Faith

Who listens to Pope Francis anyway ?

Shocking as the title is, I think it’s true. Who listens to Pope Francis? A few of us may listen to him occasionally. Yesterday I did. Being Ash Wednesday, I tuned in to listen to what my Holy Father, the Bishop of Rome and the Supreme Pontiff of a billon strong group of people had to say at the start of Lent. I was blown away by what Pope Francis had to say.

Pope Francis offered Mass at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica with about 50 cardinals and a congregation of around 100 people. It has been the Pope’s tradition to say the Ash Wednesday Mass at the Basilica of Santa Sabina on Rome’s Aventine Hill followed by a short procession from the nearby St. Anselm Church. However, this year due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the Mass was offered at the Vatican.

But coming back to my point. How many Catholics actually heard or read what he said? I would peg that number to single digits in terms of percentages worldwide. Yet ask any shareholder of a multinational corporation what the chairman of the board said at the general body meeting a few hours ago. Ask the members of a residential society if they payed attention to what was discussed by the board for the welfare of the residents in the society. Ask the parents of children what direction the schools administration has decided to take in this pandemic year. Ask people if they have poured over every corner of the newspaper this morning. Ask them and they will all say and an emphatic yes; they have heard and read. Now ask yourself, have I as a Catholic heard what my spiritual leader had to say at the start of the holiest season in the Churches calendar?

Ironically what Pope Francis has said is nothing new. Perhaps if he had said something that tickled the ears of the secular press, we would have had the whole world sitting up. He said nothing new but then again God says nothing new in the Bible too. The Popes core message contained the same theme that he has said in years gone by over and over again because what he was doing was mirroring the concern of God for us all through the ages. Pope Francis wants us to address the elephant in the room; sin! It exists but everyone wants to pretend it does not and  since the topic of sin is not breaking news, even though it breaks, us no one cares to listen.

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Opinion

  Why some people get out of a mess and others never do.

Depression in not a term to be dandied around too glibly. While many of us do go about feeling like a dark cloud is hovering over us, we are not what we so loosely call ‘depressed’. Those who are truly depressed would happily exchange your feelings of being low for their real suffering of depression.

But I do admit that we all go through those dark emotional phases of feeling low. Perhaps you are feeling the same right now. Sometimes these feelings last a day or a week but often they just don’t get shaken off for months. Let us assume that a young person is growing through a teenage phase where doubts abound and answers are sought from the most unreliable source (that by the way is the nature of a teenager). The lack of confidence, the desire to be among the hip and trendy or simply the inability to figure out who you are among a bunch of people who are equally lost can be really scary. Teenage life can be the pits with such feelings. What does one do?

In times of emotional uncertainty, what is important to analyze is what are we actually saying to ourselves. What makes or breaks us is not the advice others give us but what we tell ourselves and then begin to believe. If you look in the mirror and tell yourself you are ugly because you don’t see yourself as beautiful as someone else who you think is beautiful, chances are you will begin to believe in what you think. Even worse, when you begin to believe another person’s half-baked opinion of an incident that transpired in your life; you allow them to define you.

Those who make it out there in the big world do a lot of self-talk. But that self-talk needs to be positive and constructive. There is a difference between allowing yourself to talk to you and you talking to yourself. It may sound confusing but let me elaborate this a bit. Self-talk is good provided you are talking to yourself positively. When you tell yourself that you are good, you are beautiful, you are focused and determined, then YOU control the narrative of what you say to yourself. This of course must be based in some reality and honesty. If you slept on your algebra book with the hope that by osmosis the matter has entered your brain, then you are delusional especially if you believe that positive self-talk will help you pass the test. (And unlike psychology or sociology you can’t bullshit your way through algebra). The reality is that such self-talk will get you a D and one that your rightly deserve.

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Faith

In stormy times, where is your faith?
A Lenten reflection on Luke 8:22-25

Stormy times always kick up this question, “Lord, where are you?”. This past year, covid et al has had many of us ask that question. At times it seems like we are perishing under the wind and the waves and the storm is relentless. In the Gospel of Luke 8:22-25 the disciples say to the Lord in Luke8:24, “Master, Master, we are perishing!

Which one of us would ever forget the moment we almost died. The disciples remember the time they almost died. The storm and the wind came down on the lake and the boat was filling with water and they were in danger (Luke8:23b). In a way the question Jesus asks them “where is your faith” seems a bit unfair. These were seasoned fishermen who are used to handling rough waters and this storm must have been out of their depth. Luke clearly tells us that they were in danger. Is not the question of Jesus a bit unreasonable in the face of danger? Are we too in the dock with the Lord when we cry out to help to him in our storm?

The Gospel records four reactions of Jesus in this chronological order. (1) He awoke (2) He rebuked the wind and the raging waves (and they ceased) (3) there was calm (4) AND THEN he said to them, “where is your faith”. While I have stuck to the order of events, I have deliberately added what is in parenthesis and some words in capitals to draw out the obvious conclusion.

We are told that the Lord awoke when they called out to him. Till then he slept through the storm! So, is it a bad thing that Jesus is sleeping in our boat while a storm rages in our lives? Let’s first get this right. He may be sleeping but HE IS STILL IN OUR BOAT. Jesus has not abandoned us! If Jesus is asleep in your boat during a storm, that’s a good thing. Think about it, If Jesus is not worried about the storm and is sleeping through it then you too should catch a few winks. Just relax, stop stressing over your storm. Enjoy his peace. One day you will look back and think, ‘ah that was nothing, just a bad gust of wind.’

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Faith

Do you want a miracle this Sunday in your life? – 6th Sunday in ordinary time – Mark 1:40-45

This was Jesus’ third miracle in the Gospel of Mark. He has just concluded a preaching tour in Galilee (1:35-39) and is somewhere in the region of Galilee. He is where the people are (verse 38) God goes to the people. This is the Church we ought to be; a church that goes to where people are. He went to their synagogues and cast out demons….(1:39)

The miracle involves a leper. A leper who came to him ‘kneeling’ and ‘begging’. This disease had sucked the oxygen out of the leper’s lungs. He just needed this miracle today as perhaps some of you need a miracle this Sunday. He was tired of his physical condition but also of his spiritual ailment; so he asked for cleansing of his soul. The most painful wounds we carry with from the past are more wounds of the spirit than of the body.

For the Jew, physical suffering was a punishment by God for one’s sin. This man had rotting flesh due to leprosy but let us not exclude the possibility that he also had a rotten heart. The leper realized that both needed cleansing; not just a physical miracle, he needed a spiritual cleansing also. We need to ask the Lord to touch us too, touch the ugly bits of us that we do not like to look at.

But how do I approach the Lord in prayer? This leper was down on his knees, begging. Perhaps I need to do the same. I need to get off my high horse because I too am desperately in need of this miracle for myself. I am in need of cleansing; my sin is hanging on me like rotting flesh.

The law required that a leper stay away from others – a social and religious exclusion. The leper breaches this code by approaching Jesus, and Jesus breaches it by touching the leper. Interestingly the leper asked for cleansing not a ‘huggy moment’, he never imagined he would be touched. He wanted cleansing he got a brotherly hug and a healing. How sensitive and responsive Jesus is; he is “moved with pity” for the leper as he is with us.

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Faith

Caught with His Compassion Down – Friday 5th week in ordinary time – Mark 7:31-37

As Gospel stories go, this one is odd. We are told that Jesus is in Tyre, of all places, so distant from rural Galilee in terms of mileage as well as culture. Why is he apparently alone and seeking to elude everyone’s notice? (verse 24) Yet he was found by the Syrophoenician woman. (verse25) Now having healed the woman’s daughter of a demon he is on the move again, like a shepherd searching for his stray sheep. All he wants is to heal.

Today’s Gospel is another incidence of Jesus caring for those who are suffering from sicknesses and disabilities of one kind or another. ‘They brought to him a deaf man.’ They bring him a man and ask Jesus to lay a hand on him; they did not explicitly as for a cure. We too can often bring others to God’s attention, asking that they may be healed, and that is good. Perhaps we also need to allow others to bring us before God? Do I ask others to pray for me?

Jesus shows great care and sensitivity in his encounter with this deaf man. Deaf persons often say they feel cut off from life and that they are forced to live in a world of their own. Jesus opens out his world again. This man is doubly afflicted – being a foreigner he suffers isolation and is also excluded by his physical impairment. Jesus was distressed at the suffering of this man. Jesus cares in his heart. Religion is about the ordinary, caring about simple truths and actions. The gospel of Jesus doesn’t fudge that issue.

Nobody is excluded from the healing touch of God. Jesus’ action initiates a new age. He doesn’t heal from a distance. He comes close enough to touch us, one by one. Jesus does not see his healing powers as proofs of his divinity, but rather as signs that the God of mercy and goodness is close to us. He heals because he is moved with compassion. He indeed does all things well.

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