St Vincent de Paul - The Saintly Resource Mobiliser

I read the gospel today - of being sent to proclaim good news. Go bagless, baggageless, homeless, worry less. (Lk 9:1-6). But today's disciple has truckloads of baggage, but s/he is more often godless, faithless and hopeless. 

Here is presented St. Vincent De Paul, who possessed God, but much less of other things, but gave to people God in the form of food, clothing and shelter. 

In the 17th century he brought about another reformation by focusing on being God's channel of grace to the poor and the rich - To the poor by the consolation he brought to them by attending to their needs; to the rich, by making them channels of God's grace for the poor.  He had the uncanny ability to garner the support of the haves for the have-nots. That was a revolution without a split, a revolution without shedding blood. 

And it is said that all the methods that the voluntary development and/or aid organisations employ to keep their donors sticking and contributing, were already put to use by him, without the sophisticated technology available now. 

And his life has inspired the most vibrant and widespread catholic charity movement - St. Vincent De Paul Society, leading many holy ones, and definitely one more venerated saint - Blessed Frederick Ozanam. 

While I am indeed fascinated by this coveted skill for a development/social worker, I am more impressed by the spirituality of humility, which he defines as adherence to truth.  To quote him: 

"Humility is nothing but truth, and pride is nothing but lying. The most powerful weapon to conquer the devil is humility.  For he does not know how at all to employ it, nor does he know how to defend himself from it." 

"Noise makes no good, good makes no noise."

"If God is at the centre of your heart no words are necessary, your mere presence will touch hearts." 

God may I possess truth in all humility, and may that be the centre of my heart, which will touch hearts even without speaking!

Being Jesus Family (Lk 8:19-21)

Lk 8:19-21

Jesus has simply expanded the borders of his family making it very inclusive, and with a possibility for anyone or everyone to be his family. 

Are you seeking the will of God and are you doing the will of God? If yes, you are his family. 

But the tougher task is to know for sure what God's will for me is - here and now. 

We can only pray with St. Teresa of Avila: 

Lord, if I am thine, and thine only, what is thy will with me? 

This calls for 'discernment' which is attributed to the Spirit of Jesus. 

It is with such discernment and fulfilling the same, that we become glad and confident with the Psalmist to say, "I rejoiced when I heard them say: Let us go to God's house" (Ps 121:1). It can be both our final going to our final destination which is God's presence - celebrating the end of our limiting circumstances.  It can also be our visits to the typical God's house on earth, built by humans - perhaps, it is sung in the context of the people of God eagerly going to the temple of God in Jerusalem! I go there with the gladness of having discerned and fulfilled God's will; I also go there, with gladness, that in spite of my failures, I have assurance of grace in that presence. 

Lord Jesus, fill us with your spirit that we may discern God's will, and do that always and everywhere, thus be your family - your mother, your brother, your sister. 

Thank you for the possibility of giving birth to you daily, re-presenting you again and again, by merely seeking your Father's will! But, only if you would reveal that to me! 

Holiness and Sanctity Today - September 23, 2023 St. Padre Pio

Today we celebrate St. Padre Pio - St. Pius of Pietrelcina, a capuchin priest of OFM.  He died when I was a toddler, in 1968.  However, I have heard about him as a child. The most popular Christian magazine in Keralam, Sathyadeepam, had a series of articles on Padre Pio. To me, they did not make a very interesting reading, but they were a report on the miraculous experiences, especially of stigmata, that he was having. 

This was in the late 60s. Ordained a priest at the early age of 22, he devoted 6 decades of his life for pastoral services - mainly confession, counselling, celebrating the eucharist, and healing people... He became famous globally among the Christians of Catholic fold for (the grace of) stigmata. The first ordained priest to have had such a grace! He was raised to the honours of the altar by St. John Pual II. 

Is such sanctity possible today? 

The life of Padre Pio gives us the confidence that even in the era of economic progress and modernity, sanctity is a possibility.  And sanctity, in very simple terms, is to follow Christ who went about doing good (Acts 10:38). 

Lord grant me the grace to grow in sanctity to which we all have been called, doing good around me, thus spreading the goodnews of your unlimited goodness, as St. Padre Pio did.

Wealth that Lasts: Love of Money and Contentment (I Timothy 6:2-12)

Paul writes to Timothy that the root cause of all evil is 'love of money'.  Now typically, everyone may pooh-pooh this assertion, as almost everyone loves money. 

I can reconcile this issue, by perhaps asserting that it is when the love of money becomes a substitute for to love of God, that this situation arises. I find almost everybody desires money (wealth). The question is: does that become our end? Or is it a means, granted, a very important means at that?  This is stated in another way, when Paul says: jealousy, contention, abuse and wicked mistrust of one another and unending disputes... come out when people are conceited and not keeping 'to the sound teaching ...of our Lord Jesus Christ' and 'imagine that religion is a way of making profit'.  

When I read this, the current scenario of Syro-Malabar church (Zero-Jesus Church, as someone very aptly put it) comes to my mind. I find the leaders conceited, and the leadership, somehow, muddled by the matters of money, apparently on a quest for profit-making (perhaps, for the Church) by unfair means. 

The issue is about the life skill of being contented - while making efforts to make our own and that of those dependent on us better (safe, comfortable), at each point, am I able to be happy with what I have, and manage my needs within that limit?   

The prayer Jesus taught has clues for all this - give us this day our daily bread! We rely on the ultimate provider for our daily needs - the problem lies when humans keep on multiplying their needs - or feel not satisfied with their needs being met.  So the skill lies in keeping our needs minimal, or deciding to be contented with meeting the needs with the means available. The desire and effort to go beyond the daily needs, which is the path of human progress, cannot be undermined. Maintaining the balance between being contented and striving to make things better is a tough task - a delicate one! That is the life skill one needs to acquire, that is also a great grace! 

And Paul admonishes his readers: 'We bring nothing to this world and will not be able to take anything out of it'.  However, I think we can reframe the statement, we will not be able to take anything out of it, except the merits of a good life or acts of kindness, compassion and goodness! The psalm 49 buttresses the same argument speaking about the vanity of riches - at his death the rich man will not take along anything; his glory will not go with him (49:18).

May the Lord grant the Christians the grace, individually and collectively as the Church, to listen to the teachings of Jesus and follow them. 

Christian Way of Manifesting Wisdom

We are brought up to be worldly wise.  The socialisation we receive helps us to be wise, and usually makes us think: 'What would people think/what would others think.'  But this takes us into a track of conformity and when it comes to issues affecting our inner life, or planet life, the conformity comes in the way.  We are easily swayed by the opinions. 

Here wisdom is to be manifested by the Christian in being able to think 'What would Jesus think, or what does Jesus say in this regard.' (Lk 7:31-35). 

It is by such choices that our behaviour becomes befitting to God's family, that is the Church of the living God. St. Paul in his instructions to Timothy (1 Tim 3:14-16) reminds how people ought to behave in the Church.  By choosing Christ's position and way in all things, we behave befittingly in the Church, or in other words, we become the Church of the living God! 

That is what Andrew Kim Taegon (the first priest of Korean church) and Paul Chong Hasang (lay leader) and their 101 companions did! Giving up their lives to follow Christ. O blessed martyrs of Korea, in our non-threatening freedom to live and practise our faith, may we be courageous enough to make choices after the mind of Jesus, so that we may become truly the Church of God in this beautiful world given to our stewardship! 

Forgiveness as Wisdom Path to Peace

Ecclesiasticus as Christian Scripture

After all these years, for the first time, it struck me to ask why Ecclesiasticus is called Sirach.  Having been a minister of the Word for thirty years, it is a shame for me not to have known this, nor enquired about it before. Perhaps, a good many of my fellow priests would not know. I don't think there was any such discussion in our Theology or Scripture courses. 

I learn that while the Catholic canon proclaims it as part of scriptural revelation (1546 - under the threat of excommunication! Funny people wielding the sword of excommunication to coerce people into believing the strange faith theories put forward by very imaginative minds!!), the Jewish canon or many of the Christian denominations do not consider them part of the scriptural revelation - they are treated as 'apocrypha' - implying their authenticity is in doubt. 

Now 'Sirach' is attributed to the author 'Joshua (Jesus) ben Sirach' (Joshua the Son of Sirach), on instruction by his father Sirach, in Hebrew, on the instruction by his father, sometime between BCE 200 and 175. The book is given an introduction (prologue) by Sirach the son of Joshua around BCE 132.  

Having been widely used by the early Church and Church fathers as a moral instruction, it came to be known as liber Ecclesiasticus (Church Book), and later on, as Ecclesiasticus, which means 'of the Church'.  While considered the largest book in the genre of Biblical wisdom literature, it has the unique feature of reference to all the books of the Old Testament, barring, Ezra, Daniel, Ruth, Esther, and Chronicles, thus serving as a historical document pointing to the formation of these Biblical texts. 

Forgiveness as Wisdom - Sep. 17, 2023 Sunday

On this Sunday, I was fascinated by the wisdom of Sirach, in presenting the significance of forgiveness (27:33-28:9). What a powerful thinking on anger management 2000 years ago. It shows a position that Jesus himself would advocate - forgive your neighbour the hurt he does you, and when you pray, your sins will be forgiven.  It speaks about making oneself free from anger, resentment, hate and ill-will,  and practise forgiveness, compassion and pity so that forgiveness and pity from the Lord is received. 

And when it comes to gospel, Mathew (18:32-37) presents Jesus stating almost the same position regarding forgiveness.  

Now given to using the ' outcome-based education (OBE) framework', I was immediately led to think on such terms linking Christian faith formation and related outcomes.  What could be the outcomes by which we could say that Christian faith is effective and what could be its indicators? 

Christians faith can be said to be effective when someone professing to be a Christian is able to: 

1. forgive one's wrong-doers, the fact of dislike or feeling wronged, or memory of the hurt notwithstanding! It is a Christian faith choice, a conscious decision to 'forgive'.  So the saying 'forgive and forget' need not go together, though, if we are blessed with the ability to 'forget' the hurt, it is easier to forgive. 

2. it invariably implies that the aggrieved party is able to place the wrong-doer before God, the ultimate source of good, in prayer, deliberately seeking his/her well being. 

3. it would involve that in spite of the hurt, s/he will avoid speaking ill of the person

4. it could mean, deliberately trying to find good in the person who wronged you, and/or when opportunity beckons, would speak well of her/him. 

5. it could also extend to offering possible good when an opportunity presents itself or, even to the extent of being on the lookout for doing good to him or her, as would be expected by Christ: 'do good to those who hate you' (Lk 6:27-28). 

Thus forgiveness becomes a means for ensuring peace for you, and peace on earth, and thus becoming God's children (Mtt 5:8). As would Rudyard Kipling assert as a quality of being a (hu)man: ...If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run, yours is the earth and all that is in it, And, which is more, you will be a man my son! 

While we are asked to be perfect as the Father in heaven is perfect (Mt 5:48), this is one case Jesus presents when the Father is asked to imitate us, or makes the Father's action conditional upon our action: forgive us as we have forgiven our offenders (Mtt 7: )

It is one step we take towards making creating heaven, God's reign on earth, a step by which people are really converted to goodness. On the other hand, not forgiving or seeking vengeance is one step in the direction of creating or perpetrating hell for and around us.  Call to forgiveness is an invitation to liberation from a great slavery!

In my own lifetime, I have the examples of St. Pope John Paul II forgiving Mehmet Ali Agca (1981), Australian evangelical missionary Gladys Stains, who forgave the killers of her missionary husband Graham Stains and their two children (January 22, 1999, in Mayur Banj, Odisha, Bajrang Dal activists under Dara Singh's leadership) and thus rose to be a vibrant Christian witness in India (seen next to Mother Teresa), the family of Blessed Rani Maria FCC (whom I had the good fortune to be acquainted with), who forgave the hit man Samundar Singh who brutally murdered her for having stood with the exploited poor of the Indore region in Madhya Pradesh state of India. In all these cases, the wrong doer(s) was said to have been touched, and converted to goodness. 

There is a great need for forgiveness today, and Christian challenge everywhere is whether as individuals and as a community are we able to inspire this.  

Let us pray that divided and conflict-ridden families and nations - people of Sudan, Christian majority Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen, Ukraine - Russia may be touched by the great grace of forgiveness. 

We find in Jesus' parable as told by Luke the forgiving father.  Interestingly, in Indian tradition, the planet earth is a goddess and a space permeated with God - ishavaashyamidam sarvam, and is named kshama which means forbearance/patience and implies forgiveness. In my mother tongue, there is a saying, 'being patient like the earth or down to the earth' (bhoomiyolam kshamikkuka).  The planet bears with human beings and their erratic behaviour almost always, however, it has limits of a creature, and hence we find, it losing its limits in natural cataclysms, pathogens getting unleashed.  But Jesus points to a picutre of God, drastically different from the old testament God, willing to forgive, and makes that part of his 'perfection' which humans are called to grow into. 

May God, the forgiving father and mother of us all, give us a share of the infinite goodness to forgive, and to heal humanity, heal the planet! 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Sirach

Teacher's Day 2023: Can AI Substitute My Teacher?

Can AI substitute my Teacher?

The Teenager Today, September 2023 p. 13. 

As digital technology is radically revolutionalising human spaces, it is also posing a threat, showing the possibilities to replace humans from several conventional jobs. A moot question is raised if AI could substitute the teacher. There are already schools that have deployed AI teacher to assist the human teacher.  As we celebrate the teacher’s day this year, we celebrate the irreplaceable and transforming human relations that teachers are called to build up, within the warmth of which learning, with or without AI, could take place.  

Bharat Ratna, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, a great Indian teacher, who grew to be the President of India, felt that the respect he received from his students, should be there for the entire teaching community. As per his desire, India celebrates Teachers’ Day, September 5, his birthday, from 1962 the year he assumed the office of the President. Of paradoxical interest is the fact that his emergence as the great teacher and exponent of Indian’s cultural heritage, was a reaction against the demeaning criticism of Indian knowledge traditions by his English educators; though his acumen was acknowledged and promoted by some of these very English educators, whom he held in great respect as model teachers! 

World-wide, from 1994, October 5 is the Teacher’s Day, celebrating the day of approval of ILO/UN charter on the ‘Status of Teachers’ in 1966. India has a tradition of celebrating teacher’s day on the full moon of the month of Ashad, remembering the birthday of Guru Vedavyas, credited to have the Vedas (shruti) presented in the form available to us; and also the day of enlightenment of a great teacher, Sri Gautam Buddha.

The day is meant to celebrate the noble call to be a teacher.  It involves respect for the individual teachers through whose care generations pass and are built up.  They mould the nations; they shape the future.  It is a reminder to the state and the leaders that every effort to get the best possible people for this great task should be made, and that it should be made a sought-after profession.

On the part of the students, it is an opportunity to recognize the great work and the tremendous task that the teachers undertake, year after year, to train new learners the skills to walk, dress, talk, count, read, write, draw, observe, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate and create new knowledge!  

Let us celebrate our teachers:

1. Know your teacher – her* name, her family, her interests, her talents and skills, her goodness.  Know the names of as many of your teachers as possible.  

2. Greet her and decide to greet her daily

3. Create a card to tell her how you value or what difference she makes in your life.

4. Prepare and teach a lesson in her presence

5. Say a prayer for your teachers and their happiness.

Reinforcing the Great Call beyond a Career

A teacher today can be threatened of her job position  only if she fails to grasp the spread of the canvass that is before her, whereon, the transfer of information is just one aspect, and more important aspects are learning to learn, to live and to live together.  As the teacher Bonnie in the popular American story tells in response to the ridiculing question in the party by a company CEO as to what she ‘makes’, if every teacher is able to narrate what they ‘make’ thus: “I make the children work harder than they ever thought they could,  make them write and read, read, read…, make them wonder, question, apologize and mean it, take responsibility for their actions, respect themselves and others, feel safe, understand if they use their God-given gifts and follow their hearts, they can succeed in life”, then, AI or any other technology will still have to wait for ages to be a substitute for a teacher!

*Not meant to exclude any gender.