Scientific Progress, Spirituality, and the Devil

Energy, field, magnetism, consciousness etc., are not words that we hear just in the area of science, but they are very much used in spiritual discourses today. Spiritual narratives often blame science that it has not yet arrived at the true meaning of these terms.

It is at the same time scientific progress and technological advancement boast of knowledge and rationality, we also see the extreme form of religiosity and most absurd forms of superstitions. The phenomenon is not new. 

We know that any social or cultural change bring a struggle till the system gradually adapts to it. It is not an apparent harm that threatens, but it is the whole question of placing ourselves somewhere in the 'new' world (eg., industrial world or computer age today). The feeling of insecurity and existential perplexity form a sense of displacement from the living reality. The question of uncertainty and inability to adjust to a new situation make a feeling of a suspicious presence in the world which alters the normal or traditional patterns. It is also the time a fascination to narrations involving devils and multiple forms of witchcraft begin to rise. Because, the calculations and patterns in magic seem to parallel the scientific rationale. The devil and the vampires give a personified figure to our own fears and shattered self.

Time  to time we have historical contexts when the human capacities find helpless, and cannot even name what really happens (it could be some phenomena, or cultural conflicts of values, morals and systems). This unnamable and undesired reality may appear in various forms according to different contexts. We seem to have 'identified' the source when we blame it on the 'devil.' But what happens here is that we escape from our responsibility to 'identify' the human, socio-cultural dimensions that create the situation.

God, society, and grace together need to approach these patterns of the 'devil.' Only a mature faithful community can stand against the apparent crisis it faces. Instead, manipulative leaders tend to form a pseudo religiosity and false images of spirituality. They might interpret the crisis in a very meaningful manner, but cannot solve because they often do not attempt to understand it other than describing them in their own fictitious forms of  palatable beliefs. We might attempt to condemn and expel the devil, but at the same time within the frames of pseudo-religiosity we chain ourselves to 'good' magic which are easy tools to escape the crisis.

Only in ways we can find an encounter between ourselves and God in the new phase of cultural and social changes, we gracefully face the newness (apparently a crisis). Until then we wander chasing and cursing the devil.

What is suggested here is to analyse our times and changes with the tools of history and cultural hermeneutics. Then, we can spiritualise them in our approach of the issue in a life of grace.

It may be interesting to do a brief study on the witchcraft in early modern Europe, witch hunting, and we will be surprised to know that it was more related to immature ways of religion to deal with the then 'scientific' language and method and religious adaptation.
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Please see also Romanticising the Demons

Why did I Pay When It Was Free? Are we in a (religious) super market?

Shopping gradually becomes a data driven decision making. Companies analyse our interests, expectations, preferences etc. 

Does religion become such marketisation? 

How do the Malls attract people so do the Hero prophetism..

Window-shopping, cafeteria, flash-mobs, make a try ...

Are there parallels?

Mind it, there is no exchange offer nor replacement in religious market. While the time one realises the product is not worth, the vendors will have disappeared. 

Though the longing could take different faces, the worth thing that one looks for in a human journey is a life with God. Before someone could analyse our data, let us try to understand it fully, or get help of someone who could genuinely help us to do it. Remember at the sales counter they told us that we must buy 'it' and we bought what they said to be the best. Instead we are left with bags of sparkling wrappers. Did that make our journey well? 

If we have not made our choices well, and chose to believe what fascinated us, we are carrying broken pots. Shocking it is that we take pride in these pots we carry. Sometime we decorate it, some time we dance around it, and sometime we worship it. 

Instead of doing a data analysis and making 'itself' applicable, if religions could understand the human situation in cultural and social changes, we could see the signs where god was part of the journey.

But, how could we believe when they said we must 'spend' for it? The thing that we really needed would be 'given' to us if we knew who we were! 

Imagine the payment methods we tried ........

Owner was very happy, big crowd in the shop and lot of money

the manager has applied some crowd pulling strategies...

Owner was shocked another day, the shop is empty

people found that they were given cheap products, they just neglected the shop.

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Perhaps we have believed hero prophets without any reflection. 

Did they connect us with God, or ordered do's and don'ts that favours the god imageries they presented?

Did we search for what was worth, or stopped our search when we were given 'wonderful' offers?

If we realise we made wrong choice, why don't we dare to make the real choice, breaking our bonds with powerful pillars of the Malls, because it is not about finance, it is the worth of our life.

If these things were not appealing, let us just think that the above things are about others, not the prophets whom we might like. But let us also reflect, what is the usual emphasis our preferred prophet make?

A Malayalam version വിശ്വാസിയോ ആത്മീയ ഉപഭോക്താവോ?

Paid for Work, not for Life and Sacrifice

When we are in a in a business company or a corporate hospital, it is wise to recognise the impersonal and inhuman expectations . Prudence suggests that we do just what we are to do when it is a business system. We might develop a false humility where actually it may be a slavish submission from a situation where one feels 'no escape,' or helplessness. Business pays for our work, not for our life and sacrifice. We may be doing all good works for other people, even doing the works of others. Actually what we deny there is our own due for rest and leisure. Unless wisely we make sure of these, no system will ensure them for us. We need to do justice to ourselves too. Avoidance of it is not a sacrifice, but negligence.

As we deal with persons, a patient, colleague, or an assistant, as persons surely a human response is due.

Regathering the Church to a Newer Innocence?

Just as a person, a society and a community also face changes, and undergo changes. There is a struggle to survive, but the real struggle is how well one adapts to the change, often a rapid change. Though it is natural for us to try to maintain a system as it is, the preservation is really possible only if we are ready to adapt ourselves to a new situation. It is also essential to attend to the wear and tear with sufficient care. The fittest is not the mightiest, but the fittest is the one adapts in the best manner.

As we place ourselves into the new situation, the first thing to do at the face of a challenging change is to develop an openness with prudent evaluation, instead of a blind resistance. It is normal to struggle even in the process of adaptation, but here the resistance is productive, open to change, and learning the content of the change faced i.e. what a change actually involves.

A community that feels of itself as the mightiest might proceed to have a self-defence, resist or totally neglect the change, and get neglected in the course of time. The resistance is because we may be overconfident that we might withstand the change, or we want to tie ourselves in our comfort-zones. Sometime the comfort-zone may be formed by our views or given definitions. We might give selective attention only to such information that confirm our preferred views. We might also engage in unfruitful arguments to defend our views, because we may be identifying ourselves or the system to that preferred view, and think that the whole structure stands on this particular view. When we lack a wider vision and its value we might feel that the change is threatening the very identity of the system, society or the community. The sense of threat will find every reason to see only undesirable consequences.  As part of a blind defence we go on self-justifying as though everything is good and everyone is happy. It is self-destructive. The sense of threat may also alarm us about a loss of power, autonomy and control. 

As a body, the Church also faces changes, sociopolitical, economic and ideological changes. The cultural changes that have come in recent centuries have influenced basic structures of society, family, and communities. It does the same to the church and asks for response. A reflection needs to begin with how well we were able to understand the changes, more than moral judgements how the changes are going out of the conventional ways. It is not wise to be blind to the social and political phenomena around. They raise challenges, but not necessarily always threat, it could be a call too. Our difficulty is to allow a change from what is familiar, and so convenient.

If we want to place the church in a new situation we also need to develop an openness with prudent evaluation and prayerfulness. It is not wise to apply an eternality to the patterns of approach and structures of the church. They must undergo change, and these changes do not essentially deform the church. But, we have our definitions of our belief systems, customs, power structure etc. which are playing a role of comfort-zone. Many find comfort in being in the same, and train others to find comfort in them by identifying themselves and the church itself to those definitions and customs. If we are in this condition we might prefer to give attention only to those things which go in line with the elements we have identified to be the essence of faith as there are resistance and conflicts in the society when a change happens. Without even understanding what the change calls for, we might begin to defend our traditions, customs, and practices unfortunately at times without acknowledging that these themselves had developed as a part of change.

Wisdom must guide us to discern whether the desired change, and the modalities we use to bring this change about will result a creative reformation or demolition. Wisdom also calls for prudent ways of restructuring the church; not only because the changes in time demand it but they call the church to be true to itself. Change has to happen in our approaches and structures, but without forgetting that the building blocks are we, the persons. We can risk the system not the persons, the system is for the well-being of persons within the community. The elements above we have feared to lose are in fact means to support the system, not the ends, whether they were belief systems, customs, structures, power, authority etc. Perhaps they were wrongly identified as the end, or the system became too much dependent on the means losing the sight of real ends. Certain pattern of customs or beliefs in a particular time of history may have also been wrongly recognised as the very essence of the system. It can also happen that we might appreciate novelty and creativity without purpose. Most of these means tie us in good sensations but not letting us reach the end.

Many may be ready to invest human and monetary resources too, but only wisdom, discernment, and prayerfulness will help us to identifying faithful builders and fruitful plans, failure of which may result in the destruction of the very nature of the church. Many plans and offers may be available, modern, authentic, spiritual, traditional, relevant, appealing, …yet they cannot do the re-forming because they are within their narrow frames. But the humanity of goodness and compassion, the people of good will, regather our scattered conscience, thus a new innocence.

Does society find the church to be the symbol of punishable conscience of the society itself?

Has the church been blind and unaffected by the changes, remained in self-justification, condemning all ‘sinners’? Have those righteous claims shown itself hypocritical? Being humbled, the church may regather itself to a newer form of innocence by the help of God.

Similarly, does the society act a self-righteous role, condemning the church to be the worst sinner? The condemnation of evil is justifiable, but it hopefully touches the conscience of the society too, in dealing with evils and corruptions. Otherwise the righteous claim of the society that condemned the church will prove itself hypocritical.

Christ Walks with the New Gen: What do they search, can Jesus walk with them?

No excitement to go home? Perhaps, motels were shown to be home!

The New Gen wants to be free, celebrating, enjoying food and drinks, and dancing. At times they are left alone, without knowing what to do. Sometime they overwork, and sometime they oversleep. Their trends also involve complexities, struggles and questions. There are also many value providers, and so they live within many forms of value-conflicts. They have questions, because different contexts do make believing difficult. Therefore, they question. There are also entertainments in different forms, sports, adventure, puzzles etc. as to meet their stress patterns. They want to know how their faith can meaningfully be brought to their multi-directional life pattern. When one struggles to live amidst one’s questions and anxieties, how does faith make a difference?

Pope Francis said that one who does not ask questions cannot progress either in knowledge or in faith. Situation of being in questions and doubts is a call to deepen one’s faith through sincere enquiry.

Presence of a Walking Companion

Often what we hear are some moral demands when faced with conflicts.  Even in the midst of complexities one is not looking towards faith only for solutions, but a living presence, that accompanies. The process of acquiring faith is not aimed at a clarity of a piece of knowledge, but it is a journey to realise the presence of the constant living companion, Christ. It is a presence to be within our moments of pain or happiness, moments of active response or dead silence. We know that we are placed in a context of rapid changes and flash mob culture. God does not distance himself from this new situation. His voice, the Word is not pinned somewhere in the past, He is a walking companion, to whom we can belong to, and find at home.  It is hard to identify the voice of God amidst and within loud noise and metal music.  Yet, He does reveal within them.  Faith that we cultivate today needs to emerge in such a way that it might be able to recognise God’s response to our inward cry.

Being Loved

Where we find ourselves rejected and racing strangers, how could we recognise this voice as of love worthy of trust. Sometimes their fragmented relations develop within them an inability to trust. If we are able to realize the presence of the accompanying presence, we also will begin to trust that presence. There one may find the growing experience of being loved, and develop a courage to trust; a courage to be loved against all trust-wounds of unnamed emptiness. There we have an experience of being loved, being accepted, being forgiven, a real home where we can be confidently ourselves. Though within the complexities of life there resounds a voice of ineffable love, “here is my beloved... in whom I am well pleased” (Mt 3:17)

Knowing Our Home

In this process as we gradually develop a heart that has a courage to live, because it has experienced that it has been loved by an everlasting love. This experience opens before us not only the picture of our own life but the meaning of our being in the world. This response differs from a political reaction to a social issue because we are guided by the peace given to us in the affirmation of love not arrogance, and we are guided by hope not anxiety. Perhaps our efforts may be a reaction to some of our own hurts and pain in a provoking conducive occasion. It may further bring hurt rather than healing, though apparently, we worked for justice, peace, and harmony. It is that love which opens itself for justice, harmony and peace. Our stand for justice, harmony and peace would be guided by the sense of belonging the accompanying presence which makes a home to dwell in.

Faith is not a clear definition, it is the trust in a love that absorbs us, and a response to that trust in courage to meet the living situations and its cries with the same love that one has experienced. For the sake of this home experience, a responsible relationship, all other things are formed, the church systems, rites, liturgy, devotions, morals, beliefs and customs… Within themselves they are only facilitating agents.  If these becomes end in themselves, we lose what was really essential, and the above agents will become mere empty vessels, irrelevant and insignificant. That is why the New Gen continue to wander on the way. The New Gen longs to belong, wants to find a love worthy of trust, wants also to find themselves worthy of trust, wants to build a courage to love, looks for opportunities to do deeds of goodness and compassion.

Mary Treasured all (these) things…Seeing Every Moment with a Presence Worthy of Worship

Mary treasured all these things and pondered in her heart 

If Mary is to be seen full of grace from the moment of her conception according to our faith, in her there is also a new creation. In her there was fulness of grace; there was nothing that resisted to the grace of God. 

Every moment of her life also can be seen as moments of encounter with grace, moments worthy to be treasured. Mary treasured all these things and pondered in her heart. This pondering was not seeking meaning for what was happening in trying to understand them. Her pondering was nor a pious emotional submission in nothingness and unworthiness. In pondering, she found something treasurable; she found something worth and valuable. 

She found every event as something worthy of divine presence, an encounter of grace. In every moment there is a worshipful presence. If she was granted the special privilege to be full of grace that was the fist experience she found worth pondering. 

Grace works in us dynamically and progressively, we need to respond to it with openness and patience. Every moment opens the doors of grace. Can we open ourselves to make that a moment of encounter with grace to make it a treasurable presence of God? Let us make this path worthy of worship. Some important treasurable experience we need to encounter come to light here. We may not find in us the fullness of grace and total openness to the Holy Spirit. It is a grace experience to be conscious of the fact that “I am found by God.” It takes us into further affirmations as, “I am found something worth, I am accepted, I am loved, …” These are worthy of being valued, because I am treasured and found valuable without any condition. This is what gradually heals our person, and builds a character that would be mature enough to say ‘yes’ to God when asked for a specific commitment. 

A mere meditative attempt may not form this character, because it is interactive encounters that form our character. Shall we not begin with our own treasures, the very human experiences?  Experiencing such moments open the doors of divine graces too. They are moments of trust, love, acceptance, welcome, sacrifice and pain. The need to offer such human experiences also cannot be neglected. They are the grace channels we are immediately in touch with. Treasure is here! They are the moments we find a worshipful presence of God. They are indeed there.

It is then, that we are able to give an open eye to the wonderful presence of God in every moment, to cherish and treasure those moments with a presence worthy of worship, and to place our trust in God in varied situations and responsibilities. Is that not what we mean by 'giving first place for God', or 'loving God above all things'?

Religion has a market value, not the Gospel

Market churns the world.

There, "to bring good news to the poor,
to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set the downtrodden free" are not of any market value.

So to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour for the poorly spirited would face the resistance of the global market.

Love has not dried, justice has not died, freedom and truth are not evaporated from human longing.
But they are choked within the forces of money and power.

Anything 'spiritual' is not spiritual, the words have economic and political intent within. Who knows we already belong to a parallel church in our adherence to certain views and spiritual trends? Many seem sharing such views due to their camouflaged form of orthodoxy to faith, and fidelity to catholic traditions. What underlie are capitalist business interests.
Such interests may promote a religious culture, because they need political power for better market. Unknowingly we often mistake this religious culture to be our fidelity to faith.

What we need is faith,
to hear the voice of the call within, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me to bring good news to the poorly spirited.

Devotions: Well springs or/and Broken Jars

By the term ‘devotions’ we commonly understand those external practices of piety by which our faith finds life and expression. We have pilgrimages, novenas, processions and celebrations in honour of Mary and other saints, the Rosary, the Angelus, the Stations of the Cross, the veneration of relics, and the use of sacramentals. In many ways devotions give an opportunity to give praise and worship to God. They are occasions where we find joy (so we praise), and peace (so we worship) in the experience of the presence of God. We have used a variety of practices as means of flavouring everyday life with prayer to God.  

Blending of Our Life and the Life of Jesus
By the practice of devotions, we aim at a deeper nearness of God in our everyday lives, and all the more conform us closely to Christ so that we can contemplate the mysteries of human and divine natures of Christ in our own life situations. Through the pious activities we involve our human realities after the living presence of Jesus, mostly through the models and examples of the saints and imitating their virtues etc. These involve also an invitation to follow the example of pious persons who are venerated in a particular occasion.

To enjoy the fruitfulness of any devotional practice, primarily they are to make us aware of the relationship that the Gospels suggest, a belongingness to God as Children. In this sense, we are yet to discover the heart of various devotions in the light of Scripture, in harmony with the Liturgy, and in the context of our daily lives. According to nature and modality of devotions, they can provide a deep experience of the attributes of God: fatherhood, providence, loving and constant presence. In response to them we experience childhood, gratitude, belongingness, commitment and reverence. They generate within us interior attitudes such as patience, meaning of the Cross in daily life, detachment, openness to others, . . .. So, when it is well oriented, devotions help us to touch the reality of the living presence of God in Christ. Having said these, we need to look into the fact whether they are mere practices that are expected to produce effects, or they help us to grow a relationship with God who can provide what we need, may be through the instrumentality of the very things we do or use. In all these, devotions ask for a wholehearted trust in God without which they become an empty ritual, and so even have the potential to become idols. 

Distortion of Devotions

We can notice that there is a strong appeal which they make to emotional instincts. Devotions are in simple form of practice so that they are within the reach of all. They also bring people together both in devout practices and in common good works. These make devotions meaningful and sensible means of living presence of Christ. Unfortunately, the purpose of devotions can be easily distorted according to petty likes and fancies, and is often subject to superstitions. It is a subtle difference between devotion and superstition. The whole matter is whether we receive a sense of trust growing in us, find confidence in God, feel a growing courage to live our life. In contrast if we see the orientation of pious practices is for favours, and focus is on the 'miraculous objects, prayers, and practices' it potentially become superstitions. Because there is a fear element hiding, and we trust on these rather than God though we are calling out God in all these. Often the emphasis on the necessity of specific devotions and practices are at the manipulation of human emotions of fear, insecurity, uncertainty and so on. It may be serving benefits, but at the close examination it might be emotional fulfilment. It can even lead to creation of sects, and endanger the true ecclesial community.

Many sets of prayers seem to create a sense of insecurity and fear rather than confidence and trust in God. Though prayer is made for protection and deliverance in the name of Christ, people are often filled with more of suspicion and doubt that they are facing devils all around.  Sometime the honoring of the saints, use of the verses of the Scripture etc turn out to be in an expectation of magical effect. The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that "Superstition is the deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition" (CCC 2111).Without the faith dimension no devotion receives a Christian nature. The favors received is not because of the power of the statues or a medal, but because in what they signify, they connect us with relationship with God. We should be able to make a distinction between the cult of the saints and the devotion of saints in relation to faith in Christ. The cults find their ends in themselves.

In general, acts and beliefs that people practice as to manipulate the divine power for specific gainful purposes are always condemned as contrary to Catholic devotional practices. Various unapproved acts such as the promotion of chain letters that contain prayers have been discouraged as non-pious, superstitious and against Catholic values. There is nothing wrong if we share a beautiful prayer, or a reminder of a feast day, or a request for prayers for a specific need. But a message or a picture that that asks us to say it for a number of times, send to a number of people, is not from God. Or, there may be 'prayer initiatives,' "we have started a prayer campaign to reach to ... number of people." When we yield to such 'spiritual' message with a supernatural overtone, we have actually reduced the truth of that prayer, or saint, or ever the Blessed Mother, and falsely represented what and how of true faith. There is actually no basis for such practice other than preference or personal liking of some.  Even devotions worthy of high value, like rosary and adoration, loses its value and take a binding nature when they are given a chain form (chain rosaries, chain adorations …). What is really important is that we pray sincerely, not the number, specific time, or the unbrokenness etc. If it is on the Lord's saying, ‘pray unceasingly’ it says about perseverance in prayer, not about unbrokenness in relation to time. Perseverance also involves our surrender, petition, patient waiting, and gratitude. What counts is our attitude of sincerity and humility, intensity and earnestness.

Idols that We Form

Dependent on the distorted devotions we also have distorted image of God. God is treated as a Chocolate baby when we think that God is happy when we do lot of things for him, prayer-doings, sacrifice-doings, … just as a child is happy when it is given chocolate and when someone entertains it. God may be approached as a Bank. As we invest more God will reward with blessings. We must increase the number of prayers, kinds of works…, otherwise God will not bless. It gives an image of a God whom we can condition, or one who pays for the work one has done. Similarly, God may be seen as paying our salaries for the works we have done. We also see God as a problem solver. We approach God when there is a problem. The novena, other practices are done for the sake of solving problems. God is loving compassionate, and affectionate like a mother. But at times, when we feel God becomes very lenient if we take up extra pain and suffering, we develop an attitude as a child who takes advantage of a sympathetic mother who runs close to the child when it is hurt. All the worse if we feel that God is happy when we take up pain in his name. We need to rethink about the attitude behind our sacrifices. Sacrifices demanded and interpreted to be for the glory of God are at times for someone's whims and fancies; for number and achievements. It becomes a matter of injustice when spiritual leaders exploit people’s faith making them dependent in the name of sacrifice and commitment for the Lord, but actually getting their own works done.

Destroy the Petty Idols

We do have strong emotional appeal in devotions: invocation for God’s help in the time of need, even a moment of crisis, we might place our complaints, we feel protection and security and hope that our prayers may be granted. They are genuine, and part of a true prayer. But in doing all these, they must be based on a form of trust because we recollect the promise of God, “I am with you.” Use of devotions devoid of this trust and awareness of this promise can turn out to be an opium, a self-consolation onto which we gradually become dependent (it may be true in cases when some become dependent on retreats and some retreat centres). The very forms of devotions, when used for mere satisfaction of needs, perhaps are made mere idols. However pious and deep sensational they are, no devotion, no spirituality promotes a proper attitude if they do not keep up the freedom of the children of God.

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For a Malayalam version of it please see ഭക്തിയും, വഴിയറിയാത്ത വിളക്കും

N.B. if you could check how 'pyramid schemes' and 'chain letters' function, you could see the parallel models in some suggested spiritual practices.

Holiness: An Outcome of a Lived Trust in God

If we eat good food, enjoying at-homeness, there is a special taste, and we grow healthy. Holiness is something like that. It is the wellbeing, the shining sign that testifies the life quality. Holiness is not a ‘condition’ in order to receive graces from God. It is an outcome of a lived trust in God. 

Parents feed their children, and children happily eat what is given. ‘What is given’ is not doubted on, there is freedom because there is a sense of belonging. There is a calmness if we can feel at home, until then we are restless. Peace is the seed ground for holiness. Peace itself is an outcome of an attitude of trust and gratitude. Striving for holiness necessitates our ability to trust.

Developing trust needs an effort because it is not easy to trust. Many ways this trust deficit is present in us, and so we often miss the experience of at-homeness with ourselves, and God. Signs of our lack of at-homeness may be the unresolved feelings of hurt, sorrow, insecurity, lack of affirmation etc. They remain as obstacles to the development of trust, and so also to the growth in holiness. To mention them as ‘unresolved’ is important when we find them really obstacles. If we have grown in confidence and trust, that itself is a reason that we open our ways to resolve the injuries, fears, sorrows, loneliness etc. We need to meet them and communicate to them gracefully.

Being able to trust is what we are reflecting on, even without knowing in whom or what to trust. We might need a genuine introspection. Without this learning, the taste of trust, we cannot trust God too. Our believing, ‘trusting’ in God and so on could be at times merely an emotional dependency because of which our praying and doing good remain only ‘doings’. A religious person who prays a lot or a dynamic person who does a lot does not necessarily experience holiness. 

How much have we entered peacefulness in our prayers and actions beyond of a satisfaction of being quiet for sometime or of having done a duty? Beyond morals and devotional practices we need a deeper emphasis on a learning to trust, and to develop responsible relationship. Primarily it involves our very person not a spirituality. Fascinating illusory presentations of spirituality has rather damaged our paths to holiness. They may have offered a festal celebration, mesmerising dramatic skills, but have rarely given any formative guidance to live a human life after the example of Christ. 

Instead, trust affirms a presence, a presence consoling, healing and strengthening. Then it gradually grows. As the roots go deeper, our sense of belonging also get deeper and find worth of our life, faith and of being with God. It is healthy and fruitful, and the joy shines out. Holiness is that life quality, not a condition.

Going for Retreat? Home is the Best Place

The Crucified continues to speak:

"Here is your mother, here is your father."

We have known them for years, but it is good to watch them lovingly (may be their character is folly and body has ailments), and say at our heart tenderly, "this is my father, this is my mother." We might regain the whole purpose of life and meaning of existence from this experience. It is a sense that we are worthy of an existence.

There, not only that we accept them,but we are also made aware that we are children. At times we tend to be rulers and victors. Awareness of being children will put us in right place. It will also help us to be better members of a community or church. Realising oneself as one among the children we will have better priesthood also. We must go, not to retreat centres for renewal, but it is to our own homes. There we might learn to be children once again. Stop glorifying and romanticising priesthood as kingship. Priesthood is only one of the seven sacraments, and it is only one of the ministries in the church. 

Formation to be a leader is important but the sense of being member of a family or community is essential.

Walk to the crucified, there is a family 

Walk to Bethlehem, there is a family.

Attention and reflection is what is required. Making an effort to identify the accompanying presence of God within the places of our daily living will be a liveable experience along with the grace of God. it is there we struggle, we celebrate, we are tempted, and we long for a presence. Home makes us revisit our life with memories of events.
Retreat is not recharging or refuelling, it is really to put ourselves face to face with our self, where we could see the face of Christ.It is a reciprocal revelation. As we see more and more clearly about our own life, we also will see the presence of Christ accompanying us. Similarly as we face Christ, we also will realise the mysteries of our own lives.

How Personal is Personal Prayer?

We must pray, for ourselves and for others. We must pray together, if possible being physically together. If it is not possible? The early church prayed in one heart and mind. It is obvious they were together also, but the first part is more important and that is the most important factor of prayer - raising our heart and mind to God. We need to be enabled to find a prayer-filled life. This is possible only if we can realise that we can pray anywhere. When you are working with your computer or being engaged in any other profession, feel the presence of God there being with you, and there you raise a sincere concern before God, something that concerns you, your boss, world, church ... Or if a day is dedicated for prayer, then keep the whole day keeping the specific intention, specially remembering whenever you get a break. More than time and place, but what really matters is our attitude of sincerity and humility, intensity and earnestness.

Many suggest an ideal prayer life, but paradoxically they themselves live their own helplessness which is also some form of hypocrisy. Instead, can we not initiate new paradigm for ourselves and others whom we guide, a possible way by which we can meaningfully and prayerfully fill our life, job and other struggles. Rather, when we look for ideals and when not possible, we fill ourselves with guilt and disappointment. We might say that many achieve the ideal! Well, if they are able to do it joyfully and freely that is really a blessing. But we know that many ‘ordinary’ people do struggle. We must know that what is possible in a retreat centre or in a monastery is not possible when we think of working people or the life of youth. If you can work on this you can also improve on a quality personal prayer-life.

Very often personal prayer is limited to a set of ‘doings,’ – “I read the Bible, said the rosary, and ‘did’ praise and worship…just as he/she taught me.” Personal prayer is really ‘personal’, whereas the liturgy is the prayer being within a community. A period of time spent without involving our person cannot be a personal prayer. The areas of our personal involvement must be the content of our personal prayer, our struggles, celebrations, relations, commitments, profession, pain, … We are carrying all these while we drive, while we work, and while we worship in community, but can we find the presence of Christ joining us in all these? If yes, that makes the personal prayer. Are they ‘personal,’ and can that be prayer? Surely yes, if we can raise our heart and mind to God. As filled with gratitude and joy, we praise; and as we are filled with peace, we worship.What we need in our heart is trust, awareness of a caring presence of God. If we could experience this trust, we can really feel the genuineness of prayer. When we are fully exhausted, burning with anger, or totally depressed, the most sincere prayer we can make is to tell God that we are exhausted, we are angry and frustrated, and we are depressed. If we don't feel to pray, the trust will enable us to tell God that we are not feeling to pray. We have chased the sacred from our living fields and our real feelings, can we find for ourselves and show others a path for bringing the sacred back to the places where we live and labour. It needs a docile spirit. Worship in the temple is easy but bringing God to our fields is rather difficult.

Here in the field,
God continued to work
The wind blew, the flower danced, and the birds came
The Sun smiled….
“Where is the man of the field?” They asked.
God said: “He has gone to the temple to worship.”

Is the End near? Understanding 'End of the World' Sayings within its Background and Purpose

Is the End near?

The answer would be conditional, because it will depend on the preparedness to recognise/ realise the Word in us and in the whole of creation.

If the world was created through the Word, and moves in the Word, it also will come to its actualisation in the Word, and through the Word. We cannot be sure that the catastrophes we see are signs of this completion. They are calamities in relation to human experience. Similar and more powerful ‘catastrophic’ events happen every moment as natural processes in the universe. These cosmic events are the shaping moments in the wisdom of the design of the Word through which even the life forms have emerged. These processes make the diversity of things each fulfilling the Word in their own way. Perhaps all creation together may recognise the presence of the Word within.

Does this realisation necessitate the cessation of creation? I do not feel so.

(Logos_Word_Christ)

Today, many are concerned about the end days. 

If it is in the next hour, let it be. 

But we must know that it is not just these days people have spoken about the end days. Whenever there is a time of crisis people tend to identify it to be sign of the end times, and use apocalyptic language to give some meaning to the phenomena which are difficult to explain. Apocalyptic prophesies have a history, and they have influenced history politically more than spiritually. Better to have a cultural and social analysis of these than a spiritual one.

These following works may be of help to understand some of them: 

Paula Clifford, A Brief History of End Time: Prophecy and Apocalypse, Then and Now

Arthur H. Williamson, Apocalypse Then: Prophecy and the Making of the Modern World
Martha Himmelfarb The Apocalypse: A Brief History 

It would be interesting to consider this too: Michel de Nostredame was an astrologer and writer of Renaissance Europe. But Nostradamus as we know today is a creature of the modern West and today's interpreters of his writings. He was a healer of souls of his time, and he used the language of a prophet, as some reviewers of his writings like to put it.

__________

If we take the Hindu thought on Pralaya, it is not just a tragic flood, it is the well dissolving process where everything comes to rest after the rta is broken. It could also be a well dissolving into the true purpose of the Word.

A Malayalam version of this note is available at അന്ത്യങ്ങൾക്ക് ഒരു അന്തമുണ്ടാവുമോ?

Christian (identity, heroism, or living)?

It is of no doubt that we face in our generation a deep identity crisis. There is a search for an identity mark to which we can attach ourselves. Perhaps it is because we are not able to find a self within ourselves; it is shattered, fragmented, socially imprinted or branded.

Attaching ourselves with an ideology, culture or religion we might look for an identity. Making sure that these structures are well protected becomes very important, because it provides us something of what we are. Is that totally wrong? May not be completely! It can help if we are able to find the essence above the structures and modalities. If the latter is the focus, all our aim will be for preserving them which must be mere means, not the end. Replacing of means with the end actually forms extreme views in us because it demands a protective mode.

We can observe the extreme tendencies in different faith traditions as polarised activism, all believing that they offer worship to God. They can be seen as distorted responses to postmodern crisis, which offers a sense of identity, belonging and purpose.

Another form of extremism is withdrawal. We have the beautiful word ‘asceticism’ in whose pretext we can escape from the challenges of the world. This modern trend should not be mistaken by making parallel with monastic asceticism of medieval time. What we need to look into is whether these attitudes really become a sign, a living inspiration to the wounded world, even if they are able to make impressions and promote pious sensation among the likeminded. Being present to the world amidst struggles, with all humility and courage, we must be ready to tell the world that we don’t have all answers to the problems of the world, but placing our hope we join Christ in searching for them.

We can move away and counter everything in the world which we term evil trends. In every trend there sobs a quest. The Bible shows many conscientious heroes who kept their purity, detaching themselves from gentile company and food. We may be identified as person of fire/ spirit but the actions done serve only our desire for work fulfilment. Overenthusiasm and emotionalism need to be faced with prudence and selfcontrol, otherwise they might bring damage than growth.

Jesus did not become a hero in any of the above mode. He was gentle and humble of heart. He asked us to live our life in the freedom of the children of God. He gave us the spirit. Being patient with ourselves and our dreams, gradually spirit works within, and we find ourselves healed and strengthened.

As social beings we do belong to forms and structures of society, and so also of religion. But they are to point towards human fulfilment. These glorious structures and modalities of religion, institutions and movements may be wrongly attached as identity marks which creates in us a conscientious hero. We must humbly allow new forms to emerge, rejoice at the sight of the Lord in the new blooms.

Do we make attempts to personalise the attitudes of Jesus, and patiently go through a process of Christification? Or do we simply attach ourselves to a religious structure? We may be more concerned about how purely we are Catholic, how authentically we are eastern or western, how strict we are in our pious observations, or how meticulously we seek to find a proud relation to the Bible in making use of Hebrew names and titles. What is our focus? Our emphasis shows where we are rooted. Immediately we must warn ourselves if we find that we offer worship to our identity marks, not to God. Kingdom of God is not eating and drinking [it is not extreme forms of piety and emotionalism, it is not well conducted number of events, it is not becoming isolated special ‘pure’ Christian, it is not idolatrous reverence to the Bible], but it is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

When Cult Begins to Stagnate, and Prophets become Rebels

A witnessing Christian life is an integral sum of pious, prophetic, and mystical dimensions of Christ encounter.  This was the very thing that differentiated Christianity from the cultic dominance of jewish practices. Some recent spiritual practices have constrained people to the cultic dimension alone. All the more it is disastrous when new tendencies limit priesthood to this cultic function. The Christian tradition follows the priesthood of Christ, not that of Aaron. Cults can have the forms of ritualism or of exercise of authority, both of which have manipulative power. Christ asks us to be a community of witnesses, whether priests or laity according to our call, making up his body. A romanticised view of priesthood and church as something external to common faithful is actually damaging our vision of the church.

We cannot be totally mystical, we need touch with the sacred in the real world in human expressions, and need to respond to the call of the time. Cult might dangerously resist this response to time, and pathetically begin to stagnate. We cannot have the holy, holy, holy experience in incense, altars, vestments… without a mystic orientation towards the Holy, and without being mindful of the human cry expressed in different social trends. Without the other two, prophetism may end up as rebelliousness or intolerance.
It may be appropriate to reflect on our reactions to various issues on the following lines: we are challenged and troubled by many things, nut are we ready and open to experience the consolation of the Holy Spirit? Are we ready to be placed on the Cross of Christ? In our responses do we think with the Church? It is important because we are standing for a life-giving community of humanity whereas the struggle for the success of mere ideologies find their ends in themselves.

Thomas, See my wounds

St John  wants to tell us the truth of life that the Word was made flesh. He presents the gospel as a journey, a journey of revealing, and of recognising.

If Christ is seen first in a manger in other gospels, we find him here, along with his family and friends, in a neighbour’s house.

Now the journey begins with the cleansing of the temple which really means of a time when worship will not be on this mountain and that mountain, but in spirit and in truth.

Some join him on the way but also with their doubts. Some also bring others to him.

In the words of Thomas, “let us go to die with him (Jn 11: 16),” the way receives a new dimension on the path of the disciples. The way is life-giving, the way is of life-giving. Though he said, “let us go,” later he asks Jesus, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” (Jn 14:5).

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” (v. 6)

            It is the connecting thread to whole of the journey! Wonderfully Thomas brings this journey into its climax. Thomas was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” (Jn 20: 25)

One week later, Thomas was with them when Jesus came, and he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; look, here are my hands. Give me your hand; put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving any more but believe” (vv. 27, 28). Thomas replied, “My Lord and my God!” 

The Word was made flesh, and took the pain of  humanity “empty of love, empty of goodness, empty of life” What are those wounds he is inviting us to place our hands on other than the wounds of the wounded ourselves and humanity?

Coming in contact with him we manifest before him our own wounds and humiliations. All must walk this way. Family at Cana with their empty jars, shame and tears, temples and worships yet to be perfected, unstable Simon, Andrew, Philip, Nathanael and Nicodemus who had their own reservations about the Messiah, Samaritan woman who suffered rejection and had no one to belong to, paralytic waiting for the angel to stir the waters, man born blind who suffered the condemnation of the society, all must walk this way, though not knowing what it means, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” All must hear this too, “Thomas come here…”

But the mystery is the presence of Word made flesh, the Logos, in and among us! The presence of the Risen Lord is not external to us, but within and among us making his body. There are wounds, and also the same invitation, “come here, put your hand here, and believe.” Wounds may be of the church, of humanity, of creation and a touch is called for. Our response to these wounds may be a moment of our own experience of being healed, loved and valued. So it involves both personal encounter and recognition of Christ.

My God and my Lord

Worries! Interpret them, or interact with them?

"Don't worry, take it easy," we say/ hear it often, and we know that it is not very easy.
We have our worries, concerns, tensions, distractions, stresses, anxieties...
Often it is our approach that intensify the matter. We interpret it according to our emotional trigger.
At times we may be really helpless, in the moments of sickness, disaster etc.

Instead of interpreting them, can we try to interact with them?
They may speak to us!

God's care surrounds our life
He keeps us in love always
he remembers our worries and takes them into account.

If we can interact with them,
and place our trust on God,
God enables us to humble ourselves to offer our burdens,
and enable us to be the immediate agent of our own healing.

Phenomenology to Spirituality

In every profession we seek to experience the work of God, finding the spiritual depth for our works, with the achievements and stress involved in it. A spirituality of nursing, that of caring, empathy, touch…; a spirituality of engineering, a spirituality of designing, a spirituality of marketing…need to be developed. Something foundational and bridging for this process may be to approach the phenomenology of these professional areas. Such a spirituality will provide a touch of God to the world through our fingers.

Gathered in my name

Wherever two or three are gathered...,
let us say three, 
is Christ present as a fourth person? 

Christ is present as the form of that gathering to which we are being made. 

The purpose of coming together in his name 
as a family, 
as a group, 
as a movement, 
as a congregation, 
or as the church
is to become the body of Christ.

To the Unfamiliar Christ

Christ, my love, my sweetness, my truth, my life....
yet Christ is a mystery!

In friendship we know him-
but even in friendship, a strangeness remains.
true friendship wonderfully twines both familiarity and strangeness.

Christ, familiar but still there is mystery!
How do we enter into what is unknown (unfamiliar and unrecognised) of Christ?
it is in our human environment.
Christ reveals himself in our own mysteries, the unknown me,
the more we know him the more we know our own place and meaning in our environment
the more we meet him there the more we know him, the meaning of his actions...

This interaction makes us a sign for our time,
at times consoling, at times challenging.

Normally we defend and protect what is familiar,
and reject and oppose what is strange.

Failure of the Pharisees in the Gospel was that they closed themselves in the familiar.

"Unless your virtue go no deeper than that of the Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven."

that wound must be alive, but consoling

It is urgent to formulate livable stories for us, stories bind us together into a common heritage.

Here is a world where innocence is manipulated by the powerful, and is poisoned with aggression, revenge, suspicion, and lawlessness in the name of religious and political ideologies. What we need is a conscience for humanity. 

We may not be strong enough to stand against violence, but we must stand near the victims and for them. The pain of the innocents needs to be alive in us. The presence of those wounds is not for hurting, and causing further pain, but offering a sympathetic presence. Any form of violence disturbs us personally and as society, and at times leaves us in distress. If we bear the wounds of the vulnerable, and really experience the presence of the risen Lord we also will have a message, not a disappointing one, but of hope. 

We need to speak this message as a witnessing presence of Christ. The wounds are in our hearts, the message is in us, that is for the world. Christ wants to speak to the world: "here I am." Does the conscience of Christ make present in our own, and do we have a message of Christ? If we are reluctant to speak, we speak of absence of Christ in us, in the church. If we have a message, we must speak of it diligently to our children, "talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up." Because the wounds of the world necessarily stir our conscience. Does he ask us to challenge and revolt? He asks us to be with the poor, console the moaners, support the persecuted, feed the hungry... That hope is what needs to be the heart of our conscience.

While the time we also need to develop spiritual strength to face violence. We need to have such a spiritual depth in order to challenge the oppressors without hatred.  Otherwise we ourselves begin to inflict wounds in the name of justice and solidarity. 

What if there is no Hell?

         Many have explained that the Pope had not said that there is no hell. The issue that we try to address seems to be whether 'there is' hell or not, whether hell ‘exists there’ or not. But this issue emerges as a context that invites us to have a better clarity regarding  many terms we use in our faith; words such as soul, sin, grace, heaven and hell, and even person itself. We can be comfortable (we often like to be) in the same way as we have been thinking for years, because it may have been the way traditionally passed on to us. We will have to shake a bit if we are to make a shift into a new understanding.

         Primarily we need to examine, not about whether they exist or not, but what we really mean by them. What we speak of, are supernatural things,and at the same time somehow related to human life and the world. We may be able to understand them better if we could know how in history these concepts have been gradually developing and assuming new meaning. We also need to understand the interpretative tools and the metaphors used in explaining the realities we attempt to express.

         Things that we cannot explain by mere materiality, are understood in the categories of forms. Similar understanding is applied when the concept of 'soul' is introduced to understand the living beings. When we consider about the status of the soul, it is important to ask what we really mean by soul. Intellect, memory, will…were qualities of soul, which face challenges from new researches in the fields of neuroscience. It may be wise from our part to wait for the studies progressing on consciousness rather than keeping us stuck to the philosophical concepts in the Greek/scholastic philosophy. Today, to understand comprehensively the human composition, especially the frailty of the human, we have many tools in psychology and physiology which may be truer than the understanding that the darkened state of the soul due to sin blinds the passions, intellect and will, and consequently remain closed towards grace. Or, rather, it is better to ask, what we mean by saying that the soul is darkened by sin. What happens actually?

         Grace is God’s life in us. Person receives and nourishes grace as one can be open before it. The concept of person became very much an isolated individual after the renaissance, and the vertical dimension of relationship owed responsibility for one’s life of grace. A healthy reception of grace and the presence of wounds that make us unable to receive the grace may be understood better if we realize a collective form of self. This self goes much beyond the concept of self being a mere product of a social construct. Sin remains as a state which calls our attention to our own depths where we need the grace of God. In that sense it can be 'original' (that state from which our powerlessness originate) too, rather than 'original' taking a chronological sense.

         What happens, then, if one receives grace? Since grace is the life of God, when one receives grace one also receives the life of God and begins to know the will of God. As long as one is not able to open up to the grace, or consciously rejects grace, cannot find life, and the absence of life brings that much of death in him/her. It is a life with God that we meant by heaven, and the absence of God’s life, hell. It is a possibility according to whether we accept or reject the possibility of receiving life.

         It is true that there has been an eschatological trend at many points of history emphasizing on end times, and heaven and hell. If we also notice the time when these apocalyptic language was used in religious instructions, we would realize that there have been some crisis moments, either in faith or in the very meaning of human life itself. So the attraction of heaven, and the fear of hell would provide some meaning to the choices given in a human condition (in a context of faith also). It also included a moral renewal whenever eschatological emphasis was brought.  It is wrong to take literally the images Dante, Milton, and a number of mystics and visionaries have given, as they were using their language and figures to convey a truth that they wanted to convey. Neither we conceive nor we are able to express supernatural realities without the aid of human language and symbols. So the 'realities' they speak of are symbolically narrated.

         Pope John Paul II announced that hell was “the ultimate consequence of sin itself … rather than a place, hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy”. Is it a state that we enter into only after death? At every life choice we have a choice for or against grace, for or against Christ. Death makes a definite point after which we are not able to make a choice. If we have begun our life of grace there is already heaven that we have entered into - the life, the presence of God. Perhaps there is state of hell too in us (that separated state) since we have not been completely filled by grace. Actually when Christ ‘bears’ or ‘taking away’ our ‘sins’ (I don’t know whether we can number them since it is to be understood a state, and one is related to the other) he is filling our life with grace wherever we are devoid of divine life. Since both possibilities are there to keep away from grace, consciously and due to inability, it necessitates the community dimension of the reception of grace. Others facilitates one to be open for grace. I would extend this community even to nature.

         What if hell is not there? It is not an ontological necessity that hell should be there, it is not even a logical necessity that without it our faith cannot stand. If we can have a clear understanding of God, grace and humankind we can explain anything in the gospel. But if hell is not there, is it leading to a lawlessness? Not at all! It further adds extra responsibility to build a filial relationship with God irrespective of the fear of punishment. That will check how important and valuable God/Christ is in our lives.

[The alleged report stated that the wicked ceases to exist once they die. This too, we can understand, but with a different anthropology. One who receives grace is also growing in one’s interconnected reality of self. One who denies grace cuts oneself off from the total reality, and that is only emptiness. We speak of eternal death and eternal darkness, similarly  we can imagine of the possibility of nothingness and emptiness.]

It is not a theological explanation, but an attempt to place it before questions in context. Still one question remains: can we not understand the message of the gospel without introducing ‘satan’ ?

Please have some extra reading to understand better the above:

J. Edward Wright The Early History of Heaven

Alister E. McGrath A Brief History of Heaven

Alice K. Turner The History of Hell

Jeffrey Reid Great Philosophers: A Brief History of the Self and Its World

John Barresi and Martin Raymond The Rise and Fall of Soul and Self : An Intellectual History of Personal

         Identity 

Jean Delumeau Sin and Fear: The Emergence of a Western Guilt Culture, 13th-18th Centuries

Benedict XVI Spe Salvi   

Joseph Ratzinger Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life 

The same note is available in Malayalam നരകമില്ലെങ്കിൽ ..

Where is the Risen One?

The women who went to the tomb of Jesus were mindful of a dead body; yet something meaningful, because of their love. Spices and ointments were preparations for a dead body. Absence made them frightened, and fearfully they looked inside the tomb.

The words of the angels are very significant to us today: “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen!” The tomb is the place for the dead. People those are living come there only for burials. The living are there in their life questions, celebrations, sorrow, moaning, loving, and quarrelling. Seek the living one among the living in their ‘homes.’ Home means where they find at home and where they engage themselves. Jesus waits for us where and how we are living, and he wants to be part of it.

Jesus’ message to the women to be given to the disciples was, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” Galilee is the homely place in contrast to Jerusalem which has religious intakes in the forms of actions, specific places, and persons. In Galilee we are humans, mere humans. Jesus says, “there they will see me.”

Once again going to the question, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” we might understand a deeper question, “Why are you afraid of absence, when what you long for is present, in you and among you? As he was dying “Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit.” As in his self-emptying, so also in his resurrection this loud cry is a thirst to be in us and among us. The Spirit that he breathed out is given to us as he rises up receives the new body of the ‘church.’ This realisation of the presence of Christ is the seeing of the Risen Christ.

Perhaps, in Jerusalem we might put on hypocritical holy figures because Jerusalem demands that. But Jesus makes haste to send us to Galilee, where we might recognize him in our daily lives and daily engagements. This presence is what we fail to recognize, and we are afraid because of this emptiness. We look for glorious presences, but Christ appears in ordinary moments. So within every instance there is a resurrection experience. We may be looking into the emptiness of our own tombs which, at times, are covered by stone. We must, then, listen to the voice, “He is not here, he is Risen, and he is present in you, and among you.” It is worthy of meditation that only those waited for him in love saw him. There is a deep emptiness and meaninglessness when he is not there, but they remembered what he said. In the hope they came to believe that he is risen if he is not there in the tomb. It is not a subjective imagination, but though unbelievable it is a realisation of a life-presenting presence, presence that presents life to all weaknesses and emptiness.

If we can see Christ as the design, plan and will of God, the resurrection embraces the whole nature. Limiting himself into one form of nature (being human and also like a servant) he emptied himself of the great design of the divine providence which is Christ himself. Now He is risen! At every bit of nature, can we experience the presence of Christ. Why are we afraid of an absence when he lives in us, within us and around us? Empty tomb is not the sign of resurrection, but his presence is. It is true that we cannot neglect our emptiness, but we should never discard the possibility of the presence of the risen one there.

In our approaches the attitudes of Christ, humility, surrender, faithfulness, love, mercy…, and in our actions the signs of his resurrection, joy, peace, friendship, and communion. Christ is risen! We too in union with him .. can we feel the joy of the Living?