Jesus insults a Canaanite Woman (Mt 15:21-28)
Thanks to our easy means of communication and fast means of travel today, many of us enjoy the privilege of constantly coming in contact with people and places that are new to us, that are strange to us, that are different from our own.  The Word of God today invites us to examine our attitude towards ‘strangers’ in the light of Jesus’ own mission to the nations. Do we still look at others in terms of in-group and out-group categories?
Jesus, being a man of his culture, also had to refine his own attitude towards the “out-group”.  And this ability of Jesus to learn even from a woman of the “out-group”, and his openness to discern the will of His Father through this woman, would determine the future of […]

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When you are one with Jesus, you do what he does!
The gospel narrative of the 18th Sunday in Cycle A is about feeding the five thousand with five loaves and two fish.  The story in the gospel reading of today is what follows immediately after that feeding.  To understand the meaning of the reading of today, we need to ask an intriguing question: in whose hands did the miracle of the loaves really take place?  What do I mean?  Did Jesus take the loaves and the fish, put a veil around them, and say the magic words, ‘Abracadabra’ (by the way, this is Aramaic – the mother-tongue of Jesus, the equivalent of the Indian version, ‘zee-boom-bah’), pull away the veil, and behold, an abundance of bread and fish!
No! That would be magic.  And […]

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Transfiguration: Experience of God in Jesus
Mountains are seen as locations of God-experience in many traditional cultures, and in many of the world religions.  It is not by chance then that one of the classical works of St John of the Cross is called, The Ascent of Mount Carmel (1579); and more recently, Thomas Merton entitles his autobiography as, The Seven-Storey Mountain (1948).
The narration from Matthew describing the transfiguration clearly has three parts:

Going up the mountain
The moment of grace (experience of God in Jesus) on top of the mountain
Coming down the mountain with the fruits of that experience

Let us reflect on these three aspects of the gospel story and see what they could mean for us today:
Going up the mountain: the stage of preparation
What does the gospel text of today tell us about going up the mountain, more precisely, about our desire for the experience of […]

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Often we confuse needs, wants, and likes. ‘Needs’ are those that are necessary to ensure a quality of life. ‘Likes’ are those that we desire to have beyond our needs, because they are nice and attractive. ‘Wants’ are our desires that we choose to add on to our needs. Sure, needs, likes, and wants are all relative to how individuals respond to possibilities that exist in their environment.
I tend to think, the fundamental needs of human being are rather universal and tend to be relatively stable: in terms of food, clothing and shelter. Legitimately, these needs can progress from the bare minimum to a comfortable level related to quality of life. But there is a threshold point in this progress.
Let me illustrate that with an example. The way we will describe the […]

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Believe in the principle of ‘graduality’!
 I realise how I have been sucked into the world of “fast-food”!  I have become increasingly impatient.  When I go for breakfast I want instant coffee.  When I have a headache I want instant relief.  When I email people I want instant replies.  When I fall in love I want instant pleasure.  When I have problems I want instant solutions.  When I pray I want instant miracles!
The Kingdom of God is not a Fast-Food Joint: In the gospel text of today, Jesus reminds me that in the Kingdom of God problems will be solved at their own time.  Evil may grow together with good; evil will not be uprooted instantly.  I need to wait patiently until the end of time (Mt 13:24-30).  The Kingdom of God grows […]

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