Manifesting Unity & Identity

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Manifesting Unity & Identity

January 18, 2004 Second Sunday in Ordinary Time Volume V, Issue No. 8
This Sunday’s 1st reading (Is. 62:1-5) and gospel (Jn 2:1-12) invite us to manifest our identity by becoming aware of our spousal relationship with God. John the Evangelist and Isaiah make use of the ambiance of a wedding to communicate this message. Israel's God was not content to participate in a creator – creature relationship; theirs was a God who invited creatures to be covenantal partners. Theirs was not a political covenant like the one that was forged between Abimelch and Abraham (Gen. 21:23-32). Nor was theirs a covenant of commerce, much as the one established by Hiram and Solomon (1Kings 5:2ff). Even the covenant of friendship shared by Jonathan and David (1Sam 18:3; 23:18) could not compare to the relationship that Israel was privileged to know with God.

God invited Israel to enter into a spousal relationship founded on mutual love. “I will be yours, you will be mine” was the love-language of this relationship. Hosea was the first to describe the marriage of God and sinful mankind in terms of his own love for his adulterous wife, Gomer (Hosea 1-3). Yet, despite Gomer’s weakness, seeming lack of love and numerous infidelities Hosea loved her faithfully and enduringly. So also, insisted the prophet, does God love Israel, despite her sinfulness. More than a century later Jeremiah and Ezekiel following Hosea’s lead described God’s love in terms of spousal relationship. Isaiah also in today’s 1st reading reminded his people that they were the delight of their divine spouse.

Against this vividly intimate backdrop, we should see Jesus making his ministerial “debut” at the wedding feast at Cana. Cana sets the scene for us to imagine God’s enormous passion for mankind. Cana also sets the scene for each member of the praying assembly to examine their own fidelity to God’s love. The reflection on Cana event affords married couples a chance to repair what may have been broken and to renew what may need to be strengthened in their relationships.

In this week of Prayer for Christian Unity, let us strengthen the unity at the family level and manifest our Christian identity as the springboard for the unity of churches.

Sacramental Solidarity

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Sacramental Solidarity

January 11, 2004 Baptism of the Lord Volume V, Issue No. 7

Last Sunday we reflected on “Travelling towards God” keeping the journey of the Magi in focus.“ Are we, the baptized Christians, travelling towards God with one heart and one mind?”, is a pertinent question when we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord, this Sunday. The question becomes more focused in the context of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity that we observe every year from January 18th to 25th.

Lord’s Baptism is a sacrament of solidarity. Jesus desired to be completely one with mankind, so it should not be surprising that he joined the crowd of self-admitted sinners at the Jordan. In all he did he identified himself with every aspect of the human condition. Eventually, Jesus’ solidarity with sinners would lead him to the suffering and death on the cross. It was his loving and unquestioning acceptance that assured the demoniacs, lepers, paralytics, Roman Soldiers and sinful women of God’s care, forgiveness and healing.

Our solidarity with Jesus through Christian Baptism in water and the Spirit would not only require the acceptance of all others as brothers and sisters, but also a share in his suffering and death. In this aspect the gospel for today (Lk. 3:15-16, 21-22) offers both strength and encouragement.

At his baptism, while he prayed, the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus to grace him for all that lay ahead of him. A voice from heaven identified him as Son and called him Beloved. This enabled Jesus to say in the trying moments “I am the Beloved of God. Others will leave me, but God will never leave me. I am the Beloved of God. I live by the hope and by the strength found in that identity”. These same gifts are accorded to each of us who are baptized into Jesus’ dying and rising.

By virtue of our sacramental solidarity with Jesus, we, too, are graced by the Spirit, welcomed as children of God and pronounced “Beloved!” When we face the struggles that are inherent to our solidarity with Jesus, we must remember and repeat the blessing, “I am the beloved of God”. Then we, too, can live in the hope found in that identity.

Travelling Towards God

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Travelling Towards God

January 04, 2004 Epiphany of the Lord Volume V, Issue No. 6

Today’s feast, Epiphany of the Lord, is characterized by traditional motifs like astrologers and kings, rising stars in the east. Apart from this there is another underlying theme, travelling towards God. Isaiah's vision, as shared in the first reading (Is. 60:1-6), features sons and daughters travelling home to Jerusalem. What Isaiah prophesied is presented in the gospel (Mt. 2:1-12) as fulfilled in the travellers, the foreign astrologers, from the east who made their way to Bethlehem to offer gifts to Jesus and to pay him homage.

If God manifests himself to foreign astrologers, why can’t we Christians see God? The following illustration may solve the problem. A little girl was looking through the family album and found a picture of a man sitting behind a cow. All that was visible was the man’s legs and feet. She took the picture to a photo shop and told the clerk: “This is the only picture of my grandfather that I have. So please remove the cow so I can see what he looks like”.
 
Something always seems to get in the way, to prevent us from having an unobstructed view of our God. Call it a cow. In the most radical sense, it is the sacred cow of science. Once upon a time, God was out in the open; we saw God everywhere: making thunder, causing flowers to grow, healing sickness – God was part of everything that happened.
 
But then, gradually, science began to take the place of God. It taught us that thunder is from the heat coming through the clouds, that photosynthesis grows grass, that medicine cures sickness. With each advance in science, God got crowded out of view. Today, almost every physical phenomenon is completely covered by the sacred scientific cow. We desperately want someone to remove the cow so we can see God again.
 
Faith tells us that God is the only reality; everything else is real only insofar as it is part of God’s reality. Everything else is a cow of some kind, blocking our view of God. Any desire in the wrong place or wrong time or wrong expression becomes shaped into a cow or a golden calf.
 
This feast challenges each of us what it is that we are manifesting to the world from our own experience of God.

Prayer and Family

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Prayer and Family

December 28, 2003 Feast of The Holy Family Volume V, Issue No. 5

In recent years, words such as “dysfunctional” have been used to describe the changing face and growing fragility of family. Almost every day media brings before us some horrific account of abuse or neglect or worse. Parents abandon children; children mistreat elderly parents. Unwanted newborns are left to die in dumpsters or in bathrooms at high school premises. Poverty creates even more problems, as children go hungry and whole families find themselves homeless. Economic concern have caused the disintegration of family bonds when one parent or both must travel far from home to earn an adequate living.
 
The Holy Family, whose relationship we honour and celebrate today was not without its own struggles. A betrothed man, Joseph feels jilted; words at the child’s presentation in the temple cause anxiety; a political threat causes the family to seek refuge in a foreign country and hide out in Nazareth after their return; a child runs away in Jerusalem; a son is arrested and executed in his prime. Truly, theirs was a family fraught with all of the ups and downs, joy and sadness of our own families. Yet, as in all good families the manner in which Mary, Joseph and Jesus dealt with the exigencies of their life together made all the difference.

Theirs was a union characterized by reverence for one another which helped them to cope with the difficulties in their lives. Another coping skill, a vital aspect of healthy holy family life, is faith-filled prayer - prayer alone and prayer together. Today’s gospel (Lk 2:41-52) illustrates beautifully that Mary, Joseph and Jesus valued prayer and allowed it to punctuate the various moments of their lives. Because of their piety and their desire to observe the Jewish feasts, the Holy Family would have made prayerful pilgrimage to Jerusalem at least once a year for Passover. Prayerfully, Mary and Joseph presented their son to God in the temple. Prayerfully, Mary pondered in her heart the will of God, to which she and Joseph submitted even without the security of full understanding. May the Holy Family help us pray together and stay together as a family.

Babe of Bethlehem

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Babe of Bethlehem

December 21, 2003 Fourth Sunday of Advent Volume V, Issue No. 4
God chose Bethlehem for his Son. Why? If Jesus was born in Rome or Alexandria or Athens or Corinth, it would have made more sense from the point of view of spreading His message. Sophisticated Rome would have been an excellent home base for Christianity. Jesus would have found a warm welcome in Alexandria because that city was famed for its cultural, educational and commercial offerings.

Home to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, wouldn’t Athens have welcomed the wisdom that Jesus had come to impart? Wouldn’t the thousands who passed through Corinth, who gathered there for business and pleasure, have been interested in Jesus’ words and works?

Given the divine power and purpose, Jesus could have entered into the human situation at any time in any place. So why Bethlehem? According to the prophet Micah (1st reading, Micah 5:1-4), Bethlehem was small and insignificant compared to the other clans of Judah. Perhaps it was chosen because Bethlehem was David’s family home and the place of his anointing as king. The very name Bethlehem means, “house of bread”, an appropriate title that anticipated the one who would give bread for the life of the world. Aside from its association with David and the nurturing symbolism of its name, another aspect of Bethlehem’s history suggests its special importance. The village of Bethlehem was about five miles south of Jerusalem and the main livelihood of the village was shepherding. People on pilgrimage to the Holy City for passover purchased their lambs in Bethlehem. How significant that Jesus, the Lamb of God, sacrificed for the salvation of the world was to be born in Bethlehem!

In today’s 2nd reading from Hebrews (10:5-10), the author reminds us of the saving power of Jesus’ sacrifice. While we celebrate the joy of Jesus’ birth, and while we rejoice in his coming among us – just as did Mary, Elizabeth and John (gospel, Lk. 1:39-45) – our focus must not be solely on the baby of Bethlehem and the peaceful crèche. Christmas’ greatest gift was nailed to a cross, and through Him all other good gifts have come – life, light forgiveness, peace, justice, hope, faith and joy.