31. VI SUN of Kaitha

Lk. 17: 11-19: 10 lepers were healed  but only one who came back to thank God, was told “ your faith has saved you” while the 9 Jews who were healed responded to the legal requirements, the latter was the one who happened to be a non-Jew responded straight from his heart. Among the many people asking God for healing and favours, how many will come to that saving faith which is a new relationship to God through Jesus?

30. V SAT of Kaitha

Mk. 13: 3-13: people, confused are easily fooled by propaganda and ideologies. Fear makes them blind and they persecute those who do not share their fanaticism. That is why they hate the true believers. Jesus asks his followers to bear witness to him as the only savior and proclaim what the Gospel demands of the individual and of society. 

29. V FRI of Kaitha: Blessed Euphrasia

Mk 10: 35-45: The disciples were not a company of saints. They were ordinary men set out by Jesus to change the world. They were ambitious having failed to understand Jesus, his mission and the purpose of his coming. In them we find the amazing confidence and the amazing loyalty in Jesus. Jesus raised these ordinary men to change the world as apostles and his ambassadors of the Divine plan – the will of God to which Jesus submitted himself to.

28. V THU of Kaitha

Mk 10: 35-45: The disciples were not a company of saints. They were ordinary men set out by Jesus to change the world. They were ambitious having failed to understand Jesus, his mission and the purpose of his coming. In them we find the amazing confidence and the amazing loyalty in Jesus. Jesus raised these ordinary men to change the world as apostles and his ambassadors of the Divine plan – the will of God to which Jesus submitted himself to.

27. V WED of Kaitha

Mt. 7: 15-20: Teaching people in a brilliant way, working miracles are gifts though good for the community does not guarantee that one is pleasing to God. True faith activated by love is the real key for the kingdom of heaven. To explain this message Jesus uses the parable of grapes and its fruits. The true disciples are those who produce fruits of love. 

26. V TUE of Kaitha

Jn. 4: 27-38: The desire to tell others of the Samaritan women’s discovery about Jesus killed in her the feeling of shame –a shame of being an outcast and now being cured by Jesus her intimate sinful status, made her to discover Jesus as the Messiah and she ran to tell her neighbors and the people of her village whom she was avoiding till now. Once she is cured from her inner self, she is free to share Jesus to them. She understood to do the will of God and for her that was the only way to happiness.

25. V MON of Kaitha

Mk. 4: 26-34: Like the mustard seed that grows into a great tree the beginnings of faith are small. The image illustrated the enormous potential locked into our baptismal grace. With the passage of time and the grace of the Holy Spirit, circumstances reveal the power of faith and it can reveal the enormous potential of our faith and love.

24. V SUN of Kaitha

Lk. 16: 19-31: The wall the rich man makes willingly in this life becomes after his death, an abyss which no one will be able to bridge. The one who accepts this separation will find himself on the other side forever. So Jesus asks us to work with a view to remove the abyss which separates them in this life by this parable. 

23. IV SAT of Kaitha

Mt. 11: 20-24: What was the sin of Chorazin, of Bethsaida and of Capernaum? They forgot the responsibilities of privilege. We cannot condemn a man who never had the chance to know any better but if a man who has had every chance to know the right and does the wrong. People of Tyre and Sodom were of the former type while people from the towns of Galilee are the latter type. Knowing the right, they did the wrong. They didn’t believe in Jesus. 

22. IV FRI of Kaitha

Mt. 22: 34-40: The striking point in today’s Gospel is not that Jesus commanded to love our God and our neighbor but that he joined them as two sides of the same coin. It is not artificially connected. If a person really loves his or her neighbor, such a person loves God at the same instant. 

21. IV THU of Kaitha

Lk. 12: 49-53: The zeal that Jesus enkindle in one, will spotlight sin and the one turns away from it will gradually create reaction and generate conflict and strife in the other who are servants of sin. It is the kind of reactive strife that one is faced with and that in turn create division - people for Christ and against him. 

20. IV WED of Kaitha

Mt. 9: 35- 10: 1: What we learn through our struggles with darkness can help others to see light. It can be our way of bringing in the harvest. We all struggle to find God in our life. If we pursue in the ‘dark night of the soul’ or ‘spiritual aridity’ to the conclusion, we can emerge from them with deeper and clearer sight.

19. IV TUE of Kaitha

 Mk. 13: 24-31: Prophesying the end of the Jewish world Jesus comes to the end of the world, which would be sudden with confusion and a surprise for the people. But the end of the world would bring its transformation too. 

18. IV MON of Kaitha

Lk 18: 25-30: The whole tendency of possession is to shackle a man’s thoughts to this world. He has so big a stake in it that he never wants to leave it, and never things of anything else. It is not a sin to have much wealth-but it is a danger to the soul and a great responsibility. So, one must struggle as ‘a camel going through the eye of a needle’. This struggle of one to enter the kingdom is an important message in this season of Kaitha.

17. IV SUN of Kaitha

Mk. 7: 1-13: Religion to Pharisees became an instrument of self-deception and neurosis. Jesus restores the commanding vision of Genesis where life is a gift from God to be reverenced and celebrated. Religious traditions must make life coherent and insert us into a wide community of faith and meaning. 

16. III SAT of Kaitha

Lk. 9: 49-56: Our tolerance must be based not on indifference but on love. We ought to be tolerant not because we could not care less,  but because we look the other person with eyes of love. We must never regard the other person as an enemy to be destroyed but as a strayed friend to be recovered by love. 

15. III FRI of Kaitha

Jn 2: 1-12: Independence or Liberty is the celebration of the spirit. If the spirit cannot celebrate due to a physical bondage or the absence of a physical need, how can there be true independence? Bl. V. Mary did the same. She helped the host family at Cana to have good wine in abundance by a miracle by her son Jesus. She freed the spirits of the people there. She gave importance to the spirit than her physic. So she also indicated to the true freedom by her Assumption to heaven or her son showed humanity the true freedom by his mother’s assumption.

14. III THU of Kaitha

Mt. 10: 5-15: Love and fidelity are the norm of matrimony for husband and wife. There is no other way as indicated here. Husband and wife are not two but “they shall be one body” (Genesis 2:24) Jesus says the same in 10:8. Thus their conjugal union binds them in an indestructible bond. 

13. III WED of Kaitha

Mk. 1: 16-20: The call of the first four disciples: What they hear from Jesus first is ‘follow me’- a call to commit themselves to him. They follow him sharing their lot with him, leaving behind their families and jobs. True discipleship starts when we take seriously Jesus’ call to follow him and change our way of life accordingly. 

12. III TUE of Kaitha

Lk 4: 26-30: Jesus angered the Jews by the apparent suggestion that God favoured more the gentiles than them. The two people who were saved belonged to the gentiles. The Jewish prayer services were not all perfect in the synagogues. Yet Jesus went and joined their prayer meetings. He went on correcting the wrong practices. The prophets of old often faced them with the wrath of God but Jesus faced such occasions with the wrath of Love.

11. III MON of Kaitha

Mt. 23: 34-39: God wanted to protect, love and care the people of Jerusalem. But they refused the prophets, Christ and first Christians who came in the name of God and spoke His Word. But they were killed and rejected. Destruction of Jerusalem was a punishment of its crimes. God’s plan and way cannot be objected, blocked by any one. 

10. III SUN of Kaitha

Jn 9: 1-12: Jesus is the light the blind man sees the light of day. Jesus is the light, but people are divided about him. Some are open to the light, that is, to faith: others remain blind that is to say, they keep their own ideas and ‘their own’ belief and refuse to believe in the messenger of God. The one who begins to see in the miracle the power of God is the believer. Faith is not an illusion or cover-up of the reality. They see the same as others see these things which can be touched, counted or measured but the believer captures something that escapes those who lack faith. 

9. II SAT of Kaitha

Lk 14: 15-24: The parable speaks about an eschatological final gathering into God’s community of salvation. For this heavenly banquet which will take place at the end of time, Jesus sends out the invitations. The time to respond is now! Those who are invited (in the parable the cream layer of the Jewish people) seem to have rejected the invitation on the false pretexts their own concerns. The second invitation to the Jewish people who are poor, crippled, outcasts and the marginalized and the third invitation to the gentiles indicate the togetherness of a wider community of God. 

8. II FRI of Kaitha

Jn. 20: 19-20: Jesus communicates the spirit to the disciples and the faith of St. Thomas is tested in this passage. In St. Thomas we find the supreme affirmation of faith. Jesus is here openly confessed for the first time as the God of the biblical revelation. We see also our covenant declaration of our relationship with the Word Incarnate. 

7. II THU of Kaitha

Mk. 11: 12-14, 20-26: The fig tree is full of leaves but no fruits seen. The superficial and deceptive aspects of life are seen but when the fruits of prayer and piety are absent in one, Jesus condemns one such a person and withers like this fig tree. Jesus draws the attention of this kind of dangerous life of a person.

6. II WED of Kaitha

Mt. 17: 1-9: Mountain has been the traditional place of divine revelations from Old Testament times. Peter representing us answered as to who Jesus was and now it is the Father who gives us the answer. Jesus is the Beloved Son; the Eternal Love of the Father can only be satisfied by the Son who shares as his own Divinity. Jesus is the chosen one, the savior announced by the prophets of old. He ‘makes man fully manifest to himself and brings to light his exalted vocation’ (CCC 1701)

5. II TUE of Kaitha

Lk. 6: 20-28: Sermon on the plain speaks, about a change from within our lives but hides a structural change implicitly a reversal of the rich and the poor. It is to be understood beyond what we hear Jesus speaking of a conversion of the rich and a moral excellence of the poor. It promises a new society, a new social order in which no rich or poor exist but a new kingdom. 

4. II MON of Kaitha

Mt. 7: 21-28 Merely by reading the Bible, hearing a sermon even that of Jesus on the sermon on the mount is of no use unless it is put into practice. Here we find Jesus concluding the Sermon on the Mount by saying and reminding people to do the sermon. This he repeatedly speaks in St. Mathew’s Gospel as in 12:50; 21:43; 28:20.

3. II SUN of Kaitha

Lk. 15:11-32: Jesus confronts the people of his times, who accuses others of sinfulness while they themselves live in the cocoon of self righteousness. Jesus portrays a forgiving and loving God to all even to the least and recognizes the lost as God’s child just as we are. 

2. I SAT of Kaitha

Mk. 2:1-12: The power of God’s word heals the paralytic as he forgives his sins. The power of the word of God heals and forgives. Christ acts in the authority of God. In him the Grace filled nearness of God’s kingdom makes itself felt. Church continues his ministry of forgiving sins especially through the sacrament of reconciliation. CCC. 1421.

1. I FRI of Kaitha

Lk. 12: 4-12: The attitude to life is fearlessness. Man’s power over man is strictly limited to this life only. The soul cannot be destroyed by any man. God’s power can blot out a man’s very soul. So God only is to be feared. At the same time to God we are never lost in the crowed. We are taken care of by the Holy Spirit, who leads one to repentance.  If we have lost the seed of repentance over sin then we are far away from Him.