With the celebration of the Feast of Christ the King on November 26, 2023, we will bring to a close the liturgical year 2022-23, and with the First Sunday of Advent on December 3, 2023, we will begin the new Liturgical Year 2023-24.

In our life we are familiar with ‘calendar year’, ‘academic year’ and ‘financial year’. The calendar year from January to December is the fundamental point of reference for our birth and death and all the events of our life while we are on this earth. It takes us through the change of seasons and has much to do with the crops we cultivate for our sustenance and the religious as well as cultural ordering of our lives in its various aspects. The calendar year is indispensable for human history.

However, the other two ‘years’ – academic and financial - have been created for specific purposes within our life’s cycle and their ending is very important for the shape our life will take. The academic year usually ends with exams to gauge our academic progress during the year while the latter ends with the auditing of our accounts to give us a picture of the financial progress of the year. Both these exercises provide us with a ‘report’ as to how we have fared during the year and, in their own way, determine the next course of action for our life.

What about the ‘liturgical year’ divided into the seasons of Advent - Christmastide – Lent - Eastertide - Ordinary Time and adorned with numerous commemorations of Saints, especially of our Blessed Mother every month? What role does it play in our Christian life as members of the Catholic Church? Do we need to do an ‘end of the year’ review and reckoning in order to be aware of where we stand before God and in our discipleship of Our Lord Jesus Christ?

The Holy Spirit has inspired the Church to create the ‘liturgical year’ so that we may grow not only physically, intellectually, socially and economically but above all spiritually , i.e., in God’s grace and sanctify every moment of our life as we move through time and know that our true destiny is not on this earth but in the world to come: “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14). When we walk in the light of God’s grace we judge everything from the point of view of God’s Kingdom as proclaimed by Our Lord Jesus Christ and make the values and priorities of the Gospel the pattern of our life.

In our Christian life of discipleship, our heart has to be where our treasure is; and where is our treasure? Our treasure is in heaven “where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Mathew 6:20). We have to keep before us always the words of Our Lord: “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Mathew 6:33). If we are looking for earthly treasures only we will be like the foolish man in the ‘Parable of the Rich Fool’ (cf. Luke 12: 13-21) who considered himself rich and secure because he had gathered wealth for himself on this earth, but that very night his soul was called to account and he had to leave everything behind. Earthly prosperity and success did not guarantee for him eternal salvation, on the contrary it endangered his salvation. Therefore, Our Lord warns us, “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God” (Luke 12: 21).

From the day of our Baptism, we have pledged our fidelity to Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and have made our promise to walk on his path that leads to salvation. It is a difficult path as Our Lord himself has clearly told us without mincing words, but also a path of joy and blessedness that comes from above and which this world cannot give us.

Without prejudice to God’s grace to act in every person in ways that surpass human understanding, still at the end of every liturgical year we definitely need to examine our consciences to take stock of our spiritual progress and ask ourselves whether we have walked faithfully on the path of the Gospel and allowed the Holy Spirit to lead us more deeply into the Paschal Mystery of Christ.

Let us evaluate our life in the light of the Gospel to check where we stand in terms of our faithfulness to the Word of life, that is, Our Lord Jesus Christ himself who is our way, our truth and our life.

Our Lord’s teaching on repentance, on the beatitudes, on humility, on peace and reconciliation, on compassion, on forgiveness, on love, on selfless service, on childlikeness, on prayer, on seeing his face in the poor and downtrodden, on taking up our cross to follow him and on being his witnesses until the end of time should be the touchstone on which we evaluate our lives.

St. Paul, in all his letters, exhorts us on the mystery of our new life in Christ. He says, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Roman 6:4). Since we are risen with Christ, we are no longer enslaved to sin but we are alive to God in Christ Jesus. The beautiful words of St. Paul:

“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace” (Romans 6:12-14).

In order to live a life of holiness and grow in it day by day we need to ‘abide’ in the Lord (cf. John 15:1-17). It is matter of our personal and communitarian communion with the Lord which is also our communion in the Holy Trinity. Our Lord Jesus has promised us that the one who abides in him will also bear fruits that abide, and these fruits are the virtues that should make us shine like “lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15) – “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control… And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5: 22-24).

In order to evaluate our life in the light of the Gospel and examine ourselves whether we truly walk in the footsteps of the Lord as his faithful disciples, we can focus our attention on three important passages from the letters of St. Paul on the ‘new life in Christ’.

The letter to the Ephesians speaks of the ‘old self’ which we have put off and which belongs to our former manner of life and the ‘new self’ we have put on in Baptism, “the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24). He says:

“Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbour, for we are members of one another…Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil…Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4: 25-32).

In his letter to the Colossians, St. Paul once again refers to the ‘old self’ with all its practices and the ‘new self’ which is the image of our creator himself. He exhorts us to put to death what is ‘earthly’ in us, i.e., “sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5). The ‘new self’ is compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience and forgiveness. We are called to forgive one another as the Lord has forgiven us. And above all, he says, “put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful” (Colossians 3: 12-15).

Another very important teaching is the ‘Way of Love’ so powerfully described in the 1 ^st letter to the Corinthians: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13: 4-7).

It becomes so evident from the above that the Word of God should be the foundation of our lives. When God’s Word informs our thoughts, words and deeds, then the HOLY EUCHARIST acquires the central place in our life’s journey and the sacramental life becomes meaningful. We realize that all our devotions such as the Rosary and the veneration of the Saints, particularly the tender devotion to Our Blessed Mother, all flow from God’s Word and work towards shaping and moulding us into God’s chosen instruments to bring the newness of life in Christ to the whole world.

The liturgical year will never cease to bring to our consciousness the great truth that in God’s infinite mercy, “we are born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading” ( 1 Peter 1: 3-4) , kept in heaven for us, “who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1Peter 1: 5).

So, at the close of the liturgical year, we have to allow our conscience to give us a report card and with trust in God’s merciful love, resolve to be ever WATCHFUL against the wiles of the evil one.

The month of October begins with the feast of St. Teresa of the Child Jesus or the Little Flower as we are accustomed to call her.

What great virtue does she hold be fore us in her littleness? None other than humble and unshakeable confidence in God’s love which is also God’s mercy become incarnate in Jesus Christ – the Eternal Word become flesh for our salvation.

Exactly like St. Pul who could exclaim, “For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15: 9-10) and “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13), St. Teresa of the Child Jesus considers herself as the ‘greatest of all sinners’. This ‘littleness’ is for her like an ‘elevator’ that lifts her up into the arms of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. So great was her humility that she sees in herself sins and imperfections galore, but so great was her childlike confidence in the mercy of God in Christ that she is absolutely confident that the Lord will lift her up to the summit of the mountain of love.

This great saint never tires of stressing the infinite mercy of God revealed to us in Jesus Christ our loving Saviour. In other words, she is proclaiming the hope Christ has brought to humanity in his life, death and resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit when he tells his disciples, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.” (Luke 24:46-48).

However much the modern culture may try to eradicate the sense of sin from our consciousness, our consciences will betray us. In the depth of our being the ‘inner voice’ will never cease to tell us that we have wronged. Yet, the question is, should we be overburdened by feelings of guilt? Should the dark and ugly side of our life make us morose and take away the joy of our life?

Here comes the Gospel of Divine Mercy and what St. Teresa of the Child Jesus has been propagating through the spirituality of the ‘little way’: Let the purifying Sun, the Light of Light, Jesus Christ Our Lord and Saviour change the dust that we are into pure gold. Instead of plunging into the misery of past memories, plunge yourself into the furnace of Divine Love, i.e., the Merciful Heart of Jesus, through a single act of humble confidence. If we believe enough in merciful love, we’ll stop believing too much in our own wretchedness.

“We must have confidence, not in spite of our miseries, but because of them, since it is misery that attracts mercy” [Fr. Jean C.J. D’Elbée, I Believe in Love , Bangalore: ATC Publishers, p. 29].

The Little Flower believed with all her heart that she could repent and throw herself into the arms of Jesus at any time, even if she had on her conscience all the sins that she could commit. She knew that Jesus could never reject the repentant sinner who returns to him. Such was her humble confidence in the provident mercy of the Lord. Shortly before her death she openly declared that she had such confidence in the mercy of God that she considered all the multitude of her sins and offences as a drop of water in the immense ocean of God’s love and mercy.

What the Little Flower assures us of is very clear: the more we see ourselves as weak, wretched and unworthy sinners who have fallen and prone to fall, the more should be our confidence in the mercy of our Divine Saviour, and the more we should run to Him in a childlike trust that never plays us false and never lets us down, because His love is limitless, His mercy is infinite.

Every time we receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation the parable of the ‘Prodigal Son’ or the ‘Prodigal Father’ is replayed. This Sacrament always renews our trust and confidence in the mercy of God. It is a profound and ineffable experience of our Saviour who tells us, “Your sins are forgiven…Your faith has saved you; go in peace” (Luke 7:48-50).

In the Church and human society, we need to lift up one another to have the courage of the ‘prodigal son’ to return to the Lord in repentance and humble confidence that ‘I will not be rejected’ but will be ‘lovingly accepted’. This ministry within the Church is invaluable and especially in our relationship with the young who are always in need of such encouragement lest they lose their faith.

All who came to Jesus for healing and forgiveness and received salvation showed in their life this quality of humble and unshakeable confidence in the Lord’s power to heal them physically, mentally and spiritually, but we can never forget for instance:

- the centurion who said to Jesus, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed” (Mathew 8:8)

- the Cananite woman who replied to Jesus’ curt response saying, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table” (Mathew 15:27)

- the sinful woman who “brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment” (Luke 7:37-38).

- the woman who touched the fringe of Jesus’ garment with such a remarkable confidence: “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” (Mark 5:28)

- Zaccheus, who said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold” (Luke 19: 8)

- The Good Thief on Calvary, who cried to the Lord in the dying moments of his life, ”Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” (Luke 23: 42).

- Peter, who said to the Risen Lord on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” (John 21: 17).

Whatever be the depth of our sinfulness and misery, our weaknesses and failures, if we look toward Jesus with the look and disposition of the Good Thief we will receive pardon and purification in a moment and the promise of Our Lord, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).

Jesus needs nothing from us except our humility and our confidence in order to work marvels of purification and sanctification in our lives, and the more we realize our unworthiness the more we will have recourse to Him who is our Resurrection and our Life.

What does Jesus lament most when He is with His disciples? Their lack of confidence . During the episode of the ‘Calming of the Storm’, when the disciples are filled with great anguish and fear that they are going to drown despite the fact that Jesus is present in the boat though sleeping, Jesus calms the storm but gently reprimands His disciples saying, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” (Mark 4: 40).

Even though Jesus looked to be ‘sleeping’, He was there in the boat in the very midst of His disciples, therefore there was no need for them to be terrified. He was watching over them with the utmost tenderness and love.

It is not so much our sins as much as our lack of faith and our doubts that pain Jesus. To quote Fr. D’Elbée:

“But you see, we have lost so completely the notion of the entire confidence that He expects of us, that we sometimes make a prayer of the words for which He reproached His Apostles: ‘Lord, save us; we are perishing!’

This is not how we should pray, but rather, ‘With You, Jesus, I cannot perish; You are always in the boat with me; what have I to fear? You may sleep; I shall not awaken You. My poor nature will tremble, oh yes! But with all my will I shall remain in peace in the midst of the storm, confident in You…

The great tempest is what our sins stir up in our souls. It is there that Jesus must arise in order that a ‘great calm may descend’” (I Believe in Love, p. 41)…

St. Paul is the best model for us of the humble and unshakeable confidence that should mark our life of Christian discipleship when he says:

“I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost” (1 Timothy 1: 12-15).

Like St. Teresa of the Child Jesus let us abandon ourselves into the arms of Jesus remembering what St. John Mary Vianney said: “It is not the sinner who comes back to God to ask His pardon, but God Himself who runs after the sinner and who brings Him back to Himself” [I Believe in Love, p. 80].

In his discourse on the end of the world, Our Lord addresses his disciples in the following words:

“And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And the gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Mathew 24: 12-14).

We are experiencing so much of lawlessness and communal hatred that is engulfing our beloved motherland and even the world. Christians in particular have become targets of hatred and violence in many parts of our country and in the world; and within the Christian community itself there are divisions and open antagonism towards one another on the basis of rites and denominations.

Is it a sign that ‘our love has grown cold’? Are we facing the ‘end times’?

We don’t know, because the Lord has clearly told his disciples: “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority” (Acts 1:7).

Then what is the message for us from the Lord in these critical times?

We are called to put to the test the authenticity of our discipleship by examining our consciences in the light of the Holy Spirit and pray that we become day by day and more and more credible witnesses of the Gospel at all times and seasons. The Lord is not promising us a comfortable and secure life. On the contrary he says, “they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake” (Mathew 24:9). The persecutions will also give rise to Christians comprising the Gospel for their security as well as betraying one another; moreover, there will be false prophets leading the people astray. What the Lord is asking of us is: ENDURANCE – ‘the one who endures to the end will be saved’. Endurance is the fruit of a personal experience of the Risen Lord and personal communion with him who is Our Lord and Saviour. It is our communion in the Holy Trinity and within the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church – the Body of Christ. It is the gift of the Holy Spirit to every disciple of Christ.

In the recent events of horrendous violence in Manipur and to a lesser degree in Nuh (Haryana), we have witnessed the extent of destruction, suffering, pain and death humans can inflict on one another when their animal instincts are unbridled.

The question is: Is violence the means to settle our differences and resolve our problems? Has it ever been proved in history that humanity can come to an amicable solution through hatred, violence and warfare? NEVER. Violence only leads to more enmity, more hatred, more anger, more division and the perennial desire to seek revenge and respond ‘tit for tat’. It is not without reason that Our Lord said: “For all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Mathew 26:52). The opposite is the path that leads to unity, reconciliation and healing, and this path is of humility, forgiveness, and love as the Gospel of Christ teaches us.

Ahimsa is the cultural heritage of our country as emphasized by Gandhiji. It means love and service of the whole of creation. It means attainment, through complete selflessness and the spirit of service, of a state of equilibrium and perfect harmony in relationship to the universe.

If this is the essence of our culture and its core, our behaviour with one another cannot be based on violence of any kind – whether of thought, word or deed. For Gandhiji, non-violence is primarily freedom from lust, anger, greed, infatuation, pride and falsehood. These are the six deadly ‘enemies’ within us which militate against the virtues of non-anger, non-fear, non-taste, non-hurting, and finally non-killing which is the supreme virtue of ahimsa. It means ‘active love’ which calls for suffering and self-sacrifice. Unless there is the inner transformation of the heart, there cannot be non-violence.

This is what Gandhiji learnt from all religions, and above all from the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ, as he himself testifies. The ‘Sermon on the Mount’ had a deep influence on him. Why? Because no one who listens to his or her conscience can deny the truth of the teachings of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

In these days when every sensible person in our country is crying for peace in the context of the violence in Manipur and elsewhere, we remember the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ which proclaims the Kingdom of God and calls humanity to humble repentance if unity and love, peace and joy are to be established on this earth.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Mathew 5:9) is the truth Our Lord has clearly proclaimed and for which he died on the Cross. His resurrection on the third day is the victory of the Gospel he taught and lived. Peace was the message the angels announced at his birth and peace was the gift he left for us at his death. To this message of peace is linked his teachings on the primacy of reconciliation, on turning the other cheek, on love of enemies, on being like the Good Samaritan, on washing of the feet, on childlikeness, on seeing the face of God in the poor and downtrodden.

Later on, the Apostles continue the teachings of the Lord:

“Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty but associate with the lowly…Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Roman 12:14-21).

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude… So now faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1Corinthians 13: 4-13).

“Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing” (1 Peter 3: 8-9).

St. Gregory of Nyssa points to the essential connection between the war within and without: “We too, then should not only be reconciled with those who attack us from without, we should also bring together the warring factions within us, so that the flesh may no longer be opposed to the spirit and the spirit to the flesh…And so, when the civil war in our nature has been brought to an end and we are at peace within ourselves, we may become peace. Then we shall really be true to the name of Christ that we bear” [cf. Office of Readings , Thursday, 19 ^th Wek of the Year].

St. Peter Chrysologus, reflecting on the Beatitude ‘Blessed are the peace makers for they shall be called the children of God’,states with conviction that the Christian virtues can only come to fruition in the person who preserves the simplicity of Christian peace. Therefore, no one can be called a child of God without first deserving the name of peacemaker.

The source of all love and peace is God himself who plants a well rooted peace in our souls, but the devil, who is the ‘father of lies’, wishes to uproot this peace completely from our souls and plant, in its place, hatred and enmity. But we have to remember, ‘the one who hates her/his brother or sister is a murderer’.

This is how St. Peter Chrsysologus describes the freedom that peace brings:

“It is peace, my dear brethren, which frees a man from slavery, and ennobles him. In God’s eyes his condition as well as his character is changed, for peace makes a son of a servant, and a free man of a slave. Peace in the community is God’s will; it is the sweetness of Christ and the perfection of sanctity. Peace is the rule of justice, the mistress of learning, the guardian of morals; its restraining influence is everywhere to be commended. It is the goal of our prayers, an easy and effective way of making atonement, the complete fulfilment of all our longings. Peace is the mother of love, the bond of friendship, the clearest proof of that innocence which craves satisfaction of God, which seeks fulfilment and has its longing satisfied. Peace must be preserved by precepts which have binding force, for the Lord Jesus Christ has said: ‘I leave you peace, my peace I give you’, that is to say: I parted from you in peace and I will find you in peace; he wanted to leave us with something which he hoped to find in every man’s heart on his return.”

The above description gives us the reason why we must love peace and cherish harmony, for they are the very conditions which produce charity and sustain it. As St. Paul says, ‘Charity comes from God’; consequently, a person without charity is godless…

St. Peter Chrysologus exhorts us thus: “The community should be closely knit in peace. Let us be motivated by mutual love and bind ourselves in bonds of saving charity, which covers a multitude of sins. We should embrace love with every desire of our heart, for it can have as many graces as rewards. We should guard peace before all the virtues, for God is always present in peace.”

[cf. Office of Readings on July 4, optional memorial of St. Elizabeth of Portugal (1271-1336), who was married to the king of Portugal and, on the death of her husband, gave her worldly goods to the poor and took the habit of the Third Order of St. Francis. She is known for the reconciliation she effected between her son and son-in-law].

In the Evening Prayer of Sunday Week 4 we pray for peace in these words: “Your people have known the ravages of war and hatred: - grant that they may know the peace left by your Son”.

With childlike confidence in God’s mercy towards us, let us entrust our beloved motherland to the intercession of our Blessed Mother, the Queen of Peace, as we celebrate the feast of her Nativity on September 8 and have already celebrated her glorious Assumption which always coincides providentially with the anniversary of India’s Independence.

The above is the theme of the 2023 World Youth Day (WYD) scheduled to take place in Lisbon (Portugal) from August 1-6, 2023; but a week prior to that the thousands of Catholic Youth from all over the world who will arrive in Portugal will be hosted by Portuguese families in their homes for cultural exchange as is the usual practice with all World Youth Days. They will have a chance to stay with at least two families, if not more. The star event of the gathering will undoubtedly be the presence of Pope Francis amidst the young people. Of course, the young people will be accompanied by their pastors and animators, among them very many Bishops from all over the world.

The theme is connected with the one of the previous WYD held in Panama City in 2019, “I am the servant of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word”(Luke 1:38).

What is the significance of placing Mary, our Blessed Mother at the centre for this mammoth gathering of the youth?

Our Blessed Mother is the epitome of a prompt ‘yes’ to God’s will in all humility. In her ‘Magnificat’ she calls herself God’s ‘handmaid’ which means a ‘servant’ who is ever ready to be at the beck and call of the master; yet she does not hesitate from declaring that “all generations will call me blessed”. It is not a boasting but a humble admission of the goodness and greatness of God, who has done “great things” for her. Her life’s journey of many hardships, uncertainties, sorrows and pains but also joy in the Holy Spirit, which she traversed in her proverbial ‘silence’ is her testimony to her fidelity to God’s will. She could have definitely chosen for herself a more comfortable life by running away from these challenges that came from God but she did not; therefore, we see her at the foot of the Cross on the hill of Calvary facing with courage the ignominious death of her Son and uttering her ‘yes’ to God with his ‘yes’ to his Father’s will – such a marvellous culmination of her fiat spoken thirty-three years earlier.

This was of course not the end of God’s design; Jesus would rise again on the third day victorious over sin, the devil and death itself, and in this victory Mary would have a full share because of her fidelity to God’s will. We celebrate on August 15 her ‘Assumption’ into heaven, body and soul, whereby the Church openly professes that God has fulfilled in her what he declared to her through Archangel Gabriel, “Greetings, O highly favoured one, the Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28). She is truly the most highly favoured one of God and indeed all generations henceforth have called her ‘blessed’.

The current theme, “Mary arose and went with haste” (Luke 1:39) points to the Spirit-filled personality of Mary that made her to forget her own needs and decide to rush to the aid of her cousin Elizabeth who, as revealed by Archangel Gabriel, was already in the sixth month of her pregnancy in her advanced age.

Here I would like to quote three paragraphs from Breath of the Spirit (New York: Orbis Books, 1978) by the late Fr. Samuel Rayan, SJ, of happy memory (once upon a time professor at Vidyajyoti, Delhi). These are very relevant to the theme:

“In Mary’s life there was prompt concern for others… It was soon as soon as the angel left her after her own announcement that she showed this concern for her cousin. If Mary had been trained in the piety of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when she experienced this invasion of the divine into her being and her life, she would probably have shut herself up and given herself wholly to contemplation. But the New Testament tells us that when the angel departed, Mary was concerned, for a woman far away was with child and might have need for her help. Even if she does not need me, Mary thinks, I can greet her and congratulate her.

Here again we note that the authenticity of the presence of the Holy Spirit is discovered in relationships, in outgoing concern, rather than in concentration on one’s personal holiness. God is not primarily interested in the self-centered holiness of any person. He is interested in the human reality as a whole and the quality of its existence, and that depends upon the quality of our relationships within the community. It is only thus that the human community can become an adequate and beautiful reflection of what God himself is, a community of love where the centre is not self but the other. The centre of the Father’s life is the Son, and the centre of the Spirit is the Son and the Father.

Pro-existence, living for the other, is the index of authenticity. Therefore, Mary goes to one in need of her aid, in need of her presence, in need of encouragement, in need of someone with whom to share a secret and a joy. It is to this sort of concern that the Spirit impels” (pp. 25-26).

What is the invitation to young people from this word of God so powerfully placed before them?

Like Mary, they are called to be Spirit-filled people, running the extra mile, despite all odds, to bring God’s love, joy and peace to others, especially the deprived, the afflicted, the needy, the marginalized and the down and out. Just as Mary did not settle down in her comfort zone, they too should rise and act in order to make things happen for the good of our beloved planet earth which is the common home for the whole of humankind and all God’s creation.

Mary calls and inspires all young people to be builders of God’s kingdom and not to leave the fate of the world in other people’s hands. As St. Paul admonishes: “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then let us pursue what makes for peace and mutual upbuilding” (Romans: 14: 17-19).

The official Logo of the WYD 2023 inspired by the theme “Mary arose and went with haste” has got the Cross as the main element. This is crossed by a path where the Holy Spirit arises. The Crossis the sign of the infinite love of God for humankind. It is the source from which everything else in the Christian faith emerges. The path signifies the passage of the Visitation which is the theme of the WYD 2023. It reveals to us Mary’s readiness to live according to God’s will and her availability to serve Elizabeth. This movement underlines the invitation to the young people given by Pope Francis in 2019: “If you have lost your inner vitality, your dreams, your enthusiasm, your optimism and your generosity, Jesus stands before you as once he stood before the dead son of the widow, and with all the power of his resurrection he urges you: ‘Young man, I say to you, arise’ (Lk. 7:14)” (Christus Vivit, 20). Next to the path is a shape that evokes the Holy Spirit. The choice of the Rosarycelebrates the spirituality of the Portuguese people in their devotion to Our Lady of Fátima. This is placed on the path to recall the pilgrimage experience which is so remarkable in Portugal. Finally, Mary is depicted as a young girl to represent the figure of the Gospel (Luke 1:39) and to enable a greater identification with the youth. The drawing expresses the juvenility of her age, a characteristic of someone who was not a mother yet, but who is carrying the light of the world inside her. This figure has a slight inclination, to show the compelled attitude of the Virgin Mary.

The Logo very beautifully encapsulates the message of Evangelization to which we are called in baptism and which Mary embodies in the Visitation:

Firstly, Mary’s visit to Elizabeth is symbolic of her desire to share the Good News of Christ with someone else. She didn’t passively hide away in her home, nor shy away from sharing the news of her pregnancy with her family. No, she chose to sharethis Good News of Jesus in her womb, no matter how implausible or unbelievable the story might have seemed. This is the first act in evangelization – to simply share the Good News of Jesus Christ. Secondly, there was an urgency in Mary’s desire to share the Good News. She didn’t go with a leisurely or relaxed pace but she eagerly went with conviction. In short, she couldn’t wait to share the Good News with her family and others.

The Official Prayer of WYD 2023 beautifully captures the message of Evangelization for young people:

Our Lady of the Visitation,

you who left in haste towards the mountain to meet Elizabeth,

lead us also to meet all those who await us

to deliver them the living Gospel:

Jesus Christ, your Son and our Lord!

We will go in a hurry, with no distraction or delay,

but with readiness and joy.

We will go peacefully, because those who take Christ take peace,

and welldoing is the best wellbeing.

Our Lady of the Visitation,

with your inspiration, this World Youth Day

will be the mutual celebration of the Christ we take, as You once did.

Make it a time of testimony and sharing,

fraternization, and giving thanks,

each of us looking for the others who always wait.

With you, we will continue on this path of gathering,

so that our world will gather as well,

in fraternity, justice and peace.

Help us,

Our Lady of the Visitation,

To bring Christ to everyone, obeying the Father, in the love of the Spirit!

“Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid” (Mark 6: 50) are the familiar words of Our Lord in the Gospels. While calming the storm, he asks his disciples, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” (Mathew 8: 26).

To be afraid when we are faced with danger or uncertainty of any sort is natural to our life. Fear is an emotion that is inbuilt in us for our self-defence and self-preservation; but fear is not and should never be the last word. The last word is COURAGE that enables us to overcome fear and defeat the danger by trusting in God alone and not in our own strength – and courage or fortitude is one of the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Our Lord Jesus Christ is one who faced his fear head on and won for us the victory of the resurrection and new life. In his resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the frightened disciples were transformed into courageous witnesses of the Good News. Thereafter, in the history of the Church, countless martyrs have given witness of their courage to die for Christ under unimaginable tortures rather than compromise their faith. The famous saying of Tertullian that ‘the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church’ is absolutely true.

In the context of the anti-Christian attitudes, we are facing in many quarters of our own country and in many parts of the world, should we be afraid? Certainly, we should not, because we have the power of the Holy Spirit in us. The terrible events of the destruction of nearly 300 churches of various denominations in Manipur recently would have definitely put us in a state of fear of the forces that have caused this violence and arson. We have also experienced in our own Archdiocese itself certain goons stopping the celebration of the Holy Mass and worship in two of our new parishes in Haryana in early June. These are God’s ways to purify and strengthen our faith and trust in him and enable us to be more zealous and faithful Christians who are united in the one Body of Christ for his kingdom.

Christ has not promised his disciples the security and comfort of a worldly kingdom but the joy, bliss and security of God’s Kingdom where our treasure is eternal life. The value system of God’s kingdom militates against the value system of the world with all its glamour and glory. It was not without reason that Our Lord shunned the temptations to pleasures, power and popularity dangled before him by the devil during his forty days and forty nights of prayer and fasting in the desert. His ministry was centered entirely on proclaiming the fullness of life of God’s Kingdom.

Our Lord had also to pay the price of standing for God’s Kingdom – fierce opposition and hatred from the religio-political authorities, false accusations and finally crucifixion and death on the cross. This, however, was the treatment meted out to him by the powerful and it is one side of the story. The other side of the story is the tremendous love and acceptance Jesus received from the powerless people, the poor and marginalized of the society – they followed him in their thousands and received from him healing of body, mind and spirit and the touch of God’s love that made all the difference in their lives.

The Gospel of Mathew presents a beautiful summary of the ministry of Jesus:

“And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and very affliction mong the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan” (Mathew 4:23-25).

This is the mission Christ entrusted to his Apostles to carry out in his name, initially “to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” and, after his resurrection and the Pentecost, to “all nations”; and this is his promise: “AND BEHOLD I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS, TO THE END OF THE AGE.” (Mathew 28:20). The Church has no other security except this promise of the Risen Lord to be with us until the end of the age. This experience of the Risen Lord’s presence with us in the power of his Holy Spirit is the cause of our joy and peace and the motive force of our love. This is abundantly attested to by the New Testament.

Our Lord doesn’t say the mission he has entrusted to his Church will be easy, on the contrary he predicts persecutions: “Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles.” (Mathew 10:17-18).

Can’t we firmly state that tribulations, hatred and even death are inseparable from the life and mission of the Church from the beginning? Certainly yes, and this is because the Master himself has faced it first, and the “disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master” (Mathew 10: 24).

Very specially, Our Lord refers to persecutions as a sign of the ‘end of the age’, but the end of the age will not happen before the gospel of the kingdom is “proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations” (Mathew 24: 14).

It is a fact: the more the Church is persecuted, the more she grows. The enemies can break the church buildings but not the spirit of the People of God. As St Paul affirms: ”Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead … as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound!” (2 Timothy 2:8-9).

So, what is the place of tribulations in the life and mission of the Church? Should we be dismayed, demoralised, discouraged and afraid because we are persecuted, harassed, hated and discriminated against? NEVER.

The Lord assures us: “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Mathew 5:11-12).

Let us remember the parable of the talents (cf. Mathew 25: 14-30) – the servant who had received the one talent tells the master: “… so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.” But the master doesn’t praise him, rather calls him “You wicked and slothful servant”; and orders the “worthless servant” to be cast “into the outer darkness” where “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”.

As disciples we are called to be like those servants to whom the master said: “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master”. Courage made these servants ‘productive’ and ’successful’ in life even from a secular perspective whereas fear made the slothful servant ‘unproductive’ and ‘unsuccessful’.

This parable, when applied to our spiritual life of faith, will tell us that our faith will not bear any fruit if we succumb to fear; we will be like the dry branches that are only worth being chopped off and thrown into the fire (cf. John 15: 6). However, courage springing from our communion in the Holy Trinity, will enable us to bear much fruit for God’s Kingdom.

Our Master and Lord Jesus Christ was certainly afraid when he faced his Passion. He tells his disciples, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me” (Mathew 26:38). In the depth of his tribulation and fear he prays to the Father, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done” (Mathew 26: 42); but in his agony, when his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground, an angel comes from heaven to strengthen him (cf. Luke 22: 43-44). With that strength he says ‘yes’ to the Father’s will and moves on ahead to face the most inhuman and ignominious death of the Cross for the salvation of the world.

When we know and profess that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life all our fear vanishes and we hear him constantly whispering into our hearts, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me” (John 14: 1-4).

All the words of Our Lord are about relationship with him, a relationship that is the source of our peace and joy and victory over the world: “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulations. But take heart, I have overcome the world.” (John 16: 33).

It is very clear that the Lord does not promise us a life free of troubles, difficulties, sufferings and tribulations, but what he promises us is COURAGE to face the tribulations and remain steadfast in our faith in him and in the hope of his Kingdom to come. He gives us the power of his Spirit ‘to overcome the world’ and not to succumb to it.

A useful quote from St. Cyprian in his discourse on the Lord’s Prayer and specially as it refers to the fulfilling of God’s will (Office of Readings, Wednesday, 11 ^th Week of the Year):

“It was the will of God then, that Christ both did and taught. It means humility in conduct, steadfastness in faith, modesty in speech, justice in actions, mercy in deeds, discipline in morals; it is being incapable of doing wrong to anyone and to bear patiently wrong done to us, to keep peace with the brethren, to love God with one’s whole heart, to love him because he is the Father, to fear him because he is God. It means preferring nothing to Christ as he preferred nothing to us; it means holding fast to his love and being inseparable from it, standing by his cross bravely and fearlessly when his name and honour are challenged, showing in speech that firmness with which we profess our faith, showing under torture the confidence with which we do battle, showing in death the patience by which we are crowned. This is what it means to wish to be a co-heir with Christ, to accomplish the command given by God, to fulfil the will of the Father.”

Every year the Catholic Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus on the Friday in the octave following the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of the Lord (Corpus Christi). This year it falls on June 16. For us in the Archdiocese of Delhi this is the principal feast because our Cathedral is dedicated to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

As we enter our Cathedral compound the words that greet us first are those high on the façade of the Cathedral: SACARATISSIMO CORDI JESU , which mean ‘To the Most Sacred Heat of Jesus’. Our forefathers put these words there because the heart of Jesus is the symbol and fount of God’s infinite love and mercy towards sinful humanity – a truth that can never be denied and which calls everyone to drink at the wellsprings of love which is the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

What is the origin of the devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, so widespread in the Catholic Church? Its origin is in our Christian faith itself which we receive as a gift of the Holy Spirit on the day of our Baptism. Our Baptism calls us to a personal relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ who loved us and loved us unto the end (cf. John 13:1).

The infinite love and mercy of God manifested in the paschal mystery of Christ are central themes in our Christian faith, but the widespread devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus happens in the 17 ^th century followed by the institution of the feast. It was a time of Christian revival and the emergence of a movement in the Lutheran Church that has been termed ‘Pietism’. The pietistic movement stressed a personal experience of Christ and a personal relationship with the Lord based on the Bible as against impersonal intellectualism as well as ignorance of the Bible and shallowness of faith. This movement quickly influenced all of Protestantism and is also considered as one of the most important causes for various Christian denominations to come together in the ‘ecumenical movement’ for the unity of all Christians.

There is no doubt that the Catholic Church, after the 16 ^th century Protestant Reformation, was in need of revival of the Christian faith in terms of a personal experience of salvation in Christ and a holiness of life based on the Bible. It was at this time that the devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus emerges at the centre stage and its popularity is attributed to the apparitions of Our Lord Jesus Christ to the mystic nun Margaret Mary Alacoque (now a canonised saint) of the Visitation Order at Paray-le-Monial in France in the 17 ^th century.

Margaret Mary Alacoque was a very devout young girl who began to practise austerity and penance from the age of nine after her First Holy Communion. Although she had made a vow to the Blessed Virgin Mary to consecrate herself to religious life after she was miraculously cured of rheumatic fever, she was never really serious about that vow and went about socializing in view of getting a suitable husband and settling down in life. However, one night, after returning from a ball for Carnival dressed in her finery, she experienced a vision of Christ, scourged and bloody. He reproached her for her forgetfulness of him; yet he also reassured her by demonstrating that his heart was filled with love for her, because of the childhood promise she had made to his Blessed Mother. As a result, she determined to fulfil her vow and entered the Visitation Convent at Paray-le-Monial on 25 May 1671 when she was only 24 years of age. In the convent she had to undergo many trials in order to prove the genuineness of her vocation, and finally was admitted to profession on 6 November 1672. She has been described as a humble, simple, frank, and above all patient in her relationship with others in the community.

In the monastery Margaret received several private revelations of Our Lord, the first one being on 27 December 1673 and the final one 18 months later. Our Lord revealed to her his Sacred Heart burning with love for humanity and asked her to popularize the devotion to his Sacred Heart the form of which would be a Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament every Thursday night to remember his Passion and Death and participating in the Holy Mass and receiving Holy Communion every first Friday of the month. Jesus disclosed to her the wonders of his love, telling her that he desired to make them known to all humankind and to diffuse the treasures of his goodness to very human person, and that he had chosen her for this mission.

She writes in her short work, La Devotion au Sacr é-Coeur de Jesus (The Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus):

“And He [Christ] showed me that it was His great desire of being loved by men (sic) and of withdrawing them from the path of ruin that made Him want to manifest His Heart to me, with all the treasures of love, of mercy, of grace, of sanctification and salvation which it contains, in order that those who desire to render Him and procure Him all the honour and love possible might themselves be abundantly enriched with those divine treasures of which His heart is the source.”

It was only in 1683 that Margaret’s superiors and ecclesiastical authorities were finally convinced of the authenticity of the visions - a decade after she received them. Margaret died on 17 October 1690. She was beatified by Pope Leo XII in 1864 and canonized by Pope Benedict XV in 1920. Her feast is celebrated on 16 October.

In his encyclical letter Miserentissimus Redemptor(1928), Pope Pius XI affirmed the Catholic Church’s position regarding the credibility of the visions received by Margaret Mary Alacoque. The Holy Father affirms that Jesus “manifested Himself” to Maragaret Mary Alacoque and “promised her that all those who rendered this honour to His Heart would be endowed with an abundance of heavenly graces”.

Why is the devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus coupled with the devotion to Divine Mercy so dear to us?

It is dear to us because the symbol of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus speaks to us both of our unworthiness before God which makes us humble, as well of the infinite love and mercv of God in Jesus Christ our Saviour which makes us joyful. It calls us to repent for our sins and plunge into the ocean of mercy symbolized by the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. This mercy of God forgives us all our sins and wipes away all our guilt. When we behold the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we know we are loved and affirmed by God as we are and we need not be burdened by our past and the baggage we carry in our life. Christ has taken that baggage upon himself and given us freedom. If that is so, we can also relate to others from the Heart of Christ .

Throughout his ministry Christ our Lord went about proclaiming this Good News of God’s Kingdom, calling everyone to come back to God our Father with childlike trust and receive through his Son “grace upon grace” (John 1:16). Gazing at the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus we walk with him once again in his life and ministry. We hear his words of truth, receive his healing and forgiving touch, experience his compassion, become enveloped in his love, follow him in discipleship, accompany him in joy on the way of the cross, stand with him on Calvary and of course encounter him as our Risen Lord in the Breaking of the Bread. He pours his Spirit on us and sends us to the ends of the earth as witnesses of his Love until he comes again.

The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus is nothing else but the Gospel itself. The devotion is entirely evangelical from all points of view as it draws us into the mystery of personal relationship with Jesus Christ our loving Lord and Saviour who tells Margaret Mary Alacoque: “Behold the heart which has so loved men(sic)that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming itself, in order to testify its love; and in return, I receive from the greater part only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt they have for me in this sacrament of love.”

There is another historical context as to why the Lord appeared to Margaret Mary Alacoque and specifically requested her to popularize the devotion to his Most Sacred Heart in the Church and have a ‘feast’ instituted for the same.

A theological theory popularised by the theologian Cornelius Otto Jansen (1585-1638) and called ‘Jansenism’ had suddenly become vogue in the Catholic Church. It down-played human freedom and emphasized the supremacy of God’s will and the efficaciousness of God’s grace to such an extent that it spoke of God’s predestination of some for heaven and others for hell, irrespective of merits. Jansenist theology argued that God gives some people the graces necessary for salvation and withholds them from others. The result of this idea would be that some people are going to hell, and there’s literally nothing they can do about it. They are not saved – not because they refuse God’s offer of grace – but simply because God doesn’t want to save them. This theory was leaning towards some tenets of the theology propagated by the Protestant Reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin during the 16 ^th century Protestant Reformation.

Jansenism refused absolution to penitents who demonstrated ‘imperfect contrition’ (i.e., avoiding sin out of ‘fear of hell’ and not ‘true love of God’) and warned such penitents against receiving Holy Communion to avoid scandal of ‘unworthy reception’. In short, Jansenism portrayed God as a severe and implacable judge who punishes, therefore to be feared rather than a loving father who welcomes and forgives the sinner, therefore to be loved.

Jansenism was condemned as a heresyby Pope Innocent X in 1653 and in 1856 Pope Pius IX instituted the Feast (now ‘solemnity’) of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus on the Friday after Corpus Christi. Pope Pius XI in the above-mentioned encyclical says: “the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was instituted at a time when men were oppressed by the sad and gloomy severity of Jansenism, which had made their hearts grow cold, and shut them out from the love of God and the hope of salvation”.

Let us pray: O Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, filled with Infinite Love; broken by our ingratitude and pierced by our sins; yet loving us still; accept the consecration we make to Thee of all that we are and all that we have. Take every faculty of our souls and bodies, only day by day draw us nearer and nearer to Thy Sacred Heart; and there as we shall hear the lesson, teach us Thy Holy Way.

We are familiar with the beautiful hymn:

MY HEART’S LIKE A FLUTE

My heart’s like a flute and I want to play all day,

Jesus Christ is my music master,

Deep from my heart flows a simple melody:

Great is his love, love without end!

1. Once I met the Lord on the way:

Deep was his gaze, kind was his smile,

True were his words, gentle his touch,

He brought me peace and freedom.

2. He’s my shepherd, He is my guide,

Dark be the night, Christ is my light,

Nothing I fear, Jesus is near:

He leads me to the Kingdom.

3. T’wards the land of promise we walk,

There to find peace, there to find joy,

There to find love: God has prepared

A banquet for his people.

The Resurrection of our Lord and the Pentecost are the basis of our faith and the foundation on which the Church stands. The Spirit who descended upon the Apostles at Pentecost is the Spirit of the Risen Lord; therefore, to be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be a partaker of the Lord’s Resurrections and vice-versa. This is testified by the New Testament.

In his Resurrection Jesus came out of the tomb despite the fact that the tomb was still closed. The heavy stone on the mouth of the tomb was rolled back by the angel not for Jesus to come out but for the women to go in and confirm for themselves that Jesus had truly risen from the dead (cf. Mathew 28: 1-7). After that confirmation and the encounter with the angel there is no more fear in them and nor more sadness – they are fearless and joyful – and behold they meet the Risen Lord himself who tells them to proceed to Galilee where he will meet them and empower them to be his witnesses.

The power of the Resurrection is such that the heavy stone-lid of the tomb, the closed doors of the room and the very laws of nature themselves cannot stop the Risen Lord from being the one name alone in which the fullness of life and salvation is found (cf. Acts 4: 12); he is the stone rejected by the builders but which has become the corner stone (cf. Acts 4:11), the Good Shepherd slain for his sheep and risen again to unite his flock.

On the very day of the Resurrection Our Lord stands in the midst of the frightened disciples when the doors are locked and imparts to them his peace and the gift of the Holy Spirit to forgive sins. Through the forgiveness of sins in his name they will recreate humanity in that holiness which God had designed for humanity from the beginning of creation, i.e., to be his own image (cf. Genesis: ) but which was lost through the disobedience of our first parents. .

All the experiences of the Resurrection so powerfully depict that the Risen Lord pierces through our doubts, our poor self-worth, our sordid past, our painful memories, our fears, our discouragement, our sadness, our diffidence, our selfishness, our broken relationships and our loneliness. He comes into our life just when all these negativities begin to overpower us.

Let us look at the wonder of the Resurrection:

- the doubting Thomas begins to believe (cf. John 20:24-29);

- the frightened disciples shed their fear when the Risen Lord stands among them while the doors are closed (cf. 20:19-23);

- they become messengers of forgiveness in the power of the Spirit;

- Mary Magdalene from whom the Lord had cast out seven demons (cf. Mark 16:9) becomes the Lord’s joyful messenger;

- the two disciples travelling to Emmaus receive enlightenment and the inner warmth of love (cf. Luke 24:30-35);

- Jesus joins the disciples’ rhythm of life and even makes breakfast for them (cf. John 21: 9-14);

- He s seen, heard, touched, known not by all but by the disciples only who believe;

- Jesus never questions Peter about the denial but only asks from him three-fold confession of love (cf. John 21:13-19);

- the unstable and unreliable Peter becomes the rock on which the Church is built (cf. Mathew 16:13-20);

- the entire early community of disciples with Mary the Mother of Jesus are knit together as Christ’s body awaiting the outpouring of the Holy Spirit (Act 1:12-14);

- the early Christian community overcomes its innate selfishness and individualism and begins to hold everything in common being of one heart and soul so much so that there is not a single needy person among them (cf. Acts 2: 42-47 & 4: 32-37;

- with great power the apostles testify to the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus and a great grace was upon them all;

- they devoted themselves to prayer in the temple and to the breaking of bread at home;

- and the Lord to their number day y day because of their love for one another.

When we look at the Resurrection accounts we can certainly say the Risen Lord enters our lives in the same manner he entered the house where the disciples had huddled together in fear, proving himself to be their Saviour and their living hope. As Alistair Begg affirms: “No matter where we are or what we have done, Christ can enter our lives - our sadness, our darkness, our fear, our doubts – and make himself seen and known, declaring , ‘Peace be with you’ … Jesus can get past locked doors; He can get through to hardened hearts. Through His death and resurrection, He was able to bridge the gap that sin had opened between rebellious humanity and a righteous God. We must receive the salvation He freely offers. It must be fresh in our minds each day.” (Truth for Life: 365 Daily Devotions, UK: The Good Book Company, 2021, p. 101).

The question is: Do we want to enjoy the peace and freedom that Christ wants to impart to us or remain submerged in our own gloom and sadness, a pessimistic mindset about oneself, others and society and a negative attitude colouring our vision? Hasn’t Christ our Lord taken us out of this ‘grave’ through his Resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit? As long as our attention is only on ourselves and the centre is ‘I’, we will remain in our old slavery; but when we focus our attention on ‘Christ’ we will experience the joy, peace and freedom he wants to bestow on us because he loves us more than we love ourselves.

We look at the way Stephen, the first martyr, forgave his murderers when he, “full of the Holy Spirt, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7: 55), and with that vision of heaven and the Risen Lord in his glory, he could surrender his spirit into the hands of his Saviour and utter in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” (Acts 7:60).

Later on, we witness how Saul became Paul after his encounter with the Risen Lord and his entire spiritual paradigm changed: he realized that the Jews and Gentiles are no more inimical to each other but have become one body in Christ: “For he himself is our peace., who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in the one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who are near” (Ephesians 2:14-17).

Jesus offers us his redemptive embrace at every moment of our lives. This, then, should be our constant reflection:

“Have you received Jesus unconditionally and unreservedly? Do you embrace Him daily? Do you rehearse His gospel to yourself each morning? To trust in this way means we give ourselves to God in service. We submit ourselves to His lordship as our Savior. We take God’s promises to heart, and we take the salvation He freely offers. With this belief, you will see that He stands beside you, offering you an eternal, intimate peace that triumphs over and transforms your sadness, your darkness, your fear, your doubts. Hear the risen Christ say to you, ‘Peace be with you.’ ” (Truth for Life,101) .

The death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ has endowed those who believe in him with a new power – the power to conquer hatred with love, vengeance with forgiveness, pride with humility, selfishness with selflessness, exclusiveness with inclusiveness, division with unity, sadness with joy, despair with hope, and death itself with life. This great mystery of ‘newness’ is so beautifully encapsulated in the hymn of St. Francis of Assisi ‘Lord Make Me A Channel of Your Peace’. It shows how ‘worldly wisdom has been conquered by ‘divine wisdom’.

At his conversion from being an enemy of the Church to being the ‘chosen vessel’ to proclaim the Good News, St. Paul was inducted into this ineffable mystery of ‘new life in Christ’ whereby he moved from the ‘righteousness of the law’ to the righteousness that comes from the infinite love and mercy of God in Jesus Christ; and he never ceased to proclaim this mystery until his martyrdom in Rome around 64 A.D. in the persecution unleashed by emperor Nero.

In his letter to the Philippians (cf. Philippians 3), he testifies to his faith in Christ whereby he has considered everything that this world could give him as “loss” and mere “rubbish” in comparison to the “surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord” and “gain Christ and be found in him”. All his intense longing and desire henceforth is: “that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead”. From now on this is his only goal in life, and should be of all Christ’s disciples; and so he says: “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus”. This ‘straining forward toward the goal’ should be the defining mark of a Christian’s life.

‘Power’ and ‘authority’ are God-given gifts imbedded in our human nature. When used with sensitivity of conscience and the responsibility that flows from the openness to the Holy Spirit who works in the hearts of all people of goodwill, these gifts will ensure the good of all and the welfare of human society towards justice, peace, harmony and freedom. The self-sacrificing love which Christ has taught will be the basis of such ‘power’ and ‘authority’. This is what we call our openness to God’s grace – the ‘grace upon grace’ we have all received from the fullness of Christ (cf. Jn. 1:16) and which none can contest. If, however, these gifts are abused for whatever reason, we will be signalling a disturbing situation where hatred and disharmony, suffering and distress, pain and dejection abound. This can happen in the families, in the church and society at all levels. Human history is witness to such terrible abuses of power at the micro and macro levels.

St. Paul, knowing full well that virtue begins from the family, exhorts the Ephesian community and the Church of the future that family life should be patterned on the relationship of Christ to the Church so that there should never ever be space for abuse of power despite the fact that relationships within the family are based on ‘submission’. If Christ is truly the centre, the source and the summit of conjugal life, the submission between husband and wife will be mutual and life-giving originating from love and ending in love. The wife will submit herself to the husband out of love and the husband will love his wife as his own body. So also, parents will never provoke their children to anger but will bring them up in discipline and the instruction of the Lord. In turn the children will obey their parents and honour them because they see them in the place of God himself (cf. Eph. 5: 22- 6:4).

The paradigm of ‘power’ and ‘authority’ our Lord has given to us is so different from what we are familiar with – domination, control, suppression, oppression, violence and the like, all allied to the human ’ego’ broken by sin. This is the state of ‘sin’ we have inherited from the disobedience of our first parents (cf. Genesis 3); but Christ has redeemed us from the clutches of ‘sin’, of the evil one, and of death itself through his suffering, death, resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit . So, in Christ we have become ‘free’ people who act not from the impulses of our broken human nature but from the power of the Holy Spirit in us, which we call the life of grace (cf. Galatians 5).

Jesus was born in material powerlessness according to human standards, yet he was very ‘powerful’ from the divine point of view. This we see right from the time he was a boy of twelve and lost in the temple (cf. Luke 2:41-52) – the same temple which he would later on ‘cleanse’ before his death (cf. Mathew 21:12-17) and which would clamour for his annihilation. He was “sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers” (Luke 2:46).

From where came the ‘power’ that characterized the life and ministry of Jesus? His baptism gives us the answer: his power originated from his being “full of the Holy Spirit” (Luke 4:1) because he is the Father’s “beloved Son” in whom the Father is “well pleased” (Mathew 3:17); and we have to “LISTEN TO HIM” (Mathew 17:5). Do we really listen to him is the question we have to ask ourselves all the time.

The devil knew the ‘power’ in Jesus, hence the attempt to tempt him in the desert by quoting Scriptures when Jesus is fasting and praying for forty days and nights - precisely at that moment when, humanly speaking, his defences could be down due to physical exhaustion.

One of the temptations by which the devil is trying to trap Jesus in the desert is the temptation to power (besides pleasure and popularity): “And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, ‘To you I will give all this authority and the glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you then, will worship me, it will all be yours.’ And Jesus answered him, It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’ “(Lk. 4:5-7).

The word of God is so clear in its message - to crave for such kind of worldly power is to worship the devil, “a liar and the father of lies”(John 8:44), and unfortunately this is one of the most fundamental temptations of humanity. Human insecurity makes us crave for such kind of power and authority centered on human glory; but Jesus would have none of it. He had only one paramount craving in his life: to do his Father’s will and seek his glory alone.

What did ‘power’ mean for Jesus? It meant, right from the beginning of his public life, his ministry to the sick, the lepers, the possessed, the blind, the deaf, the lame, the marginalised, the sinners and the down and out (cf. Mathew 11:2-6). Through his word and actions Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God which called for repentance and new life; it was the defeat of the kingdom of the evil one (cf. Mathew 12:22-32). It was not without reason that people remarked about him, that he “taught them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes” (Mark 1:22). This was a ministry of love, indeed of God’s infinite love for sinful humanity – “for God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). It was a ‘prophetic’ ministry that spoke truth to power without compromising his convictions and with readiness to face the consequences – and the consequences were his ignominious death on the cross, about which he had a premonition all through his ministry as the Gospels tell us.

The Gospel speaks of Jesus giving ‘power’ and ‘authority’ to his disciples. What is this ‘power’ and ‘authority’ that the Lord has given to his disciples? It is the power and authority “over all demons and to cure diseases” (Lk. 9:1); and he sent them out “to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal” (Lk. 9: 2). This power and authority become effective in self-denial and self-renunciation, not in self-fulfilment and self-aggrandisement.

Before the Pentecost our Lord tells his disciples: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The power and authority given by Christ to his disciples is to be witnesses of his suffering, death and resurrection whereby he has saved us from eternal damnation. He told the two disciples on the way to Emmaus: : “You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” (Lk. 24:45-49).

The ‘power from on high’ makes us ‘witnesses’ of Jesus Christ our Lord and his Gospel. In our witness, the ‘Great Commission’ to baptize and make disciples of all nations (cf. Mathew 28: 16-20) always goes together with the ‘New Commandment’ (c. John 13: 31-35) to love one another as Christ has loved us.

At his trial before Pilate, Jesus is a figure of utter powerlessness before the forces of evil and death. When Pilate refers to the ‘authority’ he possesses to release him or to crucify him, Jesus tells him the naked truth, that is, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given from above” (John 19:11); in other words, all authority comes from God and it has to be used as God wills it and not as our sinful selves dictate.

What a paradox Jesus places before us in his passion and death! In order to be truly ‘powerful’ in the eyes of God, one has to completely shed all cravings to earthly power and its glory and empty oneself out of all such pretensions; one has to humble oneself and become a servant in order to be exalted by God alone according to his own will and plan. It is a difficult proposition in the eyes of the world, but the true one in the eyes of God for which he alone gives us the grace and makes it possible.

We are in Eastertide which will culminate with Pentecost. The Resurrection of our Lord and the coming of the Holy Spirit are mysteries of our faith that cannot be separated from each other: to share in the Lord’s Resurrection is to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit and vice-versa. On the very day of his rising from the dead Our Lord breathed the Holy Spirit into his frightened disciples giving them the authority to forgive sins of any (cf. Jn. 20:22-23), which in reality means proclaiming the message of God’s love in Christ to the whole of humanity.

May the resurrection empower us in the Spirit to faithfully witness to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Our Christian life is a call to solitude, not loneliness. Our Lord Jesus is the epitome of solitude for us and he gives us this message powerfully during the season of Lent. Along with Jesus is Mary his (and our) blessed Mother, St. Joseph, her blessed spouse and all the saints.

Only in solitude can we enter into communion with the indwelling Holy Trinity whose temples we have become in baptism. In solitude we receive the gift of discernment about the will of God for us and the inner light of the Holy Spirit that is so necessary to guide our every thought, word, desire and deed in the way of the Gospel; God gives us the grace to examine our lives and return to him through repentance, so that we can walk on the path of salvation and gain eternal life. We need solitude to awaken ourselves to the gifts of the Holy Spirit – wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, fortitude, piety, fear of God , and bear the fruits of the Holy Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

There is a beautiful hymn for the Office of Readings of Sunday, Week 3:

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,

Naught be all else to me, save that thou art;

Thou my best thought in the day and the night,

Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

Be thou my wisdom, be thou my true word,

I ever with thee, and thou with me, Lord;

Thou my great Father, and I thy true son;

Thou in me dwelling, and I with thee one.

Riches I need not, nor man’s empty praise,

Thou mine inheritance through all my days;

Thou, and thou only the first in my heart,

High King of heaven, my treasure thou art!

High King of heaven, thou heaven’s bright sun,

Grant me its joys after vict’ry is won;

Christ of my own heart, whatever befall,

Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.

It speaks to us of the solitude that should exemplify the Christian way of life – the ‘mystical union’ which is not a privilege of those who live in monasteries but of every disciple of Christ in the daily context of one’s life in the world, and at every moment.

Solitude is based on ‘inner’ silence and aloneness whereby the ‘noise’ outside doesn’t affect us because there is peace and harmony ‘inside’ us. This state of ‘inner peace’ is what solitude signifies, and it has to be the mark of Christian discipleship. It leads us to build loving relationships, engage in selfless service, be ready to forgive and forget, overcome prejudices, break down walls of separation, uphold the dignity of all especially the weak and vulnerable, care for God’s creation, and spread everywhere God’s peace, love and joy. Once I know my worth as a child of God and precious in his eyes, I will endeavour to affirm the worth of the other irrespective of caste, creed, language, ethnicity, etc. We see therefore how solitude differs from loneliness which has narcissistic and self-centric undertones, whereas solitude signifies self-transcendence. In loneliness we seek attention from others, in solitude we give attention to others.

However, loneliness does strike us at some time or the other in our lives due to life’s many painful experiences from childhood on. Some say loneliness is the malaise of our times, particularly as it affects young people, because of the increasingly busy, consumerist and techno-savvy world in which we live.

There is no doubt, a temporary phase of loneliness is natural, but it can be destructive if it becomes a prolonged state of depression. We may do harm to ourselves and to others. There is need to come out of that state at the earliest; and much depends on peers, elders, friends and relatives to help a person overcome this state. The person himself or herself also has the responsibility to open the door of one’s heart to the workings of the Holy Spirit who is the true counsellor, the paraclete, the comforter and the life-giver. The word of God, our liturgical worship, the devotional life of the Church, our family prayer, our social relationships, our church activities and a selfless service to humanity are a great means to take us from loneliness to ‘aloneness’ to ‘solitude’.

From his birth until his death on the cross and the victory of the resurrection, Our Lord Jesus Christ speaks to us of his communion with the Father whose will he has come to accomplish on this earth. Already at his baptism the Father reveals him as his ‘beloved son’ with whom he is well pleased. In the strength of this relationship Jesus shuns the temptations of the evil one to pleasures, wealth, power and popularity during his forty days of fasting and prayer in the desert before beginning his public ministry. Throughout his public ministry of healing, forgiving and proclaiming the Good News of God’s Kingdom he faces bitter opposition from the evil one who attacks him overtly and covertly through his agents– the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Scribes, the Lawyers, the temple aristocracy, the Sanhedrin and the Roman administration. Jesus does not back out but carries on accomplishing his mission of doing good and showing us the way of salvation until his arrest, shoddy trial and ignominious death on the cross. The way of the cross was truly a way of unexplainable suffering and pain, both physical and emotional, which we meditate upon during the days of Lent and particularly on Good Friday.

What could have sustained Jesus throughout his ministry and during this final phase of his life which we call his passion and death when all human support had left him and he was abandoned into the hands of his enemies? Without any doubt, it was his communion with the Father. As the Gospels, especially of John, so emphatically illustrate, the source, the mainstay, the raison d’être of the life and mission of Jesus is his Father. Finally, it is the Father who strengthens him to ‘drink the cup’ to the dregs and forgive his enemies before surrendering his spirit into the Father’s hands at the completion of his mission.

Therefore, when Jesus calls us to follow him by denying ourselves and taking up our cross, he calls us into solitude which does not signify running away from the world but rather connecting with it all the more deeply in love and self-giving.

We witness how people came into solitude from their loneliness when they encountered Jesus – the blind, the deaf, the paralytics, the lepers, the possessed, the infirm, the sinners, the simple believers, and even the dead who were raised to life. The greater transition from loneliness to solitude happened when Jesus rose again from the dead. For all those who encountered the Risen Lord, life was never the same again. The process would be completed at Pentecost when the Church would be commissioned in the power of the Spirit to proclaim to the whole world God’s infinite love in Christ and the call to new life in the Holy Spirit.

Donna E. Schaper in her book Alone but not Lonely: A Spirituality of Solitude (Mumbai: St. Paul’s, 2000) says: “Loneliness is when we get trapped deep inside and can’t get out. Loneliness happens to everyone. It is good for us to explore both solitude and loneliness. Both offer solace. Both. Each is part of the other. Think of Mary who came to the garden alone (John 20:15-18). First, she is deeply lonely. The whole world is lonely that early Easter morning. Then Jesus speaks to her, and her loneliness turns to solitude. An encounter with Jesus lets Mary be by herself in a different way. It also opens her to companionship in a different way. Solitude brings us back to people and to God!” (pp. 9-10).

A recent story from Turkey narrates how a rich landlord who had mercilessly sent away his tenant for not paying the monthly rent on time found himself equally homeless and in the same makeshift tent along with his old tenant after the earthquake.

We don’t need a calamity of such proportions to open our eyes to the transient nature of wealth and power in God’s eyes; we need to enter into the solitude of Christ’s Resurrection in order to be people enlightened by His Spirit.

On February 22 we will begin the annual season of Lent which calls us to introspection, repentance and new life in Christ with fasting, almsgiving and intense prayer as our penitential practices which deepen our communion with the Lord, with one another and with the poor. They prove that we value more the prize of eternal life than food and clothing and pleasures of this world and its securities; that we value more God’s will than our own, the word of God than our own plans and designs. This is what Christ Our Lord has taught us as the path to salvation.

Our ‘good works’ done ‘in secret’ to please God alone and not to win applause from people are extremely important and indispensable for our life of faith and growth in sanctity. They merit us God’s grace and entry into the kingdom of God which Christ proclaimed.

Our Lord says: “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Mt. 5:16); and St. James warns us: “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22). He further says: “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled, without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2: 14-17). Therefore, we are not justified by faith alone, but by faith which expresses itself and flowers into ‘good works’ pleasing to God. It is Christ himself who has taught us this ‘philosophy’ of justification and salvation, and the Catholic Church has always preserved it as our priceless treasure of truth.

Our beloved Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI left this world at age 95 on December 31, 2022 after laying down the papal office in 2013 and retiring into a monastery to spend time in silence and prayer in preparation for the final encounter with the Lord. It was the last leg of his life’s pilgrimage which ended with the words: “Lord, I love you”.

He was a great scholar in Sacred Scripture and Theology and has left behind many articles, books, papal exhortations and encyclicals on almost all aspects of faith but all that he wanted us to do through his writings is nothing else but to grow in the love of the Lord as believers who are disciples of the Divine Master and loyal members of the Church.

Despite his high scholarship he was a humble soul who considered himself a simple worker in the Lord’s vineyard, a pilgrim among pilgrims, a believer among believers.

In memory of him, I would like to highlight some of his beautiful reflections on Jesus Christ Our Lord as the Philosopher, Shepherd and Bread, which are so relevant for our Lenten journey.

The figure of Jesus Christ as ‘philosopher’ and ‘shepherd’ is found in the early Christian art of Rome – on the sarcophagi. How did this happen? And why was Jesus likened to a ‘philosopher’ and depicted holding in one hand the ‘staff’ of a travelling philosopher and, on the other, the Gospel? Because in the ancient world, the philosopher was someone who knew to teach the essential art, i.e., the art of being authentically human – the art of living and dying. There were many ‘fake’ philosophers also at that time, who went about pretending to be philosophers and teachers of life but were just ‘charlatans’ who were out to cheat people and make money through their words while having nothing to say about real life.

Jesus was a different philosopher, a different teacher of life, as described in the Gospels: “And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him. And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, ‘What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him” (Mk. 1:26-28); “And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes” (Mt. 7:28-29).

The early Christians understood that by his ‘staff’ Jesus has conquered death and by his Gospel, he has taught us the truth about what a man truly is and what a man should do in order to be truly human. Jesus shows us the way, and he is the WAY, the TRUTH and the LIFE. He is the life which all of us are seeking. He shows us the way beyond death. Only someone who is able to do this is the true ‘teacher of life’; and that is Jesus our Lord in his life, death and resurrection. In fact, the picturization of Jesus as philosopher on the sarcophagus is in the scene of the resurrection of Lazarus where Jesus is the giver of life.

The same becomes visible in the image of the ‘shepherd’. It draws its inspiration from Psalm 23: ‘The Lord is my shepherd’ and the fulfilment of this psalm in Our Lord’s declaration of himself as the ‘Good Shepherd’ (cf. Jn. 10). What do these words mean? “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads in paths pf righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me… Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

It means, the true shepherd is one who knows even the path that passes through the valley of death; one who walks with me even on the path of final solitude, where no one can accompany me, guide me through; he himself has walked this path, he has descended into the kingdom of death, he has conquered death, and he has returned to accompany us now and to give us the certainty that, together with him, we can find a way through. The realization that there is One who even in death accompanies me, and with his ‘rod’ and his ‘staff’ comforts me, so that ‘I fear no evil’ – this is the new hope that Christ Our Lord in his passion, death and resurrection brings to all believers.

This ‘philosopher’ and ‘good shepherd’ who frees us from the clutches of sin and death and the power of the evil one is also the ‘bread of life’; he is the “true bread from heaven” – the bread of God “who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (Jn. 6: 33). The eternal Word who has become flesh and come to dwell among us becomes for us in the Holy Eucharist our ‘food’ of eternal life. He is the bread of life who takes away our hunger and thirst and ensures our eternal salvation. He is our good shepherd who “lays down his life for his sheep” (Jn. 10:11). He is also the ‘door’ of the sheepfold. In order to be saved and not perish we are called to belong to his flock, live in his sheepfold and enter through him who is the ‘door’. He gives meaning to our life in its entirety – our joys and our sorrows, our suffering and our pain, our successes and our failures, our expectations and our aspirations, our past, present and hope for the future, our sins and our offences, our life and our death, and our deep longing for life eternal.

To have him as our ‘bread’ is to live in him and he in us, and this takes us to other parable of the ‘vine and the branches’ where we are called to ‘abide in him’ as he abides in us: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me…Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn. 15:4-5).

If we do not abide in him and his words do not abide in us, if we do not abide in his love, if he is not the bread of our life on whom we feed, if we do not remain in his flock and listen to the voice of our good shepherd, we expose ourselves to the attacks of the evil one, and we will certainly perish.

Let us listen to some of the immortal words of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI on the Eucharist in his apostolic exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis (Sacrament of Love – 2007) on “The Eucharist as the Source and Summit of the Church’s Life and Mission”:

· The Sacrament of Charity, the Holy Eucharist is the gift that Jesus Christ makes of himself, thus revealing to us God’s infinite love for every man and woman. This wondrous sacrament makes manifest that “greater” love which led him to “lay down his life for his friends” (Jn. 15:13). Jesus did indeed love them “to the end” (Jn. 13:1).

· In the sacrament of the altar, the Lord meets us, men and women created in God’s image and likeness (cf. Gen. 1;27), and becomes our companion along the way. In this sacrament, the Lord truly becomes food for us, to satisfy us, to satisfy our hunger for truth and freedom. Since only the truth can make us free (cf. Jn. 8:32). Christ becomes for us the food of truth.

· The Lord Jesus, “the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn. 14:6), speaks to our thirsting , pilgrim hearts, our hearts yearning for the source of life, our hearts longing for truth.

· In the sacrament of the Eucharist, Jesus shows us in particular the truth about lovewhich is the very essence of God. It is the evangelical truth which challenges each one of us and our whole being. For this reason, the Church, which finds in the Eucharist the very centre of her life, is constantly concerned to proclaim to all, in season and out of season (cf. 2 Tim. 4;2), that God is love.

· Precisely because Christ has become for us the food of truth, the Church turns to every man and woman, inviting them freely to accept God’s gift.” (No. 1-3).

Ultimately, what is the ‘philosophy’ Christ our ‘good shepherd’ and our ‘bread of life’ has passed to us? It is the foolishness of the Cross: “but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1Cor. 1: 24-25).

The Lenten season leads us to the Holy Eucharist where we learn God’s wisdom and God’s power in the crucified and risen Lord, which surpasses all human wisdom and human power.

Our former Archbishop, His Grace Angelo Fernandes of happy memory, in his ‘emeritus’ years (1991-2000) penned down several thought-provoking booklets on LOVE (Being In Love And Living To The Full, Preparing Oneself For Joyous Living, More About Being In Love , Love’s Dynamic Outreach, Still More About Being In Love , Yet More About Being In Love, Living Joyously In The Sunset Years , Wisdom: The Door To Life, Love And Joy) which are his spiritual legacy to us. Once, in the Archbishop’s House, while discussing some of his thoughts with a group, someone remarked jokingly, “Your Grace, why didn’t you say all this before your retirement?” Pat came the reply from Archbishop Angelo Fernandes: ”You guys are looking backward; I am looking forward”.

Yes, he was indeed a man of contemplative prayer who ‘looked forward’. He had a hope-filled positive outlook on life as that of a saint and mystic. These words of St. Paul could well apply to him: “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:13-14).

We may waste our precious years and the promise they contain by looking backward, instead of forward; and it may be too late by the time we realize our foolishness. ‘Looking forward’ gives to life eagle’s wings; it prevents us from being depressed and demoralized; we re-gain the freshness and enthusiasm of our youth; it gives meaning and purpose to our lives; we commit and re-commit ourselves to life-giving goals.

What does Archbishop Angelo Fernandes mean by ‘looking forward’ and not ‘backward’?

In his outlook, to ‘look forward’ means to be in a constant process of growth towards greater maturity and love, for which the ‘past’ is both a springboard and something to be left behind in order to move forward. We return to our past to learn from it, but we move forward to become the person God wants me to be. And what is the person God wants me to be? A person fully human and fully alive. Such a person, said St. Irenaeus, the great 2 ^nd century father of the Church, is the glory of God . A fully human and fully alive person is one who is in harmony with God, with one self, with others and with the Universe.

To enjoy this harmony means to be immersed in the mystery of God’s infinite love revealed to us in Jesus Christ our Saviour and Lord. Only such a person experiences the true joy of life, is filled with the peace that this world cannot give us and spreads love in his/her environment, even in the midst of pain and suffering, difficulties and obstacles, inner wounds and bitter memories.

To give love we must possess love. To teach love we must comprehend love. To recognize love we must be receptive in love. To trust love we must be convinced of love. To yield love we must be vulnerable to love. To dedicate ourselves to love we must be forever growing in love; and why? Because, if we are not growing and ‘becoming’, we are sliding backwards as human beings. If we are not growing constantly in love, our personalities are slowly dying. There is no standing still in the life of the Spirit (cf. Still More About Being In Love, pp. 20-21).

Love is indeed an inexhaustible mystery which we will never be able to explore fully, like life itself. Love will always challenge us to an ever better and deeper understanding and thirst for its beauty and splendour: “The process of love is a two-dimensional reality. It involves our being stretched in two directions, the upward movement towards the Lord from whom we came and to whom we have to return, and the outward movement towards the neighbour, as we pass from selfishness to service of others and from loneliness to kinship with all humankind. The antidote to loneliness is loving others, not in being loved” (More About Being In Love, p.24).

For wise and healthy living the ‘power of love’ is the indisputable secret. Life and love always go together for life without love is empty and dead. And here’s a story:

A partially deaf child was sent home from school with a note: “The boy is too stupid to learn.” “My son Tom isn’t too stupid to learn”, said his mother. “I will teach him myself”. And she did. Years later when the man died his whole nation paid tribute to him by turning off the Nation’s lights for a full minute! That was Thomas Edison who invented not only the light bulb but also motion pictures, and record players, thanks to a mother’s love! (Yet More About Being In Love, pp. 7-8).

Another profound reflection written thirty years ago, and yet so relevant:

Abraham Lincoln was walking a street with his two sons when the boys started quarrelling. “What’s the trouble with your boys Mr. Lincoln?” a passer-by asked. The same thing that’s wrong with the rest of the world was Lincoln’s reply. “I’ve got three walnuts and each boy wants two.”

An unknown author thus describes the chronic sin of selfishness:

I had a little tea party this afternoon at three

Twas very small – three guests in all – just I, myself and me.

Myself ate all the sandwiches,

While I drank all the tea,

Twas also I who ate the pie

And passed the cake to me.

This is the selfishness that is at the root of all the socio-economic disparities in our society, the greed of the few rich that deprives the poor of their needs, the lack of integrity and honesty in public life, the primacy of the ‘fast buck’ to be acquired by fair means or foul, the unhealthy and abnormal state of affairs we experience everywhere.

This is also at the root of family disputes, marriage break-ups and their negative impact on children. Therefore, frustrated individuals seek an escape in sexual promiscuity and indulge in erotic experiences. These are often paraded in the media as a substitute for true and lasting love (Yet More About Being In Love, pp. 12-13).

In the same vein, underlying our censorious and negative attitudes, the blame games we play, our stone throwing habits, our thoughtless words, our carping criticism etc., is this selfishness (cf. More About Being In Love, pp. 16-17).

In the context of this situation of brokenness we live in, young people who are serious about their present and future have something very profound to say about what constitutes love:

· Love is a total self-gift, so it must involve the entire personality. The total experience transcends mere feeling just as it transcends mere intellect. The mind, the heart, the will must all enter into the response.

· The more active the response the faster will we arrive at a real disinterested friendship, a closeness and intimacy which is one of the ambitions of love.

· The others are: Being present to each other all the time and wanting to give more of oneself to the other, a spirit of sacrifice and surrender and a readiness even to die for each other.

· The heart of the matter is ‘incredible love affair of prayer’. It is through prayer alone that we improve our attitudes towards God, ourselves and others and are ready to engage in humble, effective help and service.

· True love demands discipline and self-sacrifice. The surrender implied in the gift of self in love can be very exacting.

· Love needs freedom to grow; on the one hand, a sense of dignity and identity, a healthy self-esteem, and on the other, a deep respect and even reverence for the dignity and personhood of the other.

· Love clamours for social justice. Economic growth is unquestionably a basic requirement for human development, but the human mind is hungry for something deeper in terms of moral and spiritual development, without which all the material advance may not be worthwhile.

· Only justice can ensure peace in society. People who do not uphold the human rights of others can hardly be called ‘loving’.

· Love is a risk, a deed of daring. It exposes our own vulnerability and may call for disclosing our wounds and sharing our brokenness.

· Love requires listening, forgiving and healing each other, and giving love because we want to love and not for the sake of any return.

· Yes, the joy of loving and the joy of giving are much the same thing (cf. Still More About Being In Love, pp. 22-27).

· If we are faithful in our search for Life, that life will come to meet us on the wings of Love and find us. After all, love is not just something but SOMEONE who is always present with us and in us, with his wisdom, joy and compassion (cf. Wisdom The Door To Life Love And Joy , p. 69).

We know the story of Lot’s wife. She “looked back, and she became a pillar of salt” (Gen. 19:26). That story can be a good metaphor for what can happen to our lives if we look backward instead of looking forward. A pillar of salt is lifeless, stony and immobile; the same can be our story if we allow the past to rule our lives – we will be lifeless and immobile.

The world has entered the new year 2023 and within twinkle of an eye it will become ‘old’ year. Before the days, weeks and months pass like sand slipping through our fingers, let us pray for the grace to ‘look forward’. Looking forward is the quality of ‘hope’ that we carry from the day of our baptism, of our life to be lived with God forever in the eternal bliss of the Holy Trinity. This intense desire to be with God forever in his Kingdom applies to old and young alike, because it is fundamental to our Christian discipleship and gives meaning to our life’s journey on earth.

Let the New Year 2023 signify ‘newness’ in our attitudes, our behaviour patterns, our relationships, our spiritual life, our sense of responsibility towards God, ourselves and others.