Prayer as life

The morning's meditation talk was centred on prayer.  Fr Maria Charles did try to tread the thin line of hallucination and devotion and try to make prayer as something that helps us come and accept reality rather than treat prayer as a ticket to another utopian world.  Listening to him and his examples from the life of Don Bosco, I was thinking to myself, prayer often is something so compartmentalised in my life. It is something that is normally restricted to the chapel or in times of need.  I do believe that prayer affects life, but does prayer become life itself?  Perhaps that is what differentiates us from stalwarts like Don Bosco.  If only I can pray all the time and I certainly don't mean sitting in the chapel with my eyes closed and hands joined.  If only I can commune with God always rather than make Him an occasional visitor in my busy schedule.  

Sign of things to come?

Last night Fr Jayapaul and myself were watching Br Dennis drag himself with his walker along the corridors of the Provincial house doing his night walk after night prayers.  Every now and then he would pause to catch his breath and to give some rest to his aching legs.  Watching him from the third floor, Fr Jayapaul was a bit angry saying, "As it is he is struggling with every possible disease and added to that his delicate legs. Why then does he have to eat all that he comes across on the table and then do all this exercise?"

Well, I just smiled.  Later as I reached my room I was wondering what state we would be in when we'd reach his age (of 73).  

Johnny Bosco, a street urchin?

What was the possibility of little Johnny Bosco turning into a street urchin of his times?  (I'm sure there were plenty of them all over the place in the cities running around and getting into all sorts of mischief.) Well, the possibility?  Certainly great.  Just a cursory glance at his difficult early childhood reveals enough and more reasons why Johnny could have ended up on the streets: father dies when Johnny is just two, the step brother is always breathing heavy on him, the dire poverty of his family, just a ramshackle for a house, no one to support the family,  discouragement and despair at all fronts...

Yet, in spite of all these negative circumstances, little Bosco turns out to be the beacon of hope and transformation for the very group he would have easily ended up being a member of.  How did this little life take that U-turn?  Certainly one cannot deny the role of his mother, Mamma Margaret and her disciplinary upbringing. Add to that the inspirational guidance of Fr Colosso.  Top it all, with the resolve of this young lad to make something of his life and his openness to the Divine... his willingness to be led by Jesus and Mother Mary.

I'm sure the Divine is enlightening each one of us too every moment of our life.  Wish I was more open to this Divine illumination.

Farms hands vs gadgets!

Here at the Provincial house, Hyderabad the confreres have installed a biometric unit for the staff of the house to register their time of arrival and departure from the house for their daily work.  Every morning and evening, invariably there is always a sort of anxiety among the staff as I have seen it in the past three days.  For the office staff there isn't much of a problem. The put in their finger exactly and the machine instantly recognises the print.  It is the farm hands who really have to slog it out with the machine.  A couple of them still seem new to using it and secondly, but most importantly, their hands are so callous that the machine seems not to identify the person!

So much for machines making life easier for us! 

Biased?

Today is the second day of the retreat.  Yesterday itself was quite a drag and hence right after the first talk in the morning, I switched the preacher!  I had brought with me the book Jesus' Plan for a New World (by Richard Rohr) and given the situation that the preacher of the retreat was merely reading full time some theological and Salesian facts, I fell back to the book for inspiration and reflection.  Nothing against the person of the preacher and I know that he is a very capable man wanted all over the region for his expertise, however, I feel this talks very dry and drab.

As if that was not enough, the Rector of the retreat, soon after the goodnight tonight asked me to say a few words of thanks to the Preacher and the Provincial house community at the end of the retreat!  I was praying that no one asks me to do that for then I'd be forced to lie about the preacher in public (at least say what I am not convinced of).  Anyway, I ultimately accepted when after much persuasion, the Rector told me this:

There is still time, perhaps there may be something good waiting along the way for you!  

Well, I certainly would like to leave that possibility very much open!

Jesus' freedom

Having read the passage from the book of Richard Rohr, I spent my adoration time this evening trying to figure out what was the freedom Jesus' enjoyed during this lifetime here on earth.  He constantly referred to God as the one whose commands and wishes he was fulfilling.  He never once claimed to be doing things on his own accord, much less in conflict with the Father.  Was he then a mere puppet in the hands of the Father?

Certainly not!  He would have been a puppet if he did everything he did merely because the Father wanted it.  He truly and fully exercised his freedom in choosing to do the will of the Father. For him that was the best way he could utilise and live his freedom.  He choose to do what his father wanted him to do.  And that made all the difference.

Apparently seems paradoxical, that surrender should be the greatest means of living out one's freedom but sitting before the Blessed Sacrament, I couldn't but believe it.

Need working space and liberties?

Whenever we embark on a new initiative we always make sure that it will not die an instant death.  We would ensure that there are sufficient resources, facilities, personnel and whatever it takes to makes sure that we do not fail.  Add to that the fact that we would like to do things our way.  We expect the superiors to be kind to us (since we are on a pioneering mission), understand us and have an extra soft corner for us.

Contrast this with the working style of Jesus:

Our notion of freedom as options and movement is a pleasant luxury, but not what Jesus is seeking when he goes into the desert, when he seems to limit himself in terms of family, marriage and a place to “lay his head”, when he even accepts the limitations of a short ministry among uneducated people at a low period of religion in a country occupied by a foreign oppressor! That is not much freedom by our definition, but more than enough for him to say “the kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17: 21). 

[Richard Rohr Jesus' Plan for a New World: The Sermon on the Mount (Mumbai: St Pauls, 2009) 28.]

The same God?

For the goodnight thought, Fr Selvaraj was sharing his vocation story. Emphasising the fact that he was the only son in the family, he remembered the pressure upon him from his near and dear ones of joining the diocesan seminary instead of a religious congregation so that in the future he could support his parents in their old age.  He mentioned a relative Priest who tried in vain to dissuade him from joining the religious order and then took up the matter with Selvaraj's father. After a long presentation of pros and cons (evidently pros of diocesan life and cons of religious life), Fr Selvaraj's father asked the Priest one simple question:

Will it be the same God who is now, later too?  

The Priest had no reply to this question.

Who is in charge?

During his homily this evening, Thathi said something insightful. I'm sure he was hinting at something very practical and concrete rather than saying something for the sake of saying.  Talking of youth ministry and Don Bosco's style he highlighted two points.  First of all, he said that Don Bosco took the first step towards the boys. He did not sit and wait for the boys to approach him or come to the place where he was.  He reached out to them in their own situations.  He encountered the boys in their contexts and this encounter was so meaningful that they would then flock to him.  However, the fact to be noted: he initiated every encounter.

The second aspect was something that caught my attention. Thathi said, once boys were with him, he trusted them and entrusted them responsibilities.  Know not if Don Bosco had a sort of fear if the boys would live up to the demands he was placing on them, but he certainly did share and entrust all that he started to them.

That got me thinking: Are we training our young people to take charge or do we act and behave in such a way that we remain 'in charge' always? If so, then boys will always be boys. No leadership or transformation is possible because we will always treat them as kids and look at ourselves as the sole visionaries and custodians of their well being.

Teresa vs Teresa

Our neighbouring parish is celebrating its feast today. St Teresa of Child Jesus is the patroness of the Parish (the actual feast was on October 2). Talking about the Saint, Fr Maliekal recounted an interesting conversation he had a couple of years ago with the vocation promoter of the Carmelite Sisters, to whose order St Teresa belonged.  The Sister seems to have said, speaking about the vocation coming in and going out...

The little Teresa with all her innocence and simplicity brings the girls in and the big Teresa (referring to St Teresa of Avila) with her interior castle and all that stuff frightens the girls out of the convent!  

That was really interesting. However the Sister had a point:  young people are easily attracted to simple, direct and short things of life.  But when things become complicated or involves complex reflection and scaling the heights of meditation, quite a few back off.

Well, there's no denying nor affirming this fact... just a matter of life!