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.

REJOICE

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

REJOICE

December 14, 2003 Third Sunday of Advent Volume V, Issue No. 3

Step by step we are processing to the nearness of God. The step to be taken this week is symbolized in the pink candle we light on the Advent wreath. The mission we receive through the readings of this Sunday is to rejoice. And that is a special type of rejoicing. The special nature of this rejoicing unravels itself in today’s 2nd reading from Philippians (4:4-7).

Paul’s enthusiastic exhortation, “Rejoice in the Lord always!” and his repeated affirmation of the same, “Rejoice!” become pregnant with unusual meaning if we are aware of the circumstances he and his beloved Philippian converts happened to be in. Paul was writing from jail and Paul’s readers in Philippi were about to experience the pain of persecution.

The circumstances of both the author and his audience force us to attend to his advice with the utmost seriousness. They emerge from – and are directed to – what some would call the dark and seamy side of the human experience. As Paul’s words to the Philippians are read in our hearing this Advent, 2003, they call for authentic joy amid the pain of war; true joy despite the car-bombings, terrorist threats and attacks, deep joy despite the disappointment of poor leadership, bad example, moral scandal etc. Paul knew that joy was possible because, as he assured his readers then, and assures his readers now – “The Lord is near” (v.15)

The same trend we find in the first reading (Zeph. 3:14-18) also. Two times the prophet exults in the fact that the Lord is in our midst. This realization should strike a joyful chord in the hearts of all who believe. “Shout for joy!” commands the prophet. “Sing! Be glad! Fear not!”. When we come to the gospel (Lk. 3:10-18), we find John the Baptist encouraging joy in us… joy over what God has done and will do. It is a joy that is anchored to an assurance of God’s love and presence in human life. It is a joy that is wonderful because it is kindled amid circumstances in which joy is least expected.

Characteristics of Waiting

Message from Fr. Jose

Characteristics of Waiting

December 07, 2003 Second Sunday of Advent Volume V, Issue No. 2


The weeks of preparation for Christmas is an opportune time for cultivating a spirituality of waiting. The characteristics of the one we await affect the character of our waiting. Jesus is the loved one whose coming we await. And so joy and hope-filled anticipation are to characterize all our Advent days and nights.

Today’s scripture selections make it clear that the coming of Jesus should prompt even more than joy and hope in us. Because he who comes is justice and mercy personified (Baruch 5:1-9, 1st reading), our waiting for him must be marked by similar justice and mercy. Because he who comes is the very salvation of God (Lk 3:1-6 gospel), we who await him must give ourselves over to the work of salvation. Paul clearly understood this, as is reflected in his prayer for Philippian converts (Phil. 1:3-6,8-11, 2nd reading); therein, he expresses the wish that his readers be found rich in the harvest of justice. He also prays that they might learn to value the things that really matter while awaiting the coming of Christ. Today’s Paul’s prayer and the coming Christ challenge our values and priorities, and they challenge us to be renewed in our efforts in the cause of justice, mercy and salvation.

How can we, who await a just and merciful and saving Lord, live in constant preparedness for his coming? Author Walter Burghardt, offers five suggestions:
Allow the words of scripture to take hold of us. The word we read and study must be the word we pray, and the word we pray must be the word we live. We should consent to be transformed, consumed and directed by it.
Be converted by the heart, mind, will and spirit of Christ, who is justice, mercy and salvation. This means loving as he loved, serving as he served, living as he lived and, when necessary, suffering and dying as he suffered and died.
Help and serve others in their need, without any consideration of deservedness. Jesus wanted his followers to understand that justice is not simply about giving others what they can prove they deserve.
Recognize poor regardless of their monetary status and attend to their needs. The term “poor” should include not only the economically disadvantaged but also lepers, widows, orphans and sinners.
Let justice be a lens through which we see all of reality; for justice means fidelity to all our relationships – with God, with one another, with the world.

May infant Jesus help us live justly, mercifully and peacefully with all others through him, with him and in him.

Message From Fr. Jose

A Spirituality of Waiting

November 30, 2003 First Sunday of Advent

A reflection on the book “A Spirituality of Waiting” authored by Henri Nouwen (1993) seems worth considering for this advent.  As Nouwen has affirmed, waiting is not a very popular posture. Many consider waiting a waste of time. For many waiting is an awful desert between where they are and where they want to go. Think of the “first strike” approach of some nations towards others. The more afraid we are, the more difficult it becomes to wait. But advent is a season that is marked by a spirituality of waiting.

In the pages of Jewish and Christian scriptures, we will find a different attitude toward waiting. Recall psalmists’ prayers. They enunciated the hopes and longings of their people, who awaited God’s messianic intervention on their behalf: “Our soul waits for the Lord who is our help and our shield.” (Ps. 30:22) “My soul waits for the Lord more than sentinels wait for the dawn.” (Ps. 130:6-7)

In the gospel we find the waiting of Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary, Joseph, Anna, Simeon and John the Baptist setting the scene for the welcome of Jesus.
The quality of waiting in these scriptural heroes and heroines can be characterized in several ways. Nouwen describes them thus: First, theirs is a waiting with a sense of promise. Like a seed growing within, the promise promotes endurance. We can only wait well if what we are waiting for has already begun for us. In today’s first reading, Jeremiah (33:14-16) reminds us that all God’s promises are fulfilled in Jesus, the shoot of David, who comes among those who wait in order to do what is just and right.

Second, the waiting that we see epitomized in the scriptures is active. Our ancestors in the faith did not remain in a passive or idle state. They were actively and fully present to each moment. Paul, in today’s second reading (1Thes. 3:12-4:2) reminds us that our active waiting for the Lord’s second advent must be exercised in love for one another and for all. In the gospel (Lk. 21:25-28, 34-36), the evangelist exhorts us to fill our active waiting with constant prayer and careful watchfulness for signs of the Lord’s nearness.
Our waiting for God and for Jesus is also to be patient and open-ended. Mary exhibited this manner of spirituality in her waiting when she said, “Let it be done to me according to your word.” (Lk. 1:38)

Growing Deaf?

September 7, 2003 Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

The theme set forth in today’s scriptural reading is the danger of deafness as regards to hearing and heeding the Word of God. Those who allow themselves to become deaf to the whisperings of God are inviting tragedy by placing their relationship with God in danger.

Our Israelite forebears in the faith believed that those who suffered from deafness were lacking in wholeness. Indeed, such a person was regarded as somehow unclean and therefore incapable of full participation in the life of the community. Moreover, the restoration of hearing and wholeness to the deaf came to be associated with the coming of the messiah, the era of salvation (1st reading, Isaiah 35:4-7a). That Jesus had the power and the willingness to cure the deaf (gospel, Mk. 7:31-37) was a sure signal to his contemporaries that the messianic era was being realized in him and through him. Jesus’ cure of the deaf man was God’s way of making crooked ways straight at the dawn of a new era. The deafness Jesus cured was more than physical; Jesus also reached out to restore spiritual hearing and healing to all those who, for whatever reason, had grown deaf, insensitive to the word of God in whatever venue that word may have been spoken.

As we come together for weekly worship, our venue is a liturgical one. The word that is proclaimed challenges us to recognize that it is meant to be portable and translatable. To put it another way, the scriptures that we hear with our ears are to be carried away with us in our hearts and minds and memories. This being so, we will be able to revisit the word that is proclaimed on Sunday so as to be renewed in it and challenged and directed by that same word on every other day of the week.

Besides its most obvious liturgical venue, the word of God is proclaimed and challenges us to hear and heed it in other venues as well. The voice of God is ever present in word, in sacrament, in church teaching and in Christian insight. At times, however, the venues through which God speaks are unpleasant and we are tempted to turn a deaf ear to the cries of the poor, to their need for food, shelter, clothing and care. Those who profess to belong to the Lord must rouse themselves from deafness and be attentive to the Lord’s many and varied voices.