Keeping “God-with-us”

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, C.M.I.

Infant Jesus, implant in us the seeds of justice, love and peace and make them grow in us so as to experience your presence always.

In his classic Christmas story The Story of the Other Wise Man (Harper, N.Y., 1899), Henry Van Dyke wrote of keeping Christmas not just one day but every day: “Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world – stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death – and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem… all those years ago is the image and brightness of Eternal Love? Then”, said Van Dyke, “you can keep Christmas, and if you can keep it for a day, why not always?” Why not, indeed?

In today’s liturgy, each of the three scripture texts offered by the prophet Isaiah, the apostle Paul and the evangelist Matthew reminds us that the reason we can keep Christmas today and every day is because Christmas celebrates the gift of God-with-us. Through the incarnation and birth of Jesus, an event that is prophesied in today’s first reading (Is 7:10-14) and celebrated as fulfilled in today’s Gospel (Mt 1:18-24), God has become forever involved and fully invested in humanity.

One connotation of “God-with-us” is worth noting, suggests Karl Rahner (The Great Church, N.Y.: 1994). “When we say that God is the Lord and goal of humankind, that without God there is no meaning to our lives, that God is our helper and saviour on whose providence we are dependent, that God in mercy, will forgive our guilt… that for those who believe in, hope in and love God, God prepares an eternal life of happiness, then we shall have interpreted “God-with-us” in the right way”.

Bearing witness to the gift of “God-with-us” in one of his Christmas homilies, Oscar Romero, martyred Archbishop of San Salvador, affirmed that “Jesus’ birth attests that God is now marching with us in history, that we do not go alone and that our aspiration for peace, for justice, for a reign of divine law, for something holy, is far from earth’s realities. We can hope for it, not because we humans are able to construct that realm of happiness which God’s holy words proclaim but because the Builder of a reign of justice, of love and of peace is already in the midst of us”.

God in our midst, God-with-us, Emmanuel, this is the ultimate gift of Christmas that gives all our other days and nights meaning, purpose and vision. This is the reason we may choose to skip all else in order to keep Christmas truly… to keep the gift of God-with-us.

Transformative Grace

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, C.M.I.

Lord Jesus, free me from the despair that kills hope and lead me to a renewed reliance on God.

During this month, transformation seems to be the order of the day. In preparation for Christmas, most of us will transform our homes and businesses with decorations that celebrate this happy season.

While this transformation is only a cosmetic and a temporary one, the liturgy for today puts us in touch with a transformation of another sort, viz., the profoundly transformative power of the coming of our God. Isaiah (35:1-6,10) describes this transformation in terms of a desert blooming and of the fearful and feeble becoming brave and strong. His vision of the blind gaining their sight, the deaf beginning to hear, the mute being able to speak and the lame leaping bears eloquent witness to the conviction that nothing is impossible for God. As evidence of the power and possibilities of God at work in him, Jesus, in today’s Gospel (Mt 11:2-11), will allude to these very healings and add to them the even greater transformation of lepers being made whole, the dead being raised and the poor hearing the good news of salvation preached to them. Like Isaiah before him, Jesus understood that nothing is impossible for God.

The Bible is relentless in its conviction that nothing that is distorted or deathly need remain as it is. God’s power and God’s passion converge to make total newness possible. God’s promises of messianic possibility work against our exhaustion, our despair and our sense of hopelessness.

Newness is indeed possible, and this God has affirmed in Jesus. In embracing this hope, Christians distinguish themselves from those who despair, and from the self-sufficient who believe that they themselves can produce the newness. To avoid both the despair that kills hope and the pride that ignores grace, believers are called home each Advent to a renewed reliance on God.

For too long we stood on this earth in a false security. In our spiritual insanity we dared to think that we could, by our own power, avert the dangers and banish the night. We believed that we could harness everything and order the universe to our liking. But, over and against our daring and desires stands the message of Advent; it is the Lord, the Coming One who came and who will come again, who will bring about the transformation of our human hearts by Gospel grace. If we want to transform life again, if Advent is truly to come again, the Advent of home and of hearts, the Advent of the people and the nations – then we must allow ourselves to be shaken and sifted and if need be, to be shattered by grace.

An Agenda for Advent

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, C.M.I.

Lord Jesus, may your peace dawn on me when I struggle for justice. Amen.

“Justice for Peace” may be the right caption for this agenda. There are literally millions who suffer from injustice from the point of view of earthly blessings. One answer to this inequity is offered to us today through the person and ministry of John the Baptist.

John is portrayed in today’s Gospel (Mt. 3:1-12) as turning away from the blessings and securities he could have enjoyed, e.g., sufficient food, decent living conditions, comfortable clothing and the companionship of family and friends, in order to embrace a life of penance and fasting and a ministry that would not gain him any measure of popularity. He was to be the voice that truthfully pointed out sins and persevered in calling the guilty to repentance. John’s was not a pleasant job or a pleasing message, because preparations for welcoming the One who would bring peace, justice, harmony and the gifts of the Spirit can only be described as drastic and radical. John is held out to us each Advent not simply as Jesus’ herald but also as the one after whom the church is to model itself. Just as John’s was the voice that prepared for the first appearance of Jesus, so the church must be the voice that readies first itself and then all of mankind for Jesus’ second and ultimate coming. To put it in another way, John’s agenda dictates and continues to drive the church’s agenda: to work for peace and to struggle for justice and for an enduring harmony among the desperate peoples of this world.

In today’s first reading (Is 11:1-10), the prophet Isaiah gives beautiful lofty and poetic expression to our most fervent hopes for justice and peace. He speaks of wolves being the guests of lambs and babies playing by the dens of cobras. But in order for lofty poetry to become living policy, the church must continue to struggle to make the message of John the Baptist its own agenda, this Advent and all through the year. For more than a century, the church has openly declared its social agenda as one that has necessarily evolved from offering charity to the promotion of justice. As Thomas Massaro (Living Justice, Sheed and Ward 2000), has pointed out, where charity tends to involve individuals or small group of people acting to meet the immediate needs of others, work for justice involves a more communal and even global awareness of problems and their potential long term solutions. Where the notion of charity calls to mind voluntary giving out of one’s surplus, the demands of justice point to an absolute obligation to share the benefits of God’s creation more generously.

Another Opportunity!

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, C.M.I.

Lord Jesus, deliver us from greed and hatred that lead to war and bring us to your peace, justice, healing and blessing. Amen

God has gifted us with yet another new year and blessed us sinners with yet another opportunity for realizing God’s purposes in our lives, in our world. With Advent, everything begins again and the air is filled with eager anticipation of what may lie ahead. With Advent comes a wealth of new possibilities and new chances to make right what was wrong in the now passing year.

We live now in a culture so profoundly secular that Advent is fast becoming a vanishing season. Advent now often seems like a little more than a few-weeks-long shopping prelude to Christmas commercialism. To reinvent the weeks of grace, hope and eager anticipation for God, the church, through the liturgy, calls for a return to the true purpose of Advent: repentance - a repentance that is realized and expressed in transformation.

To guide us in repentance that is both a turning away from sin and a turning toward God, we look today to our mentors in the faith, the prophet Isaiah, the apostle Paul and the evangelist Matthew. Paul (Rom 13:11-14) will call Advent believers to repent of that “Sleepiness” that puts off readiness for Jesus’ coming, thinking that it surely cannot occur in my lifetime or yours. Repent, exhorts Paul, of anything you would not like to be found doing when Jesus finally appears. His words remind us that procrastination can never be an adequate preparation for welcoming the Lord. Similarly, Jesus in today’s Gospel (Mt 24:37-44) invites disciples to be prepared, warning that Jesus’ coming will be sudden, unexpected and decisive.

With words that have yet to be fully appreciated Isaiah (2:1-5) calls for believers to be prepared for the Lord by repenting of war. This repentance must be so deliberate and absolute that even the instruments of war are to be transformed into implements that can help to provide for the hungry poor of this world.

Some may find war a distant and impersonal reality, a mere matter for the evening news or the history books; however, Isaiah’s challenge begs to be applied totally of war’s heinous offspring that surface in our daily lives – violence, aggression, anger, greed, the lust for power and the desire for revenge. Only when we repent of these sins will we be able to follow the heart and mind of the God who has come among us in Jesus. To that end, let us truly repent and redirect ourselves toward the coming Christ.

Christ Jesus, Victor!

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Celebrating Jesus as king and marking a special day to venerate him as such has been a rather late development within the church. In 1925, Pope Pius X1 promulgated the encyclical Quas Primas and formally set forth the doctrine of the kingship of Christ. According to that document, Christ is recognized as king by virtue of his (1) birthright as the Son of God; (2) right as the world’s Redeemer, and (3) the power that is his as legislator, judge and executor (Acts 10:42). First commemorated on the last Sunday in October, the feast of Christ the King is now celebrated on the last Sunday of the Liturgical year.

The praying assembly today marks the passing of one year and prepares to welcome another, and is reminded in our liturgy that our King has chosen to exercise his reign as a shepherd like David. In telling of David’s anointing as king, the author of 2 Samuel represents the Israelites as claiming David as one like themselves: “Here we are, your bone and your flesh”. Jesus, our shepherd king, became like us – bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh – so as to know fully and to be known fully by us. That privilege is ours to remember and to celebrate today.

Giving expression to our celebration is the Christological hymn quoted by the author of today’s second reading to the Colossians, (Col. 1:12-20). This hymn establishes Jesus’ primacy over all while reminding his followers of the power of his death to reconcile everything in heaven and on earth, and to make peace through the blood of his cross.

Today’s Gospel (Lk 23:35-43) presents Jesus as the king whose true identity and whose power and sovereignty are proclaimed with great irony through the mocking words of the people, their leaders and the soldiers. Henri Nouwen (Sabbatical Journey, NY 1998) was correct in affirming that the greatest humiliation and the greatest victory are both shown to us in today’s liturgy. It is important, wrote Nouwen, to look at this humiliated and victorious Christ very carefully before we start the new liturgical year with the celebration of Advent. All through the year, we are to stay close to the humiliation as well as to the victory of Christ because we are called to live both in our daily lives. We are small and big, specks in the universe and the glory of God, little fearful people and sons and daughters of the Lord of all creation. Christ Jesus, Victor! Christ Jesus, Ruler! Christ Jesus, Lord and Redeemer!

The Day of the Lord

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

My dear brothers and sisters,

Human life is constituted of a series of days, some significant and memorable, others more routine, mundane and unremarkable. There are birthdays that annually mark the gift that is our time in this world. There are baptismal and name days that celebrate our initiation into the life of God and the believing community. There are burial days that remind us that immortality comes only after mortality is fully experienced. There are other sacramental days that signal our passages along the spiritual way: Eucharist, Reconciliation, Confirmation etc.

Against the backdrop of all these days with their varying levels of meaning and importance for our lives, the liturgy for today invites us to consider the day before which all others pale into relative insignificance – the day of the Lord. Prophesied by Malachi (1st reading Mal 4:1-2) referenced by Paul (2nd reading, 2 Thes 3:7-12) and described by Jesus (Lk 21:5-19), the origins of the Day of the Lord are difficult to trace with certainty. First mentioned by Amos (5:18), it seems to have a popular belief that the prophet referenced and reinterpreted. Prior to Amos, the Day of the Lord was associated with the manifestation of God’s power on behalf of Israel; that day its enemies would be thwarted, and Israel would be securely established as supreme over them. Amos and his prophetic colleagues threw a wrench into the popular notion of the Day of the Lord, promising instead that it would be a day of reckoning for all of mankind, especially Israel. It would be an “evil day” (Amos 6:3) on which the sun would set at noon and the earth grow dark (Amos 8:9). All that were proud and high, all that was lofty and tall would be brought down (Isaiah 2:11 ff).

New Testament authors borrowed the imagery of the Day of the Lord, with its apocalyptic symbols and its ambience of reckoning, judgment and retribution, and associated these with the day of the Son of Man or the time of the second coming of Jesus. But rather than meet that day with dread or prepare for that day with trepidation, believers are encouraged to look beneath their apocalyptic fears and allow these to lead up to new hope and trust in the lessons Jesus left with his disciples. Regarding that day, Jesus advised them not to be misled by the prophets of doom. Rather hold fast to the faith. Be secure in the knowledge that I am with you, providing you with words and a wisdom that will help you to discern the truth and to continue witnessing to me in word and work.

Power of Hope

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

As we near the end of the liturgical year, the scripture readings focus on the end of times, especially on how the resurrection of Jesus is the linchpin of Christian faith, the source of our hope and the cause of our joy. As is reflected in today’s first reading (2 Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-4), faith and hope in the resurrection can strengthen believers against all manner of evil. Because of their faith and hope that they would live again after death, the martyred brothers and their mother were able to endure the tortures forced on them by a cruel and tyrannical king. Most of us will probably not be subjected to torture; nevertheless, it will be our faith and hope in the risen Jesus that will see us through whatever struggles may be ours to endure.

Faith and hope were the factors that enabled the Thessalonians to continue to live the Gospel that Paul had preached among them. In today’s second reading (2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5), the great apostle reminds his readers through the centuries that God is faithful. Human beings may falter in faith or even succumb to doubt and speculation (as did Sadducees, who are featured in today’s Gospel - Luke 20:27-38), but God never fails.

Confident in God’s fidelity and promise of life after death, believers are able to view life, death and all the events in between from a perspective of hope. This perspective does not immunize the believer from sorrow or suffering; rather it enables the hopeful to accept their present reality while focussing on future joys and eternal fulfillment. Testifying to the power of hope, Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist Victor Frankl (Man’s Search for Meaning, NY 1959) argued that the loss of hope can have a deadly effect on human being. As a result of experiences in a Nazi Concentration Camp, Frankl contended that when a person no longer hopes, he no longer possesses a motive for living. With no future to look toward, he curls up in a corner and dies.

As believers, this quality of hope is afforded to each of us by virtue of Jesus’ resurrection. This hope empowers us to endure a seemingly hopeless situation and look to a better tomorrow. It helps us to suffer the loss of another through death, disease or divorce and survive to love again or bear with loneliness, sorrow and pain without losing heart. In short, it helps us find reasons for rejoicing and the courage to continue living, loving, and serving and giving until our complete sharing in Jesus’ resurrection becomes a reality.

The Guest Who Transforms

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Today’s Gospel (Lk. 19:1-10) with its story of Zacchaeus, offers the praying assembly an opportunity to be with a guest who transforms. Jesus is the guest who comes to dinner and Zacchaeus is the one in whom tremendous changes will take place. As Paul Scherer has pointed out in his article “the Gospel according to Luke”, the whole impact of the Gospel was in that meeting. It redeemed the past, transformed the present and redirected the future. Jesus’ acceptance of Zacchaeus, despite his sinfulness, prompted him to change his mind, his ways, his life. He resolved to make amends, he would make restitution for wrong doing – he would give generously to the poor. So great was the conversion of Zacchaeus that Jesus declared him a son of Abraham. He had been lost, but in welcoming Jesus into his home and into his life, he was found. “Today”, Jesus declared, “Salvation has come to this house!”.

Each day of our lives, the experience afforded to Zacchaeus is also afforded to us. Each day, in so many ways, through so many people and circumstances, Jesus says to us, “I mean to stay at your house today”.

Each day, Jesus affirms God’s love for us and for all that God has created. Love, not loathing, is God’s manner of dealing with us, the Wisdom author (1st reading, Wisdom 11:22-12:2) reminds us. Mercy and forgiveness are the ways of God, who overlooks sin and allows time for repentance and returning to the truth. Each day, in countless ways, Jesus reminds us that he is the guest who wishes to “come to dinner". In his coming, he will create the graced atmosphere in which we can, like Zacchaeus , change our lives for the better. Jesus is a self-invited guest who will also become the host - when we welcome him into the home of our hearts and lives, he will feed and nourish our needs and desires.

The food he gives us is the Bread of his Word. It teaches, comforts, challenges and when needed, chastises us. He also gives us as food the Bread of his very self, blessed by God, broken in suffering on the cross and given freely and fully in the redemption of sinners.

IS GOD LISTENING?

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Today’s readings raise some interesting questions about prayer. How does God actually “hear” our prayers? Does our prayer change God’s mind?

The gospel passage (Lk.18:9-14) shifts the questions from the openness of “God’s ears” to the openness of our ears and minds and hearts. Luke’s familiar story portrays in the Pharisee a man who is completely filled with himself. We know from our experience that when we are full of ourselves, there is little room for anyone else. If God’s word is to take root and grow in us, if the needs of others are to find their way into our hearts and consciousness, there must be room for that to happen.

Prayer, most surely, is not about trying to change God’s mind or heart about anything. It is all about changing us. Prayers can indeed be answered by a God who can ”get through” to prayerful people. It is the humble tax collector who has opened a place for God’s entry into his life.

And this is how God hears our prayers, as well. Do we want peace? Then we must pray to become peace-makers. Do we want forgiveness? We must pray for the ability to forgive one another-and ourselves. And so our prayers are as effective as our willingness to be poured out and filled up with something new. It has been said that prayer is a very dangerous endeavour, because it opens us to the risk of change. Not God’s change, but our own. We are invited to do more listening than speaking. In our listening, God might tell us stories about the needs of one another that only we can fill up. In our listening, we become God’s ears “for others”!

Finally, if we expect to hear anything, we must be prepared to act. For “the Lord”, says Sirach, “will not delay. The Lord hears the cry of the poor. Blessed be the Lord!

World Mission Sunday

(Abstract of text from "World Mission Sunday: Homily Notes")

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today is World Mission Sunday. The theme suggested for us this year by the Society for the Propagation of the Faith is “Go! Proclaim the Gospel!”

What does that mean for us today? Perhaps we can find the beginning of that answer in the last line of today’s gospel: “But when the Son of Man comes, will he find any faith on earth?” Faith in what? Faith in whom? Let us look closer at today’s readings.

In the first reading from the book of Exodus (17:8-13), God’s chosen people, like many refugees in our world today, are vulnerable as they start on their long migration out of Egypt. They suddenly find themselves surrounded by a fierce enemy, the Amalekites. In the scriptural passages leading up to this latest threat, we witnessed several examples of how faithful God lovingly protected this tiny fractious remnant on its journey; making a path through the Red Sea, providing bread from heaven and so on. Their leader, Moses instinctively turns again to God for help. Trusting in God once more, Moses tells Joshua to form a small army and to prepare to defend the Israelites. In a drama that must have been a sight to behold, the elderly Moses having climbed a hilltop, extended his arms in prayer to God, “from morning… until sunset.” It was a communal effort. When Moses became tired Aaron and Hur sat on a stone and held up his arms. In the midst of fierce action, there was prayer. In the context of prayer, there was action. Prayer and action go together, linking God and his chosen.

In today’s gospel parable about the widow and the judge (Lk 18:1-8), Jesus speaks similarly “about the need to pray continually, and never lose heart”. In Africa, even today, the family of a husband who has died can legally come and claim his house and possessions, putting the husband’s widow and children literally on the street. Perhaps that is what had just happened to the widow to whom Jesus referred. Once more, we witness prayer in the midst of a particular struggle and struggle sustained by prayer.

Perhaps the main message we can take from the theme of Mission Sunday this year and in the context of today’s readings, is that God is on the side of the poor and the vulnerable in our midst, whether it be a nation or an individual, and that we as followers must imitate this example. On the side of the poor and vulnerable is where Christians belong.

Gratitude

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

This week the praying assembly ponders gratitude as a necessary spiritual posture for disciples. Two models of gratitude are held out for our edification and encouragement. One is a leprous Syrian General called Naaman whose cure has been narrated in the 1st reading (2Kings 5:14-17). Our other model is an unnamed Samaritan leper (Gospel, Lk.17:11-19) whom Jesus made whole and holy.

Although both of these men were, no doubt, overwhelmed with gratitude at the dramatic change that was effected in their lives by God through Elisha and through Jesus, the words “thank you” and “gratitude” do not appear in their stories. Indeed, in Hebrew there is no specific word for thankfulness. This grateful posture is described in the Jewish scriptures by the verbs “to praise”, “to glorify”, to “bless”. Ancient Israel’s gratitude issued forth in prayers that praised, glorified and blessed their God. Notice that when Naaman and the Samaritan were healed, their response took the form of a proclamation of faith and a declaration of praise for God and for Jesus. Through the centuries, this character of grateful prayer has been preserved and practiced.

Since the liturgical renewal sponsored by the Second Vatican Council, similar prayers have been introduced into the great Christian prayer of praise and thanksgiving, the celebration of the Eucharist (at the offering of the gifts). In the Christian scriptures, thanksgiving is a characteristic feature of the institution of the Eucharist (Mt. 26:27, Mk. 14:23, Lk. 22:17,19, 1Cor. 11:24) as well as in the multiplication of loaves, which prefigured the gift of the Eucharist (Mt. 15:36, Mk. 8:6, Jn. 6:11, 23). How fitting that the summit toward which all the activity of the church is directed and the fount from which all its power flows is fully imbued with thanksgiving.

Walter Burghardt insists that the Eucharist is a genuine thanksgiving only if we ourselves become Eucharist for the life of the world – only if we are willing to be taken by Jesus, blessed by him, broken with him and fully given as he was. A thankful Eucharistic heart lives each day in an alert awareness that all we are, all we become and all we are empowered to do must be acknowledged as gift.

Faith As Consecration

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

“Increase Our Faith”. This is the request made by the disciples of Jesus as featured in today’s Gospel. This is the request that must be made daily by all who would be Jesus’ disciples. But, what is faith? According to the American Heritage Dictionary, faith is (1) a confident belief in the truth, value or trustworthiness of a person, idea or thing; (2) belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence; (3) belief and trust in God; (4) a body of beliefs. While these definitions do approach what we call faith, none clarifies the reality of faith as God’s gift. For this clarity, believers are invited to turn, not to dictionaries, but to other believers.

For our Jewish ancestors, faith meant listening to God and obediently attending to the ways and will of God. As the father of those who believe, Abraham continues to be held forth as a model of faith to emulate. For the early Christians and authors, true Christian faith is a surrender to God in all things, at all times, all places. “Faith is”, as Thomas Aquinas once said, “allowing God to work within us”. In the book “And It was Good: Reflections on Beginning”, author Madelaine L’Engle insists that faith consists in the acceptance of doubts, in working through them, rather than in repressing them.

Soren Kierkegaard called faith a restless thing. It is health, but stronger and violent than the most burning fever. Faith expressly signifies the deep, strong, blessed restlessness that drives the believer so that he/she cannot settle down as rest in this world. Those who settle down have ceased to be believers because a believer cannot sit still – a believer travel forward in faith. Habakkuk knew of the restless, burning fever of faith, as we see clearly in the 1st reading (Hab. 1:2-3, 2:2-4). Aware that faith requires constant tending in order to grow and develop, the author of 2 Timothy (1:6-8, 13-14 2nd reading) calls upon Jesus’ disciples to stir the flame of faith as one would stir the embers of a fire in order to keep it burning and productive.

Lived faith or service is a natural expression of professed faith. Jesus’ parable in today’s Gospel (Lk. 17:5-10) challenges all who would be his disciples to live so as to keep that expression authentic and obvious. Spiritual writer Evelyn Underhill (The Fruits of the Spirit, 1949) emphasized this necessary connection by defining faith as “consecration in overalls”. It means making faith real in thought, word and deed. This is the challenge Jesus holds out today and every day of our lives.

The Great Reversal

Message from: Fr. Jose

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

If the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in today’s Gospel (Lk. 16:19-31) is a fine example of the theme of “great reversal” found in Luke, the first reading from the prophet Amos (6:1, 4-7) is an excellent complement to that. Citing their complacency (v.1) Amos warned his listeners that the luxuries they enjoyed were in jeopardy, not because their wealth was intrinsically evil but because they refused to see the needs of the poor and use their considerable resources to alleviate their plight. In short, Amos affirms that the Lazaruses among us have been ignored form time immemorial.

The rich man in today’s parable followed a map that did not include Lazarus and therefore he could pass by the poor man at his gate. The disciples of Jesus are not permitted to follow such a map. To do so would be to reject the new mores of the kingdom that would perceive Lazarus as a needy brother, deserving of help.

If we open our eyes wide enough, we will see Lazarus at our gate. In her book “God’s Lost Children: Letters from Covenant House”, Mary Rose McGeady describes homeless children who sleep nightly on America’s streets as scared, cold, hungry, alone and most of all, desperate to find someone who cares. Wendy, for example has been in twelve foster homes and is now pregnant, 18 and alone. Michelle was physically abused by her mother and sexually molested by her father. Christy, a runaway, telephones her mother, only to hear, “Things are so much better now that you’re not here”. Kareem, about to jump off the highest bridge he could find, is stopped by a New York taxi driver, “You’ll only be holding up traffic”, he yells.

Victims of New York’s sex industry, illegal immigrants employed for just $2.00 per hour due to the lack of a green card. Forty million Americans with no access to health care, those unemployed for weeks due to downsizing and those left in the nursing homes without any visitors are other faces of Lazarus.

Each Lazarus we meet constitutes a challenge to our humanity to the quality of our Christianity, to the authenticity of our discipleship. Have we eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to understand and hands to help? Do we feel like supporting the victims of the hurricanes? The Lazarus is at the gate. Shall we tend to this person now or, like the rich man in the Gospel, shall we wait until it is too late?

Responsible Stewardship

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” by Al Gore informs the public about the consequences of abusing the earth and its resources. A combination of human ignorance, greed and indifference has resulted in an excess of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, creating what scientists call global warming. As a result of this preventable phenomenon, glaciers are melting, plants and animals lose their natural habitats, severe storms and droughts are much more frequent. The number of category 4 and category 5 hurricanes has doubled in the last 30 years. Global warming has also caused malaria to spread well beyond the tropics to higher altitudes. Unless this warming is checked, scientists predict that more than a million species could be driven to extinction by 2050.

Today’s liturgy, especially in the first reading (Amos 8:4-7) and Gospel (Lk 6:1-13) , makes it clear that a sense of stewardship is expected of believers. Amos was convinced that such stewardship was inseparable from justice – not mere legal or ethical or retributive justice, but biblical justice, that is fidelity to the demands of a relationship. For believers this relationship binds each to God, and in God to all others. Relating to this biblical justice, author Walter Burghardt affirms that justice and stewardship it dictates concerns relationships to God, to people and to the earth. (“Justice: A Global Adventure”, N.Y. 2004) Love God, says Burghardt, love every human person, enemy as well as friend, as a child of God, fashioned in God’s image. Touch things – God’s material creation – with respect and reverence, as gifts to be shared generously.

Amos was convinced that such justice was to govern all interpersonal dealings, especially between the rich and the poor. As just stewards of this earth’s goods those who have must address needs of those who have not; justice demands a stewardship that cares and shares. When Amos was ignored, he was harsh in his criticisms and chastisements.

When the steward featured in today’s Gospel found himself among the “have-nots” of his society, he took means to assure his survival. Though dishonesty cost him his job, he is praised by Jesus for taking the initiative to save himself and secure his future. Similarly imaginative and even risky measures are required of Jesus’ disciples today. We are stewards of the earth and upholders of justice, and so we are thereby responsible for one another and all others in Christ.

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Stewardship Toronto

Lost and Found

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

According to a study released in October 2002, by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, an estimated 797,500 children were reported missing in the United States in 1999. Of these children who go missing, too small a fraction are recovered. When a child is found and returned home, that homecoming is marked by a relief and rejoicing that cannot be measured.

Having tapped into the contemporary pathos that surrounds children lost and children found, let us allow those strong deep feelings to enable our better understanding and appreciation of today’s scripture readings. In the first reading from the book of Exodus, it is the nation of Israel, God’s chosen sons and daughters, who have lost their way. Rather than remain faithful to God in whose image they had been created they preferred to bow down before images that they themselves had created. This golden calf represented a willful and disobedient departure from God. Nevertheless, God, through Moses’ mediation, welcomed back the prodigal people and was reconciled with them. Israel’s story of returning home to God anticipates and complements the Gospel wherein a lost sheep will be found, a lost coin will be retrieved and a lost son will be restored to the love of his father and the secure comfort of his home.

Today’s second reading will draw us into the experience of Paul. Describing his own as a life of loss and sin, Paul regarded his encounter with Christ on a Damascus road as the moment he was found, forgiven and saved. Moreover, he offers his readers the example of his own experience as a pledge of what God can and will do for all who are lost in sin.

The experience of the wayward son featured in today’s Gospel (Lk 15:1-32) is also represented as an example and pledge of God’s loving mercy for sinners. So extreme was the son’s experience of being lost that Luke refers to him two times as being dead (Lk. 15: 24, 32). His experience of being found is so exuberant that it is twice equated with being alive. As Fred Craddock has explained in his book “Luke” there is something worse than death: being lost and alienated from a forgiving God. So also there is something better than life: being found and welcomed home.

Challenges To Discipleship

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In answering to Jesus’ call, each must willingly enter into a process of becoming first human, then Christian, then a disciple. This process of growth and development is born in the realization that all human persons are created in the image and likeness of their Creator. Created in the image of Love, human beings are to love and not hate, reverence and not abuse, care for and not curse others, make peace with one another and refrain from every inclination toward violence. Created in God’s likeness, human beings are to preserve and protect life rather than destroy it or lessen its dignity.

Human beings are also called to conform to the image of God incarnate, Jesus Christ (Rom.8:29). Jesus gave his all (“he emptied himself”, Phil 2:7) when he accepted the invitation to act as a disciple in the ways and the will of God. In the same way, those to become his followers are challenged to give all of themselves. Each of the readings for today’s liturgy references something of that incalculable cost of discipleship.

The author of the 1st reading (Wisdom 9:13-18) advises readers to entrust themselves to the wisdom of God. Rather than insist on their own will, make their own plans and seek the satisfaction of their own desires, each should allow the “holy spirit from on high” to plot the path that will lead them to God.

In the second reading, Paul shares with his friend Philemon the very high price his discipleship required of him. Imprisoned for his beliefs and his service to the Gospel, Paul did not regard himself as a helpless victim unjustly accused, but as an ambassador whose privilege it was to be an image of Christ in the world.

In the Gospel, Jesus calls Christians to do three things: First, each must love Jesus best and first and formulate a value system that clearly reflects that love. This Gospel does not advocate a cold-hearted detachment from others but a genuine love of Jesus that inspires and purifies all other loves. Second, among the challenges to discipleship set forth in today’s Gospel is a willingness to imitate Jesus so completely as to embrace the daily crosses that are inherent in that commitment. Finally, Jesus calls for a sensible decisiveness as regards the cost of persevering discipleship. Have I accepted Jesus’ challenges? Am I ready to meet the costly demands of discipleship?

Humility and Reverence

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today’s scripture passages (Sirach 3:17-20,28-29, Lk. 14:1,7-14) call us to humility, which is an important virtue for all those who worship. Humility is ultimately a simple thing. It means accepting the truth about reality. It requires recognizing both the good that God has put into us and the limitations that are inherent in our human nature. In particular, it means never forgetting that God is God and we are not! Humility means giving everyone his or her due, including God and every human being. False pride, sinful pride, takes over when we begin to think of ourselves as superior to others or equal to God.

True worship always involves humility because it acknowledges God as God and sets us in proper relationship to God. This is ultimately what is meant by reverence in worship. Dr. Paul Woodriff, in his book “Reverence: Recovering a Forgotten Virtue”, says that reverence is the opposite of hubris, that false pride that always ultimately leads to our downfall.

It is a constant temptation for those of us who know and love the liturgy to begin to think of ourselves as somehow superior to the “ordinary” worshipper. Therefore we deserve to have our needs and wishes respected! It is true of course, that leaders must make decisions for a community or else they are not leaders. But it is true that leaders must listen very carefully to others in the community if they are to remain its true servants. Such listening requires humility on the part of those in leadership positions.

Does the weekly liturgy lead us to an ever deeper awareness of the presence of the divine mystery at the heart of worship? Are members of the assembly sufficiently attentive to Christ’s presence in one another, in the presider, in the word and in the meal? What can increase in everyone’s awareness of the power of God at work in our midst and in our worship?

One key to remember: Silence fosters reverence, because when we are silent we are not promoting ourselves, and we just might hear the voice of God who rules the universe and yet love each of us dearly.

Reach Out In Welcome To All

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In his autobiography, Mohandas K. Gandhi, wrote that in his student days he was truly interested in the Bible. Deeply moved by the message of the Gospels, he seriously considered becoming a convert since Christianity seemed to offer a real solution to the caste system that divided the people of India. One Sunday Gandhi went to a nearby church to attend services. He decided to see the minister and ask for instruction in the way of salvation and enlightenment on other doctrines. But when he entered the church, the ushers refused to seat him and suggested that he go and worship with his own kind. Gandhi left and did not return. “If Christians have caste differences also”, he said to himself, “I might as well remain a Hindu”.

Today, the Gospel (Lk. 13:22-30) and the first reading from Isaiah (66:18-21) challenge that attitude among Christians who would leave a Gandhi without a seat in church or a welcome into the community. Why was he turned away? The colour of his skin? His insistence on non-violence? Whatever the cause of his rejection, the experience of Gandhi and the experiences of any who are excluded call out to us to remember God’s universal and loving intent for humankind. “I come to gather nations of every language”, proclaims the God of the prophets’ vision (Is. 66:18-21). “People will come from the east and west, from the north and south”, declares Jesus. All are welcome to take their place at the banquet feast in the kingdom. But Isaiah’s mission and Jesus’ invitation are not simply otherworldly ideals. Rather, the universality of the prophet’s vision and the inclusivity of Jesus’ portrayal of the kingdom are to be started here and now among all who would be Jesus’ disciples.

From the second reading (Heb. 12:5-7) we learn that accepting others fully, freely and without reservation requires a daily discipline of will. One of those small steps toward inclusiveness might simply be reaching out with genuine interest to listen to the ideas of another with whom we are usually too ready to disagree. This genuine listening will preclude my formulating an answer until I have completely heard the other person’s thought.

Just as Jesus reached out in welcome and acceptance to all, so must those who would call themselves his own.