Idealised faith

 Ideologies in the name of God, whether it be conservative or progressive, do not intend to praise God. They only arrogantly worship themselves. Idealised faith is not a faith at all. It is secure worship of definitions. Some call it certainty of faith. Theology did evolve over time though 'Jesus Christ is same yesterday, today, and for ever.'

The crucified

Moses raised bronze serpent in the desert.
Was it a sign of punishment or sign that God gives life.
Son of man was lifted up on the cross.
Do we see punishment, or the love of God.

The way we view the crucified defines our way of Christian life.

Old wine skin of Sin and Punishments

Salvation is based on God’s love and goodness. We have tied it with sin and punishment. We still seek the security of old wineskins. We have not let grace free us into new wine. Sin, sin, and only sin and their punishments are the reality we can see inside the old wineskin.

At the very moment the prodigal son asked for his share of the property, the father kept a book writing down all the offences he got from the son. While the time he came back the book was full, marking the punishments due for all the offences. Who bore the punishments of the prodigal son?

Luke 15 father is quite different. He did feel the pain of all the offences, rebelliousness, separation, squandering, pathetic end and everything. But he received him not less than his own son. Divine justice is of a heart full of love.

Why do we want to push the equations of penalty and punishment to God's heart? To suit the theology we want, should we disfigure the face of God?

Holy face of the tempter

The tempter has a holy face,
he appears to be God.

God gave manna in the desert, can  he not change stones to bread? Can you not become a bread provider and glorify god's name?

Those who limit God to religious frames will mistake the tempter for God. They get everything in godly flavours, power, pleasures, fame ... They can't be even aware that they are serving the tempter. If not guided by God, religion can lead us to sin.

Suffering of Christ and Divine Justice

Our stubborn morality that demands a punishing justice from God is an absurdity in the nature of God. Justice brought by punishing offences is a process in  'gentile' courts. Divine justice wants everyone to live to the full. This nature of divine justice bring a great commitment according to the gospel values. We the righteous are often not ready for it. 

Jesus was committed to that justice. So, his love was a scandal for the holy. He bore the painful heavy burden of gracelessness. Sin-bearing is an emptying, and going lifeless, because sin is something lacking in grace. Jesus, while assuming gracelessness/ lifelessness poured out grace and life. Grace heals even the burdens and wounds that generate resistance to the path of grace or  the inability to be open to grace. 

Punishment is a must for those who bring God to their ideal legal frames. So, penalty theology is necessary to put Jesus's sufferings as a penalty for the deserved punishment over humanity. God was not adding on punishment after punishment over humanity, God was instead raising and healing many in grace. We find that God in human flesh in Jesus. Jesus lived the compassion and mercy of God. That cannot remain in healing  and doing  good. He also knew how they struggled without grace. 

Jesus had to suffer, because this justice is costly for the privileged righteous, because, taken seriously they have to welcome the unprivileged sinners to the same God's kingdom that they were guaranteed. Even while he suffered an unjust death, he lived a life-giving and self-emptying sacrifice, just as he was when he was healing the sick and forgiving sins. 

beating heart' of the Church

"God's love is the 'beating heart' of the Church," said Pope Francis. 

Charity causes confusion mainly because we like to live within  the securities of boundaries. Charity, at the root is about accepting, and being open, and being transparent. Charity cannot be there without justice, compassion, truth and goodwill. 

For the church to have heart of charity, what we need is Jesus. He was not confused about love. It is to that vision we have the process of the synod. "A synod is an ecclesial gathering with the goal of discerning what the Holy Spirit is asking of the church at the time." Speaking voices may be diverse, but they are not challenges and confusions. Every human cry has also a voice that Spirit speaks to us. We cannot condemn that.

Does our holiness condemn the Holy?

The scribes knew the scriptures and the law. Their knowledge gave them power over the people to dictate how to live, behave, and worship. According to their interpretation, Jesus was mad, and possessed by the devil.

God made a covenant with humanity, ensuring God’s constant presence that we may live with him. The powerful who got access to interpret the law and the scriptures made the covenant a binding demand. According to them God demanded innumerous sacrifices to free humanity from their sins.

The scribes condemned them under curses and clutches of the devil. The good news Jesus opened before us through his attitudes, words, and actions was of justice, freedom, and peace that all the children of God deserve.

The scribes rejected this covenant, the covenant of God’s unconditional love, because it was against their manipulative ways. Jesus, though in the form of God, emptied himself and entered the curse, condemnation, and death of humanity. God dwells there. The man-made sanctuaries are only a representation of God’s dwelling place. God dwells, not in heavens above, but amidst God’s people. When Jesus destroyed the separation between the holy of holies and the condemned world, the sinless and the sinners he too was condemned to be possessed by the devil, an easy way of treating an unacceptable truth. In the very name of God, according to the laws and customs, they condemned love, compassion, kindness, and reconciliation.

Jesus invites us today to have the light of the Holy Spirit that we may not condemn love and justice. May the Holy Spirit guide us to see the dwelling of God among us, especially among the poor and the weak, among those condemned to be sinners.

Constant Conversions

It is not necessary that gospel may be there in preaching and articles. Only through an openness to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit, we can hear the gospel. Since gospel is life, and creative, we need to have constant conversions.

 
Powerful preachings and mesmerizing miracles may not necessarily contain the gospel. Gospel ensures justice, which is the true fruit of conversion. Only those preaching and healings that bring forth justice carry the gospel.

Uncertainties

Only if the Christian spirituality or theology rediscover Christ the Word of God, not Christ the High Priest and King, it can contribute to the world with uncertainties (intellectual, social, political). The Word is ever creative, source of life. Readiness to trust in that, will let us be quiet amidst uncertainties. The comfort of certainties may not carry the light of truth. Such comfort may be intellectually satisfying but far from reality.

Sabbath: Celebration of Life

These days the readings invite us to have a close experience of Jesus to see him, hear him and touch him. All these are made possible because he is compassionate, merciful, and tender. He is able to sympathise with us in our weaknesses because he became one like any of us. That humanness comforts us, consoles us and heals us. We are taken one step deeper into the heart of Jesus.

Being part of Jesus is a joyous experience, a celebration. Just as the Spirit guided Jesus, the same Spirit guides us also in our lives. It is an experience of freedom and liberation. Sabbath, for Jesus, was this reality of liberation. He did not confine to the customary observance of Sabbath as a day of rest. Jesus would say, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working." So Sabbath was to live the freedom of the children of God. It is in his humanity people found freedom, consolation and healing.

Salvation is an integral experience. It touches different dimensions of our lives, spiritual, physical, and social dimensions. It is also for us to ensure for one another this experience of liberation and freedom. Some key words we can pick up from the readings are righteousness and peace as an interpretation of the name 'Melchizedek.' People who have experienced salvation, or who have the freedom of Sabbath will surely be ministers of righteousness and peace.

Freedom was not a favourable option for many. So they twisted the meaning of Sabbath. Jesus places his question to our preferences between freedom of the Holy Spirit and the binding customs, ‘Is it against the law on the sabbath day to do good, or to do evil; to save life, or to kill?’If we choose for the freedom of the Holy Spirit, to do good, to save life, we can surely be ministers of life too, saying to the weary and withered, "stretch out your hands."

anointed with truth

John the Baptist was very much appealing to the people as a prophet or as the Messiah. He was not a hermit who lived in silence and solitude. John said of himself as the voice crying out in the wilderness. A voice is prophetic when it is anointed with truth. He did not hesitate to point out to Christ as the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. John proclaimed that Jesus was the one who is to baptise them with fire.

We are anointed with truth that sets us free. Even before becoming visible, this truth, the wisdom of God existed. He was in the world that had its being through him, and the world did not know him. While speaking to the people who were waiting to be baptised John says, the one here stands among you – but unknown to you. Again, “He came to his own domain and his own people did not accept him.” This presence, sure, yet unknown to us, is a call to realise, recognise, welcome, be convinced and to believe in the constant guidance of the Word lives in and among us. The anointing of the truth enliven our hearts to see the Word in the creation, experiencing as the baptism of fire, and transforming ourselves into an instrument of redemptive acts of Christ.

So, for us who follow him, St John writes, “live in Christ, my children.” It is to walk the path that Jesus walked. He is truly the anointed one, so the path is also a path of anointing. What this anointing does actively in our lives can be seen in what Jesus told the disciples of John the Baptist when they came with the question whether he was the Messiah. The blind see, the deaf hear, and the good news is preached to the poor. If they do not happen our proclamation seem to be a lie. If they do happen, we have known him, and have made him known. It is the power, and sign of the presence of the truth of the Gospel in us.

Live in Christ cannot be true simply by grouping as believers. It is becoming like him. Christ took upon himself our humanity, that we have a deeper touch with him. He has not abandoned his humanity, but continues to be united with his humanity. It is not that he has taken it to a transcendental super-spiritual world. He continues to be united with us in whom humanness is real and true, making it his body. So, live in Christ is to be united as one body of Christ.

The Word in the flesh

 The Word became flesh that we may find him in the flesh. 

As we approach the baby Jesus, his presence asks us to stretch our selves to touch his flesh in our ordinary life situations. Simeon was led by a promise, and found its completion in a simple family from Nazareth.

Just as the star guided the magi to the manger, the divine light in our hearts guide us to meet him in the other.

graced one of God

The time of waiting is over,
if we have seen a Christ-birth in us,

it is already a time to rejoice.
It is a moment of fulfilment.

the 'voice' in the wilderness,
is still a 'graced one of God' (John as the name means).
His naming opened dumbness, gave a praising voice.
The fruitfulness of the Gospel, the encounter with Christ,
the birthing of the Word,
first struck by the promise, led through a silence,
a voice in the wilderness, to songs of praises.

Gospel takes us to a period of silence, dumbness of a mystic,
what speaks is the Word, not a prophet.
nothing necessitates the presence of a prophet
except in cases when the Word is not received by sincere hearts.
The function of the prophet is "He shall turn the hearts of fathers towards their children and the hearts of children towards their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a curse."

​In the arms of the shepherd

We are preparing for the coming of Jesus. Actually, it is an attempt to experience Jesus a bit more closely. We want to see the baby Jesus lying in the manger, and love him. In loving him, we also experience his love for us. The incarnation is the gift to us where we find the meeting point of divine love for us and the human love for God.

One beautiful image we have in the Bible to express this experience is of a shepherd. A shepherd in the Bible is not a leader in the sense of administration. Instead, the shepherd images evoke the sense of care, embrace, love, security, and sacrifice. So, preparing for the coming of Jesus, today, invites us to experience the care, embrace, and the lifegiving nature of God as though in the arms of a shepherd.

The Gospel today spoke of the sheep that was found once again by the shepherd. There is consolation, comfort or healing of injuries happening, being in the shepherd’s care. We tend to fall down, but the Word, constant listening to the shepherd sustains our choice to live. Being close to the heart of the shepherd, we find being led to the source of life once again. There we find the baby lying in the womb of God.

Christ was born from mother Mary. Christ, as a baby, is not going to be born in us, but Christ will be born from us through the working of the Holy Spirit. The warmth of the shepherd’s bosom is not to put us in a sleepy stage, but to be awake and alive. There will be great rejoicing at our growth into the fullness of Christ little by little.

He is like a shepherd feeding his flock,

gathering lambs in his arms,

holding them against his breast

and leading to their rest the mother ewes.

Communion, the way of God's governance

Governance and authority of God is not in a Theocratic system, it is in communion. God holds all things in being. In him all things live, move, and have their being. Concerning the authority of Christ, we must reflect deeply on the verses: 

"in him were created
all things in heaven and on earth:
everything visible and everything invisible,
Thrones, Dominations, Sovereignties, Powers –
all things were created through him and for him.
Before anything was created, he existed,
and he holds all things in unity."

An 'emperor/kingly Christ' is too less to explain it. 

As communion is the way of God's governance, the body of Christ must have the life style of communion as the self-authority working within the body. Whole creation is part of the body, the church where Christ is the fullness. The models of authority shaped towards communion may help us to experience a new pathway to experience the reality of 'in him we (together) live, move, and have our being.

Our desire/ prayer that 'your will be done' may be the best way to acknowledge the authority over our life. If that is sincere, we will be seeking the mind of Christ in our words and deeds. It will lead us to stand for peace and reconciliation. Peace is not simply relaxation, free of tension, and calm and cool. Peace is the fruit of manifold ways of desiring and working for life to be filled in everyone and everywhere. That is the will of the Father. 

Necessary Council

 Pope Emeritus Benedict xvi spoke to the Franciscan University in Steubenville that the Second Vatican Council was not only meaningful, but it was necessary.

What exactly is was the vision of the council? Who/what took up the council or who/what failed the council? Interpretation, misinterpretation of, and reaction to the council created different catholic identities. The struggle for creating a catholic identity has set liberal, conservative, neoconservative and traditionalist Catholics to compete in defining what constituted an authentic Catholic worldview. This identity struggle naturally leads to a power conflict and politics.

Their stand on questions related to Cold War politics, US foreign relations and dictatorships, White nationalism etc did influence the created catholic identity. Many of these identities directly counter the dialogical nature of the church that the council envisioned. Anything that seems pious, churchy and christian is not necessarily catholic or Christian.

Church is a communion. Was the church fragmented that the council was 'necessary'? Not only the socio-economic context, but even the intellectual context made it necessary. If then, how is the dialogue with religions and reasons maintained and continued today? or, rather are they all dumped as unnecessary? Sixty years after the council, have the above mentioned identity competitions de-shaped the clergy and the faithful far away from what the council initiated in the church?

Unceasing prayer

 We all have a normal human growth. Similarly we also need to have a growth in spirituality and life of prayer. Perhaps a time of wonder, curiosity are initially necessary. Perhaps we may be guided or corrected by the fear of a punishment. We cannot remain there. We need to grow to an adolescent infatuation, to a mature romance and a conjugal bond.

A genuine prayer can be there only if there is a true image of God. Does God count the money we put in the temple treasury and give blessings accordingly? Does God act as a judge who denies justice to people or condemn and orders punishment? These prevalent images of God is what Jesus challenged. Of course, it is easy to picture and calculate such an image of God. Relationship of love with God adds responsibility not only towards god but also towards others. Otherwise, religious sacrifices and rituals would suffice for our spirituality and prayer.

Very often we are more conscious of the use and benefits of prayer, in other words, the utility aspect. Do we say, I love or I marry .... in order to get this and that? Is that expression proper? It is not proper in prayer also.

Continuity in prayer is a constancy of a relationship, a conversation in love; there may or may not be words, there may be joy and complains, there may be intimacy and pain of separation. The embrace of love is what underlies prayer. So it is not about the words we use or the methods we follow, but the genuinity of love and trust that guide our life of prayer.

The chosen in touch of others

God's choice is not that he picks up some and leaves others. Choice is a subjective experience of having been able to respond to the revelation of God, a message to a time. Since it's open for all its not a preferential privilege to some.

Time is a slow revealer. So the message understood by the 'chosen' one may not be understood by others. That is why we need each other to understand the sign of God's revelation in each of us, a sign that Jesus is alive in us. Usually the sign of Jesus will be responded with crucifixion ie we need to be ready for a self emptying sacrifice. Kindness, mercy, compassion, love are the approaches of that sacrifice, not the rituals that are empty of God.

The only sign

Race, ethnicity, nationality, and religion have been used to claim purity and elitism. It automatically condemned 'others' and separated them, promoted hatred and suspicion. It grows dangerous as God is fixed within this corrupt purity. It can never produce holiness and establish justice and peace that God wills.

St Paul maintained a distinction between children according to the body and the children according to the promise. Children according to the body is bound to the purity according to their race, language, religion... Children of the promise share joyfully the gifts of God, and make the presence of God a living reality. Jonah had closed God within his own laws, morality, and people, but he had to learn that God cares for all. The universality of God's love is the sign of Jonah. The strange thing there is that it was the 'others' the lawless people who were open to the message of God as soon  as they heard it. Even Jonah resisted against the message that God's salvation extends to all nations. 

Children of the promise, according to St Paul, was those coming to follow Christ, who share in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The children of the promise deepen its meaning and breaks forth itself in the initial announcement of the angels, "Peace to people of Good will." In them the Spirit is alive and active, and Christ is made visible. It was when meeting the 'good' people in pagan land the church began reflecting whether it is not improper to consider these good people may be deprived of heaven. Today, we may see 'even among godless' people there are good people, very good people. Do they not share the joys of the kingdom of God? There is a usual saying that it is not just enough to do good, but one must know Christ. Who has known Christ? One who clams to have known Christ and keep many people away in condemnation or a 'godless' one who exercised some Christ-like attitudes? 

Then should we not preach? Should we not evangelize? yes, teaching to walk like Christ loving every one, seeing the care and mercy of God for everyone, and seeing that happily. Kingdom of God is not in our devotions, prayers, and laws. It is in "righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit" which is made available for all. "The only sign it will be given is the sign of Jonah." God can not be in custody of some religion, culture, or tradition.

Populism-religion

Modernity gathered people from all around to cities, and became a profit producing power. It mixed many peoples and suggested secularism concerning religion, and globalism concerning economics, politics and culture. Modernity's perfect human and society never came even amidst all its 'progress.' While economy maintains its monopoly in a global sense, in politics and culture nationalism with 'its own religion' takes the new political current.  Nationalism, traditionalism, populism are a super mix glue which is changing today's political equations. The populist affirmation and intensification in culture regarding traditions is just politics, nothing about religion. Unfortunately for us today, that sense of religion is the true and original religion.