Our Approachable God

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Lord Jesus, make me ever approachable learning from you how to be gentle and humble of heart.  Amen

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

God, as is revealed in today’s liturgy, remains utterly approachable. In today’s first reading (Zech 9:9-10), the prophet Zechariah celebrates the approachableness of God, who does not remain aloof and pompously distant from the people but comes away in all meekness. Israel’s God repeatedly assures believers, “I am with you”; “I have seen your plight”; “I hear your cries”; “You are mine and I am yours”. Israel's God made the divine presence as obvious as a pillar of fire illuminating the darkened desert sky or the cloud that signalled nearness by day. By describing the divine love for Israel as that of a mother who never forgets her child (Is49:15) or as a loving parent who teaches a son to walk, raises the infant to his cheeks and stoops to feed him and enfold the child in love (Hos 11:3,4), the prophets of the Hebrew scriptures affirmed the divine desire to be near, to be approached.

That desire took on human form and features in the person of Jesus, whose very incarnation signalled the ultimate gesture of divine approachability. In Jesus, God came so near as to become one of us. This mystery is dramatically and clearly expressed in today’s Gospel (Mt 11:25-30), wherein Jesus first insists that those who know him can also know God who is revealed in him. “Then,” Jesus invites, “Come to me and find rest. Learn from me and be refreshed”. There is no mention of protocol here; no appointment is needed; no political correctness or special attire is specified. There is simply Jesus, made accessible in flesh and blood, made forever present in bread and wine.

“Come to me, take my yoke upon you”, Jesus asks, and then specifies that his is an easy yoke and a light burden. In a comment on this invitation by the utterly approachable Jesus, T.W. Manson (“The Teaching of Jesus”, UK, 1931) has explained that the yoke is not one that Jesus imposes but one that he himself wears. In Jesus’ day, a yoke was a common wooden device that paired two oxen and made them a team. The ever approachable Jesus invites each of us to become his yoke mate and with him and in him, to find our burdens lessened and sorrows shared. Our weariness and weighty worries of life will not drag us down or overwhelm us because the One who has called us into being has shouldered our troubles as his own.

Two Living Pillars

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Lord Jesus, help me respond to you in faith so that my life may completely be redirected.

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

This Sunday we are celebrating the greatness of two very different men who received God’s call and God’s grace and thereby became living pillars in our faith community. Aside from their shared faith in Jesus, little else would have brought Peter and Paul together to be leaders of the growing Jesus movement. Had Peter not met Jesus, he would probably have grown old sailing the Sea of Galilee and hauling in his catches. Had Paul not encountered the risen Jesus on the Damascus road, he would probably have continued to serve as a rabbi among his Jewish contemporaries. But Peter and Paul did meet Jesus and respond to him in faith, and as a result, their lives were completely redirected.

Henry Nouwen has suggested that the church would do well to take advantage of the feast of Peter and Paul to celebrate their perseverance, their spiritual insights and their strong commitment to bring the Gospel to the whole world. (Sabbatical Journey, 1998) Because of their deep personal relationship with Jesus, they were able to overcome barriers that might otherwise have kept them apart. As different as night and day, they found a union in Christ that continues to call others to similar communion. Their ability to overcome their differences challenges each of us to a similar generosity.

The insight of Peter and Paul speak anew to us today and call forth similar wisdom in us. With Peter, we are invited to answer the ultimate question (Gospel, Mt. 16:13-19) upon which all other questions and their answers depend. Like Peter, we are to affirm: You are Christ, the Messiah, our hope, our model, our way in and our way out, our open door, our mentor, our friend, our life, our brother, our God. With Peter, we are to shake off the chains (1st reading, Acts 12:1-11), whether these are self-made or crafted by our circumstances, and walk in the freedom that Jesus has won for us.

Standing beside Paul (2nd reading, 2Tim.4:6-18), we remember that all our life can be offered as a sacrifice or a libation poured out in praise of God. Paul reminds us that Jesus stands by us to give us strength and encouragement through all the ups and downs, through every turn and detour we may meet along the way.

Turning Points and Transitions

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Lord Jesus, touch me and transform my fear to trust in the turning points of life.

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

praying assembly today there is a turning point that creates a change of heart or a new mindset. As Within each of the three scripture selections set before the scholars have described it, there is a definite and discernible movement from wretchedness to joy. In today’s first reading (Jer 20:10-13) the plight of Jeremiah openly bemoans the fact that he was called to be a prophet at a turbulent time in his people’s history. Suffering from their rejection of his message and threats against his person, Jeremiah pours out his complaint. Yet, right in the middle of his griping, there is a change, and the jeremiad of the prophet yields to joy. Why? Even amid his difficulties, the prophet was aware of the presence of God with him, “like a mighty champion”. That powerful presence effected a turning point in the prophet’s attitude. Fear turned to trust and desperation to dependence on God.

A similar shift, though more subtly expressed, is evidenced in today’s second reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans (Rom 5:12-15). Before Jesus sin reigned in the world, and with sin, death. But with Jesus, God’s gracious and saving gifts were poured forth on a sinful world. Jesus effected in his person and through his mission the turning point of the story of our salvation. Because of Jesus, sin is healed by God’s merciful forgiveness, death yields to life and wretchedness to joy. Walter Brueggemann (The Message of Psalms, 1984) has called this shift or turning point that is reflected in the life and spirituality of the believer a transition from disorientation to new-orientation.

In today’s Gospel (Mt 10:26-33), it is Jesus who makes his disciples aware of the possibility of transitions or turning points in their lives. The disciples should expect to face the same doubt and rejection and to be embroiled in controversy and conflicts as Jesus was. But rather than meet these difficulties with fear or allow those who oppose them and their work to intimidate them, the disciples of Jesus are encouraged by him with the promise of God’s parental and fastidious attentiveness. So carefully does God attend disciples that every hair on their heads is known and protected. With this knowledge of God’s care, disciples can make the transition or turning point from fear to fearless service and from disorientation to a new orientation towards life.

“My Love For You”

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Lord Jesus, help us to love you as you loved, to live as you lived, to serve as you served.

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways… I love thee to the level of every day’s most quiet need, by sun and candle light. I love thee freely…I love thee purely…I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears of all my life and…I shall but love thee better after death.” With these words, poet Elizabeth Barrett (1806-1861) gave eloquent expression to her love for her future husband, Robert Browning (1812-1889). Many through the years have made these words their own when searching to find a way to communicate their feelings to their beloved.

“How do I love thee?” God asks, and through the imagination of the Exodus author, God tells us of a fierce and protective love like that of a mother eagle encouraging its young to grow and develop (Ex 19:1-6). God’s love is also a spousal and desirous of an unending covenantal relationship. God’s love speaks of a belonging that makes special and holy the beloved. You are mine; I am yours, promises the God of Exodus.

“How do I love thee?” When Paul broaches that question and answers for God, his is an amazing declaration of the underserved and unrequited love of God for humankind (Rom 5:6-11). We were powerless, godless; we were enemies and sinners and in complete disregard of our unworthiness, and with a generosity that defies human logic, God loved us to such an extreme that God sent divinity into time and space to become one of us and to die for us in order to achieve our justification. Justification, or being set in right relationship to God, is the measureless measure of God’s love.

“How do I love thee?” I love you, pledges Jesus in Matthew’s gospel (Mt 9:36-10:8), as a shepherd loves the sheep, even when, and especially when, the sheep wander, tired and aimless, with no worthy leader to tend to them. I love you like the farmer loves the harvest and risks all to see it safely and completely gathered in. I love you as deeply as to call you, when the world may regard as unlikely candidates for leadership – I call you, tax collector, the sinner, the betrayer, the political extremist… I call you all to be my hands, my feet, my mind and heart for a needy world. “How do I love thee?” I love you fully and freely, and as God, I choose to love you in life and beyond death for everlasting life.

Dead Or Alive?

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Lord Jesus, help me translate my piety into a sincere and compassionate caring for one another.

Scottish biblical scholar, William Barclay (1907-1978) included the following anecdote in one of his sermons: A minister was called to assume the pastorate of a church in the Americas. Although he had been warned that the congregation was, for all practical purposes, “dead”, he regarded the call as a challenge and decided to accept it. Soon after his arrival, he discovered that his congregation was indeed “dead”. No planning, no exhortation could kindle a spark of life or waken a hint of a response.

One Sunday, the new pastor announced from pulpit that since the congregation was dead, he was going to carry out the funeral of the church. On the appointed day, a coffin was brought into the church and placed in the centre aisle; the church was decked with mourning wreaths.

When the time for the “burial service” arrived, the church was crowded as it had not been in years. Solemnly, the pastor proceeded with the service, at the conclusion of which, he invited all present to file past the coffin. As they did so they received a shock. The coffin was open and empty. But the bottom of the coffin was not wood; it was a mirror. As each person peered into the coffin of the dead church, each saw his/her own face.

In a certain sense, the prophet Hosea (6:3-6) and the evangelist Matthew (9:9-13) are delivering a similar message to the praying assembly gathered for today’s liturgy, viz., a congregation is dead, that is, its members are dead if the ritual they celebrate is empty… if there is sacrifice but no mercy… if there is private profession of piety but no public expression of that piety in mutual love and service; if, when gathered round the altar, they dare to call upon God as Abba – Daddy and then they go forth from the altar and fail to recognize and care for others as brothers and sisters.

The first reading and the gospel frame our liturgy today with the challenge to remember that ours is a God-centred and people oriented piety. Without both, i.e., without a focus in God that is translated in a sincere and compassionate caring for one another, piety is “like a morning cloud, like the dew that passes early away” (Hosea) and the one who practices such piety is, indeed, dead.

The Body and Blood of the Lord

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Lord Jesus, make me your presence in the world through the Holy Communion I receive.

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

This annual feast offers an ideal time to reaffirm the church’s belief that the bread and wine are truly changed into the body and blood of the Lord. There should be no question that this is the faith of the church. The challenge is putting that doctrine in the proper context. There is always a danger that in emphasizing one tenet of the faith, other important beliefs are overshadowed. The result can be a distortion of the faith tradition rather than a strengthening of it.

With regard to belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the form of His body and blood, there are two major contexts that need to be maintained. The first is that He offers us His body and blood precisely as food and drink. His presence is not for its own sake so that we might adore the host or view Him as a prisoner in the tabernacle. He is present in the body and blood to feed and nourish us and to transform us more fully into His body in the world.

The second essential context is the various ways that Christ is present in the Eucharist. He is present not only in the bread and wine but also in the assembly, in the presider, and in the word proclaimed. These other forms of His presence are not in competition with His presence in the Eucharistic species, but work with that presence to enable us to encounter the Lord throughout the celebration of the liturgy and to be transformed more fully into His likeness.

Today let us concentrate on the richness of our Eucharistic tradition. Let us take pains to see the connections between the various modes of Christ’s presence and recognize the true purpose of the Eucharist as our own transformation. Once this is fulfilled, the goal of liturgical formation is achieved. Let us ask ourselves the following questions: (1) What is my experience when I say “I adore you Lord!” (2) Does that adoring attitude take its origin from the transformation I underwent and the satisfaction I got feeding on the body and blood of the Lord?

Trinity and Community

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Lord Jesus, help us to foster the interpersonal relationships in our community contemplating the mystery of the Trinity.

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today, Trinity Sunday, we pause to consider mystery in our lives. The difference between mystery and problem is vast. A problem is something we can solve.

Managing to pay all our bills each month is a problem. Mystery, though, is not something that can be solved or managed. We all live with mystery, although we may not be aware of it. One of the most fundamental mysteries of all is life itself. We recognize it, we cherish it, we fear losing it, but we do not understand it anymore than we grasp its end – death. Do we understand love? Try to explain why you love someone, you will always fall far short of the truth.

Nicodemus was faced with mystery, and he resorted to problem solving, He was a leader in the community, a Pharisee of high repute. But he was also drawn irresistibly to the person of Jesus. Prudently, he went to Jesus under cover of darkness, seeking to resolve his dilemma. But Jesus spoke of belief, not solutions. Belief has to do with entering into mystery. Jesus startled Nicodemus by telling him he must be born again, of water and the spirit. Reduced to a problem, this makes no sense. As mystery, we believe.

It was faith that prompted Paul to conclude his second letter to the Corinthians with this blessing: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you”. Reason did not bring Paul to this declaration of Trinity, only faith, the acceptance of mystery.

The Trinity is not unreasonable, it is beyond reason. Augustine admitted, “I can experience far more than I can understand about the Trinity”. Theologians such as Leonardo Boff and Elizabeth John describe the interrelatedness of the Three Persons as community. God is not a dominant ONE, cut off from any relationship with others. Nor is God just two figures, Father, Son, absorbed in each other. But, as Boff suggests, God is the eternal spilling over into a third person, the Spirit, who “forces the other two to turn their gaze from themselves in another direction.”

Theologian Belden Lane continues, “God then, is a community of differentness bound together in unity. The Trinity continually seeks new webs of interconnectedness, while at the same time remaining separate and wholly itself”.