The Reign of Love

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

This week I should call your attention to a cardboard box titled “Mother Teresa’s Luggage”. Under that is a quote from this saintly person: “People are not hungry for bread, they are hungry for love. People are not naked only for a piece of cloth; they are naked for that human dignity. People are not only homeless for a room made of bricks; but they are homeless – being rejected, unwanted, unloved. Jesus says: ‘Love as I have loved you; I have wanted you. I have loved you and you love, as I have loved you’”

I always thought that Mother Teresa understood well the Kingdom that Jesus talked about, a reign of love and not power, of compassion and not competition, of equality and not hierarchy. This simple nun wrapped in the arms of God’s love, charmed the earth with her velvet hammer, strategizing for the poor and the dying, and allowing the world to realize the reign of God in its midst.

In today’s Gospel (Mt 23:1-12) we find Jesus shifting the locus of authority from a top-down mentality and moving authority and leadership to the realm of servanthood. “The greatest among you must be your servant.” Looking for status, places of honour, praise, and titles is not part of the profile for the Baptized. Sitting at the right and left hand of God in the Kingdom is not the focus… rather, it is suffering and servanthood. The worldview of Kingdom living would be radically changing… images of longer phylacteries and impressive tassels, seeking honour at banquets and in synagogues… these cannot be central to the disciple.

In the light of the 1st reading from the prophet Malachi (1:14-2;2,8-10), who asks of the religious leadership impeccable responsibility, it would be tempting to point fingers and push hard against hierarchical structures. But perhaps better is to invite all those who lead within the church to lead with the maternal insight of Paul: We are gentle among you, as a nursing mother cares for her children… night and day we worked among you so that we would not be a burden to you while we proclaimed the Gospel of God (2nd reading 1Thes 2:7-9).
It is the pastoral response of love which Jesus asks of leadership: not to lay upon people burdens too hard to carry, not to put more emphasis upon position and places of honour at banquets, or title, but upon service. Mother Teresa’s cardboard box symbolizes that simplicity of leadership and humility for me.

Summons to Love

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

This Sunday we observe as World Mission Sunday and it calls us to put the summons to love God and neighbour into practice. The building up of God’s reign of love is the mission we are urged to adopt today and every day. The scripture readings of today illustrate this mission, and to me, they are the basis of Catholic Social Teaching.

In the first reading from the Book of Exodus (22:20-26) the Lord is very adamant on how we are to treat others who are less fortunate than ourselves. The law of fraternal charity, our obligation to our neighbour, was imposed by God on the Israelites from their very beginning as people. For many years they did practice this law, and it was rather easy for them since they lived among themselves. It wasn’t until they encountered pagans, those whose religious beliefs were far different from theirs, that they strayed from God’s law and treated the pagans with much disrespect and contempt. They considered themselves as God’s chosen people and did not realize God’s merciful condescension in legislating for all of humankind who need help and protection. The Lord tells – “You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. You shall not abuse any widow or orphan….And if your neighbour cries out to me, I will listen, for I am compassionate.” God’s word applies to us in this day as well as it did to the Israelites in theirs.

In the 2nd reading Paul speaks to the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 1:5-10) of the good example they are setting in leading truly Christian lives. In the Gospel (Mt 22:34-40) we find Jesus laying down the complete definition of religion. Religion consists in loving God. It is love of God first, and love of humankind second. But in his teaching Jesus made them equal and interdependent. It is only when we love God that humanity becomes lovable. In Genesis 1:26 God said – “And now we will make human beings, they will be like us and resemble us”. It is for this reason that humankind is lovable. Take away the love of God and we can become angry at others for many reasons. The love of humankind in firmly grounded in the love of God.

To be truly religious is to love God and to love the people made in God’s own image, with total commitment in devotion to God.

Total Gift, Total Belonging

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but give to God what is God’s” (Mt 22:21). Traditionally, this text has been cited to support the concept of separation of church and state. This text has prompted many discussions and much controversy as to the extent of the church’s involvement in the political process. This text has been favourably used to highlight the responsibilities Christians have to be salt and light and leaven in the world. The challenge is maintaining one’s equilibrium without absenting oneself from any aspect of the human experience. Here the role model is Jesus himself who engaged and sanctified the secular world by the sacredness of his presence and involvement. Jesus remains to teach and guide, prompting us to similar transforming involvement with all the created universe.

Less traditional but more popular over the last several decades has been the appreciation of this text to the Christian duty of stewardship. Beleaguered pastors or financial administrators may seize on Jesus’ words as an opportunity to press for money. Caesar, i.e. the state, may tax the cheque book or bank account, they may plead, but let us not forget the tithe that is rightly God’s.

“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s” was indeed a challenge requiring an occupied populace to pay tribute to their occupiers. Nevertheless, it is Jesus second exhortation, “Give to God what is God’s” that constitutes the greater challenge. Such giving or stewardship before God is never limited solely to money. Rather, this quality of stewardship offers as gift all that we are and all that we have. Indeed, stewardship before God involves everything and everyone God has provided, including the earth and all its peoples. Understood in this way, giving to God would necessarily begin with a rededication to God all we are, all we say, all we do, all we choose, all we become. Whereas popular etiquette may regard a 10 percent tribute or tithe as sufficient, those who are God’s will settle for offering nothing less than 100%: total gift, total belonging.

This absolute belonging to God will necessarily preclude our being given over in anyway to immorality, dishonesty, injustice or any other word or work that would desecrate the gift that we are. This absolute belonging will also involve the gift of all that we have to God – time, talent and treasure – because when the gift of self is primary, all else follows naturally. Give to God, therefore, all that is God’s.

Celebration of Eucharist with Symbols

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

What do you think of celebrating this Sunday’s liturgy having two banners depicting a vineyard on either side of the church. Today’s readings present us with a fine example of the power of a good symbol. In the 1st reading from Isaiah (Is 5:1-7), the prophet uses the image of the vineyard to speak about the state of God’s people, who had not been producing good fruit for the Lord. Jesus picks up the same image to speak about his own experience of being rejected by the leaders of the Jewish people. And as we read that in today’s Gospel passage (Mt 21:33-43), we rightly hear it as a warning to our own time that God expects us to produce good fruit, too.
The image of the vineyard is clearly a symbol in these passages. Like all symbols, it has more than one simple meaning. Notice that the parables in the two readings, though similar, differ in significant ways. In the 1st reading, the vineyard is destroyed because it produced wild grapes. In the Gospel the tenants (chief priests and elders) are destroyed, the vineyard is given to other tenants (Gentiles). In the first reading, the challenge is to all of Judah. In the Gospel the challenge is to the Jewish leaders who oppose Jesus and his mission.
It is this multivalence, this ability to carry many levels of meaning, that distinguishes a true symbol from a mere sign. Symbols are rich carriers of meaning, allowing people to enter into them and draw from them a variety of insights and meanings.
Since good liturgy relies on symbols, we have to make ourselves aware of tapping the power of symbols. For an effective participation in liturgy, sometimes a theme is chosen and the whole liturgy is based on that. Though this is a good practice in itself, the use of symbols in liturgy may serve the purpose better. The problem with a theme, at least one narrowly conceived, is that it attempts to make the liturgy say one thing to everybody. Good use of symbols, by contrast, invites us to engage the symbols in a context of mystery. This means that different people may draw very different meanings from the symbol, as the Holy Spirit touches the minds and hearts of each member of the worshiping community.
The liturgy does have its own dynamic and demands, but it also must remain open enough for the wide variety of people who celebrate it to enter into with their own backgrounds and abilities. That’s what good symbols allow.

Call to Conversion

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Call to Conversion

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Since the year of the Eucharist is coming to a close, it is worth focusing on liturgy this week. There are those who believe that the liturgy should focus only on purely spiritual matters, avoiding any contamination with issues of politics or economics or daily life. Others feel that the liturgy should always be uplifting, making them feel better about themselves and their lives than when they entered the church building. Such attitudes reduce liturgy to largely empty ritual. Liturgy aims to bring us into the presence of the living God and to confront us with the power of God’s word. It is intended to foster conversion of attitudes and behaviour. It seeks the transformation of the assembled body of Christ just as surely as it seeks the transformation of bread and wine into the body and blood of the Lord.
This means that authentic liturgy will regularly challenge the members of the assembly. The word of God both consoles and confronts, and the liturgy does the same. It is all too easy to tame the liturgy so that it never disturbs the assembly. Liturgy can become conventional rather than prophetic. It can easily be an exercise of saying “yes” to God but not doing God’s will, like the son in today’s Gospel parable (Mt 21:28-32).
When Jesus first shared this parable, he did so within the context of a controversy with the chief priests and elders (v. 28). These had assumed that their righteousness had earned them entrance into God’s kingdom. These had also assumed that the sinfulness of the tax collectors and prostitutes of their day had sealed their fate as kingdom-outsiders. They had, in all of their assuming overlooked the possibility of grace to turn around lives and situations that seemed hopeless.
Nevertheless, Jesus brought the chief priests and elders to the point where they had to admit that the son who first said no and then changed his mind and heart was the one who did what his father wanted. This admission left them to deal with the fact that those whom they despised as beyond the pale of salvation would be granted a share in God’s kingdom.
Today, this parable remains a source of comfort and encouragement for sinners, prompting us to grasp the grace that allows us to say yes to God. By the same token, it remains a source of challenge to us sinners, warning us against that undue self-righteousness that overlooks the need for grace in all we are, in all we do, in all we choose, in all we think, in all we say.

The Holy Otherness of God

Message From Father Jose

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The readings of this Sunday seems to invite our attention to the importance of catechesis in the church.  The U.S. Catholic bishops have designated this third Sunday of September as Catechetical Sunday.

The first reading’s insistence (Is 55:6-9) that God’s ways are not our ways provides a solid basis for the need for catechesis.  The Gospel parable (Mt 20:1-16) provides a good example of how different God’s ways are from our instinctive human reactions to a situation.  It might be good, therefore, to focus precisely on that disjuncture.

There is a tendency among us humans to bring God “down to our level” by attributing to God some of our baser human attitudes and behaviours.  For example, because many of us have a knee-jerk reaction to the wrongs done to us and tend to pay back blow for blow, evil for evil, we may think that God will act with like spitefulness.  Similarly, we who tend to hold grudges, dredge up past hurts and relish vengeance.  We presume God will not forgive because we cannot or will not; we think God will harbour anger because we do.  We think that God would never afford the grace of another chance for conversion, for repentance, for reconciliation because we find such grace “cheap” or “offensive” and thereby stifle its possibilities.  We have to be on guard against diminishing the holy otherness of God.  This otherness of God is revealed as mercy and generous forgiveness when human standards would dictate otherwise.  Here lies the crux of the challenging mission shouldered by catechists.

Do we give special respect and reverence to catechists as those who help the community to embrace values and behaviour that flow from Christ rather than from society?  Too often people assume that the function of catechesis is to produce people who will behave according to society’s accepted rules, that is to conform to the status quo.

Yet if God’s ways are  not our ways, the fruit of good catechesis will be people who challenge the status quo whenever it is at odds with the values of the Gospel.

Let us specially pray today for all the religious teachers in Catholic Schools and parish religious programmes, preschool catechists and catechumenate team members.

A New Language, A New Vision

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

A New Language, A New Vision

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today’s scripture texts from the first book of Kings, from Paul and from Gospel according to Mathew invite us to an experience of understanding and oneness with others. Each presents us with the gift of God’s Word and the challenge of recognizing the various languages through which that sacred Word is spoken. Elijah (1st reading, 1 Kings 19:9, 11-13), for example, had traditionally recognized the Word of God as spoken through various natural phenomena, e.g., as in the strong and crushing wind or in the tremors of an earthquake, or in the heat and flames of a fire. These perceptions enabled Elijah to think of God in terms of irrepressible power or an unharnessable force. But on that day, on the mountain known as Horeb (or Sinai), God’s Word came to the prophet speaking in another language, not with nature’s noises but in the still small silence of the prophet’s own heart. While the prophet was searching and listening elsewhere, the Word of God was speaking within him. He became as it was, “inspired” or “God-breathed”. He understood this new language God was speaking and he opened himself to hear and heed its directives.

In today’s second reading (Rom 9:1-5), Paul shares with his readers the truth of God’s Word as mediated through the language of the paschal mystery. Jesus had been spoken into the Jewish tradition of patriarchs and promises, covenants and messianic expectations. Yet, the Word made flesh was not fully appreciated or accepted by many of Paul and Jesus’ Jewish brothers and sisters. Heartbroken that his own did not understand the new language that God had spoken in Jesus, Paul pleaded that they do so, even after the fact. If they did, Paul promised that God would speak the language of reconciliation and salvation.

A language of strength and courage is spoken in today’s Gospel (Mt 14:22-33), when Jesus exhorts, “Be not afraid!” and invites believers “to come!” despite the deep waters and despite our fears. Jesus promises to stretch out his hand and catch us before we are overwhelmed. Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini once said, “A different language is a different vision of life”. Today Jesus offers to teach us not only the new language of unfaltering and fearless faith, but also a vision of life that sees all, loves all and cherishes all as God sees, loves and cherishes.