Hail, full of grace: Mary in our tradition

The messenger from heaven says nothing about himself;

it is truly God who greets Mary.

Never has the like been seen on earth or in heaven.

This greeting contains and transcends

the Creator's deep satisfaction

in surveying the world he had drawn out of nothing.

With Jesus who was to be born of her,

Mary was both the summit and centre of all things;

she was like the heart of that creation

God had declared to be very good.

And so he calls her full of grace,

full of all the grace a mere creature can receive,

grace that will ever increase and develop,

to an unbounded degree in the Mother of the Saviour (OLSH, p 62)

Hail, full of grace

The letter to the Eph (1:3-6) starts with a beautiful description of God's plan of salvation. God planned to give us the life of grace whereby we become sons and daughters of the Father thourgh Jesus Christ. This plan includes all of us, from all eternity, but it reserves a special place for the 'woman' chosen to be the Mother of Jesus Christ. During the Annunciation God's messenger greeted her not as Mary, but with the new name full of grace, or highly favoured one, which in the original Greek text is only one word. If we are all linked to Christ by our predestination, how much more was Mary linked to Christ from all eternity, since she was chosen to be his Mother. The relationship between Mary and Jesus shares in the eternity of God's plan of salvation.

Chosen for such an eminent dignity, highly favoured by God, Mary must have been prepared for her calling and mission by an avoundance of spiritual blessings in Christ. We believe that she was truly holy and spotless from the beginning, from the first moment of her conception. On Dec 8, 1854, Pope Pius IX declared this to be a dogma of our faith. After the first sin God promised: "I will make you enemies of each other: you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring. It will crush your head." The seed of the woman was to obtain the victory in the struggle with evil, and we believe that the woman was to obtain the victory in the struggle in the victory of her son. The enmity was between the evil one and the woman, his offspring and hers. As she shared in the struggle, together with her offspring, so she shared in the victory, together with her Son. "Rejoice, highly favoured one", chosen from all eternity to be, not only the Daughter of the Father, but also the Mother of the Son, the victress of evil. "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you." (OLSH by Bovenmars MSC, p 309)

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23rd Sunday

Pope John Paul the second wrote about family in the following words: “As a natural institution, the family community was willed by God in the "beginning", with the creation of man and woman, for the good of humanity. Family’s identity and mission is willed by God to ‘guard, reveal and communicate love’. Every family must be a true communion of persons, with respect to the dignity of the members who compose it. Family for the people of our time is a "sanctuary of life". Christian family is a "domestic church". The family that lives the requirements of love and forgiveness to the full becomes the main bulwark of the civilization of love and the hope for the future of humanity.” (Familiaris Consortio).
Some people say that the happiest marriages, happiest families are built on the foundation of forgiveness and to not forgive is a decision to suffer. That is absolutely true. If we love Jesus or profess to love Jesus, our commitment to the virtue of forgiveness is as important as that of the virtue of love. Most often we witness the dangerous shadow of the "culture of death" to creep into our homes. By contrast, the failure to forgive, especially when it serves to prolong conflict, is extremely costly in terms of human development. Resources are used for weapons rather than for development, peace and justice. What sufferings are inflicted on humanity because of the failure to reconcile! What delays in progress because of the failure to forgive! Dangerous designs to undo the family, the Society, humanity. Doctors say that if we nurture the feeling of hatred and not forgiveness, we develop headaches, backaches, pains in the neck, stomachaches and ulcer-like symptoms, depression, lack of energy, anxiety, irritability, tenseness and being ‘on edge’, insomnia and restlessness: all resulting in unhappy life. Our immune system can become stronger when we forgive.
Church teaches us that after his Resurrection, Christ sent his apostles "so that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations." (Lk 24:47). The apostles and their successors carry out this ‘ministry of reconciliation’. [The Church] has received the keys of the Kingdom of heaven so that, in her, sins may be forgiven through Christ's blood and the Holy Spirit's action. There is no offense, however serious, that the Church cannot forgive. "There is no one, however wicked and guilty, who may not confidently hope for forgiveness, provided his repentance is honest. Christ who died for all men desires that in his Church the gates of forgiveness should always be open to anyone who turns away from sin.(Mt 18:21-22)
Buddha inspired by the logic of non-violence, compassion and love says, "Among those who hate, blessed are we who live without hatred; in the midst of people who hate, we remain free from hatred" (Dh. 197); and again, "the winner engenders hatred and the loser dwells in distress; peaceful man rests tranquil abandoning simultaneously both winning and losing (Dh. 201).
1. Forgiveness is above all a personal choice, a personal initiative, a decision of the heart to go against the natural instinct to pay back evil with evil. It has its perfect exemplar in the forgiveness of Christ, who on the Cross prayed: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34).
2. Forgiveness has a divine source and criterion.
3. Peace is essential for development. True peace is made possible only through forgiveness.
Today’s gospel talks a great deal about forgiveness at home circles, finding samples of Christian purity at home. We are called to share our life with the Church by our showing our solidarity with our spirit of forgiveness. Are we the first to take initiative to forgive our brothers and sisters or wait for them to make the first move? Do we feel the love of God to move forward, take efforts, to feel the urgency in a spirit-filled relationships with our family members, our friends, our significant others in life and the so-called enemies of ours? People should witness in us the love of God, and our encounters with people should reflect that.
Forgiveness is the shortest route to God. It is necessary to find that forgiveness at home. Families glow of God’s love and be a sacrament of Christ’s love. Let us pray that we open our hearts to the need of forgiveness in our communities and particularly in our families. Amen.

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Our MSC Charism and Mission: A pressing responsibility and a big challenge

Often I wondered about our charism and our mission. We participate in the charism of our founder and profess that ‘May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be loved everywhere’. As often as we profess that we are faced with the question as to the word ‘everywhere’, as to … loved where exactly? Are we absolutely clear that the Sacred Heart is loved? If yes, who are the recipients? Do we acknowledge and accept that the Sacred Heart is loved everywhere, including in our communities and even more precisely ‘May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be loved in my own heart personally. When I am convinced that this particular love fills my heart and mind, that I start to become a missionary of that Sacred Heart, let I become a mockery of my vocation. In other words, I am a missionary of the Sacred Heart first and foremost to my own heart, then to my community and others.
Our missionary spirit has its origin in Our Lord Jesus. Our human hearts are missionaries of His Sacred Heart. Our commitment must have the same clarity as Jesus when he tells the people that he must announce the Good News of the Kingdom of God to others also. It is synonymous with the proud yet humble confession of all MSCs: I must announce the Good News of the love of God revealed in the Sacred Heart of Jesus first being a missionary to the self in order to become a missionary to all.
Fr. Chevalier witnessed the ills of his time a great threat to the wellbeing of humanity. He became a missionary to bring the people to the Sacred Heart to find remedy to those ills of the society. Once again we have a difficulty in understanding our position here clearly.
Since our outlook on the ills of our time are the ills of the ‘so called’ sinners our there – the Dasein of Heidegger. If an MSC is not be able to witness the ills of his own self and continually attempt to better himself, his focus on witnessing and addressing the world on the evils of the society would not be efficacious and transformative.
Let us build our own selves, our own hearts to be better equipped to face and address the evils of the world – a relatively smaller problem compared to facing and addressing the evils of the self. Certainly evils of our society make us active missionaries, full time missionaries. If we are exhausted focusing our own evils of the self and of our communities, we would not have time left for the missionary activities to the society.
As responsible people, shouldering such a great responsibility as that of being Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, we should take our title and charism seriously and responsibly. In the words of Robert Frost, ‘We have miles to go and promises to keep’. Let us walk forward on those miles and keep those promises. Amen.

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22nd Sunday: Taking up the Cross, following Jesus

Church is missionary in nature. The church is also prophetic in nature. We all participate in the same missionary spirit. We are proclaiming the Word of God through our word and deed as children of God. Proclamation is not the monopoly of the clerics or the leaders of the church but everyone’s obligation. Each one according to his or her ability, at least in one way proclaims God to the world. ‘To Proclaim’ is very effective and more witnessing than ‘to read’ or ‘to preach’. It is aggressively at the same time, sacredly emanating the sparkle of God that is deep buried in our hearts as in the words of Jeremiah in the first reading today.
All that we proclaim has a prior influence in the way we live and witness the love of God. All priests who proclaim the word of God should have had the same zeal in experiencing the experiences that they preach about. We expect priests today to practice what they preach; in the same way, the Christians who listen and practice the Christian way should be able to preach it.
In our proclamation of God’s love to others, we encounter sufferings of many kinds. Priests and bishops get killed for their faith even today in different parts of the world. An honest wife wants to save the family by her sacrifices; a father goes all the way in supporting his son in all his addictions; a daughter-in-law puts up with everything in the life of her dying mother-in-law. Politicians sacrifice a lot to get to the top spots. Athletes sweat their life to decorate their chests with Olympic medals. We witness people suffer for anything and everything to win and win and win – never lose.
Christ teaches us the same winning lesson today:
1. Take up: Don’t dump it on others, don’t drag, don’t cheat on God and other in carrying, rather taking it up, holding it firm, embracing it completely, accepting it willfully.
2. Your Cross: take up not your houses, cars, bank accounts and your jobs, rather, your cross – all that tie you down, making you aware your humanness, your naked self, your burdens, all that refuse you to call God ‘Father’, your problems, your tragedies, and your inabilities.
3. Follow me: You can do the following namely taking up and holding the cross and yet follow someone else or something else. We all have the tendency to be easily distracted by the way of the world and choose Heroes who have nothing to do with our personal life, affecting us in anyway.
Taking up our crosses and following Christ are both related since we willingly follow Jesus who gives us the strength lift our own crosses. And our crosses always need a way, a path – that road is less travelled. We are all prophets in the church, commissioned by God to proclaim his love to all. A prophet is accepted in his homeland only if he has the vocation to take up his cross and follow Him – just like our Lord Jesus. Let us imitate him in taking up our own crosses willingly and follow him joyfully. It is after all a journey of joy and a journey of hope and a journey of love. Amen

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MSC Spirituality with John the Baptist

Certain gifts bring smiles to faces; certain gifts bring great laughter and sometimes, a sigh of relief. Gifts of being a religious bring us men of faith; gifts of being a missionary bring us face to face with our mission. Gifts of the gospel are always the gifts of happiness and joy, not pertaining so much of this world, but heaven.
As we have just seen in the gospel, that not all the gifts bring happiness in the real sense, certain joys are the results of our selfishness and ego, such as the unaccountability of Herodias, fear of facing the truth in the person of Herod, abuse and misuse of freedom from the part of Salome.
Herod and sometimes I think that my words are Word of God, no iota can be erased or taken away from my ‘edicts’; forgetting that God is the Word. If individuals have individual words being sown here and there, there will be no community harvest. Community persons resemble individuals like Fr. Piperon of whom Fr. Maugenest exclaims “I loved him much and admired him more, I have never known anyone who was so humble nor anyone, who to me seemed marked to the same degree with the true seal of sanctity.”
We see the exact opposite views of Herod and John in their view of the world:
“I want my words to be carried on, whatever the result be, I don’t care.”
“I am not the light, I only bear witness to the light” or “I am not worthy to untie his sandals.”
There could be persons like Herodias or Salome in communities too. I want to get things done by following sinful ways or short-cuts expecting that I will be happy ever after.
We see the exact opposite views of Herodias and Salome and John in their view of the world:
“I am the center of attraction, all look at me, I want all glory, praise, attention and I don’t care who suffers on account of my selfishness”
“Behold the lamb of God” or “I must decrease, He must increase”.
Fr. Founder expects us to be the ‘Sacraments of the Kindness of God’. Bishop Cuskelly says, “If you don’t know how demanding and self-denying this can be, then you have never tried it. Here all of us have a constant challenge and continued matter for examination of conscience, in honesty, humility in daily confession of failure, in prayer that we must not grow weary of the continued effort required of us”.
John the Baptist speaks to the MSCs in the same language: Behold the Lamb of God, Behold the Heart of God. An MSC has all the potential to behold the Heart of God by beholding his own heart. That is what we are. Much is given, and much is expected.

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21st Sunday: Homily

Quite often we see Jesus having this personal encounter with people such as Peter, Paul, Thomas, Mary Magdalene, woman at the well and the like. All these encounters leave behind indelible marks in them, moving them to see the heart of God. This calls for a total change of vision and mission. These personal encounters are for the personal growth of the chosen people, and they are also for the communal growth of the church.
Peter’s whole life is a symbol of the church in itself. Peter was to encounter Jesus with the persuasion of his brother Andrew. He was to make known the revelation which has been given from above, that Jesus was the Christ. He was to get himself in a difficult and opposing position with Jesus on account of being very earthly in heart and mind. He was given the commission to lead the group of the apostles and gets his name and meaning of life changed by Jesus. Peter was set to betray Jesus and was to weep and repent later on to be encouraged by Jesus to tend His sheep.
We should not be distracted that the confessions of the people are very shallow lacking in faith – no, they are indeed great confessions since, John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah are the greatest prophets the people have witnessed. People have compared the hard hitting faith and the synchronizing humility of John the Baptist with a person who is born to Joseph and Mary, a carpenter by profession; a VIP who still holds a chair in Jewish Passover feast with a person who has no place to lay his head, another VIP who will bring back the ark and the altar of God when the Messiah shows up, another forerunner of the Messiah with the Christ himself. People have seen the light and started to be illumined by that light gradually.
Though these confessions are from the people, who seldom see and experience Jesus they hold great faith in them. Certainly these confessions call for a challenge in the groups of apostles and disciples of Jesus who are forever with him, experiencing him day and night. Jesus challenges the apostles to build on the faith of the people: “friends, look at the faith of the people: if they could walk that far with me, how much more you could have walked.” Notice that Jesus never said that the confessions of the people are wrong or faulty: “they are wrong, they need better catechism, they are heresies and these people don’t know anything, I should teach them the correct lessons: people you are all wrong.” Jesus wants his friends to build their faith on the simple faith of the people. Ordinary people have a lot to teach the leaders and the teachers of the church.
Peter’s confession gets him the awards of the keys of the Kingdom. The keys of the kingdom are faith, hope and love. Jesus telling Peter and other apostles “I will give you faith to build the church, I will also give you hope to look for the new heaven and a new earth. I will also teach you how to love like me, so that together we will build the Kingdom of God”. All baptized Christians share the ownership of the keys with Peter that we show the world how strong our faith is, how strong our hope is in expecting the world emerging from the Love of God in our own personal ways and hold high respect the ways that other religious show the same sentiments.
This brings us to the self revelation of us in many ways. If God can ask this question, “who do you think I am”, we can ask the same question to God. God tell me what I am like. And we are sure God gives the most clearest of answers since God is the only one who knows us to the full. Only he has the power to reveal to us who we really are. Our confessions on God may waver, or momentary but God’s revelations are always right and piercing as ever. Let us pray that God continues to reveal us who we really are and most importantly pray for the church leaders that they may always be faithful to this particular question of Jesus in their journey as Christians. Amen.

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Homily for 20th Sunday

In the first Eucharistic prayer for reconciliation we read that from the beginning of time, God has done what is good for man. I often wondered why on earth we ask God all that we do during our prayers, mass and other spiritual gatherings, since God knows our needs and gives us what we need in right time. And nearly every time I consoled myself thinking that God also knows that we will ask Him for all that we are about to ask him. He certainly said to the disciples and the people: Ask and you will receive, whatever you ask in my name, father will give you. Asking God for our needs reveal a certain character of us. It reveals us and others the nature of our faith. We are as Christians, as missionaries ‘Asking people’. Since life comes from God, all that life holds come from God also.
Even before we ask him, God knows and continues to give us. There is actually no need of asking, or searching or knocking at God. Why do we do them? It is to deepen our faith in God. We ask God for our needs, not because God is dumb or deaf, not because God is ignorant, forgetful or insensitive to the needs of His own people. We ask God to show how deep our faith is in Him.
The woman in the gospel is an enemy of the Jews. She is not a Christian; does not know the Love of God shown in the Heart of Christ, does not have a clue about the sacraments and the out-pouring of the Spirit. She does not go to church every Sunday not observes the days of obligation; does not experience God in the Eucharist, does not experience God’s forgiveness at the reconciliation. But Jesus certifies her saying ‘Woman great is your faith.’ This bangs at the heart of Christians who fulfill an obligation of coming and attending the service on Sundays and Christians who put their trust in their bungalows, cars, and bank accounts, and Christians who render lip-service and whose hearts are far from God.
It calls for a greater challenge on the Christians in the modern world today. Those who lick the crumbs that fall from the Master’s table are well-fed and contended in their spiritual journey, whereas the children who could eat all that they want from the table of the Lord are skinny and mal-nourished often found in their death-bed. Those children will die soon.
We have to keep in mind that our asking ability has great effect and influence not on God but on us. It should affect us too greatly that our faith is increased through that. This woman in the Gospel today, though an outsider shows us how our prayers should be: She had love. She had faith; a faith that worshipped Jesus. She had indomitable persistence and had the gift of cheerfulness.
On the contrary the gospel gives hint at the mind-set of the disciples in listening to the needy: ‘send her away’. As true disciples we are not only praying for the increase of faith in us personally and communally but also pray that we are sensitive to the needs of the society. Our God is not the god of the Christians alone, rather God of all. Let us pray that this church of ours may be open to the revelation of the whole humanity: Oh God let all nations praise you. Amen.

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Homily on the Assumption of Mary

God is Spirit. He created the flesh and found it very good. Flesh is blessed by God. Through the incarnation of Jesus coming down, flesh was sanctified by God. The human flesh was so vulnerable and prone to sin and temptation so easily, it needs the creative hand of God, blessing of God and Sanctification by God. Through the assumption of Mary, it reaches another milestone; the Flesh is graced by God through Mary.
The Church teaches us that Mary with the whole reality of her life – with body and soul, therefore, - has entered into that perfect fulfillment which every Christian hopes for from the grace of God, as the one outcome and fruit of his own human life. By ‘flesh’, the one, complete, true physical human being was meant, and of him the Church says that his last end and his perfection consists in sharing one day the eternal glory of his creator, with the entire reality that constitutes him, glorified in his body, surrounded by a new heaven and a new earth, filled in all his spiritual powers by the whole splendor of the eternal Word.
That is the one eternal goal of man. Man is called to enter with body and soul into God’s life and God’s own glory. She has attained her perfect beatitude – Mary, full of grace has accomplished her earthy course, just as Christ is risen with his human nature.
Today’s Gospel teaches us a good lesson. The prayer of Mary is preceded by her good deeds: she rushed to serve the old woman Elizabeth. Though the flesh has the ability to ascend to divinity through opening our hearts in prayers, it is adorned further with grace through our good deeds: our sensitivity to the needs of others, our forgiving spirit, and our ability in walking an extra mile in love.
We know that the prayer of Mary, the Magnificat is an overwhelming and powerful prayer in the history and tradition of Christianity. This prayer is a powerful one since Mary had the ability to let God grace her flesh with her servanthood and Discipleship.
Magnificat influenced Jesus to the full, that his ability to teach the ‘Our Father’ to his apostles had its origin in it. ‘My soul glorifies the Lord’ is equivalent to ‘Our Father who art in heaven.’ God’s blessing and sanctification happens in and through Jesus in the ‘Our Father’ and man’s response and gratitude in ascending to the Divine love is experienced in and through ‘My soul glorifies the Lord’ of Mary. Mary teaches us that one lesson: to respond to God’s love with an undivided heart.
What is the lesson for us today? We are not here just to wonder and marvel at our great Mother; rather we stand by her in perfecting our own flesh, our own bodies. We have a responsibility in making it obvious that our bodies are temples of Holy Spirit. All temples belong to God. Let us pray that through the prayer and intercession of Mary, may our bodies be blessed, sanctified and graced by God, thus we too take part in the assumption of Mary. Amen.

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a little bit about our constitutions

I was asked to say the morning mass in the community. I had a chance to preach about the constitutions connecting them to the gospel of the day. Many appreciated me on my presentation. i would like to give u an outline of the homily here.
Constitution is defined as an authoritative ordinance or enactment, an established law, the mode of organization of a group, and a Statute is something laid down or declared as fixed or established.
A Statute is what the Legislature decides is good for us. A Constitution is the authority that gives the Legislature the power to enact a Statute.
It could be a possibility that often missionaries and religious fall into the effects of statutes and forget about the basic constitutions that make us missionaries and religious persons. A lot of time in invested in how to play about the statutes, rather than meditating and living the spirit of our constitutions. Less and less religious turn the pages of spirit and life and mission of the society, and turn the pages of organization and temporal goods of the constitution booklets.
This brings us face to face with living with the people in day to day basis. Most of the misgivings, misunderstandings, unforgiving tendencies, revenge, and like press our shoulders because there is no follow up work on our spirit-filled constitutions. They are often discarded on account of flowery words and unpractical approach. Thus the Constitution books are taken for granted, left aloof in the junk thinking that we have known it by heart and are aware of the whole book just as we face the word of God at times.
Const 13, The Spirit of our Society is one of love and kindness, humility and simplicity.
Const 24, In a constant effort to share in the sentiments of the heart of Christ, we will be attentive to all human needs and aspirations, such as the need to be respected as persons, the need for love and peace, for freedom, justice and truth, and the search for meaning in life.
Const 31, We are all brothers, given to one another to live and work together for the sake of the kingdom. Fraternal charity will be of basic importance in community life.
Const 33, True community does not come about all at once. It grows by God’s grace and the constant effort of each member. It needs to be built up each day into a community of faith and love…. Knit together by fraternal relationships, knows that he is recognized, accepted, heard, encouraged and challenged.
I presume u all are aware of Const 32.
There is no need for us MSCs to even think about sinning against another fellow MSC, it is unconstitutional and calls for a deeper love and intimacy. Let us pray that we have time for these constitutions which throw light on our interpersonal relationships. Let us pray for each other that each might be able to witness the Heart of Christ in other. Amen.

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Patching up

Dear friends!
Its been quite some time i blogged. So many things have gone past since then. When i heard from my superior Fr. Tijo that i am going to the USA, i was disappointed over my career as a lecturer at Vidhya Sagar College. I was just shapping to be a good teacher and worked only for a year to get to a decent position of a teacher. I miss my students, my staff room and all the fun that comes with the package.
USA has been fun. We had to stop over in Paris and catch another plane to get to chicago. To my surprise i saw the Aurora community is filled with elderly MSCs. For a moment, i thought i am lost and i would not be going to enjoy my stay here. On the contrary, here comes a bunch of middle aged MSCs who became friendly in a short span of time. This Aurora community is presided by Fr. Peter Campbell, the superior and other elderly MSCs. This is also the place where the Provincial lives along with his bursar. They have a big office in the main building. Jim Millar is the provincial bursar, br. Warren is in charge of Justice and peace. Br.Dan is going back to papue, but he is taking care of the kitchen, and he is a good cook. There is brs,George, Jo, Nick and frs. Tom, Joe, and Steve. Steve is the Provincial Secretary.
After the consultation with the provincial, i was sent to California, a period of five days. i left for california on 4th of August. From Chicago Midwest airport we took off to reach Phoenix and then on to Ontario (California). Fr.Earl and br.Jean live there in the Native American Reservations. Fr. Earl is a great missionary and he is inspirational too. They have a parish and a school. The situation is very different from what we know of in India.
I will try to share with you some of my experiences with the native indians later.
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