Religious discipline

Most of us look for motivation... mostly to stick to our goals and resolutions.  Hence the plethora of motivational talks and quotes that one finds on social media and whatsapp messages.  Nonetheless, what keeps one going is a commitment, a discipline, a consistent rhythm.  In that sense, motivation gets you going, but discipline keeps you growing.  

So I ask myself, is religious life and its principles, my motivation or a discipline? It ought to be a discipline.  Motivation can be temporary and not always available.  But what I can and should commit myself to is a discipline, a rhythm of life based on the Gospels.  

Life as a religious is no different from that of a sports person. Both the streams of life demand a certain stringent discipline, without which one gets no where and barely achieves anything worth at all.  Perhaps, just a difference of reason and purpose. A religious lives for God and people to whom he or she has committed his or her life to.  A sports person lives for the merit of the game. 

The beauty of this discipline is that when supported by love, it becomes a vocation; if not, it is an obsession.  

Developed India!

 Last month a couple of us were travelling by train and part of the discussion was about the progress the government claims to have made and all that political jargon. 

And at Rajamundry station we got hard evidence of it all... 

Coming around

 The luxury of choice in human life is vast and unimaginable.  We make choices every moment of our life. 

From picking up good looking vegetables, to people we choose to marry; from choosing to sleep an extra hour to deciding to quit a high-paying salary.  Even in moments when we seemingly feel we are not making a choice, for in the very act of not choosing either of the options, we CHOOSE not to act!  Whatever it be, each of those choices, has consequences and impact on our life.  

One amusing statement that I recently came across: You buy good potatoes and reject the bad ones. The bad ones return in your life through samosas, chat, burgers, chips...!

Move on

 The natural human tendency is to stay put and pitch a tent and get comfortable. No one likes to be constantly changing and moving - not even those with wanderlust! 

However, that is exactly what the Lord recommends us not to settle for.  The transfiguration scene is where the Lord tells us 'move on'. The clue for this same instruction is already in the first reading of the day, where Yahweh tells Abram, leave the place where you right now are and follow me. I've prepared a place for you.  

Interesting to note, Abram gets going.  He has no clue of the place, not even the name of the place.  What's more interesting is that when he gets there, it is already occupied by others!  Yahweh never gave it on a platter to him. 

As one striving to live by faith, the Lord calls each of us, not just to move on, but to 'follow Him'.  Therefore the prayer ought not to be: Be with us us, Lord; rather it should be: Help me stick close to You, Lord. 

For He is ALWAYS with me. 

Our time and lives

In our fast changing times and lives, we seem to be living in a paradox. 

In our times, where the funeral matters more than the dead. 

The wedding ceremony is more important than the couple or the love between them and their families. 

The curriculum, rank and name of the school matters more than the child or the student. 

Building large and beautiful edifices is more urgent and necessary than having qualified and competent teachers. 

Having several social media portfolios and channels is more important than having genuine friends or clear conscience. 

The brand of our phone matters more than the quality and content of our conversations. 

Ask, seek, knock

 Listening to today's gospel about the passage from St Mathew's text, where we hear: 

Ask and you shall receive. 

Seek and you will find. 

Knock and the door will be opened for you. 

The imagery and thought that flashed across my mind as Fr Wilson was preaching on this theme, was a totally weird and different one from the one being preached. 

Ask. Seek. Knock. 

I was struck by the third one. Not for what the Gospel meant, but for what I felt as one mode of operation. 

Perhaps at times there is also the need to knock.  Knock, not at a door to ask or plead, but to literally give a knock on one's head!  For some, we begin by asking, then really seek but if there is no response, a knock on the head is what will waken them up to straighten themselves. 

Jonah's obedience

Abraham obeyed Yahweh and we become the children of faith. 

Due to Moses' obedience, the Israelites were saved from Pharoah's wrath. 

Because of Jonah's obedience the Ninevites were protected from Yahweh's anger. 

Since Jesus was obedient, we received salvation. 

Not every one who obeyed knew or consented to what they agreed to do or be. Nor did they all have perfect trust in the one who was asking them to do something different or abnormal - yet, they obeyed. 

And others benefited! 

Signs of the time

 In the introduction to the mass this morning we here presentation of child Jesus in the temple. In the temple there are Simeon and Anna who have an insight that they are about to encounter someone special. And when they do meet him the RECOGNISE him. 

It is interesting to know it that neither of them had a photo of him or description of his parents or the type of entry he would make in order to identify the child. Yet they did recognise him. 

I guess this is what reading the 'signs of the times' means. To be able to recognise God in the regular, routine events of life. To be able to identify him in the hundred and one things that we do everyday of our life. One can read this presentation as a once in a lifetime event or have the wisdom to understand it as a daily occurrence.

Like Rabindranath Tagore says in his poem, "He comes, he comes, he ever comes."

The heart of the Andes

 There is painting of the American artist Frederic Edwin Church, titled 'The Heart of the Andes' that I had set as my laptop desktop background image for a couple of years now. 

Initially I thought the painting was 'The Church in the Andes'... I had mixed up the name of the artist and the art piece itself. Today while reading something more about the same painting I learnt that it was a tribute to the philosopher naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. So basically it is a piece of art depicting nature. The title given to the painting also is this justified - nature being the most prestigious element of South America. 

Nonetheless, I found asking myself, what is the cross doing in that painting? More specifically, what is the cross doing in the HEART of the Andes? One could brush aside this question attributing the cross in the painting to the artist's colonial and Catholic affiliation. Perhaps there is an element of truth there. But why is it there at all? That too in that size. The cross isn't central. Neither large nor immediately evident. It is part of the whole natural landscape. But it is there!

I interpret it as God being part of one's heart. Not overriding or displacing everything else, but an integral element. Greater still is the artist's depiction of the people in the painting: near the cross. Not bathing, not working in the field, not elsewhere. 

In a way the painting is, for me, a microcosmic depiction of the human being: the human as one tiny part of nature and reality; and at the same time a macrocosmic aspect: God at the heart of all reality.

Being unambitious

 Last night it struck me that in religious life, ambition has no place.  Ambition in the sense of personal ambition, wherein I am both the focus and reason. 

Being the Economer of the province I have asked myself right at the beginning, if I have any plans and ambitions to be achieved during my term in office. Plans, yes. Ambition, no!  

The biggest difference between ambition and commitment, I feel is when the ego comes into picture and worse still (or always is the case) at the cost of the other.  And as a Salesian religious, if God and the poor, the young are not the focus and reason of my every thought, word and action, then I'm not a genuine religious at all.  The yeast is to leaven the flour and ultimately become bread, not to stand out as yeast apart from the bread!  

Strangely enough, the first reading of today, as we commemorate the feast of St Francis de Sales is this: working for peace and justice, instead of being filled with jealousy and ambition.