A Jesuit Adventure

  Imagine you are going through a jungle and you chance upon a magic lamp. You rub the lamp and lo and behold there is a genie standing before you and he says, “You have one wish.. ask whatever you want!”  What would you ask for?   In today’s first reading taken from the first book of Kings we witness the coming of age of the young King Solomon. Having just taken over the reigns of the kingdom Solomon like any other ruler begins to take measures to protect his kingdom. He marries the daughter of Pharaoh despite a law forbidding such marriages (Deuteronomy 7:3-4). Royal alliances were a way of consolidating power and ensuring peace. The enemy Pharaoh would surely not attack the kingdom where his daughter is queen! However, Yahweh expects Solomon to trust Him rather than royal alliances. It is Yahweh, not Pharaoh, who has the power to guarantee the future of Solomon’s kingdom. And it is in this context that Solomon, the son of King David is faced with an important choice....

  “He’s come a long way”, haven’t you heard this idiom often being used by teachers when their students come back to meet them many years after they pass out from school? There is a sense of pride for the teachers to see their students grown and matured into good and successful adults from the timid and even naughty children that they used to be all those years ago. The readings today in a way point out to us that good things take time. On this 16th Sunday in ordinary time, the first reading is taken from the Wisdom of Solomon. Now this book was written sometime between 50 –30 BCE in Greek in Alexandria which was the then capital city of Egypt. The Jews at that time were treated as outcastes in the sophisticated Alexandrian society. The author of the Wisdom of Solomon wanted to reclaim Judaism from wavering and the book is therefore addressed to the Jews to tell them of their rich heritage and to encourage them to take pride in their traditional faith. The reading shows us a mercif...

  My dear friends on this 15th Sunday in Ordinary time the readings focus on giving hope when there seems to be no hope and urging us to sow where we doubt the possibility of fruit. In the first reading taken from Prophet Isaiah, the prophet is preparing the people for the end of their exile and their return to Jerusalem. The Babylonian Exile was a truly traumatic experience. The people witnessed their beloved city destroyed; their families torn apart; their houses demolished; and their country wiped out. The people were not so sure anymore whether they still believed in the God of their ancestors. It is in this context that the prophet is presenting these doubters with a word of hope from the Lord that has the purpose of transforming the exiles’ lives. Isaiah uses natural imagery- rain and snow to convey this message. In the dry climate of that region, rain and snow were very important symbols of life. They cause the seed to sprout and plants to grow. Like rain and snow that water...

  My dear brothers and sisters on this 14 th Sunday in Ordinary Time the 1 st reading presents before us a very familiar picture – The Palm Sunday image of Jesus riding on a donkey. Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is in fulfilment of the prophecy contained in today’s reading (Zech 9:9). The prophet Zechariah is a post-exilic prophet, which means that he writes in a period after Judah was taken into exile by Babylon in 587 BC. The exile lasted for close to 70 years after which the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great, permitted the Jews to return to their homeland. With this turn of events, the people were hopeful for restoration of Judean independence and the Davidic monarchy. However, those dreams never materialized. The foreign kings of Persia remained in charge for another 200 years, only to be replaced by Greek and then Roman rule. The words of comfort and hope that we hear in today’s reading emerge from this long yearning for restoration when the oppression at the han...

  It was not easy to be a Roman Catholic in the early 16 th century in England after the Anglican Church broke away from the Roman Catholic Church. Catholics were persecuted by law and priests were imprisoned, tortured, and frequently executed. There were official ‘priest hunters’ whose job was to hunt down and capture Roman Catholic priests. To protect them the Catholics began hiding the priests in their houses and helping them escape. And therefore very soon a law was passed which made helping priests punishable by death. Yet, the laity continued to be faithful to their priests even at the risk of their own lives. One such person was St. Margaret Clitherow. Clitherow allowed secret masses to be celebrated in her home, where she also hid Roman Catholic missionary priests. She was imprisoned and executed. She was canonized in 1970 by Pope Paul VI as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. I present her life before you as it is closely linked ...

  One of the primary responsibilities of a priest or a deacon is to break the Word of God, and therefore when we prepare for a homily there is always a sense of anxiety about what the Gospel is going to be. You see it is relatively easy to preach about the love of God, forgiveness and the kingdom of God but when you get a passage about persecution it’s not that easy. And that’s because we all are afraid of dying and more so dying due to violence. Sometimes we believe that if we follow the will of God our life is going to be a bed of roses and there would be no difficulty. On the contrary, as we see in the readings, if we follow God’s will, we will have to face troubles, difficulties and persecution. In the 1 st reading taken from the prophet Jeremiah, we witness his struggle in trying to make sense of his mission. Jeremiah’s prophetic ministry is set at a short time before Judah was taken into exile by Babylon. Jeremiah warned Judah about this danger but the people criticised him. ...

My dear friends on this 11 th Sunday in Ordinary Time the readings highlight the link between being chosen by God and being sent as missionaries. The first reading taken from the book of Exodus presents before us a very beautiful imagery – an eagle carrying its young on its wings. After they escaped from Egypt the Israelites gradually made it to the wilderness of the mount of Sinai. Now this wilderness was a desert and there was little in the desert to sustain life. The Israelites were now completely dependent on Yahweh, who led the nation of Israel just as an eagle cares for its young one. We have at this juncture perhaps one of the most important events in the entire salvation history – the election of Israel and the forming of the conditional covenant. Yahweh through Moses tells the Israelites that they will be his segullah. Segullah was a kind of possession that was valuable and cherished. So when Yahweh called people His segullah He was saying that they were His richly adored, val...