Nobody’s Perfect!

 One the inspirational thoughts roaming around Facebook will read like this:

Nobody’s Perfect!

NOAH got drunk.
ABRAHAM was too old.
ISAAC was a daydreamer.
JACOB lied.
JOSEPH was abused.
MOSES was a murderer and couldn't talk.
RAHAB was a prostitute.
JEREMIAH was too young.
JONAH ran from God.
NAOMI was a widow.
JOB went bankrupt.
The SAMARITAN WOMAN was divorced

PETER denied Christ.
and LAZARUS was dead!

So, No more excuse!

We are called to perfection - perfection of our Heavenly Father. But we will never be perfect for we are humans and limited in time and space. So too Church. But we don’t have excuse not to try for it and get near to it. That’s why we don’t have excuse not to take care of the victims of abuse whose lives are damaged by human weaknesses. Also we don’t have excuse, not to stand for gospel values but to speak for all good things we value in our lives: children, marriage, refugees and much more. This is because we are called to be healers - wounded healers - the true shepherds who don’t scatter, but gather. We are called to do it with humility and compassion in this year of grace. 

* To be published at the Corpus Christi parish bulletin for the weekend - July 14-15

Love, Kindness, Marriage and Bishop Pat Power – on the Feast of Sacred Heart of Jesus - 2012

Jesus’ heart was pierced and came the last drops of blood and water – a powerful imagery of Jesus’ love, God’s love - to us and to the whole humanity. God loved the world so much that he gave his only son and His Son loved the world so much that He gave even the last drops of water and blood from His heart to the world, which became fountain of grace flowing through the sacraments in the Church.

St Paul encourages us “to comprehend the breadth and length and height and depth,
of the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge”. The power of love is very well depicted in this short story.

A MOTHER'S HEART         
There is an old tale         
About a boy,         
An only son         
Who fell in love with a lovely girl.         
`You don't love me,        
 You never did,' said she to him.        
`But if you do, go then        
And fetch me your mother's heart.'        
 Downcast and distraught         
The boy walked off        
 And after shedding copious tears         
Came back to his love.          
The girl was angry         
When she saw him thus.And said, `Don't you dare come back again         
Without your mother's heart.'         
The boy went and killed         
His mother, and as he ran         
With her heart in his hand         
He slipped and fell.         
`My dear child, My poor child,' Cried the mother's heart,         
`Did you hurt yourself?'
By Armenian writer,  AVETIK ISAHAKIAN

 Jesus’s love is like the mother’s love. He loves even when it hurts and his love is compassionate.It gently, but powerfully invokes us to love and show kindness.
Yesterday after 21 years after receiving the Nobel Prize, Ang San Suu Kyi – Burmeese democracy fighter – delivered her Nobel Prize acceptance speech. Suu Kyi used her speech to promote kindness and warned against kindness fatigue. It was an emotional ceremony, as you might have watched. She said:

"Of the sweets of adversity, and let me say that these are not numerous, I have found the sweetest, the most precious of all, is the lesson I learnt on the value of kindness. Every kindness I received, small or big, convinced me that there could never be enough of it in our world. To be kind is to respond with sensitivity and human warmth to the hopes and needs of others. Even the briefest touch of kindness can lighten a heavy heart. Kindness can change the lives of people."

It is this kindness the mission of Christ and Church today in this world. Church does that with great care, but many a time it can be misunderstood. Going back to the story of Mother’s heart, the Church’s heart would add something like this, I guess:

`My dear child, My poor child,         
`Did you hurt yourself?'
`You poor thing. Watch over! There are hurdles ahead.'

That attitude of concern also come from great love and care. One of those issues would be that of the debate on marriage in Australia and this week is very critical for that debate.
As Peter Jensen – the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney noted: “There are some glossy slogans out there (like marriage equality), but the difficulty with slogans is that they are not arguments and, so, are hard to refute, except by slogans in return.” Unfortunately, Church is not in the business of slogan writing. But we can just say with great love and kindness that we value marriage – and the right of our children to be born, raised and nurtured in a family atmosphere – with the care and love of a father and mother.

And we will be remembering the contribution of such a wonderful parental figure in our archdiocese this week – our retiring bishop Pat Power. We acknowledge the love and kindness he has shown to all in our archdiocese and his farewell Mass is on this Tuesday evening at the Cathedral. Let’s say thank you to him.. and to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Reference:
http://www.groong.org/tlg/tlg-20061125.html
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/06/16/excerpts-suu-kyis-nobel-peace-prize-speech.html
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/stylish-samesex-campaign-glosses-over-real-issues-20120615-20f6e.html

* Delivered at Corpus Christi Parish, South Tuggeranong, Canberra on 17 June 2012

Christmas Homily 2011

Christmas Homily 2011

It’s Christmas and a little story for you. Once there was man in Europe who was decent, gentle and generous. But he felt Christmas as a lot of rubbish. “The whole business of Incarnation where God becomes man sounds crazy, it doesn’t make any sense to me”, he told his wife, who was a faithful churchgoer. It was Christmas eve and he wasn’t a Scrooge. So, he allowed his wife and children to go to midnight Mass. Soon after they left, it started to snow – it was a perfect white Christmas! But suddenly he heard some shattering noise at the living room windows. It was a flock of birds huddled miserably in storm, searching for shelter and trying to fly through his window. He felt sympathy – “after all it’s Christmas, I should help them.” He remembered the barn where the children’s pony was stabled. It would provide them a warm shelter. He went outside, opened the barn and invited the birds to come in. They wont come. He started to do all the tricks – switched on the light, put a trail of breadcrumbs, shooing them into the barn – but wont work. He was devastated. “I wanted to help these bloody ignorant birds” he said himself, “but they don’t get it.  “And I can’t seem to think of any way to let them know they can trust me. If only I could be a bird myself for a few minutes, perhaps I could lead them to safety. . . .”

Just at that moment the church bells rang- the Christmas Mass. He stood silent for a while and then he sank to his knees in the snow. “Now I understand,” he whispered. “Now I see why You had to do it.”

And that’s why He did it – the Emmanuel – God is with us – so that we may understand, and be led to safety – for our salvation and for us to know the mind of God and to touch his kindness in human form. Now we got a model and example before us, who can perfectly communicate God to us.  And God communicated Himself to us by being a part of family - father, mother and a child – Joseph, Mary and Jesus.. That’s why Christmas is a family celebration and also Christmas is a celebration of “family”. That’s the reason why we are supposed to enjoy a beautiful Christmas lunch with our family and friends around. Hope you all will have good time with Christmas gifts and Turkey tomorrow/today!

Let us also not forget the tiniest (and most insignificant) of our human family as we share Christmas joy with our dear and near ones. Let’s make sure that every child in our families gets a chance to be born from the very moment of conception in his/her mother’s womb, as Jesus could be born into our world. Let’s make sure that every child gets the warmth of a family with a father and a mother ensuring complimenting dimensions of parenthood, as Jesus was blessed with a family. Let’s make sure that every human being gets an asylum if they run away from persecution as baby Jesus did from King Herod and not to be perished in the sea.

 And after all JOY is putting J and O before Y. That is, Jesus, Others before You! Let’s allow Jesus to take the center-stage in our lives. Let’s love him – he is very cute in that manger on the crib and also in our hearts. Let’s also love others and put their needs before us. Let’s overflow our humanity with Christmas gifts to the marginalized and the poor – we could give generously to the Archbishop’s Christmas Appeal for charity today or to Vinnies or Caritas or others. By bringing JOY to others and ourselves, let’s join the party of Jesus’ birthday. Merry Christmas and safe travelling!

• With inputs from: http://www.frtommylane.com/homilies/years_abc/second_sunday_after_christmas-2.htm, http://www.munachi.com/z/christmaseve.htm

• Delivered at Corpus Christi parish, Tuggeranong, Canberra, Australia

The Poetry and Extreme Life of Pentecost: Reflections

Last Tuesday, while speaking at the Guinness and God event at Civic, Canberra, Archbishop Mark encouraged the audience (of mostly youngsters) to grow beyond the traditional good boy/good girl Christianity. He quoted James Cowen from his book “Journey to the Inner Mountain" in observing that we are “grown tired of [Christianity’s] entrenched moralism, its desire to mould people into some kind of polite entity devoid of the essence of poetry and extreme life”.

There is a danger for all of us to become just polite entities for many reasons. The disciples too had the same dilemma, soon after the death of Jesus. It was out of fear and uncertainty they faced in their life at that time. They lost the leader and the vision. They couldn’t see anything but darkness in front of them. So they just wanted to be polite and ordinary Jews or citizens. Except Thomas, none even dared to go out.

There was need for something extraordinary - something that comes from the breaking of the threshold of grace. The grace of the resurrection bought that to them. The resurrected Christ allowed that grace to stay with them and that was the Pentecost. The grace of God - Holy Spirit – came to them and set them on fire. They became extra-ordinary men and women.

We live in similar salvific times, where we expect the breaking of threshold of grace for a new Pentecost for many reasons, Archbishop Mark suggests I think. We need individuals who find the poetry and extreme life in the grace of God, in Holy Spirit for the Next Big Thing in the Church. We had St Francis of Assisi or St Anthony of Desert, when times demanded such outpouring of Spirit in the Church in the past. Let the Pentecost challenge all of us to respond to such big grace in our personal lives to live a life of poetry and extreme life in the Spirit.

CMIs and Cash (some say, it is Cash Making Institute!)

(Pic::CMIS in New York)
I got the following question from a young Catholic girl, who is my chat friend. I also add my answer to it. This is my conviction.

Why are Chirstian institutions so adamant in making money and investement?(This question was asked in the context of your congregation acha,CMI). Aren't you diverting from the cause of Jesus?

I like this question. It is very pertinent to me, as a CMI. We dont make money for the sake of making money. In reality, we are the great debtors. In my province, we got 100+ priests and it is said that every priest's head carry a debt of around 7-10 lakhs!

Yes we do have great institutions. All of them are for the benefit of humanity and for Church and its people. We are running a University in India (which is just one of the many other initiatives). It's all for good. Do we need to stop them? We can.. Then what will be the fate of those beneficiaries, which belong to all religious groups... of Church and Christians in India? The Xians still flourish and are respected in India only because of these institutions, even if they are a minority. If we abandon them, Christians will go down like the dalits or Muslims.

Now, it is my conviction that, Indian Church should make money. It is not to get 'rich'. But to stand on its own feet. In the past, we were relying of foreign money for our projects. But that is not good for Indian Church and India. If Church needs to stand on its two feet, it should be self-sufficient. Either, the Indian faithful have to contribute heavily or Church should raise it on its own. When Bl Chavara started CMI congregation, all of the initial monasteries were erected using the money from people. But, that scenario has changed. People's mentality does not support that method any more. And Church has got the capacity and human resource to do it on its own. So, it must take that responsibility than passing on it to its people. Moreover, India is in a better economic position now than in the past and so there's no point in importing money from outside. That is not social justice. On the contrary, Indian church should be able to support the missions in other poor nations around the world. That is our responsibility. We received when we were in need, now we have to give it back, when we are in a position to do that. If we are hiding away from that responsibility, we are just irresponsible. There's a danger of victim mentality (out of poverty) in our mindset, which actually hinder us from 'generously giving' to others (other poor missions world around).

If we need to be self reliant, if we need to venture into world missions, we need money. Church in India should do whatever possible in legitimate terms to amass it, so that it can keep sustain what they got in India, expand those services and to share its benefits with the Christ's mission around the world.

Global Mission of CMIs

Today I have received a copy of the Report of the first session of XXXVI Ordinary General Synaxis of CMI Congregation (religious order, which I belong to).

To my great surprise, No. 10 of the report says:

In the light of the discussions and deliberations the Synaxis arrived at a consensus that there would be 4 major thrusts in our Congregation for the next 6 years.

1. Reorientation of our community as a spiritual movement
2. Global mission
3. To be with the marginalized always and everywhere
4. Affordable quality education for poor

It continues, Guided by the charism of founding fathers, this transformation will help us take new and bold initiatives in the areas of global mission.

I am really glad. This was the gist of my one-page working paper send to the General Synaxis (You read it as a post somewhere below.. My friend - Micheal's comment came as a reply to that post). With the collective will of synaxis fathers, it has been come out as a major thrust of the congregation for the next 6 years. Let CMIs surges into the world with a new mission of Christ. Jay Yesu!

Jesus the Man - the deception in the very 33rd page

go to HOME

I am reading 'Jesus the Man'- a 'supposed to be controversial' book by Barbara Thiering - an Australian author. I read in 'amazon.com', the reviews praising it as an authentic work with the backing of deep research which will topple down our views about Jesus and Christianity. The back cover of the book reads as follows:

"Jesus was the leader of a radical faction of Essene priests. He was not of virgin birth. He did not die on the Cross. He married Mary Magdalene, fathered a family, and later divorced. He died sometime after AD 64."

One of the critics claims that "Barbara Thiering is a supreme academic and goes to great lengths to justify her theories with much referencing, to the point where I have to admit that I probably need to re-read this immediately and I do confess to only really reading the narrative chapters at the start - which is very readable."

So, I opened the book with great expectations. It is really intriguing. The theory she proposed to explain the Qumran (and the Gospel) texts is really gripping - something very similar to Vinci Code. She introduces peshar technique - a kind of technique to unlock the 'submerged mysteries' beneath the Qumran and Gospel texts. I would say, it is original. I have never heard or someone used before.

I kept on reading expecting more. Then I came to page 33. I was completely lost... disappointed. She was giving her first example to explain pesher technique. The example she selected was the Wedding at Cana, where Jesus turned water into wine (according to Gospels!)

I put down the words of Thiering account of the miracle of Cana (God I have to type all of it.. give me patience!).

"According to a story in John's gospel, Jesus was at a wedding...When, however, a drink was drawn from them and taken to the steward of the feast, it had miraculously turned into wine. The steward's reaction was strange: he did not comment on the miracle at all, but merely complained that Jesus had saved the good wine until last, whereas it was more usual to serve the good wine first and the poor wine later."

I stopped reading there - the text in italics (the text is Thiering's but i've given italics to highlight it) - what has she done?

Because, I never ever heard that the steward "complained that Jesus had saved the good wine. " According to my memory, the gospel clearly stated that the steward didn't know about the source of the 'new wine'. Did my memory fail. I reached home and searched all available versions of Bible. I was happy that my memory still works perfect!

She was quoting 'a story in John's gospel'. In the very 33th page itself, how could she go wrong? Was she just going wrong - a human error. NO WAY. without that small twist, she could not have justified her pesher theory in that instant. That was the pivot.

But it was too much... in the very 33th page manipulating the Gospel text to prove 'a theory'. I didn't expect that. If this is the case of the very first example, what would be the case of the rest of her work... the authenticity! May be her critic would have been right "Barbara Thiering is a supreme academic and goes to great lengths to justify her theories with much referencing..." except the comments put in italics!

Anyway, I will continue to read the book, to hear her stories and theories!

Jesus the Man - the deception in the very 33rd page

go to HOME

I am reading 'Jesus the Man'- a 'supposed to be controversial' book by Barbara Thiering - an Australian author. I read in 'amazon.com', the reviews praising it as an authentic work with the backing of deep research which will topple down our views about Jesus and Christianity. The back cover of the book reads as follows:

"Jesus was the leader of a radical faction of Essene priests. He was not of virgin birth. He did not die on the Cross. He married Mary Magdalene, fathered a family, and later divorced. He died sometime after AD 64."

One of the critics claims that "Barbara Thiering is a supreme academic and goes to great lengths to justify her theories with much referencing, to the point where I have to admit that I probably need to re-read this immediately and I do confess to only really reading the narrative chapters at the start - which is very readable."

So, I opened the book with great expectations. It is really intriguing. The theory she proposed to explain the Qumran (and the Gospel) texts is really gripping - something very similar to Vinci Code. She introduces peshar technique - a kind of technique to unlock the 'submerged mysteries' beneath the Qumran and Gospel texts. I would say, it is original. I have never heard or someone used before.

I kept on reading expecting more. Then I came to page 33. I was completely lost... disappointed. She was giving her first example to explain pesher technique. The example she selected was the Wedding at Cana, where Jesus turned water into wine (according to Gospels!)

I put down the words of Thiering account of the miracle of Cana (God I have to type all of it.. give me patience!).

"According to a story in John's gospel, Jesus was at a wedding...When, however, a drink was drawn from them and taken to the steward of the feast, it had miraculously turned into wine. The steward's reaction was strange: he did not comment on the miracle at all, but merely complained that Jesus had saved the good wine until last, whereas it was more usual to serve the good wine first and the poor wine later."

I stopped reading there - the text in italics (the text is Thiering's but i've given italics to highlight it) - what has she done?

Because, I never ever heard that the steward "complained that Jesus had saved the good wine. " According to my memory, the gospel clearly stated that the steward didn't know about the source of the 'new wine'. Did my memory fail. I reached home and searched all available versions of Bible. I was happy that my memory still works perfect!

She was quoting 'a story in John's gospel'. In the very 33th page itself, how could she go wrong? Was she just going wrong - a human error. NO WAY. without that small twist, she could not have justified her pesher theory in that instant. That was the pivot.

But it was too much... in the very 33th page manipulating the Gospel text to prove 'a theory'. I didn't expect that. If this is the case of the very first example, what would be the case of the rest of her work... the authenticity! May be her critic would have been right "Barbara Thiering is a supreme academic and goes to great lengths to justify her theories with much referencing..." except the comments put in italics!

Anyway, I will continue to read the book, to hear her stories and theories!