FOURTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - C

FOURTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR – C (Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19; 1 Cor 12:31 – 13:13; Luke 4:21-30) Theme: Jesus invites us to embrace the salvation with freedom and with love Reflection: The presentation of the program of salvation - God presents his plan of saving man: We enter into the fourth Sunday of the Ordinary Time of the Liturgy. Today, the word of God invites us to accept and to embrace the possibility of the salvation offered to us. The salvation is open to us and we are only invited to receive it. We are obliged. We are not forced. God keeps his plan and work of salvation open. He calls every person to enter into it, not out of compulsion but out of committed love and personal freedom. In fact, God reveals this act of salvation, not only with the arrival of Jesus. From the beginning God loved the humanity that he wills that no one is lost. It is the plan of his love to save the humanity. He presents the program of salvation in the time and in the history: he chooses a group of people for himself, offers them the liberation both from the slavery of the enemies and from the bondage of sin and death, and finally, places the salvation open to all. For this he has elected the prophets. They have appeared time and again when the chosen people were not in the grade of accepting the word. They have made known again to them the project of God’s love and redemption, by calling them back to the fidelity to the Alliance. Whenever there is a prophet to encourage them people renew their act of faith and thus accept the God’s way. Often being preoccupied with the problems and troubles they get us against the prophet and his word and finally rebel against God with the ignorance and with the pride. They become unfaithful to him and thus they reject the possibility of salvation that God desires to offer them. - The act of salvation begins with the chosen people: God’s salvation is not only for the chosen people of Israel. God, who wants to save man/humanity from the loss of dignity and life, begins to act. For the initiation of his act, he calls a group of people through the Patriarchs and guides them through the Judges and Kings and finally promises them both the temporary liberation from the various slaveries and eternal liberation from the clutches of death. It is true that God begins his deeds of salvation with the small group. But his salvation has no boundaries and limits. It goes beyond the small group. It embraces every being in the world. This is the message God proclaimed through the prophets. Though the message is directed immediately to the Israel, it does not stop there, it is directed to the entire humanity. With the various instances God manifests his love for the world. His love for the poor, for the afflicted, for the widows, for the dejected of the society, for the immigrants and foreigners is always present through the prophetic words of the Old Testament. Jesus presents two small examples of God’s divine salvation, not only for the elected people, but for those outside. He cites from the Old Testament the two persons chosen and helped: the widow is saved from the hunger and the Naaman the Syrian is cured from the leprosy. They do not belong to the chosen people. Yet, God’s salvation is manifested to them. It show that no one can stop God’s act for those he loves and God loves every human being. John proclaims it: God loved the world so much that He sent his only Son … so that all may have life through him (3:16ff). - The gift of salvation is offered to all: Already with the presence and predication of Jesus, the Only Begotten Son of God, the message of salvation for all is manifested. This is what we have already meditated upon in the last week. Jesus taking the scroll of prophet Isaiah and reads from it: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, He has sent me to proclaim the good news to the poor, liberation to the prisoners, good sight to the blind, the year of the grace for all…(Luke 4:18ff). Jesus reveals that the prophecy is ultimately about himself. He reveals that this is the mission, promised by God and prophesied by Isaiah, that he has come to accomplish. The message of the prophecy is clear: God offers his love and his salvation to everyone – in particular the rejected and neglected of the society – to the entire world. Jesus confirms it in front of his people, the chosen people, declaring with the one phrase comment: Today, this Scripture is fulfilled before your eyes (Luke 4:21). He confirms that the salvation that God will for the entire humanity will be fulfilled in and through his person and his mission. It is through Jesus that God ultimately throws the light of salvation on all and invites all to respond to it with the choice of freedom and love. Readings: Message of salvation creates admiration but faces the rejection - Jesus proclaims that the promise and the prophecy of the Lord – the Scriptures – is fulfilled in his person and in his mission and that he has come to bring the good news of salvation to all. The words that have come from his mouth have created an admiration and a wonder in the minds of the listeners. His town people, his relatives and his kith and kin are taken up by the marvelous attitude of Jesus when he has read the scriptures and commented on it very briefly and more authoritatively. But the admiration of the people is soon turned into a jealousy and anger. They know who Jesus is and thus they could not accept the beautiful words to be true and authentic. They know that Jesus is one of their relations and is son of Joseph, the carpenter and therefore, for them, he is one of the normal and ordinary Jew. They could not believe how such a power comes from him and how he is able to proclaim with such an authority. They could not believe that a messenger of God can be one of them. They could not believe that the message of salvation can originate from their country. Above all they could not believe that God can act in such a simple manner because they always had the idea that the savior would be very royal and powerful and will come with the mighty army. - Wonder and rejection at the same time: It is true that there is wonder at the beginning. They would have meditated and reflection upon the God’s word, referred and proclaimed. Their wonder which is true and authentic could not last longer. Their preoccupations and their visible and tangible knowledge of Jesus have blocked their spirit of wonder to the words of grace. They made their mind victorious over their spirit of joy. They have give more importance to their minimum knowledge of their relative, Jesus. They are unable to go beyond their rapport with him and see who this Jesus could be in truth and what his words mean to them. They stopped their knowledge of him basing themselves on his father, mother, brothers and sister. Specially, the religious and political authority present for the liturgy of the word of that day could not bear the wonderful and promising words that have come from his mouth. They have perceived soon that this message is particularly against them. They thought that he is instigating his people to accept his preaching to be a call for salvation. They, the authority of the temple and the leaders of the politics, would reject Jesus soon. Further, they make the people to reject him because he is proclaiming something that is never heard before. They could not bear the message of salvation to the poor, neglected, prisoners, the blind and to the least of the society because they consider these people to be the cursed of the Lord. They could enter into the message of Jesus deeply both for the fear of authority and for the cause of the jealousy. The consequence is very clear: they reject him and his message. The wonderful message face the unanimous rejection. - Nothing can stop the message of salvation: Jesus knows that he is rejected and he accepts it and affirms it: no prophet is accepted in his home town. He is not discouraged. He has not lost his heart. He knows that this situation is not only with him but even prior to him many prophets were rejected and punished. Yet, he continues his mission. Knowing their plot to destroy him he passes among them and goes on his way. If these people reject, there will be some other people who will certainly accept his message. He leaves his home town to preach the good news of God’s love to others. Message of salvation may face rejection but it cannot be stopped. Its presence and its power is beyond any human impediment. It is a will and an act of God. Nobody can stop it, though they may reject it personally. The first reading presents both the call of Jeremiah and his mission which will face the same rejection from the people. But the messenger has to continue with his mission. The message has to be proclaimed anyway. God promises to Jeremiah that it is His Loving Plan: It is I who have known you, it is I who have called you and it is I who have stabilized you to be my messenger and therefore do not have any fear but preach the message and I will be with you until the end (first reading – God promises his presence with the messenger). So, the message of salvation is always in continuous process of reaching the people, in spite of its acceptance or rejection by them. One thing is evident here: God’s salvation is offered to all as a gift and God continuously invites the people to accept it with the freedom and with love. Conclusion: What are we doing? Accept or Reject? - Let my mouth speak of your wonderful deeds (Responsorial psalm): In the responsorial psalm of today we have responded with the words: my mouth speaks of your marvels o Lord. God’s word comes to us read and proclaimed. How often we are paying attention to it? How do we embrace the word and carry with us its meaning? We come to the Church and the celebrations. We say the prayers. We sing the songs. Are we really aware of what we are doing? We have greatly repeated the words of the responsorial psalm. How many time we have allowed our mouth to speak of the words and deeds of the Lord? If we merely say the words without entering into relevance for us, what do we learn from it? Before the word proclaimed we are confronted with an answer from us. We cannot remain indifferent to the invitation of the Word of God. We need to respond to it: either we accept it or we reject it. We do not have any other way. The third way is to be pretending only. The pretense is more dangerous than rejection. Yet the message of God is facing more pretension that acceptance or rejection. - Rejection of salvation by outsiders: If the word is not heard the situation can be understood. But once the word is made known, once Jesus has extended his call, no one can stay untouched and un-responded. There are those in the world who do not believe in God, who do not believe in any other religion and those who do not want to enter into the question of God at all. They already reject the possibility of salvation offered to them by Jesus. They do not pretend to believe. They are quite clear that they do not want to entertain any idea of this kind. Whatever may be the reason they stay outside the circle of God. Yet the story can have a different angle. They have still the possibility of obtaining salvation by their good human values in which they live for others with love. At least indirectly they sow the seeds of goodness and thus they, who do not speak of God publicly but practice the virtue of charity, have an entrance into the salvation. - Rejection within the believing community: The word is proclaimed and there are few who accept it and live it with dedication and commitment undergoing lot of sacrifice and insults. They are already within the circles of salvation. They are the faithful believing community. There is also dangerous situation in the believing community itself. Often, we are not excepted, the rejection of God’s word appears inside the Church. It is more dangerous because it is neither acceptance nor rejection, but pretension. We cannot know the mind and attitude of those who pretend. So also very often we listen to the word, we accept it because it is marvelous and beautiful like the community of Nazareth. But we do not live it because it demands the total change of our life. It asks for the renounce of what we have – indeed, what we are – and to take up what is of Christ. Until Jesus and his word does not disturb our daily life and our earthly and material wants, we are fine. Once Jesus asks more from us – little more time for prayer, little more spice of love in the works, little more commitment for the Christian testimony – we feel disturbed and we feel somehow demanded more. In such a situation of discomfort we conveniently keep ourselves away from the Lord and the celebration of the Church. We do not say that we do not believe. We neither accept that we are totally committed Christians. We only escape. We only pretend. For this, we come to the Church as an obligation. God never obliges us. We want to pacify God. It is really a situation of pretense. We may pretend with the fellow beings, not with God. we cannot escape his eye. He leaves us for our freedom: we may accept him with love or we may reject him with the want of the world. The decision is in our hands. - Let us renew our attitude towards the salvation proclaimed: It is true that we are in the constant struggle to be the good and authentic Christians. It is also true that there is an interior tension between our desire for God on the one hand and our incapacities to rise above our daily troubles. Often we demonstrate a great quest for the spiritual enrichment yet finding ourselves falling to the ground before our human needs. We have the spirit of living up to the word of God, yet often we lose control of ourselves with the passions of the world. As long as we maintain a true interior struggle we are still on the way towards attaining the salvation. God’s Word comes down to us both in the form of the Scriptures and in the form of the Sacrament exactly for this: to strengthen and empower us to be authentic spiritual pilgrims. Jesus invites us to renew our attitude towards the message of salvation. It has to be constant and daily task. We are not be satisfied and content with the few prayers we recite and with the small works we accomplish. There is still a long way to go. But if we continuously try without turning back we are sure to reach. God once again promises us his ever presence with us. Jesus always sustains us with his word and bread. The Spirit is always guides us as the light towards the Christian destiny. The only thing needed from our part is this: we get from the fall, renew our spirit, put on the armor of faith and love, and keep on walking towards destiny. The Christian assurance is there always with us: nothing and nobody can stop us from the salvation if only we take up the footsteps of Jesus, the savior. Therefore, let us embrace the gift of salvation with freedom and love.

THIRD SUNDAY OF THE YEAR C

THIRD SUNDAY OF THE YEAR – C (Nehemiah 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10; 1Cor 12:12-30; Luke 1:1-4, 4:14-21) Theme: Today, The Word of God “finds” its Fulfillment IN US Reflection: Jesus is both the Messenger and the Liberator - Structure of the Gospel passage: We are entering into the third Sunday of the Ordinary Time of the Year. The readings of today lead us to the celebration of the Liturgy of the Word. Even prior to the reflection, there is an important aspect that we need to make a note of: the structure of today’s gospel passage. We find a strange combination in it. It consists of two parts: the first part is the first four verses of the beginning of the Gospel of Luke and second part is immediately refers to the fourth chapter. Why is this structure? It is neither for the confusion nor without the reason. The simple logic is this: the Church introduces us into the Gospel of Luke. Though two weeks have been passed, there was no possibility of begin the Luke’s Gospel in this Liturgical Year C. The year started with the Baptism of the Lord and then last week we have been offered with the reflection of the wedding of Cana. It is for this reasoning the Church proposes the beginning of the Gospel (1: 1-4) to make us participate into the mind and heart of the evangelist. In fact, here in the beginning verses, Luke declares his desire to write the events of Jesus placing them in the order so that there will be fullness of sense and meaning for those who read it. After inserting us into the Gospel of Luke, the Church immediately enlightens us with the ministry of Jesus (4:14-21). The centrality of the passage is the person of Jesus himself who takes into himself the Old Promise and synthesizes it in him and gives it the fullness of realization. It is for this Jesus proclaims: “Today, this Scripture is fulfilled as you listen it” (Luke 4:21). - Message of Liberation: Jesus enters into Nazareth. He goes into the synagogue for the celebration of the Sabbath. It is his turn to read the scriptures and explain it to the people. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah is given to him. Jesus opens it and finds the message: God’s plan of sending the anointed for the liberation of every human being. The message is all about the redemption of the people where are under various modes of slavery: some are blind, more than physically, spiritually; some are imprisoned, more than being chained in the jails, in the clutches of the evil spirit; some are oppressed, with more than material burdens, with the loss of hope and salvation; in one way or the other, importantly, all have become poor, deprived of care, concern and love. God proclaims the plan of his love for all these people. The message is manifested through the prophet Isaiah: God announces the definite liberation of all those who were in the deportation and as the result found themselves in the condition of poverty and oppression. Each and every word of the passage contains the aspect of liberation. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. For this he has consecrated me with the anointing; he has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim the liberation to the prisoners and the good vision to the blind and to announce the year of the Lord’s grace” (4:18-19). The context of the message is the slavery of the people of Israel. Yet, its ultimate realization takes place in Jesus as he himself proclaims it. Jesus reads the passage from Isaiah. He sits down. All look at him for the explanation of what is just read. Jesus silently assimilates the message into himself. He does not give long sermon. He does not make number of comments on it. He just utters one phrase: “Today, this Scripture is fulfilled as you listen it” (Luke 4:21). - Jesus is the Liberator: The message does not any more remain just a promise of the Old Testament. It is not any more a mere proclamation of hope. The time of its concrete realization is arrived. The promise and the hope of the entire Law of the first covenant are embodied in the person of Jesus. By accepting to read the passage from the Old Testament, he enters into the promise of His Father and into the Hope of Israel. He takes them into himself and finds its fulfillment in himself. He is aware of his mission: being sent by the Father to bring back the fallen human being into the divine relationship. Other times, when the same situation of reading has come, Jesus might have explained the scriptures. But this time when the message finds both its messenger and its fulfillment, there is no more any need for a detailed commentary. Jesus is conscious that each word of prophecy is about himself. He acknowledges his mission of taking upon the action of liberation. He is setting out with the message to bring it to its fulfillment. He sets out as the Liberator: he carries with him and within him the good news of God’s salvation. His proclamation becomes an action: an act of liberation. The liberation proclaimed by Jesus is a total liberation. It touches man in all his dimensions. It is not one particular part that man needs to be liberation. The liberation is not limited to one aspect of his life. It is entire human being that is to be liberated. Man is hungry, not of the bread alone, but he has hunger of ideologies, of justice, of sense of life, of meaning for living. He is forgetting of his identity as human being and often he is deprived of “being human” by the various fascinating and deceiving images of living. The totality of liberation consists in man’s return to his original condition of being really “human and divine”. Jesus appears as Liberator in bringing man back to the condition of God’s sons. Readings God’s Word proclaimed needs to be received and lived - God’s Word needs Human Amen (First Reading): The first reading of today presents to us the liturgy of the word that takes place in the assembly of the people of God. Ezra, the priest brings the law before the gathering of the people, reads it to them so that they would intend it. People extend their ears to the book of the law. He, the priest and the scribe, stands in the high place, and while he opens the book of the law, all the people stand in feet. He blesses the Lord for the word he has given and the people respond with the raised hands “Amen, amen”. Then the Levites read the law of God with the different passages and explains to the people with its sense and meaning. This is the structure of the liturgy of the word that is found in the book of Nehemiah. This is what we find here in our assembly of gathering too. The readings take place. At the end, the lector will say: “this is the word of God” and we respond: “thanks be to God”. The same thing happens after the priest completes reading the gospel: “this is the gospel of the Lord” and we respond: praise be to you O Lord. In other words: the word of God is proclaimed. All those who intend it with the attentive ears will respond: Amen, amen. What do it mean? The word is offered, and it is received and embraced by those who listeners. It’s hearers has a double task with their amen: they carry the word within them and they proclaim it with the testimony of their life. Thus, God’s word does not go in vain. It looks for the human response. It is finally accepted with the Amen on the part of the receiver. - The result of listening to the word is unity (second reading): It is the listening of the word that builds the community of faithful. It is God’s word that invites them to be together. It is God’s word that creates one mind and one heart in the community. Each one who enters into the liturgical celebration has his/her personal intentions and individual views. Each is different in listening and in comprehending the word. There may be diversity in intending the word. They may come up with the different understandings. But in the liturgy of the word, when the word is proclaimed and explained, all receive only one message from it. It is the spirit of the readings that is proclaimed and therefore, all have the possibility for having only one understanding. The spirit keeps them united both in listening and understanding. Paul speaks that unity that the spirit creates in the community. He explains it with the analogy of One Body and different organs in it. Each organ has its specific function. Yet its function is always in the view of other organs. Each organ finds its action and meaning only in and with the presence of the others. Otherwise there is no growth, above all, there will appear only division. Body becomes broken up and it is no more called a body. It is with the view of the Body that all the organs must exercise the proper function. So also the listening of the word finds its function with the view of the mission of Christ. If the action of the word’s listener is not united with the mission of Christ, it has no sense and meaning. It becomes private and individual action which will not have a meaning for the community. Both the word from the part of God and its acceptance from the part of the believers make the community. If we all participate in the liturgy of the word, embracing the one word, we all work as the community and for the community. The result of the listening of the word is the unity between the members of the Christian community. Thus, the power of God’s word is the unity of believers. - Jesus enters into the Old and gives it a New Understanding (Gospel): Jesus enters into the temple and teaches the law giving it a new dimension. The teaching of Jesus in the temple teaches at least two things: that he belongs to the Hebrew origin and as every Jew he manifests his desire to get into the heart of their cult by making the law a life giving one. The novelty that Jesus introduces is this: he offers himself as the fulfillment of this law. He does not indeed abolish the law but gives it a new meaning and makes it perfect (Math 5:17ff). Moreover, the passage of today’s gospel, is the synthesis of the entire mission for which Jesus has come. The prophecy has the double meaning: in the immediate meaning, it was addressed to the people of the Babylonian slavery, and in the remote meaning, it reveals the messianic salvation in the future, through the work of God’s son. It is this second meaning that is fulfilled in Jesus. It is for this, by quoting from the text of Isaiah, Luke manifests the context of Jesus. He introduces the entire ministry of Jesus through this prophetic quoting. The scroll of Isaiah (61: 1-29 contains the great themes that characterize the gospel of Luke: the Holy Spirit, Messianic Anointing, the eschatological liberation, the joy, the divine intervention in favor of the poor/anawim and the oppressed, and finally, the proclamation of God’s grace. The same program is introduced differently in Mark (1:14-15). The discourse is not long there. The words are more original than prophetic: “The time is fulfilled; the kingdom of God is near; repent and believe in the good news.” Mathew is little elaborative in introducing Jesus in the ministry which is revealed in the discourse on the mountain (chapters 5, 6 and 7). Jesus accepts all that was promised by his Father in view of him – the law, the psalms and the prophets. He keeps it in the process of realization and in the ultimate fulfillment in his person and in his work. He teaches with authority because he takes the Old Law into himself and lives it and brings it to its completion. The rapport between his word and his action is very strong and it is so strong that his action announces the new way of understanding the law, not anymore with the letter but with the spirit. It is for this reason, his action goes beyond the ethnic boundaries and touches everyone who is in need of salvation: the poor, the prisoners, the blind and the oppressed. Jesus does not comment on the prophecy but makes it into a reality: “Today, this scripture is fulfilled as you listen to it.” He does not speak anymore. He acts. His word is an event. His word is an act of salvation. The promise becomes a fulfillment. The word is already in action. The Messenger sets out to be a Liberator. Conclusion: The world looks at us for the message of salvation - We are the mobile bible: Jesus comprises the entire design of God for the humanity and carries it within him as his mission. He sees the destiny of the promise and hope in himself. He walks with it all through his life, even to the point of total self-donation for the liberation of humanity from the various burdens. As we are called to be his messengers and followers, now, it is our turn to read and explain the scriptures to the world around. As Jesus has assumed into himself all the hope of Israel and given it a new dimension of life, so also we need to transform the words of the scriptures into our very life and proclaim its meaning through our life-giving testimony. In this way, we become a bible in movement. We become a walking scriptures. We become a mobile bible. As we walk along, the people must be able to see in us the Word of God, thus find the consoling and liberating force in us. Through the witness of both word and action, we need to repeat the words of Jesus: Today, the will of God is fulfilled in us as the people observe it. - We are hope of world’s salvation: One important thing to be noted in the gospel passage is this: all have fixed their eyes on Jesus, so that he would give them some solution for their hope. So also, the world, burdened by many complexes – fears, desperation, failures, anxieties for power and domination and what not – is looking at us, Christians, for the definite answer. It has fixed her eyes on the teaching of the Church. More than this, it has fixed its observation on the life of the Christians. We need to give them a solution. We need to show them the way, the truth and the life. We have with us Jesus who is himself the Way, the Truth and the Life. We need to live in the world as the instruments of life and liberation. To be an authentic means, the first thing we need to do is this: to receive the word with open heart. Only when we are full, we can share with others. Only when we are full of God’s word, we can proclaim it to others. Only when we enjoy the fullness of liberation from all the clutches of passions, we can offer some solution to those who are still in such bondage. We are God’s answer to the World’s hope and life. Such is the task we are entrusted with: a holy and challenging task. We need not fear to carry it on. In fact, it is not who are doing it but it is the same force of the God’s Word and the Spirit that makes us move further with the proclamation of Christian dignity both with the message and with the action. It is here that the Word of God Finds its Fulfillment IN US.

THE SECOND SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - C

THE SECOND SUNDAY OF THE YEAR – C (Is 62:1-5; 1 Cor 12:4-11; John 2:1-11) Theme: We are Called to Fill the World with the Wine of Joy, Hope and Salvation Reflection: Participation in the first sign of Jesus - First sign of Jesus’ manifestation: We are in the second Sunday of the Ordinary Time of the Year C. Usual readings for the Liturgical Year C are from the Gospel of Luke. But today, we have the gospel passage from John. It is not without motive and significance. The Church invites us through this particular message to embrace the public life of Jesus and to enter into his manifestation. After the Baptism, with which Jesus has started his public ministry, Jesus set out to reveal the love of God for the humanity through his words and deeds. The first sign of this revelation, according to John, happens in the wedding celebration of Cana. The door of his divine manifestation takes place with the change of water into wine. John, unlike other evangelists, does not call it as a miracle but as a sign: sign indicates a profound reality in the external gestures. Changing the water into wine is the external gesture that indicates that God is about to realize his plan of love for man in and through Jesus, his Son. The life of man will be transformed into the wine of joy, hope and salvation. - God’s design of love is eternal: It is not only in Jesus that God reveals his love for man. Whole through the time and history God manifests his desire to be with man. From the first act of creation, in which God has created a companion for himself in his same “image and likeness”, God wills to stay with man. He wants marry the humanity. This is revealed in the continuous manner right through the centuries. Through the judges, kings and finally through the prophets God expressed his desire of love for his creature, for man and for the entire world. His desire has reached its ultimate fulfillment in the person of Jesus Christ, the Word made Flesh. - Wedding of Cana is the image of God’s love: Although we have been reading and meditating often this gospel passage, today we will try to give it a spiritual painting, before we enter deeply into exegetical reflection. The mother of Jesus is there in the marriage and Jesus along with his disciples is invited for the wedding. The wine is over. Mother tells to the son that they have no wine. Jesus asks the servants to fill the jars with the water. He commands them to take it and to give it to the one who leads the wedding. The guide is surprised to see the better and tasty wine and expresses it with the owner of the marriage, bridegroom. The words are important: usually, the better wine is served first and when all have drunk to the full, the less quality wine will be placed but you have left the good and better wine until the end. - Jesus is the best wine that God serves to the world: The simple passage leads us to the deeper meaning. God was serving the wine to the world. The wine is the symbol of joy, hope and salvation. God’s wine appeared in the form of the men He has chosen and sent, that is, the forefathers, the judges, the kings and the prophets. God served this wine right through the first and old alliance with his people. This wine is over. There is no wine any more. The people are in the face of sadness, desperation and perdition. God, who is faithful in his promises, comes out this time to give to the world, the most precious, ever tasteful and the best wine. The best wine that is offered to the world is Jesus Christ, His Eternal Son. It is in him, the New Wine and New Covenant, that God provides to the world the possibility of joy and salvation. Jesus reveals God’s love to the world and brings back/ buys back the prodigal bride to God by the donation of his life in the passion and through the death on the cross. This is His Hour that Jesus talks about. The hour of realizing the wedding of love between God and humanity. The hour has not come at the wedding of Cana but at the wedding of the cross. Wedding of Cana, thus, is the first sign which indicates that the True wine of love will be poured out for the joy and salvation of God’s bride, the humanity. The first sign leads to the final sign, the meeting of love between God and man in the wedding of the Cross. The Hour has come, the marriage has taken place and the mission accomplished. Jesus stands out in the world as the New and Eternal Wine that God gives for the salvation of the world. Readings: The role of Mary to stand between the Old and New Covenant - Mary in the context of God’s Wedding with the humanity: The wedding in the scriptures stands to reveal God’s love towards his people. It was already expressed in the different ways through the prophets, Hosiah (2:21-22) and Isaiah (62:1-5 – today’s first reading). His mother, He and his disciples are invited for the wedding. Mother, in the wedding the God prepares, is the knot between the Old and New Testaments. She is the connection between the two. She belongs to both the testaments: she symbolizes the end of the old and the beginning of the new. The New Testament will take place with Jesus. She is only a knot or connection because she does not belong to the Old because her life and existence is in the new. This does not mean that she belongs to the New because the New is in the Hour of Jesus. Yet she belongs to both of them: she brings down what is old and introduces it to the new. She makes possible the passage between the two. The old is to be completed in the new and the new has to find its basement and foundation in the old. Therefore, the presence of Mary in the wedding feast is important. - They have no wine: There is a moment where the wine gets over. Wine is the precious and significant thing in the wedding feast. When it is not sufficient or gets over, the feast will have a shameful ending. The first one to notice this is the Mother. She notices that the wine of the Old Testament is over. The law and the prophets have reached to the end of their service. The wine is over. The world has no wine. Mother brings the situation to her Son. The old covenant has become empty. Mother leads it to the confrontation with the new. The jars of purification now appear empty. The time of purification with the water is over. The jars of the Old Testament have served until now the humanity. The observation of the old law is exhausted. It has finally finished its term and its time and stood empty before the new. With the intervention of the Mother the interaction between the Old and the New has taken place. Now there are no more jars of water. They emptied themselves to become the jars of New Wine, Jesus. - Water is transformed into wine: With the prayerful and caretaking request of the Mother, the Son fulfills what is required for the time being, in the symbolic way: takes the water and makes it into wine. The ultimate transformation and the final change of the water into wine will take place when His Hour Comes. For now “his hour has not yet come”. Yet Jesus does what is needed. He does it. He starts it. He gives the beginning for his manifestation. The first sign will finally realized in the last sign: the Cana will lead to the Calvary. He shows that he is moving towards his hour by working the first sign. By working this way, Jesus neither rejects his mother nor anticipates his hour, as many think. He, in fact, recognizes the role of his mother who places the need of the Old Testament before him. He then realizes his mission of filling the Old with the advent of the New. No more water in the jars. They are to be filled with the wine. Not with any quality of wine. But with the best quality of wine. He fills the jars with himself – with his presence and total donation of the self. He himself becomes the Wine that God provides to the world. Water is transformed into the Wine: Jesus embraces and takes into himself all that is old – water, and transformed it into the new creation: all become persons in Christ. - The better wine is revealed and recognized: God’s revelation is in various modes, often in the little and small ways. He prefers to manifest his will to and through the last and least ones of the world and those who have no importance and recognition. The various kings and prophets of the Old Testament are evident for this. God reveals himself to the small and humble. The ultimate revelation His Son, Jesus, also has the same procedure. When Jesus is born, the first message is to the least of the village, to the shepherds. He makes himself known to the strangers and to the outside the chosen race, to the Magi which happens in the Epiphany. He reveals himself to the ordinary people in the time of His Baptism in the river Jordan. Even today, the first sign he completes, it was the great ones to whom he has revealed it. Jesus prefers to reveal it, first of all, to the servants of the feast: it is before him that Jesus works this transformation. It is from the poor and humble, who embrace the signs in faith, that the manifestation extends to the rest. Here, the servants take the “water changed into wine” to the head of the banquet. Finally, the sign is recognized and accepted by the owner of the wedding. Jesus wishes to manifest himself to the simple and poor because they are ready to listen to him and accept him. Once again Jesus reveals this truth by the first public sign he works. Now not only the servants but all know that “there is precious and better wine” amidst them. Conclusion: Our turn to change the water of man’s routine life into the wine of joyful celebration - Modern man – the conqueror of the world: It is time for us to situate ourselves in the context of the world. What is world? It is its beings: the human beings. Modern man is running and running ahead. With the technological and scientific development man is “growing” to the heights. It is true, that he is growing in knowledge and mechanism of life. He is moving forward in the conquest of many things. His life seems to be well secured. He is in the possession of comfort and luxury. His growth in the computer and his research into the science makes him busy and occupied: above all, preoccupied. He plans his time well. He systematically organizes his life. He works hard, often over time, so that he can settle in life. He was an ordinary worker. He became a master with the committed work. Now he tries to become god himself. He moves ahead towards controlling everything of the world. He wants to conquer the world and stand over it. In fact, he has the knowledge and capacity to do it. He is indeed towards the achievement of his desire: he becomes the conqueror of the world. - Yet he lacks wine – he has no wine: what is the result of man’s growing as the victor and controller of the world? He becomes a Robot. All his trust is in the machines. There is growth of the pride and selfishness on the other side. He desires to grow. If there is something hindering he does not mind to eradicate and uproot it. Often, the hindrance may appear in the form of the family. For his personal and individual growth, he keeps himself away from all these bonds and relationships. He creates his own personal world and feels himself as the master, most of the times, as god of it. Well. He has the freedom, knowledge and capacity to do it. But there is one thing lacking, Jesus reminds it: “If a man wins the whole world and loses his soul, what is the advantage”. In growing as a working machine, man forgets that he has a heart and soul: he forgets his belongingness and his responsibility as the integral being. Being content with what he is and what he has, often he puts up pretense of being happy. Being satisfied with his individual and personal growth, often he masks himself with the artificial smile on the face. He tends to cover up his stress, his worry, his inability and finally his need of the other. He acts as self-content. What happens in reality is this: he becomes an empty jar. He has no wine: the joy disappears, hope is being lost and the doors of salvation are closed. - We need to serve wine to him: The world has no wine. Mary told Jesus in the wedding of Cana. Now Jesus tells us the same. He invites us and sends us: “You are my disciples and I have filled you with the wine of my life; the world around you has no wine; the life of man has become an empty jar; there was only a water before, water of routine and distressed life; even that water is over; the life is reaching its ruin; and you fill it with the wine of joy, hope and salvation.” This is our Christian vocation. This is the task of our faith. We are filled with joy of the Lord by our participation in the act of faith. We are offered and nourished with the Word and with the Eucharist. Jesus changes our life of water into the life of wine. In fact, we are the witnesses to the beautiful and wonderful transformation. Now it is our turn to work the same miracle. We need to serve the wine to the modern man. We need to provide the moments of joy, hope and life to the world. We need to open the doors of new life – transformed life in Christ – so that the whole world participates in the joy of the wedding celebration that God works in Christ and through our faithful testimony of life. We are the bride of God’s love and we need to be the mediators of the wedding between God and the world as Jesus was. Our “hour” of testimony has arrived: let us go and accomplish the task. It is the only way for participating fully in the life of Christ. Let us be always mindful of our Christian witness: we are called to fill the Jar of the World with the Wine of Christ.

BAPTISM OF THE LORD – YEAR C (Is 40:1-5, 9-11; Titus 2:11-14, 3:4-7; Luke 3:15-16, 21-22) Theme: We Are Reborn In The Spirit Of The Lord Reflection: Baptism reveals the identity of Jesus: his persona and his mission - Entry into the Ordinary Time of the Year C: Today, we celebrate the feast of the Baptism of the Lord Jesus in the River Jordan. We are in the period of the fullness of manifestation of Jesus. Jesus manifests himself to his people and to the entire world. It is this self-manifestation of the Lord that we have been celebrating all these festive days, from the Nativity of Jesus right to the Epiphany. We have completed the period of Christmas with the last Sunday. Now we enter into the Ordinary Time of the Liturgical year. In fact, apart from the Baptism of the Lord, today is the First Ordinary Sunday of the Year. The special celebrations come, we enjoy them and they go away. So also the time of Christmas. Yet, the manifestation of the Lord continues. The baby Jesus has grown into an adult. He is young boy and he is now ready to take upon himself his vocation and his destiny. What is his vocation and his destined mission? It is manifested here in today’s feast of the Baptism. In a word, today Jesus is revealed to the world publicly with his Baptism and with the mission it entrusts to him. - Two testimonies for the revelation his identity: With the Baptism the identity of Jesus is revealed: his person and his mission are exposed to the world. Who is Jesus who appeared on earth and what is his task in the world? The question is answered by the two testimonies that are offered by the gospel passage of today. The two testimonies are: human and divine. Human testimony is in the person of John the Baptist and the divine testimony comes down from the heaven with three signs. Three signs are opening of the heavens, coming of the Spirit in the form of a dove and the voice that penetrates the ears of the people. Let us just have a glance at these testimonies and these signs. - Human Testimony: John the Baptist gives testimony to the coming of the Messiah and what he will do. The first part of today’s gospel is very clear in this (Luke 3:15-16). People were in the expectation of the Christ and the Messiah. They were waiting eagerly for his coming. Whenever there appears a man of God/man from God or any prophet speaking in the name of God, people think of him as the expected Christ. The same thing happened even in the case of John the Baptism. It is not they soon misunderstand these God-Sent messengers. It is only the “eagerness of their desperate cry”, the “hope in the promise of God” and their “need of liberation” that made them to see in them a savior. But John the Baptist immediately clears their doubt and answers to their anguish: “I only baptize with the water, but the one who is coming after me is stronger than me and I am not worthy of taking off his sandals; and he will baptize in the Spirit and in the fire” (Gospel). With this proclamation John gives testimony for two things: one, he says that he not the one whom they expect and wait for and two, he says that the Messiah is on the way and is very near. His testimony goes little further: the True Messiah and the Promised Christ will give baptism of the Spirit and of fire, that is the baptism of Renewed Life. It is here that John reveals the identity of Jesus: Jesus, true Christ and Messiah brings the world into the divine life of God. - Divine Testimony: There is another testimony presented in the Gospel and that is the testimony from above. It is from above, therefore from the divine will, that the identity of Jesus’ person and mission is revealed to the world. This testimony appears in the three signs: heavens are opened, spirit hovers over him and the voice from the clouds. o The first sign is that the heaven is opened. Before the appearance of Jesus on the earth, the heavens were closed because of the sin of man. The wall of separation is built with the pride of man between God and human being. The identity is Jesus is proclaimed through this sign: with the arrival of Christ the heaven were reopened and the passage is prepared for man to enter into the divine life. This is the mission of Christ. He has come to lift up man from the dust of fear and anguish to the joy to the heavens of joy and glory. o The second sign is the descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. In the scriptures the role the Spirit is to lead a person to the proper vocation and destiny. Here with the coming of the Spirit upon him, after the baptism, Jesus is entrusted with a specific and particular mission. He is called and sent for offering to the world a new life in the Spirit. He is to pour out his spirit for the life of the world. o The third sign is the voice from the clouds. It is not just any voice from the heavens. It is the voice of God, the Father. How can we say that the one who speaks is the Father? Answer is clear in the words that he speaks. He calls Jesus as his Son. “You are my beloved son, with you I am well pleased”. The revelation is evident: Father gives testimony to the presence and the work of His Son in the world. It is in Baptism that he reveals it openly with the voice which will happen also little later in the moment of the Transfiguration. - With the two testimony of both human and divine persons Jesus is given the mission of fulfilling the loving will of God for the world. The purpose of his entry into the world is revealed in the time of baptism. It is therefore, the Baptism is the primary manifestation of Jesus’ identity to the world as he starts his public ministry. It is apt that with this Baptism that the salvation of man is initiated concretely and publicly. In Baptism – the mystery and the mission of the Trinity is revealed to the humanity - Baptism of Jesus reveals the reality of the Trinitarian God at work in every event of salvation: Our Christian faith confirms and proclaims that our God is Triune and three persons who are the ‘communion of reciprocal love’; in love three become one; theology also elaborates this truth by saying that ‘in love which is the binding force of union each person of the Trinity moves towards the other two with complete self-offering and with the total openness to be filled by others’. It becomes a play of love; in love there is total self-giving and total receptiveness; in love there are no conditions; in love there are no limits; in love there are no boundaries; therefore in perfect giving and receiving each stands before the others: because of love and it is for this reason we say that ‘God is Love’. - In every event that God intends and brings into realization there is the presence of the Triune God: in the act of creation – there is the Creator, the Word he utters and the Spirit who hovers over the waters: and we say it is an act of the Father in the Son and in the Spirit; in the act of incarnation – there is the Father who wills and makes his Son enters into the world, the Son Jesus who obeys the Father and makes himself to appear in human form and the Spirit who makes this will of the Father and the incarnation of the Son possible with his power; now in the event of Baptism – there is the Son who stands there for the baptism, the Voice of the Father who testifies him as the Beloved Son, and the descent of the Spirit in the form of a dove; in this way, the Baptism of Jesus reveals the presence of the Trinity in the work of renewal of human being through the grace of baptism. - The consequence of the revelation of the Trinitarian mission in the Baptism is that each baptized person becomes a person in the Trinity: He becomes the beloved child of the Father, he becomes the brother of the Son and he becomes the agent of the Spirit’s sanctifying life. The baptized is inserted into the eternal design of God’s love. He receives a call to interior divinely life and a vocation to give testimony to the life received. It is this mission that we have received during our Baptism: to renounce the evil inclinations and to cling on to the divine power of faith. It is wonderful opportunity to recall those moment and to renew our promise of Christian faith and vocation. Let us be the spirit-filled children with whom God has well pleased - What can we carry with us – and in us – by the celebration of and the participation in this feast? We can do one thing important: we can recall to our mind the moment of our entrance into faith and carry in us the task of Christian vocation. It is with the Baptism that we are immersed in the life of Christ. We become persons in Christ. We can renew our promises of keeping ourselves away from the seductions of the evil spirits and of taking upon ourselves the armor of the Spirit of Christ. We receive the life of grace with the Baptism. We receive not only to keep it for ourselves but to share it with the others. Here is our testimony: we need to spread the fragrance of faith to those around us, with the loving words and kind deeds. The Christian vocation of being in the world as the disciples and as the heralds of Jesus is what we are entrusted with the profession of faith in Baptism. - We are no more children of darkness and followers of the Satan. We are children of God and the members of the faithful community. Thus, we are spirit-filled people. As the children of God we need to lead a life that is pleasing to God: it is possible by offering ourselves as the sacrifice of his love. As the members of the Church, we need to build up the community through the bricks of collaboration and solidarity. The Spirit within is always active. He is dynamic in his presence and in his power which will be manifested though the testimony of our life. - We have received an identity through the baptism. We are no more of this world. We do not belong permanently to this passing time and history. We are children in the Spirit. This is our identity as Christians. Our identity is revealed through our person and our vocation. When we preserve our faith then even our identity is safeguarded. If we neglect our faith, we lose our identity. If the salt loses its saltiness, it is useless and is thrown away to be stampeded. If the light loses its power to shine, it is just a thing to be dumped into the garbage. Jesus proclaims that those who receive him and follow his are the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Math 5:13-16). We are his salt and we are his light. We receive this identity only through the baptism. We are not only called to faith but also enabled and empowered to be the witnesses for the taste of love and for the splendor of divine glory. We need to recognize our Christian capacity. We can do anything and everything without fear and without any hesitation, just because it is not we who do, but the Spirit who does in us and through us. - Witness in the difficult moments of life: Often the Christian vocation demands for the committed life and dedicated action. It is not so easy when the human values and above all, the spiritual qualities are losing their place both in the mind and in the heart of modern man. Yet, we need to set out to change and to call the people into the true life. Jesus has set out into the public ministry and started inviting each and everyone into the kingdom of fraternal love and the starting point for this is his baptism. Now as we renew the promises of our baptism, let us fill our mind and heart with the mission of Jesus. Let us walk along with him so that we also reach the destiny he has reached. The destiny is not the death as it appears in the first glance. But the destiny is the life of glory through the resurrection which is possible only “by dying with him”. The nature of true baptism consists in this: we take part in every single event of Jesus so that we are with him, for him and in him. This is what we are invited today to do: to give testimony to the Life of Christ in the world because we are spirit-filled and well pleasing children of God.

EPIPHANY OF THE LORD - YEAR C

EPIPHANY OF THE LORD – Year C (Is 60:1-6; Eph 3:2-3, 5-6; Math 2:1-12) Theme: Let us read well the signs of the times and change our way/ways Reflection - Centrality of the feast of Epiphany: today we celebrate the Epiphany of the Lord, that is, the self-manifestation of Jesus to all the people of the world. It is an important feast for the Church that she keeps it between two great manifestations of Jesus in the world: Jesus’ self-presentation to the world in his incarnation and Jesus’ self-sacrifice and offering of new life to the world in the paschal mystery; it is for this reason, the church proclaims today the date of ‘Easter’ and all the principle celebrations around it starting from the Ash Wednesday to the First Sunday of Advent; in this way this feast serves as the central and connecting day of the whole liturgy of the Church; it ends with the all the manifestation of the first mystery of Jesus on earth: his birth and his presentation to the whole world as the ‘boy’ born for the salvation of the humanity; and it opens the new manifestation of the second and final manifestation of Jesus on earth: his baptism, his public life and ministry and his paschal event of passion-death-resurrection and thus, as the ‘messiah’ who offered his life to obtain new beginning for all those who follow him; such is an importance of the feast we celebrate today: we close our adoration of baby Jesus and we move towards finding the adult and matured Jesus who is ready to fulfill his Father’s will and thus manifest his unconditional love on the cross. - Celebration is perennial: Jesus’ manifestation is an ever growing and an never ending celebration; He wills to manifest himself always and everywhere there is a true need; today is the ultimate manifestation of the purpose of his ‘entrance’ into the world and his ‘indwelling’ among the people; he has already manifested himself on the day of Christmas: he manifested himself to Mary and to Joseph; he manifested himself to the shepherds in the night bringing them to himself through the message of an angel; he manifested himself to the few people of Bethlehem; - Universal significance of the feast: Now is the time to widen and enlarge this manifestation; now is the time to make this manifestation universally significant and that all people are called to participate in this revelation; now is the time to invite all to ‘follow’ and ‘to see’ the glory of God; and this is the feast of Epiphany: the manifestation of the Lord to the Magi, means wise men, from the east; Although Jesus is born in particular time, in particular place and to the particular parents, his birth is not confined to the particular people; his birth is for all; his love is for all; his glory is for all; his joy is for all; and thus his self-manifestation is for all; to his people first and to all others next; the coming of the Magi from the distant place signify that they do not belong to the elected people of Israel but belong to the section outside the chosen race; his fragrance of love permeates the whole earth; his message of salvation embraces the whole universe; his invitation to participate in the eternal joy reaches to the ends of the earth; thus this feast has a character of universality and catholicity in our particular sense; - Call to have great joy: the magi have found great joy when they have seen the star which was always a guide for them from their house to the savior’s house; today is the day of joy just as all the Christian celebrations are the moments of finding the true joy of the Lord; this joy is not restricted to some people alone; it crosses the boundaries of all spheres of life; it is an inner joy that the heart finds in ‘embracing’ the Lord born of us. - understanding the signs of the time: the wise men from the east have seen the ‘strange star’ in the sky as they are also astronomers and they have immediately understood that there is something miraculous event taking place; they have so curious and they are so overwhelmed by this star that they have followed it till the end; they had made their way to the place where it has pointed them to. It has to be same with us as we celebrate this feast. God in fact provides us many ‘signs’ and ‘occasions’ to find out his interventions in our life; we have to be attentive to these ‘little’ yet ‘meaningful’ manifestations of the Lord; this is what is for us understanding the signs of his presence; once we understand what this sign/or incident or the occasion means for us we are encouraged to follow it until we reach its final realization in our life; now let us see ‘the star’ of this particular feast for us today and what it ‘shows’ to us and where it guides us. From this particular celebration of the Feast of Epiphany we can learn at least four things in order to have the same experience of the Magi, the Wise men of the East: First: Our desire for the Lord has dominate our knowledge of him - Having a knowledge of the word of God and having a teaching of the scriptures thoroughly in the mind is not enough to have the experience of the Lord or to participate fully in the manifestation of the Lord but we need have desire for him and this desire is the fruit of the knowledge of the Lord; there it is not enough that we stop with knowing him but we move towards desiring because only in the desire we get him and only in the desire we become united to him and only in the desire we become part his life; - It is this message we learn from the attitude of the Magi today: it is in contrast to the leaders and the priests of the people of Israel; King Herod and his priests have turned the pages of the scriptures, have found the prophecies about the baby-savior born in Bethlehem and thus, they acquired the full knowledge of who, where and what of the ‘king of Jews’; but they have not moved even a single ‘step’ to go and see him; they have stopped with the knowledge they got; they are happy to find out all the references of him; they are content to guiding the magi with the exact information of the birth of the king in Bethlehem; but the fate is that ‘they have not moved’ out of their houses; they are satisfied with the knowledge of his birth; they never had a ‘desire’ to see him and to meet him; - But the attitude of the Magi is different and goes beyond that of ordinary knowledge of the priests and leaders of the locality: they too have the knowledge and they too have seen the star and they understood well what it means for them and for the world; for the world it gives the message of the new born king; and for them it gives the message of making a ‘journey’ towards him and to embrace him with all their life; once they have understood this and once they had this knowledge of the ‘king born for the Jews’ and to all they have not remained there. More than having the knowledge of it, they had desire to find out what it means and where it leads; they had the desire of becoming part of this great event in the history; they had the desire of offering their total life to the one who is born in the world and to the one which this star indicates and leads them; this is this desire that made them ‘move’ or step out from their houses and from their places; this is this desire that made them to have a long journey; though they travel for long time they are tired or they have not given it up; because the desire in them has dominated their physical fatigue and their mental knowledge; their desire to see the baby king is so great that nothing stopped them from their journey; so it is desire that goes beyond the ordinary knowledge of him; - We are called to learn this truth that ‘our knowing of Jesus’ is not enough to participate in his manifestation and we need to have ‘the desire’ to find him and to be with him and to be for him; unless we have this desire it is difficult for us to see his light and his glory; it is this desire that will make us move out of our comfort zones: like that of our house, our family, our relations and specially, our thoughts, our ideas, our knowledge and all that what is ours; it is this desire that will makes us make a ‘journey’ towards him who is our king and savior; otherwise we remain in our houses and with our occupations and preoccupations without recognizing the ‘true life-giver’ born for us; therefore, let our knowledge of the bible or scriptures has to lead us to the desire of finding him and to the desire of having him and finally to the desire of ‘being with him’ always. Second: we have to make ourselves ‘humble and small’ in front of the greatness of the Lord - The Magi are not an ordinary people; according to the tradition we come to know that they are Wise men, the astronomers who read the stars and thus, in a certain sense, they are scientists; there is also another understanding of Magi that they are kings from the east and it is known with the gifts they carry to offer to the ‘strange one’, Jesus, who is born. By this we know that they are in any not small people but ‘they are already great’ in their status and in their places; - But their attitude of making themselves ‘small’ and ‘humble’ by their leaving their royal and kingly throne and position and following a star that would lead them to the ‘wonderful event’ for the universe is noteworthy; it was in reality not necessary for them to abandon their greatness as rulers/as kings but they have still done it because they have recognized that there is born a King who is above all kings and specially, above them and their own kingdom; they have made themselves small and unworthy and in the particular manner they have so humble that they have give up their dignity and have come down to ‘glorify’ the King of kings; - Even their gestures demonstrate this virtue of their meekness and humility: let us read once again the verse 11: “On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.” Let us observe keenly the important acts; first, they have entered into the house or the presence of the king born for the world; secondly, they have ‘seen’ him; thirdly, they have bowed down and adored him; fourthly, they have opened their bags; and finally, they have offered the gifts to him; each gesture is very significant; - This is the teaching we have to learn from these wise men: o First: let us make ourselves small and meek; we have to give up our pride and arrogance; we have to recognize that we are humans and in any way not greater than God as we always tend to be and pretend to be; we have accept our unworthiness before the great manifestation of the Lord; what are we? We are after all his creatures and the work of his hands; how can we try to dominate him or at least how can we question him and his actions; if we do not understand them let us ‘try’ at least to be ‘quite’ because we have no capacity to comprehend all the marvelous events of the Almighty for us; this is the teaching not only for us Christians but to all those who pretend to be ‘gods’ and tend to dominate the world with their knowledge and scientific experiments and with their technological enhancements; they are great things that man can do; we accept this fact that God has given the capacity and capability to the man; but it doesn’t mean that we can overtake God and take up his place; Jesus being God made himself appear in the human and much less in servant form; it is to teach us that we are small and we have to be humble before ‘appearance and action’ of God; o Second: we have to imbibe well all the gestures that the Magi have manifested so that they could really fulfill their desire by ‘embracing’ the King of kings: we have to first of all ‘enter’ into the house of God and we do it every time we come for the mass or for the prayers; entering is not enough; we have to ‘see’/or participate in what is this small baby Jesus is doing for us right now, means, every time when we come we have to ‘observe’ well the word proclaimed for us and the Eucharist given for us; entering and seeing is not enough; we have to ‘bow down and adore him’ with all our meekness and with our smallness as the wise men of today have done it; from this act of adoration come also ‘opening’ of the self, not only the shelf, opening of the heart, not only of the eyes and this will make us ‘offer’ all that we carry from our house; we carry from our house all the troubles, all the difficulties, all the sufferings and also with them, all the hopes, all the desires to be good Christians and this is for us, the gold, the incense and the fragrance; only in this way we can ‘participate’ totally in the mysterious manifestation of the Lord; Third: We have to leave the way we have come and take another way - The third point we have to learn from the Magi is that we have to return to our homes and our work and to our life itself with an ‘another way’ found from the joy of meeting the baby savior; the Magi have done this and they encourage us to follow the same; let us reflect again the last verse of the gospel passage of today: “And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their country by another road” (v.12). The previous verse 11 is full of gestures of Magi in their confrontations with the baby king and the present verse 12 is the decision-prepared by an angel by which they have made their return journey in a different way; and both these verses are conjunct with a word “and” which signifies that there is a close link between the first and the second and that the first one leads to the second and the second is the fruit of the first. - The Magi were always attentive to the ‘sign’ or ‘star’: from the beginning they were following the star because they were attentive to it; now again there is God’s intervention in their decision, this time it is in the form of a ‘dream’ and yet they were attentive to heed to it; it is this attentiveness and heeding to ‘God’s sign’ which made them to save themselves and the king whom they have just embraced and adored from the furious Herod on one hand, and which made them to take a different way/another way that their return is not just like their coming but it is different because it is filled with joy of experiencing the presence of God in the world; they have changed their way; they have trodden another way; their return is quite different and joyful; - We are invited today to ‘change’ our ways of return as those of Magi; we here into the church; we listen to the word of God; we experience joy of being in His presence; this joy should be continuous; we have to carry this joy to our homes, to our lives, to others whom we meet and to our working places; this joy has to be shared; this joy has to be reaching to other through us; for this we have to return to our homes differently; it has a spiritual meaning: we have to return from the presence of the Lord to our homes/our lives with the renewed heart and transformed life; the way we have taken to church is that of ordinary and usual one; our way to God’s presence is full of hurdles and full of doubts and full of desperation; but once we participate in the glory of God all these will be transformed into the ‘hope of joy’, ‘courage of confronting the life’ and finally ‘joy of living them’. Therefore, let us change our way; let us renew ourselves; let us leave ourselves to be transformed by God; Fourth: We have to be ‘true’ and ‘authentic’ researchers of God - We enter into the last point that we can learn from the Magi today; Magi as we have already noted are not the Jews; instead, they are gentiles; they are pagans; they are outside of the house of Israel, the privileged ones of God; - But they are the ‘symbol’ for all those who search for God with sincerity and with truth: they have come all the way from their countries ‘searching’ for the one who is born to change the fate of the world; they have come from distance ‘seeking’ the true God who would be amidst his people; they have not stopped their researched; they have continued until they have found him whom they are searching in spite many doubts and many hindrances on the way; - We have to be ‘authentic’ seekers of the truth and ‘sincere’ researchers of God: we are circled by many religions and many faith and many ideologies; we are affected by lots of doubts about the presence of God and specially about his silence towards the suffering humanity; we are attacked many a time by many who come and block our faith by creating number of doubts about the scriptures, about the church, about the failures of the priests and about the failure of Christians in giving testimony of life; - When these attacks come from outside we are immediately shocked or disturbed; we feel as though our foundations were shaking; we tend to really cling on to them and their powerful images; specially, few religions who always find fault with the Christianity; it is normal that we are disturbed and preoccupied about the effect of these religious attacks; - But we need not fear them; we can make these stumbling blocks as the stepping stone for climbing upwards in our authentic research for the truth; they give us possibility to deeper our own faith and to deepen our seeking; they are the occasions for us to question our stand as Christians and to grow in the firm faith; they are the doors for us through which we enter into the reality of ‘true and authentic’ faith that will sustain us; we have to learn to treat them with respect, not with fear; - The Wise men of today’s reflection are our models and examples; they have never given up their research and their seeking; instead, they have made even the chosen people to recognize and to realize who this baby is and for whom he is born; if we sincerely seek the truth we do not give up until we find it; and seeking the truth is a process and we are still in the process; we know the Jesus is born for us and we have accepted him as our savior but as Christians; still we do not have answers for all the problems of the world; but our trial is always is there; our research is always there; the world’s technology and science and the other religious pressures give us the possibility and encourage us to ‘continue firmly’ in our seeking the truth and in growing in faith; let us learn to be sincere seekers of God; Conclusion: You/I are the star of the world - Jesus is the star of God’s love to the world; he is the light of the world as he himself manifested in his proclamation; he is the light that has shown on the people who are walking in the darkness; he is the true light in which we see ourselves clearly and thus take part in his ‘heavenly splendor’; - Church is the star of Jesus in the world and for the world; the church leads all men to the truth by its interpretation of the scriptures and by its proclamation and theological explorations of the truth: Jesus Christ - the Truth, the Way and the Life; - Each Christian is the star to the others; we have to shine in our life first with the joy and glory of God and thus we have the responsibility of throwing this light on others; we have to guide the world now; for this we have to ‘deepen our own life and faith’. - Today and Now, You are the star and we always have this vocation of being the star; and you have to guide yourself, your family, your work and your life to the manifestation of Jesus; - For all these, let us remind ourselves, let us first understand well the signs of the God’s presence and doing in our lives and change our way/ways with the renewed heart and transformed spirit and be the ‘true seekers’ of God.

NEW YEAR - C

JANUARY 01 - NEW YEAR – YEAR C: Mary Mother of God (Num 6:22-27; Gal 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21) Theme: Let us preserve in our hearts the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ Reflection: General introduction of the day - Today, the Church asks us to celebrate three important feasts: Mary, Mother of God; The New Year; and The World Peace Day. In this way we are full of continuous joy of the Christian life and vocation. - Mary, Mother of God: the Church has proclaimed, the ever virgin mother of Jesus who is both fully divine and fully human, as the mother of God. Therefore, when Mary has given her final consent of ‘being a servant of the Lord’ she has already become the part of the redemptive design of God and when she has given birth to Jesus and thus becoming his mother she has become also the mother of God her creator himself. We celebrate this maternity of Mary today. - The New Year: we have yet another year of the grace of the Lord. We are in the central point from which we move back to the memories of the year just passed away and from which we look forward to the hope of the year just started. Memories of the past always serve us as the ‘events of experience and learning’ (past year) and thus we have ‘ample of possibility’ (present year) ahead to really live and to make our life worthy-livable. We celebrate this moment of entering into New Year today. - The World Peace Day: Peace is the ‘single word and common task’ of the world’s nations today. ‘We want peace’, ‘let us work for the peaceful society’, ‘let us construct a world with peace and justice’ are the ‘daily cries’ of the people. Very happy to hear this news. But peace is not a word but an action. It’s not just a prayer for peace but there is need of everyone’s responsibility to work for it. Let us pray for the peace, yes, indeed, it is the gift of the Lord and but we have to also ‘work’ for the peace with our kind words and with our merciful acts, yes, indeed, it is our human task. We celebrate this world peace day today. Particular introduction of the day - Celebration of Eternity in time and space: - We are here today to celebrate the eternity of Christian life and salvation. It seems little strange in this context of our feast. But it is apt and true. Today we celebrate ‘The Eighth Day’ of the Christmas. Ordinarily speaking there are only seven days a week. We measure our time and our days and months with this. Eighth day of the week usually never appears in our general calendar of time and year. Still the Church makes us to celebrate this eighth day of Christmas and ‘also of the Easter’. - Our Christian faith makes us to celebrate these eight days of feast as ‘One and Same Event of Jesus Christ’. By celebrating ‘the eighth day’ we go ‘out of our ordinary measurement of time’ and thus ‘we move out of our general time’. That means that we go beyond our time and beyond our human measure. - This going beyond our normal counting of the days and time is at the same time means ‘entering into another, unusual, countless and unlimited measurement of time’. It means in a simple word, we enter into eternity; which also means that we enter into the time and space of God himself. - Thus by celebrating the eighth day of Christmas today we celebrate our Christian mysteries without limit and without end; we are to continuously and tirelessly enter into the joy of celebration of God’s Word and Event for us. - God entered into the time, space and history by the incarnation, so that he could move the same time, space and history into eternity of his own nature and being. Theologically these words may seem to be very strong and incomprehensible to our human mind and we can understand with the simple reason that it is not human doing but God’s own will and work. - The joy of celebration of Jesus’ entrance into the world and into our midst (John 1:14) has to be for us ‘continuous and lifelong and even beyond’ celebration of life and mission of Christian faith. - In the simple words, we cannot celebrate the midnight or day mass of Christmas on 25th December and say that we have finished our celebration of the great feast. No, we do not have an end to our celebration. We do not have a limit to our joy of Jesus’ presence with us. We do not have a need to conclude our feasting of faith and life. Every Christ is born in us and every day he fulfills his work of salvation in us with the power of his Spirit. Any feast for that matter and in a special way two great feasts: Christmas and the Easter because they are the two pillar of our life here on earth and our future life there in heaven. - Therefore, today we celebrate ‘our entrance into eternity’. We are reminded today that we are not people of limited time and space but we are called to live in eternity, means, to live in the Lord. We have to be mindful of this truth every second of our life and only then we will be able to keep up and live up to the worthy of ‘being the people of eternity’. Message of God for us today - First Reading: Blessing of the Lord o It is a message of blessing pronounced by God himself to Moses; o It is a blessing that the priests have to confer to the people of Israel; o It is a blessing with the same words that God himself commanded to use; o It is a blessing which contains all the possible requirements of spiritual nourishment for the life:  It contains the blessing of the Lord: thus, his presence  It contains the care of the Lord: thus, his power  It contains the splendor of the Lord: thus, his glory  It contains the grace of the Lord: thus, his choice  It contains the peace of the Lord: thus, his gift o It is a blessing which we too have to make it our own and thus our life itself should become a blessing for us, for our neighbor, for our community, for our society, and for the entire world. o Therefore, on the first day of the year we shall keep in mind that it is a time to rejoice because we are given a blessing and it is a time to share because we are given a vocation of reaching out this blessing to others. Therefore, on the first day of the year itself, we have a grace on one hand and we also have a task on the other hand. - Second Reading: Christian dignity of being children of the Lord o St. Paul reminds us today the ‘fact’ and the ‘fruit’ of the coming of the Lord into the world:  The fact is that the Lord has entered into the time and history ‘under the same law’ and ‘through the natural and worldly means’ of being born of a woman (not by the woman because woman is not the cause for the birth but the Spirit of God; and not through the woman because it is not human act that caused the birth but divine intervention).  The fruit is that we are saved from the law and slavery of the old law and we are made ‘children of God’ by the working of the sanctifying grace of His Spirit which makes all of us shout and cry out with One Voice and with One Heart: Abba! Father! As the children we are no more slaves for anything of the world and anyone of the world but we become the heirs of his life and being – thus we become the partaker of his eternity. - Gospel: Example of Mary and the modality of the shepherds: o In the gospel of today, which is the continuation of the gospel passage of the Christmas, we have two models for our Christian journey: they are, first – Mary and second – the shepherds; for our reflection let us start from the shepherds because they are the ones who are found in the beginning and towards the end of the gospel of today; o Shepherds: After hearing the good news of the birth of the savior in Bethlehem from an Angel, they started their journey towards the manger to see the baby. In the journey of the shepherds we find four steps that made their experience of joy of the savior full and perfect:  First step: ‘going’ (v.16): they have immediately set out to go to reach the place indicated by the angel so that they could see the savior born for them; they could not remain there in the fields because the news is so exciting, so marveling and so powerful that they could not stay ‘firm’ on their ground but wanted to move to see how and what this baby ‘born for them’ could be.  Second step: ‘referred’ (v.17): they have seen the baby and with the joy of his sight they could not control their emotions and their feelings; they started talking about all that has been said to them by the angel and they tried to describe all the events that have taken place in their venture into finding the savior;  Third step: ‘returning’ (v.20): the power of joy is not personal. It makes the one who finds it to go and share it. It does not keep quiet until it is given to somebody else. It is so contagious that all become partakers of it. The same thing happened to the shepherds. They could not control their joy of seeing the baby and talking about him; they immediately returned to spread the good news to others; in other words, they have soon shared their joy of the savior with others. The joy of the Lord makes the person to return to his life and to his work to live it and to share it.  Fourth step: ‘praising and glorifying’ (v.20): Joy of the eyes that have seen the wonderful act of God soon has become the song of praise and thanksgiving to God. The shepherds feeling themselves blessed and fortunate to have this experience of ‘watching’ the baby who has filled them with hope of salvation, kept on offering their hymns of praise to the Lord for his presence amidst them;  Fifth step: ‘our step’: now it is our turn to take the model of the shepherds and do the same. First, we have to listen to the good news of salvation and then ‘go out’ to see the reality of the words proclaimed; the savior is born for us and we have heard the good news and thus we go to the church to see and experience this ‘birth of the savior’ for us and before our naked eyes. Second, we have to ‘talk’ and ‘speak’ all that happened; we can ask ourselves a question here: did I ever speak of the event of incarnation after my Christmas Mass to at least few of my neighbors? Did I spend some time to witness Jesus’ birth for me and in front of me? We have to use our tongue and our lips to ‘refer’ the things of the Lord; if we have an answer for this question, it’s well and good; otherwise we have ‘revise’ who we are and what we are until today. Third, we have to return from the presence of the Lord, after the mass, into the world, into our families and into our life; we are not called only to pray and to sit wondering at the events of the Lord but we are called to ‘live’ them and to share them with the others. Fourth, we have to give praise and glory to God for all his marvelous acts for our salvation; the experience of the joy that we have received from our participation in the mystery of incarnation makes us to glorify God and to offer our whole life to him; therefore, just watching and listening is not the end of Christian life but ‘living, sharing and thanksgiving’ is the final step of our life and mission. Let us for this Christmas and the time that follows, learn to ‘go’ to see the Lord, to ‘refer’ his words and message, to ‘return’ to our life with task of sharing our joy and thus, finally offering our lives as a sacrifice of thanksgiving and glory to God. o Mary who has kept everything in her heart: between the ‘coming’ with the hope and ‘returning’ with the joy of the shepherds there is the ‘attitude of Mary’ which we have to notice and take as an example to continue our wondering of the mysteries of the Lord and specially of his incarnation into the world. “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19): this is the silent-admiration of Mary with all that is happening in her and around her. Yes, indeed, God’s great deeds are in fact talked and proclaimed; but more than that, they are to be ‘treasured’ and ‘pondered’ in one’s heart;  Mary Treasured: treasure is something precious and to be safeguarded and kept preserved. Treasuring something is an act by which one ‘makes his own’ all that he wants to secure; it is an act by which one saves all that he gathers and receives; precious treasure is treasured preciously; about the event of the ‘birth of the savior’ all those who gathered there around manger were amazed when they the shepherds told them the words of the angels and their finding of the baby and their experience of an inner joy; there are certainly Mary, Joseph and shepherds and there could have been also the near ones who would have gathered; in any case, the shepherds were joyful and exclaimed the wonderful acts of God in their midst; but “Mary, on her part, has kept all these words in her heart”. This is the unique and marvelous attitude that Mary has demonstrated before the magnificent joy that God has endowed her with; All have preferred to talk and chat but Mary has preferred to ‘treasure’ them because she alone knows how precious these words and event are because ‘she’ has participated in it with her ‘amen’.  Mary pondered them: mystery of God and his interventions are very often incomprehensible to the human limited mind and reason; God entering into the world taking a human form is highly un-intellectual and un-philosophical of the time. God’s entering into the world as a poor and disguised baby in the manger is too hard even to those religious and awaiting authority of the time, that is the priests and leaders of the people of Israel, to understand it and that is the reason why they are not able to accept him (John 1:10-11); both reason and faithful waiting failed; both philosophy and so called religiosity have not succeeded in recognizing the mystery of God amidst them; it is only poor and simple shepherds who were able to ‘believe’ and ‘to go’ and ‘to find’ and ‘to return with praise and glory’ and finally filled their life ‘with the joy of the presence of savior amidst them’; it is so complicating and yet it is so simple that the mystery of incarnation is not invited by the elite and literate officials of the time; BUT, the evangelist Luke uses this conjunction to show the difference between those who talked and shared about the joy of the baby savior and those who actually taught us with their silent attitude that the mystery is so deep that we cannot be momentarily joyful; Mary knows how deep is this mystery; she knows that this mystery is not fully manifested; she knows that the same mystery in the process of its revelation will demand total life of the participant; she is the participant of the mystery and so she has to give up all her life and her being for the perfect realization of the mystery; that is the reason why she is still deeply pondering where could this mystery of Jesus leads her and the world to; with all these thoughts in the mind she preferred to ponder them over than speaking about them and thus manifesting momentary joy than complete personal sacrifice and transformation in and for the mystery of God.  In her Heart: Mary has gone beyond the mind and thought she knows that the mind can falter and thought can doubt the interventions of God; therefore, she has kept everything in her heart; heart is her only place for the indwelling of God’s design and will; as one of the Early Fathers of the Church said “Mary has conceived God in her heart before she conceived him in her womb”. As soon as she said ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it done to me according to your word, she has given birth to the ‘redemptive plan’ of God and thus carrying in her heart already the eternal project of the Father who wills to send his Son by the power of the Spirit; thus her heart is ‘always open and recipient’ of the mystery of God and now the mystery of incarnation. Only in the heart it can be safeguarded and preserved well even if the mystery is shattered with the human doubts of the mind and reason; heart/will has always a place to embrace and meditate deeply all that is not incomprehensible; that’s the reason why Mary has preferred in keep all thing in her heart; heart is silent and joyful when the events occur either desirable or undesirable; the mind cannot stay firm and the tongue cannot control both the moments either of joy or of sorrow; instead, the heart is always ready to ‘ponder’ the meaning and value of the things happen in our life; therefore, it is possible only to the heart to comprehend what is happening and to ponder over when it is not comprehensible;  Like Mary we too are called today to treasure all the wonderful interventions of God in our life on one hand simply rejoicing internally and to treasure as well all that we are not able to understand on the other hand simply placing them in our meditation and thus seeking their context and meaning for us today; let us not be disturbed or too much worried of the thing we don’t understand; let us accept that we are humans and we cannot grasp everything of the world with our small mind; and how much difficult it should be with the ‘actions’ of God; therefore, let us only in complete trust and in confidence wonder over the mysteries of Christian faith; let us preserve them in our heart and ponder over them because every event that happens in our life has a meaning and a purpose for our life and for our Christian journey; let us take Mary, mother of God and of Us, as the example and only in this way we can be ‘calm and tranquil’ in moments of misunderstanding, incomprehension and of un-recognition. New Year or yet Another Year? - Another Year: We never have ‘new year’ but we only have ‘another’ year; we often make the concepts and we ourselves do not really understand their meaning; I would prefer to say that we do enter into the year with the first day of every year but we enter not into new year but into another year; there is lot of difference if only we have time to reflect over it; day after day the time passes; year after year the possibility of another year starts; with the term ‘new’ we often fall into misconception and we enter into false preparations and false celebrations; if we celebrate every year as new year we have to also celebrate every day as new day but why we don’t? everything is a matter of time or tickling of the clock; one moment passes another enters; one minute passes another arrives; one week passes another is at our disposal; one month passes another knock our door; one year passes another opens us the possibility of choices; it is not more than this; why we make so much preparation and spend so much of money and organize so much of program? Why finally we neglect and give up our spiritual renewal? Is it not false festivity? Let us celebrate not as a new year but ‘another year’ which God has kept in our hand opening the possibility of betterment of life. - Wishes of Better Life instead: We may celebrate New Year, because we are already in the clutches of worldly and false attractions, and even if God himself comes down to stop these we are not ready to do it; so what are my words after all? We exchange wishes of the New Year and these wishes make round today and whole of this month. It is well and fine. Let us only try to understand well what we are celebrating and what are our wishes for; wish can be just a combination of few beautiful words; is it enough? Is it a real and true wish? Where is our heart and mind when we utter these words? Do we really wish it? What does a real wish signify? We have to answer all these questions before we exchange our wish. If we have an answer we are ‘worthily’ exchange the wishes and not wishes of New Year but of better life. It should not be the wish of pretention but a real wish; real wish is not only saying a few words but ‘doing everything possible’ to make the wish come true; are we ready to do it? we wish today and from tomorrow we live as though we are strangers; in this situation what could the meaning of our celebration? - Today is the starting of ‘another year of possibility for the better life’: we may not have fulfilled all that we wanted fulfill; we may not have reached the goal we wanted to reach; we may not have completed all that we wanted to complete; we may not have come to the human growth and spiritual renewal that we really wished to have; Today is the opening of another possibility; today is the time to enter into another year; today is the appointed or given time and space for us to ‘have a betterment of our life’; more than celebration and wasting of time with false imaginations and false prestige, it is a ‘time given’ to us to ‘ponder and work out for the self renewal; it is not our time; we are not in grade of adding even a single moment to our life; it is a time ‘provided’ for us, provided for us by God as we believers hold, and provided by luck/or some other unknown power as non believers hold; in any case, it is time ‘provided’, not earned by our human efforts; let us keep this truth in mind before we celebrate ‘any form of time’ – be it a birth day or feast day or new year. Only then we will really ‘enter into the celebration of our life and our mission’ on earth, in and for the world. It is not to discourage the celebration but it only for the meaningful celebration that this reflection is aimed; Conclusion: Better Life with the Presence and Power of Baby Savior Born For Us Today - We are the children of God and we have to enter into the life and being of God and that is, into eternity; this time is temporal; this time passes away; these celebrations too fade away; night time we celebrate and day time we worry for the life; so simple is the reason; let us not go after pretending life but ‘open’ life; we live only few years; we have minimum time to live in the world; why do we waste it with misunderstandings, with struggles, with faces of sorrow and with the complaints of life; let us live it and make other live; - We have two personalities for us to imitate and to go forward in our journey of another year: o Mary who taught us to just wonder at the working of God rather than finding reasons because divine interventions go beyond our normal thinking; let us take the example of Mary and ‘treasure in our heart’ all the incomprehension and failures of knowledge and thus giving space to the Spirit to work in us and to bring forth from our heart the savior. o Shepherds who taught us to find God in the simplicity of life and openness to the truth and availability to the divine inspirations and to rejoice over them and give glory and praise to God; great thing is the summary of the simple things just as the great ocean is the summary of the single and simple drops; so also God acts in the simple hearts that are ready to listen to him, that desire to see him, that set out to meet him and finally that renders due praise and glory to the Him; let us try to understand this and live as simple and available as the shepherds to the mystery of God for us and amidst us. In this way let us safeguard well in our hearts the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ. May God Bless Us Today and the Days to Come.

HOLY FAMILY - YEAR C

SECOND SUNDAY OF NATIVITY – C: FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY (1Sam 1:20-22, 24-28; 1 John 3:1-2, 21-24; Luke 2:41-52) Theme: May the love of the Nazareth Family enforce our families Reflection: Holy Family of Nazareth is an Ever Model for all the families of the world - We are placed in front of the family of Nazareth: Crib is the image of Holy Family. We are still in the joy of Christmas. In fact, if ever we could ask ourselves what is the first gift of God made Man into the world, here is an answer? The first gift of the Baby Jesus to the world is His Family. Choosing to born in it he has made the crib itself a family. What a great lesson he gives from the crib to the world: the crib, the stall, the hut, the palace… the place is not the matter, the love amidst the members of the family is all that matters. No walls can contain the love that sprouts and grows in the family relationship. We are still in front of that Crib which has become the tent for the Ever Living Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. The Church, placing the celebration of this feast in the middle of Nativity Joyful moments, has given us a the Holy Family as the model of our families. The great occasion to empower our family rapport with the force of the Model Family. What could we learn from today’s celebration? Just one thing: the small and holy family of two thousand years is still valid and enforcing for us today. Whatever we call in the daily life – the moments of difficult, the sorrow, the anxiety, the confusion, the fear and also few moments of joy and happiness – are already confronted and lived by that Holy Family long time back. In fact, it teaches us that the life is a beautiful mixer of various events, they be joyful or sorrowful. It encourages us to take what is important and necessary and renounce the what is futile and temporary. Just looking at the crib is enough we get the courage to go forward in life constructing a such a home for ourselves. Father, Mother and the Children resting always together in the small hut but with the large and generous heart to the other. - Mary and Joseph are the models for all the parents: The readings of today propose two tasks that the parents are to do. Enough for the parents of today to look at Mary and Joseph to learn what is their responsibility towards their children. The first reading speaks of Ann who offers her son to God. The gospel speaks of Mary and Joseph taking the boy Jesus to the God’s temple for the celebrations. Once, after the festive days, they did not find Jesus they return to find him. From him two tasks of the parents come out: to guide and to search for the children. o To Guide the Children in Faith: Mary and Joseph has guided the young Jesus in the faith and into God’s house which is the primary responsibility of the Christian parents. Indeed, this is the promise that the parents make during the baptism of their child. The priest would ask: You, Parents, do you take up the task of guiding your child in the faith, in the sacraments and in the word of God? and the parents immediately give their consent saying: yes, we do. Today is the day to recall to our mind the promise they have made few years back and to examine and see how far they have fulfilled it. o To search for the Children in Hope: How much pain and anguish both Mary and Joseph must have undergone when they did not find their son in their return journey. They stopped. They inquired. They returned. They searched. And finally they found. These are the gestures of search and research. They neither gave up their search, nor they gave the pain of return. They continued their search until they found him. Mary could not stop expressing their anxiety and fear: Son, why did you do this? Your father and me, we are searching for you so much with anguish! The words are so humanly that they touch the depths of the love that the parents have for their children. That is the reason why, even the parents of today, use them often. The love of the parents is same either two thousand years back or two thousand years after: they search for their children’s well being – it is not an act of anguish but an act of love. The children of modern times have different roads and confusing life and often they find themselves lost. They are thrown away by the passions of the world. They are torn apart by the attractive but temporary pleasures. They are missing their destiny. They finally reach to the level of questing themselves, their parents and even God: what is my life? How far my parents are loving us? Is there God at all and if he is there why He is allowing all these filth in the world? The bundle of questions make them burdened. Here enters the responsibility of the parents. The parents have to place themselves “walking towards them” with pain and with love to find them and to lead them back to life, just as Mary and Joseph have done. - Jesus is the example and the force for all the children: The Gospel reveals also the responsibility of the children in the figure of young Jesus. They have two attitudes to learn from Jesus: to discern the proper destiny and to obey the parents. At the outset they look very simple and easy achieving but they need lot of commitment and dedication. o To discern the proper vocation and destiny: It is not so easy to know and to discern the destiny in the midst of multiplicity of choices. The world offers some destinies. The parents desire other destinies. The proper consciousness ask for something else. But finally there should be only one destiny chosen and lived. Twelve year old Jesus has done it. He stands as example of the young generation of today. He knows it and he does it immediately without wasting a single moment. He sits with the doctors and the authority of the temple: questions them and replies them. He is on his mission. He is so clear in his vocation and destiny that he answers to his parents: why are you searching for me.. do you not know that I must be for my Father’s will. How far the children of today are conscious of their vocation? How far they acknowledge what is the goal of their life? How far they are clear of what they are doing? How far they are aware of the way they travelling in? they are responsible for making right choice and to choose their destiny. Here is the Christian faith helps them to discern their proper vocation. With the power of the faith they can discern well. o To obey the parents in freedom: is it so hard to listen to the parents and accept their plans? Are their ideas so out-fashioned? What and where is the difficulty to understand that the parents desire only their well being? These questions are ever present in time and in history. The confused children always face these questions. They often think and they are taught that liberty is to do what they feel to do and not what their parents impose to do. But basic reality is this: parents never impose anything that their children cannot do and they insist because of their love for their children. Because they insist they do not become bad parents. Because they leave their children for their complete freedom, they do not become good parents. Genuine and true parents do suggest, show, help, and guide the children for the destiny. Obedience is not a contradiction to the freedom. Young Jesus is example for the children of today. The Gospel proclaims that Jesus has returned with them, remained with them and obeyed them. Being God he could have done as he wished but he allowed himself to be under the guidance of the parents. He obeyed them because he has confidence and trust that they teach him the ways of faith and guide him to the destiny. Obedience helps the children to enter into the sphere of the parents. Only here the children can understand the immense love and the continuous sacrifice of the parents. The true freedom of the children is filtered and matured in obedience and subjection to their parents. Not so easy to understand. Not so easy to accept. But it is the fact. Jesus himself manifests it. The children of today are invited to learn this from the young Jesus. Prayer and sacrifice: the virtues of the Holy Family’s Love - Placing God’s will in the prime post: The family of Nazareth, very tiny and infamous, has become the Holy Family because of the priority it has given for the divine design. Each member of this family surrendered totally for the plan of God. They have offered themselves to the fulfillment of divine will. Joseph’s readiness to do the will of God is praise worthy: Joseph is indicated that Mary is conceived with the power of the Holy Spirit and thus to take her without fear, he immediately brought her home. Joseph is told by an angel to take the child and the mother and to escape to Nazareth, he instantly gets up and takes them and does as the Lord commanded him. Mary’s eagerness to embrace divine plan is ever exemplary: the annunciation has come to her and she has accepted it with joy saying – I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it done to me according to your word. She silently submitted herself for the God’s plan – with silence she followed Joseph to Nazareth, with silence that she pondered all that she is not able to comprehend immediately leaving the consequence to God’s will. Jesus is the model for the accomplishing of God’s will: today’s gospel is the example for it and Jesus says – I must be doing the things of My Father and there are various reference to prove his ever willingness to obey his Father. As a totally family, Jesus – Mary – Joseph, has put God in the primary post. “God first and the rest next” – is the slogan of the Family of Nazareth and that’s why it has become Holy Family. - Mutual openness and sacrifice: another important virtue that the families of today have to learn from the Holy Family is “openness and offer” of one to the other. This is the highest act of love: to be open to the other and to give oneself for the other. This mutual sacrifice and love makes them an exemplary family for all. Mary has openly and with sacrifice has given everything of her for the establishment of the family: her movement towards Joseph with respect and obedience and her movement towards Jesus with affection and love. Joseph also, being a father of the family, gives himself utterly for the well being of Mary and Jesus and thus safeguards them every moment. Jesus is also open and obedient to his parents and this is why he is grown up in all the aspects – in the intelligence, in the age and in the grace before God and before men. Such openness and sacrifice of one another is needed in today’s families. When this lacks, lacks also the unity and thus origins the division. Each one has to be for the other. Each has to sacrifice their personal circles in order to create a family. It is the unity that keeps the family alive and meaningful. The words “according to me…” has to disappear and “according to us…” has to take its post. Only then, there is togetherness, there is respect, there is growth and there is finally happiness. This is what lacking in the families of modern days: each builds a blocking wall to the other because they need privacy. Very good. Privacy is needed because of the proper nature. Yet, unity cannot be destroyed because it is the nature of the family. In total self-giving of one to the other, the Holy Family becomes a model for us today. Let us learn from it the virtue of being open to the other and to sacrifice of what is personal for the common good of the family. May the Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph – Fill us with the strength of unity and love! Let me conclude with my song which will bring to our presence the reality of the Holy Family: Song of the Holy Family Family! Great Family! Spiritual Family! Exemplary Family! Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph! A Family, Filled with Joy and Affection! A Family, Ripened with Love and Unity! A Family, Won the Difficulties with the Friendship! A Family, Confronted the Cries with the Patience! Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph!