Penitential Pilgrimage

"Pope meets the indigenous"

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

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

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

Rise again

Advanced warplanes cannot fight the heat waves, and hurricanes,

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

Sanctuary of the Lord

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

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

Empty images of God

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

Blind eyes

God cannot open the eyes or ears, 

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

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

Jonah's sign

Jonah stands for anyone, especially the zealous ones,

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

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

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

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

Reception for Jesus

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

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

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

Rest for your soul

 "My spirit in me seeks for you."

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

Preferring Christ

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

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

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

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

true sacrifice

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

fruits

Dream of the young as their eyes begin to see,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Son of Man had no place

They were wanderers,

and they felt that God was guiding them.

They settled in a promised land,

nowhere to move forward, they settled,

preserved their land,

time and space became static.

God was tied to it.

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

Even later generations thought

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

There came unaltered temple and traditions.

They called it security, fidelity, and holiness.

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

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

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

not in temples, stuck to a place.

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

and not try to tie him down!

It is not God or religion that has gone away,

it is the sense of justice that has disappeared.

Voice at the depths

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

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

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

Going to the Father

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

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

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

Liturgy

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

Fruitfulness of faith

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

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

fundamentalists

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

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

Judging

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

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

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

Come to the fountain of Life

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Please watch it

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The Elder Son

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

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

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

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

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

Hear another parable:

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

Hear yet another parable:

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

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