THIRTEENTH SUNDAY - B

THIRTEENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR – B (Wisdom 1:13-15, 2:23-24; 2 Cor 8:7, 9, 13-15; Mark 5:21-43) Theme: The Power of God’s Touch: We are Saved! Reflection God’s Touch: A Question? An Exclamation! Or An Affirmation. - We celebrate today the thirteenth Sunday of the Year. In particular this Sunday reminds us of the Power of God’s Touch. All the reading of the day teach us the truth: we are touched by God and by this touch we are healed, we are purified and we are redeemed. The central message of the word of God, read and proclaimed now before us, is that God wants to be very closer to man and He will to embrace him. - We may draw many themes from today’s readings: The justice of God as in the first reading; or equality of all in having the earthly goods as in the second reading; or/and finally, the mercy of Jesus towards the sick and the dying. But today, we limit ourselves to one theme different than what are mentioned above, yet it contains in itself all the cited themes. And the theme, as well introduced, is this: that Power of God’s touch saves us. - God touches man! Is it a question? Or is it an exclamation! Or is it an affirmation. The words are beautiful and sound well to listen, “God touches man”. But to see its authenticity and affirm its efficacy is not that simple. Here comes the act of faith. In faith we experience that God touches us and that our God is not far away from us. o Pagan Experience: For the world of unbelievers and the pagans, this statement that “God touches man” remains still an unanswerable question. They could not digest how, if at all there is a God and that God is really a God who is above all, can he touch man and how can he make himself reachable to man. God is above all and beyond all human comprehension. And if it so, for them, this statement is ridiculous and is nonsensical. Therefore, it is still a question for them. o Religious Experience: For the believers and the religious people and who have embraced faith in God, this statement is no more a question. But still, it remains an Exclamation! It is a thing of surprise. It is an experience of wonder. They feel that somewhere and somehow there is a touch of God. They see that their spirit is being elevated and they remain in the inexpressible and unexplainable condition where they exclaim with “owe and wonder” that they are touched by their God. This is common to any religious experience of the world religions. What is noticed there is just an emotional feeling that they have God’s touch. It goes little further, cancels the question of the pagan and unbelievers, and enters into the exclamation. Therefore, it is still an exclamation for them. o Christian Experience: “God touched man” or “God still touches man” are neither the statements of the doubt any more (as of the experience of pagans and unbelievers), nor the statements of wonder and surprise any more (as of the experience of the ordinary religious people). They are the statements of “Affirmation”. In the Christian experience it is affirmed that God has already touched man and still he is touching him. He has already touched man when He assumed the human nature and condition in the Incarnation. He is still touching and wishes to touch man in the Eucharistic celebration where Jesus enters and makes his presence pass through the recipient of the communion. o God of Touch: Christian God is not just a God of words. Yes, He speaks to man and he reaches to man in the words of the Prophets. But he does not stop there. His reaching has arrived to its peak level and to its highest point: He touched the human nature and He wore the human condition in Jesus Christ. Here He is not just a Jewish God who spoke and who speaks with mere words. Here He is a Christian God who acted and acts with the concrete events: with the Incarnation, Passion, Death and Resurrection. These events open the truth: God will to be with man and raise man above and finally to make him get up. These are the gestures also seen in the Gospel of today and we will reflect them a while after. o An answer Unveiled: The question of the pagans and unbelievers is answered. The exclamation of the religious people is purified and made whole. The answer and the wholeness of the statement are found in the very life of God in the person of Jesus Christ. Therefore, now pagan have no reason to question. Therefore, now ordinary religious people have no reason to be satisfied with a mere feeling. They are called to accept and embrace the truth that God touches man and it is confirmed in the Christian experience. Christian experience, therefore, is not just an experience of faith and it goes beyond: it is the full and active participation in the very life of Christ. God is Life and He shares his Life with Man: The Summary of the Readings - First Reading – What is created is Life, not the death: o The first reading of today from the Book of Wisdom reveals the truth that everything is created by God to be in existence and to be alive. Let us listen to the words again: “For he created all things so that they might exist; the generative forces of the world are wholesome, and there is no destructive poison in them, and the domino of Hades is not on earth” (v. 14). These are words and words from the wisdom of Salomon and these wise words are the words of the Spirit because wisdom is the gift of the Holy Spirit. o The author starts his book with these words and in the beginning itself, in the first two chapters, makes the observation of human life and death. God has created only life, not the death. Death is not God’s intention or creation: “God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living” (v. 13) and he concludes the second chapter of the Book with the same affirmation: “for God created us for incorruption, and made us in the image of his own eternity, but through the devil’s envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his company experience it” (Wis 2:23-24). o Creation is full and whole because it is being created by the Word of God in the Spirit. In particular mode, man is created in his “image and likeness”. Therefore, will of God is that everywhere there is life and there should be existence. But man suddenly finds his life has a block: the death. He grumbles against God for creating this frightening reality called death without knowing where does it come from. He thinks that even death is created by God. Once again the words of Wisdom unveil the truth that “everything is whole and complete with the life” because it comes from the act of the Living God. The words of Wisdom unveil also the truth that “the death is found in the world because of the devil’s act”. o The wholeness of creation and of man is now in danger with the entrance of death in the world. The purpose of God is that man is in life and with life always. This purpose is blocked by the fear of death. God who never wants the death of the living and in particular, the death of his creature, takes an initiative step to come to man as man so that he can put full stop to the power of death. o This is the Christian mystery: God has seen the helplessness and dramatic condition of man in his confrontation with the sin and death. God who has seen does not just speaks a word but Sends the Word, His Word into the Flesh, so that he can open the way for man. Jesus Christ, the Word made Flesh, has fulfilled what God has planned with his Passion, Death and Resurrection. The fruit is this: God touched man; He healed him; He brought him out from the fear and clutches of death; and finally, He made him alive again because He is God of Living who never desired the death. The power of touch of God is this: it renews man and revives him into life. - Second Reading – God’s poverty makes us Rich: o The beautiful message of St. Paul is once again admonishes to acknowledge the truth of God’s touch. Why did at all Christ has come into the world? Why did at all God willed to appear in the human form? Why did at all Christ shared in the human slavery condition? These questions find their answer in today’s second reading and from the inspiring words of Paul: “For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9). o Context of the passage is this: there was a charitable collection to be made for the Church of Jerusalem and for the difficult condition of the church. Paul encourages his people to share their having with generous contributions. He dedicates two chapters, eighth and ninth, of the second letter to the Corinthians for this purpose. Within this context appears also today’s reading. Paul reminds them the generosity of Jesus Christ: he takes to himself poor human condition so that it will be elevated into spiritual fructification. He renounces his rich status and assumes the poverty so that the poor man becomes rich. o His message primarily manifests his exhortation in the economic and social level but it simultaneously reveals his invitation to be in Christ and to be as Christ: to be rich in the Spirit and to be rich with the Life of God. This is the spiritual richness that Paul essentially speaks about. We are poor in the spirit because of the inclinations to sin and because of the influence of death. But with the coming of Christ the scenario is changed. We have become spiritually rich because we are given life. We are touched by God’s generous love: we are given life. o This fact reminds us that we are not created poor though we appear poor in the world. We are created to be rich and to be full. But not in the worldly sphere and in the earthly measure. We are created and called to be rich in the Holy Spirit. Where there is Spirit of God there is life. We are filled with the Spirit of God and thus, we are filled with life. We are people of Life, not of death. The power of touch of God is this: it empowers the poor and makes them rich, not in life, but with life. - Gospel – Jesus extends his hand, touches and raises the child to life: o In the Gospel we have two miracles very tightly linked: a woman suffers from the illness from twelve years and a twelve year girl faces death. The common elements are two: first, the number twelve and second, the experience of Jesus’ touch.  First – “Twelve”: Twelve is the number which is more frequent in the bible as number seven. Seven indicates the fullness and completeness. Then what about the number twelve? What does it indicate? It is difficult to answer. One thing may be observed: in the Old Testament it indicates the twelve tribes of Israel and in the Pauline epistles it indicates the twelve fruits of the Spirit. Other than this, what it could indicate when it is compared with the number seven, is this: when the number seven points to the completeness, number twelve which is superior to it, must indicate to that which is more. It should indicate and point, thus, to the reality beyond the measure and beyond calculation. It also reveals that it enters entirely into God’s sphere because we cannot measure what is God and his nature. This also reveals that the two miracles of Jesus manifest the very sphere of God to humanity: Sphere of God’s Life Kept Open for Man.  Second – Jesus’ Touch: Woman touches Jesus and Jesus touches the girl. In the first instance, Jesus allows himself to be touched by human being; he opens the possibility for man to touch him; this is why, the woman was able to touch Jesus and finds herself healed immediately. In the second instance, Jesus extends his hand and touches the child/girl; he has come to be with man and to reach out to man; he has come to show that God’s presence is amidst them and God’s hand is extended to him; to manifest this truth to the humanity that Jesus touches the girl and raises her up. This also indicates the stage of faith: woman is mature in faith and girl still depends on the faith of her parents. Yet, both of them experience the healing touch of Jesus: both of them are saved from the power of sickness and of death. Jesus has given them Life. o Woman and her Faith: In the case of woman it is her faith that has saved her. If we observe well the gospel we find four gestures of the woman:  Hears the truth of Jesus: the woman has heard that Jesus is has come there to her town and to her village and that He has done already many wonderful things. Hearing the message of Jesus’ presence is the first step.  Comes to meet Jesus: Her listening is not complete at home itself. She has come. She has reached the presence of Jesus. Her hearing made her to move towards Jesus.  Believes Jesus: She heard that Jesus could do good things. She came with the faith that he would heal her. Hearing and coming led her to believe in him. His presence made her to be confident and hoping for the healing.  Touches Jesus: Hearing the message, coming to his presence and just believing are not enough. The faith has to reach another level. It has to touch Jesus. The woman did the same. She touched and got healed.  What is learnt from her gesture is the process of faith through which we are touched by Jesus and led into new life and new beginning in him. o Little Girl and the Faith of her Father: In the case of the girl the story is different. Instead of the girt, her father professes his faith in Jesus and pleads him to cure her. Even if the condition worsens from sickness to death there is nothing to worry only if he has faith. That’s what Jesus: “do not fear, only have faith”. Jesus does not mind what the crowd is talking or murmuring. He knows what he has to do. What he needs is the faith on the part of the girl or her parents. Once that faith was expressed he goes to the girl, touches her and raises her up. For him illness is a momentary and death is just a sleep. He knows that it is God himself who is reaching out to man and touching him profoundly so that man has a salvation. o What is understood from this is the fact that not only the proper faith but also faith of other has an efficacious nature in the Christian faith. The first event in which such kind of faith is professed is the baptism: the child is not in the condition of making consent and thus, it is parents who make the consent on behalf of the child and it is valid perfectly because the grace-fetching nature that faith has. Prayer for each other, even praying for the dead is also part of this kind of faith. Jesus himself prayed for others, during his earthly life and even more on the cross, and taught that the prayer of others can bring “healing and salvation” for us. - All the reading manifest that God does not want us to be in the pathetic and perishing condition. He wills that we are well and whole. He desires that we are well physically, mentally and socially. He desires that we are whole spiritually. Not only that He desires our well being but He does everything possible to make man well and whole. He has already done this in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Even now He does the same through the presence and mission of the Church and the Sacraments: He Heals and Saves Us by His Touch. Conclusion: We are called to extend the Same Divine Touch to the Needy and to All - Well. What are we to do today? Nourished by the word and sacrament, we experience the same divine touch. We are healed. We are cured. We are saved by God’s touch. Enough? Shall we keep the efficacy of the touch with ourselves or can we open the door of our life to extend it to others? - Magic of Human Touch: We already know what magic the human touch does in our life. A kind word can comfort us. A small act can console us. A smiling face can heal us. A simple touch can encourage us. This is our daily experience. Each one of us has this magic of touch. We want to receive it often from others and we also give it often to others. The golden rule of the New Testament empowers us here: we have to do to others what we want to get from them (Mt 7:12). We like to be touched and felt loved and the same we have to do: we have to extend our touching hand and warmly embrace all those who are around us, the discouraged, the depressed, the desperate and the neglected. - Power of Divine Touch: to do this we need to remember two things: o First of all, we have to acknowledge that we are touched by Jesus and that we are profoundly and deeply embraced by his loving arms. As Christians what we have is not only for ourselves, but for others. The same divine touch we have received we have to extend. We should realize that we are capable of doing this magic. We are capable of healing others. We are capable of empowering others. We are capable of creating wonders in the life of others. The only defect is: we close our eyes and neglect our Christian capacity. o Secondly, once we become aware of our capacity and acknowledge our power of touch received from the Lord, we do not keep silent. It makes us to rise up from our seats to reach out others. Our hands become longer and bigger because our hearts become wider and larger. We reach out to others and thus, we can also become the cause of healing and salvation for others. Can we do it? We can because it is not we who are doing but Jesus, the eternal doctor, who is extending his touch with the means of our hands. - Touch the Lord and Touch others: Eucharist in which we participate is not just a while host to be eaten. It is the Body of Jesus. He is coming into us. He is touching us. He is reaching us. He is taking hold of us. He is filling us with his warmth love. He is empowering us to go and do the same in his memory: Do this in memory of me” are the central and missionary word of Jesus to all those who participate in this healing and saving banquet. We become partakers of the Eucharist and thus we become also the Sharers of the Eucharist. We are touched so that we will touch others. We are healed so that we will heal others. We are saved so that we will save others. That is the Power of God’s Touch: We are saved and we are saving others.

ELEVENTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - B

ELEVENTH SUNDAY OF THE ORDINARY TIME – Year B (Ezek 17:22-24; 2 Cor 5:6-10; Mark 4:26-34) Theme: We are detached from the world and attached to the heaven Reflection Introduction – we are on the journey towards our Christian maturity - We have in the eleventh Sunday of the ordinary time of the year. We have just retaken the path, the path towards our entrance into the kingdom of God. As Christians in the world we are always in the journey and the journey means to go always ahead in well being and in the hope. In most of the time of ordinary period the church keeps open to us the mysteries of the kingdom of God which have been already revealed in the life and action of Jesus Christ. Yet, those mysteries are still in the revelation for us and all through our life we are asked to grow in these mysteries. - As the part of such spiritual growth we have today the two parables of the kingdom of God. Jesus always preferred to explain the mystery of God’s love and His kingdom in way of parable sayings. Parable is a means of explaining the hidden meaning with the help of the content of daily life: it may be with the things that we use in our common life and it may be the simple words that we use in our daily talk and it may also be the situations of which we are thoroughly familiar. Jesus makes use of such kind of means, means very closer to the ordinary life of the people, so that they could easily catch the significance it reveals. - As we have already schematized in the theme, the common meaning of today’s readings is: that we are picked up from the world and place in the upward direction towards the heavenly bliss. In other words, we are uprooted from the soil of the world and upgraded in the spiritual aspiration so that we do not live as though belonging to the world but as if inserted into the life of grace, thus belonging to the very life of God. We will see how the readings help us to understand this truth: the truth of Christian identity of being above the world. First Reading: Small branch picked up and planted by the Lord grows into big tree - In fact, it is from the first reading that we have the fullest meaning of the theme proposed. The first reading is taken from the book of Ezekiel. It reminds the promise of God to the people of Israel that he would pick them from the multitude of nations and place them on the high mountain. The words of the prophet are crystal clear and express well the promise of the Lord: “I will break off a tender one from the topmost of its young twigs; I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain” (Ezek 17:22). - First and above all, it is the work of the Lord: it is he who makes the promise and fulfills in the time he himself appoints. The Lord has already chosen for himself a small nation through the calling of Abraham and through the patriarchs that followed him. He named it Israel. He gave it an offer of liberation through the establishment of the covenant with them: the covenant of fidelity. It is through the living of this covenant with trust and love that they would enter into the land of freedom. For this He has worked many signs and wonders both in the wilderness providing food and water for them and in the new land by providing them many victories. Though it is a small nation it was flourishing just because of the powerful hand of God. - The story did not end there and did not reach its peak. People who are chosen and called to be faithful have forgotten all that God has done for them. They have become insensitive and inactive to the words and commands of God. They have failed to live up to the conditions of the covenant. The nation has neglected its roots and its base. It has given up its author and founder. The consequence they started tasting the bitterness of failure in the battles. They started reaping the rotten fruits of suffering and scarcity of daily living. They started experience the filth of slavery and captivity. Finally, they are out of their freedom and outside of their Lord’s house. But the story of the faithfulness and mercy of God continues. The covenant is broken not by two partners but only by one. The other is still strong and faithful and it is the Lord himself. He is the Lord of mercy and God of love. Therefore, He did not leave his chosen sect to its fate. He wished to bring them back into their higher dignity and to the life of grace of the covenant. He promises to make them once again a people of his love. - It is from this promise we have the first reading of today: He will make sprout the tree of David’s dynasty. He makes this possible by uprooting them from the numerous people and from the various nations and by placing it in the high mountain as the separated people. They will become a great nation to which all come for their refuge and secure life. This promise is ultimately fulfilled in His Own Son Jesus Christ. Gospel: Not the quantity but quality of the heart that counts much - Jesus himself points to this coming of the kingdom among them in his person and the mystery of his presence of which they have to be aware of. As the content of the parables of today’s gospel reading reveal, it is not the quantity of the seed that is sown but is its quality that matters and that gives good growth. The two parables, the man who sows and the seed that is sown, have an internal unity. Apart from the common concern about the mystery of the kingdom of God, they refer both to the man and the seed. - The seed has both the capacity for growth and possibility for spoil but it certainly depends on the one who sows it for its good growth: “Kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground” (v.26). This first parable reveals the fact that the seed has the capacity to grow by itself and still, it also has the possibility of losing its identity if it is not found in the good soil. o Capacity for growth: In fact, the seed that falls in the good ground has the capacity to sprout and produce fruit but what happens if it falls on the rocky land or in the bushy thorns? Therefore, only after finding itself in the good soil it has the capacity. o Dependence on the sower: But even prior to that it does not simply depend on the seed for its growth but on the one who sows it in the tilled and prepared ground. It is the sower who takes care and makes ready the good soil for the seed. He does not want the seed to go in vain or fall in the useless soil and lose its existence. He wants its growth. - The measure of the size does not matter but the internal potency that matters: the second parable is the parable of the mustard seed which is smallest of all the seeds in size and in measure but it has the qualitative productive nature if once it is planted (vv. 31-32). It grows into a great tree so that all the birds come under its shade and find their living place. o Kingdom is a reality which is almost invisible and incomprehensible at the beginning of its entrance into the world but its final splendor will be so great that all reach to it for their spiritual security. Once it grows into the great tree of life with is arms extended, as the branches, it offers to all the protection and peace. o It has the capacity to grow just because it was planned, prepared and planted by God himself in the world. His kingdom is his renewed Covenant in the Person of Jesus Christ, whose branches of redemption are outreaching to the every corner of the world. It is in Jesus that all have the possibility of finding their personal dignity and freedom. It is in him that they find their growth in fullest sense: they realize what they are and who they are only in his rays of light. Second Reading: We are in the time of maturity as good Christians - It is the time of bodily existence: Paul recalls our daily life. He reminds how we are and how we lead our life. What we have is only bodily life. But this is not the destiny of our earthly life. The destiny of bodily is its transformation into the spiritual and eternal existence. - It is the time of exile: Paul also admonishes us to be attentive to the way of life we are living. We are not in our land. We are called to be in the kingdom of God and that has to be realized at the end of our life. Meanwhile we are in the life of transition and in the life of passage: we have to passes from the desert to the land of the living, from the exile to the freedom. - It is the time of preparation for the life of the Lord: the bodily existence and the exilic life of this earth will pass away and we will reach our final destiny and the tent that is prepared for us and that is the life with the Lord. We will be with the Lord and in the Lord. For this purpose we have to prepare ourselves daily. - How to prepare? By being always confident (v.6), by walking with faith (v.7) and by doing what is pleasing to him (v.9). It reminds us that we are in the time of preparation and in the period towards the maturity. Conclusion – We are the diamonds in and for the present world - Christ himself is the Seed of God (Word of God): o He is sown and planted into the human soil: In the incarnation and in death, he has assumed human nature and he has entered into human death. In the proclamation and in the resurrection, he has sprouted into new life. He is planted in the ground of death and he is grown into the life giving tree. o He is the seed, unknown and refused: John puts it well: “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him” (John 1:10-11). When Jesus has come to his people they did not recognize his presence, they did not intend his words and they did not understand his actions. More than their comprehension they have rejected him and put him to death. He is the neglected and rejected seed. o He is the seed, small and humble – poor and weak: Both in the incarnation and death his smallness and humility, his poverty and helplessness are manifested. He has nothing to wear and nowhere to lay his head when he came into the world, only a manger became his dwelling place. He has nothing on his body and nowhere to rest his head when he left the world, only a cross became his refuge and it was all his wealth of the world. He is the seed so small, so humble, so poor and so weak. o Yet, once planted in the ground in death he has risen/sprouted to life on the third day, he became the savior of the world and the refuse of redemption and the dwelling place of peace. Unless the seed falls into the ground and dies, it has not life. Jesus is the seed thrown into the ground and died and transformed and now became the tree of life in the midst of the garden of the world. - Church/ community of believers is the Seed of Christ and the Spirit: o Jesus is the seed of God who is thrown in the human world and who has become the tree of life. Now Jesus is the man who sows the seed in the world by his redemptive merits. The seed which he plants the present world is his Church. o The Church is the seed that is small and often unintended: Though the small Christian community has grown into powerful tree of grace in the world, still the Church is poor because all that she has she pours out to others; she is still humble because she obeys and accepts in silence all the her master’s instructions; she is still in the growth because she puts herself at the disposition of the truth, of the charity and of the solidarity. o The church is the seed, neglected and rejected: the church is often like the hidden seed because its existence is often neglected by its own members because of their failure to be faithful; the church is often rejected by the other entities which seems to be powerful and dominating with their rapid technological and scientific developments; but once it grows it is the only consolation to the world and it is the only tree of hope to which and around which all gather. - Each one of us is the seed of the Church, of Christ and thus of God: o We are called to be small and humble: Jesus assures the blessedness of the poor in Spirit (Mt 5:3). He invites his listeners to be like him meek and generous (Mt 11:29ff). Let us not regret when we are not understood. Let us not be discourages when we are not recognized. Let us lose our heart when we are openly rejected with any kind of inhibitions. In this we manifest our littleness which will grow slowly in the greatness in God’s presence. o We are in the spiritual journey towards the harvest of blessed joy: we have not yet finished our journey. We are still in the walk towards our promised land. What we have to do in this journey is contained in two things: one, we have to remember well that we are detached from this world and are placed within the divine life, and second, we have to spend all our energies, capacities and possibilities, to grow into a fruitful tree for our neighbors next to door and to all in the society.

CORPUS DOMINI - Year B

CORPUS DOMINI: Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ – Year B (Ex 24:3-8; Heb 9:11-15; Mark 14:12-16, 22-26) Theme: We are the Eucharist – We are the Visible Presence of Jesus in the World Reflection: We are called to be filled with the mystery of God - We have completed the Liturgical Time of Easter with the Ascension and with the Pentecost. We are supposed to re-start and continue with the Ordinary Time of the Liturgical Year. Though in the weekly Calendar we already started the Ordinary Time, Sundays we still celebrate the feasts of the Lord. In ordering the Calendar this way, the Church intends that we have to participate fully in the mystery of the Lord so that with the vigor of God’s presence we can continue our year. - Participation in the mysteries of Christian faith and the mystery of God is the only motive. The mystery of God is revealed or unveiled to the utmost level in the Paschal event of Jesus and in the sending of the Holy Spirit. We celebrated the paschal time and now it is time to celebrate the mysteries of God before we enter into the ordinary time of the year. Thus, we have the Solemnity of the Trinity in the last Sunday, the solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ today, and the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the next. - With the celebration of these feasts we enter into the mystery of God so that we are transformed into testimonies of his presence to the world. Last Sunday, in the Feast of the Trinity, we have celebrated the abyss of love of God, One and Three. Today we are celebrating the Feast of Corpus Domini, as we often call it, in which we remember that the same abyss of love of God is manifested as something very near to us and as something very close to us. Love of God is made itself present to us. In other words, God made himself a person near to us and a presence amidst us. He has come so close to us so much so he offered himself to us as our food and drink. Old Covenant is perfected in the New Covenant - Today’s antiphon of the mass expresses the Lords providence: “I would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with the honey from the rock I would satisfy you” (Ps 81:16). We are nourished with the finest wheat and our thirst is quenched with the honey from the rock. The verse from the Psalm reveals the truth how God has taken the side of his people in their exodus. The people of Israel had suffered a lot because of the hunger and thirst and they invoked the Lord even to the extent of testing him. Lord, who is always attentive to the prayers of his people, had fed them: he fed his people with the finest of the food – Manna in the desert and with the tastiest drink – Water from the rock. - God, who has provided their physical nourishment to his people, has willed to fill them also with the spiritual nourishment of his Word. For this He has made an alliance (a covenant) with them. His covenant with his people was marked by the blood. This is narrated by today’s first reading: Moses takes the blood, sprinkles it first on the altar and then reads out the commandments of the covenant and when people have given their consent “their amen” to what is read, he sprinkles the blood also on them so that they become part of the covenant (Ex 14:6-8). This order of the alliance, (sprinkling of blood first on the altar, and only finally on the people), shows that it is God himself who takes the initiative to call people to himself, otherwise, by themselves people cannot climb to God because of their infidelity. He wills to be present among his people and he invites people to be open to this presence. - With the sprinkling of the blood the alliance was established between God and his people. Jesus too repeats the same order. First, he reveals Gods loving will to live among his people. Secondly, he invites his disciples to participate in that love by keeping his commandments. And finally, he establishes the new and eternal covenant between God and people by offering his own blood and by instituting the Eucharist. - The covenant Jesus establishes is new and eternal because it supersedes all the sacrifices of the Old Testament and transforms them into perfect sacrifice. The blood of the goat and rams of the Old Testament sacrifices is replaced by the “very blood” of Jesus himself. No more a third element of sacrifice but he himself becomes the victim for the covenant. This makes the New Testament alliance of God in Christ as an everlasting and perfect covenant. This is the mystery we are called to participate in so that we are filled with his presence and with his power to become his carriers of his love. Memorial of the Paschal Mystery – The Fruit of Redemption - The opening prayer of today’s celebration has twofold character: what Christ has left for us – the memorial, and what we receive from it – the benefits. The opening prayer of the mass goes this way: “Lord Jesus Christ, who has left to us the memorial of the Paschal mystery in the admirable sacrament of Eucharist, grant that we adore with the living faith, the mystery of your Body and your Blood, so that we feel within ourselves the benefits of the redemption.” The first part of the prayer reveals the mystery that Jesus has left with us his presence as the memorial celebration and the second part of the prayer is the invocation of faith so that we participate in the fruits of salvation. We reflect for a while on these two aspects of the prayer. - First – the memorial celebration of the paschal mystery: The Eucharist we celebrate every time in the Church is not a repetition of the sacrifice that is offered by Jesus on the cross. It is neither a simple repetition nor a simple acknowledgment. It is not even a mere recalling to our mind what Christ has done. It is more than that. Recalling has the presupposition of forgetting. Instead, it is a memory. It is a memory in which mind is always aware of what has already happened, thus eliminating the element of forgetting of it even for a single moment. Memory is something which remains always and in all times. It is the constant living of what has already happened as if it still takes place right now. It is a commemoration of what has been already accomplished once and for all. It is the same sacrifice of Jesus once fulfilled is now continued in his remembrance: “Do this in memory of me” is the command of Jesus on which the daily Eucharist is celebrated. The mystery is already fulfilled once and for all since Jesus has done it once and for all as the Letter to the Hebrews keeps it evident: “He entered into the sanctuary, once for all, not with the mediation of the blood of rams and goats but in the virtue of his own blood, to obtain in this manner the eternal redemption” (Heb 9:12). It cannot be repeated because it is not the blood the animals that was shed and which can often repeated but it was his own blood that was poured out. He knows that we cannot repeat it that’s the reason why he asked us to do it “in his memory”. Therefore, the Eucharist is the memorial celebration of the paschal mystery. - Second – the benefits of redemption: what was left with us by Jesus is the celebration of the Eucharist. We have to celebrate it with the living faith. The prayer helps us to learn to adore the body and blood of Christ. Adoring signifies both “admiration” and “mission”. Admiration of what has been presented to us should lead us to living of it as the part of our Christian mission. The fruits of the celebration do not come to us just with the admiration but with the vocation of it. We both profess our faith and testify it with our life. Both should go hand in hand or one should lead to the other: wonder of the mystery and living of the mystery or wonder leading to the living. - What are the benefits it fetches for us: first of all, by the celebration of the Eucharist, we become the real Eucharist; we become the mystery of love; we become like the one whom we receive in it: alter Christus – another Christ. Secondly, we participate in the promises of its nutrition. Jesus enumerates the fruit of the receiving of his body and blood. In his discourse about the “Living Bread” in St. John’s Gospel, sixth chapter (54-57), Jesus assures what will be the fruit of eating his body and drinking of his blood. He describes the four fruits: the one who eats his body and drinks his blood 1) has eternal life, 2) he will be raised up on the last day, 3) he lives in Jesus and Jesus lives in him and finally 4) he lives for him whom he receives. Jesus willed that he wants to be with them and in them in the form of their spiritual nutriment. For this he wills to make himself Eucharist in which he gives his body and pours out his blood. He calls his disciples to take part in this eternal meal. But at the end of the discourse we see many people walking away from him because they did not comprehend him well. They discussed and disputed among themselves with the questions: how can he give his flesh and blood? And how can we eat his flood and drink his blood? They did not want God to be with and within them. They did not imagine that God can present himself so closely to the people: to be with them and for them. They walked out because their intelligence could not reach God’s will of making alliance with his people in the Eucharist. Thus, the fruit of redemption is this: that our memorial celebration transforms us to be the living and visible Eucharistic presence in the world. Eucharist forms Christian and Christian forms the Eucharist - Eucharist is the fountain of Christian life: there is no Christian life without the celebration of the Eucharist. The true Christian takes his foundation and his force from it as if otherwise he has no breath for his life. This is true and the testimony for this is evident from the beginning of Christian faith and life: o The First Christian Communities gathered to “break the bread” – to celebrate Eucharist – for they knew that it is the only source which keeps them united and makes them a community (Acts 2:43-47 and 4:32-37). o The earlier martyrs testified it: “Without the Sunday’s celebration of the Eucharist we cannot live” was the testimony of the martyrs of Abitene. A martyr and a saint Felix believed that it is Eucharist which makes the Christian and Christian who makes the Eucharist. St. Leo the Great wrote that our participation in the Body and Blood of Christ transforms us into the one whom we receive. o Even in our times the Eucharist has the same unconditional and unchanging effect on the lives of the Christians. It forms the Church because it is only because of this celebration that all gather together. It is the life of the Christian community. It is for this reason, Vatican II exclaims Eucharist as the fountain and peak of all the sacraments. - We participate in the mystery of Eucharist: How blessed we are for we are given the possibility of embracing the Eucharistic presence of Jesus. When we participate in the Holy Mass, when we queue up for the communion reception, we touch Jesus by our hand, we taste him with our tongue, we receive him with our faith and finally we embrace him with our heart. This is the blessedness we are endowed with through our profession of Christian faith. We practically and really Touch, Taste, Feel and Embrace Jesus the Lord. This is the mystery. Still we become part of the mystery because he hold it tight in our heart. One the one hand, it is the will of Jesus to be with us and it was his desire from the beginning; it is for this he had assumed our human nature so that he can touch us (even wash our feet) and he can make himself our food and drink (even to become our body and blood). On the other hand, we are happy to receive the call of Jesus to participate in this mystery; unlike the hearers who went away failing to understand Jesus’ words (John 6:60-71), we have comprehended well his words and professed our faith like that of Peter “Lord, you have words of eternal life” (6:68) and finally become participants of the mystery of Eucharist. - Our preparation should be adequate: In order that our participation is worthy enough of the efficacy of the mystery we need to prepare ourselves well. There are many questions we have to ask ourselves before entering into the Church for the Holy Mass: where am I going? Am I really ready to receive him? Did I really prepare myself? How is my attitude towards receiving the Holy Communion? Am I worthy and well prepared? The preparation would be adequate for the reception of the mystery only when we are able to give answers for these questions. Our preparation should be sincere and authentic because it is not a joke or a game to receive the Lord himself into ourselves. It needs high attention and spiritual purification. We may receive the communion without good adequate preparation but what happens is: the communion becomes only a white host. It will not have any effect in our life just because we have not embraced it with worthy manner. Let us be alert and let us keep watching well our attitude and our presence around the altar. What we receive in the Eucharist should not go into misuse. We cannot give the bread from table to the dogs under it, Jesus warns. His warning is very applicable if we receive the “bread of life” with inadequate behavior. - Mystery is Open to us but the question is: Are we open to the mystery in the same manner? Let us celebrate the feast but let not the feast just a celebration but A Witness of Mystery of Eucharistic Love of Jesus. Our words must become actions. Our coming into the church must become our reaching out to other. On the entrance door of one of the Churches it is written: “Let us enter into the Church to love God and let us go away from the Church to love our neighbors”. Thus, it is we who have to become the “true Eucharist” and it is we who have to become “the real and visible presence of Jesus” in the Church and in the World.

TRINITY SUNDAY - Year B

TRINITY SUNDAY – Year B (Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40; Rom 8:14-17; Math 28:16-20) Theme: We are generated in and by the Love of the Trinity Reflection: End of the Paschal mystery – Beginning of our journey of Faith in the name of the Trinity - We have completed the celebration of the Easter Time with the Solemnity of Pentecost – the descent of the Holy Spirit. The disciples are empowered and led to the truth as Jesus has promised. Jesus promised that when the Spirit comes he will bring his disciples into the understanding of the truth. Holy Spirit has arrived and rested on them in the form of tongues of fire. Fire symbolizes both purification and recreation: purification by burning what is of old nature and re-creation by making one into a new being on the other. Such work of the Spirit has already begun in the disciples. Their old nature of fear is burnt away and thus they are purified of their mind. They are created anew with the gift of courage and fortitude. And the effect is seen immediately in the preaching of the apostles and their testimony of life even to the extent of dying for their Lord, Jesus Christ. - After such a great celebration of the Paschal mystery with which we have to begin our true and daily journey, the Church admonishes us to begin the Ordinary Time of the Year by reflecting once again on the great mystery of God and his love for the humanity. As a result of this desire of the Church we celebrate in the coming Sundays, including today, the feasts of the Lord: first, the Trinity, then, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ and finally the Sacred Heart of Jesus. - In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: We start, thus, this Sunday and the days in the rest of the year, in the Holy Name of the Trinity. We require such a celebration of the Trinitarian mystery because Triune God is the foundation of our faith, life, journey and our final destiny: “we live, move and have our being in HIM.” What happens when we invoke the name of the Trinity? We become mindful of the PRESENCE and EFFECT of the Three Divine Persons who is, in a mystery, the Holy Trinity. There are Three Divine Persons and all existing as one God; we may attribute and distribute particular events and interventions to each of the Persons, such as, the creation to the Father, the redemption to the Son and the sanctification to the Holy Spirit. We may do it in the human logic and human understanding, but in reality and in mystery, they are not divided and they remain an inseparable unity. Indeed, each particular event is the common act of the three persons together. Trinity in Perfect Unity – unveiled in the mysteries of creation, salvation and sanctification - We can revise once again the mystery of the unity of the Trinity in relation to the creation, salvation and the sanctification of man and the world: o in the creation, though it is attributed exclusively to God the Father, there is the presence of the Son in form of the Word spoken and there is also the presence of the Spirit hovering on the waters; o in the redemption, though it is attributed exclusively to God the Son, there is the presence of the Father in form of the Will fulfilled and Plan accomplished and there is also the presence of the Spirit which has led the Son to carry on the mission that the Father has commissioned him; o and finally in the sanctification, though it is attributed exclusively to God the Spirit, there is the presence of the Father who is the fountain of all sanctity and holiness and there is the merit of Son’s death and resurrection through which the purification and sanctification flow and to give full completion, the Spirit who sanctifies comes from the Father and the Son and therefore, there could not be the Spirit except in and through the Father and the Son. - The Trinitarian Unity is the Source for the unity of whole creation and whole humanity: o We find it hard to prove, in the human level and in the human concepts, the mystical union of the Three Divine Persons. But in the revelation of the Scriptures, both in the Old Testament or in the New Testament, we observe the presence and the effect of the united work of the Trinity with regard to the whole creation and humanity. o In the Old Testament we see the undivided design of God for the salvation of man. The whole plan of God and all the events that take place within this view go hand in hand as the many rings of the same chain. The chain is unbreakable from the creation to the intervention of God in choosing for himself a people and till the extension of the promise to whole humanity. It is the one and same mystery of God within the framework his promise of salvation. o In the New Testament we see the continuation of the same redemptive design of God. It is not something that starts newly with the New Testament but what whas already initiated by God in the form of promise is brought to its fulfillment. The only novelty is that this fulfillment has taken place in the perfect and eternal manner. But the unity of the chain continues. The will and design of God has been fully obeyed and brought to the completion (“It is accomplished” – the final words of Jesus on the cross) by the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ. This is the mystery of God in the process of salvation. o In the Time between the salvation and eschatological consummation, that is in our present time of the Church, the unity of God’s plan continues. We see the presence of the Holy Spirit who inspires and sanctifies and leads all to the communion in God. Even this is not a divided mystery but the same mystery of the Old and New Testaments. Thus, the unity flows from the beginning of the creation to the ultimate end of it on the last day. This is the mystery of God in the progress of salvation. o In this way, it is the whole Trinity who has worked for the salvation of man and creation. Not just single person but the totality of the Three Persons who is the cause of creation, redemption and the sanctification. - The presence of the Trinity in the work of salvation: o The project of salvation: it is the Father who promises the savior, it is Son, who is present in every Word spoken by the prophets and it is the Spirit who is present in transmitting the word by the Father; o The Incarnation: it is the Father who has sent the angel Gabriel to Mary with the good news of salvation and blessings of grace; it is the Son who has taken human form in her womb; and it is the Holy Spirit who has come down upon her. o The Paschal event: the passion-death-resurrection of Jesus Christ: it is the Father who wills, it is Jesus who obeys and completes it and it is the Spirit who strengthens Jesus to accept and fulfill this will of the Father for the salvation of humanity. o The Pentecost: we have seen already in the last week about this: it is Father who sends the Spirit in and through the merits of Jesus Christ his, Son and finally it is the Spirit who descends to initiate his mission of sanctification of the world and leading it the Father. o The Eucharist and other Sacraments: in the Eucharist, the fountain and culmination of all the sacraments, it is the Word of the Father that is Spoken, it is the Deed of the Son enacted and it is the Power of the Spirit that effects the fruit of salvation: It is the Father who sends the word. It is the Word/Son who is spoken. It is the Spirit that speaks. Therefore, in our time, it is the Eucharist which is the fullest manifestation of the Holy Trinity and we can contact and interact with God the Trinity in our daily Liturgy. o The Church: the Church is a mystery and therefore, we can see the presence and effect of the Holy Trinity in the Church too:  Church is the People of God, the Father (the people who are chosen/elected, bought and redeemed and in a word, the people that God called for himself)  Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, the Son (the body which has Jesus as its Head, the Spouse who is washed and prepared by the Bride-groom for himself)  Church is the Temple of the Holy Spirit (the temple in which the Spirit pitches his tent, the holy place in which the Spirit dwells, the holy edifice where the Spirit acts).  Church is One because it is Trinitarian. Church is Holy because it belongs to the Father who is Holy. Church is Catholic because the redeeming act of Jesus has universal character as he has died for all. Church is Apostolic because it is the succession that is transmitted by the power of the Holy Spirit. God in One and Three – a mystery of the Trinity - Is God one or many? in other words, Is God monotheistic or polytheistic? In the Christian Faith God is One but not monotheistic as in the Jewish and Islamic belief. Judaism and Islam believe that they only one God, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God is not even polytheistic in the Christian understanding just because there are Three Divine Persons in the Godhead and each of them being God in himself, constitute only one God. This is the mystery. Mystery which remains a mystery for the human logic. Still it is mystery revealed and manifested in the Second Person Jesus Christ: o We cannot simply bypass the mystery of Trinity because Jesus himself proclaims it in his word and deed when he says that:  He is sent by the Father (it is Father who sent me and I am in the Father and the Father is in me)  He himself is the witness of the Father (I have not done what is mine but what my Father has told me to do)  He promises the Spirit who will be sent after his return to his Father; o In the baptism of Jesus once again the Trinity is revealed as it was in the Incarnation:  Jesus who has gone to river Jordan to be baptized  Father speaks about his son: “he is my beloved son, listen to him”.  The Spirit comes down on him in the form of a dove. o Therefore, if we really believe in Christ, we believe also his words and we accept his deeds with faith in which there is the manifestation of the Trinitarian God. So Our God is neither monotheistic because there are Three Individual Divine Persons (God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit), nor he is polytheistic because these Three Persons are not three God but one God (Triune God). He is the Triune God: God in three divine persons. Trinity is Unity of Love – the only way to know him is Love - Trinity is Unity and Community in Love o Trinity is Unity: as we have reflected the Three Persons in Godhead are United just because they are in Love and they are the love; o Trinity is the Community: Three divine person, not being divided, creates the community:  Trinity is a family without borders of hatred and heredity;  He is a society without barriers of race and color;  He is a world without limits of war and aggression. In this way, the Trinity stands as a model for the family-society-world and on the whole: to the whole humanity and creation itself. o This is in the bond of Love: love is not an act of a single person; there should be at least three elements which constitute love:  One who loves (the Father)  One who is love (the Son)  The love that passes from one to the other (the Spirit) - The knowledge and understanding of the Trinity is possible only in Faith and Love: o Ideas fails because they are personal (each one has his own idea and his own background for thinking and finally the personal thinking is always limited to the self) o Philosophy fails because it is not objective (each philosophy has its reasons when the reason has limits and cannot go ahead it concludes that ‘the object’ doesn’t exist just because it is not conceivable, tangible and do not fall in the spheres of knowledge) o Theology also fails because it is only a search towards the Objective Truth (theology can really go beyond the reason and really work hard to search and can coin many words: for example : hypostatic union in the matter of Christ’s humanity and divinity; consubstantiation: to explain the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist; it is nice to see the progressive aspect in the theology but it has its limits to reach and to express the ultimate Truth) o Only Faith understands it and Only Love reaches it:  In Faith: we leave aside our own limited ideas, leave aside the philosophical reasoning, leave aside also theological failures and we can, more than knowing God in concepts and words, Adore him as he is;  In Love: as we have seen, love has no limits either personal or not even common (because majority believes it need not be true in the matter of God); it reaches beyond; it lives this moment of unity and community; - To Believer and to Love - Our immediate action and is the only secure way: o Keeping aside thinking how God looks like, how is he and where is and all (all the questions are only in the human mind; God has no questions, instead, stands as an ANSWER for all; o Living in faith and love: We are not in the capacity to come out of our own mind to understand others giving them the chance of talking. We are not in the capacity to come out of our own homes to meet others giving them the chance of entering. Still further, we are not in the capacity to sacrifice our own life to give other a chance of living. This is our human limitedness. In such a finitude of our being, how can we presuppose to understand the mystery of God and his presence and effect in us; we need to transcend our finitude and give way to the faith and to the love. - The only way we have before us is: TO BELIEVE AND TO LOVE. The faith keeps the human logic aside to give way to the embrace of a mystery. Love makes the one to totally surrender himself to the mystery without any doubt even if it costs his very life. And in Christian understanding both faith and love are the two aspects of the same coin and two realities of the same mystery. - Therefore, acknowledging that we are born out of the love of the Triune God, let us take glory only in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and glorify him saying: Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be world without end, Amen.

PENTECOST - Year B

PENTECOST – Year B (Acts 2:1-11; Gal 5:16-25; John 15:26-27, 16: 12-15) Theme: We are the people of the Holy Spirit and hence people of Life Reflection: Pentecost – the Fiftieth Day of the Resurrection of Jesus - Today we celebrate the Pentecost – the feast of the Holy Spirit. It is the commemoration of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Mary and the Apostles, the first community of believers. Holy Spirit is the greatest and ultimate gift of Risen Jesus. He proclaimed about the coming of the Holy Spirit. He promised the same the Advent of the Spirit. And finally He sent the Spirit of Truth and the Advocate of Life to his disciples. Thus, the proclamation and the promise are realized today with the hovering of the Holy Spirit. It is made a reality. - Pentecost is not the name of the feast. It is an adjective which underlines the Greek term with the meaning of the “Day”. Therefore, it is the Fiftieth Day. What actually means is the Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Fiftieth Day. Why and what is this fiftieth day? It is the fiftieth day from the Resurrection of Jesus. Forty days the Risen Jesus appeared to the various believers including the disciples; he confirmed them in faith; he commissioned them to proclaim the Gospel of Life; he asked them to wait for the coming of the Spirit for the strength; then he ascended into heaven on the fortieth day; after ten days of Jesus Ascension Jesus has sent his Spirit into the world and on to his disciples. Therefore, it is on the fiftieth day of the resurrection that the Spirit has come down. The number “fiftieth” may not be the truth of revelation. The number is the Church’s creation with the deep study of the Scriptures. It is not, thus, as though God has followed the numbers correctly and has acted accordingly. God has no particular time and particular dates. He acts according to his Will and to his Goodness. - Fiftieth is the divine number: It is the Church, always under the guidance of the Spirit, who has understood the number of the fiftieth. In the scripture it is already indicated that it has divine connotation. It is the number of symbol and significance: seven is the holy number and the day after seven times seven (thus forty nine), the fiftieth is the holy number which reminds of the Year of the Grace of the Lord. Therefore, the fiftieth number indicates the “fulfillment of a time of God in history.” In the Old Testament it remembers two events: o The memory of the Covenant: the first event is the Hebrew feast, the feast which comes after the seven weeks of the Paschal escape from Egypt. In this feast they remind themselves of their alliance with God on the Mount Sinai. Therefore, they commemorate the day of the Law and the day of the Covenant which God has made with them through Moses. o The Year of God’s Favor: the fiftieth year was celebrated as the year of God’s favor. It is the precept of God himself that the people of Israel have to follow and observe. According to the precept the fiftieth year has to be proclaimed to be the year of pardon, liberation and restitution. The slaves have to be forgiven of their guilt. They have to be liberated. And finally, they have to be given back their properties. In a word, the slavery is eradicated and the liberty is proclaimed. This indicates that the Lord has showered upon them His Favor. Pentecost – the Day of God’s Grace - Announcing the time of God’s Action and Favor: The Old Testament celebrates every fiftieth year as the Year of God’s special favor. As we have already reflected, those who are under the slavery are offered the forgiveness, freedom and regain of their belongings. It is as though they have said good bye for the past and oppressed life and have restarted their life from the beginning. The old is gone and the new has begun. They are no more slaves but free children of God because it is He who has given them the favor of life. - In fact, Jesus himself started his mission with the proclamation of the event of God’s Favor which will be ultimately realized in Him. His first words remind us this truth: o “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19). Jesus repeats and realizes in himself the prophecy of Isaiah and thus he says “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). o In the beginning of his public appearance he announced the kingdom of God: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (Mark 1:15). With these words Jesus inaugurates God’s kingdom of freedom, love and the peace in the Holy Spirit (Rom 14:17) and invites his hearers to accept it so that they will also have a new life of forgiveness, liberation and restitution. - Spirit will announce what Jesus has accomplished: today’s gospel gives the nourishment for the truth that the work of the spirit is only the continuation of what Jesus has already fulfilled. Spirit continues. The agents of the work of God are Jesus and the Spirit. Jesus established and confirmed the kingdom of God by his death and resurrection. Now it is the time of the Spirit to carry on the same work of sanctification and the salvation of humanity and the world. It is what Jesus already promises about the Spirit saying that “He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you” (John 16:14). Spirit does not act on his own without the command of Jesus. He does not speak of his own things and for his own glory. He only takes what is already proclaimed and fulfilled by Jesus and reveals their significance in the individual and community life of the believers. This is the work of the Spirit sent by Jesus. Thus, Jesus who is not physically present in the world after his ascension sends the Spirit to be present with the believer and with all so that all will be offered the possibility for God’s favor. - Spirit gives the testimony for the Christ’s event: the assurance of Jesus is that the Advocate is the ultimate testimony for his work. He says “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf” (John 15:26). The Spirit that the Risen Jesus will send is the Spirit of Truth. He will reveal the truth behind the words of Jesus, the words which seemed to be hard for his listeners (John 6:60-71). He will make them understand the loving design of God behind every word and action of Jesus. He has nothing but to speak and to act in the name of Jesus. He does everything on the behalf of Jesus and in the place of Him. Therefore, the only task of the Spirit in the world is to give testimony to the mystery of Jesus Christ. - Spirit is the ‘Breath’ of the Resurrection: After he has risen from the dead and while the disciples are still with the fear of Jews, Jesus has appeared to them and breathed on them. This breath is the breath of life and thus, is the breath of the Spirit and he continues with that: “receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). Jesus has already given them the experience of the Spirit in that moment. The disciples have experienced with it feeling inside of them the peace and the courage. Only that they have to still wait for the descent of the Holy Spirit in the fullest manner and that happens in the Pentecost. The coming of the Holy Spirit is the fullness of life and God’s favor. This is what Jesus has promised and fulfilled. For this he has come into the world, manifested it with his words and deeds, accomplished it with his paschal event, and finally brought all his followers to it in the Spirit. The purpose of whole of life of Jesus is to announce God’s favor to all and call them all to participate in it with the power of the Spirit. Pentecost – the Day of Fire and the Day of Unity - Spirit of Fire: the Holy Spirit has descended upon the Apostles in the tongues of fire. It is one of the forms of the Spirit in the Bible. There are many images with which the Spirit is attested: the water, the dove, the wind and so forth. But the very moment of His Descent has taken place in the form of fire. Therefore, the fire must have some very special significance. The Spirit appeared in the tongues of fire. What are the common characters of fire? o The fire burns: the first quality of the fire is to burn something that comes into its contact. It makes into ashes what is put into it. It extinguishes what exists before. And the Spirit as Fire does the same. It takes hold of us and burns us to the end. It makes us into ashes. It burns what we are before. What we are will be burnt out and we become Spirit filled, as if we do not have anymore our life and but life of the Spirit. Our old existing will be extinguished so that breath of the Spirit refills us. o The fire moulds: the second quality of the fire is to mould. We here of the proverb: “the gold is tested by fire”. Here the fire has the capacity to give another shape to what is put in it. The better example in our day-to-day life is the iron put in the fire. In the fire the iron is shaped and reshaped as one wants. Iron is molded in and by fire. So also with the presence of the Holy Spirit. As fire it moulds our hardened hearts. Our lives are rocky and hard before the Spirit’s coming. With the coming of the Spirit we become mild and gentle. We become so elastic to be shaped according to the will of God. o The fire forms and transforms: the burning and molding characters of the Holy Spirit are destined to form us into the image of God and to transform us into his Children. Our old nature will be eradicated and we start new life. We are no more old creatures but new creatures with the efficacious presence of the Holy Spirit. The formation of our Christian life and the transformation of our Christian task begin its course with the coming of the Spirit. Spirit does not keep quite. It starts its work immediately. - Spirit of Unity: the first miraculous happening of the day of Pentecost is exactly this. The spirit gathers together all the believers of Jesus Christ under one roof. It creates in them the dimension of communion. This is what happened when the Spirit has come upon all those gathered here. The principle of the union and communion is the primary gift of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. o Without the Spirit, the division: There is a mention of the tower of Babel in the first chapters of the book of Genesis. What happened there is on the contrary to the plan and purpose of God. There, men have acted against the will of God. They wanted to exhibit their human knowledge and capacity. In their blindness of pride and arrogance they started building the tower so that they could reach the heavens. They rejected the being God’s creature and thus depending on him for their existence. They evil intention is manifested in their will to climb heights of heavens with their own capabilities. In a word, they have started acting against the spirit and will of God. What happened henceforth? God has divided them in confusion. He made them not to understand each other. All were talking in the same language but no one understood the other. The confusion of their language and the division of their work and finally, they collapsed in failure. It is an event in which it is proved that without God’s spirit of oneness no one can succeed. o With the spirit, the unity: the opposite happens with the coming of the Spirit. We see this in today’s first reading. There are people from different parts of the world gathered there. On the day of the Pentecost, after receiving the Spirit, all are filled with the gift of tongues. They started speaking in other languages and for the surprise of everyone (Acts 2:7), all the hearers are able to understand them clearly in their native language. It is all because “the Spirit gave them ability” (Acts 2:4). There was the confusion of the language and the misunderstanding in the case of Babel Tower. Now just the opposite. With the spirit there is the clarity of language and understanding of each other. o All the believers are united into one family of God: all those who profess faith share in the same grace of the Lord and therefore belong to the one family of God. We are not anymore expected to live in the confusion and misunderstanding. Instead, we have to manifest our openness to the other and our hearty comprehension towards the others. The space that is created by the Spirit is: all to be united with one heart and one soul. This was the first quality of the first Christian community filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:43-47 and Acts 4:32-37). The unity of the believers is exhibited ultimately in their sharing and offering each to the other in fraternity. Therefore, there is the fraternity of love and unity. Pentecost – a task to eliminate the distances and testify the life of community - World of division: now we are living in a world which is divided in all its spheres. The division is seen among the family members, in the society, in work and in the communities of Christian faith too. This is the reality that exists now, though often we negate it. o The technological development has proved itself failure of unity because it has cause many divisions in the various aspects. It has fallen short of its success of communion. It has given the possibility of individual and private life rather than encouraging the common and community life. In this way, although the technology has produced the impression of creating free choices, it has ultimately destroyed the common sense of the people because with the private life they have completely forgotten their community responsibility. o Growth in the other arias, like that of the psychology, philosophy and even sociology have given, rise only to the respect of individual. Of course, they are very important for personal growth and character development. But they are not enough for the Christian witness. They have blocked the testimony of the Christian togetherness, because they learnt to live personally and not for the community. o And in all the other spheres of human life, there are many hurdles that stop the virtue of personal sacrifice and the sharing of one’s talents and capabilities (not only material goods) with others. It is our experience in the daily life. The personal talents are mostly used for the accumulation of personal wellbeing, rather than, for the common good and for the building of just and loving society. o In this way, today’s society is consummated and contaminated with the individual and private life and success than the common welfare which is the part of building the kingdom of God. In a word, the world of today is the witness of various divisions rather than the unity which is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. - Christians are the witness of the unity: in this situation, we as Christians are called to be the first ones to live this unity and to proclaim it with their life and action. We have to be the living testimony for the God’s proposal and act of unity in the Spirit. In this way, we have to be united first with the same mind and heart. Our community or parish life should be of one family of believers. We have to witness this not with our words alone, but more effectively with our very living. In a word, we have to be An ANSWER for the World division and we have to be A RESPONSE to the World’s attitude of private life. - The question we have to ask is: are we really the people of the Pentecost? Then the answer becomes easy in the light of the word of God that is proclaimed to us today. Are we united ourselves first? Are we ready to be burnt by the Holy Spirit so that we are molded into the formed and reformed beings of God’s Spirit? Are we ready to be taken over by the spirit so that we become the witness for the unity of the Spirit? - The answer is not of a word but of our very life. Our daily living is the proof for the presence of the Spirit. We are the ones as such to remove the distances, between the families, between friendships, between those who work in the various working fields and finally between the communities of various forms. The only way for saying that we are celebrating the Pentecost is that we are full of the Spirit and the witnesses of Christian unity and life. - Therefore, let us remind ourselves that “We are the people of the Holy Spirit and hence people of Life”, and only then we celebrate the feast with the worthy manner. Glory be to the Spirit, Amen.

ASCENSION OF THE LORD - Year B

ASCENSION OF THE LORD – Year B (Acts 1:1-11; Eph 1:1-13; Mark 16:15-20) Theme: With the ascension of Jesus we are raised to the Capacity to Transcend Reflection Jesus ascends with the glorious body - Today we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension of Jesus. Jesus enters into the heavens. It is the important moment in the life of Jesus. He has come down from heaven and accomplished the purposed for which he has come and now is the time to go back and sit in the glorious throne from where he has descended. This moment of ascension complete the earthly life of Jesus even in his glorious body. Before the passion, death and resurrection earthly life of Jesus was in his human body. But once he has passed through the moments of suffering, death his body has become glorious. - It is with the glorious body that Jesus appeared to the disciples and other people after his resurrection. It is because of this glorious aspect that Jesus was able to enter into the room with the doors closed. It is because of this glorious aspect that Jesus was not recognized immediately by the disciples of Emmaus though he was walking with them and talking them about the scriptures. It is because of this glorious body that Jesus can appear to them suddenly and disappear from them in a fraction of a second. - Today Jesus ascends to heaven with the glorious body. He is taken up into heaven by the Father. He has the power to come down and has the power to go up too, just he has the authority to give his life and to take it again (John 10:18). He is always conscious of this and especially with this consciousness of his time to return to His Father (John 13:1-2) that Jesus has put himself towards Jerusalem and starting living the moments of glory in the humility and in the death on the cross. After gaining victory over sin and over death through his resurrection of the body Jesus confirms the glorious life that awaits all who believe in him. Assuring it further the hope of eternal life that Jesus ascends into heaven. Therefore, it is with the ascension that the earthly life of Jesus reaches its completion and it is with the ascension that the descent and the mission of the Holy Spirit has its beginning. Ascension is a moment of Joy and also a moment of Mission Entrusted - Jesus did not ascend into heaven immediately after his resurrection. He would have certainly done it. He preferred to remain with his own for some more time. It is not only to prove that he is truly risen. Apart from confirming them in the faith of risen life, he has something more to do. He has to give final testimony to all that he has done before the resurrection. His testimony of risen life was consisting in his donation of peace, unity and love to his people so that they all stay together as one community of believers. This is what we have been reflecting all through the time of Easter. To have a glance at what we have meditated upon we remind ourselves: that Jesus has offered peace to the frightened disciples; that he has given the comfort and consolation to the disparate disciples of Emmaus; that he has donated to them the possibility of remaining with him and be united to him with the resurrected life as the binding force. - This shows that Jesus had to accomplish the mission of affirming and confirming his disciples in the faith and hope of the eternal life. As a continuation of this mission Jesus entrusts the same vocation of calling the people of all nations into the faith that can save them. Jesus accomplishes from his part what is to be completed on earth. Even commissioning of his disciples to go and proclaim the gospel is part of his Risen Mission. only after doing this that He ascends into heave. This is what we hear from the readings of today: “After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God… when he has said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up” (Acts 1:3, 9). And again “So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven…” (Mark 16:19). He has given them the mission of preaching the good news of risen life and only then he ascended into heaven. - This indicates that there is certainly a connection between the resurrection and the ascension: the connecting aspect is the mission of proclamation and testimony. Jesus after showing them the glory and joy of resurrection he does not leave them like that but gives them the mission of testifying this glory and joy to the world. This mission in which we participate is the knot between the risen life we are called to in our baptism and the eternal life we will receive with our ascension into heaven. Therefore, we have the joy of having life of Jesus and we have also the vocation of spreading this life through our word and work. This is the preparation we can do for the moment of our ascension one day into heaven. Human capacity blocked by sin and re-opened by Jesus - “Reach High”, “Hold the skies” and “Climb to the heavens”, are the words we often use in our life. This is the aspiration every man has. Everyone wants to “go up” in life, “reach the heights”, and “touch the sky” and thus wants to climb to the heaven. Human being is capable of doing this. Naturally he is given the capacity for transcending what is below and to reach what is above. - Human being is a composite of both body and soul, thus a physic and a spirit. He has a need of the body and a need of the spirit. More than a need he has a desire: A desire to become better and best, a desire to supersede all, a desire to stand on the highest point of achievement. He is in tension between these two realities which are integrated into him as one being. The body seeks for something visible, touching, and earthly. The spirit instead looks for something invisible, beyond peripheral and thus other worldly. This tension that makes man both being and becoming. As a being he is in the world and as a becoming he wants to go beyond this world. - It is natural aspiration of man to grow and to better himself. The natural philosophy also affirms this that man is capable of transcending himself because he is spirited being, not just biological being. The theological understanding of man also confirms this that man is “the image and likeness of God” and thus has the dignity of his fellowship with God, the divine being. - The desire is took the wrong direction: the desire of human being to utilize his natural capability to reach heights is thwarted by his selfishness and pride. Biblical revelation helps us understand it better. The desire of first of man has taken wrong step and wrong decision. He desired not only to go beyond himself and to reach certain heights but more than that “he wanted to be God”. This is the first sin of man and we call it original sin or original guilt. By desiring to be like God man has lost his lost his natural capacity to ascend. He became incapable because he failed to judge between good and bad and finally failed to choose good and has fallen to the temptation of equating himself with God. From here the natural desire of man to reach heights has taken another direction. In everything man stated looking for his own achievements and success in selfishness and in pride. The result is that he has become purely earthly and this worldly. He started suppressing his spirit which strives for goodness and for something beyond this world. He started neglecting and destroying the cries of the soul which longs for the life of happiness and blessedness. As a result, the doors of heaven and the possibility of transcendence are blocked in some way. Alone and by himself, Man finds himself incapable of attaining what his spirit desires. He needs someone to open the doors of the skies/heavens. He needs someone who can bring back to him the possibility for transcendence. He needs someone who can buy back to him the natural capability which is lost by his sin of pride and arrogance. It is Jesus who has come to rescue man from this condition of incapacity and put him in the right way of self-transcendence. - In Jesus the Heavens are Opened: the heavens are opened by Jesus for his coming and for his going back, thus for the incarnation and for the ascension. By his death, resurrection and ascension Jesus has re-opened not only the doors of heaven but also the blocked incapacity of man. Man is made capable again. Man is raised from the fall of grace. Man is given the capacity to transcend. The way is prepared, the truth is revealed and the life is offered and it happened in Jesus who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Today’s liturgy reassures us this truth that in the ascension of the Lord our humanity is elevation to the divine living and divine nature. - Peter too proclaims the truth that in the resurrection and ascension of Jesus we have become participants in the divine nature: “His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:3-4). We are made holy. We are made capable of godliness. Our human nature assumes the divine nature. Our body becomes glorious with the effect of resurrection. Our spirit is place in the capacity to transcend and reach heights with the effect of ascension. - Paul also acclaims our condition of being elevated with the fruits of the paschal mystery of Jesus, that is, with his death, resurrection and ascension: “God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:4-6). We are saved. We are given mercy. We are raised to new life. We are elevated to the grace of sitting with him in heaven. With the death our human old nature is buried and with the resurrection we are called to participate in the divine and glorious nature. - The work of God in Jesus Christ and in the Spirit is this: that God knows the helplessness and pathetic condition of man and thus he himself comes down in the person of Jesus to drag man out the pit of incapacity. He does this with the very act of assuming the same fallen nature of man. He has taken upon himself the fallen and deteriorating nature of man as the consequence of sin and has raised it to the glorified and transcending divine nature. We are called to Ascend and Transcend: we are place in the ascending movement - With the work of Christ and in particular with his resurrection and ascension Jesus has made fallen man divine and holy. Man is brought back to the ascending movement. With the selfishness, pride, arrogance of technological development on the one hands, and with the fears of limitedness and desperation on the other, Man is in continuous and constant struggle in his journey towards the transcendence. To such man, an answer for his paradoxical existence and strength for his frightened living is provided in the very person of Jesus Christ. Therefore, the solution is available. - The availability of the answer or solution is not enough. First thing is that man should come to the consciousness of that God has already answered all his existential problems. Secondly he should believe that he is elevated to the capacity for transcendence. Thirdly, he should step ahead to assimilate to himself the dispositions available. Only then man can fully become capable for making this movement towards the heavens – reaching to the skies. - Once he knows where he stands with the faith made available in God he always has the possibility to “look upwards”. This looking upwards, growing in heights has the positive meaning. It is not as the first man has done with desiring to become ‘like God’. It is looking up with hope and not with arrogance. The hope of rising above himself and reaching out to God who is the sources of this ascension. - We, as Christians, have to understand that we are the children from “above” and we belong to the nature and sphere “above”. This knowledge leads us to the truth that we have no stable tent here on earth but only up in the heavens. This truth which keeps us looking above as the disciples were looking above as Jesus was ascending. They did not want to keep their eyes down or their sight on earth. It is here that the angels remind them this ascension will take place also in their lives when they carry on the vocation that he has called to. - Look above but work down: the ascension also teaches us that we are in the world and we have to work in and for the world, at the same time keeping in mind that we are not of the world. Our citizenship is not of this world. Our permanent living is not in this world. Our tent is only temporary here. One day we have to fly. One day we have to rise above. One day we have to reach the heavens. But the time we have now and here is the time of hope. - With the hope as our weapon we keep on battling with the earthly nature that makes us fall again and again. With the hope as our instrument of growth we strive for the realization of Kingdom by and through us in the world. And with the hope as our guard we rise every moment above ourselves so that we come nearer and nearer to our future ascension. Conclusion: One thing we should keep in mind always: as the result of the ascension of Jesus we are called to Ascend and Transcend: we are placed in the ascending movement. Our true humanity is being available for the work of the Spirit in and through us. Our true divinity is to look upwards with the hope of meeting our Lord one day in His Glory. Mean while what we have to do is: to keep ourselves completely in this movement towards the Glorified Lord.

SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER - YEAR B

SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER – B (Acts 10:25-6, 34-35, 44-48; 1John 4:7-10; John 15:9-17) Theme: Love is the first and the final gift of God to us Reflection - Today is the last Sunday of Easter. Next Sunday we will celebrate the Ascension of Jesus into heaven. All through these weeks we have been reaping the fruit of the Resurrection of the Lord. Also today we reap the greatest and tastiest fruit: love. Each Sunday of Easter has filled us with its effect. Each weekly celebration of this holy time has offered us the delicious fruit. - The fruits we have already tasted in the times passed are: specially, in the beginning days of Easter there was a gift of peace to the frightened disciples in the room; later there was a gift of presence to the escaping disciples on the road to Emmaus in which Jesus has manifested himself in the breaking of the bread; little later, there was a gift of unity offered to all the dispersed disciples and extended to the flock outside, the gift brought and bought by Jesus, the Good Shepherd, by giving his life for his sheep; the same gift of the Risen Jesus, the gift of union and communion, a gift of becoming one body and one head has been offered to us in the parable of the Wine and the Branches; with that the intimate union that is restored with His Death and Resurrection has to take its effect in all those who believe in him. - The same is extended for today also: the gift of love. It was the eternal love which Jesus has manifested to his Sheep by pouring out his whole life for the sheep. It was the Trinitarian love which Jesus has revealed with his intimate union with the Father and with the Spirit. It is the same love, Resurrected Love that Jesus is offering us today. This love is from God and God is love. It is not human love which has boundaries but this love is divine love which meets no confines but moves to the extent of doing anything for the friendship. God’s Love Has No Limits – Mere Humans Cannot Comprehend It - God has no preferences: the first reading of today expresses this truth that God does not show favoritism. All are equal for him. All are his creatures and his children in his love. He is creator and Father to them all. As a Father he does not show any preferences. He loves his children equally. Among his Children, may be few are at home and few are outside; may be few are elder brothers, may be others younger; may be few wish to remain with their Father, may be others wish to try their own free life; may be few are still under the Father’s command, may be others make themselves masters; this is only human logic and human calculation. For God everyone is equal. Distance is not a matter for him. His Fatherly concern is so great that he waits with patience and pardon. He eagerly seeks for all those who are outside, who live their own life, who fail to come to him, who have chosen to go away from him. He does not want that even one is lost in his fate. - He himself takes the Initiative: God knows that man who has gone away from Him is losing his life. God knows that such a man cannot come back by himself because he closes himself in ignorance and in darkness. God also knows that man cannot begin again his return journey by himself unless somebody helps him to see the way, the truth and the life. It is because of this condition of man that God himself makes the first movement towards man. It is because of this situation of man that God himself takes the initiative to recall man back to himself. And it is because of the incapability and incapacity of man to return that God sends his Light: His Son Jesus Christ. - The Way is made ready: God has prepared the way for them to return to the authentic life. The way that God has paved and kept open and wide in front of man is the mystery of His Son Jesus Christ. The way was prepared not so easily but with the very life of His Son who has taken the place of fallen man and thus dying for them and on behalf of them. This way of return is not for some only. It is for all. It is not blocked but kept open for all to embrace it and to follow it. Anybody can find it anytime and can follow it in order to participate in the friendship of the Lord. - Return road is prepared for Cornelius: such a way is made today for a pagan Cornelius. The way of Jesus is revealed to the pagan authority and the representative of Rome. Though he was persecuting the early Christians he was elected by God. When other disciples and the crowds refused to accept the newly converted Cornelius, it is Peter who makes them to see the love of God in calling Cornelius into the community of believers. It is in this context that Peter makes this statement that God does not show partiality and has no preferences but accepts and embraces everyone who fears him and does justice. There is no difference of nation, race and the status. Whoever comes to him He accepts. - Love goes beyond: by calling Cornelius to participate in the life and faith of his people, God has demonstrated his immense and immeasurable love. He revealed the love which crosses the boundaries and confines of human mind. Humans cannot so easily forgive and embrace the offender but God’s love is so wide it can hold anything and everything. The account of Cornelius and the proclamation of Peter manifest this in today’s first reading. Love is the Essence of God: Love is the Knot between His Children - God’s love surpasses all human logic and human preferences. Cornelius conversion and insertion into God’s house-hold is the example put forward for us today to prove this. In the second reading and the Gospel we climb little higher and find out that this love is the very essence of God. Its further claim can be that: God is Love and Love is God (1John 4:721). This makes clear to us that Love and God are not different from each other: they are one and the same. Personification of Love is God and Manifestation of God is Love. One is unimaginable without the Other. One cannot exist without the Other. Therefore, we have two directions that are to be pondered over: Love as the Essence of God and Love as the essence of His Children: first, God’s love for us and our love for each other: One Bond with Two Knots: love of God and love of neighbor. - First – Love is the Essence of God: John, the evangelist of love proclaims this truth in every syllable of his writings. It is with this truth of Love that he begins his Gospel and it is again with the exhortation of this Love that he also ends his Letters. o The one biggest manifestation of God’s love, according to his theology is: In His Son Jesus Christ. His affirmation is that: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16) and the same is confirmed later: “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9). o Jesus proclaims the mystery of love and it is seen in his discourse of today’s gospel. His gives testimony to that greatest love that exists between Him and His Father. Jesus reveals that the Love of the Father is so immense that it embraces all and all that exists comes under its wings. Jesus announces that he himself is in that love: “I remain in His love” (John 15:10). o It is the love that has its origin and source from the oneness of the Father, Son and the Spirit: Trinitarian love. Trinitarian love is manifested in the total self-giving and total self-receiving of each person of the Trinity. The Father gives to the Son all that he has without holding to himself anything. He empties himself totally by pouring out everything to the Son. In this self-emptying he does not lose anything but becomes rich with the love of the Son. The Son too from his part he abandons himself totally in love of the Father and here too he does not lose anything but becomes rich with the love of the Father and the same happens with the Holy Spirit. He gives himself totally to the Father and the Son at the same time receiving from them his whole existence. o In theology this is called: the reciprocal offering and receiving (mutual donation of the self) between the three persons of the Trinity. This reciprocity happens in the love so that no one loses anything by giving but receives everything from the other. This is the love that Jesus proclaims when he says “I remain in his love”. Therefore, love is a mystery because it is part of God’s nature and it is God himself. - Second: Love is the Knot between His Children: The love of God is contagious. In fact, every love is contagious. It affects those who accept it. It affects also those around it. God’s love did not remain only with God. It has been manifested. The nature of God is revealed in the love he has for his creation and in the particular manner, to the humanity. It is God who poured out his love first. It is God who has demonstrated his love first. It is God who has thrown the net of his love. Unless and otherwise, we humans cannot know it fully and perfectly. o Again John’s theology express this view: he says how the love of God has embraced man even before man can know it: “In this is love: it is not we who have loved God but it is He who has loved us and has sent his Son as the victim of expiation for our sins” (1John 4:10). Again in his Gospel he pens down the words of Jesus himself: “It is not you who have chosen me, but it is I who chose you” (John 15:16). Therefore, it is always God who is in the first place and who is the source for the manifestation of love. What happens if otherwise is that man fails to accomplish it. If man tries to invent for himself love or create it for himself he, in reality, damages it because he is not in capability of fulfilling what it demands. The demand, rather the nature, of love is: total surrender to the other. This total surrender is possible only with and in the Trinitarian God. Man by his very nature is limited. Thus he cannot first of all comprehend the nature of love and even if he understands it he cannot fulfill it because it is beyond his worldly realm. o God know this situation of man. That is why he himself comes down to show what that love is and how that love functions. He has shown it in his very only begotten Son Jesus Christ. Jesus as the perfect man and perfect God has comprised well the nature of love. Jesus has understood well what that love means because it is part of his divine nature. He has also fulfilled it perfectly because he is capable of “total surrender to the other”. He has surrendered himself completely to the Loving Will of His Father and He is also willing to take the place of incapable man. It is in this manifestation of Love that Jesus becomes both perfectly divine and perfectly human. He did not withdraw to himself anything but made himself a servant and offered himself in utter abasement (Phil 2:6-11). o God has fulfilled first the requirement for the revelation of his love: the very life of His Son. The mystery is transformed into the mission and vocation: thus, “Love is the Knot between His Children”. Those who embrace the love of God become part of his love therefore become the children of love. Their only source and nourishment is and should be “Love”. o The exhortation of John is: “we love each other because love comes from God: who loves is generated from God and knows God” (1John 4:7) and Jesus gives the same commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12). Therefore, love is the knot that binds the believers to one another. If this knot is missing, also the bonded relationship will miss and there will be only division and desperation. o The knot we are given by Risen Jesus is the knot of love. We become on in mind and in heart only in and with love. Outside of this we lose our identity of being Christ’s disciples and followers. Each word and action of ours has to be within the confines of this knot of love. In order to reap the fruit of resurrection we have to be reminded always of this love through which we have to meet our neighbor. And regarding the bond that exists between God and his children and among one another, we can still repeat the same words that Jesus has emphasized: No one can divide what God has united: “What God has joined together, let no one separate” (Mark 10:9). The Way is to Observe the Commandments - Love is not a word. Love is not a linguistic aspect. Love is not a mere emotional feeling. It is a Fact. It is a Truth. It is a Living. It is by observing it that we gain it. Jesus has made it clear when he says: “If you observe my commandments you will remain in my love as I have observed the commandments of my Father and remain in his love” (John 15:10). The only way that is provided to remain in love is to love because all the commandments are comprised into two basic ones: love of God and love of neighbor. - Love does not come casually. Love is not found in the business. Love does not exist in the mechanisms. Love has no place in the technology. Love is a manifestation of total self-surrender at whatever cost it may demand. Jesus has done this by surrendering himself totally on the cross and at the cost of his blood. Therefore, love has to be gained. It is gained only by observing the command of love. Just by listening, by reading, by talking, by making discourses love does not originate. It is only by loving that one can gain and remain in love: be it love of God or be it love of neighbor. - Therefore, let us keep aside the words and feelings of love. Let us instead, start practicing what Jesus has done: offering of the self for the good of the other without seeking for our own good. When there is authentic love, even losing becomes gaining. Jesus promises: one who saves his life for himself will lose it and one who loses it for other will save it. Therefore, the real and true meaning of love is revealed in Jesus Christ: love is only to give. - Joy is the Fruit of Love: If we observe the commandments of Jesus we are remaining in love. If we are living in love we are joyful. Jesus has confirmed: “I have said all these things so that my Joy will be in you and your joy will be full” (John 15:11) and that “you may bear fruit, fruit that will last” (John 15:16). Love makes us Joyful and Joy reveals that we are loving people. - One Heart with Two pointers: We shall conclude with the small analogy. The fountain of love is the heart and we all know it well. If we observe well the heart has two pointers: two points of meeting: one on the top and other on the bottom. Without these two places of meeting the heart is not complete and perfect. Heart is made like this. It was not created/made in the round shape but a shape with two meeting points. Why? The answer could be this: because it is the fountain of love. - The first meeting point that is on the top of the heart signifies the meeting point between God and man. God and man meet in love. The relationship between them is nothing else than the love. - The second meeting point that is on the bottom of the heart signifies the meeting point between man and man (between the human beings). Man and man have to meet each other only in love. It is the nature of creation. The bond that exists between them is nothing else than the love. - What happens if these two meetings do not happen? The heart is not full. The love is not perfect. And as long as we have such a heart we have only one thing to do: to love God and to love neighbor. If we fail to do we fail to give fullness of meaning to our heart which means to our humanity. Therefore, what we are asked to do today and the days to come is to reap the fruit of the Risen Jesus. The question that we have ask ourselves every moment is when we have a True Heart, a heart in which the perfect love originates: because “Love is the first and the final gift of God to us.”