Repent and Receive the Gifts of God

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Lord Jesus, help us repent of our sins and selfishness so as to be thirsty for the gifts of God.

The praying assembly is invited this Sunday to learn the truth and challenge of God’s word through two men and a rather unusual woman. Moses, in today’s 1st reading from the book of Exodus (17:3-7) is represented as frustrated with the incessant and ungrateful grumbling of the Israelites. His annoyance is clearly evident as he relays their complaint to God, yet God responds with patience, providing a supply of water from the rock to the thirsty wanderers. The gift of water in an otherwise waterless desert became a sign of God’s perpetual presence in their midst.

Paul, in his Roman correspondence (Rom 5:1-2,5-8), will speak not specifically of water but of the love of God being poured out to quench the needs and the thirsts of sinners. Paul understood that sinners who accept to be washed in the baptismal bath of Jesus’ dying and rising could appropriate all Jesus accomplished through his saving death.

In today’s Gospel (Jn 4:5-42) Jesus gives us a Samaritan woman with a questionable past as our teacher. Through her encounter with Jesus, she will be given to drink the water of life; through her, Jesus will teach each of us to similarly satisfy all our thirsts in him. The woman, unnamed by John the evangelist, belonged to an ethnic and religious group rejected by the larger and more powerful religious establishment. Jesus regarded Samaritans as little more than gentiles. It is interesting to note that Jesus chose someone whom the rest of society held to be of no account to teach his disciples how to be disciples.

With Jesus, she looked at her life and she allowed him to point out those places in her heart that needed to be filled with God’s gift of living water. Thirsty for the gifts he offered, she welcomed him into her life. Then with the grateful elatedness that comes to those who know themselves to be fully forgiven, she ran to tell others of her experiences. In this, she stands out as our teacher and Lenten guide. With her, we are called to repent of our sins and selfishness so as to be thirsty for the gifts of God that come to us in Jesus. With her, we are to allow those gifts to change us from within so as to be more authentic witnesses to the presence of God in our lives, in our world.

Listen, God Listens

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Lord Jesus, help us grow in sensitivity to your voice, remembering that you listen to us always.

Listening to God is central to the life of faith. Whether we listen to God or not, God is always listening to us. Keeping these two facts in focus, we have to reflect on this Sunday’s readings.

The first reading from Genesis (12:1-4) portrays Abraham as an epic of faith. His faithful listening to God was matched by an equally firm faith that God also listened. He lived his life within the parameters and from the strength of that ongoing conversation. Listening to this one and only God, travelling in both physical and spiritual sense to wherever God would lead, Abraham also put his faith in what seemed to be God’s impossible and impractical promises of progeny, prosperity and land. For his faithful following and listening, Abraham was blessed by God to the extent that his very name, i.e., his very self would be a source of blessing for all the earth’s peoples.

As is reflected in today’s 2nd reading (2Tim 1:8-10) each of us has been “saved by God and called to a holy life”. Paul’s life-changing experience took place on the road to Damascus when he heard the voice of the risen Jesus questioning the manner in which he was living his life. This experience resulted in Saul the persecutor of the faith, becoming Paul, the preacher of the Good News of Jesus Christ to the gentiles. Also referenced in the excerpt from 2 Timothy is the assurance that no life-altering word is spoken by God without the accompanying grace that will be needed to respond to that word thoroughly, faithfully and perseveringly.

In today’s Gospel, (Mt. 17:1-9) the directive given to Peter, James and John deserves our attention: “Listen to him”. Spoken from the cloud, the voice directed those who heard it then and those who hear it now to attend carefully to Jesus. Jesus has the words of truth, light and life that transforms the lives of those who listen to him. Jesus speaks of love and forgiveness, and human beings begin to live in the knowledge that they are cherished by a merciful and compassionate God. Jesus speaks words of challenge, and mere acquaintances become companions, companions become disciples, disciples become sharers in His suffering, dying and rising to new life. To put it more simply, listening to Jesus changes lives.

Naked Truth

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Lord Jesus, help me, merciful and loving God, to rely on you and to divest myself of the fig leaves, faults and failures that keep me from becoming a truer image of you.

How easy it is to read the biblical story of Adam and Eve and their fall from grace and to lay the burden of guilt for the human condition upon their shoulders. How easy it is to misconstrue Paul’s words to the Romans (5:12-19) and blame the disobedience of one man for the concupiscence, evil and death that all of us are made to suffer. How easy it is for us to read the account of Jesus’ being tempted in the wilderness and diminish his triumph by reasoning “After all, he was God, and the tempter is no match for the Source of all strength and goodness.” But Lent is not about assigning blame or guilt to others. Lent is not about diminishing the struggle against evil that Jesus willingly accepted as his own for our sake. Lent is about rediscovering God and uncovering ourselves before God by setting aside the fig leaves we’ve been hiding behind.

In today’s first reading from Genesis (2:7-9, 3:1-7) Adam and Eve are featured as sewing makeshift garments to wear when their “eyes were opened” and they discovered themselves as “naked” before God and one another. In the verses that follow today's first reading, their predicament is clearly enunciated. God has come in search of them. God, who called creation into being and then called humankind to be its steward, calls out yet again “Where are you?” The sinners’ answer indicts them “I heard… I was afraid… I was naked… I hid, I ate, I ate” (3:10-13). As Walter Bruggeman (“Genesis”, Atlanta: 1982) has explained, their former attentiveness to God’s call and to God’s directives have been relinquished. Now the preoccupation is “I”. Now the central focus of life is not God but me. The shift of Adam and Eve’s centre from God to self thrust them into adult consciousness; they recognized their sinfulness and feared the otherness of the divine. Trying to protect themselves from the reality of these truths, they hid behind fig leaves. The experience of Adam and Eve has also become the experience of each of us. We are Adam; We are Eve; we have sinned and are culpable before God. But rather than succumb to the temptation to hide behind fig leaves, we can take the time Lent offers us – a time in the desert, as it were – to make sure that the naked truth of who we are can be acknowledged before God and transformed by grace.

What fig leaves do we hide behind in our lives? What are those things that we must change or surrender in order to be clothed again with the white garment of renewed baptismal grace at Easter?

Living the Beatitudes

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, CMI

Lord Jesus, help me see how I am living the beatitudes now and help me see how I can live them more deeply.

Before Lent begins on February 6th, the proclamation of the Gospel on this Sunday and the next will reacquaint the praying assembly with the Great Sermon and its challenges. Although these challenges lie at the heart of what it means to be Christian, too few of us believe that it is possible to live them out in the context of the daily grind. Many have attempted to do so – Dorothy Day, Henry Nouwen, Daniel Berrigan, Oscar Romero, Charles de Foucault, Dom Helder Camara, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, to name a few. But more often than not, these have become the exceptions whose absolute adherence to the Sermon’s precepts has led them to be labelled as extremists or fanatics, too radical for the “mainstream Christianity”.

“Getting on with it” will require that we be fired by a spirituality that finds blessedness in humility and strength in obedience. In today’s first reading (Zeph 2:3, 3:12-13), the prophet Zephaniah holds out to us as an example the anawim or remnant or poor ones who rely solely on God. In their humble reliance, they may seem weak in the eyes of the world, but they are building their houses on rock. Zephaniah’s description of the poor ones anticipates the spirituality set forth in the Beatitudes (Gospel, Mt 5:1-12) that will introduce the Great Sermon.

These statements of blessedness, explains C. Milo Connick (“Jesus, the Man, the Message and the Mission”, NJ; 1974), describe the character of the members of the kingdom of God – the followers of Jesus in any age. It is significant that both Matthew (5:1) and Luke (6:17) made it clear that the Beatitudes and their challenge were directed toward Jesus’ disciples who had already opted to make Jesus’ way of life their own. By virtue of that option, grace was available to them, grace that made the spirituality of the Beatitudes possible and practicable.

Whereas some may suppose that the Beatitudes are requisites necessary for entering the kingdom, they are actually the resulting dispositions of those who have already, and by grace, opened their hearts and minds to put on the heart and mind of Jesus. These are not candid camera shots of eight different kinds of character; rather, they represent one character in eight different ways, like so many facets of a diamond. The character described is, of course, Jesus Christ, and the verbal portrait is itself an invitation not only to do what Jesus did but to become Jesus for the world.

What Would Jesus Do?

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, C.M.I.

Lord Jesus, help us to apply the question “What would Jesus do?” to the choices we have to make daily.

This Sunday’s Gospel (Mt 4:12-23) invites our attention to the call of the first disciples. It is coupled with Jesus’ command: “Reform your lives”. Without reform or the radical change that is daily conversion, discipleship is not possible. For this we must be willing to ask ourselves again and again, “What would Jesus Do?” and be equally willing to act repeatedly upon our answer.

This question and its acronym “WWJD” are worth exploring. A WWJD web site asks how these four letters became so popular in the youth of America. A youth group from Calvary Reformed Church of Holland, Michigan, brought this question. “What would Jesus do?” to its popularity. Inspired by the 1896 book by Charles Sheldon, “In His Steps”, the youth group tried to apply this question to the choices they all had to make daily. As a tangible reminder, they were simple cloth bracelets that bore the letters WWJD. The fervour of that Michigan youth group might strike a similar fervour in each of us to lead us to truer discipleship. To begin the process of reform, we might consider the following scenarios.

A note in the bulletin makes known the need of a parishioner for a ride to church. The address is in your neighbourhood but you’d rather not be burdened with this weekly responsibility. What would Jesus do?

Your telephone rings and a voice on the other end asks you to help out at the school’s fundraiser this Saturday. You have a movie date planned, so you decline with the excuse that you’re already committed elsewhere. What would Jesus do?

Your neighbour is in the hospital. She’s a widow and has no family in the area but you hate the smell of hospitals and, after all, you might “catch something” and get sick yourself so you don’t visit. What would Jesus do?

Like the Corinthians who favoured certain preachers over others (2nd reading 1 Cor 1:10-13,17), you try to find out who will be presiding at which Mass (or worship service) so as not to be bored to death by Rev. Blank or lulled to sleep by Rev. Doe. What would Jesus do?

Initially it may seem that these examples drawn from the very ordinary events of everyday life have little to do with discipleship. But in a very real sense, these little events and our responses have everything to do with discipleship because the question “What would Jesus do?” must be levelled at every important and seemingly insignificant moment of our lives.

Christened to be Light

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, C.M.I.

Lord Jesus, Lamb of God, “Show me your holy secret of how to expose my light to the world in hidden acts of light and love” (from the prayer of Edward Hays)

Three voices speak this Sunday to remind us who we are, whose we are and who God intends that we become. These voices speak against the backdrop of Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist. Like Jesus, we, who are baptized in his name, are chosen by God, named as God’s children and filled with the Holy Spirit.

Paul in his greeting to the believers at Corinth (Cor 1:1-3), will reference the gift of our consecration by God. Set apart at baptism and empowered by daily grace, each of us is intended for a holiness that will illumine the way of our contemporaries toward God. Isaiah, in today’s 1st reading (Is.49:3,5-6) will again invite us to identify with the servant of God commissioned to be a light of salvation to the nations.

At the time of our baptismal initiation into Christ and the church, light was an integral symbol of the ceremony. A smaller candle was lit from the Easter Candle that represents Christ, the Light of the World. This small candle was then offered to the newly initiated with a prayer that each receive the burning light and sustain the grace of baptism throughout a blameless life by keeping God’s commandments and remaining prepared to meet the Lord in his second coming among us.

But what does it mean to be light in our world? In brief, it means that we must allow ourselves to be consumed. Eberhard Arnold, co-founder of the first of the Bruderhof communities in 1920, has explained the challenge of being light in this way (Salt and Light, The Plough Publishing House, 1998). A light on a candlestick consumes itself to give light to all in the house. It serves the intimate unity of the household because its life consists in dying.

The light that Jesus kindles in a follower of his is not produced merely by intelligent recognition, systematic clarity of thought or sharp discernment. What matters, what produces light, is to live within God’s heart. The light of God’s heart creates community and draws people together. However, this light cannot radiate brightness and strength without being consumed. Holding out the example of Jesus, Lamb of God, Arnold insists that those who experience the world’s suffering and guilt with the crucified Christ, are able to serve the world, with the light and the strength of the risen Lord.

Christ himself is this light and he did not hide his light under a basket or bed. Those whom he has called, consecrated and christened to be light cannot hide, either. And so, let us press ourselves into the service of being consumed so as to illumine the way to Christ for our world.

Baptismal Commitment

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, C.M.I.

Infant Jesus, help us see that the needy are treated not merely with charity but with dignity that is justly theirs as God’s children.

In the movie “The Godfather”, one of the most memorable scenes is the scene of baptism. Connie wanted her brother Michael Corleone to be the godfather in the christening of her son. “Do you renounce Satan?” asked the priest. “I do”, responded Corleone, and in that same moment, the camera cut away from the sacramental scene to shock the viewer with a brutal murder. “And all his works?”, came the question. Again Corleone’s positive response was shown to be nothing more than a lie as another violent killing was perpetrated. So it went all through the baptismal ceremony. Corleone said one thing and did another. His profession of faith was empty, his integrity a sham.

Today’s feast of the baptism of Jesus offers the occasion for turning a reflective eye upon ourselves and our own baptismal commitment. Christ’s own commitment, as reflected in today’s scripture texts, was to assume the role of God’s Son (Mt. 3:13-17), empowered by the Holy Spirit so as to go about doing the good works of healing (Acts 10:34-38) and establishing justice on the earth (Is 42:1-4,6-7). True to his baptismal anointing, Jesus said what he meant and meant what he said. Nor was there any discrepancy between the faith that he professed with his lips and the faith that he lived in the presence of his contempories. For his integrity, he suffered the ultimate penalty - death at the hands of those who rejected him, his faith, his message, his relationship to God and the radical character of his baptismal commitment. We who call ourselves Jesus’ own are also called to live out the reality of baptism, as he did, even at the risk of dying, as he did.

Fortunately, many have taken this risk; one of the most notable of them was Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement in 1933. She worked with her mentor and partner in the Gospel, Peter Maurin, to open hospitality houses for the poor across the United States. Within 5 years they had established 33 places where the needy were not just treated with charity but with the dignity that was justly theirs as God’s children. Day and Maurin believed that baptized believers should work to change the very structures of society so as to make room for social justice, equality and peace.

At Jesus’ baptism, Jesus became a dominant social force for the world. At her baptism, Dorothy Day grasped Jesus’ hand and made his work and his mind her own. At each of our baptisms, we were consecrated for similar service. How do we live out our baptismal promises in word and deed in the context of the present crises in the world and thus become a church that Jesus would readily claim as his own.