, grace and freedom

We are truly the children of God. That is what Jesus taught us. Being one in Christ the Son, we are all children of God. Moved by the Spirit we are all the children of God. The same spirit of being the children of God makes us cry out ‘Abba father.’ It is in the home of the Father the children grow, find their being, welcomed, strengthened when they are weak, healed when they are injured, and found when they are lost. This is the core of Christian life, it had to be the essence of our life. Yet, for some reasons, through history, we were fascinated by sin and guilt, and the entire faith was often framed within a legalistic focus on transgression. This focus tragically obscured the profound, unconditional welcome found in the Father’s home. Perhaps there is a background of the retributive theology of the Old Testament which supports a ransom theology.  If the sin is necessary to explain salvation, perhaps we have understood salvation wrongly. Children-freedom-grace model would have given a much better face to Christianity than the sin-salvation model. Freedom of the children of God is something we need to meditate deeply and grow. It is not something that we need to merely experience but also to ensure where it is not found.

Prayer vs Court Process

The parable of the unjust judge (Luke 18:1-8) is one of Jesus’ most insightful teachings on how we understand our relationship with God and how easily that image can be distorted. The widow, with her unwavering insistence, is often our model, and the unjust judge, by analogy, becomes a reluctant God who needs to be persuaded. So, often, we hear this parable interpreted simply as a call to persistent prayer: “Keep asking, keep knocking, eventually God will give in!”

While perseverance in prayer is, without doubt, a virtue, Jesus’ intention in this parable goes deeper. He isn't saying, "God is like this unjust judge, so we must keep on asking Him." He is saying, "If even an unjust judge, who cares nothing for God or humanity, will eventually respond to persistent pleading, how much more will your loving Heavenly Father, who yearns for your well-being, listen and act on your behalf!" The warning here is vital: God should never be pictured like this judge.

The Pharisaic system, for all its devotion, often maintained an image of God as a distant, legalistic judge, meticulously weighing merits and demerits, demanding endless rituals and perfect adherence to an complex system of law. Prayer, in such a system, could become less about heartfelt communion and more about proving one's worthiness, a transaction to earn favour. This placed a huge spiritual burden on people, leading to anxiety, guilt, and a constant fear of not being "good enough."

Jesus showed us a home and introduced us to have conversations in that home. God has made a home with us. Prayer is a conversation in that home. Other than in a homely atmosphere, where can we find true justice? The parable clearly shows the need for perseverance in prayer. Jesus assures us that God, unlike the unjust judge, will “grant justice to his chosen ones who cry out to him day and night.” More than what we say or what we practice, true prayer is an attitude and a growth. In one way or another, prayer is an openness to the righteousness of God. When we seek God’s action, asking for personal favours or spiritual growth, it is all about calling for the establishment of God’s righteous order in a world often marked by emptiness. The prayer Jesus taught us is all about the just and righteous rule of God. “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” is not only a request, it is also an openness for God’s will in our life. This is the ultimate request for a just, equitable, and truthful reality. Similarly, “Give us this day our daily bread,” desires economic and social justice and also shows willingness to work for that justice. “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us,” looks for restoring peace and reconciliation, also the readiness to forgive and be reconciled.

Seeking God’s will in prayer leads us through a growth in truth, justice, and trust as an essential environment for genuine communion. Prayer is not just our pleas or performances of rituals, it is also our genuine actions of kindness and of standing for justice where there is injustice.  Prayer acknowledges one’s situation, needs, failings, and genuine intentions without any pretence. It is also a freedom from seeking any hiding places in the name of piety, religiosity, or social activism. Prayer challenges us to come face-to-face with ourselves. As the truth of our life is before us, what gives us confidence in prayer is our trust that God is just and will respond to our sincere appeals according to His perfect will. So, the prayer is not just a personal request, but aligning our will with God’s righteousness. Prayer is never a religious activity, but a life style.

How often in different ways we hear, that the best way to approach God is to beg harder, plead and suffer helplessness? The widow's insistence models the unshakeable faith that God will indeed "grant justice to his chosen ones." It teaches us to trust deeper. When we embrace Him as the loving Father who has already made a home with us, the entire nature of prayer transforms. Prayer becomes a sincere conversation in the secure atmosphere of that home. It is a radical act of vulnerability, laying bare our genuine self—our needs, our failings, and our deepest intentions—without the pretense of piety or activism.

To pray, then, is to step out of the lonely courtroom of self-righteousness where we have to defend our case, where we fear the judgment of a legalistic God, and to fully embrace the truth of Christ's desire: "Your kingdom come, your will be done." This is an openness to God's righteousness that bring our anxious, self-seeking will to His gentle, just, and life-giving reality. 

🎬

Be compassionate

Be compassionate, grant pardon, do not judge, and do not condemn… they ask from us something so great from our deep resources. To approach the truth of a person or an event, we do need wise judgment and a process of discernment. It isn't about ignoring wrongdoing but about reorienting the purpose of judgment itself. In this sense, it is less about a detached, forensic analysis of actions and more about a heartfelt attempt to see the whole person – we may be able to see them where they are freed from our biases and prejudices. It’s the discernment of a compassionate heart to reread and retell the story of their pain, their struggles, and their value. Then, wisdom guides us to judge in truth, which has a compassionate face.

🎬

Capax dei

We know a missing element in our hearts, may be formed in different ways although our lives. This emptiness is a yearning for grace, one way or the other shapes the very uniqueness of a person. This Capax Dei is a spiritual longing in our being.

In Mary, the capacity for God blossomed into the most beautiful flower. She received in her the Son of God. She is also the living testament, that the capacity for God prepares generations to form grace structures to fill us with grace. About her conception, our faith defines, Mary, from the moment of conception, by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, and in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved free from all stain of original sin. If we see it as a divine magic of one moment we have less reason to rejoice. Of course, what happened in Mary is a divine grace, but it also signifies a completion of that inherent receptivity, perhaps as a culmination of grace-structures formed through many generations, culminating in Mary utterly open to the Divine.  These generations, persons showed their truthfulness and openness to receive grace to fill their yearning, being healed of wounds that sins would originate in them and breed.

Mary has a face, a blueprint for humanity’s ongoing transformation. Her "fullness of grace" is not a static, unreachable ideal, but an active invitation. Mary’s Capax Dei radiates a boundless compassion that shows the Divine love she so perfectly contained. Each generation, holds the potential to build upon this sacred lineage, to cultivate anew this capacity for God. It is in acts of empathy, in selfless giving, in the fearless embrace of the marginalised, that the ‘Capax Dei’ of a generation truly expands. Her birth, then, is a constant spring of hope, reminding us that the human spirit, imbued with its sacred capacity, can continuously transform itself, mirroring her grace, extending her charity, and thereby becoming, in every living moment, a fresh epiphany of God’s presence on Earth.

🎬

Blessedness

Being poor and hungry, suffering and mourning were not signs of divine blessing, but signs of a curse according to many beliefs. Even now many prefer to believe so. But to these, Jesus attaches the blessedness of God’s kingdom. There is a freedom to trust because he taught about God to be our Father. The Gospel sets people to feed, console, stand for justice, and ensure resources for the feeble. The hungry being satisfied, those who weep being consoled and so on, are the signs of liberation the Gospel brings. These are the marks of Christ humanity can bear on their lives; the beauty or the glory revealed in us with Christ’s Glory. The blessedness is a gift and a responsibility which reflects the opening words of Gospel announcement “… he has sent me to proclaim good news to the poor, liberty to captives, to open the eyes of the blind…”  These acts of grace make a renewal in us in the image of the creator. See around, see within - he is everything and he is in everything. There are no differences, domination and divisions, no one is higher or lower, outsider or one’s own, nothing is strange or hostile … only Christ. The things of above, for Jesus, were not super-transcendental high ideals, instead they were breaking one’s separating boundaries and extending oneself to others in love in the freedom of the gospel.  Live the beatitudes in the freedom of the gospel, see the beauty of Christ being revealed in us, and in the church.

🎬

Beyond Vengeance: Embracing Life for All

When prophets called for repentance, a self-critique for renewal, they condemned those on the other side who were apparently strangers or enemies. Jonah is a symbol of all those attitudes, and the time they held this approach. If they pleased Yahweh, they could expect Yahweh to do what they liked.  Jonah, though he spoke of the nature of Yahweh as full of love, compassion and slow to anger, he does not expect Yahweh to act according to his nature. Jonah represented the general approach of the people. Gradually, in some sectors, the understanding took a renewed outlook, taking a universal vision; God's goodness and compassion extend to all people. Jesus revealed God as Father of all, and we are all God's children. The righteousness of God is inclusive of all, seeing the good of all. It is natural that we may desire to win. Divine righteousness means the winning of everyone, and the life of all. Seeking vengeance and destruction is not about divine justice, but about self-righteousness. Every other person, other nation, or other race may be destroyed in establishing justice; that may be our expectation of justice. Ultimately, that which would remain is a 'me' who is justified. That is actually a hell. In our evaluations, viewpoints, and even in prayers, revenge-seeking attitudes may be present. Unless our perspectives, choices and observances are moulded by the nature of divine righteousness, which desires good and life for all, we have not known the heart of Christ. 

🎬

Weapon for a Battlefield? Rosary as a Channel of Grace and Peace

The Holy Rosary is a prayer centred on the life of Jesus, life of Mary and the life of each of us. We meditate them through the Joyful, Sorrowful, Luminous and Glorious Mysteries. The repetition of the Hail Mary is a contemplative means to involve the grace announced to humanity in the person of Mary deeply into our personal lives, and to live the Gospel events. We invite Mary, the perfect disciple who pondered all these events in her heart, to help us see her Son's life with greater clarity and love. Mary's divine agency is to be understood within the aspect of fullness of grace. The healing, help, care, and victory that we ask of her are all within this grace. The imaginations on her victory should never be pictured or imagined as though in a war model, as though she was a war goddess. If pictured like that, we take away the nature of grace and divine action. Her power or agency is not a separate, inherent force, but the perfect channel for Christ's grace. Her "victory" is therefore the triumph of humility and obedient faith, not military might.

 God's favours are not for one nation, or people or religion, God's grace is given from his abundant goodness for the good of all. He grants victory, but not by destroying anyone, but by brining good for all. the figures like god fighting for his own people misrepresent the god images in the gospel, and instead we fill our beliefs with politicised images of god with vengeance, anger and siding with our interests. The same is true with the prayer of Rosary. Rosary is not a weaponised instrument, nor the prayer of rosary is a magical prayer. Rosary is a life story we are trying to retell and relive. There we hope for the graces that was once present in the life of those who were participants in the gospel story. We win by grace, not over anyone, but by a growth in grace for the good of all. The war models we have in our religious imaginations must give way for models of peace and dialogue.

In many new trends, under politicised emotionalism we are celebrating religion and its symbols. Are we glorifying god? Many are happy that there seems to be a revival and great witness. In such trends, we are risking grace for identity games. They are war-cry and celebrations without life and grace in it. If the crowd has no life, what will gather them after this momentum?

🎬