... more will be given

Science is of course not the final word on reality. But true science is a great door today for us. Psychology, being the science of the 'soul' today we can have more clarity in the matters of virtues and vices. We still find shelter in the psychology of Plato and Aristotle and we are comfortable with their science of the soul. We may receive better depths of our souls in relation with the strengths and frailties we possess.

However, virtues have all the possibilities to lose if we do not practice them. Even we experience healing when we heal and comfort. We find mercy when we show mercy. Psychology may help us in understanding 'demons' in us and how they are attached to us. It may also help us in understanding the real difficulties in exercising virtues. The growth can be there only when we exercise virtues and make efforts. If we know the hurdles, it is easier to handle them. 

As we grow, more will be given. which does not grow will gradually disappear. 

The insincere steward

The parable of the insincere steward seems to me a sarcastic warning on a possible tragedy. It is tragic to wait for a fortune that will never come. Those who expect eternal homes by corrupt and crooked means will never have it in the kingdom of God. Every time and age show its own tricks to excel, conquer and rule the business of the world. So the temptation for the children of light always is to adapt the 'successful' path of the children of this age.

The steward who squandered the property of his master does not deserve any appreciation. He uses his cleverness/cunningness to make his future safe by unjust and insincere ways when he was sure he is going to be out of his office. making his future safe, being wasteful with the property, he is causing damage. The people who take the benefit of that damage also show a corrupt system of compromising and taking pleasure in the evil things. In fact, who will come to take him home once out of office? He was not doing any virtuous deed, but he was wasting the master's property.

In all ages, 'the children of this age' are cleverer than the children of light. Every age has its own strategy of success, whether it be in politics in matters of power or in business in matters of money. It is not at all necessary that they have to be in the path of light, truth and justice. Not to chose those paths is a foolishness. but it is there the foolishness of the children of light becomes greater than the wisdom of the children of light.

The lesson at the end of the parable is that no one can serve both God and money. The rich fool nurtured an emptiness in hoarding his richness. Here this insincere steward follow a corrupt conscience in misusing the property for the safety of his future. We need to take these parables into the line of Jesus' instructions to his disciples teaching them 'how not to be' with regard to money and power.

It is through the narrow gate that we can be sure of eternal homes. The foolishness of the Gospel is the path there. With all crook and tricks the children of this age might be ruling the world. The temptation is to follow the same path. Corrupt strategies and skills of success are very much accepted today. We can gather wealth, have domination, go with the wicked and compromise on justice truth and love. Without all these we cannot build the kingdom of God! But we must keep in mind that, what is highly esteemed in human eyes is loathsome in the sight of God.

What will be the nature of eternal homes being prepared by the disciples of Christ if we have lost the essence of Christ?

know Christ the Logos

All are invited to the table of the Lord, and all are there except for those who knowingly reject it. Jesus never avoided anyone. Those who missed the table were those who could not tolerate the 'unholy' along with themselves who were 'holy.' 

Why do we need others also at the Lord's table? We can understand the fullness of Christ only if we are fed with the charism present in others. No one can expect to enjoy the Lord's table all alone.

Christianity has boasted over centuries that it is the whole and only body of Christ. Christianity as a religion is only one of the many members of the body of Christ. In order to understand the whole of Christ, we need to approach him not only as the family of humanity, but as the community of the whole of creation. The prophetic voices in this community are more evident and available to us in our time, thus widening our horizons to know Christ the Logos more fully.

Eucharist as the celebration of life

Eucharist is the celebration of life, both the life of Jesus and the life of ours. Anytime when the Eucharist is limited to a church altar and the species of bread and wine it does not communicate what it really contains. God is life and giver of life. Jesus offered his life in a life that was self emptying and life giving. Even in the unjust death he suffered he poured out love and life. That life and love unite all of us into his own body, and through him take us into the communion with the Father.

Atonement figuration in connection with the Old Testament does not sufficiently hold what Jesus has done for us. Reparation, ransom, redemption, retribution and so on somehow condition God and constrains the understanding of the life that Jesus gives us. Divine life in us needs to be understood in terms of dynamics of life itself. Truth of Christ is as the life giver, though our emphasis goes to him as sin bearer. He himself is the reason for our life and in the whole of creation and the grace at work in us, even before he became man. This life, communion, and that reality lived in our life as forgiveness, reconciliation, sacrifice, love and communion together make the Eucharist.

Since "Eucharist is the source and summit" of Christian life, our understanding of the church, priesthood, mission, family, devotion and every dimension of Christian life will be formulated based on how we understand the Eucharist. If it is simply a ritual performance at an altar, if it receives an image of a super-powered bread, accordingly it will reformulate others.

The divine life, the life of the Holy Spirit in us shapes us as individuals and communities into the image of Jesus. The beauty and richness of life (both divine and human) is the meal we serve for one another with the words, 'this is my body, this is my blood.' Unwilling to do that in sincerity of heart, we forget the life Jesus emptied for us, and what he meant in his words upon bread and wine, 'this is my body, this is my blood.'

If there is no communion with one another, there is no sincerity in the participation of the bread broken. So a sincere Eucharistic celebration demands justice ensured. Because denial of justice deprives the victims from the life promised to them. The pain of the sacrifice of Christ, calls us to share in the misery of those who suffer near and far. We cannot take the bread in our hand when Christ says, 'take this and eat/ drink' if we cannot be sensitive to the flesh (with grace and with gracelessness) of ourselves and others. In every Eucharist we need to ask ourselves, where am I taking myself in this celebration of the Eucharist? A customary eating and drinking with a favour seeking approach is not what we can do to the Eucharist. Life is to be responded with life.

The Women Disciples of Jesus

 In a 1999 television miniseries named Jesus, the character of Mary Magdalene, in a conversation with Jesus, tells him, “if I was a man, I would be your most loyal disciple.”

Among the disciples of Jesus, dear friends, there were also many women disciples like Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna, accompanying Jesus and participating in his ministry (Luke 8:1-3). At the foot of the cross there were ‘many women’ witnessing his last moments (Matthew 27: 55-56). They name only a few - Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, Salome the mother of the sons of Zebedee, Jesus’ mother Mary and her sister, and Mary the wife of Clophas. Jesus, also learned from them that his ministry was not limited to particular groups and persons, but belongs to all who come to the master’s table (Mark 7:24-30; Matthew 15:21-28). Every event, intervention or conversation of Jesus with women expresses a very significant dimension of God’s attitude to the whole of humanity.

These women were accepted to the folk of Jesus’ disciples in a time when the customary morning blessings of the Jews thanked God for not making him a gentile, a woman, or a slave. Women were expected to be good wives and mothers and stay at home. In the synagogues and in the temple, they had a secluded section just for the women, separate from men. They had to walk seven feet behind their husbands when they were in public. A Rabbi would not talk to a woman, and some strict ones even avoided their sight.

   We are all the children of God, there is no longer male and female; for all of us are one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:28).  Women in the company of Jesus ‘provided’ for their needs. It was not simply to perform some domestic tasks. Some of them funded his mission, and some were leaders and guardians of communities at the very beginning of the church. However, their identity was not defined by their wealth or status, but it was the fact that they had been “with him” that described them.

Some of the ancient writings show the life and vision nurtured by the women in the early church. It resembles the heart with which they loved and knew Jesus. Jesus was not a ruler and judge, but the teacher and mediator of wisdom. This relationship to Jesus generated an ethics of freedom and spiritual development than an ethics of order and control. Those who were more spiritually advanced shared what they had freely without claim to any fixed, hierarchical ordering of power, position or honour.

There was an emphasis on a loving relationship with the risen Christ through the Holy Spirit. This gentle touch of the Holy Spirit is experienced in the unity, power, and growth in the Spirit here and now, not in some future time. They were eager and committed to the realisation of the kingdom of God amidst them. So, overcoming social injustice and human suffering were seen to be integral to spiritual life. It was well reflected in works of charity, prophetic voices, and songs and music.

The women disciples of Jesus loved him, followed him, and shared in his ministry and stood by him even when he died. Jesus was not a relic in the tomb, he was alive, and a woman disciple witnessed it first because of her deep love.

Among us there are loyal women disciples of Jesus, who wait to anoint him even before dawn, who followed him closely, ministered to him, and proclaimed his Word. May the body of Christ, we the church, find new life under their care.

📺

Being found

Losing something adds lot of pain to us. That pain may begin to reshape our life. It may be something very precious to our life. It may be a separation of a person, or a distance created in a relationship. Out of many experiences of love, one that we really experience deeply is the aspect of being found again, being accepted, and embraced. Other side of it is that we find something that has been lost. 

Three parables in Luke 15 tell us the joy God has in finding us. A key to understand the good news Jesus shares with us is the very human relationships we have in our lives. Though not perfect in life, our own  love, pain, betrayal, longing, thirst and so on are the doors to understand the way that God loves us. Having sufficient trust in order to believe in that love gradually leads us to experience the constant accompaniment of God. However sinful, broken, or destroyed we are, God walks with us is a reality. It is not that God comes to save us when we are in a crisis. God has been walking with us all through. Why, then, he did not intervene when the wrong happened? Actually there is no answer. Perhaps, God suffered vulnerability with us. But God is the source of life, and life assures new beginning. We can have sure confidence in the grace that is shining deep within ourselves as a dim light.

It is in letting ourselves to be found we can experience being found by God. This letting ourselves is on openness towards life, letting ourselves to be found as a brother/sister, father/mother, son/daughter, as the beloved, as a friend. We too extend ourselves to find 'them' once again into our life. Then there is an experience of joy in life, and an experience of God finding us, and finding God once again as source of our lives.

Celebration is not in spending, celebration is the sharing of joy. That is the challenge these parables place before us. The challenge is that whether we are able to share in the joy of God, to share in the joy of someone who has found what was lost, to share in the joy that someone has of being found by God or one's beloved ones. The righteousness of the Pharisees and Scribes in the Gospels had corrupted them in such a way that they were reluctant to celebrate.

Wisdom-freedom

It is the experience of the providence of God that enables us to trust in God deeply. It is the source of freedom that we find in God. This freedom alone can fill us with peace and joy. When we speak of Christian service, these are the elements that need to qualify it. That is a commitment in freedom. 

The following of Christ necessarily generates this freedom. Because it is  an encounter with truth and life, and develops a responsibility emerging from it. This freedom is inherently guided by prudence and wisdom. In that way freedom frees a person to seek the will of God whole heartedly.

Freedom is restricted when wisdom is attached to some schools and ideology. Mostly wisdom or knowledge is categorised into modes of transcendence. Real wisdom that guides the freedom of the children of God makes us descend to our daily reality and seek the will of  God in every human condition. Gradually it also helps us for an indescence, to go deeper into our depths seeking the light of God.

Value of the gospel

 The Word guides times and history,

so the true standard of judgment is the Word.
The real judgment of our truth is how much we have the Word in us.

What marks the Word in us?
What is the sign that the Word is alive in us?
It is the presence of the Gospel in our lives -
Truth, justice, mercy, compassion, love, forgiveness...
Christ becomes visible in us as a testimony to the world.

This value of the gospel is worthless for the standards of the powerful,
that is the foolishness of God, and what God finds wise in us who follow the gospel.
Playing a fool and resisting to learn things is not what God values in us.
Preferring the values of the gospel over power and wealth is the foolishness God desires.

We prefer to love the old wine of customs and traditions over newness of the Gospel. The old wine intoxicates, for it has lot of space for power and wealth. But we must know that the bridegroom is taken away.
Gospel speaks to time and history anew.

We belong to Christ

Our past has shaped us into someone unique with special beauty and ugliness within. We may have to bear the burden and pain of the past. Future calls us to move with its own concerns. Even an afterlife fills us with great concern about its details. 

"I am very regular to this programme in this channel," "I follow that writer/preacher/bishop," "I just wait for that spiritual magazine" so on may be familiar statements for us. We may be very faithful to the specifics of these visions and act accordingly. They are fine, unless and until they constrain our life within their frames. It is not easy to realise how our close affinities to these gradually turning into a bondage. 

What, then, is to be found to walk without stumbling? One need to look deep into one's own mysteries, longing, sighs and pains. 'Put out' into the depth, what we find is the emerging image of Christ from our own depths. What heaviness presses it down? What closes the doors of our core?  

Empty labour, failed attempts, harsh emptiness do suffocate us. There may be many more who are even more severely bearing similar helplessness. To our helplessness Christ would say, 'do not be afraid.' Having no fear in casting the net into the depths, having no fear in seeing the Christ image in our core, having no fear also in strengthening others in doing the same. That could be the meaning of 'catching men' in solidarity, kindness, care, action of justice and so on.

We belong to Christ. Belonging to Christ is not a political lineage. It means to be comforted in the providence of God. It is being rooted in Christ in relation to God as the children of God. Whether we are alive or dead we belong to God. Our beloved channels, programmes, preachers, Bible, the world, life and death, the present and the future, the afterlife concepts, are all our servants; but we belong to Christ. 

Withdrawing to a lonely place

Christ himself becoming a localized hero would disrupt the will of God. A Christ-cult is not what Christ asked his disciples. When he calls them to follow him it is to imitate him. We may have many fan associations of Christ. There God is not glorified, nor are we growing in his image.

'Growing into full maturity in Christ' is the purpose of a renewed humanity. It is a process from a state in denial of grace to a life lived with the working of grace, growth from a 'man of flesh' to 'man of the Spirit.' Many of our structures of institutions, theorization, customs and traditions stand in resistance to life, healing, and grace. Adherence to an idealized faith, a hero image, 'spiritual centre' when the growth in Christ is kept aside, is the emptiness that swallow even a 'spiritual man.'

Withdrawing to a lonely place, being with the Father, is also walking into one's own interiority away from crowd's attention, praise, and cheering. It is there one time to time recognizes one's own specific call, charisms, and limitations. It is there one receives courage to fulfill what one is meant to, and humility for setting limits to one's 'powers.' It is there one realizes one needs another in fulfilling the will of God.

Having the mind of God

Healing, peace, nourishment and so on are disturbances to many. They do need some troubles in order to be at ease so that attacking on them they find their existence. if there is no trouble at all they may imagine, suspect or accuse some problems. Peace and reconciliation, what have you to do with us? they might ask. Life disturbs them.

The will of God is that all have life. It has to be the mind of anyone who says, 'your will be done.' To know the mind of God and to realise it in our life, we have received the Holy Spirit. The sign of the Spirit's presence is that we have the same mind of Christ.

Often Spirit is imagined to be power based, and rarely life based. Power is a craze and life is a ever comforting thirst. Life is an embrace. If we want to experience God, forget about all power images, earthquake, lightning, explosion, command, rule, conquer and so on. Instead, ask for the grace to imitate life patterns around.

Prepare the way

One's real way is to be transformed into another Christ.
The way alone prepares the way for the Lord.
John the Baptist saw the truth and pointed to the Truth,
the cost of preparing the way was his own life.
He found the Way, Truth, and life.

A life-giving death and life of sacrifice was the way of Christ.
That was visible in his service mindedness which brought life in different ways to many.

John's life teaches us to what/whom or how to be obedient and faithful.
To serve did not mean servitude,
it was not pleasing the powerful, accepting vulnerability, and be submissive.
John has never been an adulator.
He served truth, stood firm, and died as a true testimony,
a voice crying out in the wilderness.

To speak truth, to be service minded, we need courage and humility at the same time. Both concerns the truth of lives and a capacity to be compassionate. That capacity is the sincere desire to be like Jesus, assisted by grace. 

Simple Faith

What qualifies the simple faith? Is it believing anything blindly or doing anything without any further thought just because something is said to be in relation with God or religion? Does every religious or even very pious practice necessarily lead us to God?

Simple faith is about the surety or the confidence one finds because of one's deeper trust in God. Being pious or learning strict observance of devotional practices without that trust is not simple faith. If it was fine, any superstition can be called as simple faith. Younger generation today are in a danger of falling prey to it. They are led to a world of gods and piety, and made to believe that they are in a holy and godly space. They are led to a hallowed realm not at all in touch with the daily realities where God actually speaks. They are deceived.

If we are humans, we need the natural world first, not the religious world. Children wearing saints' clothing, always saying prayers, writing Bible do not necessarily find their souls. They need to have the sight of mountains, birds, and flowers, they need the joy of playing in streams, they need affection of human hearts. It is there they find the tender touch of God and moulding of their souls.

We need our touch with others and nature to have a deep inner self, to feel the grandeur, beauty, depth, and providence. Every time doing the act of 'praying' or only doing divine things is in fact keeping the real presence of God away. The holy space is only an alternative mental world we ourselves have created. We need to learn to trust. Only trust can generate simple faith.

All will come

Who will be in high places in the kingdom of God? Who will be seated at the right and left of Christ when he assumes his power? Who will be the first? These questions were very much part of the journey of the disciples of Jesus. It was never a strange question in any society to ask who were the first, the elite or the privileged.

‘Try your best to enter by the narrow door,’ was Jesus’ advice in order to find life. Many could not enter, perhaps because their super-claims of their worth of entering the gate were heavy upon them. The reason shown for their failure is that they were wicked, and that they did not seek the will of the Father. Who? Those who had claims of familiarity with the master in eating and drinking with him, and according to Mt 7: 21, 22 they even prophesied, drove out demons, and performed miracles.

The category of the first always had the privilege of being strict and faithful to all the laws and customs, oaths and sacrifices. The last were the poor, marginalised, people in the category of sinners who were lawless and godless. These claims and accusations did hurt Jesus, and very often invited his criticism. Very often, the choice of time and mode of healing, the stand he took on certain occasions, even famous parables like Good Samaritan and Prodigal Son challenged the hard heartedness of the first.

The Kingdom of God that Jesus has introduced is a reality among us, in our very lives. It is in the experience of God’s love, care and providence. It is not an absence of limitations and pain, but rather the experience of God-with-us. As a realisation, the kingdom of God among us, here and now, is based upon the Emmanuel experience of the heart. As a pattern of life, it is constantly seeking the kingdom of God and its righteousness. It is a life moulded in gratitude, generosity and service. Taken into responsible relationships, the kingdom of God informs us with the sense of equality and mutual respect. We are all the children of God.

An open heart is the narrow door; a heart that seeks the kingdom of God and his righteousness, a heart that is free of prejudices. It is not easy to break the cultural and religious barriers that keep our selves secure and comfortable. But entering the kingdom is by bringing down those boundaries of the self, and following the way of Christ.

The kingdom of God is not other-worldly; a superperfect and transcendent world, something beyond human reach. We have often framed such alternative worlds to be the kingdom of God. That higher world will always have the temptation to make ourselves first and the custodians of that world. There, in that kingdom, every knee shall bow before ‘my ways of thinking about God,’ ‘my moral views,’ and ‘my spirituality.’ With the image of a Kingdom framed within the kingdom of emperors, we cannot understand the kingdom of God Jesus introduced to us. Being the first we may have a sure guarantee of the kingdom, even the right to condemn the least as uncivilised, sinners, unnatural or ungodly. In fact, making ourselves first, we close the doors against the kingdom of God for ourselves and for others.

Whom do we expect to be there in the kingdom of God? Is the kingdom exclusively of ours who are the first and have the full knowledge of God? Our prejudices and pride over claims to be the first will be brought to shame. From east and west, north and south, all will come to take their place in the feast of the kingdom. All will come, from all languages, races cultures, and faiths; all creation will come, animals, plants and humans, to find their place in the kingdom of heaven.

An open heart is the narrow door. Jesus could say, “I am the door.” Each one of us is a door to one another to enter into the kingdom. The other is the door for me to enter, and so it seems very narrow to break ourselves into the full freedom of being the children of God. But that is the way to enter into the joy of the kingdom. The narrow door is an effort for a renewed conscience formed with fraternity, love, compassion, and solidarity, that we all may gather together. That is the way God’s glory is experienced among us and shines forth.

Redeem the kingdom of God

Throughout centuries, especially in recent years people have migrated to an alternative mental stage and call it as the kingdom of God. They find everything supernatural, godly, pure, holy, and perfect there. The unfortunate level of it is that these mental stages are projected to large crowds if some are able to convince others flocking in religious circle. Our temptation to imagine Godly abode as a perfect world, as a transcendent experience rejects God-with-us experience.  

The nature of the kingdom of God that Jesus introduced to was not a superperfect, transcendent world. We did not have to wait for death to enter there. It was all about our trust in God, confidence in being in the hands of God. This sense of care received also places us in responsibility of mutual care of one another. So the experience of the kingdom of God is in the sense of providence, care, protection from God as we are children, and in the sense of gratitude for what we receive, and in the generosity, compassion, solidarity and justice they evoke. It does not become a matter of concern what will happen after death, whether we live for ever or we continue to be what we are and how etc. That is a matter in the providence and love of God. Even in the moments of pain there is hope in God. But we cannot be blind to the unjust pain inflicted to our brothers and sisters by some unjust system. It is part of the seeking of the righteousness of the kingdom to stand by the victims and hunger and thirst for justice along with the suffering people. The experience of the kingdom, in short, is living as the children of God. 

We have rejected the kingdom of God that Jesus introduced by picturing it in metaphysical categories. Today the concept of the kingdom of God itself is in need of redemption bringing it into really humane or natural frame. It is necessary towards the way for the future. 

to generate a renewed conscience

The Church must prioritize its efforts to generate a renewed conscience in humanity to be united in one heart facing the coming catastrophic events. Let us say, such disasters may hit us from five years from now, but preparations for such calamities are to be taking place now. It is gradual and deep process to form a conscience, and to break the existing boundaries is not an easy task.

 
Governments in their part, may have to rethink of policies to ensure necessities for a simple living of everyone. Their lives and livelihood do matter. Though always the rich are ensured lifeboats, they cannot find safety anymore. The time for annual gimmicks of planting trees is over. Corporates succeeded in downplaying the impacts of their 'development' on our habitat. Now the trees cannot take roots, water cannot find its freshness.

 
Fake faces of religions act very powerfully in society though we might say that religions have gone away. If at all religions have to make a relevant contribution, they need to have a metareligious role to play now at the depth of human heart. We may expect a miracle like exodus. But in reality, we will have to walk through fire and water. Only a humanity walking together in compassion and solidarity shedding all the barriers can pass through the crisis.

 
How do our congregations, youth movements, organizations ... bring into their planning the 'mission' of motivating the generation of renewed conscience formed with fraternity, love, compassion, solidarity ... Are we still comfortable in the safety of an imperial system continuing to make plans for its survival and control of others?

Hope is active

Hope is not a pleasant feeling about the future. It is active and alive. It is not a mental compromise to adjust with present struggle and crisis. Hope generates a dynamism sprouting from the grace within. It gives us the way to walk. In times of miseries, hope enables us to be bonded in solidarity and empathy in order to walk together. 

Climate, war, intolerance ... are on the rise. Disasters should not be a time of horrible destruction in an inhuman mode. In the time of disasters, only hope can help us to be humans of heart, compassion, sharing, solidarity, and cooperation. 

Assumption

The whole creation is striving for/ waiting for its fruition in union with God.

Mary, one among the creation, one among us,
waited, brought its fruit, found its completion.
It was the work of God.

It was fitting that she was born immaculate,
God may have prepared many generations to break the clutches of sin,
that gracefulness was all that was there when she was born.
It is to be contemplated that she preserved it in a graceless world,
a world fought for power, wealth, and transcendence.
To spend grace in a graceless world is harder than death,
so, a thousand swords may have pierced her heart.
Yet she held her heart full of grace.

In life, or in death, when was she not in grace?
She was always in heaven.
Grace was there in her, life was there in her, God was there in her,
all the while she was a wife, she was a mother, she worked, sweated, wept.

If assumption is seen as a liberation from material world, it collapses the whole meaning of incarnation and redemption.
Her life itself celebrated the liberty in bringing forth the Messiah.

Mary seen as the type of the church,
seeing what was granted to her,
are we assumed to grace to be grace-bearer in a world whose powers become self destructive?

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.