12th Sunday Endless waves

 

Faith is not merely an intellectual activity!  It is an internal disposition!

Faith is not; thinking (or, believing) that someone or some external force can do something good or bad!

Faith is openness!  Religion tries to give you a set of beliefs and dogmas!  They are needed for any group development!  Keep it up if necessary.  But raise up from religiosity to a higher reality.

Many would say this Sunday that if you trust in Jesus, he will calm down your problems in life!  Good for "kids"!  Don't be a kid for a very long time!  Hold on to your Father!  No, problem!! But now you have children and grandchildren too.  You have to lead them as well!!

When there is commotion and uproar, a good leader takes control of the situation and projects calmness, and proposes guidance.  When there is agitation all around, a good leader would exhibit involved efforts to calm down the commotion.  On the other hand, Poor leaders (like dictators or fundamentalists)  would pour petrol on the fire!

When there is a problem in the community when there is emotions running high due to various reasons, let your internal disposition exhibit fine leadership!

When the weather is rough, better not to venture out!  Wait for a better moment, wait for a conducive weather to take a ride!

Belief will venture you out!  If you survive the trouble, you will add feathers to your belief!  If you fail, you will attribute to another type of belief, such as "God's will" and so on.

Faith is openness!  You will listen to nature, birds, children, experienced people, weather forecasts and so on.  And then you will use your judgment to ACT!

And when there is an unexpected commotion, you will certainly be affected, perturbed, or disturbed.  But, don't get succumbed to it.  Observe and Act!  Take leadership!  Don't worsen the situation by frightening others!  If you frighten the crowd, you will end up creating a religion!

Probably Jesus was pretending to sleep on a tossed-up boat,  observing "all the leaders" creating and adding their bit of commotion in the "boat"!

Be composed and collected in the rough weathers of life!  Waves would come and go, but you will have to survive and sail through!  The second wave, third-wave...

11th Sunday, Plant Trees!

 

Plant Trees!

If humans had not ruthlessly cut down trees and destroyed the nature, we don't have to plant trees today!  That was not our responsibility.  Nature could take care of itself.  But man had intervened and destroyed nature.

Do you know why the elephants get agitated and destroy human inhabitants or agricultural lands?  The elephant herds have their track that they follow for centuries.  Not knowing any of these we infiltrated into the forests and refurbished it for human needs.  We destroyed almost everything; rivers, bird sanctuaries, animals, hills and mountains, even space!  There is a huge and beautiful chain of relationships between all these.  We are just a single and small entity or part of this whole wonderful design!

Humans should not enter the forests!  Senseless people throw bottles, plastics, synthetic materials all over the earth, including the forests and the ocean.  Through the oil spilled by the ships, pollution caused by flights and vehicles, carbon emission, climate change, global warming we have proven that humans are not rational anymore!  River beds are being stolen, Mining has destroyed many places, High sea fishing by motorized vassals has extinguished many ocean resources, Urbanization has put an end to nature's many resources. Nailing trees with advertisements, spilling garbage on the streets, smoking in public places, littering, cutting huge trees for the construction of houses and roads,  and never bothered to replace them with more trees and what not?

Now we run short of oxygen and frantically run for Oxygen cylinders!   What senseless human beings we are!  We are like the disciples of Paramaartha guru cutting the very branch we sit on.

The first reading (Ezekiel 17/22-24) and the gospel today (Mark 4/26-34) refer to how nature grows.  I have no interest in theologizing or theologically interpreting any of these.  Useless and irrelevant to me today!

Go and plant trees!

Don't organize religious ceremonies; gathering people as before the Pandemic and lead to kill them!  This is not the time to scratch our religious sentiments and irresistible irritations.  These are signs of "faith" built on pseudo-religious sentiments.  They cannot even be called faith but stupidity wearing a faith gown!

The Pandemic and the readings today invite us to be spiritual and practical!

Go and rectify the mess we created!

Go and plant trees!!

The body and blood of Christ

 

I have great admiration for St. Carlo (Not declared saint yet by the church, but I personally prefer to call him that way!!) He had great devotion and admiration for Eucharist.  He worked hard focused on collecting Eucharistic miracles!

Thieves had entered a little church at night and broke open the tabernacle, took away the ciborium, and spilled the communion all around!  In the morning when devotees saw the communion on the floor, they were shocked and reported the same to the priest in charge!  He with a lot of fear and devotion collected them back and placed them properly.  The bishop, (I think it was late bishop Thomas of Trichy diocese) quickly came to the spot and consoled the people and finally celebrated a mass among them.  In which he preached, "the body of Christ is spilled all over; in the slums and villages, on streets and dirty places!  The body of Christ is thrown on the streets when the poor are uncared" and so on...

Every person next to you is an embodiment of the same God who lives in you!

If you cannot see the human needs around, your god is blind!

If you detest the smell of the poor,  your god is poor!

If you do not extend a helping hand, your god is lame!

If you cannot be warm to the depressed, your god is a nut!

If you cannot be compassionate to the suffering one your god is useless!

That you have no love for the people around you but can do summersault in Eucharistic devotion or lift yourself 5 ft from the ground in deep meditation, your god may be powerful and influential but is worthless!

In fact "your god" is not God!