Individual Anointing

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Lord Jesus, make the sick experience your healing through my presence while they receive anointing. Amen.

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today’s gospel story of the healing of the paralytic (Mark 2:1-12) can serve to remind us of the importance of friends and family and members of the community in the care of the sick. The four men who carried the sick person to Jesus for healing are not identified nor are their relationships to the paralytic explained. Yet it is clear that his healing depended on the assistance of others, as well as on the healing power of Jesus.

This kind of care for the sick is encouraged in the official rite for anointing. “If one member suffers in the Body of Christ, which is the church, all the members suffer with that member. For this reason, kindness shown toward the sick and works of charity and mutual help for the relief of every kind of human want are held in special honour” (#32) “It is thus specially fitting that all baptised Christians share in the ministry of mutual charity within the body of Christ by doing all that they can to help the sick return to health, by showing love for the sick, and by celebrating the sacraments with them. Like the other sacraments, these (anointing, communion of the sick, viaticum) too have a community aspect, which should be brought out as much as possible when they are celebrated.” (#33)

This is still a new idea for many Catholics, and it needs to be the focus of parish catechists. Whenever someone is anointed, family and friends and members of the parish should be included as much as possible. It is still far too common for a family member to request anointing for someone in the hospital or a nursing home and see no reason to be present when the sacrament is celebrated.

Obviously there will be situations when anointing must be celebrated with only the priest present to represent the community, but such minimalism is only appropriate in emergencies. Normally the sacrament should be celebrated with a community of the faithful gathered around the sick person to support them in faith and prayer.

Liturgy planners and parish staff might profit from discussion of ways to gather parishioners when someone is anointed. Some anointing (e.g. before surgery) might be celebrated during Mass, either on the weekend or on a weekday.

Those who care for the sick and take communion to them might be invited to take part when the priest comes to anoint. Catechesis of the parish can encourage family and friends to join such celebrations.

Whispering Hope

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Lord Jesus, help us proclaim the hope that you whisper in our ears, through our lives. Amen.

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today’s readings whisper hope in our ears. In the first reading (Job 7:1-4,6-7), Job’s sad harangue might bring us down except for the fact that we know the rest of his story. Just when it seemed that Job could plunge no deeper into darkness and despair, something happened to change his heart. He encountered God, and from that encounter onward, Job began to look not just at himself and his struggles, he began to look to and listen to God. He was comforted by the inscrutable and awesome mystery of a universe he had not created and could not understand. In a word, he began to hope, and in his hoping he learned to trust and fling himself and his sufferings headlong into God’s hands.

When Jesus moved in flesh and blood among us, he offered the same hope: hope in him, hope in God, hope for salvation and for healing and forgiveness. In today’s Gospel (Mk 1:29-39), Jesus offers hope in various ways – through the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law, through his power over evil as seen in his cures of those possessed, through his prayer in a lonely place that prepared and equipped him for continued service and through his proclamation of the good news throughout the synagogues and villages of Galilee. In each of these efforts, Jesus communicated to human beings the love of God that enabled them to hope.

In today’s second reading (1Cor 9:16-19,22-23), Paul describes the hope that enables him to keep preaching even when this brought him rejection, misery and disillusionment. Like Jeremiah (20:7-9), his predecessor in ministry, Paul knew that he was only a messenger of God’s word. Hope drove Paul; hope pushed and pulled Paul along and empowered him to preach, even when logic and practicality would have dictated otherwise.

A similar hope enabled another minister of the Gospel nearer to our time to persevere despite widespread opposition to his hope for a “new Pentecost” within the church. One of the key figures of the Second Vatican Council, Leo-Josef Cardinal Suenens of Belgium once declared himself and his hope in these words: “I am a man of hope, not for human reasons not from any neutral optimism, but I believe the Holy Spirit is at work in the church and in the world, even when unrecognized and unnamed… To hope is not to dream but to turn dreams into reality. Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.”

Listening to God’s Voice

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Lord Jesus, free us from within by our connection with God’s word and lead us to understanding, insight and faith. Amen.

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

It may be both helpful and challenging to take our cue for this week’s reflection from today’s responsorial psalm (Ps. 95). In an appeal to the praying assembly to hear and heed the word of God as it is spoken through prophets like Moses (Deu. 18:15-20, 1st reading), through apostles like Paul (1Cor. 7:17,32-35, 2nd reading), and through Jesus (Mk. 1:21-28, Gospel), the psalmist prays “If today you hear God’s voice, harden not your hearts.”

As we analyse the above statement, we are made aware that God continues to speak, even today, in a variety of ways and through a variety of venues. Our ancestors in the faith stood in awe before God’s word. They sensed its power, its wisdom, its nearness. God’s word was connected to everything that happens in a day, in a lifetime. The author of Deuteronomy gave voice to this connection: “and these words I command you today shall be in your heart… teach them to your children… talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and gates” (6:6-9).

Nothing is left out here. The word is connected to sitting, walking, to lying down and rising up. It is on our hand, between our eyes; it marks our comings and goings. To understand how connected we must be to God’s word, recall the experience of Helen Keller. Blind, deaf and mute and locked inside herself, she was given to frequent bouts of rage and frustration. Relief and freedom came to Helen in the person of her teacher, Annie Sullivan. One day, as teacher and pupil were at the water pump, Sullivan held Keller’s hand under the flowing water and tapped into it the sign for water. Water, Word. Suddenly, Helen’s face shone with understanding. The water connected with the word. That sign, that tapping, it means this wet, flowing, cool stuff in my hand!

There is another, even greater connection when the word that is tapped into our hands and hearts and lives is the word we call God’s word. When the word that is spoken and heard in liturgy, hymn, psalm or prayer, these divinely inspired human words stammer a connection between people and God. These are human words, yet we understand them to be claimed by divine power. These words connect us to God, and when that connection is made, their lives are changed. Like Helen Keller, freed from within by the connection of water and word, so does our connection with God’s word bring about understanding, insight, freedom and faith.