“Authentic Holiness”

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Lord Jesus, make me understand that the heart of religion is not ritual and law, but love of God and neighbour. Amen.

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,


Is our holiness skin deep or heart deep? This is the question that the readings of the day place before us.

The first reading from Deuteronomy (4:1-2,6-8) reminds readers that the rules by which they are to live are God-given. Careful observance of these laws leads to life and the joy of knowing the nearness of God. To bring the Deuteronomist’s exhortation to fulfilment, Jesus insists that mere external observance of the law or lip-service is insufficient. Authentic commitment and moral code will then be translated into positive practical action.

In today’s second reading James (1:17-18,21-22,27) describes good Christian moral living as an outgrowth of the word of God rooted within the believer. Act on this word, urges the ancient writer; don’t just listen to it, live it. Had the Pharisees and others of Jesus’ contemporaries been of similar mind (Gospel: Mk 7:1-8,14-15,21-23), they would have understood that the moral demands of the law and the authentic purity the law was intended to bring about could not be achieved by mere external actions. Washing one’s hands as the Pharisees did, is a sanitary act, at best. However, the cleansing of the heart by faith, prayer and interior conversion of mind and will can effect a spiritual purification.

To achieve this purification and to maintain it is a lifelong process. To aid our understanding of this process, social psychologist Kohlberg has identified 6 stages that lead to moral maturity. Good is done or evil is avoided: (i) in order to seek reward or avoid punishment, (ii) as a result of self centred use or abuse of other people, (iii) as a result of peer pressure, (iv) as a result of adhering to law, (v) due to a humane sense of equity, (vi) as a result of personal convictions. The process of moving from step one, where behaviours are dictated by reward mentality, to stage six where a healthy conviction and a holy conscience guide one’s words and works, is not always a smooth one. Along the way many can be deterred by peer pressure or by settling for mere external conformity. Therefore it is providential that our path toward authentic holiness and moral maturity is repeatedly illumined by God’s word.

---

“Decisions and Choices”

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Lord Jesus, bread of life, help me make right decisions which reflect your mind and will. Amen.

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,
You don’t get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you are going to live. Now.” These words of folk singer Joan Baez resemble the thought of Spanish philosopher and essayist José Ortega y Gasset who said, “Living is a constant process of deciding what we are going to do.”
Obviously, our lives are fraught with events and circumstances, people, places and things that require of us a choice. Some of these are of far greater importance than others. For example, the decision as to one’s course of study, a career, the married or the single life, the decision to allow an unborn child the freedom to live. All these decisions and choices should, insisted the late Thomas Merton, “enable us to fulfill the deepest capacity of our real selves.”
Unfortunately there can be times in any given life when a circumstance beyond our control is thrust upon us, leaving us, it seems, with no choice in the matter. When Viennese psychiatrist and neurologist Victor Frankl (Man’s Search For Meaning, NY, 1959) was interned in a Nazi concentration camp (1942-1945),he nevertheless retained his freedom of decision making. Though imprisoned under horrendous conditions, Frankl claimed to enjoy “the last of the human freedoms: to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance, to choose one’s own way.” Hence the importance of making right decisions for becoming fully who we are, fully human, fully alive.
Other voices speak a similar message to us today through the scriptures. In today’s first reading (Josh 24:1-2, 15-17, 18 ), Joshua, who succeeded Moses as the leader of the Israelites, challenged his brothers and sisters in the faith to decide whom they would serve. Would it be the God who had led them forth from Egypt and through the wilderness? Would it be the God who fed the hungry traveller with manna, quail and water from the rock, despite their sinfulness? Or would they turn to other gods? “ Decide today whom you will serve, “ charged Joshua, fully aware that the future of his people hinged upon their answer. Then, as if to set the tone and strike the path, Joshua announced his own decision: “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
In today’s 2nd reading (Eph 5:21-32), the Ephesians author describes the proper behaviours of those who have decided to follow Christ. That decision should evoke a mutual caring, love and fidelity, such as that which Christ exercises toward the church. Christ’s decisions should inspire his followers. Do our decisions and their consequences reflect the mind and will of Christ?
In today’s Gospel (Jn 6:60-69), Jesus asks if his gift of himself as real food and real drink will be accepted and received, or will his words of invitation be considered too hard to endure or to take seriously? Decisions! Choices!

---

“True” Food & Drink

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Lord Jesus, bread of life, help us experience your abiding presence with us. Amen.

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The Gospel reading for this Sunday also remains centred on the theme of Jesus as “the bread of life” (Jn 6:51-58) Jesus continues to teach the crowds about the salvation he offers the world while the Jews continue to quarrel about the meaning of Jesus' words. As the first and second readings (Proverbs 9:1-6; Ephesians 5:15-20) insist, “wisdom is necessary” to grasp the full meaning of Jesus’ words.
The original audience who heard Jesus’ words (Jn 6:51-58) struggled to understand their meaning: The Jews quarrelled among themselves, saying “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” We too, as 21st Century Christians, give considerable pause when we hear Jesus say, “ Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood….Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood…” Much of the ancient and the contemporary debate lies in whether or not to take Jesus’ words literally. Is Jesus telling us to literally eat his flesh and drink his blood”? The answer to this question lies in the way Jesus expands on his words, “eat my flesh and drink my blood” in vv 55-58. Jesus speaks of his flesh and blood as “true” food and drink. What makes Jesus’ flesh and blood “true” food and drink is that it allows us “to remain” in him. This idea of “remaining” in Jesus will be an important image that Jesus draws upon in his farewell discourse with the disciples as he speaks to them about the vine and branches metaphor at the Last Supper (Jn 15:1-17) Jesus then says he who “feeds on me will have life because of me”. In today’s Gospel reading Jesus is providing us with the basis of our Catholic belief in the real presence of Christ in the bread and wine. The bread and wine in the Eucharistic meal is the flesh and blood of the resurrected Christ that assures us “whoever eats this bread will live forever”. The bread that came down from heaven for the Israelites in the desert sustained them only for their 40 year journey to the promised land. Jesus taught the crowds that this was a foreshadowing of the bread that God would be offering the world through him, not just for the journey here on earth, but also for the journey to eternal life.
It would be a mistake to take Jesus’ words literally here: Jesus is not endorsing cannibalism! However, Jesus’ words are “true”: we who “feed” on the Eucharistic bread – the bread which is the real presence of Christ – “remain” in Jesus and Jesus remains in us. In this way Jesus is “ the bread of life”.

---

Food as the Channel of Relationships

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Lord Jesus, enable me to experience Eucharist as the channel of God’s love and your abiding presence with us. Amen.

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Food is a basic human need that has sustained each of us since birth. It speaks of loving and caring, giving and sharing, living and growing, and even dying and rising. Through the giving and receiving of food, relationships are established and strengthened, and when they are strained the sharing of food can even renew the ties that bind us one to the other.
This Sunday and next Sunday the Gospels and the first readings will focus on food as the channel of God’s love. Through the gift of food that sustained him for 40 days the prophet Elijah was able to keep his task of preaching a powerful and challenging message to an unwilling and unyielding people. That food of hearth cake and a jug of water that he ate under the shade of a broom tree that told him that God was with him, that his mission was necessary and that God would provide food all along his journey. God had similarly provided food for the Israelites journeying through the land that they would make their home. Manna, quail and water from the rock spoke of a great and caring love that would not allow the faithful to collapse.
Jesus had communicated the same message by providing a hearty meal of bread and fish for the many (Gospel, July 30). Food was the channel he used to reveal the extent of God’s love for humankind. Jesus’ gift of bread and fish was a sign of and a prelude to the greater gift of himself, first in his sacrificial death on the cross and then in the sapiential food of his word and the sacramental food of his very self. Food is the channel Jesus chose to communicate not only God’s love but also his abiding presence with his own. When we eat the food that is Jesus, with faith in our minds and hope in our hearts, we are being given a foretaste of eternal life. In our sharing, we become one body, one with Jesus and one with one another.
Because of the oneness forged at Eucharist, it seems only right and fitting that those who are fed will go forth to feed others. Some hungers are desperate, as in the famine-ridden areas of our world and among the unemployed and homeless; obviously, those hungers must be recognized and satisfied immediately. Other hungers will require an extended commitment to justice and to charity that addresses the long-term structural causes of hunger. These too must be acknowledged and satisfied with long-term plans that will not quit until food becomes a channel that communicates sincere care and compassion for the worldwide human family. Shouldn’t everyone know the joy of hearing the words, “Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long” (1st reading, I Kings 19:4-8) and “If anyone eats the bread I give, that person will live forever.”? (Gospel, John 6:41-51)

---

Give Thanks To The Lord

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Lord Jesus, the bread of life,thank you for filling the void in my heart. Amen.

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,
As we continue to read from the 6th chapter of John’s gospel (Jn 6:24-35), we focus today on the bread from heaven. The first reading (Ex.16:2-4,12-15) recounts the gifts of quail and manna that God sent to the Israelites in the desert. Jesus insists that God’s gift in his time is greater, for he himself is the bread from heaven.
This might be a good Sunday to focus catechesis on the eucharistic prayer. This central prayer of the Mass is fundamentally a prayer of thanksgiving for all the gifts that God has given us, both throughout history and in our own time. The readings provide a solid context of salvation history on which to base catechesis about this prayer.
Pastorally, it is important for members of the assembly to realize that entering into the eucharistic prayer fruitfully requires them to come to Mass with an awareness of the reasons they have to give thanks. Certain items in our parish bulletin might remind you periodically of the value of taking a few minutes during the week to reflect on God’s blessings so that you arrive at church with grateful hearts.
In some parishes, liturgical planners even invite people to recall such reasons for gratitude before the celebration begins. In some parishes, presiders periodically invite such awareness just before beginning the proclamation of the eucharistic prayer.
It is a good habit to make use of the texts of the eucharistic prayer as a basis of our own prayer. It is with that in mind some parishes provide the text of one of the eucharistic prayers as a bulletin insert as an aid to personal prayer at home. This might lead us into deeper prayer when the eucharistic prayer is proclaimed during the Mass.
“Father, you so loved the world that in the fullness of time you sent your only Son to be our Saviour… To the poor he proclaimed the good news of salvation, to prisoners, freedom, and to those in sorrow, joy. Lord, gather all who share this bread and wine into the one body of Christ, a living sacrifice of praise” (Eucharistic Prayer IV).

---