THIRD SUNDAY - YEAR B

THIRD SUNDAY OF THE ORDINARY TIME – B
(Jonah 3:1-5, 10; 1Cor 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20)

Theme: Let us enter into the time/hour of Jesus because the time of the world is over

Reflection

- Today we celebrate ‘our participation’ in the ‘hour of Jesus’ and thus, the third Sunday of the year places before our minds and hearts this message of Jesus. We have started our walk of faith, in this liturgical year, and search for the true life in Jesus by recalling to our minds the Christian vocation with which we are entrusted in the celebration of the feast of baptism of the Lord; Again we have made ourselves closer to the message of the Church, who has placed herself in the post of John the Baptist, and thus listening to her, we have listened and followed Jesus and thus we have decided to be with him and this is what we have meditated and reflected last Sunday.
- Today, this Sunday, the third ordinary Sunday of the liturgical year, we are called to go little further, in our walk of faith and in our journey towards life in Jesus; it is for this Jesus himself invites us, with the message of the kingdom of God which receives us with our conversion and with our faith. From here we have the message of today that we have to enter into the ‘time’ and ‘hour’ of Jesus himself because the time of the world is over.
- The time of John the Baptist is over; the time of his mission is over; the time of the preparation for the ‘hour of Jesus’ is over; there begins the actual time of Jesus and the fullness of the time of the kingdom of God; this is what we see notice at the beginning of the gospel of today; it is after the arrest of John the Baptist that Jesus initiates his mission of proclamation inviting the people to reject the ‘time of the world’ (conversion) and to accept the ‘time of God’s presence’ (belief); Jesus begins his message calling them to participate in the kingdom that is already present amidst them in his own person.
- The time of the promise and the preparation is over; God has promised in the history of his chosen people Israel that he would send the savior/Messiah who would gather all the people into one kingdom; from the call of Abraham to the ‘arrest of John the Baptist’ it was the story of preparation for the actual realization of it in the entrance of Jesus Christ, the Beloved Word and Son of God, into the world. Now is the time of not only hearing but living the good news already promised and prepared. Now is the time of not only getting ourselves ready to listen to him and to follow him but ‘staying’ with him as the true disciples who always place themselves at the foot of their master. Now is the time of not only proclaiming the kingdom of God but ‘actually participating’ in it with total return to him and that is the real conversion and believing.

First reading

- Conversion: Turning away from their own ways and following the way of the Lord:
o This is what happened in the first reading of today: in the story, the prophet Jonah who is already saved by God from the great fish is offered life again to give himself to the proclamation of the word of God and pointing of the wrath of God upon the wicked.
o He comes out to preach to the people of Nineveh who are fully occupied with their own desires and wishes; but once they have heard the sentence of the Lord from the mouth of the prophet that in forty days the city of Nineveh would be destroyed, they immediately left their ways, from big to the small, have put on the sack, the symbol of humility, and have fasted to please God by doing according to his will.
o This is the true conversion: they have rejected (conversion) and have accepted (believe) in the word of God (gospel/good news) and thus became the people of God (kingdom of God).
- The story of Jonah is an example also for every one of us: to be at the disposition of the proclamation of God and to preach conversion to all:
o The people of Nineveh are not part of the chosen people of God, Israel; but God who is merciful and loving willed that all the people turn to him with repentance and with the desire to be as his people.
o The mission of Jonah is an incredible one for a Jew: to preach the conversion for the salvation even to the country which is considered until now as the sign of malediction (vv.1-3); God makes even malediction into benediction when the people repent and come back to him.
o The response of the ‘infidels’ and unfaithful people is also exemplary: the people who have who have been understood as the one who are fully immersed into their sin and punishment have accepted immediately the message of the prophet and turned to God with the three gestures:
 With the faith in God and in Prophet (v.5a)
 With the works of conversion (v. 5b), and
 With the radical change of life which justifies them before God (v.10).
o The change of attitude from God is also a model: even God, who is said to be unchanging and unmoving ones he takes some decision, as we see now, changes his attitude towards the people plead him for the mercy and salvation; God changes his mind; God turns away from his decision of destroying them; God, if we can say still, also have the change of heart, the conversion, ‘turning of the self towards the other’. He turned towards the people and listen to their prayers and has seen their works of repentance and has the mercy towards them as he is the “God who has no desire in the death of the wicked but wills that he converts himself and thus live” (Ezek 18:23); this is the ‘good news’ that Jonah had to proclaim and he has done as he is asked of and thus he becomes model for all of us both for the ‘internal conversion’ and for the mission of preaching the message of ‘conversion’ to the others.

Second Reading

- The figure of the world will pass away (v. 31):
o The central message of St. Paul for today is this: that the appointed time is grown short and everything is place before the great change with the mystery of Jesus Christ; the appointed time for entering into this mystery is very short; now is the appointed time of the participating into the life of Christ who is above and beyond the world;
o This world is passing away; the present form of the world also will vanish; there will remain only the ‘form’ and ‘life’ of the spirit in and by whom we will sanctified and made partakers of divine life in Christ;
o At this juncture, we have to transform our worldly attitude. Though we possess everything possible in the world we have to be feeling as though we do not possess anything because whatever we accumulate in this present world will pass away; we have to change our attitude towards the worldly needs and goods; we need them in deed, but we are not for them; we need to have control over them rather than allowing them to take control of us; we have to be consistent and content both in our ‘having’ and in our ‘losing’ of these worldly goods; this is the attitude that the Risen Jesus asks of his followers; and for us today, this is the conversion: we need to turn away from our wanting of more and more of the world and its life and turn towards Jesus Christ who wants us even more.
o In a word, we have to comprehend well that ‘the time of the world is short’. We have to digest the truth that even our life is short; therefore, our time in the world is already measured with the span of days and years and one day, we find ourselves at the end of the time, or passing of our life; in order to enjoy to the full the life in Christ we have to ‘leave’ what we have (conversion – leaving what we have like the disciples in the gospel who have left their nets and their father too) and we have to ‘accept’ what we are offered (believe in the good news) that we are the children of God in the new life that Jesus himself gives us with his death and resurrection.

Gospel

- ‘Leaving’ what we have is the conversion – ‘accepting’ what are called for is the faith:
o Today’s gospel presents to us this ‘proclamation’ and the ‘call’ of Jesus. Let us reflect it more deeply to grasp its content for us today by the exegetical study of it.
o Arrest of John and beginning of Jesus public ministry (v. 14): we have already noted this in the introductory part of the reflection. The mission of John as the predecessor of Jesus is accomplished and his time is over and thus, the time for the preparation for the kingdom of God is over; Now is the time to enter into the kingdom that is already present and Jesus exactly starts his mission with this proclamation that “the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is near; convert and believe in the gospel”.
o The kingdom of God is near (v.15): the Greek text reminds us the more closer meaning that ‘the kingdom of God is here’: with this we have three possible meanings:
 The kingdom of God is already begun because Jesus is present here;
 The kingdom of God is imminent: it will come very soon with the paschal mystery of Jesus and thus, with his passion, death and resurrection;
 The kingdom of God is imminent: it will be fully realized at the glorious coming of the Christ at the end of the times;
o Repent: in the Old Testament the conversion is ‘a return to God’. May be here the same idea is found again with little more profundity; in the New Testament there is new conception of the verb ‘repent’: the repentance and faith are linked with the call of Jesus; for example, Levi is converted (Mk 2:14) only because he is called by Jesus and has the enough faith to leave everything in order to follow him.
o Believe: it is the acceptance of being saved by faith in Jesus from the part of the disciple; believing the good news means ‘taking into heart’ the word and the will of God and doing everything possible, even giving of the self and life, to allow it to lead us and guide us; therefore, the faith is always accompanied by the ‘sacrifice of the self’ and the ‘offering of the life’ for the ‘eternal life’ we opt for.
o Jesus saw/found first disciples (v.16): Simon is the one who is seen first along with Andrew by Jesus, at least according to Mark; Jesus gives him the name of Peter only little later; in reality it is not certain whether Simon is the one who is called first as we have seen also last week (John 1:35-42); but Mark presents him to be the first one to be found and called. Jesus appeals his name frequently in the gospels and makes him little above in the group of the twelve (example: Mk 1:36; 3:16; 8:29; 9:2; and the list goes on). It also shows that Jesus has a special role designed for him: to be the first of the community.
o There are other disciples, Andrew, and little further, James and John: these first four disciples have their own priority in the group of the twelve; Mark lists them to be the first ones (3:16); they appear in the beginning of the discourse of Jesus on the end of times (13:3). Above all, Jesus takes them in precedence to other in many important occasions: he takes Peter, James and John (there is no Andrew) with him when he rose up the daughter of Jairus (5:37), to the Transfiguration (9:2) and for the prayer in Gethsemane (14:33). These apostles are given a position of precedence also by Luke in his book of the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1:13; 3:1-11; 8:14-17; 12:1-3).
o Follow me (v.17): nothing is prepared in the anticipation to the call of Jesus. This is precisely the theological presentation of the call that Jesus offers: the immediate response by the disciple is characterized not by the preparation from the part of the one who is called but by the one who called, Jesus; everything has a starting point only in and from Jesus; he calls when he wills and we are to be ready to accept this call at any time; all other things like personal merits (whether we are personally worthy of it or not), moral, spiritual and psychological preparations are not of great value for Mark; it is the call of Jesus and one who listens to it has to follow him immediately.
o Call is always followed by the promise: Jesus calls them from where they are and from what they do; he calls them with the promise of making them even more: fishers of men; Jesus uses their own language to make them understand the ‘significance’ and ‘value’ and ‘depth’ of his calling;
o Left their nets and followed him (v.18): Mark underlines the aspects of ‘radical requirements of the faith’; once call of Jesus arrives to us our response and our acceptance of it should be ‘immediate’; here the disciples were throwing the nets into the sea and once Jesus called them their reaction is immediate; they did not think of the future of their nets or their own future; Just they immediately followed him. This is the concrete attitude of every disciple who accompanies his master; but in the Gospel of Mark, this ‘radical leaving’ of what they have to follow Jesus has become the expression of the ‘style of Christian life’ who becomes the disciple of Jesus through the faith.
o Leaving their father and the boat (v.20): it is not little that they have left; they have left everything: they have left their father, their work, their country, their family; this is the total offering of the oneself to the call of Jesus; the first Christians were of this type of attitude: they have sacrificed everything for their Christina mission and for facing the persecutions.
o Conversion is ‘turning completely opposite’: the disciples who were facing the sea for their work and their earning with their nets and boats, NOW have ‘turned towards Jesus’ who called them; they did not look back; they are now facing only Jesus;
o Believe in the gospel is ‘digesting every word of it’: the disciples immediately understood the power of the word uttered by Jesus: follow me; it is a call to the new life; it is an offer of new being; it is a word that transformed them; their word became Jesus’ word; their life became His life; they opted for what he gives rather than holding on to what they possess; and this is the ‘faith’/believe: leaving/renouncing what we have and accepting/embrace what is given/offered to us;

Conclusion

- It is a call to the faith: “believe in the good news”: Jesus calls us to believe in the gospel with the conversion of life; each one is responsible for his own life and mission; each one is offered this call in order to participate in the kingdom of God. The choice of embracing or rejecting the new life is placed in our hands and it is we who have to respond to this call with the total and committed faith; let us examine ourselves of our faith in Jesus: where do we stand in faith? Are we really firm in faith once the difficulties and troubles hit us with the doubts of the presence of God in our life? Today we are here to answer this call of Jesus to faith. Are we really ready to face this call and respond to it with faith?
- It is a call to the mission: “Get up and go to Nineveh and announce to them what I say”: like Jonah each of us is entrusted with a mission: to proclaim the word of God. But many times we are like Old Jonah who always tried to escape from the mission of God by telling many excuses. We have our own excuses for our mission; our routine and daily excuses are: time is not enough, I am not capable, I do not know, it is not my work, I am busy with my work, and finally for what it serves, I do not find any meaning in keeping my faith in God; these are our normal and usual resistances. We stop the word of God flow from us like that of Jonah; we have followed Jesus and therefore, we have the mission of transforming his word and his message into our word and our message and this is the true mission we called for. Let us remember this always and try to fulfill this mission so that we gain the ‘joy of being’ with the Lord.
- It is a call to conversion: we are asked to leave immediately what we have and what we desire and turn to Jesus who gives us his life; we have different meaning of it; it is not that immediately we give up everything and set out for the divine life; it is not even so easy in our times and in our conditions and in our world; Jesus asks us to ‘convert’ our minds and our ways: we have to replace our thoughts with the will of Jesus; we have change our ways of personal interest and walk in the way of sacrifice and self-renouncement that Jesus shows us; we have to finally, give our priority to the call of Jesus than to the pleasures of the world although they have become part of our life in our conditioned life today. Our priority has to change; our message has to change; our life has to be transformed into his. That is the call to conversion.
- All this call to the faith, to the mission and to the conversion is an urgent call: we have no time; our time is fulfilled; our old nature and our old behavior has to be transformed immediately; our old self has to die; the world which we have built for ourselves has to pass away; now is the time for the change; now is the time for the living; now is the time for the Christian action and vocation; tomorrow is not certain; day after doesn’t exist; we have to be ready to face everything and to change everything and first of all, ourselves; therefore, let us set out into the world, into our community, into our society, leaving aside what we are and what we have; let us set out with what we are in Christ and with what we have of Christ;
- Let us get up; let us leave out boat; let us take the ‘step’ of Jesus; and let us keep ourselves on the mission of preaching and vocation of testimony; the world is waiting for us; the church is waiting for us; our family is waiting for us; above all, God is waiting for us because it is his time; therefore, as today’s theme encourages, let us enter into the time/hour of Jesus because the time of the world is over.

SECOND SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - B

SECOND SUNDAY OF THE YEAR – B
(1Sam 3:3-10, 19; 1Cor 6:13-15, 17-20; John 1:35-42)

Theme: We are called to listen, follow and stay in the tent of the Lord

Reflection

- We are in the second Sunday of the Ordinary Time of the Liturgical Year. We are just starting our journey into the mystery of Christ so that ‘we will always remain with him’. In fact, we have already began our celebration of the Ordinary Time with the last Sunday itself; today is the second Sunday; in this Sunday the church proposes us to have our eyes fixed on the ‘Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world’. It is the first step in our travel towards fully entering into the life of Jesus our savior;
- Indeed, though last Sunday was the first Sunday of the liturgical ordinary year, the church has asked us to celebrated the feast of the baptism of the Lord; it was right and appropriate also because it is with the Baptism that Jesus has set out to inaugurate his public mission of preaching about the kingdom of God and doing good to the people leading them to the true way of the salvation and from our part it is apt to start our liturgical celebration of the Ordinary Time with the same feast because we are reminded and re-immersed into the mystery of our own baptism in which we have been called and sanctified as the children of God and with that ‘moment of our entrance into the faith through the baptism’ we have also ‘set out’ to following Jesus giving testimony of the Christian life and vocation; therefore, we have just participated in the call of God through the baptism as it was exactly revealed in the baptism of Jesus, who although it was not necessary for him, still have received it from John the Baptism and in the waters of Jordan, shown it as the ‘first condition’ to be God’s children.
- In the procedure that the Church proposes for the three cycles of the celebration of God’s mysteries, we have the gospel of Mathew for the year A; gospel of Mark for the year B; and the gospel of Luke for the year C; and the gospel of John is inserted in the ‘proper mysteries of Christ’, especially, in his great events in the history like that of Incarnation, in the Paschal event, that is, in his Passion-Death-Resurrection and in the descent of the Holy Spirit; this insertion is because of the ‘special attention’ that the Church gives to the theological meaning of the fourth Gospel and moreover to make her children participate in the life of Christ beyond geographical, historical and contextual confines of the gospel; this means that:
o Gospel of Mathew is written particularly to the Jewish Christian community and it presents Jesus as the ‘fulfillment of God’s promise’ of salvation; therefore, it has a character of belonging to a special group.
o Gospel of Mark is written particularly to show that Jesus is the ‘Son of God’ who is the Messiah and the savior and it is the first written gospel and its contents are limited; it presents Jesus as the ‘son’ God and ‘son’ of Man in whom the salvation of God itself is hidden; therefore, it has a character of limitedness in the presentation of Jesus and is geographically limited;
o Gospel of Luke is written particularly to show that Jesus is the ‘savior of the poor and marginalized’ and he has come to the world to be with the suffering and with the sinners; it present Jesus as the ‘Son of God’ making himself poor and sitting in the company of the overthrown people of the society; therefore, though it seems to be having universal character of Jesus preaching, it’s predominance is only for a particular sections of the society: poor and marginalized, weak and the sinner, woman and suffering people.
o Gospel of John is completely different in its character: it is both particular and universal; it is both beginning and the end; it is both a call and a fulfillment; It starts with the eternal plan of God and ends with the consummation of everything in him; the gospel starts with Word Christ who was already there from the beginning and enters into the world to be with the men; in this way this Gospel is peculiar and significant in its presentation of the mystery of Jesus Christ;
o And may be for this reason, the Church proposes this gospel for all the predominant event of Jesus;
o Even today we have the gospel reading again from John; it is because of the reasons we have already seen; and the intention the Church is that we have to re-start our Christian journey with the spiritual nourishment of the richness of John’s theology; if we see, second Sunday of the ordinary time of any year we have the gospel reading from John and only from the third Sunday we actually start the gospel proper to the destined year.
- Discipleship of Christ: we reflect today on the discipleship of Christ; Jesus calls the first disciples and asks them to follow him and they immediately follow; and today we have to remind ourselves of our own calling through our acceptance of faith; in fact, we called to be his disciples; the second Sunday is dedicated to this calling of Jesus; once we are admitted into the Christian faith through the baptism (first Sunday), we are now endowed with the responsibility of following Jesus with the committed zeal and will (second Sunday) and we will again meditate about the same calling of Jesus next Sunday also (third Sunday); in this way, the Church prepares us to acknowledge and embrace the life of true discipleship so that we go forward to be in his tent; following Jesus is the common theme for these weeks of Christian Liturgy;
o Jesus calls and men respond: this is the common understanding of discipleship and today many preach on this; many preach on the Christian vocation as the invitation of Jesus; Yes, indeed, Jesus calls and we are given the possibility to respond to his call and follow him; this is the structure of the first two gospels too: Both in Mathew (4:19) and Mark (1:17) present to us the calling of the first disciples by Jesus inviting them to follow him and he would make them ‘fishers of men’; this is the normal understanding of the theme of discipleship: it is first Jesus who calls them and they, leaving their belongings, follow him immediately;
o ‘come and see’: many use these two words for their preaching today; they are the beautiful words of Jesus at the beginning of his public ministry and in particular when it is compared to the ‘common invitation’ of Jesus who has preached: “Time is fulfilled; kingdom of God is near; be converted and believe in the good news” (Mk 1:15); these words ‘come and see’ go beyond their ordinary meaning and it makes the one who accepts them to participate fully in the ‘true living of Jesus’. In this way, today’s preaching for many is founded on this invitation of Jesus’.
o Both these points of view are not wrong; they are meaningful and apt; and they open us the opportunity to enter into the discipleship of Jesus;
Gospel of John: opens the new path of entering into the mystery of Christ

- A different structure of discipleship of Christ: but today we have another point of view of understanding the disciple of Jesus; I want to present another way of viewing the whole scenario of the call and the response between Jesus and his followers; it is an integral and comprehensive one; let us reflect over the same words of the Gospel to learn it:
o In the Gospel of John we have two pillars:
 One is John the Baptist who show to the people the ‘Lamb of God’ (vv. 35-36): what happens there:
• He is with his two disciples: and it is his staying for the Lord
• Fixed his sight on Jesus who is passing by: and it is his being in the Lord
• Said: ‘Here is the Lamb of God’: and it is his testimony of the Lord;
• Therefore, we have to carefully notice all his particular gesture to understand who this John the Baptist is.
 Second is Jesus who has asked those two who follow him: ‘what do you seek’ (v.38-39): what happens here:
• Then (v.38) is the continuation of what is already happening: and it is the attention of Jesus to those who desire to follow him
• He turned to them: and it is the initiative of Jesus to dialogue with them;
• Observing that they are following him: it is the observation of Jesus;
• Said: ‘what do you search for’: it is action of Jesus who creates a desire in them;
• Therefore, we have to comprehend well each and every movement and moment of Jesus;
 These Two pillars have a common destination: preparation and acceptance of discipleship on the part of the two followers (v.37): what happens here:
• Two disciples have ‘listened’ what John has said;
• They have ‘followed’ Jesus;
• In this way, they stand between two pillars: firstly, John who showed them the ‘True Lamb of God’ and to whom they have listened and according to whose word they have followed Jesus and secondly, Jesus himself who has initiated the dialogue with them by knowing their desire;
• Therefore, it is ‘internal and spiritual desire’ of the disciples to know the truth, the way and the life that precedes both the demonstration of John and the invitation of Jesus.
• And both John and Jesus are aimed at bringing and leading those desired disciples one to the true God who is at work for the salvation of humanity.
• John prepares and shows the way of salvation and Jesus actually calls them into the participation of it and the disciples listening to John followed Jesus and following his ‘invitation’ they went, stayed with him and found the messiah in him.
o This is the actual structure of the disciples that the church places before us by offering to us ‘the passage from John’s gospel’:
 First of all, the man needs to have a desire or a quest for finding true God and true life;
 Secondly, God is always ready to reveal the ways and means to know him and this revelation is there from the beginning;
 Man, who has the quest, has to search for the probable means that are present before their eyes, and thus embracing those means, he enters into the life of the one whom he is searching for;
 To put it in the context of today’s gospel: men who are really thirsting for God, have to search for the means of self-revelation of God and that means for the present world is the Church; God is revealing himself in and through the Church and the Church placing itself in the place of John the Baptist, show the true ‘Lamb of God’ and the true savior of the world; if one listens and follows the Church and its life through the word and the sacraments, one can really ‘meet’ Jesus and this Jesus calls him to be with him;

First Reading: Call of God to Samuel through Eli

- This is the exact mode we find also in the first reading of today; there is God’s call offered to the boy Samuel; when God’s voice has come, the boy has thought that it is Eli that is calling him and that’s the reason why he goes to Eli and makes himself present to him; the boy is not in a condition of knowing the call of God; he needed certain help of the prophet Eli; and finally it is Eli who has understood that God is calling Samuel; he guided him rightly to the following of God’s voice and accept it by consenting: “Here I am Lord, speak, your servant is listening” (v. 10);
- If the presence and guidance of Eli not were to be there, Samuel would have lost the call of God and thus he would have lost also the possibility of entering into the ‘mission of salvation’ that God has prepared for him; Eli’s word and enlightenment was a necessary for that moment, though we may say that God has many other ways of revealing and making his call accepted;
- Thus, Samuel represents here for the one who is always open to the God’s intervention and action; and represents the one who is always ready to listen and follow the way that that the ‘mediator’ between God and him indicates; on the one hand, the desire of Samuel and on the other side, the guidance of Eli, that made the call of God completely revealed;

- Let us make a synthesis of whole reflection and say that according to the present structure, discipleship is founded not firstly in the call of Jesus but in the ‘personal desire’ of the one who seeks for God. It is this desire that makes us to listen and to accept the church that has been planted in the middle of the garden of the world and that would lead us to the true savior who takes away the sin of the world and only by this we have the possibility of ‘following and staying’ with Jesus; this is the meaning of discipleship;

Discipleship is a dialogue and testimony

- Let us also reflect little on the words ‘come and see’: they are the words that is central to the whole of the passage; here comes the intervention of Jesus for the disciples who really follow him; he himself initiates a dialogue with them; he asks them of what they are searching for;
- What do you search for? (v. 38): is the question that is posed to us each time when we meet the word of God; what are we searching for is the question we have to pose ourselves whenever we are tempted to go away from his path. What do we want in life, in Christian life? It is the basic question with which we can always remain intact in our rapport with God and with the Truth of love; it also reminds us to purify our ways now and then and thus to remain worthy of God’s action in our life;
- Each and every time, Jesus offers us an invitation of ‘come and see’: it is not come and listen; it is come and see; therefore, it makes the one who comes to participate directly in the very life of the Lord; it is seeing where does the Lord live; it is seeing what does the Lord do; it is seeing how does the Lord give the testimony of his mission;
- Every Sunday we come to the church just to see the Lord; but are we still seeing what we are asked to see; God invites us to see his actions and his marvelous and wonderful events are before our eyes, in the form of the word proclaimed and in the form of the bread broken and shared; are we really ‘seeing’ them; if we see, we actually participate in its essence, that is, we really take part in the same humble and obedient life of Jesus to his Father; it is the actual meaning of discipleship; it is not only following him but it ‘living’ with him, in him and for him;
- That day they remained with him (v.39): once the disciples went and saw where he lives, they also felt to remain with him sharing all that he has and he offers to them; remaining with him is both ‘first requirement’ and ‘first fruit’ of discipleship.
- We have found Messiah (v. 41): we do not have elaborate explanation of what has happened to them that day or what Jesus had done to them; but one thing is certain; something strange has taken place; some change has come in them; they could feel it; they have found what they were searching for; and their experience was so enriching and overwhelming that ‘they could not control their joy of being with the Lord’ and they have come out to their friends and relatives and gave the testimony of their first sight with this ‘Lamb of God’ that John has indicated them; they exclaimed: we have found Messiah.
- Discipleship does not end with ‘listening, following and being’ with the Lord; it consists mainly in ‘living’ his life; it consists in ‘giving testimony’ to the joy of being with the Lord;

Conclusion

The readings of today offer us three important things:
- That we have to listen to the words of Jesus, to follow his path confronting all the obstacles that come on the way, and to ‘dwell’ in his tent; and this is what we are called to do today and from today as we start ‘our journey with the Lord in the Spirit to the Father’ in this liturgical ordinary time; let us first of all ‘imbibe’ the desire for the Lord because once we have this desire to follow him, we are ready to face any kind of situation or any amount of difficulty and we even become ever ready to offer our life for him. let us not lose this desire;
- That we have an answer for those who question: what is Church? Why we have to listen to her and why we have to come to the church? Can we not have the experience of God directly rather than this Church, her preaching and her sacraments? The answer is that ‘we are not capable of knowing God directly’. We are limited in our mind and in our thoughts; we are very small and fall short in front of the ‘greatness’ of God; we may try but we have many possibilities to fail rather than to have knowledge of God by ourselves; God himself knows this and that is the reason why he has chosen to reveal himself and this is the revelation manifested in the Old Testament in the form of promise and prophecy and in the New Testament in the very person of Jesus Christ; and now the same revelation comes to us through the means of the Holy Spirit working in and through the Church; one may say that we cannot keep boundaries for the action of the Spirit for it can also work outside the Church and without the Church; may be; but we have to stop only with may be because we are not sure, though we don’t doubt the power of the Spirit; but the we have one sure way that our Lord Himself has shown us founding his community of followers on the ‘rock’/peter (v. 42) and thus commanding them to defuse this faith in the name of the Trinity; thus the Church is the sure ‘means’ of our knowledge of Christ because it is not human institution, though sometimes it may be criticized of its physical and material structure, it is the mission and commission of Jesus himself; leaving aside all those who do not want God or Christ or some faith, for those who wish to follow Jesus, the Church, like St. John the Baptist, indicates ‘the True Lamb of God’ – Jesus Christ. Therefore, we need the church and its presence in the world for the knowledge of Christ and his mission of salvation for the world and for all the humanity; for this, first of all, we have to understand ourselves as limited as humans in front of God, because his ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts (Is 55). Though we have lot of potency to generate and create anything with technology, once we place ourselves in front and in the presence of God, Almighty, we have to accept our human incapacity and thus follow the same means that God provides us to reach him and for our time and for our Christian faith, it is Church alone that is the ‘proper’ means to reach him;
- We should not become perplexed with the reality of the Church; humanly speaking it may has its own limits; but as long as it strives for the coming of the kingdom of God into the world through its word and actions we may follow it; the followers of the church can easily become followers of Christ too; John’s disciples have become Jesus’ disciples; disciples that followed the word of John have reached to the place they were searching and found the messiah; it would be the same case with all of us who are in the church and we wish to be the disciples of the Church; though we are fearful to see its struggle for existence today in the modern times, it will never fail because it is Christ who leads it and keeps it remained with him and in him with the sanctifying grace of his Spirit;
- Let us therefore, as we are here for the liturgy of the word and the Eucharist, our spiritual nourishment, bear this truth in our minds and in our hearts that: “We are called to listen, follow and stay in the tent of the Lord.”

BAPTISM OF THE LORD - Year B

BAPTISM OF THE LORD – Year B
(Is 55:1-11; 1John 5:1-9; Mark 1:7-11)

Theme: We are of the Lord; let us therefore, live as his true and beloved children

Reflection:

- Today the Church celebrates the feast of the Baptism of the Lord: Jesus, after his life at home and with his people for thirty years, comes to the river Jordan to receive baptism from John the Baptist, his predecessor who walks before him to prepare the way for him and to show to the world his presence, and thus to enter fully into the mission for which he has come to the world; in this sense, the feast of the Baptism of Jesus stands in between his preparation and his actualization of the will and purpose of his Father;
- The feast of Baptism is a central point to which all the preceding events like His Incarnation (that is, the Christmas), His manifestation to the Magi (that is, the Epiphany) lead him and from which all the following events like His Proclamation of the Kingdom of God and His Paschal Mystery begin. It is the ending of all his preparations and the beginning of the actual mission; it is the completion of his private manifestations at home and in his home town and it is the starting of his public testimony to others and to the surrounding towns;
- Even liturgically, this feast stands as the summary of all the preceding celebrations in joy and in festive atmosphere and at the same time it stands as the stepping stone for all the proceeding message and ministry by word and deed; we also stop celebrating and start living; we stop all the holidays and start working; we stop ‘being’ what we are and start ‘doing’ what we have to; it goes still further, we stop ‘showing’ that we are Christians and begin to ‘live’ and ‘testify’ our Christian vocation; this feast invites us today to pass from our identity to our task; to pass from our identity of being children of God to our task of living as the children of God; and thus the Church invites us to carry with us always this truth that ‘we belong to the Lord’ and thus we have the responsibility (and more than responsibility), ‘the mission of living’ as his true and loving children.
- His first and intentional manifestation to the people: every event of Jesus is the self-manifestation of God himself and until now only the infant Jesus has manifested himself as the ‘savior born’ to the pastors and as the ‘king of Jews’ to the three wise men from the east. And little further, as the ‘boy of maturity and wisdom of God’ to the scribes and doctors of the Church in the Jerusalem temple with his ‘questioning and answering’ them. Now as we follow the scriptures is the first time that Jesus who is by now well-grown and fully-matured in his decision to set out for the mission of his Father, comes out himself and with the committed vigor and manifests ‘his true divine identity and divine mission’ to the public with the testimony of the who sent him, the Father, and, with the power of the one who is in him, the Spirit. Thus this feast reminds us that it is the first and intentional act of self-manifestation of Jesus who is filled with the mission of God.
- Let us immediately enter into the readings which the Church herself presents to us today with lot of care and study of the scriptures so that they fill us the spiritual nourishment this particular moment as we listen to them and again so that we will enjoy their richness of meaning and take them as our torching guide in our walk of faith as the baptized children of God.

First Reading: Let us offer everything to Him who makes it ‘spirit-filled’ grace for us

- Today’s first reading is full of spiritual power; each word of it gives us boost to opt for what is useful and what remains for ever; each verse of it encourages us to lead a life worthy of God’s call with the necessary sacrifice and ever-willing renewal of the soul. At the first look this reading looks out of place for the feast we celebrate because of lack of any reference to the baptism, but when we enter deeply into its integral comprehension, we find that its placement is right and that it prepares us to leave what is of this world and to choose what God has promised for us. Besides this, the reading begins with God’s call of invitation to the waters (v.1) and ends with the effect that these waters of God (Son and the Spirit) brings about (v. 11) in each individual recipient. Let us meditate and take into our hearts at least ‘three ways’ of placing our life in the hands of God;
- We have to spend our belongings for the things above (v.2): the verse encourages us with the demanding question: “why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food”.
o In the cited verse, first there is a question that makes us to have a self-examining our daily worries and fatigue: we really worry too much about buying and gathering many things for ourselves; we spend so much of our money to fill our homes with the things; we spend lot of energy to accumulate a lot for ourselves; many times, we spend each and every drop of blood to grow in life with riches and with prestige; who can say that they are not needed? They are very much needed as we live in the world and as we are capable of getting of all them; it is not a fault to have these things and necessary and available comforts in life; the only question of God is whether we are really spending our life for that which is real bread and the bread that satisfies us. Are we really happy in life with all that we have and we are doing? We have to question ourselves sincerely;
o Secondly there is a solution for the many ‘dissatisfactions’ of our life and the only way we need for our ‘true liberation’ is that which God proposes. He asks us first of all ‘to listen’ to him carefully, like Mary in Bethany, and then ‘to eat’ what is good and lasting, the bread that comes from heaven and the food that God himself provides us; therefore, ‘liturgy of the word’ and ‘liturgy of the bread’ are the solutions for our unending displeasures.
o This is what we have to seek for and for this we have to spend all our energies and our capacities: to participate in the marvelous work of God in front of our eyes, the Eucharist in which we are given the ‘word’ and ‘bread’ that satisfy our hunger and thirst and that makes us reach the true path.
- We have to capture the sight of God before we miss it (v.6): the verse reminds us the truth that it is not we who really search for God but it is He who searches for us and who makes himself closer to us and thus it is call for us to be attentive and observing ‘his presence’ near and in us: “seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near”.
o God makes himself ‘one of us’: from the beginning it is God who is in search of men; from his first question of seeking ‘Adam where are you’ and until now it is He who makes himself known to us; ultimately he comes down to the earth ‘searching for the lost men’ ( I have to come to seek and save the lost – Luke 19:10); His ultimate nearness to us as ‘God-with-us’ is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ amongst us; he knows our preoccupations; he knows what are searching for; he knows that we spend our time and energy to seek something else; he knows that man neglects his capacity to know him and to come near him; therefore, he himself comes closer to man and makes his presence felt by him;
o We have to move into him: now is the time for us to respond to this nearness of God; we have to ‘seek’ him with the sincere heart; we have to call upon him often so that we receive his answers for our life;
o Baptism is time for us to ‘find him’ and to ‘accept him’ and finally to enter into his life.
- Allowing the power of the word, the spirit, work in our hearts (v.10): the verse encourages to leave a space for the operation of the presence of God: “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater”.
o The purpose and power of rain is to make a ground/soil bear fruit: the word that comes from God is in the same way enters deeply into the heart of men and tills the will – that is, making it sharpen to accept its presence – and finally makes it fruitful in following his ways. Otherwise its purpose and power are in vain; it makes even the barren ground flourish; it is so powerful that it cuts through and goes deep like that of double edged sword and cleans it and implants its goodness and charity;
o We have to prepare a space for it: God is always willing to enter into our hearts; he sent his Son so that he goes deep inside our hearts, indwells there, and makes our life a really Christian; he pours out his Spirit upon us and the Spirit’s work is continuous even though thorns of our indifferences, stone of our hardness of heart try to block it; at the end the spirit prevail and makes the love sprout from the heart that was senseless and spiritless;
o In fact, Jesus through his baptism enters into the waters of Jordan symbolically but more than that he enters in each and every recipient of baptism and remains there until bear much fruit and we shall remember his own words: ‘I speak to you these things so that you may bear the fruit and the fruit remains forever’ (John 15:1-11).

Second Reading: In true faith we can be the conquerors of the world

- Love is the Letter and Character of John: John’s particular character of his gospel or his epistles is: love. He views God as the God of Love and he goes little further and says ‘God is Love’; it is from this back ground we have to read each and every phrase of his writings; all that God does is the manifestation of his love in his Son and in his Spirit;
- In Love God has generated us: another truth that we have to understand is ‘with the revelation of love by regenerating his Son Jesus into the world’ he has opened the possibility so that all those who participate in this love become ‘regenerated’ in and by Him with the merits of loving sacrifice of His Son and with the sanctifying grace of His Spirit. We have to carry with us this reality as long as we are Christians that ‘we are generated into the world by our parents’ and in baptism and in faith ‘we are regenerated into the heavens by the love of God’.
- In faith we win the world: once we participated or become part of regenerating love of God we are capable of conquering the world because we are filled with the ‘power’ of Jesus who is victorious on the dominion of sin, evil and death and we are the indwelling temples of the ‘presence’ of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 3:16 – “Do you not know that ou are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? if anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.”) and the Spirit who always battles against all forms of evil that drags us always out of grace and out of love like a roaring lion (1Pt 5:8 – “Discipline ourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith”). Thus in faith and in love we can always confront these situations of temptation and spiritual battle and finally win over the powers of the world;
- We stand above the world: we are called to be in the world but not of the world; we do not belong to the world though physically we are confined to this earth; as Christians we have an vocation: standing above the world and its implications; passing through the desires and pleasure of the world that surround us but without ‘stopping’ ourselves; we continue our spiritual journey in spite the attacks from every part of the human sphere and in every form of its pressure; we are capable of moving ahead only because we are regenerated by God in the Word and in the Spirit which took place in the event of our baptism of faith; we have to always bear this in mind and in heart: our identity as ‘regenerated’ by God and our mission as ‘standing’ above the world;

Gospel: ‘You are my son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased’ is God’s voice for us today

- Baptism of Jesus reveals His mission of love, of humility and of sacrifice:
o We will understand the gospel from its exegetical explanation so that we have also the possibility of participating in his ‘person’ and in his ‘work’, that is, in his identity of being a Beloved Son of God and in his mission of setting out for the fulfillment of His Will;
o He allowed himself to be baptized (v.9): Jesus came to the river Jordan and placed himself in the line of sinners, in the middle of his people, as though sharing all that they have, and asks John to give him the same rite as he was doing for others; though in the beginning John hesitated with his unworthiness before his greatness, once Jesus assured him that it has to be done in this way for now, then he has given him the baptism; Jesus permits himself to be in the condition of sinners (Rom 8:3) because he has humbled himself as a mere man (Phil 2:6-7) and undergoes the baptism of John; this baptism of Jesus is an announcement of his death on the cross (Mk 10:38);
o here we have another important virtue to learn: love that lowers itself for others; here we find the manifestation of the greatness of God-Love; but manifests in the manner which is contrary and incomprehensible to the mind of man; it is a greatness of love that is manifested in the act of humility, in the act of lowliness, in the act of utter degradation; He allows himself to be baptized, that is, to be immersed, in the waters of Jordan; we have to keep in mind two points here:
 Firstly, ti is not that Jesus was in need of baptism but he willed it; he allowed it; he permitted it; he desired it; he has surrendered himself completely to the design of God; all this is in response to the man who is self-satisfied with his limited and arrogant understanding of the world and himself and to the man who pretends to be in no way need of God; only in self-diminishing/ ‘humbling oneself’ that one can really feel and find the presence and power of God. The modern man is content with his technological developments and scientific progress and thus thinks in the pride of his capability that he can travel above the heavens; in this self arrogance he does not find any more time and space for the thought God and need of God. For this kind of attitude of man, Jesus’ love which is manifested in his humility gives an answer and makes him to realize the futility of the passing things and instills in him the desire to reach God;
 Secondly, Jesus reveals to the maximum his divine filial relationship to God: he proclaims himself in the silence of the human line and in the hidden gesture of being baptism that he is the Son of the One who has sent him and he is there to do everything for His glory; it also reminds us to bear always in our hearts that we are the children of God and thus we have the responsibility of obeying his word with total self-sacrificing love and thus manifest our filial bond that we have with God.
o The heaven were torn open (v.10): this imagination signifies that the communication is an act and that there is a communication between the heaven and the earth, between God and men; this kind of invocation previously appears in Isaiah 64:1: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down”; and again at the hour of the death of Jesus there would be mentioning of the veil that is torn open which signifies that with the breaking opening the hurdle in the temple there is open also a possibility for the new communication between the heaven and earth (the veil in the temple represents the firmament of heaven).
o Spirit of tenderness and sacrifice in the form of a dove: the coming of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove helps us to comprehend the sense of the mission entrusted to the one who is ‘sent’ of God;
 the figure of a dove is in contrast to the imagination of an ‘eagle’ (Ex 19:4 and Deut 32:11) that has directed the marching of the people of Israel in Exodus to the promised land through the passage into the desert and into the waters of Jordan;
 the figure of a dove also reminds us of the ‘spirit of God’ hovering over the waters in the beginning and at the work of creation (Gen 1:2);
 the figure of a dove would also refer to the dove that Noah has sent out in the time of deluge, the great flood (Gen 8:8-12) and Peter connects it to the image of baptism of the purified humanity which has come out of waters (1 Pt 3:20-21);
 again, if we analyze the understanding of Hebrews of the image of a dove we get the complete meaning of it; they consider dove as an expression of sweetness, love and tenderness and in the same time they recall the idea of cry and suffering; this final impression come from the fact that the dove is the only suitable bird for being offered in the sacrifice.
o Therefore, the image of a dove orients Jesus towards a mission of love, of weakness, and of sacrifice.
o Beloved Son is realized in being ‘servant of the Lord’ (v.11): this verse that ‘you are my beloved son; with you I am well please’ sends us back to the Psalm 2:7 in which God affirms says to the Psalmist ‘you are my Son; today I have begotten you’ and the adjective of ‘beloved’ is used to constitute an allusion to the Isaac who was destined to the sacrifice (Gen 22:2, 12, 16 and Heb 11:17-19). This indicates that Jesus is the unique Son and that his relation to the Father is a relation of love. The last words of the phrase, “with you I am well pleased” are taken from the songs of the ‘Servant of the Lord” (Is 42:1) because Jesus is the servant of God who will fulfill his mission in the suffering and in the sacrifice;
o Therefore, the baptism of Jesus, through the various images, words, allusions, declares the sense of the mission given to Jesus: a mission of sweetness and love, which has to be realized through the humility of suffering and death and through which alone he enters into the kingship of the world.

- Baptism of Jesus reveals the reality of the Trinitarian God at work in every event of salvation:
o Our Christian faith confirms and proclaims that our God is Triune and three persons who are the ‘communion of reciprocal love’; in love three become one; theology also elaborates this truth by saying that ‘in love which is the binding force of union each person of the Trinity moves towards the other two with complete self-offering and with the total openness to be filled by others’. It becomes a play of love; in love there is total self-giving and total receptiveness; in love there are no conditions; in love there are no limits; in love there are no boundaries; therefore in perfect giving and receiving each stands before the others: because of love and it is for this reason we say that ‘God is Love’.
o In every event that God intends and brings into realization there is the presence of the Triune God: in the act of creation – there is the Creator, the Word he utters and the Spirit who hovers over the waters: and we say it is an act of the Father in the Son and in the Spirit; in the act of incarnation – there is the Father who wills and makes his Son enters into the world, the Son Jesus who obeys the Father and makes himself to appear in human form and the Spirit who makes this will of the Father and the incarnation of the Son possible with his power; now in the event of Baptism – there is the Son who stands there for the baptism, the Voice of the Father who testifies him as the Beloved Son, and the descent of the Spirit in the form of a dove; in this way, the Baptism of Jesus reveals the presence of the Trinity in the work of renewal of human being through the grace of baptism.

Conclusion:

- In the baptism we become the children of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus, members of the Church and indwelling place of the Spirit and the instruments of grace to others;
- In the baptism we are immersed into the mystery of Christ:
o into the mystery of incarnation of Jesus where we learn the act of ‘total humility of the self’,
o into the mystery of proclamation of the kingdom of God where we learn the act of ‘committed research into the depths of the principles of God’s will’,
o into the mystery of passion and death where we learn the act of ‘utter commending of the life’,
o at the end, into the mystery of resurrection where we learn the act of ‘testimony of new life’.
- In the baptism we participate in the death of Jesus and thus rise to new life; our life is transformed and our mission is reformed;
- Therefore, we have to carry with us always this truth that ‘in baptism we become children of God because we belong no more to the world but to God’, and that therefore, we have the responsibility of living a life of true children; thus on the one hand, let us enjoy our identity of ‘God’s chosen children and on the other hand, let us also enjoy our mission of suffering and sacrifice in love.

EPIPHANY OF THE LORD - YEAR B

EPIPHANY OF THE LORD – Year B
(Is 60:1-6; Eph 3:2-3, 5-6; Math 2:1-12)

Theme: Let us read well the signs of the times and change our way/ways

Reflection

- Centrality of the feast of Epiphany: today we celebrate the Epiphany of the Lord, that is, the self-manifestation of Jesus to all the people of the world. It is an important feast for the Church that she keeps it between two great manifestations of Jesus in the world: Jesus’ self-presentation to the world in his incarnation and Jesus’ self-sacrifice and offering of new life to the world in the paschal mystery; it is for this reason, the church proclaims today the date of ‘Easter’ and all the principle celebrations around it starting from the Ash Wednesday to the First Sunday of Advent; in this way this feast serves as the central and connecting day of the whole liturgy of the Church; it ends with the all the manifestation of the first mystery of Jesus on earth: his birth and his presentation to the whole world as the ‘boy’ born for the salvation of the humanity; and it opens the new manifestation of the second and final manifestation of Jesus on earth: his baptism, his public life and ministry and his paschal event of passion-death-resurrection and thus, as the ‘messiah’ who offered his life to obtain new beginning for all those who follow him; such is an importance of the feast we celebrate today: we close our adoration of baby Jesus and we move towards finding the adult and matured Jesus who is ready to fulfill his Father’s will and thus manifest his unconditional love on the cross.
- Celebration is perennial: Jesus’ manifestation is an ever growing and an never ending celebration; He wills to manifest himself always and everywhere there is a true need; today is the ultimate manifestation of the purpose of his ‘entrance’ into the world and his ‘indwelling’ among the people; he has already manifested himself on the day of Christmas: he manifested himself to Mary and to Joseph; he manifested himself to the shepherds in the night bringing them to himself through the message of an angel; he manifested himself to the few people of Bethlehem;
- Universal significance of the feast: Now is the time to widen and enlarge this manifestation; now is the time to make this manifestation universally significant and that all people are called to participate in this revelation; now is the time to invite all to ‘follow’ and ‘to see’ the glory of God; and this is the feast of Epiphany: the manifestation of the Lord to the Magi, means wise men, from the east; Although Jesus is born in particular time, in particular place and to the particular parents, his birth is not confined to the particular people; his birth is for all; his love is for all; his glory is for all; his joy is for all; and thus his self-manifestation is for all; to his people first and to all others next; the coming of the Magi from the distant place signify that they do not belong to the elected people of Israel but belong to the section outside the chosen race; his fragrance of love permeates the whole earth; his message of salvation embraces the whole universe; his invitation to participate in the eternal joy reaches to the ends of the earth; thus this feast has a character of universality and catholicity in our particular sense;
- Call to have great joy: the magi have found great joy when they have seen the star which was always a guide for them from their house to the savior’s house; today is the day of joy just as all the Christian celebrations are the moments of finding the true joy of the Lord; this joy is not restricted to some people alone; it crosses the boundaries of all spheres of life; it is an inner joy that the heart finds in ‘embracing’ the Lord born of us.
- understanding the signs of the time: the wise men from the east have seen the ‘strange star’ in the sky as they are also astronomers and they have immediately understood that there is something miraculous event taking place; they have so curious and they are so overwhelmed by this star that they have followed it till the end; they had made their way to the place where it has pointed them to. It has to be same with us as we celebrate this feast. God in fact provides us many ‘signs’ and ‘occasions’ to find out his interventions in our life; we have to be attentive to these ‘little’ yet ‘meaningful’ manifestations of the Lord; this is what is for us understanding the signs of his presence; once we understand what this sign/or incident or the occasion means for us we are encouraged to follow it until we reach its final realization in our life; now let us see ‘the star’ of this particular feast for us today and what it ‘shows’ to us and where it guides us.

From this particular celebration of the Feast of Epiphany we can learn at least four things in order to have the same experience of the Magi, the Wise men of the East:

First: Our desire for the Lord has dominate our knowledge of him

- Having a knowledge of the word of God and having a teaching of the scriptures thoroughly in the mind is not enough to have the experience of the Lord or to participate fully in the manifestation of the Lord but we need have desire for him and this desire is the fruit of the knowledge of the Lord; there it is not enough that we stop with knowing him but we move towards desiring because only in the desire we get him and only in the desire we become united to him and only in the desire we become part his life;
- It is this message we learn from the attitude of the Magi today: it is in contrast to the leaders and the priests of the people of Israel; King Herod and his priests have turned the pages of the scriptures, have found the prophecies about the baby-savior born in Bethlehem and thus, they acquired the full knowledge of who, where and what of the ‘king of Jews’; but they have not moved even a single ‘step’ to go and see him; they have stopped with the knowledge they got; they are happy to find out all the references of him; they are content to guiding the magi with the exact information of the birth of the king in Bethlehem; but the fate is that ‘they have not moved’ out of their houses; they are satisfied with the knowledge of his birth; they never had a ‘desire’ to see him and to meet him;
- But the attitude of the Magi is different and goes beyond that of ordinary knowledge of the priests and leaders of the locality: they too have the knowledge and they too have seen the star and they understood well what it means for them and for the world; for the world it gives the message of the new born king; and for them it gives the message of making a ‘journey’ towards him and to embrace him with all their life; once they have understood this and once they had this knowledge of the ‘king born for the Jews’ and to all they have not remained there. More than having the knowledge of it, they had desire to find out what it means and where it leads; they had the desire of becoming part of this great event in the history; they had the desire of offering their total life to the one who is born in the world and to the one which this star indicates and leads them; this is this desire that made them ‘move’ or step out from their houses and from their places; this is this desire that made them to have a long journey; though they travel for long time they are tired or they have not given it up; because the desire in them has dominated their physical fatigue and their mental knowledge; their desire to see the baby king is so great that nothing stopped them from their journey; so it is desire that goes beyond the ordinary knowledge of him;
- We are called to learn this truth that ‘our knowing of Jesus’ is not enough to participate in his manifestation and we need to have ‘the desire’ to find him and to be with him and to be for him; unless we have this desire it is difficult for us to see his light and his glory; it is this desire that will make us move out of our comfort zones: like that of our house, our family, our relations and specially, our thoughts, our ideas, our knowledge and all that what is ours; it is this desire that will makes us make a ‘journey’ towards him who is our king and savior; otherwise we remain in our houses and with our occupations and preoccupations without recognizing the ‘true life-giver’ born for us; therefore, let our knowledge of the bible or scriptures has to lead us to the desire of finding him and to the desire of having him and finally to the desire of ‘being with him’ always.

Second: we have to make ourselves ‘humble and small’ in front of the greatness of the Lord

- The Magi are not an ordinary people; according to the tradition we come to know that they are Wise men, the astronomers who read the stars and thus, in a certain sense, they are scientists; there is also another understanding of Magi that they are kings from the east and it is known with the gifts they carry to offer to the ‘strange one’, Jesus, who is born. By this we know that they are in any not small people but ‘they are already great’ in their status and in their places;
- But their attitude of making themselves ‘small’ and ‘humble’ by their leaving their royal and kingly throne and position and following a star that would lead them to the ‘wonderful event’ for the universe is noteworthy; it was in reality not necessary for them to abandon their greatness as rulers/as kings but they have still done it because they have recognized that there is born a King who is above all kings and specially, above them and their own kingdom; they have made themselves small and unworthy and in the particular manner they have so humble that they have give up their dignity and have come down to ‘glorify’ the King of kings;
- Even their gestures demonstrate this virtue of their meekness and humility: let us read once again the verse 11: “On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.” Let us observe keenly the important acts; first, they have entered into the house or the presence of the king born for the world; secondly, they have ‘seen’ him; thirdly, they have bowed down and adored him; fourthly, they have opened their bags; and finally, they have offered the gifts to him; each gesture is very significant;
- This is the teaching we have to learn from these wise men:
o First: let us make ourselves small and meek; we have to give up our pride and arrogance; we have to recognize that we are humans and in any way not greater than God as we always tend to be and pretend to be; we have accept our unworthiness before the great manifestation of the Lord; what are we? We are after all his creatures and the work of his hands; how can we try to dominate him or at least how can we question him and his actions; if we do not understand them let us ‘try’ at least to be ‘quite’ because we have no capacity to comprehend all the marvelous events of the Almighty for us; this is the teaching not only for us Christians but to all those who pretend to be ‘gods’ and tend to dominate the world with their knowledge and scientific experiments and with their technological enhancements; they are great things that man can do; we accept this fact that God has given the capacity and capability to the man; but it doesn’t mean that we can overtake God and take up his place; Jesus being God made himself appear in the human and much less in servant form; it is to teach us that we are small and we have to be humble before ‘appearance and action’ of God;
o Second: we have to imbibe well all the gestures that the Magi have manifested so that they could really fulfill their desire by ‘embracing’ the King of kings: we have to first of all ‘enter’ into the house of God and we do it every time we come for the mass or for the prayers; entering is not enough; we have to ‘see’/or participate in what is this small baby Jesus is doing for us right now, means, every time when we come we have to ‘observe’ well the word proclaimed for us and the Eucharist given for us; entering and seeing is not enough; we have to ‘bow down and adore him’ with all our meekness and with our smallness as the wise men of today have done it; from this act of adoration come also ‘opening’ of the self, not only the shelf, opening of the heart, not only of the eyes and this will make us ‘offer’ all that we carry from our house; we carry from our house all the troubles, all the difficulties, all the sufferings and also with them, all the hopes, all the desires to be good Christians and this is for us, the gold, the incense and the fragrance; only in this way we can ‘participate’ totally in the mysterious manifestation of the Lord;

Third: We have to leave the way we have come and take another way

- The third point we have to learn from the Magi is that we have to return to our homes and our work and to our life itself with an ‘another way’ found from the joy of meeting the baby savior; the Magi have done this and they encourage us to follow the same; let us reflect again the last verse of the gospel passage of today: “And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their country by another road” (v.12). The previous verse 11 is full of gestures of Magi in their confrontations with the baby king and the present verse 12 is the decision-prepared by an angel by which they have made their return journey in a different way; and both these verses are conjunct with a word “and” which signifies that there is a close link between the first and the second and that the first one leads to the second and the second is the fruit of the first.
- The Magi were always attentive to the ‘sign’ or ‘star’: from the beginning they were following the star because they were attentive to it; now again there is God’s intervention in their decision, this time it is in the form of a ‘dream’ and yet they were attentive to heed to it; it is this attentiveness and heeding to ‘God’s sign’ which made them to save themselves and the king whom they have just embraced and adored from the furious Herod on one hand, and which made them to take a different way/another way that their return is not just like their coming but it is different because it is filled with joy of experiencing the presence of God in the world; they have changed their way; they have trodden another way; their return is quite different and joyful;
- We are invited today to ‘change’ our ways of return as those of Magi; we here into the church; we listen to the word of God; we experience joy of being in His presence; this joy should be continuous; we have to carry this joy to our homes, to our lives, to others whom we meet and to our working places; this joy has to be shared; this joy has to be reaching to other through us; for this we have to return to our homes differently; it has a spiritual meaning: we have to return from the presence of the Lord to our homes/our lives with the renewed heart and transformed life; the way we have taken to church is that of ordinary and usual one; our way to God’s presence is full of hurdles and full of doubts and full of desperation; but once we participate in the glory of God all these will be transformed into the ‘hope of joy’, ‘courage of confronting the life’ and finally ‘joy of living them’. Therefore, let us change our way; let us renew ourselves; let us leave ourselves to be transformed by God;

Fourth: We have to be ‘true’ and ‘authentic’ researchers of God

- We enter into the last point that we can learn from the Magi today; Magi as we have already noted are not the Jews; instead, they are gentiles; they are pagans; they are outside of the house of Israel, the privileged ones of God;
- But they are the ‘symbol’ for all those who search for God with sincerity and with truth: they have come all the way from their countries ‘searching’ for the one who is born to change the fate of the world; they have come from distance ‘seeking’ the true God who would be amidst his people; they have not stopped their researched; they have continued until they have found him whom they are searching in spite many doubts and many hindrances on the way;
- We have to be ‘authentic’ seekers of the truth and ‘sincere’ researchers of God: we are circled by many religions and many faith and many ideologies; we are affected by lots of doubts about the presence of God and specially about his silence towards the suffering humanity; we are attacked many a time by many who come and block our faith by creating number of doubts about the scriptures, about the church, about the failures of the priests and about the failure of Christians in giving testimony of life;
- When these attacks come from outside we are immediately shocked or disturbed; we feel as though our foundations were shaking; we tend to really cling on to them and their powerful images; specially, few religions who always find fault with the Christianity; it is normal that we are disturbed and preoccupied about the effect of these religious attacks;
- But we need not fear them; we can make these stumbling blocks as the stepping stone for climbing upwards in our authentic research for the truth; they give us possibility to deeper our own faith and to deepen our seeking; they are the occasions for us to question our stand as Christians and to grow in the firm faith; they are the doors for us through which we enter into the reality of ‘true and authentic’ faith that will sustain us; we have to learn to treat them with respect, not with fear;
- The Wise men of today’s reflection are our models and examples; they have never given up their research and their seeking; instead, they have made even the chosen people to recognize and to realize who this baby is and for whom he is born; if we sincerely seek the truth we do not give up until we find it; and seeking the truth is a process and we are still in the process; we know the Jesus is born for us and we have accepted him as our savior but as Christians; still we do not have answers for all the problems of the world; but our trial is always is there; our research is always there; the world’s technology and science and the other religious pressures give us the possibility and encourage us to ‘continue firmly’ in our seeking the truth and in growing in faith; let us learn to be sincere seekers of God;

Conclusion: You/I are the star of the world

- Jesus is the star of God’s love to the world; he is the light of the world as he himself manifested in his proclamation; he is the light that has shown on the people who are walking in the darkness; he is the true light in which we see ourselves clearly and thus take part in his ‘heavenly splendor’;
- Church is the star of Jesus in the world and for the world; the church leads all men to the truth by its interpretation of the scriptures and by its proclamation and theological explorations of the truth: Jesus Christ - the Truth, the Way and the Life;
- Each Christian is the star to the others; we have to shine in our life first with the joy and glory of God and thus we have the responsibility of throwing this light on others; we have to guide the world now; for this we have to ‘deepen our own life and faith’.
- Today and Now, You are the star and we always have this vocation of being the star; and you have to guide yourself, your family, your work and your life to the manifestation of Jesus;
- For all these, let us remind ourselves, let us first understand well the signs of the God’s presence and doing in our lives and change our way/ways with the renewed heart and transformed spirit and be the ‘true seekers’ of God.

NEW YEAR - MARY, MOTHER OF GOD - YEAR B

JANUARY 01 - NEW YEAR - YEAR B: Mary Mother of God
(Num 6:22-27; Gal 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21)

Theme: Let us safeguard well in our hearts the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ

Reflection:

General introduction of the day

- Today, the Church asks us to celebrate three important feasts: Mary, Mother of God; The New Year; and The World Peace Day. In this way we are full of continuous joy of the Christian life and vocation.
- Mary, Mother of God: the Church has proclaimed, the ever virgin mother of Jesus who is both fully divine and fully human, as the mother of God. Therefore, when Mary has given her final consent of 'being a servant of the Lord' she has already become the part of the redemptive design of God and when she has given birth to Jesus and thus becoming his mother she has become also the mother of God her creator himself. We celebrate this maternity of Mary today.
- The New Year: we have yet another year of the grace of the Lord. We are in the central point from which we move back to the memories of the year just passed away and from which we look forward to the hope of the year just started. Memories of the past always serve us as the 'events of experience and learning' (past year) and thus we have 'ample of possibility' (present year) ahead to really live and to make our life worthy-livable. We celebrate this moment of entering into New Year today.
- The World Peace Day: Peace is the 'single word and common task' of the world's nations today. 'We want peace', 'let us work for the peaceful society', 'let us construct a world with peace and justice' are the 'daily cries' of the people. Very happy to hear this news. But peace is not a word but an action. It's not just a prayer for peace but there is need of everyone's responsibility to work for it. Let us pray for the peace, yes, indeed, it is the gift of the Lord and but we have to also 'work' for the peace with our kind words and with our merciful acts, yes, indeed, it is our human task. We celebrate this world peace day today.

Particular introduction of the day

- Celebration of Eternity in time and space:
- We are here today to celebrate the eternity of Christian life and salvation. It seems little strange in this context of our feast. But it is apt and true. Today we celebrate 'The Eighth Day' of the Christmas. Ordinarily speaking there are only seven days a week. We measure our time and our days and months with this. Eighth day of the week usually never appears in our general calendar of time and year. Still the Church makes us to celebrate this eighth day of Christmas and 'also of the Easter'.
- Our Christian faith makes us to celebrate these eight days of feast as 'One and Same Event of Jesus Christ'. By celebrating 'the eighth day' we go 'out of our ordinary measurement of time' and thus 'we move out of our general time'. That means that we go beyond our time and beyond our human measure.
- This going beyond our normal counting of the days and time is at the same time means 'entering into another, unusual, countless and unlimited measurement of time'. It means in a simple word, we enter into eternity; which also means that we enter into the time and space of God himself.
- Thus by celebrating the eighth day of Christmas today we celebrate our Christian mysteries without limit and without end; we are to continuously and tirelessly enter into the joy of celebration of God's Word and Event for us.
- God entered into the time, space and history by the incarnation, so that he could move the same time, space and history into eternity of his own nature and being. Theologically these words may seem to be very strong and incomprehensible to our human mind and we can understand with the simple reason that it is not human doing but God's own will and work.
- The joy of celebration of Jesus' entrance into the world and into our midst (John 1:14) has to be for us 'continuous and lifelong and even beyond' celebration of life and mission of Christian faith.
- In the simple words, we cannot celebrate the midnight or day mass of Christmas on 25th December and say that we have finished our celebration of the great feast. No, we do not have an end to our celebration. We do not have a limit to our joy of Jesus' presence with us. We do not have a need to conclude our feasting of faith and life. Every Christ is born in us and every day he fulfills his work of salvation in us with the power of his Spirit. Any feast for that matter and in a special way two great feasts: Christmas and the Easter because they are the two pillar of our life here on earth and our future life there in heaven.
- Therefore, today we celebrate 'our entrance into eternity'. We are reminded today that we are not people of limited time and space but we are called to live in eternity, means, to live in the Lord. We have to be mindful of this truth every second of our life and only then we will be able to keep up and live up to the worthy of 'being the people of eternity'.

Message of God for us today

- First Reading: Blessing of the Lord
o It is a message of blessing pronounced by God himself to Moses;
o It is a blessing that the priests have to confer to the people of Israel;
o It is a blessing with the same words that God himself commanded to use;
o It is a blessing which contains all the possible requirements of spiritual nourishment for the life:
" It contains the blessing of the Lord: thus, his presence
" It contains the care of the Lord: thus, his power
" It contains the splendor of the Lord: thus, his glory
" It contains the grace of the Lord: thus, his choice
" It contains the peace of the Lord: thus, his gift
o It is a blessing which we too have to make it our own and thus our life itself should become a blessing for us, for our neighbor, for our community, for our society, and for the entire world.
o Therefore, on the first day of the year we shall keep in mind that it is a time to rejoice because we are given a blessing and it is a time to share because we are given a vocation of reaching out this blessing to others. Therefore, on the first day of the year itself, we have a grace on one hand and we also have a task on the other hand.

- Second Reading: Christian dignity of being children of the Lord
o St. Paul reminds us today the 'fact' and the 'fruit' of the coming of the Lord into the world:
" The fact is that the Lord has entered into the time and history 'under the same law' and 'through the natural and worldly means' of being born of a woman (not by the woman because woman is not the cause for the birth but the Spirit of God; and not through the woman because it is not human act that caused the birth but divine intervention).
" The fruit is that we are saved from the law and slavery of the old law and we are made 'children of God' by the working of the sanctifying grace of His Spirit which makes all of us shout and cry out with One Voice and with One Heart: Abba! Father! As the children we are no more slaves for anything of the world and anyone of the world but we become the heirs of his life and being - thus we become the partaker of his eternity.

- Gospel: Example of Mary and the modality of the shepherds:
o In the gospel of today, which is the continuation of the gospel passage of the Christmas, we have two models for our Christian journey: they are, first - Mary and second - the shepherds; for our reflection let us start from the shepherds because they are the ones who are found in the beginning and towards the end of the gospel of today;
o Shepherds: After hearing the good news of the birth of the savior in Bethlehem from an Angel, they started their journey towards the manger to see the baby. In the journey of the shepherds we find four steps that made their experience of joy of the savior full and perfect:
" First step: 'going' (v.16): they have immediately set out to go to reach the place indicated by the angel so that they could see the savior born for them; they could not remain there in the fields because the news is so exciting, so marveling and so powerful that they could not stay 'firm' on their ground but wanted to move to see how and what this baby 'born for them' could be.
" Second step: 'referred' (v.17): they have seen the baby and with the joy of his sight they could not control their emotions and their feelings; they started talking about all that has been said to them by the angel and they tried to describe all the events that have taken place in their venture into finding the savior;
" Third step: 'returning' (v.20): the power of joy is not personal. It makes the one who finds it to go and share it. It does not keep quiet until it is given to somebody else. It is so contagious that all become partakers of it. The same thing happened to the shepherds. They could not control their joy of seeing the baby and talking about him; they immediately returned to spread the good news to others; in other words, they have soon shared their joy of the savior with others. The joy of the Lord makes the person to return to his life and to his work to live it and to share it.
" Fourth step: 'praising and glorifying' (v.20): Joy of the eyes that have seen the wonderful act of God soon has become the song of praise and thanksgiving to God. The shepherds feeling themselves blessed and fortunate to have this experience of 'watching' the baby who has filled them with hope of salvation, kept on offering their hymns of praise to the Lord for his presence amidst them;
" Fifth step: 'our step': now it is our turn to take the model of the shepherds and do the same. First, we have to listen to the good news of salvation and then 'go out' to see the reality of the words proclaimed; the savior is born for us and we have heard the good news and thus we go to the church to see and experience this 'birth of the savior' for us and before our naked eyes. Second, we have to 'talk' and 'speak' all that happened; we can ask ourselves a question here: did I ever speak of the event of incarnation after my Christmas Mass to at least few of my neighbors? Did I spend some time to witness Jesus' birth for me and in front of me? We have to use our tongue and our lips to 'refer' the things of the Lord; if we have an answer for this question, it's well and good; otherwise we have 'revise' who we are and what we are until today. Third, we have to return from the presence of the Lord, after the mass, into the world, into our families and into our life; we are not called only to pray and to sit wondering at the events of the Lord but we are called to 'live' them and to share them with the others. Fourth, we have to give praise and glory to God for all his marvelous acts for our salvation; the experience of the joy that we have received from our participation in the mystery of incarnation makes us to glorify God and to offer our whole life to him; therefore, just watching and listening is not the end of Christian life but 'living, sharing and thanksgiving' is the final step of our life and mission. Let us for this Christmas and the time that follows, learn to 'go' to see the Lord, to 'refer' his words and message, to 'return' to our life with task of sharing our joy and thus, finally offering our lives as a sacrifice of thanksgiving and glory to God.
o Mary who has kept everything in her heart: between the 'coming' with the hope and 'returning' with the joy of the shepherds there is the 'attitude of Mary' which we have to notice and take as an example to continue our wondering of the mysteries of the Lord and specially of his incarnation into the world. "Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart" (Luke 2:19): this is the silent-admiration of Mary with all that is happening in her and around her. Yes, indeed, God's great deeds are in fact talked and proclaimed; but more than that, they are to be 'treasured' and 'pondered' in one's heart;
" Mary Treasured: treasure is something precious and to be safeguarded and kept preserved. Treasuring something is an act by which one 'makes his own' all that he wants to secure; it is an act by which one saves all that he gathers and receives; precious treasure is treasured preciously; about the event of the 'birth of the savior' all those who gathered there around manger were amazed when they the shepherds told them the words of the angels and their finding of the baby and their experience of an inner joy; there are certainly Mary, Joseph and shepherds and there could have been also the near ones who would have gathered; in any case, the shepherds were joyful and exclaimed the wonderful acts of God in their midst; but "Mary, on her part, has kept all these words in her heart". This is the unique and marvelous attitude that Mary has demonstrated before the magnificent joy that God has endowed her with; All have preferred to talk and chat but Mary has preferred to 'treasure' them because she alone knows how precious these words and event are because 'she' has participated in it with her 'amen'.
" Mary pondered them: mystery of God and his interventions are very often incomprehensible to the human limited mind and reason; God entering into the world taking a human form is highly un-intellectual and un-philosophical of the time. God's entering into the world as a poor and disguised baby in the manger is too hard even to those religious and awaiting authority of the time, that is the priests and leaders of the people of Israel, to understand it and that is the reason why they are not able to accept him (John 1:10-11); both reason and faithful waiting failed; both philosophy and so called religiosity have not succeeded in recognizing the mystery of God amidst them; it is only poor and simple shepherds who were able to 'believe' and 'to go' and 'to find' and 'to return with praise and glory' and finally filled their life 'with the joy of the presence of savior amidst them'; it is so complicating and yet it is so simple that the mystery of incarnation is not invited by the elite and literate officials of the time; BUT, the evangelist Luke uses this conjunction to show the difference between those who talked and shared about the joy of the baby savior and those who actually taught us with their silent attitude that the mystery is so deep that we cannot be momentarily joyful; Mary knows how deep is this mystery; she knows that this mystery is not fully manifested; she knows that the same mystery in the process of its revelation will demand total life of the participant; she is the participant of the mystery and so she has to give up all her life and her being for the perfect realization of the mystery; that is the reason why she is still deeply pondering where could this mystery of Jesus leads her and the world to; with all these thoughts in the mind she preferred to ponder them over than speaking about them and thus manifesting momentary joy than complete personal sacrifice and transformation in and for the mystery of God.
" In her Heart: Mary has gone beyond the mind and thought she knows that the mind can falter and thought can doubt the interventions of God; therefore, she has kept everything in her heart; heart is her only place for the indwelling of God's design and will; as one of the Early Fathers of the Church said "Mary has conceived God in her heart before she conceived him in her womb". As soon as she said 'I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it done to me according to your word, she has given birth to the 'redemptive plan' of God and thus carrying in her heart already the eternal project of the Father who wills to send his Son by the power of the Spirit; thus her heart is 'always open and recipient' of the mystery of God and now the mystery of incarnation. Only in the heart it can be safeguarded and preserved well even if the mystery is shattered with the human doubts of the mind and reason; heart/will has always a place to embrace and meditate deeply all that is not incomprehensible; that's the reason why Mary has preferred in keep all thing in her heart; heart is silent and joyful when the events occur either desirable or undesirable; the mind cannot stay firm and the tongue cannot control both the moments either of joy or of sorrow; instead, the heart is always ready to 'ponder' the meaning and value of the things happen in our life; therefore, it is possible only to the heart to comprehend what is happening and to ponder over when it is not comprehensible;
" Like Mary we too are called today to treasure all the wonderful interventions of God in our life on one hand simply rejoicing internally and to treasure as well all that we are not able to understand on the other hand simply placing them in our meditation and thus seeking their context and meaning for us today; let us not be disturbed or too much worried of the thing we don't understand; let us accept that we are humans and we cannot grasp everything of the world with our small mind; and how much difficult it should be with the 'actions' of God; therefore, let us only in complete trust and in confidence wonder over the mysteries of Christian faith; let us preserve them in our heart and ponder over them because every event that happens in our life has a meaning and a purpose for our life and for our Christian journey; let us take Mary, mother of God and of Us, as the example and only in this way we can be 'calm and tranquil' in moments of misunderstanding, incomprehension and of un-recognition.

New Year or yet Another Year?

- Another Year: We never have 'new year' but we only have 'another' year; we often make the concepts and we ourselves do not really understand their meaning; I would prefer to say that we do enter into the year with the first day of every year but we enter not into new year but into another year; there is lot of difference if only we have time to reflect over it; day after day the time passes; year after year the possibility of another year starts; with the term 'new' we often fall into misconception and we enter into false preparations and false celebrations; if we celebrate every year as new year we have to also celebrate every day as new day but why we don't? everything is a matter of time or tickling of the clock; one moment passes another enters; one minute passes another arrives; one week passes another is at our disposal; one month passes another knock our door; one year passes another opens us the possibility of choices; it is not more than this; why we make so much preparation and spend so much of money and organize so much of program? Why finally we neglect and give up our spiritual renewal? Is it not false festivity? Let us celebrate not as a new year but 'another year' which God has kept in our hand opening the possibility of betterment of life.
- Wishes of Better Life instead: We may celebrate New Year, because we are already in the clutches of worldly and false attractions, and even if God himself comes down to stop these we are not ready to do it; so what are my words after all? We exchange wishes of the New Year and these wishes make round today and whole of this month. It is well and fine. Let us only try to understand well what we are celebrating and what are our wishes for; wish can be just a combination of few beautiful words; is it enough? Is it a real and true wish? Where is our heart and mind when we utter these words? Do we really wish it? What does a real wish signify? We have to answer all these questions before we exchange our wish. If we have an answer we are 'worthily' exchange the wishes and not wishes of New Year but of better life. It should not be the wish of pretention but a real wish; real wish is not only saying a few words but 'doing everything possible' to make the wish come true; are we ready to do it? we wish today and from tomorrow we live as though we are strangers; in this situation what could the meaning of our celebration?
- Today is the starting of 'another year of possibility for the better life': we may not have fulfilled all that we wanted fulfill; we may not have reached the goal we wanted to reach; we may not have completed all that we wanted to complete; we may not have come to the human growth and spiritual renewal that we really wished to have; Today is the opening of another possibility; today is the time to enter into another year; today is the appointed or given time and space for us to 'have a betterment of our life'; more than celebration and wasting of time with false imaginations and false prestige, it is a 'time given' to us to 'ponder and work out for the self renewal; it is not our time; we are not in grade of adding even a single moment to our life; it is a time 'provided' for us, provided for us by God as we believers hold, and provided by luck/or some other unknown power as non believers hold; in any case, it is time 'provided', not earned by our human efforts; let us keep this truth in mind before we celebrate 'any form of time' - be it a birth day or feast day or new year. Only then we will really 'enter into the celebration of our life and our mission' on earth, in and for the world. It is not to discourage the celebration but it only for the meaningful celebration that this reflection is aimed;

Conclusion: Better Life with the Presence and Power of Baby Savior Born For Us Today

- We are the children of God and we have to enter into the life and being of God and that is, into eternity; this time is temporal; this time passes away; these celebrations too fade away; night time we celebrate and day time we worry for the life; so simple is the reason; let us not go after pretending life but 'open' life; we live only few years; we have minimum time to live in the world; why do we waste it with misunderstandings, with struggles, with faces of sorrow and with the complaints of life; let us live it and make other live;
- We have two personalities for us to imitate and to go forward in our journey of another year:
o Mary who taught us to just wonder at the working of God rather than finding reasons because divine interventions go beyond our normal thinking; let us take the example of Mary and 'treasure in our heart' all the incomprehension and failures of knowledge and thus giving space to the Spirit to work in us and to bring forth from our heart the savior.
o Shepherds who taught us to find God in the simplicity of life and openness to the truth and availability to the divine inspirations and to rejoice over them and give glory and praise to God; great thing is the summary of the simple things just as the great ocean is the summary of the single and simple drops; so also God acts in the simple hearts that are ready to listen to him, that desire to see him, that set out to meet him and finally that renders due praise and glory to the Him; let us try to understand this and live as simple and available as the shepherds to the mystery of God for us and amidst us. In this way let us safeguard well in our hearts the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ. May God Bless Us Today and the Days to Come.