Can these dry bones live?

Many problems we may have, and many of them seemingly have no answer. Prophet Ezekiel is addressed with a question, "Son of man, can these dry bones live?" perhaps it is a similar question "can these problems have any answer? The prophet receives a command, "Son of man, prophesy to these dry bones." A prophesy is to open 'truth' before the crisis. Often the problems find no solution because we are not ready to find the truth lying within, what exactly is the issue behind the problem. Rather we might expect God to do magic to solve our problems; to end war, solve climate crisis, resolve family issues etc. when we are ready to put the basic truth, structure, and facts honestly It is a sign that we are ready to receive the grace. Then, the prophesy is to enter into the breath of life. "O breath of life, come from every corner, breath upon the dry bones ..." What breaths more deeply into our death than the life in love. Love involves deliberate choices aiming at goodness ready to face the reality with truth. The breath comes with what we need the most; may be virtues for growth, courage, kindness and care. Breath fully into our deaths, and spread the breath over wherever death has its sign.

If freedom is to be real ...

If freedom is to be real, primarily we need to cultivate a cultural conscience that uphold the values that bring about freedom. If the members of the society are to commit themselves to fulfill their duties and responsibilities, it is essential that there is an environment that is free of any form of domination.

The power to make all to bend their knees and freedom of living with equality and justice cannot go together. Even now the incidents of 'distancing of the untouchables' and cleansing ceremonies after the 'low' people's presence do not speak of a free society that has a potential for growth. The preference of political intentions over the real matters that hinders the growth towards an integral development of the society as a whole cannot be seen as a real love for our land.

The concern over GenZ demands on various matters was the recent phenomenon the country witnessed. Their struggle, their needs, and approaches are not of the same kind; yet they all deserve attention and call for the dimension of true freedom. Perspectival conflicts mostly create a gap because the 'Baby Boomers' and the 'millennials' are applying their theories and values to the real life struggles the GenZ bring to the focus. It may be noticed that the responses were often political responses and criticisms rather than clearly studying or clarifying the matters raised. The required clarity includes policies, scientific explanations, failed tactics and reasons, newer possibilities and their potentials and challenges etc. The falling economies, destabilization of government systems and institutions, alarming climate emergencies will have their impacts globally and locally in various degrees. By dwelling on petty political interests parties are already failing a future that should be truly free.

What should freedom ensure today? We have wasted our time and energy in demonizing and cleansing of the past. We need to construct willfully a culture that can sustain us together, not the ways to solidify power. Such political orientation is a failed system if we look at the needs of the approaching time locally and globally. Should the freedom we uphold not keep alert on issues of clean water, air and safe food? Should all our children not have opportunity to study and rise to their potential? Does our freedom not include surety of trains running on time and not missing a connecting train? All these require cultivating a conscience, not just personal, but cultural and social.

Assumption

Mary was assumed into God's glory. We too may be, by God's mercy, assumed into the same glory. Every moment of grace transforms us into the image of Christ. It also shines with the beauty of its 'blessed fruit. '

Forgive! Why should I?

Though we may be ready to do any religious activities and we may be successful in doing them, it is hard for us to follow the call of Jesus to forgive. We might ask, “why this is done to me,” and we may be right in asking that because we bear real scars from the injustices and evils done to us. At times it might seem that God too has not been gracious to us that we could think of it and do likewise.

Forgiveness is a grace, because only grace can heal the pain we bear. Our anger may be right and justifiable, but it destroys us because it may become an obstacle to receive grace. It may breed hidden hatred and malign our interior nature. We might turn bitter and hard, and increases our pain.

Evil remains evil. It must be named, rejected, and condemned without compromise. But that individual or group is in need of our forgiveness. The pleading ‘give me time, I will repay you’ may not be there at all. Perhaps it is for us the need of time to forgive, but intention to forgive is a matter of now.

Forgiveness is an effort with grace. Let us make an effort to separate from what we are heavy with choosing not to seek revenge or cultivate the grievance. We surrender our demand for vengeance to God, allowing His grace to dissolve the emotional bitterness over time while preserving our own peace.

Who has to forgive? Nations, peoples, races … have to forgive. We know that injustices scale up into historical, structural, and collective memory. Just as in individual persons, unforgiven historical injuries like slavery, colonial exploitation, ethnic conflict, and displacement are passed down across generations as cultural trauma and inherited resentment. When we do not intend to forgive, past injuries become the foundation of our present identity. How sad is it that even nations prompt people to find their identities on the past injuries. This keeps whole societies frozen in defensive hostility. Always the one to be forgiven is not a needy but someone who possesses power and still continues to oppress. Here forgiveness means refusing to let past oppression dictate future relationships, allowing a people to define themselves by their dignity rather than their victimhood. When an oppressor holds power, the victim feels completely disempowered. Is forgiveness possible? We have a wounded saviour. His wounds were clear effect of injustice and violence. But through the same wounds grace and mercy flowed out. He transformed the marks of suffering into channels of divine life.

Dear friends, for today’s world, forgiveness is a great prophetic sign. If we have forgiven, we are telling the world that forgiveness is still possible. It is not compromise, nor allowing our victimhood. Forgiveness does not excuse evil or negate justice. By forgiving, we may experience an internal liberation from the pain we carry. Freed so, we reclaim our life. It is a resemblance of god’s mercy. As Ezekiel carried the bundle as a sign of the burden of exile. Every need for forgiveness carries such a bundle of a pain that is to be freed. When we forgive, the weight drops, and the burden of carrying past injustice is replaced by divine freedom.

Spoken in the name of the Lord

Among the guests of Herod, perhaps there was so much laughter and celebration, noise and cheer. On other side, the last groaning still may have had the voice crying out in the wilderness.

Jesus began his public ministry when he heard that John was arrested. After the death of John, Jesus began to point to his own cross. John was put to death, Jesus withdrew to a lonely place, he is moved with compassion to the people who followed him, and he feeds them. John’s martyrdom wasn’t just a tragic event; it was the prophetic preview of the Calvary path. The first reading takes up the radical call “he has spoken in the name of the Lord.”

Jeremiah states: “As for me, I am in your hands; do with me what you think is good and right.” it is total self-surrender rooted in absolute trust. By placing his life into the hands of a hostile court, Jeremiah strips his persecutors of their ultimate power over him. When a prophet surrenders completely to God, human threats lose their power. The primary implication for us is clear: to stand for the Lord, one must first die to self-preservation. Truth cannot be spoken faithfully if we are still negotiating for our own comfort, safety, or approval. In the case of John, it would have been far safer for him to remain silent on political morality. The correctness seems to belong to the powerful, but speaking ‘right’ means proclaiming truth even when it threatens comfort or survival.

To ensure we do right, we need to form our conscience rooted in God, truly on God. To speak or act in the name of the Lord is not simply invoking a pious formula or claiming God's endorsement for our own opinions. It is not a radical activism. Jeremiah doesn't claim personal authority. He listened to God, he was sure that: “The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and this city all the words you have heard.”False prophets may be powerful and popular, they may work miracles, but many may satisfy the religious, ideological, political crave of people. Only when the content and the spirit of the message align with divine justice, mercy, and truth, we actually speak in God’s name. True prophets speak what God commands, fully aware that the message might bring rejection, persecution, or death.

What about our prophetic living? We might mistake extreme asceticism, fanaticism, or separatist isolation for a true prophetic dimension, but these tendencies often center on the self rather than on God. When holiness is reduced to severe physical discipline or angry ideological zeal, religious pride quickly overshadows love, mercy, and God’s patient truth. True prophecy is never about retreating from the world to keep our lives pure. Rather than hiding behind walls of moral superiority, a prophet is called to step into the brokenness of humanity as an instrument of divine healing, light, and justice. If we dare to speak in the name of the Lord, we must know that truth has a cost. Speaking and doing right in the name of God will inevitably clash with systems built on self-interest, compromise, or pride.

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catholicity

 Catholicity may be better experienced when Christians are able to see the church beyond its 'visible boundaries.'

MAGA cult

A cult usually create a convenient deity for the group. It serves the intentions of the group, emotionally, (closed) culturally, and politically. Apparently everything is right and appealing. MAGA cult may be a matter of study and evaluation for all Christians, because in one way or the other, it has influenced their way of thinking about leadership, morality, perceptions on humanity and even the Christ and his kingdom. Perhaps we have conveniently forgotten the gospel for celebrating this cult.

Cult may have pleasing events and celebrations. 500 people reading the Bible together will be a great event. What if we do a great Bibiolatry event and donot follow the gospel? Is God glorified, or is a nation glorified? Worship is due for God, not for Bible, not for any glory of religion or nation, nor any concept of God.

Evil of war

The current debates among christians on war appear to tell that the politicised Christianity has no place for Christ or the values of the kingdom of God. Power and domination and business are its interest.

The entire world is not a Christian system. Yet the 'we only' christian expect the whole world to follow christian values while they themself downplay them. Evils do exist, they can be overcome only by good. Following a christ's path in dealing with evil is what is expected of Christian. Instead the path of violence and power, a dehumanising evil direction to deal with evil has no gospel logic. So war is a crime, a mortal sin, it cannot be justified.

salvation ~ Atomic power

Some Christians seem to believe that cross has failed to offer salvation; salvation and peace come from the nuclear deterrence. Strangely, this salvation is realized only when 'we' have  ammunitions and others are powerless, and when we have the dominating power. This peace and salvation is strange to the Gospel.

Just as there are evils, the structures that breed them are also to be 'sanctified.' Better, the Christians nurture a right conscience to introspect historically the structures of evil in the world, before canonizing the missile trade, invasions and dominations.

War is a MORTAL SIN

War is a MORTAL SIN.

For the Catholics, it may be a crucial time time to check on to their Christian conscience. We could go ahead with convenient moral interpretations on war. We cannot do it anymore. It is not about 'I am with Pope Leo,' or 'I am with Trump,' it is about how we perceive building of structures of greed, power, arrogance, supremacy, and willful hatred. Perhaps, we ourselves have been breeding it in different ways, but no more.

some weeks before, it was essential that Hormuz be open, because the vulnerable are affected across the globe. Now the Hormuz is going to be blocked for all nations putting pressure on all the globe. where is the concern for the vulnerable now?

In the kingdom of God there is no specially chosen people; all are the children of God. There is no elite holy people who can demonise others and justify their violence.

Of course, "God hears the cry of those who fight evil," not of those having evil intentions and killing whom they identify to be 'evil' and cover up their own Killing as holy acts. Ultimately God desires good of all, not behaving like a mad goon.

Your GOD is too small, if you have to take God's name to cover up your madness, pride and greed.

The christ's being handed over to the hands of the wicked men calls us to identify the innocent humanity being handed over to war and violence (even by ideology ) by their very leaders. Whether it be 'Iran,' 'Israel,' 'Lebanon,' 'Iraq', 'Syria,' we have them in relation to the choices of their leaders. Leaders do not carry the human heart of their own people. Even the biblical prophets criticised Jerusalem for its exclusive elite belief of their arrogance and cruelty connected to the 'chosen' aspect. whether it be in the church or in Israel it intrinsically deny god's being with us. If the christian prayers do no have the heart of christ, and carry the inclusive nature of the church, christianity is just an "obscure collection of weird cultists." How can one pray for the strength to kill and rage war if one has a spirit of christ. how can one offer tithe for the expenses of killing people? Their Christ is only an idol they themselves have conveniently created.

'Israel' no more seems to represent a covenant with God. The leaders and the estranging ideologies some of them carry do not have the refelction of Yahwey-elohim who is compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love. Any one who uses 'Israel' in prayer may immediately connect to the present images of it because that is just in front of us. It is a liturgical trauma to many to have the name when that contradicts what the prayer means.

Expansion of territories, invading, has only spirit of greed and arrogance, and pride is a necessary function in that system.

Do We Trap God in Our Laws

The Scribes and Pharisees in the gospel passages were not villains in their society; they were the guardians of ​the identity of their religion and society. They emerged into the​ir strictest form when they saw there was an apparent crisis of their faith and traditions.

Let’s imagine we have got a Dr’s prescription. It may have suggestions on what to do and what not to do, and which medicine to take and how. That is wonderful. This is wonderful—so wonderful, in fact, that we decide to laminate it, frame it, and place it in a golden box. We carry it around, garland it, and offer it incense. This is precisely what the Pharisees were doing.

To prevent breaking any of the Commandments, the Scribes created many fences, many subsidiary regulations, that would protect them. Though well-intended, these often overshadowed the original intention. While the goal was the life and holiness of the people, the result was merely the preservation of the holiness and honor of the Law itself. The written code of law was seen to be the Law of God that would possess ​the entire heart of God.

Jesus criticised the self-centred, hypocritical, and politically motivated interpretation of the law. It deprived many of their dignity as the children of god. In a shame-honor culture, public adherence to the minute forms of laws had become a source of social capital. They were prove​n righteous and honored in society. Such perfect following was demanded of all if they were to be worthy of God’s reward. Under the retributive ethics and theology​, these well-defined the merit of the privileged and the misery of the vulnerable. The holy ones exercised power over the sinners. They used the Law to create hierarchy rather than holiness. Jesus’ strong critique​, “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites…” was not a punishment or curse but a disaster they themselves have caused upon them​selves by the very adaptation of the law.

The privilege of having the law also offered a guaranteed possession of ‘the way, truth and life.’ So, the New Testament approach ​to finding the incapacity of the law to offer life points to Christ as the way truth and​ the life. There was a serious mistake in identifying the Law as the Logos itself. We must move from Torah-centrism to Logos-centrism. Jesus’ saying, “I have come to fulfil the law” does not mean that he was the one who did everything in its perfect way. “I know the father, I have come to do the will of the father, the father has sent me…” are to be seen as the key for understanding his mode of fulfilling the law.

Jesus repeatedly says, “You have heard it said... but I say to you.” He is not the lawgiver like Moses, he is not an interpreter like the scribes, but he is the law in whom we can see the will of God. He is the path we need to walk, he is the truth of the scriptures, moral values and our very lives, he is the life that we ultimately desire. His drawing on the law was not on ethical perspectives on honour for parents, adultery, lies, and murder, he reorients the very first commandment ‘I am the Lord your God’ as a law-bound legislator to a Father. Ways of honouring God in the temple or in the public sphere, the sabbath etc receives the content of life from the relationship to the Father. There the reward cannot be self-centred, hypocrisy cannot work, and there cannot be any power game. Because all are the children of one Father. His choice of healing on the sabbath was to break the fences the law had created.

When Jesus says your righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees, he calls us to be away from self-honouring legalism and grow into the freedom of the children of God. The law had been a guardian or a tutor (Galatians 3:24), but they had made it God. Understanding Christ as the law is the ‘Law of the Spirit of Life’ (Romans 8:2).

Anytime we believe that strict following of the law is like a ladder to go up to God there is a failure. We expect to climb the ladder to bridge the gap to the Divine through our own effort, turning salvation into a wage earned rather than a gift received. It again centres to ourselves, making God a debtor to our goodness and our faithful fulfilling of the law. The call is not just to mimic Jesus but to participate in his life. The ‘Law of Christ’ is not being a good individual, it is being in Him, it is living the beatitudes of the kingdom. We desire and make effort to do it, and grace completes what we are not able to do by our own.

The nature of Christ in us is essentially openness to life and freedom. When someone acts for the good of the other, by working for social justice, by voicing for the marginalized, offering silent forgiveness to an enemy, comforting those in shame, or practicing hospitality to the vulnerable. Its not because one sees them as commanded by God as a condition that God will give a blessing in return. They are expressing the life of Christ that naturally lives for the life of the other. If we can ask, “What does the Love of Christ require in this specific moment?” our attention changes from rigid compliance to active discernment. It is true that we seek intellectual and emotional and even spiritual comforts in definitions. While being lawful is often reduced to adhering to definitions of faith and morals, Christ liberates us into a process of discernment led by grace. Ultimately the practical living of Christ the law is done by self-emptying love. Yet we live in a tension. We are perfected in Christ, yet still struggling through our own gracelessness. So, our life is a constant returning to the union with Christ.

Blessedness of emptiness

 We live in a time of empty realities. Many of us feel like a modern-day remnant, just left out. The Babylonians once took the useful, the scholars, the priests, the craftsmen and the smiths the best who can contribute to the economic powers are chosen and the unskilled and the ordinary just live to survive, Many feel discarded by technology or shifting economies. We are told our value lies in our utility, our skills, or our bank accounts.

If we listen to Christ today, are we among who hear his voice as ‘Blessed are you!’ the very first Gospel moment begins with the greeting of the angel to Mary ‘Blessed are you,’ Jesus in his first sermon at Nazareth announced the time of God’s blessedness. Jesus looks at the very people the world ignores - the hungry, the weeping, the merciful and says, ‘Blessed are you.’  

Using passage from Isaiah 61 he opened the kingdom first to the poor. “The Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor...” (Is 61:1) “Blessed are the poor theirs is the kingdom of God.” The anointing to preach good news is “...to comfort all who mourn ... to give them a garland instead of ashes.” (Is 61:2-3) “Blessed are those who mourn, they will be comforted.” Isiah cried out calling all to the richness of God’s grace “…, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters... why spend money for that which is not bread?” (Is 55:1-2) “Blessed are those who hunger.. they shall be satisfied.” In the ancient world, inheriting the land was for the strong and the military conquerors. Prophetic promise is that the land (and the world) ultimately belongs to the non-violent, not the conquerors.  Zephaniah focuses on the remnant who were meek and useless. “But I will leave within you the meek and humble, who trust in the name of the Lord... They will eat and lie down and no one will make them afraid.” (Zephaniah 3:12-13) Psalm 37:11 is the foundation for the Beatitude “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

To ‘see God’ was the ultimate goal of the pilgrims. They would sing on the way: “Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? ... The one who has clean hands and a pure heart... They will receive blessing from the Lord.” (Psalm 24:3-5) “Blessed are the pure hearted for they shall see God.” From many passages we know that the prophets were obsessed with the idea that God prefers mercy over sacrifice. “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.” (Hosea 6:6) To be merciful is to reflect the very character of God’s steadfast love. Peace in the prophetic sense isn’t just the absence of war; it is the presence of integrity. “The righteous who walks in his integrity - blessed are his children after him!” Proverbs 20:7 (Micah 4:3 / Isaiah 2:4). Peace descends not only on them, but also upon their children. In the Roman world, the Emperor was the ‘Son of God’ because he brought peace through war conquest. By calling peacemakers ‘sons of God,’ Jesus gives them a divine title. Jesus claims that those who bring peace through reconciliation are the true children of God.

The Beatitudes are real when we desire and actualize God’s will in our lives. This blessedness isn’t a promise of future riches; it’s an invitation to realize that God’s favor is currently resting on the very people society ignores. For generations, many considered prophetic hope as a pie in the sky comfort, something that may happen in the afterlife. But in the person of Jesus, ‘it has come already.’ The healing of the broken-hearted is a current event. We no longer look past our tears toward a far distant shore; instead, we look into the face of the One who stands among us.

Jesus does not just comfort and heal those who walk in the valley of death; He identifies the Kingdom with them. Blessedness of the kingdom is with them and within them. The experience of the kingdom is also personified in Jesus. He is the living fulfillment of the promises He preached, being in our midst to offer Himself as the answer to our deepest needs, “I am the bread, I will give you rest, why are you afraid, do not weep, and finally abide with me….”

Each promise (comfort, mercy, the land) is coupled with a clear emptiness (mourning, hunger, or poverty). This is a call for the mutual building of the Kingdom, a participation in God’s work. We extend our hands to the poor, share our bread to the hungry, comfort those who mourn, stand with those hunger for justice, make efforts for peace-making, … Just as Isaiah says the comforted mourners will in turn become ‘Oaks of Righteousness’ who rebuild the ruins, the experience of the Beatitudes call a people to move from being the recipients of the promise to the agents of it.

However, in our world today, many face a new deportation, forced to move away from their homelands. Even the ‘skilled’ who survived the early wave of change now ‘hunger and thirst for justice’ as job security vanishes. We are a world of people living in a ‘nowhere land’ of digital gig work and agricultural decline. There is a powerful system that values them only for their immediate utility. Here the useless and the humble and meek never own the land. They are moved to the margins with beautiful policies of minimum wages. We are met with empty realities, and we carry it home without being satisfied.

If the agricultural sector fails and technology leaves us empty, gathering together as the people of God, our communities and simple social structures need to reflect the reality of the beatitudes where ‘righteousness and peace kiss each other’ (Psalm 85:10). Our current empty realities may then be transformed into a poverty of spirit required for the Kingdom to break through.

Therefore, let us not be disappointed of your emptiness. In our age however rich or poor we are or however holy or sinful we are, in the eyes of the Master; we can be recognised as the poor of Yahwey – the very ones upon whom the Kingdom is built. Because we all carry an empty reality. Let us not carry our 'nowhere land' in despair. Instead, let us come to Him, let us go out as Oaks of Righteousness to comfort those who are still in despair. May our integrity be our peace, and may the blessing that rested on Mary and the prophets rest upon us and our children.