Watch to Catch

“They watched him to see if he would cure him, so that they might accuse him.” Mk3.2

 

They watched  to catch him, but they were caught. They brought a sinful woman to be condemned, but they stood condemned. When we are intent on catching someone we will always find a reason. When we are bent on accusing someone we will find even the most innocent guilty.

Jesus does not back down from their silent threats. He orders the sick man to stand right in front and challenges the conscience of his accusers, “ Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill.”  The answer was obvious yet to avoid getting caught prudently they keep silence. At another occasion they brought a sinful woman to be condemned but they stood condemned when he challenged the one without sin to throw the first stone. Meekly they dropped the stones and silently slipped away starting with the eldest. Only one remained, the Innocent One. And he did not condemn. .

Often those most zealous to condemn are the ones most guilty. We see people not as they are but often as we are. We are eager to accuse and condemn because there is guilt and unease within us. Oftener than not, we are guilty of the same sins we accuse others of.  When we accuse and condemn aloud we are telling the whole world what is hidden deep down within us. What we say tells more about us than about the person we are talking of. If we don’t want to tell others who we are silence would be a better option than accusation. When we point one finger at another there are three pointing back at us.

Don’t watch to catch, you will be caught. “Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.” Jesus did not pronounce the adulterous woman not guilty but he looked for the right person to pass sentence on her and he found none. Who are we to condemn, accuse and to pass judgments when we are guilty of the same?                                                                                             -Fr TVGeorge sdb

 

                                                                         

                                                                   Life or Law

“The Sabbath is made for man, not man for Sabbath” Mk 2.28

 

Rules are meant to serve not to enslave. Norms are meant to guide and not to curb. Discipline is for freedom and not to restrict.

One cannot break the Commandments. One can only break oneself against the Commandments. Rules, norms, commandments are important but they are not primary.  Rules are at the service of  freedom, growth and life. Every commandment is meant to promote life. By breaking a commandment it is not the rules we break, but part of ourselves we destroy.  

“Is it right to do good… or to save life?” Jesus asked the Pharisees.  Answer is obvious but not to the venerators of law. For Jesus man is more important than Sabbath. Life is more important than law. He goes to any length, to enhance, to promote life even on a Sabbath.  He defends his disciples against unjust accusations when they plucked grains or corn to eat. Giving sight to a man born blind  is more important to Jesus than keeping law of Sabbath. Saving life is more important than keeping laws. Those who are over zealous for the law often argue, accuse, condemn and do not hesitate even to use violence. In defense of the law they violate the most important law of love.

“Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath” He is the fulfillment of all laws. All commandments are meant  to lead us to him. St Augustine would say, “Love and do what you will”. Love God, love neighbor love yourself and you don’t have to keep any more laws.

Once a young man was going around in the market place swinging a stick this way and that. Someone told him to be careful. “I am free” the young man said. “ Oh yes you are free, but your freedom stops at the tip of my nose” the man warned  him. We are free, so are others free. In the street if there were no rules and no traffic lights there would be chaos, stand still. Discipline, rules, traffic lights make us free to move, to grow, to reach our destination. 

Life is primary not law, life in all its forms, wherever it is found. Man is primary not Sabbath.

-        Fr T.V. George sdb

 

 

 

                                                    NEW WINE

                                            “NEW WINE..FRESH SKINS”  Mk 2.22

Jesus does not fit into the categories and niche we prepare for him. He is new, different, challenging, surprising.

The Pharisees try their best to fit him into their categories.  They want him to fast and when fasting to disfigure his face and droop his head.  They want him to keep away from sinners and from celebrations. They want him to pray with raised hands in public. They want him to practice the policy of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. They want him to live by the laws of the Old Testament.

But Jesus is different. He eats with sinners and keeps their company. He goes  alone to the mountain top to pray. He washes his face and combs his hair when fasting. He seeks for the lost and celebrates  when found. He provides new wine “up to the brim”. He challenges the old and proposes the new. “ You have heard it said…but I tell you”.  Go two miles if they ask you for one… give your cloak  as well to those who ask for your coat…if they strike you on right cheek offer the other as well. “I give you a NEW commandment.”  There is newness, freshness, originality, creativity, an element of surprise in the way he was born, lived, and died. Jesus is not a repetition of the old. He is new. His teaching, his method, his commandments are new.  With him starts the New Testament.

 Are you living in the Old Testament times or in the new?   Do you know the Sermon on the Mount ? Do you practice the NEW Commandment or the Old?  Do you follow the Pharisees or Christ? “Follow me” is his new invitation. “Love as I loved” is his new challenge. If you are on the side of Christ be prepared to be surprised. Be ready to be challenged. Be ready to walk one more mile, offer the cloak as well as coat, offer the right as well as the left  cheek.  New wine needs fresh skins.

-        Fr TVGeorge sdb

 

MORE

“ …up the brim!”

“ They filled them up to the brim”  Jn 2.7

 

When God gives, he gives not just full, but up to the brim.

You give water, he gives you wine.

You give bread, he gives you his body.

 You give your boat for a pulpit, he returns it full of fish.

You give five loaves, he feeds five thousand and twelve baskets more  left over.

You give a bucket of water, he gives you a perennial spring.

You hope for a piece of bread and a linen to cover your body and  a place among the servants …but he kills the fattened calf, gives the best robe and a place at the banqueting table.

“What will we have?” Peter asked. “A hundred percent NOW and everlasting life in the next” Mk 10.30

“Ask and it WILL be given you.” Mt7.7

“ A full measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over will be put into your lap!” Lk 6.38

 “Strive first for the Kingdom of God and ALL things will be given to you “ Mt 6.33

“If you only knew the GIFT of God” Jn 4.10

“How much MORE  will the father give..” Lk 11.13

               -Fr T V George sdb

 

                        

                                                                         Pilgrimage of Faith

The road to Calvary begins at Cana. The Christmas stars and  trees have just been put away and the road to Calvary begins. The ‘Yes’ of a woman was the beginning of the Christmas season, again a request by the  same woman begins the road to Calvary.

For thirty years, Jesus lived away from the cameras and center stage. He came  into the world not to live a hidden life but to fulfill a given mission. Jesus was uncertain when and where to begin his mission. He needed someone to speak an encouraging word, someone to prod him on to the center stage, someone to believe in his ability and his God-given mission.

That someone was Mary, his mother. The place to begin the mission was Cana. By asking Jesus to provide the wine, she was asking him to begin his mission, to begin the road to Calvary, to begin the ‘hour’. How did Mary know that Jesus could work a miracle ? Jesus had not worked one before. Cana  was the ’first of his signs’. The disciples believed seeing the sign. Mary believed  before the miracle.   Thomas believed in the resurrection after he saw the wounds at his side. Jesus has Mary in mind when he told Thomas ’Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe’. It is the greatest tribute Jesus pays to Mary. It is the same blessedness that Elizabeth had sung thirty years before, ‘Blessed are you who believed.’ The true greatness of Mary is her ability to believe.  

Faith, Providence, God are in question today. Our generation has a natural aversion to all that cannot be calculated, counted, measured, seen and touched. Even those who have pledged to live only for God have more confidence in their bank balance than in providence. To a world that demands signs, that worship wealth, that seeks to be self sufficient, the Virgin Mary can teach a lesson or two. Her life is a witness that God exists, that providence provides, that  we can live on a promise.

May the virgin of Nazareth, teach us not to betray in the darkness of Calvary what we have received in the light.With Jesus let us pay tribute for her courageous pilgrimage of faith. May she who believed without signs and miracles teach us not to place our confidence in our bank balances, and self-sufficiency projects.   

-        Fr TVGeorge sdb

 

 

 

                                                                     Doctor and Patients

“ It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick.”( Mk.2.17)

 

Patients need doctor. Does doctor need patients? Can a doctor be a doctor without a patient? Can a nurse be a nurse without someone to care for? Can a mother be a mother without a child? Can God be God without someone to bless, to heal and to forgive?

Jesus went to the house of a tax collector named Mathew because he is God. The nature of God is forgiveness and mercy. God is God when he forgives. Jesus keeps company of sinners because it is in their midst he is fully God. God takes the first chance to forgive. Everyone wants to be the best persons they can be. God is best to himself when he loves and forgives. Patients need the doctor, so too doctors need patients.

Pharisees ask the question, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and  sinners?” In answer to this question in the Gospel of Luke (Ch.15) Jesus tells the best three mercy parables. The heart of God is revealed in these parables.  The shepherd searches ‘until’ he finds.  So too the woman sweeps and searches ‘carefully until she finds’. The father runs until his hands are on the shoulders of the prodigal son.  If God searches until he finds who can be lost? God has a celebration every time a lost sheep, a lost coin, a lost son is found. Every moment of heaven must be a celebration time!

Like the Pharisees we too often do not understand and keep on asking questions. We  doubt God’s ability to search and to find. We doubt his capability to run. Where patients are, there doctor is found.  Give God a chance to forgive. Give God a chance to be himself. Give God an opportunity to celebrate.   Come home. Return. The best part of the story is, you don’t have to walk all the way home.  Just take the first step, the father  will come, the rest of the way.

                              -Fr T.V.George sdb

                                                         Community faith meets power

“ When Jesus saw their faith” Mk.2.5

 

When faith meets power miracles follow. The ‘you can’ faith of the leper was immediately followed by the ‘I will’ response of Jesus. Whenever someone came to Jesus for a cure his question to them was ‘Do you believe?’ If the answer was a ‘Yes’, miracles followed. When our faith and Jesus’ power meet miracles follow.

It is not only individually we can supply faith but also as communities. It is by seeing the faith of the four who carried the paralytic that Jesus cured him. “When Jesus saw their faith”, miracles followed. The four men took much trouble, showed great concern in bringing him to Jesus. Seeing their effort and faith Jesus cured the paralytic.

A believing community, a believing group of friends can be the means  of cure of the sick members of our communities. There are many in our communities who suffer from physical mental and emotional sicknesses. We often pity, sympathize, pass comments, criticize and leave them as they are. We forget,   we,  the community members, have  contributed much with our coldness and criticism to aggravate their sickness. We cannot wash our hands and leave them to their fate. It is our concern and care as much as Jesus’ power that will cure them.

Jesus cured not only the paralytic but also the community. The crowd gathered in the house was  too selfish and too self centered and did not allow the man earlier to be carried through the door to Jesus. Now they allow the man carrying his bed to come out through the door. They are a changed crowd. ‘They were all amazed and praised God’. The community is cured of their paralysis and inertia. They begin to see things in a new way. The man suffering is no more a burden but a brother.  They respond,“ We never saw anything like this!” Of course there will always be few who will continue to remain pessimistic and asking ‘why’ and  ‘who’.

Community faith leads to community cure.  Let your faith and concern be opportunity for someone in your community to be cured of their spiritual emotional physical sickness. In faith take them to Jesus. All the rest he will do.

-        TVGeorge sdb

Faith meets Power

“You can,… I will” ( Mk. 1.40)

In science, we learn how tremendous nuclear energy can be released when neutrons collide with atoms.  A greater amount of energy is released when faith meets power. The story of the leper meeting Jesus is an example of what happens when faith meets power. The leper has faith. Jesus has power.  They meet to release energy, a great  miracle, a huge blessing.

“ You can, if you will” says the leper. “ Yes, I will” says Jesus.  Jesus has the power but he needs faith to release that power within him. “Yes, I want to” is the answer of Jesus to the leper’s request.  He seems  more eager to bless and to heal than the leper wanting a miracle. Jesus is on the lookout for people with faith so that he can be God by blessing, healing, forgiving, and providing.

The ‘you can’-faith of the leper reminds us of the slogan of Barack Obama during his Presidential campaign, ”Yes, we can!”. Yes, we can obtain tremendous power and huge miracles for ourselves and for others if we can but just touch Jesus with faith. Jesus has the power. You need to supply faith. The energy released when faith meets power is even greater than when atoms interact with neutrons.  The first miracle of Cana was because Mary supplied faith. She had the ability to believe in Jesus even before she had seen any miracles.  Although Peter knew the nature of water well, he had the faith to step out of his boat onto the raging waters and make the sea into a playground. So long as his faith triumphed he walked on the water. The paralytic man took his mat and walked away because a few of his friends climbed and opened the roof and let him down in front of Jesus. The miracle of the loaves was the result of the great generosity of the boy who gave the two fish and five loaves with great expectation. Bartimaeus was healed because he had the courage to throw away the only possessions he had, his begging bowl and guiding stick, and run unsteadily with steady faith towards the one who had power. The woman with the hemorrhage was healed because she knew a touch of faith with power will release a miracle.

Jesus has the power. Do you have the faith? Touch Power with Faith and life, energy, blessing, miracles will follow.

-        Fr T.V.George sdb