As Usual at the Fig Tree

"I waited for him,
I searched for him.
He came to me,
he said that he had seen me waiting and searching.
How could I miss him?
I could not recognise him because I did not expect him to be so familiar:" Nathaniel.

The day is as ordinary as any other day,
people are as familiar as of everyday
works I do are same every day
Joys and pain are just as of every day......
Yet amidst these he passes by, he sees me waiting and searching for him
he moves ahead because I am yet to be ready to see him in familiar forms

A ladder, a significant tree, a pole, a pyramid ....
symbol of a meeting point.
day is same, the moments are same, yet the meeting makes the difference
it is a meeting between my life and of God,
life known and its meaning,
life known and the life's mysteries.
Nazareth produces good fruits.

The waiting and searching
to recognise Christ
the Christ for me
and the Christ in me

Begin to love beyond boundaries and prejudices
to grow in favour of God and people.
May wisdom guide us
in order that the love may be actual in pour contact with God and people

____________________
See also കാത്തിരിക്കുന്നു അവനായ്, പതിവുപോലെ

'Jesus,' One who saves! What is in your name?

The name 'Jesus' is not a name made of J, E, S, U, S. The name becomes important and significant because it  refers to the person and function of Christ. Otherwise it would have been like any other name, just a name. 

Whether be called Jesus, Jesu, Yesu, Isa, Isho, Yezus, Hesus, Jisu, Yeshua, Jisos, Gesus, Yeshu, ... or Zishu, when called in faith they invoke the same person Jesus Christ. It is in response to the personal relationship to him we have him as the source of salvation, grace and truth. It is of no meaning to say that any one of the above name has accuracy or special effect. It is in our relationship with him we receive the efficacy of the name as powerful, sweet, loving... It is not to be imagined in any magical effect. His power, and our submission (every knee shall bow) need to be understood not in a political sense where he rules as a king. As logos everything depends on him for its very existence.

Jesus was named so, because he is the saviour. He is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Sin is not some 'thing' that can be taken away. It is absence of grace, so of life, power, light beauty...He is the saviour by giving us that grace, so life, power, light, beauty and strength. He came to give life (grace) in abundance. We who have a relation with him will receive grace upon grace. When we say about the blood of Jesus, again it is about the life that he has given to us. In any archaic  atonement ritual blood was very significant. As the blood is the symbol of life, the anointing we ask him of his blood is truly an anointing by grace. The pain and bleeding is not to create a pity feeling, but to affirm us of the strength of life poured into us.

We too are 'named' according to our character defined by the genetic, familial and cultural settings of our life. So touched by grace in that mode, we may have received a special anointing and a name. 'Jesus' is source of grace, who heals our wounds. We are named perhaps tenderness, consolation, joy, creativity, companion, strength and so on...

Word: Joyous and Passionate Care

How many caring hands we need to be grateful to...
those with gifts and with their presence.
Intimate and personal care,
most of them unseen
unrecognised and unidentified.

Grateful to the unknown yet caring mysteries of the Word
Care about every particular being
Care about its connection with others
Care about the whole body of beings
itself is the Word.

Care foresees emptying and death
yet it alone brings forth life
How many emptying must we be grateful for?

Care is a passion
a joyous passion, not a sorrowful passion
Care is the mystery of the Word
a sincere emptying..
there nothing dies, other than to live again
withers and falls to offer a world to something else.

God's hand..
Creating, moulding, healing and nourishing
emptying care in nature
Wisdom of care,
revealed only to the children of the earth.

The Word meets Flesh

At every weakness and pain of ours,
there is a nearness of Christ.
Only if we can believe that sincere closeness to our own deep emptiness,
we can understand the depth of the self-emptying of the Word...
to be a baby, refugee, labourer, victim, and failure.

Word among us the flesh
among the dry dust to lush green and conscious human
Word is in everything,
everything lives by the Word

Mary loved the Word so sincerely
that she could bring forth the Word in human form
The bearer, full of grace
the borne, fullness of grace and the source of grace.

He spreads the grace fountains
to every emptiness..
Flesh in its beauty and ugliness,
searches the grace streams...

There, in the sincerity of heart,
willingness to be receptive and open,
mercy and faithfulness meet
justice and peace embrace.
Truth shall spring from the flesh
joy and peace be born in us...

Grace streams flow into our hearts,
filled by the Holy Spirit,
our feels, thoughts, visions, words, touches will have grace contents.
We are born...

The Word becomes flesh, the moment of true Christmas.

Ref Ps 85: 10

God is My Strength My Song

Greater the preparation when great person is awaited....
A worthy preparation means that we also know really who is coming...

Preparations for the messiah...
Is the preparation of sufficient quality
Do we really know him? Will we recognise him if he is among us?

What  must we do? the people  asked John the Baptist
He was voice crying out in the wilderness,
"Prepare the way for the Lord"

He warned about the axe and winnowing fan
to look deeply into  the reality of our treasures...
with a sincere heart in absolute trust,

having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience. 

Following all the commandments from childhood, 

one young man asked Jesus: 

"What must I do to inherit the joy of God?"

He was sincere in his question,

and so was his emptiness after having followed the Law.
Why was there no joy of God born in his heart?

It is a distance by option.

We can stop at what gives us a clean face,

where we would have already received the reward.

Scribes knew the Scripture,
they knew how to take advantage of it too,
yet they lost the messiah.

Preparations for the messiah...
Is the preparation of sufficient quality?
After knowing every verse of the scripture so well...
Do we really know him? Will we recognise him?

In Micah's words, "what does the Lord ask of you, but to act justly, love tenderly and walk humbly before the Lord?"

It challenges our nominal performances, and put us into a bond where  the Word has to become a living and accompanying presence than a text; a voice crying out in the human conscience. There we have the sense "your Word is a lamp to my steps, and light to my path."

It opens the eyes of the blind, and the deaf begin to hear in sincere heart and absolute trust, having our hearts cleaned from an evil conscience.

This guiding presence is an inner strength, source of joy; 

for a person,  for a community, and for a family

God is in our midst, 

I (we) stand amidst my (our) struggles; 

God rejoices over me (us) with gladness, 

he renews me (us) in his love; 

he dances with joy as on a day of festival,

and he exults over me (us) with loud singing.

Zeph 3: 18, Is 42: 7, Ps 119: 105, Heb 10: 22, Mic 6:8, Lk 3: 10

Open the Grace-doors towards a Generation of New Innocence

Can we offer a new innocence to the next generation?

How will they remain innocent,

if our generation is not filled with grace.

How could we imagine of that innocence,

Sin-less or grace-filled?

This vision will determine the way we approach the reality of our life - 

the first will focus on sin removal and control of evils,

but the second will focus on the work of grace and trust in God.

Open the grace doors.
Closed within ourselves, are the self that we struggle with
struggle to be to the fullness of our own nature
 the need to be embraced by grace
emptiness, the void, the wound, the craving
the closed grace doors..

Open the grace-doors.

Just as the grace is allowed to enter
we enter into gratitude and praise...
there we may find consolation, peace and joy


"I will thank you for you have answered
and you are my saviour.
the stone which the builders rejected
has become the corner stone.
  this is the work of the Lord,
a marvel in our eyes." Ps 118: 21 - 23

They Continued Distributing Bread

Once again there was a multiplication of bread
It was a great excitement
bread, people, laughter....
Master went to pray
They continued distributing bread,
when it was less they bought and distributed...

Master said: "Father, why have you abandoned me?
I have none but you
into your hands i commend my spirit"

Advent: Rejoicing, yet still Preparing

The joy and grace of advent is of meeting and waiting.

The two carry us gracefully

we have met, yet we wait

rejoicing and preparing. 

During the season of advent we visit many houses, through the readings given to us. We witness the events that took place at Nazareth, Bethlehem, house of Elizabeth. From annunciation to the nativity scene we have a common home ie nature. 

The advent wreath reminds us of creation which primarily speaks of plenitude, life, creativity, beauty and joy. The creation manifests the wisdom of God. Creation is truly the first revelation of God.

Looking within and looking at each other, 

they long for the whole manifestation of what they were revealing about God in themselves.

The heavens proclaims the glory of God

and the firmament shows for the work of his hands.

day unto day takes up the story

and night unto night makes known the message

No speech, no word, no voice is heard

yet their span extends through all the earth,

their words to the utmost bounds of the world. Ps 19: 1 - 4 

There were prophets, kings, wise and holy men and women

Looking within and looking at each other, 

they long for the whole manifestation of what they were revealing.

They all know that they are not the Word, but a voice, a witness to the Truth.

Not just that Christ completes what was revealed in them, 

but he was what was being revealed.

Looking within the Christ revealed (in me), 

and looking at each other - in creation, other religions, culture (for the Christ yet to be known by me).

Both the creation and the human history open their silent cry, 

maran atha (Our Lord has come, Our Lord has been made known), 

and marana tha (Come Lord, yet to be known).

The two carry us gracefully,

we have met, yet we wait,

there is rejoicing, yet still preparing,

there is celebration, but it still asks introspection.

Facing a needed change without grace threatens,
and we assume a crisis, the end of days...
but, that end has to happen.

Watch yourself

you must realise the presence,

you must watch and prepare yourself too.

It is to stir the conscience.

The preparation is forming and transforming,
discernment and judgement.

We shall rejoice together...

Blessed be the Lord,

He has visited his people...

through the tender mercy of our God,

when the day shall dawn upon us from on high 

to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, 

to guide our feet into the way of peace. Lk 1: 68, 78,79
__________________
See also ഒരുക്കം: രൂപീകരണം രൂപാന്തരണവും 

Where Have the Angel Announced the Message? [to you]

If we speak of an experience of God, it is about how we realised an accompanying presence in our life and the impact of that presence in different walks of our life. A God experience or message and guidance from God does not happen in abstract, it is always in relation to our life context. What we think about God and our relation to God are intimately related to our common living, work, and habits. A spiritual feeling is very much filled with the demands of life, struggles and joys of life. They make the meaning, taste and fragrance to our religious imagination (here 'religious' does not mean anything to do with a religious custom or practice). Spiritual inspirations are an outcome of realisation of grace within the deep experiences, at times of strength and at times of strain. These encounters form deep and meaningful spiritualities. If we lose the taste of life, it is because we have separated the occupational and living context from their deeper involvement. Has farming land, fishing boat, lawyer court, administrative office, hospital, school or college, a building site, computer cab, space shuttle... got something to do with God experience? Or rather, do both our work and our life become too professional?

Awareness of a context, or an intense need alone cannot bring about a lasting and convincing experience. It asks for genuine reflection though it might be within a constant restlessness. The restlessness is not because life is a crisis or a misery, but because life does take its course between comfort and distress, joys and sorrows, anxieties and hopes, excitement and disappointment, moaning and celebrations. So the reflection also involves recognising the presence of Christ along the life path. It opens our eyes and ears that we could add values to and within our lives and what we do. What happens is a gradual transformation of ourselves.

Reflection, thus, will replace our life into our living environment with a new interpretation. It will provide us with significance and meaning of our life and everything of it. It is a guiding and encouraging presence, and so it offers direction to our lives. That is the personal revelatory voice from God. Revelation is a new awareness of why we are placed in a specific situation. It is through this in-depth awareness that we are made a prophet or even a messiah.

Just as there is a first moment of realisation, an encounter, of the accompanying presence of God, there is also an ongoing presence of that accompaniment. there is a bond that is born from the reflective and interpretive remembrance of this presence. It leads a way to celebration of that presence.

They are wonderful, but when do we do all these since we are struggling to find time even to live our life. We need to realise that a liveable spirituality begins from an awareness. That is why our own struggles and failures, greatness and celebrations do have something to contribute to our spirituality.

So let us consider the following:

Who are the people who are in immediate relation to me that deserve genuine attention and care?

What are the feelings involved? Closeness, care, warmth.... distress, anger, disappointment ... because not being able to fulfil them.

In the working field --

What are some implications and significance of my work and responsibilities? What is the contribution I make to the humanity through them?

What are the feelings involved in my work, in its achievements, struggles, conflicts, interactions with boss, subordinates, in-charge ...?

In the above what are the virtues involved or the virtues to be cultivated?

Which could be some symbols we could keep as meeting point between your feelings and God's assistance in our day and night? (just as we have water, oil, lamp, flower ...)

Can I feel the presence of Christ there? (in my intimacy, romance and rivalry, in my responsibilities, work, feelings, symbols I can find) Christ cannot be absent from there because it is logos that guide them all. It doesn't give a single general suggestion to follow. In one's own working field each one will have to identify the grace and meaningfulness in a significant way.

We must take these reflections, interpretations, remembrance and celebration. Write a gospel for your house, family, office ... because God is with us. 

At every walk of our life there is a salutation for us, 

"Blessed are you..."

"... and blessed is your fruit."

_____________________________

The religious texts show a pattern of religious behaviour of a community which had a common culture; eg., a community engaged in architecture, carpentry had a god who is a craftsman. Geography of the land also frames our imagination about the abode of gods. Ways of thinking about salvation/liberation are also within the social customs and practices. Today life has changed. A family or a village may not have a common occupation and culture. In belief systems we are in a multireligious and multicultural context.

Den of Robbers... Robbers do waste too [in the Father's house]

Den of Robbers...

Christ's accusation on the situation of a place of worship!
Is it just the transactions making it a den of robbers?
His body being the real temple, and the community being his body, every manipulative interaction within community makes it a den of robbers.

Community can turn a collection of usable objects, then outside of uses, waste...
there they use, steal, waste each other..
Robbers do waste too [in the Father's house]

God and worship were not the matters that nailed Christ on the cross.
God he knew did not value the business transactions, and exploitation of people in the name of spirituality, offering, ...
That did matter!

Child's Sacraments, Ours too

Child runs joyfully to play in water,
there is curiosity, and enthusiasm,
there is also a communion with the joy the Nature offers.

Every sacrament is a symbol and experience of communion,

Christ died and has risen,
the emptiness and glory,
the death and rising,
the Logos shows everywhere in nature.

Child receives the joy
playing in water,
holding a flower,
the joy of the mystery of Logos.

Let them not be denied of those sacraments,
and be deprived of the communion with nature..
They will find their close friends,
interactive and sensitive who speaks to them about God..

Control the Fire: Let Your Fire not Harm You

Fire prepares its path,
yet, uncontrolled fire is dangerous.
Fire in us must give us a vision,
a vision guided and guarded by prudence.

Zeal is a fire,
yet, it must be given sight by reflection.
Zeal is fruitful,
only when it embodies wisdom.

Zealous, but no prudence,
pious but no conviction,
ambitious but no vision,...
See, the fire playing foul..

However devotional flavour they may have,
only prudent steps can be potentially fruitful and creative.

Devotion and piety alone do not necessitate growth,
they may be simply emotional expressions in spiritual disguise.

Pray from 'your' Heart

Prayer for a moment or for a year,
Prayer alone or with many,
Prayer for oneself or for others,
Must be from the heart,
from our trust in God.
Raise our hearts to God,
what we are, how we move ahead, how we struggle
God knows what we need.
May this genuineness of prayer be kept alive.

Fear and hope,
just as they function in faith,
also work in politics.
A call for prayer, hence, might also serve political purposes.
(politics involves gaining or losing power, gathering people after a common feeling, a strong sense of identity in the group ...)
A true prayer cannot be made from a consciousness created after disastrous syndrome,
because it cannot see the reality correctly.

Someone calls for prayer, does your heart feel that prayer?
Does that concern 'our' community, system, believes...only
How does this intention serve the humanity at large?
Does the attempt term some others as enemy?
Defence, protection, being with, joining so and so ....
can be terms with wrong motivation, and self oriented intention.

Real issues, but wrongly interpreted...
when prayer, sacrifices, and penances are suggested as solutions,
sympathy, solidarity, pity ... about our side; fear, insecurity... concerning others
along with prayer, it also conditions our ways of understanding the issue,
and become blind to what is real.

Is everything spiritual that we could give spiritual answers for everything?
If everything is spiritual why the worldly-spiritual distinction?

Let there be peace everywhere,
Let there be goodness everywhere,
May we possess a good will,
what else shall we pray?

Religious Pessimism - Religious Culture - Religious Extremism - Secularism

Are we led to a religious pessimism (human life is in a difficult condition, everywhere there are traps of evil, faith is in crisis, a nearing apocalypse, ..) The solution often suggested is a religious culture, some form of devotions and practices, upholding traditions and rituals ... which are projected to be the sign of believing in God. It is such kind of empty religious culture that drained the sacred out of people's lives. Outcome is atheist secularism or religious extremism depending on the stimulants.

Scientific Progress, Spirituality, and the Devil

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Does religion become such marketisation? 

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

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

Are there parallels?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

the manager has applied some crowd pulling strategies...

Owner was shocked another day, the shop is empty

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

__________________

Perhaps we have believed hero prophets without any reflection. 

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

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

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

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

A Malayalam version വിശ്വാസിയോ ആത്മീയ ഉപഭോക്താവോ?

Paid for Work, not for Life and Sacrifice

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

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

Regathering the Church to a Newer Innocence?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Presence of a Walking Companion

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

Being Loved

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

Knowing Our Home

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

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

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

Mary treasured all these things and pondered in her heart 

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

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

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

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

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

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