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Jesus :   We meet once again for our weekly date – I look forward to these meetings with you and enjoy seeing the growth in your life. That is why your weekly reporting is extremely important – for me, perhaps more than for you.  Spend a little time in deep silence and stillness before you tell Me about how you fared in the last week. Don’t rush this part because it influences the rest of your prayer. Do it consciously and well, for ‘well begun is half done!’

[Time for silent prayer and reflection]

Jesus : The parables I told people were meant to make them think about what the kingdom of God is really like.  I started off by telling them that God’s kingdom is radically different from human kingdoms and from the general way of thinking of human beings.  So, when figuring out what each parable means, it is helpful to keep in mind that you cannot afford to understand it in a straight, flat, logical human sort of way.  When understanding the parables, work always to discover the proverbial ‘twist’ in it and that will most likely unveil the real message for you.  However, never forget that understanding the Scriptures correctly is the work of God’s Spirit in you – so, always invoke his aid when launching into this effort.

As you prayerfully read today’s parable you will notice, first of all, that the landowner prepares everything – he conditions the soil, attends to the surroundings, does the plantation, even constructs the wine-press and the watch-tower - and only then leases the land out to tenants.  So, what did the tenants actually have to do to produce a rich harvest?  Their ‘labour’ was merely to allow the process of growth to work itself out without interfering with it.  Had they done only that much they would have enjoyed a plentiful crop and after paying the landowner his dues, they would have had a lot of fruit to enjoy for themselves.

Seeing the rich harvest awaiting them as the crops ripened, the tenants grew greedy and notice how stealthily the Self comes into the picture in this case.  They did not own either the land or the harvest, but they desired to have the produce all for themselves. Perhaps they felt that not only in the current year, but all through their lives, they would get a plentiful harvest, without their really having to do anything much. They were not ready to give the landowner even the stipulated amount that was his due, little as it was!  What was the result of their senseless greed?  They lost it all, getting neither what they themselves would have got (for free, without their doing any great work) but also what the owner’s share would have been.

The story reminds you that before the Father even sent you into the world he was busy preparing the background specifically for ‘you.’ He gave you everything thing that you needed in order that your life may be eminently fruitful – all you would need to do is remain in his love, be subject to him and give him the glory that is his due when the harvest is ready! When you come to think of it, is this something very difficult?  Certainly not, except that one does not then have the feeling that all this ‘belongs’ to me (the Self).  This is the only ‘condition’ God places for his infinite love to become fruitful in your life!

We see something similar in the story of Genesis where God first prepared the universe and especially the earth attentive to all its minute details and only then created human beings putting them in charge of it.  All they needed to give him in this set-up was the central place in their lives – they had to live in obedience to him and allow him to direct them in ways that would help them become more and more fruitful each day.  Yet, what is the general response of most people?  Starting with Adam and Eve, the majority of people refuse to obey God because they want to do things their own way.  They would not submit to God in loving obedience. And we know the results: utter chaos for themselves and for everyone else around them.

Notice how different things were when I came into the world: from day one, My only objective was to do the Father’s will and that too perfectly. You will remember My expression: ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me’ (Jn. 4:34).  And notice what the ‘fruits’ were like?  Obedience brought light in place of darkness, life to replace death and love instead of the old enmities – do you remember how all these three are relived in the Holy Saturday night vigil service? There is first the light service as the Paschal candle is lit and brought in procession into the Church; then comes the baptismal service imparting new life and finally the Communion service of love, the agape or new love and fellowship of the Covenanted people of God!

Now, how does all this apply to your life? I am sure you will have already guessed the areas in which the Father asks you today to re-align your life bringing in a better, genuine obedience to his will.  Remain in silence as you decide for yourself what you want to do with your life. Do you wish to be like the stupid tenants who because of their short-sighted greed lost everything in the end; or would you rather be like the other tenants who gave the master his due at the right time, and also profited for themselves?  True happiness was theirs all the way.  Reflect on this in prayerful silence as you see the two sides very clearly.  Try not to force the answer because of any external pressure like fear or duty, lack of time or whatever.  Let it emerge from deep within you, as it were.  When gratitude is the source of your actions, your very giving becomes a receiving! 

Once you realize deeply how much the Lord has blessed you with, you don’t want to grab from him more and more, but rather are ready to surrender to him all that he asks of you. That is when your giving to him will actually become a receiving because his generous love will never let itself be outdone by your generosity.  He gives us much more than we can ever dream of obtaining through our own skills and ingenuity.  After an appropriate period of reflection, slip into a deep inner silence and stillness and remain in that stillness for as long as you can. Then, as you move out of prayer, spend some time in intercession for others in need. Today you could pray specially that all those you consider dear to you may be ready to listen to God in their daily lives and give him his due without seeking to grab for themselves.  Finally end with an ejaculatory prayer or a brief hymn of praise and thanksgiving.

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Jesus :  We plunge into this day’s prayer with the usual brief period of silence and stillness.  Aware of the importance of this practice, move directly and decisively into this stillness; quieten your mind and heart and prepare earnestly for prayer.  It is said that silence is the inner discipline by which the inner fire of God is tended and kept alive. After you are quiet enough, spend a brief moment reporting on last week’s attempt to live out what you have learnt in prayer.  Were you able to pick out any areas in which you see yourself as grasping, wanting to get more than you are ready to give … these are the areas that need attention in your life.

[Time for silent prayer and reflection]

Jesus : For today we have yet another parable explaining what the kingdom of God is like. As you read the parable, you cannot but be struck once more by the gratuitous gift or generous invitation given by the king to various levels of people.  When reminded of their privilege of being special guests at the wedding banquet, some of them took it lightly while others took it amiss: in fact they turned violent and abusive of the messengers – who obviously represented the king himself and were a flashback of the prophets God kept sending all through the history of Israel. What made these invitees turn against the king?  Did they see his invitation as a kind of trap to ensnare them or deprive them of something precious? Or was it simply that they interpreted this invitation of the king as an encroachment on their freedom?  Their anger seems to have been directed against the fact that the king sent repeated reminders – was it guilt stemming from their refusal that spurred them to this destructive action? Or, was it merely the desire to get rid of this nagging nuisance which wanted them to do something they didn’t quite fancy?

Whatever it was, one thing is sure that they did not quite understand nor appreciate the kindness and generosity of the king, who wanted nothing but the best for them!  His frequent reminders were his way of expressing his desire that they should not miss out on the joy and blessings of this great occasion – their presence would certainly grace the son’s wedding celebrations no doubt, but it would also be an honour and blessing for the invitees themselves.  Notice further that they who sought to destroy the messengers were themselves destroyed in the end, for those who live by the sword perish by the sword! From a broader perspective the story reminds you of the important truth that I mentioned during the Last Supper: ‘I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.  Whoever does not abide in me, is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned’ (Jn 15:5-6).  When people cut themselves off from the all-loving Father for whatever reason, they cannot but wither and perish.

The application of this to your life seems to be that several times during your life span, in fact many times each day, the Father invites you to his wedding banquet.  He invites you to leave your self-designed and self-chosen programme for happiness and allow him to satisfy you in his own inimitable way.  The catch for you too will be that if you choose to accept the plan of the Father, you will have to abandon your own plans.  The problem seems to be that most people see value only in what they themselves work out.  But, if you start out with the principle that God knows much better than you what is for your good, then it should be a lot easier to abandon your plans in favour of God’s choice. Further, if you can recall instances in your own life where God’s plans were in fact for your good even when you thought otherwise, that would be an additional boost in this effort to do God’s will rather than your own.

Another important principle worth considering is this:  even when your plans do seem to be better and more profitable than what God proposes to you, you will not lose anything by giving God a chance and the benefit of the doubt.  Start by doing all he suggests wholeheartedly and sincerely and if after a fair try and honest effort it doesn’t seem to work well, then you could abandon God’s way and take up your own. In such an approach, it is practice and not just theory that will show you the results and the value of each different path.  If you could always begin with the assumption that God’s ways are invariably the best, that would, of course, be even better and surer, because then you would be acting in faith and trust in God’s word.  Nothing can be rewarded more than this kind of faith.

Relax now and try and pick out instances in your own life where you discern God taking the initiative and calling you to a higher level, to something far better than your present approach in a given field.  Recall all your fears and anxieties pulling you back as you prepare to let yourself go into God’s hands. Remember especially the deep joy and peace you experienced when you discovered that God had, in fact, offered you something much better than you ever expected.  Cherish several such experiences which will then convince you that following what God asks of you is always the best.  In the silence and stillness of your heart, give your answer to God’s call inviting you to several things today and during this week.

After quite some time in this deep peace and silence, emerge from your prayer with some intercessions for those in need.  Recall particularly those among your friends and near ones who don’t seem to care much for God’s plans and invitations but go through life doing their own sweet will.  Pray that they may experience a wholesome change in their lives.  Conclude with a short vocal prayer or hymn.

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Jesus : Welcome to this hour of prayer; you wouldn’t know how eagerly I wait for this moment when you will come to spend some time alone with Me. Today and this entire week the Church remembers in a special way the Missions and My command to My disciples to go out and proclaim the Good News.  But remember that ‘a word with power is a word which comes out of silence…’  Quieten your mind and heart through deep inner silence and stillness for a while.  Don’t omit the brief review of the past week, so as to learn how you can improve your prayer from week to week.

[Time for silence and reflection]

Jesus : In our reflections, we move deeper into the mystery of the human free will.  The Pharisees clearly understood the meaning of the parable of the wedding banquet to which they, along with their Israelite brethren, were graciously invited by God. It was the same God of their ancestors who had chosen them from all the nations of the earth to be his very own possession.  Not satisfied with merely refusing the invitation they set out to ill-treat the instruments God sent to them with the invitation.  In today’s Gospel passage you see them trying to set a trap for Me by asking questions regarding the apparent puzzle about paying taxes to the Emperor of Rome.  Theirs was not a simple desire to find out the truth of the situation: they wanted to prove Me wrong so that then they could discount My teaching, at least in their own minds, if not in the minds of the ordinary people.  Anyone can pick out the total lack of sincerity in these Pharisees.  The first thing you learn, therefore, is that when a person doesn’t want to see the truth, s/he makes her/himself blind to even the obvious!  Such a person cannot benefit from anything given to him/her.  But when you sincerely desire to see and learn, somehow God in his goodness will make his truth available to you.  “I thank you father for hiding these things from the learned and wise and revealing them to little ones” (Mt 11:25-26).

In their desire to trap Me, they failed to see the obvious – that if they freely accepted to live under Roman rule and even used their coins for Temple purposes (which they were actually not supposed to do, in order to be faithful to God), then they might as well submit to the Romans in the matter of civic taxes.  I placed before them as the answer to their question what they least suspected – and that made them realize even more clearly that somehow they had set their minds against accepting anything from Me.  Possibly they saw Me as a threat to their own position of honour and respect before the people; it could be that there was in them a deep seated fear that without all the trappings of position and power, they would not be respected by others for what they were in themselves.  They needed these outward supports of power and prestige and so were not ready to let go of them.  What poor miserable slaves they had made of themselves, in the bargain!

For everyone knows that this kind of ‘borrowed’ greatness coming from the outside does not last long, nor is it sincere and fulfilling in any sense.  You could read Mt 6:1-20 where I warn My disciples against hankering after external glory.  Instead, when a person follows My teaching and gives to God what is God’s – in true submission and gratitude, s/he is able to give to others what is their due as well without demeaning her/himself in any way.  When I gave that answer to the Pharisees many might have thought that I was a very smart person. Yet, that was not the point of My teaching.   When someone is truly close to the Father, s/he sees the truth of every situation and s/he proclaims it very simply and humbly, without a desire to impress anyone around.  But his message is impressive indeed, because it truly comes from the heart of God himself.

Look into yourself as you maintain silence internally – check how much of this ‘pharisaical duplicity’ there is in your life; sense how strong is the desire in you to impress others with your wise decisions and suggestions and be counted as somebody worthwhile by people around you.  When you have picked out signs of this false greatness in you, remind yourself of My words: ‘they have received their reward already’ - there is nothing more I can give them because they are not ready to receive.  As you continue in silence open your heart wide to receive all the blessings I shower on you.  You will probably notice that just one genuine blessing fills you much more than a hundred spurious ones.  Remember that ‘all that glitters is not gold!’

While you are in deep silence and stillness recall also My words: ‘The harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few.  Pray the Lord of the harvest to send many more labourers to reap the harvest that is ready.’  Recall some areas in India where it seems that people are ready to hear the Word of God and follow it, but unfortunately there aren’t enough zealous missionaries who will dare to proclaim My message to them in season and out of season.  Earnestly place these situations and places before the Father that he may raise more enthusiastic people to venture into these difficult areas.  Take a look also at your own level of enthusiasm for the spread of the kingdom.  Can you recall anyone who has received the faith, or even a deepening of the faith, through your efforts? Do any of them remember you gratefully?  Further, is your zeal to spread the faith as strong today as it was say, fifteen years ago?  Does it grow with you or has it begun to wane and waste away already?  In fact, the more you experience the Father’s love the more should your eagerness to spread his kingdom increase within you.

Move into deep silence now and remain still for as long as you can.  Allow God’s Spirit to work on you and transform your heart, filling it with a burning desire to set the whole world ablaze with the fire of God’s love.  As you near the end of your prayer, let this fire reach out to the urgent needs of people around you.  Make these petitions as selfless as you can; also see that they reach far and wide, especially to those most neglected.  End your prayer with the usual vocal prayer or short hymn.

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Jesus :   Again we begin our prayer session with the usual time of silence and quiet. I trust that from last week’s prayer you will have realized the deeper value and need of silence for effective prayer.  A word that bears fruit is a word that emerges from silence and returns to it.  It is a word that reminds you of the silence from which it comes and leads you back to that silence.  So, as effectively as you can quieten your mind and heart and remain still for a while.  Add a brief summary of your spiritual activity of the week.

[Time for silent reflection and prayer]

Jesus : You will notice in this section of Matthew’s gospel that several groups of people are shown opposing Me. For this Sunday you have the lawyer coming up with another question but with the same intention, that of trapping Me in the answer I give.  His problem seems to have been to know for sure which was the greatest commandment!  Whatever was the lawyer’s intention as he posed the question, it offered Me the opportunity of teaching a very important truth, viz. that one cannot separate the love of God from the love of one’s neighbour.  These are not two different rules, but rather two branches of the same stem.  Love is universal and tends to move out towards all related people or subjects especially where it is genuine and selfless.    The very fact that a person’s love becomes exclusive means that somehow it has been corrupted by ‘self-interest’ somewhere along the line.

Anything connected with the Self is bound to end up eventually in a loss of security.  The Self will be satisfied only when it has conquered the entire world, when it is the centre of the universe with nothing or no one standing in opposition to it.  But given the nature of things, inevitably someone or something will arise as a threat and that is why the Self seeks exclusivity.  It cannot stand any form of competition but systematically eliminates all forms of opposition.  But where love is genuine and selfless it rejoices in sharing the good qualities of the beloved with as many as possible. In fact, genuine love makes the person  so secure in the love of God that s/he cannot even dream of ever losing it – except of course, through one’s own stupidity.

Further, in loving one’s neighbour recall the added teaching I gave, not in this Sunday’s Gospel but elsewhere (Lk 10:29-37).  Having tasted the Father’s love, one cannot be choosy about whom one will share that love with.  If there is a choosiness visible, that again is a sign that there is some little self-centredness present in that kind of loving.  When one’s loving is based on a deep realization of the gratuitous nature of God’s love, when one is convinced that ‘he loved me first’ then gratitude becomes the mainspring of our loving other people. And in such cases, the desire is only to share or diffuse what we ourselves have received so graciously and lavishly.  So, the practice of this double commandment should never originate in the head, but rather with the heart.  When gratitude becomes the source of our actions, then the very giving becomes a receiving and the people you minister to become ministers unto you.

Remain in silence and search deep in your heart for any experience in which you were deeply touched by God’s free and gratuitous love of you.  If you can say meaningfully like St. Paul: ‘he loved me and gave himself up for me,’ you will find that you have not the slightest difficulty in genuinely loving all those whom God sends across the path of your life.  In fact, it will be your joy to reach out to others sharing all your blessings with them.  Further, you will find yourself rejoicing when others are blessed through you and your main preoccupation then will be to share every possible gift you receive with someone or other around you.  When you reach that stage you could again truly say with Paul:  ‘It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me.’

Notice how the Father’s love burns away all trace of the self in you: envy, jealousy, greed, the spirit of competition, the subtle pride of seeing oneself as being a cut above the rest, rejoicing in the failure of others, keeping things for oneself so that others may not outshine us and a host of other manifestations of self-centredness  so familiar to all.

Remain in silence and stillness and allow God’s Spirit to open your eyes to some of these subtle forms of Self.  If and when you discover something, place it gently and effortlessly in his loving yet powerful hands and allow him to transform that trait in you, bringing you in line with the greatest commandment of love.  Ask for a fresh outpouring of the Spirit over yourself and those close to you so that you are transformed into an effective instrument of love in God’s hands.  Ask God’s Spirit further to point out to you a few persons with whom he would like you to share some of your spiritual blessings.  Visualize yourself actually sharing these blessings with these persons and focus on the joy you experience while actually sharing… stay with this exercise for as long as you can and finally end your prayer with the usual intercessions and vocal prayer or hymn.

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Jesus :    To enable you to enter into the stillness and silence so important for effective prayer, it would be worth recalling that ‘silence is the mystery of the future world.  It keeps you pilgrims and prevents you from becoming entangled in the cares of this age…’  So, as quickly as you can plunge into deep silence and abide in that state of inner stillness for quite some time.  Then add a short resume of how you lived out your prayer of the last week.

[Time for silent reflection and prayer]

Jesus : For today’s prayer I invite you to reflect with Me on some important questions regarding death.  First recall the obvious point that for every person death is the most certain thing – no one can escape it.  However, when, where and how it will come remains hidden and a mystery. Hence the need to be always ready and the best way to prepare oneself for the moment of death is to constantly ensure that one does only the will of the Father in all things.  Now, here are some further suggestions for your reflection, but their value lies in the amount of personal thinking you yourself do.

On dying a person enters into the timelessness of God and so there is no change possible after death. The immediate consequence of this is that whatever change one wants to introduce in one’s life must be done on this side of death.  Death is like the clicking of the camera as one poses for a photograph.  A number of adjustments may be made before the final moment of clicking, but once the camera is clicked nothing can be changed at least in that particular photograph.  Similarly, one can introduce a number of changes in one’s life and attitudes, but once death strikes, none of these are possible any more.  Does this reflection have any message for you?  Is there something you need to change now without waiting for the moment of death or the after-world?

Secondly, every event in your life here on earth, especially the really difficult and challenging ones, is an opportunity for you to ‘expand your capacity to love.’  As a reflection and image of the Father, the essence of your life is ‘love.’  But each one comes into this world with just the ‘capacity’ or ‘potential’ to love. It is like a seed that is planted in your being. This potential has to be actuated and how much you really activate it will depend on how you face each particular event. If you really expand your capacity and love as I would have loved in the same situation, you certainly will grow.  The next time you face a difficult situation it will be a lot easier and in this way your capacity will expand from day to day.  So finally, when it is time for you to die, you will face the Father with this enhanced capacity that you have built up over the years.  Do you see now how important it is to keep utilizing every possible opportunity the Father sends you, without grumbling or complaining, or even questioning his wisdom in sending you that cross?

These simple reflections made against the background of our remembering the faithful departed on November 2, will certainly make your present life very meaningful.  Not a person you meet or a difficult job you face, a sickness that overtakes you or a rejection or humiliation you have to accept – nothing would be out of place or superfluous.  If you look at these with faith as opportunities, how eager would you not be to make the best of each of them!  And if you did fail, would you not seek to learn why you did let go of this chance and make sure you don’t repeat the failure again?  It is said that in the business world, opportunities don’t knock twice at one’s door. Here you either grab every opportunity for progress that presents itself or you will be left behind while others who are more enterprising will take over your business.  And the same applies to the spiritual life too – could this be the meaning of what I said in a similar context: ‘Watch… be alert so that you are ready when the master knocks, no matter what time of the day or night it be that he comes.  Happy is the servant who is prepared for his master’s return!’

At an appropriate moment, slip into deep interior silence and stillness and just marvel at the wonderful way in which the Father has arranged the details of your life here on earth.  Are these not a marvelous expression of his love for his beloved children?  Drink in this love as you remain in silence and when you finally prepare to emerge out of prayer, spend a few moments interceding for others.  Remember especially the families that have recently lost a near or dear one.  Conclude with the brief vocal prayer or hymn.

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Jesus :  We shall enter into this prayer once more by consciously putting aside all extraneous thoughts and feelings.  Keep in mind the teaching that ‘silence guards the fire of the Holy Spirit who dwells within you.  It allows you to speak a word that participates in the creative and recreative power of God’s own Word.’  So then, keep your mind as perfectly still and silent as you can for a while and then proceed with a brief account of what you did during the last week.

[Time for inner silence and stillness]

Jesus : The Gospel passage reminds you that the Temple is primarily a house of prayer and should not be used for other purposes. All that is in the Temple should help those who visit it to effectively get in touch with God.  Today almost every sacred place, whichever religion is represents, does exude an aura of prayerful silence and that is why people still frequent such places often to find true peace of mind.

However, when I cleansed the Temple of Jerusalem and even foretold that not a stone would remain standing on another I primarily meant to draw attention to the fact that any Temple is ultimately only a symbol and reminder of the inner sanctuary of the human heart where God actually chooses to dwell.  In every religion, God is invoked as the ‘antaryami’ the One who dwells within the cave of the human heart.  However, quite often this important truth is overlooked and most people today still believe that if they wish to meet or encounter God, they would need to go to the Temple or Church, or at least visit some religious shrine or other.  Rarely would you find a person keen on simply entering the cave of his/her own heart in deep interior silence and communing with God present there.

If and when people learn to respect themselves as the real Temple of God, the entire world will be a different kind of place. There would be no more wars, no taking undue advantage of others, no murders, rapes, scams and frauds. The kinds of events reported most days in our daily newspapers are possible only because so many have opted to live according to their own whims and fancies.  Most Christians too pay only lip-service to the truth that “(they) we are the body of Christ”, the community among whom I, the risen Lord Jesus, dwell truly and almost tangibly.  They still insist of seeing Me as someone ‘out there’, distant, uninvolved in the happenings around them.  Thus, they do not allow Me to be involved in their daily lives. They come to Me only when they are in trouble, and when their problems have disappeared they promptly forget Me.

So, as you enter into deep inner silence and stillness, ask yourself how much you really believe that the Church is a living ‘body’ in which the members are united organically to one another as the limbs of your own body.  In neglecting any one part of the body, the entire body is made to suffer the consequences.  No single organ, e.g. the eye or ear of heart or nose can afford to live independent of the others – such a thing is not even conceivable.  And yet, that is how most people live.  The reason is that they still visualize the Church as simply a collection of individuals who are more or less gathered in one place – the material temple or Church, for some service or other. And the moment the religious service ends, they disperse, returning to their own individualistic routine in life.

Even the more recent attempts at building ‘small Christian communities’ have not succeeded in producing this kind of a ‘community consciousness’ among Christians. They do come together and are much more helpful to one another in times of crisis than ever before. Yet, the sense of ‘belonging’ still eludes them, especially in the hurly burly of daily living. While it is true that the culture all around you does not prove very helpful in that you are encouraged to be more and more individualistic in your attitudes, yet, your religious practices, especially the Eucharist should keep you always reminded to the spiritual truth of your organic unity in Christ.

In silence allow God’s Spirit to strengthen this belief in your heart more than in your mind. You would need to ‘feel’ this oneness in the very marrow of your bones, as it were, so that wherever you are, or whatever you may be engrossed in, your solidarity with all people should never be forgotten.  Such a deep realization can only come as a gift from the Father through his Holy Spirit.  So remain patiently still and wait for this very precious gift till it is given to you.  As you begin to emerge from this silence, turn your mind to a few intercessions for others and round this off with the short vocal prayer or a hymn you usually take.

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Jesus :  We begin this hour of prayer once more with the short period of intense silence and if possible total stillness.  By now I am sure you are convinced of the paramount importance of this practice and have also experienced the difference it makes for your hour of prayer.  Plunge, therefore, into this silence and when you are quiet enough in your heart, review your past week and its spiritual effort so that you have something to improve in the coming week.

[Time for silent prayer and reflection]

Jesus : Once again you are invited to reflect on some aspects of the kingdom of God. In several of these parables, the key point stressed is that God in his generosity takes the first step and calls people. Often he goes further and provides them with all that they need in order to carry out the work entrusted to those called.  All that the invitees have to do is to make use of the opportunities provided them and produce abundant fruit – the results are what count, in the final analysis.  However, it is worth noticing that these results are always proportionate to the efforts made to enable God’s gifts to fructify.  That the results produced by different people are (and always will be) different is nothing surprising – what matters is that the maximum effort has been made.

In today’s parable, the first and second servants had been given a different amount each to begin their negotiations: the first man received five talents, while the second got only two. Nevertheless, both worked hard and doubled their initial amounts. What is commended at the end of the parable is their wholehearted effort, even though their ‘results’ were different.  We see here that God doesn’t expect all to have the same number or amount of talents.  But we certainly need to have the same amount of enthusiasm (the maximum, in fact) if we wish to belong to the kingdom.  In other words, in our living out of the kingdom ethic, what is important is that we keep our gaze fixed not on self or on others, but on the generosity and love of the Father. This approach allows us to buckle down to the task and produce the best results.

Yet instead of doing just what we have been commissioned to do, so many of us focus on the wrong object – the Self. We then see ourselves as being discriminated against, not valued sufficiently, not perhaps given our due and this approach leads to a lot of discontent and ultimately to loss of opportunities.  This should remind us of how important it is to keep first things first, in all situations.  In this case, what comes first is the fact of the gratuitousness of the gift given to each person.  No one can say that s/he deserves to get five talents.  Even the discrepancy in the amount given initially, shows us the goodness of God; he provides us with sufficient incentive to do our best.  This is what the third servant missed completely.  With the one talent that he got, he too could have produced quite a lot had he focused his attention and efforts in the right direction.

Remain in silence and marvel at what a great destructive force the Self can be.  Where the starting point is incorrect, a lot of damage can be caused.  Lurking somewhere in the background is insecurity, a feeling that one must depend entirely on one’s own resources in order to be happy or successful.  But when you come to think of it, what resources does a person have which he can claim to be totally his own?  Everything he has is sheer gift given to him by the generosity of the Father.  Once a person has this basic humility, the rest follows almost automatically.  What is your approach in this matter?  Do you find yourself demanding greater respect than what you think you have?  Do you find yourself comparing yourself with others and what they have received? Do you sometimes catch yourself blaming God for being unjust towards you?

In deep silence and stillness marvel at the mystery that God is!  His ways are paradoxical always.  Don’t we see that in the Paschal Mystery?  In order to be filled a person must first start off by emptying him
self.  For yourself, what you need most desperately is a deep trust in the Father’s love of you.  Aware of your nothingness will help you receive everything from the Father as pure gift and encourage you to do your very best to return to him the maximum that you can produce.  If you notice areas in your life in which you behave like the third servant in today’s parable then in the silence of your heart, allow the Spirit to rectify what is going wrong.  He is more powerful that you can ever imagine, but he needs your total cooperation if things are going to be different in your life.  Give him full scope then and reap the benefits of his powerful action.

After you have remained in silence for as long as you can, prepare to conclude your prayer with a few intercessions for others and then take the final vocal prayer or hymn.

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Jesus :  We begin once more with the initial deep silence and stillness so that you can be totally receptive to the message of this week.  This silence will enable you to be open to hear the Word as God expresses it, to understand it the way he wants you to understand it and to act on it in an appropriate manner.  Don’t forget to add a brief resume of last week’s effort that you made so that you can correct what went wrong and thus learn something more about God’s ways of dealing with you.

[Time for silent prayer and reflection]

Jesus : Today’s reflections deal with a very familiar Gospel scene – the Last Judgment as portrayed by Matthew. Notice how he presents this scene against the background of typically Jewish thinking.  During the day the sheep and goats that have been grazing together often get all mixed up, but when they get back home they are separated so that all the sheep are together and get treatment that is appropriate to them, while the goats are provided with what is best for them.  Using this bucolic practice so familiar to most Jews of his day and age, Matthew reminds us of what will happen at the end of time. A few differences need to be noted, however.  The first is that this separation will be final and definitive and result in reward and punishment. The second is that while there is nothing wrong in being a goat as different from a sheep, in this case those designated as goats are liable to punishment for not being what they were called to be.

Notice that since they were in the ‘fold’ they had obviously been called and chosen to be sheep. In the second commissioning of Peter after the Resurrection (Jn. 21:15-17) there is mention only of ‘lambs and sheep’ with the goats conspicuously absent. Even My prayer during the Last Supper was for the ‘other sheep who do not belong to the fold’… that there may be but one fold and one Shepherd!  Those who were called, therefore, were provided with all the requirements so that they could be sheep but through their own choice they formed themselves or allowed themselves to turn into goats, thus rendering themselves unfit for entry in God’s kingdom.  Would they have been conscious of the occasions on which they made this choice or would it come upon them as a surprise at the time of judgment?  Possibly they would not be aware of the total consequences of each of their choices – each instance would have seemed innocuous enough and yet look at the terrifying consequences. And what is worse, there is now no opportunity to reverse the situation!

Put yourself in the shoes of one such person and take note of what you would feel…Work this out as thoroughly as you possibly can because your realization of the consequences of such choices will depend on it.  Further, what was the real reason why they made such unsettling choices?  The words of the Lord give us a clue:  they were too busy looking after themselves that they did not notice ‘My’ needs in the person of the poor and needy around them.  Once again we return to the Self which is the arch-enemy of kingdom values and life.  Recall how often I repeated that the first and essential condition for entry into the kingdom of God is that one loses oneself, for ‘it is in dying that one is born to eternal life.’

Further still, you need to notice that the reward or punishment mentioned in this scene is not something that is added from the outside, as it were.  It is simply the flowering out of one’s loving actions themselves.  What you do or fail to do is itself your reward or punishment. That is why there is nothing you can do now to reverse the situation – it has come about through the faulty decision you yourself took to focus on the Self rather than on others.  As you reflect deeply on this truth in the silence of your heart, realize that even now you have the chance to reverse this decision to make Self the centre of your life.  Such a reversal is not for the benefit of anybody else, but solely of yourself. No one else stands to gain basically from this stance that you take to life.  But please note that it has to be a consistent stance, not a flash in the pan, a once-in-a-blue-moon kind of approach!  Only then would it be of benefit to you.

Regress into deep silence once again and allow God’s Spirit to speak to you in the depths of your being… gently yet firmly request him to set things right within you so that from now on, as you are soon to begin a new liturgical year, things will be radically different in your life.  Once you take this stance to life, then you need not worry about when death will overtake you. The Last Judgment will hold no terror for you, but would rather be a welcome event displaying the tremendous generosity of the Father and also his graciousness in leading you to the fullness of life in his presence.  Having spent a sufficient amount of time in this respectful and contemplative silence, emerge into petitionary prayer for others before concluding with the usual hymn or short prayer.

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Learning another approach to Prayer

We have followed the practice of choosing one method of prayer and staying with it for the entire liturgical year.  Now that we are about to begin a new liturgical year, we shift to another form of prayer. For the past year, we dwelt of any particular word or phrase from the reading that might have struck us and sought to listen to God’s message to us through that word.  This year’s approach is not that much different. From now on we shall seek to enter into the scene of the Gospel passage and become a part of it. We thus seek to look at the story ‘from the inside’ as it were.  Being an insider enables us to look at what is happening in quite a different manner – the outsider is uninvolved and does not care about the outcome of the action contemplated.  The insider is part of the action and whatever happens concerns him personally – it also affects and changes his entire life: his approach to events and to people, his understanding of human nature, his way of reacting to incidents that occur and all the rest.

You will need to make a concerted effort to do this in the beginning, but once you get accustomed to it, you will experience no difficulty at all.  We begin this approach from this week onwards.

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Jesus :  Today too we begin with the customary silence and stillness so that you can benefit to the full from this prayer.  We begin a new liturgical year and so, if ‘well begun is half done’ then it is tremendously important to make this prayer in such a way that it will lead to a real transformation of your life.  Include also a short reflection on not only the week’s effort, but also what you have acquired through this prayer throughout the year that has just ended.

[Time for silent prayer and reflection]

Jesus : In our reflections during the Sundays of Advent, we still continue with the theme of the end-times.  Advent recalls not only My first coming but also the final coming in glory when all of creation will receive either reward or punishment…full and final entry into the kingdom or exclusion from it. We remind you that you would need to somehow make yourself part of the action being contemplated.

The watchword for today’s reflection is: Be awake!  Often I feel that most people take for granted that they are awake, but in fact, the opposite is true.  There is the little story told in one of Fr. Tony D’Melo’s books – of a young Sadhu who a year after graduating from his ashram returned to visit his Guru. He seemingly had a lot of exploits to recount to his master who knew his student through and through and was a wise old man.  No sooner the young Sadhu entered into the presence of his master than the wise Guru stopped him in his tracks and asked:  ‘Before entering in you placed your slippers and umbrella outside, didn’t you?  Can you tell me on which side of the slippers did you place the umbrella – right or left?  The student was caught unawares, and for the life of him he just could not remember on which side of the slippers he had placed the umbrella!  Noting his confusion, the Master dismissed him forthwith requiring him to spend another year in training because if he wasn’t aware of this almost insignificant detail, all his so-called spiritual exploits really count for nothing!

One cannot but think of the numerous people celebrating Eucharist, who when asked what the readings of the day were, find themselves in a quandary – almost nothing seems to register in their vacant minds while the proclamation of God’s word is in progress!  And sadly this lack of attention and self-awareness seems to characterize almost every moment of their waking hours.  It is to such as these that My words are addressed: ‘Be watchful, be awake and alert to everything around you!  That is where the kingdom of God is to be found in your life.’

The important truth underneath this injunction is that whatever happens in your life is actually the result of the Father’s willing it – and he never wills anything for you except that which is for your good.  Every moment is a grace, a blessing especially designed for you to suit your particular needs at that given moment.  Now, when you train yourself to be attentive to each of these blessings, the result is a very deep and personal grasp of who God is and how he deals with his beloved children.  With this you have already begun to live the kingdom life and so when the moment of death arrives, what will happen is that you will be ushered into the fullness of life – a full flowering of what you already experienced in faith while here on earth!

On reading Ex 19:3-5 and 24:3-8 we realize that the only thing on our part which keeps us in covenantal union with the Bl. Trinity is our loving obedience and submission to God’s will.  So, when a person sincerely seeks to live out every moment of his life in obedience to God’s will, there can be nothing better that he could be doing at any given time.  Move into deep silence and examine to see how much you sincerely want to do God’s will on every occasion.  Do not try to force the truth out of your actions, but rather just look on your life as if it were a movie being played out on the TV screen… just watch, observe and pick up what is clearly a transgression of God’s plan for you.  Having picked up a few such situations in your daily life, place them humbly before the Father through the Spirit and be still, allowing God’s Spirit to remove these self-directed activities from within you – he is the most skillful surgeon one could ever find and provided you remain still and lovingly cooperative, you can safely leave yourself in his care.

After a fairly long period of such silent stillness, move into intercessions for others. Pray especially for your loved ones that they too may imbibe the need of such watchfulness in their daily living and thus come to  receive the fullest measure of God’s blessings already now on earth.  Conclude with a short prayer of hymn.

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Jesus : We enter into this hour of prayer once again with the short but intense period of silence and stillness. You might review your past week as on a TV screen to see how watchful you have been, eager to do God’s will in every situation.  How much were you able to remember that you are part of the action taking place and not just an uninterested observer!  Do this as if it were somebody else’s life you are watching, without any active involvement on your part. It would be good if this exercise could gradually move into total silence and stillness for a while.

[Time for silence reflection and prayer]

Jesus : For this week’s reflection we have basically the preaching of John the Baptist preparing the people for My coming.  It would be helpful to realize that while John quotes Is 40:1-10, he changes the entire approach radically. Reading the text as given by Mark you would certainly be led to believe that you are the ones who are to prepare the way for the Lord. The logical application of this would be that you remove from the path of your life all forms of sin so that I, the Lord, can then have free access to your life and thus bring you the gift of redemption.  The presumption underneath this approach is two-fold: that human beings are capable of removing these obstacles from their lives and secondly that until they have cleared their lives of all such ‘obstacles,’ the Lord will not favour them with redemption.  From even your limited human experience you know that you cannot help yourself totally in this matter.  You barely manage to clear up one area and you find yourself slithering into some other sinful area – and the process goes on all through life.  As Scripture itself says: ‘Even the just man sins seven times a day!’  So, how much more would people who are chronically weak and limited in their resources fail all through the day?

Secondly, if God were to come to you with salvation only after you have cleared up your life of all that is evil, in what way would his love be different from human love and forgiveness?  The Father’s love would then be a conditional love – based on the condition that you first clean yourselves up – and that too by your own faltering efforts!  What I came to reveal as the Good News is that God loves you even while you are sinners. He does not wait for you to be righteous by your own efforts and then come to abide in you.  Rather he knows well that, no matter how hard you try, you cannot ever measure up to the demands of his infinite love!  And so, he takes the initiative and comes down to meet you – right there in your very sinful state!  Paul puts this so clearly when he says: “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person - though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:6-8).

This is a truth that is difficult to grasp, especially in modern times when human beings are keenly conscious of the power of their natural endowments and seem to rely more and more on what they can achieve by themselves.  But notice how St. Paul grappled with this mystery: “For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin” (Rom 7:22-8:1).  His logic here is rather strange. After posing the question: Who will rescue me…? one would expect the answer to be something like: ‘So and so …’  But instead of naming his rescuer, he gives thanks implying therefore that the act of rescuing has already been done ‘through Jesus Christ, our Lord.’

Remain in silence and stillness and ponder over this mystery that God’s love truly anticipates all your needs and does not wait for you to accomplish what is not possible for powerless mortals.  Make yourself part of the action indicated here – God coming to your aid when you are utterly helpless. Marvel at the Father’s graciousness and unbounded love for all humans… Drink in this stupendous love and never allow yourself to live as if you can save yourself by your own efforts.  Allow God’s Spirit to point out areas in which you tend to work on your own steam and humbly place these areas into his loving hands so that he may radically change your way of thinking and behaving.  After spending the needed amount of time in silence and stillness, emerge from these depths and engage for a while in intercessory prayer and finally conclude with the usual brief hymn or vocal prayer.

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Jesus : For today’s prayer too, begin with the usual time spent in deep silence and stillness.  This will enable you to set the tone and pace of this hour of prayer, making you more open and docile to the action of God’s Spirit.  So, give it of your best ensuring that you really quieten your mid and especially your heart, ridding it of all distracting thoughts and feelings.  With your entire person more receptive and open, recount briefly the highlights of your spiritual effort of the past week, so that we can learn something for the coming days.  How did it feel to be part of the mass of humanity struggling to survive – but then God comes and lifts you up… he fosters new life in you in all its abundance.  Did you feel the thrill and joy of living in these radically new conditions?  That incidentally is the ‘Good News’ that I brought to the world.

[Time for silent prayer and reflection]

Jesus : For this week’s reflection you have the witness that John the Baptizer gave to the emissaries of the Pharisees.  As you read or listen to John, join the group of Pharisees questioning him. Soon you realize that you cannot but marvel at the clarity of vision John possessed: he knew exactly what his work was and he was perfectly content to stay within the limits of what was entrusted to him.  There was no trace of any self-centred ambition in him; therein lies his greatness.  Spend a few minutes trying to imagine what the world would be like if (for a start) every member of the Catholic Church could be faithful to his/her mission like John.  With each one doing his/her allotted task, would not the plan of God be fulfilled in no time and with minimal effort?  After all, the Father’s plan for the salvation of all people is a perfect one!

Whatever flaws are noticeable come not from the Father but from the self-centredness of the human instruments chosen to assist in this great work.  Recall this simple yet striking example which we referred to in last week’s prayer reflections:  Whereas the Isaian text beginning with ‘Prepare a way for the Lord…’ (Is 40:1-12) in God’s mind conveys rather the message that God is about to prepare this way, because his people have already suffered twice as much as was intended and he doesn’t want them to suffer any more, most homilies on the text in Advent would find the homilist thundering at the people warning them that if they did not work strenuously and assiduously to prepare the way by avoiding sin, they would be punished… it is stressed that this could be the last chance they received in life to do something about their sinful mode of living… and so on!  Why is it so difficult to find even a few who would rather reflect God’s unbelievable love for his wayward children?  Could there be some kind of ‘power’ the preacher experiences when he ‘scares the devil’ out of his listeners?  Or is there some kind of fear that unless the people are threatened they will not do anything worthwhile to change themselves during the entire Advent season? Or do we really fail to listen to what God says and instead superimpose our own ideas on to his message, making it look as if God himself has said that!

Now, isn’t that usurping God’s own prerogative and playing god in the lives of others?  Marvel how wonderfully John managed to keep away from this approach. He was prepared to recede into the shadows and allow God’s powerful message to shine through. Was that because he believed in the Father’s marvelous love and didn’t want in any way to come in between God and his beloved children?  Now reflect that you too (as also every baptized person) are called to be a fore-runner like John to the people who come into your life.  Remain in silence and try to visualize how you would like to carry out this mission. It would be good if you could take one person at a time and allow God’s Spirit to alert you to how God wants you to proclaim the message of his love to this particular person.  Allow as much time as is needed, noting carefully the Father’s special message of love for each one!

You would certainly have a long list of people you normally interact with, but it doesn’t matter if you cannot complete the entire list.  Once you have gone through each one meticulously, you will certainly pick up God’s ‘style’ of dealing with people. Then, it would not be difficult to apply this approach to every person you deal with ‘on the spot’, at it were, as you interact with them personally. Besides, if you can train yourself to remain in close contact with the Spirit throughout the day you would have no difficulty adapting yourself to each situation as the Spirit leads and directs you.  Move then into deep silence and stillness, being especially attentive to what the Spirit says to you.  All you need to do is to listen carefully and deeply – without being afraid of later forgetting the instructions given.  God’s Spirit has a way of reminding you of what you need to know at any given moment, provided you are genuinely desirous of being a pliable instrument in his hands.

After remaining in this silence for as long as needed, gradually rise out of it as you make a few personal and meaningful petitions for people in need.  Conclude your prayer with the usual hymn or short vocal prayer.

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Jesus : Begin your prayer once again with the usual period of interior silence and stillness in which you attune yourself to listen deeply to God’s message for you today.  If today’s prayer is to nourish you throughout the week then you would do well to put your best foot forward and get the maximum benefit of this time you spend with the Bl. Trinity.  Briefly review your past week, spending time over a couple of points that drew your attention as you sought to be watchful and attentive to the Lord’s action in your life.

[Time for silent prayer and reflection]

Jesus : For this week we have the familiar scene of the annunciation to Mary.  Position yourself somewhere in the background, close enough to witness all that is happening and to note the significant stages of this great encounter between God and his loveliest and most docile creation: Mary.  You possibly would be struck first of all by the serenity that surrounds Mary. She faces the most crucial event in her entire life – something that will change its direction completely. And yet, she is unperturbed. As you seek to investigate deeper into the reason for such calmness in Mary, you pick up that she trusts the Father totally. She has not the slightest flicker of a doubt that anything he proposes will never be prejudicial to her. Rather, she sees clearly that through her God wants to bless the whole of mankind.

As you contemplate the dialogue between the messenger and Mary, another striking point is the deep awareness Mary has of her actual situation: she is a virgin and as such would be regarded by most people of her time as one who is utterly useless to society, a nobody, unworthy of even the slightest regard. And so, Mary is surprised that God should be paying so much attention to her, the lowly one. From another angle, Mary would not have been terribly surprised knowing that God, the almighty, does stoop down to raise the lowly from the dung heap and places them on a throne. Yet, she does not presume that this is what is happening to her and so she clarifies the point with the angel.  Does God really want a ‘nobody’ to help him work out this great gift of the Incarnation?

Once she is assured of the fact that the Holy Spirit will attend to all the details of this project, and that all she need contribute is her lowly self, her submission is total and unconditional: ‘Let it be done to me according to your word!’  What marvelous faith she shows in this unconditional surrender.  She accepts not only to be the Mother of the saviour, but also anything and everything that the Father might want her to do. Sit back in deep silence and contemplate, marveling at the trust that Mary has in the Father!  Does your faith come anywhere close to hers?  Review some of the projects God has disclosed to you asking for your cooperation, even a simple thing like being ready to forgive someone who has hurt you deeply.  You could express candidly your difficulties in undertaking this because of the deep hurt, but in the end would you entrust the situation into God’s loving hands and allow the Spirit to work out the rest?

Next, you notice a strange thing. No sooner is the encounter concluded than Mary prepares to leave for the hill country of Judah.  For her, placing herself in God’s hands is not just a matter of being passive.  God will work through her for sure, but she uses her faculties to discern where and how.  Having been told about Elizabeth and her role in the mystery of God becoming human, Mary rushes off to be part of that scene: she takes salvation (Jesus already present within her) to Zechariah’s family and having lived with them for ‘three months’ she transformed each person of that family, bringing them the joy and peace of God-incarnate. Once again remain in silence and listen to what the Spirit tells you about which persons he would want you to take ‘salvation’ to in your surroundings: a depressed or lonely person whom you could cheer with your presence and sharing, a self-condemning sinner who needs a little encouragement, a child struggling with his/her studies or an adolescent battling with his emerging personality and all the turmoil that accompanies this period of growth and flowering. If you listen deeply you will certainly discover several avenues open to and waiting for your enthusiastic cooperation.

However, if at all you will lend a helping hand in the work of salvation as Mary did, you will need to be pretty emptied of the self in you which constantly demands attention for itself.  Place this ‘self’ of yours in God’s hands during this period of silence and allow him to transform your own personal needs enabling you to rise above all this in favour of reaching out to others.  He will ‘do the needful’ if you allow him to, without making any suggestions as to how this should be done.

As you near the end of your prayer, turn your mind to the needs of others, placing them humbly yet confidently before the Spirit who will shower his blessings on them.  Conclude finally with the usual brief hymn or vocal prayer.

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Jesus : For today’s prayer you will not need much reflection; silent contemplation would be preferable.  But for genuine contemplation silence and stillness is all the more necessary and indispensable.  So enter into this prayer with a few minutes of intense silence in which you focus entirely on the Father and his plan for you this week.  Don’t forget to add a couple of minutes of review on how you lived your prayer during the past week.  These are days of hectic activity for everyone and so all the greater reason to spend some little time in stillness and attentiveness to the Lord.

[Time for silent prayer and reflection]

Jesus : For today I invite you to reflect on some aspects of the Incarnation. Ensure that you are part of the nativity scene remaining somewhat in the background yet alert to all that occurs. In choosing to share human life, I chose quite consciously what was the most lowly, sin-scarred, unwanted, despised.  The reason for this choice was that I wanted to show all people, but especially against the background of the Jewish idea that God does not associate with the sinful and the lowly, that God is actually quite different from what most people imagine him to be.  My Father does not shun what is simple and humble, for after all, it is he himself who made even these humble creatures. Besides, he knows only too well that even these despicable creatures are marvelous in that they are the work of his hands and the products of his loving thoughtfulness. The Scriptures portray God as ‘stooping down to the lowly, raising those who are on the dung-heap and placing them on high…’  God is the compassionate Father who ‘will not crush the bruised reed nor snuff out the smouldering wick.’  In short, My Father has an infinite and unconditional love for each and every one of his creatures.  As you visit the crib and its depiction of the nativity scene, could you pause to appreciate your own humanness a little better?

Take each part of your body and also your natural surroundings like trees, rivers, hills and so on.  Reflect on each for a while, admiring the marvel that it is. For example, consider the human eye – what an engineering marvel it is!  Humans took such a long time to come up with a very faint imitation of it in form of the camera and the various ‘scopes’ – telescope, microscope and the rest. And even in all these stupendous inventions, they were simply copying what the Father had done in creating the human eye.  To focus on a particular object producing a sharp and clear image, the gadget has to adjusted manually while the human eye does it automatically, accurately and almost instantly. It goes further in that it sends the image instantly to the brain which then interprets its meaning in terms of the object viewed being useful, harmful or perhaps neutral.  It takes quite a few seconds, sometimes several minutes for you to send an image via the internet – much longer than it takes the eye to dispatch a hundred messages to the brain.

Move to the other limbs and functions you have, admiring each for as long and as deeply as you can.  Follow up each consideration with an act of praise and thanks and at the end gather up all these blessings you have received and thank the Father for the wonder of your being.  You could use Ps. 8 as a basis, if this helps you.  Move on then to the higher gifts you have received – intelligence, free-will, memory, imagination and above all your capacity to feel. Try to realize deeply how the capacity to feel, especially compassion for a fellow human being in suffering, is something that brings you very close to God himself who is moved at the pain of every single person on earth, be he rich or poor, educated or illiterate.

Christmas then is a feast that invites you to be grateful for your own humanity and to feel one with and for other humans who are less endowed in so many ways.  Against this background could you call to mind some people around you who would come to appreciate their own humanity if you could address a few words of appreciation or praise to them?  It could be for some physical gifts they have, like a good singing voice, a pleasant way of speaking, the habit of showing gratitude to others for the least help offered and so on or for any other blessings they have received. 

Spend your Christmas week spreading this kind of happiness around you; it certainly will not cost you a great deal, but picture the joy and zest it will infuse into so many human lives.  Every person around you, including yourself too, is hungering for love and appreciation; most people look on themselves rather negatively… they have a very poor self-image and that is the cause of several other problems they face all through life.  By showing appreciation to those around you, you could help some of them set themselves on a path to a happier, richer life – these re-formed persons will in turn pass on this ‘wholeness’ to others who in turn will form another link in the chain of well-being.  This is how I wanted the new life of the kingdom to spread throughout the world.

You could say that this is one of the reasons for My becoming a human Myself so that I could start this chain reaction among people.  Unfortunately, so many of My followers receive this well-being and appreciation from Me, but break the chain by focusing entirely and solely on themselves.  Can you imagine how much suffering this ‘fault’ engenders in the world?  And when the number of those who act selfishly is multiplied to the nth degree, what an ocean of suffering it generates. However, remember one thing, that a mere casual appreciation of another will in itself not produce great positive or beneficial results.  It is only when you can be consistently and generously positive towards others that lasting results can be expected.  This does not mean that you have to flatter people attributing to them good qualities which they do not possess at all.  For one thing, such flattery will never be consistent and so the person addressed will pick out pretty soon that your appreciation is only ‘put on’ and not genuine.  And this will harm the person more than help.

Another aspect you would need to keep in mind is that such supportive appreciation of another cannot be done profitably when you are saddled with much selflessness.  If somehow you go through life looking for appreciation and support for yourself, then you are like a blind or lame person – how much help can such a defective person offer to another who is in the same predicament? So, in this hour of prayer, remain now in silence and place yourself before the Holy Spirit praying that you be totally emptied of ‘self’ and at the same time deeply appreciative of God’s blessings to you.  Remain still and receptive, allow the Spirit to fill you with God’s life and love to the brim so that it simply overflows from you on to whomever you come in contact with.

As you prepare to conclude your prayer, spend a few minutes interceding for those around you that this Christmas week may put new life into them and send them out to others with the message of God’s love.  Finally end with a brief hymn or vocal prayer.

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Jesus :  You will most likely be caught up still with a lot of activity, visiting of friends and relatives, partying frequently and so on – all the greater reason then for a conscious yet effective effort to remain still and silent in God’s presence as you begin this prayer.  Once you are sufficiently quiet within, turn your mind to the past week to see how you have fared spiritually:  were you swept off your feet as you joyfully participated in the various Christmas activities or were you able to maintain the cheerful yet spiritual atmosphere of the great mystery of the Incarnation?  Did you avail yourself of opportunities to inspire others with a deeper appreciation of themselves?  Do you find yourself appreciating your own humanity a little more than before?

[Time for silent prayer and reflection]

Jesus : The gospel story of My Presentation in the Temple helps you to understand several important points. First of all place yourself perhaps as an assistant in the Temple on the day Mary and Joseph brought Me there for the presentation.  What would possibly strike you as you observe this scene is the marvelous way both Mary and Joseph enter not just into the ceremony of presentation, but especially into the meaning behind it.  For them, it is no empty ritual, but a genuine act of thanksgiving for the gift of a child and a recalling of God’s saving action way back in Egypt because of which each first-born male child literally ‘belongs’ to him.  Grateful for his generosity, they give back to God what is literally his, placing the child totally at God’s disposal figuratively, but also literally.  They certainly would have lived out this attitude throughout the rest of their lives, and so even as I grew up I picked up the idea that I belonged to the Father and had a special role to play in his plan of salvation.

How different is My parents’ attitude from that of most people, even today.  They often make an offering, e.g. at the Presentation of gifts during the Eucharist, but maybe right from the start, their heart is not in the giving. Besides, even after the gift is given it is generally taken back, once the ceremony is over.  The ritual hardly ever expresses what is within the person doing the action, and hence it does not produce any great change.  But where it is meant, even the smallest gesture can have a tremendous impact on the lives of the ‘agents.’

As you hover in the background you would probably notice Simeon and later Anna pick up that something special is going on in the Temple as regards this one family. How would they have sensed that?  Could it be the obvious sincerity displayed on the visage and expression of Mary and Joseph – that here was a couple who obviously meant every word that they said and every gesture that they did?  This would further mean that for Mary and Joseph, their worship would not have stopped in the Temple itself, but would have continued each day of their lives, especially after hearing the prophetic words of both Simeon and Anna.  Each day they would have found added reasons to continue their gifting of their son to the service of the Lord.  Every opportunity or even hardship would have brought them back to the same initial point: to whom does this child now belong?  In other words, their consecration was a daily affair, finding newer and deeper meanings and applications each time.

Living out one’s surrender and offering in this living way is both exciting and valuable because the gift is meant at every twist and turn of one’s life.  What a difference would there not be in the Church if every priest and religious were able to live their life of consecration in this fashion, as an on-going offering.  In most cases, only the initial ceremony would be very meaningful and personal.  Among the later situations, perhaps the very challenging and demanding ones would include a personal ratification of the original gift – for the rest, the surrender of each moment would have to borrow its meaning heavily from the original.  But then, how long can it go on ‘supplying meaning’ as it were, without it being replenished consciously from time to time?

When like in the case of Mary and Joseph the meaning is consciously renewed every day and every moment, there is a tremendous joy and peace that suffuses the life of the giver.  But where this is lacking, the Self can easily be substituted for the spirit of God and lead to the erosion not only of meaning but also of value and personal fulfillment.  Could that be the reason why it is so rare to find that spirit of fulfillment and deep inner joy in the hearts and lives of consecrated persons?  Pause in silence and look into your own life to see how sustained is your self-gift and how long its effects last after the Eucharistic celebration?  Like that of Mary and Joseph seek to make your self-giving a lasting one, total and selfless resulting in a deep, continuous peace and joy.  Remain in this silence for as long as you can and then move on to intercessions and finally to the concluding hymn or vocal prayer.

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