The Galilean Master

The Gospel of tomorrow presents the scenario of the call of the first disciples.  This morning during the Lexio Divina as this passage was being read, an episode passed through my mind.  It was a scene from a film on Jesus that I had watched sometime back.  The film presents beautifully the call of each disciple by Jesus himself.  Each one receives a personal invitation from Jesus.  But only Judas comes at the end and presents himself to Jesus describing his qualities as to convince Jesus of the great asset that he could be to the group of the disciples, if he formed part of it. Later he asks Jesus whether he could be one among them.  Jesus accepts and Judas too becomes a disciple. 

I don’t know how much of historical value can be attributed to this particular episode (may be no value at all) but still it tells us a lot knowing the pathetic end that Judas had at the end of his life.  I think in our religious and priestly life, one of the convictions that can offer us a great consolation is the strong belief that it is not we who have chosen the Master but it is the Master who has chosen us.  We have begun our journey hearing his personal call being addressed to each one of us.  In our moments of trials and difficulties, when we reach the point of saying “can’t bear it anymore” we will do well to remember that for God giving a mission to someone and offering the means to achieve the mission is just the same.  

NANO reflections!

We are in the age of Nanotechnology.  The catchword seems to be “the smaller the better”. The past 20 years have seen maximum advancement in the field of technology as never before in the past.  But the experts say we're no longer in the technology revolution, but in the technology evolution. The trend is to make everything we use shrink. We have gadgets like cell phones, laptops, and MP3 players getting smaller and smaller, yet doing much more.   I remember the first time I ever saw a computer.  It was way back in 1991 as a class V student and that too because I was fortunate enough. I say fortunate because my father was working as a peon in the Union Bank and that year they had procured this “new gadget” in the bank.  I still remember the owe and the wonder with which I witnessed this great thing.  I remember that it occupied the whole space on the table.  It was quite huge in size with a fat monitor and a big CPU.  In 20 years things have changed drastically and there is no more that old and heavy desktop computers which have been very well replaced by the latest thin and smart Mac books and notebooks, or the palmtops and iPads, one still better than the other! The smaller the gadget, the greater the demand. 

Gone are the days of those old music discs which were replaced by the audio cassettes which gave way to the CD ROMs and then the Mp3 players, Blue ray discs and iPods and what not? Always becoming smaller and smaller.

I can go on and on with this list.

But there is only one thing that doesn't want to follow this trend. While I want everything else smaller and smaller, I don't want to become small in front of anyone.  My constant tension always is to appear big in front of others.  That's why John the Baptist quite fascinates me. He says "I must decrease and He must increase". What is this logic? And Jesus would still radicalize it when he says, "Blessed are the humble, for they shall inherit the earth".  Oh so that is the point! I think even Jesus also shows me the same thing. St. Paul summarized it so beautifully when he said, Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross (Phil. 2: 5-9).  I wish if I had a little share of the spirit of Jesus.  

Nostro Battesimo

Domani è il battesimo del Signore.  Il più gran dono che Dio ci ha fatto dopo la vita è il dono della fede che abbiamo ricevuto nel giorno del nostro battesimo.  Infatti, mi sono meravigliato quando ho sentito alcuni giorni fa di un gruppo satanico a Roma che avevano più di 3000 persone iscritti che volevano sbattezzare; cioè volevano togliere ogni traccia del loro battessimo che avevano ricevuto da piccoli.  Da un lato mi addolorava questo fatto, dall'altro lato mi ha fatto riflettere quanto il diavolo ha paura di questo benedetto sacramento del battessimo. 

An encounter with the Focolare movement at Loppiano

I am just back from Loppiano, the city of fraternity! A city of joy and smiles… A centre of the Focolare movement began a few years ago by Chiara Lubich.  Little did I know how it would all turn out to be, when Prof. Castellano invited me to join him to spend the new year at Loppiano.  All the same, desiring to have an experience of this new movement in the church I agreed to accompany him.  We were eight of us Salesians from Rome, six clerics and two priests.  The experience at Loppiano was a memorable one.