MARY MODEL OF HUMILITY AND AVAILABILITY

The promise made to our 1^st parents Adam and Even about the coming of the Saviour of the world was echoing in the hearts of many generations, even the young,  rich and prestigious women of Judea.

It was a fact, many young women of Mary’s time dreamed of becoming the mother of the Messaiah.

As we all know, Mary lived a very humble life in the company of her God fearing parents Anna and Joackim.

She did not have any ambitions as the other young women except to abide by the will of God.

When God the Father wanted to send a Messenger to her she was available in prayer.  There comes the messenger Angel Gabriel – with the profound salutation ‘Hail Mary Full of Grace!  The Lord is with you!  Blessed are you among women!  Blessed is the fruit of your womb – Jesus.

Mary’s availability is remarkable.  Let us reflect a while our availability to the people – whom we profess to be available.  It is at times even reproachable to note that we are drifting away from availability to our customers – more and more, instead of becoming available more and more.

For example, Mary went in haste to Elizabeth residence to assist her – and lived with her for 3 months.  What about us?  We find it even difficult to be present in our work place even during our duty hours.  We are comfortable inside our Convent walls – safe and secure – a clear evidence of our selfishness.  Do we use our time for the service of the people or for our own comfort – doing our personal work?

Availability is well appreciated by all of us – in theory.  Problems are experienced only in practical life.

Mary was already a pregnant woman when she went in haste to assist Elizabeth.  Yes – she was pregnant and carrying the God made man Jesus!  She was full of Jesus! Her son within her was Jesus! -  Her God.  She was fully preoccupied by Jesus!  Her Lord and Master.

This very Jesus is within us and around us.

Are we aware?  If so why do we find it difficult to practice this most admired virtue of availability?

Mary was available at the Wedding feast of Cana.  It was Mary who noticed that the wine failed during the celebration and the embarrassment of the family was great.  This episode will teach us to be available and sensitive to the needs of others without being asked for.  During her lifetime Mary kept pondering in her heart everything – thus we have the following events in the Bible.

During the presentation of Jesus in the temple – Simon’s words to Mary – “A sword shall pierce your heart” – she kept pondering in the heart.

When Jesus was lost in the temple and found - Mary’s words to Jesus – “Your Father and were searching for you!  Woman don’t you know that I am busy with my Father’s business?

At the Wedding feast of Cana – ‘woman my time has not yet come’.  Mary knows what it meant – but kept pondering in her heart.

Last on the cross – “woman behold your son!” – where Mary became the mother of the whole human race.  Willingly took up on her the entire human race and made herself available to us, her children.

She was a woman who did not hesitate to proclaim that God vindicates the humble and oppressed, and removes the powerful people this world from their privileged position.  Mary was a woman with intuitive intelligence, the instinctive compassion, the refinement of justice and sensitivity to the human suffering.  Many times Mary plays a prophetic role in human affairs.  Mary who stands out among the poor and humble of the Lord, a woman of strength who experienced poverty and suffering, flight and exile.

From the beginning, her presence has given dignity to the downtrodden, hope to the exploited, and motivation to all liberation movements.  Mary will appear not as a Mother exclusively concerned with her own divine son but rather as a woman who’s action helped to strengthen the apostolic community’s faith in Christ.

She was one who did not seek favours for her, but rather was concerned with others for their personal and collective liberation for all manner of evil.  Every life has its share of pain, struggle and hard times.  Mary’s life was no different.  While going through the life of transitions (joys and sorrows) which opened her heart that drew her into a being a woman of kindness, that kept calling her to go deeper in love and to trust the divine presence who was always with her.

Her apparitions at various part of the Globe like Fatima, Lourdes, Velankanni etc. and may other apparitions that are taking place speaks volumes about the availability and concern of Mary over us.  Hence it is a bounden duty and responsibility for us her consecrated children to imitate her virtues specially the “availability” of Mary in our day-to-day life, as Nurses at the service of the sick

We are provided with ample opportunity to practice this virtue of availability in our day-to-day life, 24 hours of the day.  Let us pray to our Mother to bless us with all the necessary graces to be faithful in our calling as nurses in the service of sick, where much demand is made on the virtue of availability.

Availability and humility goes together because when we are humble, we will be available for the service of God and our brethren.  Availability considered as a virtue, stands optional for many.  But people engaged in medical and Nursing Profession availability is not only a virtue, but also a way of life, and its violation may cost the loss of precious lives.  Hence we need to remind ourselves of the seriousness of this virtue in our lives as consecrated religious who have vowed our lives ceremoniously and publicly to fulfill our calling by being effective instruments in the hands of God as Mary was.

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Love Changes Everything

We wanted to write about the love of God, but it was such a big topic that we weren’t sure where to begin. In the end, we narrowed it down to three major themes. First, we wanted to provide a panoramic view of God’s love, beginning with creation and following salvation history up to the present day. Second, we wanted to look at how Jesus reaches out to us with love every day of our lives. And finally, we wanted to show how God’s love can be the foundation for our lives, both when things are going well for us and even when we face times of trial or suffering.

Over all these themes, however, we wanted to emphasize the fact that God wants us to experience his love, not just know about it. We are convinced that without these personal experiences of God’s love, our faith can get very restrictive. We reduce the Christian life to a set of rules, traditions, and expectations. Sadly, one major reason why people leave the church is because they have not experienced this love; in some cases, they never knew that they could experience it!

Moved by Love. When we experience God’s love, everything changes, and we begin to think and act in ways that we would never have considered before. We want to spend more time with the One whose love has filled us. We cling to him in our hearts, even as we go about our everyday lives. We are more careful to not lose sight of his presence or turn away into sin. We begin to ask how we can bring him glory with our lives and by sharing his love with others.

But it’s not just in the depths of our hearts that we are changed. Our actions are different as well. His love will produce in us new priorities, moving us to put aside pursuits that once seemed so attractive or important. It will move us to reach out to the poor and to weep over the thousands of unjustified killings, war, abortions, ... that happen each day. It will cause us to lament the state of the church, to tell people about God’s love, and to pray for conversions. It will motivate us to evangelize our children and build them up in the faith. In short, God’s love can move us to become more like Jesus both in how we think and in what we do.

Pour It Out, Lord! This month, as we look at the love that God has for us, let’s all pray together that this love will be poured out in our lives and in the lives of our families. All we have to do is ask, and God will answer us. So let’s all pray that we will come to know by personal experience the joy, the peace, and the love that our heavenly Father has for us. Knowing that he wants to share his love with us more than anything else can be comforting and assuring. But experiencing this love is nothing short of transforming!

WORD OF GOD - INDIAN RESPONSE TO THW WORLD

Our response should spring from our radical commitment to the Gospel, which is often called prophetic.  Hence their role as religious in the Church should serve as pointers to the rest of the Christian community indicating the directions for a new way of being Church in this country.

The Indian Society is plagued by the evils of social and economic injustice, exploitation and oppression.  How should the Gospel become good news for our people?  How should our radical commitment to the Gospel be articulated in such a situation?

Responding to the call of Gospel makes two demands on us: in the first place, the evangelizers must allow themselves to be entirely conditioned by God’s Word.  In other words, the religious persons must be evangelized.  Once this happens, the second will naturally flow from it, namely, to live constantly with a sense of mission, that is, to be full time evangelizers, wherever they are found and in whatever circumstances or condition of life they live.  We shall now reflect on these two aspects of our response.

Today religious are called to a renewed listening to the Word of God.  The effect of this can be none other than their own conversion, not understood only as turning away from sin, but as a force that gives a new direction to their life.

It is total and permanent self surrender without conditions, qualifications, reservations ….

A person is religious only in the measure in which he or she has become capable of listening to God.

This conversion will lead to a genuine commitment.  Commitment is not the same as promises.  It is to allow one’s person to be conditioned by the other person.  Religious profession is not a contract, but a consecration.  The persons, who are converted, are in a state of active passivity, and allow God to enter into their persons.  The Paschal  Mystery becomes a living reality in their lives in such a way that from then on they live like Christ, by giving their lives totally to the others.

We need to review our religious life and our formation to religious life in the light of conversion and commitment.  When this really happens, our religious life will become a symbol of divine presence in the world.  It will be permeated by a love that takes away all types of discriminatory tendencies from our lives; it will be impelled by a love that makes us live only for the other like Christ: man-for-the-other.  If this does not take place, our commitment will be coloured by selfishness.  We can even do actions of God without communicating His relationship to the people.

Every commitment necessarily leads to mission.  The vocation to religious life should begin with a sense of mission because the call to disicipleship can be expressed in no better way than by becoming an apostle. “All the biblical vocations are related to the messianic vocation of Jesus, which was revealed at His baptism in the Jordan (Mt. 3, 13-17).  His vocation was defined in terms of the depth of His divine Sonship (Mt. 3, 17) and his anointing by the Holy Spirit for mission”. 

Our sense of mission should begin with the need of bringing this good news to all the people entrusted to us. 

Finally the sense of mission has its centre in the love of the Father for the world.  We can say, therefore, that the sense of mission comprises four elements: consciousness of being sent by Christ, awareness of the bad news around us, capacity to love those to whom we are sent and the readiness to give ourselves to the others unconditionally. 

Our religious communities are the visible manifestations of the presence of Christ with His disciples in the midst of the world.  They are primarily communities of relationship, open communities. 

This will take place only when they have assimilated the Word of God into their personal ethos.  It is not always possible to determine this by fixing a particular number of years of formation.

The ultimate aim of our evangelizing mission is the formation of communities of communion.  Our spirituality should be at the service of this mission or better, should be the result of the effort at building up communion.  

VOCATION WEEK - HOLY HOUR

SAME CALL, SAME GOAL

To the question posed by the lawyer as what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus answered: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself” (Lk 10:26).

Each person should endeavour to inherit eternal life by being loyal and faithful to his call, his vocation. “Let each of you lead the life that the Lord has assigned, to which God called you” (1 Cor 7: 17). Each baptized Catholic is obliged to choose any one of the three options-, Married Life, Single Life or avowed religious life (of priests and nuns). The vast majority of the people opt for married life. A few are called to live single lives. Yet others are called upon to live the life of Nuns, bound by their religious vows of chastity, charity and obedience. It is a special call directed addressed by Jesus to His chosen ones a love.

The Catholic Church is observing April 13^th of this year as the Day of Prayers for Religious Vocations. Normally that day we all pray to have more vocations from our midst so that more and more of our youths opt for religious lives by joining various Religious Orders and Congregations. It is necessary to increase the number of the Religious as they constitute the fore front soldiers of the church like Navy, Military and Air force. It is just and right to pray especially for them. It is also equally important to pray for families because these days family relations are getting wrecked, wreaking havoc in society. After all, it is from families that persons have to come for various vocations, be it married, single or religious life. Family is the first place of formation. Parents are the main formators.

       Whatever may be the call, be it married life, single life or religious life, fundamentally the call and the goal are the same for all. It is God who call us all. It is He who selects us and entrusts us with our separate errands or missions. The call, basically, is tantamount to becoming the Gospel and proclaiming it. So it would be meaningless to say that one call is Superior or Inferior to the other. Each baptized individual becomes part and parcel of the royal priesthood of Jesus. “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a Holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 pet 2:9). Probably it was because not enough representation was given in the royal priesthood, of which all Christians are an integral part, that the laity not aver and exhibit enough zeal and enthusiasm in the evangelization mission.

On the Special Day of Prayer for Divine Vocations, April 13^th, let us take an oath: We will live in accordance with the values set down in the Gospel, praising and glorifying God and sharing whatever we have with those in greater need than ours. This way let us proclaim the kingdom of God with our wealth, words, deeds and even by dedicating and rededicating our lives in the service of God, the author of everything.

2007 is history. 2008 is here! The beginning of a new year always a great time to re-think your goal in life. Are there more of a difference in your life? Our spirituality is influenced by the world which is characterized by positive features like diverse  world views, broader perspectives, greater connectivity and communication between nations, rapid economic progress, powerful impact of the multimedia, major advances in science and technology and negative features like the widening of the divide between the rich and the poor, misuse of modern technology, ecological degradation, terrorism, increase in violence, loss of human life, increase in consumerism and growing materialism.

A Divine Call:

What the world needs now is generous justice, limitless listening, genuine care and concern and true friendship. What is needed now is a model of compassion, universalism, as ecology of life and justice and peace. This is imperative if the planet is to survive and all the people  are to live decent human lives. What religious life needs now is the cultivation of virtues, of spiritual disciplines that enable the religious to respond to these new issues with personal strength, contemplative consciousness and a common focus.

There was only one Abraham, One Moses, One Judith, One Deborah and One Samaritan woman: all of them flawed and fragile. Yet they turned their worlds upside down because they were in search of truth and direction.

Religious life promises a life steeped in scriptures. You come to religious life only to seek of God. It is a calling to be “leaven in the dough”. It is a life set apart – a disciplined lifestyle, a love for prayer and solitude. A call to be authentic and relevant. A spiritual journey wherein you create your space to be based on your firm convictions, simple choices and focused priorities.

Our Spirituality is a gift to be treasured. As Religious we are accountable to those who came before us and answerable to those who come after us. The New Year 2008 will witness the transformation of our world into God’s dream for humankind. As we make this journey of the heart together may we hasten the coming of a culture of peace based on justice, of a civilization of love based on valuing the gift of diversity, caring for the integrity of the earth, protecting the rights of the vulnerable, nurturing the promise of our children, cherishing the wisdom of the elderly, asking pardon, risking forgiveness.

       May we use every means in our power of bring about this transformation believing that God desires to do this work in us and through us, and that the result will be infinitely more than we can ask for or imagine.

       The independence and status that have been acquired can make it very difficult for some young men to answer the call, like the rich young man in the Gospel who turns his back on a vocation because, “his possessions were many”. When a vocation goes unanswered it is not only a sadness for the one who declines God’s call, but also a sadness for the entire Catholic Community.

       Traditionally, Catholic homes have been a privileged place for a vocation to grow and be nurtured by parents who understood the importance of Priesthood and religious life. My own family was a great source of encouragement for my vocation. Today, we need to appeal to parents and teachers to instill a sense of vocation in our young Catholics. They should not confine themselves to asking their children: “what do you want to be when you grow up?” They must also ask “and what do you think God wants you to be?” we must help young people look beyond careers and professions and answer a call from God.

       Parents can do so much by praying with their children and teaching them to seek God’s will in their lives through vocational discernment. Parents receive their children form God and must be willing to give them back to God for service of His people. Vocations tend to appear in families where the parents are actively involved in the faith formation of their children and instill in them a love and respect for Religious. Asking children to pray for nuns is a way to signal to the child the importance of nuns in our lives and at the same time indicates to the child that priests are human and need the support and prayers of the faith community to persevere in their service to the Church.

       We have many young people today who lead good and generous lives, but are not involved enough in the life of the Church or familiar enough with the teaching of the Gospel to be able to identify a call or to respond. Vocations are in the hearts of our young Catholics, waiting to be nurtured and cultivated by our prayers and encouragement. God is calling many… can we help them to respond? It is the duty of each of us to help the young of today to respond.

       No priests and religious are employees. But rather consecrated persons chosen by God to serve mankind says the secretary for the Congregation for ---------------- and religious.

       As the Gospel accounts for Christ’s washing of the feet testifies the task of religious is found in unconditional surrender. The religious does not belong to himself  / herself. They are at the service of the people without limits of schedule or calendars.

       People are not for the Priests and religious. But the religious are for the people in its totality without ever restricting their service. We cannot choose the post we like it is assigned to them from the authorities with discernment the will of God.

       So, friends let us pray!