St. Xavier’s Parish, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad, has 634 families residing in the western side of the city. Built on St. Xavier’s College Campus in 2001, it has an attractive church whose distinctive hallmark is the aesthetic Risen Christ with an Indian resonance to it and a welcoming gesture that attracts people to pray. An interesting facet is also the word “Navrangpura” means a complete spectrum of 9 colours and it coincidentally matches the nine ethnic communities that constitute the parish.
30 August, 2013
22nd Sun C - Vally D'Souza sj / Pagola
Twenty
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time ©
1 September 2013
WITHOUT EXCLUDING ANYONE
Luke 14:7-14
Jesus attends a banquet invited by “one
of the leading Pharisees” of the region. It is a special Sabbath day meal
prepared on the eve with great care. As usual, the guests are friends of the
host, prestigious Pharisees, experts in the law, models of religious life for
all the people.
Apparently Jesus doesn’t feel at ease. He is missing his friends,
the poor – people he finds begging on the roadsides, those never invited by
anyone, those who don’t matter: excluded from social life, forgotten by
religion; despised by almost everyone. They are the ones who usually sit at
table with him.
Before leaving, Jesus addresses the one who invited him. It is not to
thank him for the banquet, but to stir his conscience and invite him to live a
less conventional and more humane life:
“Do not invite your friends, your brothers or
your relatives or your rich neighbours, because they will correspond by
inviting you… Invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind; happy are
you because they cannot pay you back; they will repay you when the
righteous rise again.”
Once again Jesus tries to humanize life by breaking if necessary
set ways of behaving and thinking which seem to be very appropriate but which
basically indicate our resistance to building a more humane and fraternal world
willed by God.
Ordinarily, we live in a closed circle of family, social, political
or religious relationships by which we mutually help each other to look
after our interests leaving out those who can do nothing for us. We invite into
our lives those who in turn can invite us. That’s all.
Slaves to self-satisfying relationships,
we are not aware that our
wellbeing is maintained by excluding those who most need our freely
given
solidarity, simply to be able to survive. We have to listen to the
evangelical
pleas of Pope Francis in the small island of Lampedusa: “The culture of
prosperity makes us insensitive to the cries of others.” “We have
fallen
into the globalization of indifference. We have lost our sense of
responsibility.”
We followers of Jesus must remember that opening paths to the Kingdom of
God does not consist in building a more religious society or in promoting an
alternative political system, but, above all, in creating and developing more
humane relationships which make possible dignified conditions of life for all,
beginning with the least of us.
**********
27 August, 2013
14 August, 2013
20th Sun in ordinary time C
Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time ©
18 August 2013
Luke 12, 49-53
“I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already
kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo,
and how distressed I am until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but
division. From now on there will be five in one family divided
against each other, three against two and two against three; the father divided
against the son, son against father, mother against daughter, daughter against
mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law, daughter-in=law against
mother-in-law.”
It’s not possible without fire
In a clearly prophetic style,
Jesus sums up his whole life with a few unusual words: “ I have come to cast
fire in the world, and how I wish it were already burning!” What is Jesus
talking about? The mysterious character of his language leads exegetes to find various
answers. In any case, his symbol of fire
invites us to approach the mystery of his being as to something more ardent and
passionate.
The fire that burns within him,
is the passion for God and compassion for those who suffer. The unfathomable
love that animates his entire life will never be uncovered. His mystery will never remain
enclosed in dogmatic formulas nor in books of learned men. No one will ever
write a definitive book on him. Jesus attracts and sets on fire, troubles and
purifies. No one can follow him with a
cold heart or dulled by piety.
His word sets hearts on fire.
He offers himself in friendship to the most excluded, raises hope in
prostitutes and trust in the most despised sinners, he fights against
everything that harms a human being. He fights formalism in religion, inhuman
religious practices, and strict
interpretations of the law. Nothing and no one can chain down his freedom to do
good. We will never be able to follow him while routinely following a religious path, We will never be able to
follow him by living a religious routine or the conventions of what’s right and
proper.
Jesus stirs up conflicts , he
does not stop them. He has not come to bring a false peace, but tensions,
confrontations and divisions. In fact, he brings conflict in our own hearts. It
is not possible to protect oneself against his call behind the shield of
religious rites and social practices. No religion will protect us from his
gaze. No agnosticism will free us from his challenge. Jesus calls us to live in
the truth and to love without egoism.
His fire has not been quenched
on his being submerged in the deep waters of death. Having been raised to a new
life, his spirit still burns through history. The first followers feel him burn
in their hearts when they hear his words while he journeyed with them.
Where is it possible today to feel that fire
of Jesus? Where can we experience the power of his creative freedom? When do
our hearts burn as we read his Gospel? Where do we passionately live following
his footsteps? Even though Christian faith seems to be dying out among us, the
fire Jesus brought in the world continues to burn under the embers. We must not
let it die out. Without hearts afire it is not possible to follow Jesus.Pagola/Vally D'Souza sj
10 August, 2013
09 August, 2013
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