Preaching for the re-discovery of souls

Following the preaching ministry St Dominic, Dominicans have defined their charism as 'preaching for the salvation of souls.' They were committed to make the encounter of God with humanity being within their shaky 'holy grounds.'

In different moments of history, people were losing souls because of the distortion of faith, often by those taking advantage of the misery of people. These interpretations distorted the image of God and humanity in their interesting spiritualties. At times they also gave images of exalted power of God or human.

Today, we have fragmented selves, societies, and so even fragmented divinities. The crisis today involves unbearable power to control and to transcend. At the same time, the same power tears us into pieces. A huge number of people are at the same time alien to this world of power achieved by some privileged.

So the world cries out for justice, and seeks compassion from those who have heart. What is the truth of economic policies, environmental challenges, wars, medical marketing etc? How does humanity face the alarming disasters, especially the children today? What about the indigenous people thrown out of their habitats? There is the crucified God, humiliated and abandoned. "What will become of them because of our 'social, political, and environmental' sins" must be a constant painful cry within us. Dominican preaching must evoke conscience to these concerns.

Contemplation of truth which does not turn to be an assurance of justice, neither contemplates truth, nor does it form a face of God in one who is contemplating. It does not produce fruit, nor does it carry the seeds of salvation.

Contemplation and preaching today is for the re-creation of truly human soul - not a wretched human nor a transcended superhuman. It is to find the true roots of humanity, and place it in its proper place. God brought forth humanity within the community of creation assuming its interior self from the bond with the community. We thought that it is something wrong with us to have that identity. If we find the roots again we will heal the fragmentation of our souls. Preaching for the rediscovery of our souls is a common effort which also includes the preaching given by other than human community of creation.

My soul ...

If one understands the many dimensions of one's soul, one can only illumine it with gratitude and pour itself out in generosity. It is exactly in a different direction the foolish rich man addressed his 'soul,' 'Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.'

Jesus taught us to have confidence, not in the grain in our barns, but in the providence of God. His call for seeking justice and ensuring the kingdom of God is this providence in human actions and work of grace.

The man who came to Jesus with the request to settle the matter of property was probably denied the just portion that he deserved. His brother may have been greedy and powerful. Jesus probably was sad on the emptiness of that greedy person. This emptiness is also reflected in the sadness filled in the heart of rich young man.

The question is not only about how we handle riches, but what is our richness and what is the sense that it generates in us. We are in a time even crisis is made opportunities for profit at the cost of common welfare. Many lost lives and livelihood to Covid, but during the struggle there emerged many super rich people. Many died and fled due to Ukraine- Russia war, but it became an occasion for weapon sale. People die due to hunger, when we have surplus of food grains.

Greed is connected with the craze for domination. After possessing wealth and ruling over the world, what is the nature of 'soul discovery' within us? If the world is in misery and conflict, that reflects our 'souls.'

Psalmist has a beautiful expression: "Bless the Lord, my soul, let all my being bless his holy name." It is not a verbal jubilation, it is the orientation of the soul for action having found the manifold roots of one's soul.

Penitential Pilgrimage

"Pope meets the indigenous"

Pope is in 'penitential pilgrimage."
Wow! Beautiful headlines!

The same publishers had blamed Pope for supporting the 'destructive' nature of Amazon Synod. Even the very feather headdress was scorned at. Then, the synod was defending the habitats of the indigenous which challenged the interests of the corporates. So the 'Pope was wrong.' Now, it is simply an apology, and it does not matter to us.

But it should matter to us.
The indigenous voice, songs, dance, and forms of prayer do have the Word element, they deserve recognition. After all who is anyone who is to offer recognition other than Christ himself.
This penitential pilgrimage also should matter to us, because of the injustices caused by categorizing and humiliating some as low cast and outcast.

Rise again

Advanced warplanes cannot fight the heat waves, and hurricanes,

Yet we are getting for space wars.
Economy of greed, fraud and revenge,
never cares for life on the planet.
The few superrich are assured of life life-savers,
as others struggle for survival.
But, their money cannot stand,
the fire is so hot,
the storm is so strong.
Turn to the dust with gratitude,
see the soul of humanity,
we might rise again.

Sanctuary of the Lord

Moulding a heart for justice, kindness and peace, we can come to the door of our hearts and say, here is the sanctuary, the sanctuary of the Lord.

It is not one moment effect or a day's effort. Growing goodness and the deprivation of the good remain with us. The thorny nature formed from our deficiencies will turn harmless. The orientation for goodness treats them within.

Empty images of God

We are stressed because of availability of too many alternatives. We choose the best one,
and immediately there is a feeling that some other choice would be better.
Even God, we prefer the best image suitable for our state of mind,
still we find many others.
We hunt behind these images
in familiar religious imageries,
at the cost of the real one,
ending up loving empty images of God.

Blind eyes

God cannot open the eyes or ears, 

if one has blinded or deafened oneself.
They never grasp the values of the Good News.
They abandon the source of life giving waters, and prefer broken cisterns.
The prophets follow things with no power in them,
not because following any strange Gods,
but by following power and money covered in the very name of God.

Hyper-piety and rigid traditions blind and deafen us.
Truly open ears and eyes recognize the light of the gospel in the very lives they live.
God is gracious.

Jonah's sign

Jonah stands for anyone, especially the zealous ones,

who applies divine justice exclusively to themselves as the chosen ones,' 

acts with pride,
and condemns all others wrong,
and desires their destruction,
and fails to have tender love.

Christ acted justly,
loved tenderly,
and walked humbly before the Lord.

Who deserves justice according to our judgments?
who deserves our tender love?
are we comfortable to walk humbly or do we need a defenses that pride offers?

Reception for Jesus

Was there someone for talking to the man who was carried by the good Samaritan to the inn? Was there someone to prepare food for him? We don't know. After all it is a parable. Religion and customs could not receive him, but the stranger could.

Jesus faced rejection from many.
The reception at the house of Martha and Mary was consoling, comforting, and strengthening. They came near to him, poured wine and oil, talked to him and served him. Son of man did need a place to rest and be comforted.

Whether the 'reception' is given or not is not at all a matter for us now. We go to buffet, have food, and return home. But 'reception' does matter whether it be in a family, or society, or in the church. Our comfortable belonging depends on the hearty reception. We must receive it, and offer it.

Rest for your soul

 "My spirit in me seeks for you."

The spirit is a thirst to grow into what we are meant to be.
The spirit of God touches this thirst, comforts, consoles, strengthens.
The yoke is easy, for it is supported by divine life,
and strengthens our being.
Gradually and slowly, the rest may be felt,
moment of fulfilment, fruition, and passing on.

Preferring Christ

Having Jesus is not about changing one's belief system. It is a radical choice to be a human so fully that one lives not just for oneself alone but for all humanity and the whole creation. Gifts of the Holy Spirit is given to us to enable us to live this choice.

Until this desire becomes the essence of our worship, Christ will continue to be in a deity form in our imaginations. He will not be experienced as the messiah, and his incarnation will never be experienced as a reality.

Until it is brought to our conviction, the Eucharist will be a bread ritual invoking supernatural power to the bread. God's question to the Israelites will be repeated, "What are your endless sacrifices to me?" The Eucharist is about living in Christ entering into communion he established with God. This communion includes a living sacrifice, reconciliation and fraternity.

Having Jesus necessarily involves sacrifice, communion, a life of gratitude, deeds of love without boundaries. Any attempt to extend the boundaries is sensed as a threat to a community, religion or culture in a cocoon safety. That is the challenge of having Jesus. Preferring one's loved customs, traditions, liturgy, religious leaders and their 'powerful' ministries above Christ is not worthy of Him.

true sacrifice

God abandons the altars,
even the God imagesthat are symbols of pride and arrogance.
Seek steadfast love,
act with kindness,
there is the altar of God,
and true sacrifice.

fruits

Dream of the young as their eyes begin to see,

and the insight of the elders as their sight begins to fade,
both give light to a living community.
A romance, fight, dialogue, search, even abandonment,
is in the Way to Truth and Life.
Light in the young, and the brightness of the elders,
point to the wounded healer risen.
"My God, and my Lord."

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Bridegroom's presence (of the gospels) and the rejoicing is like a spring time;
new sprouts, new flowers, new fruits,
the life of grace.
Even in wilderness, streams begin to flow.
celebrate life, celebrate grace, celebrate your fruits.

A renewal is for fruition,
new signs of life for new seasons, perhaps a strange season,
renewal is not a revival or restoration of the old.
Feel that flower, the fruits, the life within,
the presence of the bridegroom.
Celebrate!

Fasting for pleasing the bridegroom is like the fig tree without fruits.

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His job was to look after sycamore trees,
He preached because he received a message,
He saw the word of God in an innersight.

Preaching as a profession and preaching as a charisma are different.
The former adapts to the political currents and wills of the powerful,
truth, justice, and compassion are neglected.
The latter seeks the will of God,
life and peace of all, good in totality.

Righteousness as a profession, and righteousness from the freedom of heart are different,
The former justifies oneself and condemns all others,
condemns even goodness in others,
the latter acts on the freedom of heart,
shares the compassion and justice that bring life.

The Son of Man had no place

They were wanderers,

and they felt that God was guiding them.

They settled in a promised land,

nowhere to move forward, they settled,

preserved their land,

time and space became static.

God was tied to it.

God was not expected to move beyond their land and time.

Even later generations thought

that God was standing in the space and time of their fathers.

There came unaltered temple and traditions.

They called it security, fidelity, and holiness.

---------------------

The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head...

he prefers to lay his head among those who are on a pilgrimage with him.

In the past he lived in tents, movable with the cloud,

not in temples, stuck to a place.

if only the people of God were to be willing to move with the Messiah,

and not try to tie him down!

It is not God or religion that has gone away,

it is the sense of justice that has disappeared.

Voice at the depths

There is a voice at the depth of everyone,
a voice, reaching to the roots of our being,
roots that drinks from the fountain of life.

This voice is silenced by our preferred voices,
speeches that gather power, and throne.
Upon those voices we attempt to build our self, church, and kingdoms.
They have silenced the voice at the depths.

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Mary treasured all these things...
it was not her voice, but the voice that she heard in the depths.

Going to the Father

The purpose of Christian life is to be in God. Jesus teaches us to remain in God. Being in God happens through Jesus. That is why he is the way, and prepares a ‘place’ for us in God. Jesus is not like a tourist guide or a gate keeper letting us go to God. Perhaps, we imagine that Jesus passes us in if we go to him and acknowledge our belief in him. ‘He’ is the way. His incarnation, life, death, and resurrection hold us in union with him. Christ with us together we have the total Christ. Through a similar life of lifegiving sacrifice we live that way and be in Christ. Then we are sure that he is the way to God, and we have found ourselves in God. The image of the gatekeeper Christ as the way deceives us. That is the folly of politicized 'personal saviour.'

Going to God is a transformation, a transformation into the image of Christ. It happens in our life and attitudes through the work of the Holy Spirit. This transformation also places us fittingly into the body of Christ. Christ with the whole humanity 'go' to the Father. The difficulty here to see Christ like is probably because we are too familiar with the image of the self as an isolated individual. We are not just what we are. We find ourselves seen as someone towards Christ together with the whole of creation.

If the purpose of Christian life is to establish a Christendom where it is an exercise of power, we are losing ourselves by building our power structures in the name of Christ. Often we even risk losing Christ to maintain power and security. We might find ‘salvation’ in powerful governments and superhero kings and prophets, but there we cannot remain. The wind blows and flood comes, and great is the fall.

Liturgy

Liturgy is to involve us in the reality it desires to represent (using symbols, rituals, and the myths that supports them). If this involvement does not happen liturgy has failed. It becomes an idol rather than symbol. One good example is the Eucharist. Eucharist first holds the life, sacrifice and communion of Christ (communion with the father and all of us. secondly it holds all of us, our life, sacrifices, faith, and communion (communion among ourselves and communion with God through Christ). The above two are administered by the community in the coming together, offering, and praying. Here the community gathers together as the body of Christ, and it is Christ who prays and offers sacrifice. We, being in Christ, worship God who is among us his people. Priest is the minister of the sacramental administration of this mystery. We cannot limit these things into a bread and wine ritual. Often our focus goes to the bread as though the whole meaning of Eucharist is focused on the bread. it impoverishes us from our full involvement in the reality we are to participate.

Fruitfulness of faith

Fruitfulness of our faith is reflected as our words and actions become instruments of God’s blessings.

Abraham longed to see the fulfillment of the promise that in his offspring all the nations shall be blessed. Foreseeing those days Abraham rejoiced. What is fulfilled in Christ is to continue in us and in the Church through the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

fundamentalists

"The world is filling up with fundamentalists, all of them claiming to be certain of something. Their very aggressiveness shows that their ‘certainty’ is a cover for disbelief and confusion; it is a drowning man’s grip. When you are full sure of something, there is no aggression, just a quiet resolve to live by it. Fundamentalists are afraid of doubt, so they claim certainties they have no right to, since they have not travelled the path themselves."

from https://goodnews.ie/calendar.shtml

Judging

Susanna was unjustly condemned to death. When Daniel stands at a distance saying that he is innocent of the blood, he is challenging the judgment by the elders. To prove the innocence of Susanna, he has to take the lone path of truth and justice. Jesus said, I do not judge anyone, and if I judge, that judgment is true because the father testifies to it. When Jesus says, do not judge, it also means to show mercy like the Father. So, truth, justice, charity and compassion are involved in a right judgment.

Do our judgments try to see the whole truth? Do they ensure justice? Are they with love and compassion? If not, after all why do we judge? We judge because we feel better about ourselves when we judge others wrong. Our rash judgments show that we can’t accept a difference and that has to be pushed down, we cannot include someone or some idea so we judge it wrong, we want to resist compassion and judge the vulnerable wrong, we cannot experience relatedness and everyone will be judged wrong except ourselves.

So, we require the eyes and heart of the Father to make a true judgment. “For as the Father has life in Himself, so also He has granted the Son to have life in Himself. Because He is the Son of Man, he has given Him authority to execute judgment.” Jesus judges to grant forgiveness, mercy and new life. Our judgments also can be life-giving.

Come to the fountain of Life

Jesus came to give us life, and life in abundance. Through this season of lent we are making an effort to see the beauty of life in us as we are gradually led to share in the glory of the resurrection of Jesus.

However pleasant and happy we are, we like to have changes in life. The change that we expect may be in different degrees. According to the intensity, we might term those unpleasant realities as a life weakened, wearied, burdened, stuck, broken, wounded, injured, pained, or even as dead. Some of them may be so mysterious that we find it difficult to understand them, or to explain or find a solution. As much as possible we can try to understand them, but many popular beliefs on curses, burdens, and punishments which try to explain them fill us with fear, worries and wavering in faith. It affects our trust in God. Led by these worries and fears we cannot experience the life flow into us. Though we are coming to God here we are approaching God only as a problem solver. There is no belonging, or love relationship. In doubts and fears we cannot be open to the source of life.

Do we really desire for that life to fill our lives? Do we believe that God really wants to pour out that life into our pains, troubles, and burdens? Do we really believe that it can happen to you and me? God said, “I give water in the wilderness and rivers in the desert that my chosen people may drink.” God does it freely, not as a reward for an offering in a ‘pay and take manner’ that God pours life into our pains, because God, by nature, is full of life.

In moments of troubles, we may be shattered. If we have the love bond with God, we can experience life in God. Imagine a smoky room in which we struggle to breath, and when the windows and doors are open, we have the comfort of easy breathing. See a plant in bad soil. As it gets manure it has a new life. Or a plant withering in summer heat has a new life as it receives water. Similarly, we place our hope in God who is alive and lifegiving. “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, can you not see it.”

Undying hope it is not merely a psychological adherence or an intellectual submission to a pleasant thought or feeling. Christian hope is alive, not simply an expectation somewhere in the future. It causes welling forth of the fountains from our depths, from the very lives that are ‘wearied and burdened.’ sprouting of new life. We will be able to live fully even amidst the heaviness of life. We can find new roots that hold us in grace to stand in time of tribulations, the roots connecting ourselves with the fountain of life. God’s life in us will grant us confidence to grow and flourish, it will free us from fear and every push to escape the struggles. In him we have the fountain of life.

It is very beautiful to speak, hear and imagine, but is it really possible and practical? Dear friends, the fountain inside is very much controlled by this ‘but….’ It becomes an obstacle for our desire for fullness of life. We need peace and reconciliation, but how can we let go of so many things in reality? Pope Francis is right in saying ‘no war,’ but politically can it work out? It was the same reason when Jesus the source of life came among us, he himself, the life itself, became an obstacle for many. They loved their boundaries, legal, religious, national or gender. The sabbath laws, purity laws, customs, positions, professions … stood as a stigma against welcoming life. Life embraces beyond boundaries, the fountains flow beyond boundaries. Jesus could welcome all.

If God fills life into our wounds and pains, the boundaries against life make traps out of the failures of people. It is not a life that is hoped for, but the possibilities of exploitation, and the fault with God in showing mercy. The woman in the gospel today was caught by a lawful crowd, and brought to Jesus to prove that he was wrong if he lets her free. If the law served here to be graceless, there are greater sins in many right things that hinders life in us. We need to examine our depths. Merciless legal and gender boundaries, cruel judgments under moral elitism, empty religious customs that only show our pride and money power, manipulation of faith and beliefs and so on are obstacles we have created against life. In the name of God we have resisted his life.

After all these words about life, examine whether we are like that woman ill advised later by some holy and strict experts in religion. Some found her secretly and told her that it is according to the law, and the Word of God says, that she had to be stoned. Though let free she had to suffer the punishment. She started hitting herself with stones to obey the Word of God. We too hear it sometimes, though God is merciful, we have to suffer the punishments because the Old Testament laws say so.

Living fully, an experience of new heaven and new earth is the work of God. But it’s experience begins with me, my life, my society, and time, here and now, amidst our struggles, failures, and temptations. Come near to the fountain with all that we are, with all our burdens and shame and fears. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, can you not see it.

Please watch it

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The Elder Son

‘The prodigal son’ is a story played at the background, and still our focus needs to be Jesus and the complaining Pharisees and Scribes. ‘This man’ they said ‘welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ Imagine Jesus gently saying to the Pharisees and Scribes it is only right we should celebrate and rejoice, because these who are called the sinners, the sick, the poor had no life, social, emotional, or religious. They are coming to life.

The words ‘you are with me always and all I have is yours,’ have lot to speak. They remind of the belongingness we have with God, a whole embracing experience of God’s love and life. We have the assurance of every blessing, grace, healing, and strength. Being at the heart of God is a home experience, where we grow, express ourselves, and learn the will of God. Knowing the heart of God is important to experience the homely freedom. No narration or description can create the bond of belonging. God desires that all may have life. God pours out life especially those who are empty, broken, abandoned and helpless. This generous pouring out of his life is what we call mercy. It produces new life and joy, causes flowering and fruition. It is only right we should celebrate and rejoice.

The elder son who only stayed with the father did not belong to him. He could not be happy with the pouring out of his love for the younger son. Though he stayed with the father, it did not cause him joy. In a home where there was freedom and joy, he functioned as someone who slaved for the father, never disobeying his orders. It was the tragedy of the Pharisees and Scribes, and the story of many of us also. It is easy to identify with the faulty character of the prodigal son, and condemn our wrong doings and romanticising the love of the father. It is also crucial and serious to reflect how we experience the belongingness to God, the freedom of being with him, experience of a home with God, learning the will of God. It is also important to rejoice seeing the pouring out of the life into those condemned, exploited, persecuted, abused and are helpless. The sonship in the house of God is to ensure life and joy to all. It is also important to have the same attitude of God in our approaches.

God has more pain when his love is not understood. Hear these parables:

As the celebrations began the father asked the servants to bring the son to the hall with new robe, sandals, and ring. The servants could not find him. He was not found in the house. Immediately they began searching everywhere to find him. After long time they found him in a place where the countrymen grew pigs. Wearing the robe, sandals, and ring, he was sharing his sorrows to the pigs. My father was a loving man, I could not understand that. I wasted everything. I am full of dirt. How can I stay in that house? I must punish myself. Having suffered the punishment, the father will be happy to receive me.

Hear another parable:

The elder son accepted whatever the father said. Immediately he set himself into action making everything ready, food, decorations, dance, wine, everything. He celebrated the return of his brother. Father was very happy with the elder son. But the elder son had arranged his men not to let the younger son and the father see another day. He did perform well.

Hear yet another parable:

The elder son made a wooden heart and a beautiful narration about the love of the father. To show that he loves the father he went to the village and asked all to love his father. He thrashed those who hesitated. 

Where do we find ourselves? Being with the father at home brings a new life to us. We can produce fruits from the new creation in us, the fruits of the new man.

Gospel

Evangelization is true to itself when its content and method are of Jesus who announced the Gospel. If evangelization is understood to be a ideological domination over others, and let 'us' go freely untouched by the way of Jesus, there is no Gospel at all. Christ can become simply a product of every christian sect if Christ does not have a catholic nature which embraces all nations, languages, and cultures. Such Christs cannot be given the status of universal saviour. They are saviours created for saving their interests.

Who really possess the Gospel are those who make it a reality in their life. The vision and way of Christ is the Gospel. It has the mind of Christ, and cannot be limited within any ideological framework. Catholicism without being 'catholicity' is not catholic at all. instead of the growth of the gospel, it is closing the gospel within preferred particular cultural, linguistic, 'traditional,' symbols. Though the gospel is lived within ones own culture, language, and traditions, it welcomes and is open to others. This preferred closedness is seen in the rejection of anything that comes outside of one's own boxes. Take the example of the reception of Laudato Si, Fratelli Tutti, or the Synod on Synodality. How much of these has come to the vision creation, action plans, formation programs... The light of the Gospel is reflected, discovered, discerned and envisioned in such guidelines. Since we don't prefer what they lay out immediately they are blamed for being worldly, social, humanist and non-godly. Even the 'church lovers' prefer to keep them away, because it challenges to come out of the boxes to the light of the Gospel today.

Proclamation and defense of faith are not about texts and sentences. Even apologetics had contextual themes and preferences. Faith is rooted in the gospel, contemplating the mind of Christ in our times guided by the Holy Spirit. We do have the richness of the theological development at every age to clarify what we believe. They help us to understand the way a time integrated the faith into their life, pain, and joys (though at times theology was lenient to conventional political interests and suppressed differences). Gospel responds the cry of a time, and Christ 'reveals' himself as the answer. The answer may not be necessarily a familiar answer that we are used to. Pope Francis often speaks of human fraternity, collaboration and dialogue as the way that we live the gospel today walking with Christ. The whole creation is seen as pilgrim companions sharing their gifts, 'inspired' by Christ in them by the grace at work in them all.

There are many lessons of the gospels from others, even from the world of other than human. Gratitude, sacrifice, and providence are of great importance in the gospel the creation lives. An anthropocentric kingdom of God is blind to the presence of the Gospel there. We cannot understand the Gospel if we cannot understand the 'other.' My way to be the way is not about the way of Jesus. Every one has a personal path that one has been walking the faith. This lived path including struggles nourish our walking companions in family and society. What we look for is the signs of the Gospel though differently lived, a life of generosity, kindness, self emptying and sacrifice. If the differences become hindrance in reading the Gospel, we do need to sincerely desire for a literacy - religious, cultural, and linguistic - in order to see the original inspirations, and the contemplative insights behind differing symbols.

Grace, not contemplated...

Christian communities have failed to have sufficient reflection on how grace or the divine life works in us.

One example is the portrayal of Jesus and Mary as violent warriors like Greek or Roman gods and goddesses. It may gladden a militant understanding of Christianity, but totally fails to understand how God loves, saves, forgives, or destroys evil. It is not simply an artistic distortion, but it closes the spiritual depth of the life of God at work in us. Instead, it represents ‘some spiritual beings’ at war, and sometime at our disposal doing favours by magical actions. We can deceive ourselves placing ourselves as spiritual by joining the side of these spiritual characters that have no connection with Bible or the teachings of Jesus. The dual spiritual powers or a duality of worlds are not a Christian vision at all.

We also need a reform to free Christian spirituality from a guilt culture. How do we teach ourselves about a responsible belonging and love? Are they given significance in our spirituality? Rather, we are centring our lives on obligations and the failings in keeping them. Jesus’ meaning of conversion and repentance were not about faults, it was about the relation to a loving and providing Father. If our spirituality is not based on such belonging (whether it be to God or to one another in a family), how can we experience a belonging to the Church. Relation to the family or to the church or to God is not primarily about fulfilling obligations, but about belonging to the family, the church or to God. Those innumerous ways of belonging are the doors to grace which shape us and sustain us. Even in moments of failures we have assurance of acceptance which a guilt culture does not offer. Guilt culture speaks heavily on reparations bringing the burden of blame. The promise of grace is not conditional, it is assured within the reality that we belong.

Unto that dust you shall return

Forty days and forty nights, He fasted and prayed in the desert.

He resisted the 'divine' promises that were false.

produce bread with a word of command

prove yourself to be the Son of God by foolish heroism, an exhibition of divine power, even supported by the Word of God

make everything under your possession by an act of worship.

After he heard the voice that he was the son of God, in fasting he resisted against the falsities of God; what god is not.

With loud cries and bitter tears, he offered his prayers and supplications to the father who would hear him. He was heard because of his faithfulness. His way of prayer and fasting was of emptying, not with any expectation of gaining. We may have everything, managing power, resources, miracles, ... but may lack Christ. That is the time we need to fast and earnestly pray for the grace of self emptying.

Self emptying is the key to get the true depth of our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. By emptying ourselves we are giving more space for God. By emptying ourselves we are getting a clarity of vision to see better the reality of the lives of our brothers and sisters in compassion and mercy. It is by self emptying we are preparing our hearts for the values of the kingdom of God.

Pope Francis reminds us this year that itis the time to sow the seeds of goodness. Often, we are overly concerned about removing what is bad. Weeding is important, but if we do not have a plan of sowing, and harvesting, it is of no use. Only by filling our lives with good things, we overcome what is evil. What exactly is this 'good' we are trying to grow within? It is the likeness of Christ that we desire for ourselves during this season. What may be the likeness that I have with Christ today? What may be the New Person of me after I put on Christ? It is a dream of Christ, a dream of the kingdom of God within ourselves.

The grain of wheat dies, but at the same time there is a process of germination. So, the self-emptying that we want to live these days is a graceful death, a life-giving death. The focus is not on our sins and failures, but on life and fruitfulness in grace. The repentance that is called for is to lay yourself down unto the ground we are from. The dust that the scripture points to is not a handful of lifeless dust, it is soil where life can grow, and bear fruit. The dust that you are is not meaningless and lifeless, the dust that you are have been given the grace to be transformed into the image of Christ. So, this season is to mould ourselves into the children of God, walking the way of Christ. The imitation of Christ is not a melancholic journey, inflicting pain and misery. Self surrender, trust, gratitude, sacrifice, generosity, and love, peacefulness are the basics of the way of Christ. Pain devoid of these cannot lead us to carry the cross.

The path does not begin at the palace of Pilate. It began from a simple family of Nazareth, from a humble birth in Bethlehem. We cannot enter into the likeness of Christ, the kingdom of God, if we are not born again. In the way of Christ, we too will have the experience of hearing the voice “you are my beloved son/ daughter in whom I have well pleased.” God’s eyes do not look for the sins we carry, they see the life that can be filled in our emptiness and brokenness. Rise up from the dust that we are, be close to Him in trust and hope, receive strength and guidance from him, and gradually, from one degree to another we will be transformed into the image of Jesus, even to a self-emptying and life giving dying, and rising to the fullness of life. Unto that dust you must return.

Cut off

It may be better to reflect how to be a good example than thinking how to avoid scandal. It is more meaningful to make our faculties fruitful than removing them. Cutting off the hands and tearing out the eyes may be understood in terms of what Jesus said about the pruning of the branches of the vine. Pruning is done to produce more fruits.

We may be poisoned or illusioned when there is no right direction, no life in depth, no light of vision. The remedy is to strengthen the withered hands, walk in the right path, make the eyes see clearly, and ears hear well, that the sight and hearing may be sure doors for grace.

It is not the faculties that to be cut off, but it is by the proper functioning of our faculties will surely cut off whatever is not proper to our life. Our vision and hearing are distorted by many sources. There is abundant number of alternatives for physical, emotional and religious fitness. All are convincing, attractive, and wonderful. Which is in fact good for health?

There are many alternative religious movements that have great influence among the practicing religious people. They distort faith for their own commercial or political motives in the very name of God and religion. Such populist trends are spread mostly by our own preachers who are not watchful or alert. The hearers are left with withered hands and impaired vision and hearing.

The standard to judge is again in the image of the vine and the branches. If anyone abides not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered. Abiding is not a religious affinity, but a personal belonging to Jesus having his mind in ourselves. Abiding ensures life, not withering. Do the commercialised faith and devotions take us to the life that Jesus offered to us? Does the politicised Christianity create an atmosphere to live the values of the kingdom or do they create a nationalism in the name of Jesus and Christianity, even through visions from Mary and Jesus?

The very moment we feel that we are losing sight of Jesus, we must cut off the sight that is mesmerising us.

At the heart of Jesus

At the heart of Jesus (in sinu Jesu) we learn to imitate him in life death and resurrection. There we learn to participate in his ministry of preaching, healing, and bringing all into communion with God and one another. Jesus’ very calling of his disciples was to fill them with his love just as the Father has loved him. He called them, he sent them out, he gathered them, he accompanied them in His love.

Having the love of Jesus personally and within the community his followers are to be a living sign of the same love, peace and reconciliation. Thus, the community becomes a sacrament of love and salvation. Jesus lives in us, and we, united in his love, together make his body. We celebrate and participate the reality of Christ in word and in sacrament, in worship and in our life. He has gifted to us his real, true and substantial presence of his body and blood, that we may participate and live that in reality of our life. Without Christ, there is no significance of the sacrament. Without the attitude of sacrifice, love and generosity, without communion with God and one another the worship and honour of the Eucharist is a hypocrisy. If we are not mindful of Christ and his attitudes, and the eucharistic devotion turns out to be an honour of a wonderful and magical bread, we are missing something, really, truly and substantially. That will end up in a cultic devotion without the person of Christ being honoured in reality though the worship is done in his name. Eucharist is not just a miraculous bread. From being bread centered, Eucharistic spirituality must rediscover itself to be Christ-centered.

The very key for reconciliation, communion and sacrifice is the aspect of self -emptying of Christ. Through that the Word came in human form and continues to come to the world. The world is not enemy of God, the world enjoys the embrace of divine love. Some arrogant expressions of ‘run away from the world’ is to approach the manifestation of God very negatively. However destructive and evil are the affairs that go on with the human societies, God continues to love the world and manifests divine actions within the processes. God wants us to participate in the divine actions for which we have been called and sent.

Jesus does not want to be a devotional object. He wants our commitment in his continuing mission in the world. A romantic imagination of being with him all the time ‘escaping’ from the faces of others is not what the purpose of self-emptying he had. We need the Eucharist, we participate in the celebration, and we adore him in the sacrament. But the Eucharist is not just there in the monstrance or in the bread. ‘That person’ in the Eucharist wants to extend the communion and sacrifice we celebrated to wherever we are. It is thus the Eucharist makes us the living signs of the kingdom of God. In a ‘complete detachment’ where ‘God is my everything,’ or ‘God is my sole love’ Jesus would ask us a total commitment to serve everyone without reserve. A totally private and isolated relation expected in Eucharistic devotion is a cultic one. It is not at the heart of Jesus, in sinu Jesu.

The sacrifice of Jesus cannot be limited to any customs and rituals. The adamant attitudes that hold that only the traditional old Latin mass is the true mass cannot be from the heart of Jesus. Those opinions preserve certain ideologies that promote conservative structures. Attempts to create divisions in adamant traditionalism is not at the love of Jesus. Even the liturgy that they hold on was not there from the origin of Christianity. The liturgical reform of Vatican II is within the renewal that the council envisions. We the people of God, mutually nourished by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, build up and grow as the body of Christ. Recognising the universal call to holiness the church desires to shine as the universal sacrament of salvation. Our liturgy must reflect this common vision. God is not enthroned, but God dwells among and within the people of God. That indeed was at the heart of Jesus, in sinu Jesu.

The vision of the Council extends through sixteen official documents dealing with various topics from Divine Revelation, Church in the Modern world, to relations with non-Christians. The American and other media were unable or unwilling to approach the documents on their own terms. It led to the dominant bias that the Council’s far-reaching changes as breaks with Church tradition. American catholic evangelism is seen to be only true catholic faith, and others are worldly adaptations and corruption in the church. This was given a rapid spread by the pseudo-charismatic movements (respecting the genuine charismatic renewal), through preaching, different programmes, and books of ‘visions.’ Along with seeing the glorification of the old and the tendency to ignore the new, we also need to try to understand who are unwilling to accept the Vatican II reform and why. Having that in mind we may be able to understand ‘In Sinu Jesu.’

Can the Gospel be practical?

The more we are familiar with Jesus, the more we can be in likeness with him. This familiarity cannot be from mere claim of knowing Jesus, or proclaiming the great titles ascribed to him. Understanding the attitudes of Jesus, and making them our own is the only way to be like Jesus. It is all about the practicality of the Gospel. 

If Christ is found only as a text to be read, quoted, interpreted and explained, it is only an ideal to boast about and to be intolerant with other's beliefs. When the words are used, repeated, or written down as though they have some magical power, the words are nothing more than words worshiped. We need to get familiar with the person of Jesus in order to understand the  practicality of the Good News. 

Christ lived everything that he had spoken as the blessedness of the Good News. He opened 'heaven' for all who are of good will, the very kingdom which was denied to the poor. They were unable to afford to enter into the kingdom. We can learn from him how he made the kingdom available to them, and showed the practicality of the  Gospel. We may not be able to be so perfect as Christ is. Yet, we can desire for it with all sincerity. That desire prompts us to trust in God wholeheartedly. Our attempt at every moment to live and reflect he Gospel finds its success and failures, yet a steady growth. We are walking with Jesus. Imitation or participation in Christ is not simply inflicting pain and suffering. The participation is in making his attitudes our own. If we are able to share with him every moment our inabilities, difficulties, and success, also how we have grown, we know that we have learned the gospel to be practical. only if they are there at our heart, out rituals, customs, and devotions have any value. If the Gospel is found impractical, heaven is also not real.

Gospel has a wisdom of its own; that is the mind of Christ through which we know the will of God. There are people who have their opinion that we need to have margins to be prudent at 'this time of challenges;' a prudence beyond the wisdom of the Gospel. Gospel. in a close observation we can know that the 'prudence' there simply invites to form attitudes of suspicion, distancing, and othering. It has no wisdom that lead us to a creative preparedness. 

To love, do good, forgive, pray for those who insult, not to hate, avoid anger and jealousy ...  are seen as some moral obligations placed upon us by faith. The Gospel can be experienced as practical when these can be understood as the very nature of faith. 

Follow the Master

The will and dream of the master is the path of a true disciple. Knowing that the mind of the master is to serve and to offer his life as a sacrifice calls a disciple also to be a servant and a sacrifice. The readiness to accept this path is not simply a practice of value. The path is taken by the disciple through the closeness to the master.

Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit. This anointing had the nature of self surrendering before God in faithfulness and trust. The anointing in Christ also included a life that took the pain and death of people into his own life. If we let Christ to be so, it challenges us to do the same. If we want to preserve Christ without dying, we will lose him.

The practicality of faith comes in a living companionship with Jesus. That companionship is an every- moment- conversation about whatever we go through. Then we are consoled, comforted, strengthened, and transfigured. Even the faith seeking understanding looks for this companionship to be found in the living realities of ours.

If we repeat Peter's attitude today, we will successfully create a Christ-less Christianity, and a Christ without anointing, and ourselves without the dream and will of Christ our Master.

Great Sign

Many religious magazine’s and channels introduce to us very beautiful and wonderful image about God, but most of them are fruitless. Those gods produce great signs from heaven and earth, but can not make us fruitful in acting with the values of the kingdom of God. Sometime these wonderful gods despise the values of the kingdom. Those gods who promise prosperity and well being cannot offer anything for the poor, they cannot encourage acts of justice, they cannot enliven grace for being sincere and stand for peace processes.

Often, we expect great signs. Why? We doubt about the presence of God, or not sure whether God is happy with us, or suspect evil everywhere and don’t know which way to go. One who wavers cannot expect that the Lord will give him anything. It is because we do not know God we have doubts. God cannot go away from us, God cannot be angry with us, in God we have the sure way. Though we say that we must give first place for God, even our preachings suggest that we place ourselves, our sins, and our fears in the first place. We are frightened, broken, sinful, yet God gives life to us. By a forceful intellectual labour we cannot bring God in the first place. First thing to understand is that the super wonderful God is not a God at all. The true and living God stays within our emptiness and pain. God is there in our struggles and temptations. Secondly, God has given us the grace in us to comfort strengthen and raise up one another. So the sign to be seen is from the signs of grace within us. The surety that we find in God is the living faith that is fruitful. Rather than looking for definitions and explanations of God, or utility in believing in God, can we grow in the sense of belonging to him? Can we make all sincere effort to place our trust in Him? That trust will make in us a new creation, open the channels of grace in us that will reflect in our day-to-day activities and attitudes. That is the sign from God.

James 1:1-11 Mark 8:11-13

Blessed are you!

Those who trust in the Lord have signs of life, and those who rely on themselves have signs of death. A human life worthy of living finding its fulfillment is a life we are able to live in peace and harmony. It is truly a blessing from God if we can be composed both in times of abundance and in times of scarcity. A sense of knowing the hunger and pain of the other is to have the heart of God. Blessings of God understood only in terms of success, prosperity, and creation of wealth is a distortion of the image of God itself. Consequently, that view of blessing will also distort the image of ours. There will be some elite blessed and some poor denied of blessing. Jesus’ offering of the blessedness to the ‘poor and cursed’ was a revolution in the holy kingdom of God.

Blessedness is an invitation to a banquet table Christ has prepared. Many are called together. All have their own special gifts and pains. At the banquet table there is feeding, embracing, healing, and raising one another. Together we begin to experience that we are the living body of Christ.

There were times when human society thought that we have the capacity to rise up beyond our limitations, eradicate pain, sickness, struggle and war. Such humanistic thinking relied so much on human capacity that instead of gathering all it scattered. Jesus vision of the beatitude is to trust in the Father who cares for us. He has filled in us the bread for the hungry, the sense of justice, mercy, peaceful resistance to ensure hearing of deepest cries. The kingdom of God is present and alive in us making the presence of Christ in the world. God does not have to appear in a miraculous way to transmit graces. God has given us the grace within our own flesh and blood. So the super-natural graces works in us very natural way.

Jeremiah 17:5-8 Luke 6:17,20-26

People who knew all about the righteousness of God

 In Mark 9:30-37 we have the second one of Passion-Resurrection predictions. It may be good to keep in mind the post resurrection explanation for the absence of Jesus when we reflect on this prediction. He has risen! Remember how he told you, “The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.” Then they remembered his words (Lk 24: 6-8). Again, on the road to Emmaus, He said to them, “… how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself (Lk 24: 25-27). So, the continuing presence is placed at first, and we are reminded that the suffering and humiliation were all along the path of glory.

The three passion predictions have a significant relationship to the journey section ‘on the Way’ from Caesarea Philippi in 8:27 to the arrival at Jerusalem in 11:1. Confession of Peter is a roadmap for this journey with ups and downs, yet Jesus being the guide. Three times within Mark 8–10 Jesus predicts his death, each of which follows a failure on the part of the disciples to understand the announcement of Jesus’ passion and Resurrection, and Jesus’ instruction on discipleship.

After the confession of Peter that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, Peter rebukes Jesus (8:32–33) when he says that he will suffer, be rejected, killed, and will rise after three days (8:31). Jesus instructs them to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow him (8:33–9:1). After the transfiguration, on the way down Jesus again predicts that he will be delivered, killed, and will rise after three days (9:30–31). The disciples were not able to understand the saying and were afraid to ask him about it (9:32). On the other hand, at the foot of the mountain there are failed attempts going on to heal a demoniac. On the way ahead disciples are engaged in an argument about who among them is the greatest (9: 34). Jesus teaches that the first must be last and that those who receive children in his name receive him (9:33–50. Before the entry into Jerusalem Jesus predicts more clearly that he will be delivered, condemned, mocked, flogged, killed, and will rise after three days (10:33–34).  James and John ask for their position next to Jesus in his glory (10:35–37). Jesus teaches that he came to serve by giving his life as a ransom for many. The disciples must not be people exercising authority ‘loading it over the people.’  To be great, they must become servants; to be first, they must become slaves (10:38–45).

Raising of the bronze serpent is a significant story of healing from the book of Numbers (21:9). “… just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (Jn 3:14-15) is the Johannine vision of the self-emptying of Jesus. “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (Jn 13:2), so the being lifted up was a ‘must’ which is also expressed in the synoptic gospels. The Johannine presentation of Jesus ‘lifted up’ (3:14; 8:28: 12:32) reminds us of the Suffering Servant ‘Behold my servant shall prosper: he shall be lifted up and glorified exceedingly (Isaiah 53 13). Being lifted up as self-emptying, and as being glorified can be seen in Jesus emptying himself as a servant, and God raising him by giving him the name which is above every name (Phil 2:8).

If the wheat has to produce harvest it has to fall down and die. Christ the seed of the kingdom had to undergo the dying in incarnating into the children of the kingdom. His instruction to the disciples to take up daily cross, and to deny self are a must in welcoming the children of God. Children are the people of the beatitudes, and an incarnation into their lives must be shaped by the self-emptying love. Imagine his life, welcoming the little ones, the poor, those who are hungry, those who mourn, those who establish peace, those hunger and thirst for justice. ‘If you welcome ‘them’ you will be great,’ that is what he said.

Jesus came to give life in its abundance, and to offer the freedom of the children of God. His healing and teaching also indicated justice, peace and liberation. It challenged many customs and beliefs which were convenient for maintaining exploitative structures. This choice of perspective, and the conflicts are significant in his predictions and instructions on discipleship. We can see arguments on marriage, on riches, on fasting, on resurrection.  Jesus observed Sabbath not as a day of ‘rest from labor’ as in the priestly tradition of Genesis 2:2, but as a day of liberation following the Deuteronomic tradition. (Deut. 5:15). He proclaimed liberty to captives and the year of God’s favour (Lk 4: 19). But the liberation was an unbearable burden for the system of powers. He had to suffer.

When he predicts his passion he also bears the pain of being considered as an enemy because of being the grain of wheat that has to bear fruit for the life of those little ones. The same pain is there even when he says to love enemies and to pray for them. Ps 68(69) speaks of a stage that “I have become an alien to my own mother’s sons.”

Jesus asks us whether we are ready to drink the chalice that he had to drink; whether we are ready to die. The key question which must be answered is whether we are ready to share the kingdom for the little ones, the children of the beatitudes. It is a costly discipleship because it might ask for denying ourselves, but it is fruitful. Jesus’ call for us is to follow him in bearing fruits of the kingdom by emptying ourselves, taking up the daily crosses. Jesus’ call is to fall down and die in order to produce a rich harvest. Just like the master, a disciple is called to live to the abundance of life and healing, unity and fraternity.

Ending it with a paradox: The People engaged in conspiracy and plotting in the first reading (Wisdom 2:12,17-20) seem to be knowing the righteousness of God, and his providence. But they fail to see a just man. Because perhaps he is not coming in their line. They have full confidence that God will look after if the ‘enemy’ is righteous. The stranger, whom they well make an enemy by othering will never deserve to be one of the least to be welcomed. Even God who stands by them will be condemned and killed. So, the very frame of righteousness turns for them a means of plotting and conspiring, ultimately to preserve and kill.

Participating in Christ's compassion

King Jeroboam set up a worship place in Bethel, and said, “Here are your gods, Israel.” He did it because he thought, “If this people continue to go up to the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem to offer sacrifices, the people’s hearts will turn back again to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah, and they will put me to death.”

Jeroboam is bringing alternatives for God to ensure his own power. He uses god, worship, and festivity as political symbols. An alternative god that represents the power of the king will create its system and crush the people in the name of its worship. Fighting for God only creates a void in human lives. Power struggles in the name of God will bring a godless society. Even in the case of David making Jerusalem as the centre, it was not only a holy city, but also a political centre. From being a shepherd and king, David and Solomon grew to be an emperor. Solomon received many wives and their gods to keep his kingdom unchallenged. It was no more a promised land in reality, it was a conquered land. In an empire, only the emperor lives, not people, not even God. Even though there may be a super god itis a language to ensure imperial power. People are to serve the interests of the emperor. This type of governance is not part of the promises of the covenant God had made. Which is the boundary of the promised land? When God made the promise of giving them a land flowing with milk and honey, did that mean to chase everyone away from where they would reach? Would the 'chosen' people live among differences of the strangely chosen. Would God really wish all other tribes and nations be wiped away? God’s will had a promise as their inheritance that would last forever. The expansion of this promise was what God would like to have done by the chosen people. Only the depths of our hearts extend our boundaries and widen our horizons.

Jesus’s concern was that the people may faint on the way, not whether they will follow him and support him. He gave them bread to eat, not alternatives for god that ensured his power. This second multiplication of bread may also have included gentile crowd. Bible scholars say that this text has a gentile touch even in its language. It was in the last chapter we saw Jesus being in Syrophoenicia, a territory of gentiles, and extended healing seeing the faith of a woman. Coming back to Galilee he offers them not just scraps falling from the master's table, but bread itself. When Jesus calls his disciples, it is also an invitation to participate in his compassion. What does it mean to us today in a politically and religiously biased world, to know, to love, and live together with Jesus? We do have an abundance of alternatives of power-centres, rituals, religiosity, and reshaped gods and Christs of our liking. Gods and religiosity that build boundaries are not god and religion at all. Which king who stood for ensuring one’s own power was devoted to God and the good of people? Only a community formed in communion with one another and with God shows that God is in their midst.

Participation in the life of Jesus, being a disciple, means a true sense of gratitude to God, for everything comes from, and depends upon, God. A true life with God offers the language of sharing, extending our hearts beyond favoured boundaries, and communion with God and with others. Participating in the gratitude, praise, communion that Jesus lived and extended to others we re-create our true image. We are able to give life to a new sense of human life and how we relate to the world around us. We are not kings, creators of gods, we are the children of God.

Temple of God

Temple is not a container for God. There is no temple, no religious symbol that exhaustively hold God within itself. God’s presence within the interiority of ourselves and everything that exists so much transcending our understanding that we cannot really accept the immanence of God within ourselves. The more we extend ourselves we might widen our sight to see the presence of God in others and in creation which calls for love and service. A direct experience of God and the compelling presence of God to live a life of compassion and mercy are also moments of finding the flames of God within our short life.

If our offerings are to be pure offering, they have to be real symbols of what we live in our daily lives. If life does not become an offering in our lived life, offerings are rotten objects placed at the altar. Real offerings we cannot carry to the temple, nor to the highest heaven. Real offerings are to be offered in love, care, mercy and compassion. Then the heaven is here, the kingdom is here and the temple is here where we live. There is the glory of God, and our sincere prayer.

Offering devoid of sincere offering makes the temple a house of trade. There in the temple glory of God never dwells, no prayer rises. Temple can become a place that promotes such rotten offering and the rituals related to it. Thus, it adds the function of conspiracy and plotting crime. It is that system that led the scribes and Pharisees from the 'Holy City' of Jerusalem to Nazareth, a place of no good, to find find faults with and kill the one they seemed to have worshiped.

There are already signs that the praised rising from sincere hearts though the temples seem abandoned. Many begin to recognise the glory of God in the kindness shown to the rotten and broken lives of humanity and nature. Temples discuss about the modality of worshiping God and add hatred to the worshippers, there are silent peacemakers struggling for justice in solidarity with those are denied justice.

There, if humanity and creation can gather in your life in worship and for the glory of God, you are the temple where the Spirit of God dwells.

Consecration

It was according to the Law of Moses, the parents of Jesus took Jesus up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, and for them to be purified. Even the priest at the altar did not recognise for whom he was performing those purifying rituals. On the other side we see Simeon and Anna taking the child in their hands and praising God. Simeon’s words show the contentment of what he longed to see. He saw in the child, the light to guide those who are far and the glory for those who have known the path of peace.

Simeon had seen innumerous offerings and sacrifices offered at the temple. But, taking the child in his hands, Simeon said, ‘My eyes have seen the salvation,’, ready to depart in peace. Simeon waited patiently to see the prompting of the Spirit to be fulfilled. He learned that the sacrifice ensuring salvation was seeking and doing the will of God. That would surely include a piercing of heart for anyone who sincerely follows the will of God.

Jesus came to do the will of God. He knew what would please God. He offered life to the world, freedom to the oppressed, and good news to the poor. He had to become the lamb of God, the life giving sacrifice. He was indeed the temple in whom all gather to worship. He is the home to which all return. Only by being in him together as one body, we as a community can offer worship to God. He is the temple. We are the temple in whom the Spirit dwells and the light of God must shine.

Our consecration to the Lord is a sincere dedication to do the will of God. We can know the will of God only if we have the mind of Christ in approaching God and others. Our consecration does not make us different categories of people. We have different ways of life of consecration deepening our baptismal consecration fructified in diverse forms. If our life revolves around cultic, customary, religious performances, we are failing in our consecration to the Lord. They are attempts to purify God. God is not glorified in the rituals performed, God is glorified and we are sanctified in a righteous way of living. Every moment is consecrated to the Lord by deepest sincerity and love in our life, even in the simplest things we do. Consecration begins in our attitude ‘Behold, Lord, I have come to do your will.’ The end of our consecration, the purpose can be either in the words, 'the almighty has done great things for me,’ or ‘Now, Master, you can let your servant go in peace, just as you promised; because my eyes have seen the salvation,’ or ‘Into your hands Lord, I commend my spirit.’