31. Mt. 5: 1-12

1  Mt. 5: 1-12:  The blessing is related to the people or right attitudes, namely people who have dependence on God, longing for justice, sincerity, mercy and peacableness like the Greek Fathers whose feast we celebrate today. The happiness promised to them is the total liberation of humankind. Though this begins here and now, will reach its fullness in the hereafter. 

30. Mt. 16: 5-12

1Mt. 16: 5-12: The Pharisees saw religion as a set of laws and commandments, outward rituals and purity. The Sadducees involved in politics. So Jesus says not to identify the kingdom with outward goods and actions but what matters really is the state of man’s heart. So one should not forget his or her inner state of the heart.

29. Lk. 9: 46-48

1Lk. 9: 46-48: Children were least important members of society. Jesus indicates that whoever is prepared to spend his or her life in serving and helping people who do not matter much in the eyes of the world is serving Him and the Father in heaven. They are the people of God who works for unity.

28. Jn 15: 18-25

   Jn 15: 18-25: If love is the essential nature of the disciple of Christ, hatred is of the world and it’s ruler the Satan. When a person begins to live a more responsible and committed life he or she meets with opposition and hatred from the other. This is the beginning of persecution of the Christians or Christ’s followers who is committed to Christ and his word. Jesus makes his disciples of this incoming persecution and must be prepared to suffer like that he suffered in this Gospel passage. 

27. Jn 11: 1-16

1Jn 11: 1-16: Death is an inescapable reality. Consciously or unconsciously we confront death everyday: every minute we die a little – we realize that we are limited. In today’s Gospel Jesus is seen preparing the disciple to that realization so that they may believe in the resurrection and with him of all who believe in him may be resurrected. Jesus is the light and whoever walks with him will not ‘stumble’ to death but will be always be in the light and in the life eternal. 

26. Mt. 24: 3-14

1 Mt. 24: 3-14: In this last discourse on the eschatological times, Jesus refers two events that speaks all about the destruction of Jerusalem. Jesus concludes the end of the world also together with. Jesus never entertains the curiosity of the disciples, but warns them that the end of the world cannot be calculated. He instills in them to have a heart that is prepared to face the events at any time.

25. Mt 8: 23-34

   Mt 8: 23-34: The presence of Jesus is power. The disciples realized it only in the dire need to calm the storm. But the people of the town failed to convert the power of the presence of Jesus into faith due to fear. Jesus is with us in the very middle of the storm. In the complexity of our lives, we seldom have the date we would like to make a decision. The best way for us is to consult, pray, decide and then go forward. Having done our best, we can be assured that Jesus remains with us in whatever follows. Jesus gives us strength to survive the storm of our life. 

24. Lk. 9: 18-20

1.    Lk. 9: 18-20: Jesus wanted to know whether the disciples understood what he said and done. So he asks ‘who do they say I am’? Peter responds that he is the fulfillment of Old Testament hopes and that he is the MESSIAH. In order for the kingdom to become public, we must first experience its glory within our lives. 

23. Lk. 16: 1-8

1.    Lk. 16: 1-8: The parable is not about the dishonesty of the steward but about the genius with which he plan for his own future. Jesus remarks that we should be enterprising to exploit spiritual opportunities for our own life. We have to learn to deal creatively and maturely with the Holy Spirit that we have received.

22. Mt 25: 1-13

1.    Mt 25: 1-13: The parable of the ten virgins –five wise and five foolish teaches us that we Christians are not expected to behave like idle spectators, just waiting for the coming of the Lord; we have to work for it; we have to persevere and persist. We have at all times to be always ready, living the word of God, bearing the torch of Christ. 

21. Lk. 11: 37-42

1.    Lk. 11: 37-42: Jesus does not condemn the ritual and external observances but insists that the heart of ritual is faith. The heart of every ritual and religious practices are faith and love. If external observance is the limit of our religion, then sin becomes as superficial as the righteousness that such a faith would seek. So faith brings prayer and ritual to life.

20. Lk 4: 38-44

1.    Lk 4: 38-44: Jesus is ready to serve and heal people always. This made the people to realize that the favours they received were to serve further others in return. So is Peter’s mother-in-law who after being cured by Jesus ‘gets up and serves them’. Jesus attends the needs of men because first he must become companied with God. So it was his habit to rise up ‘early in the morning and went out to be alone’. Prayer is great but in the end human need is greater. 

19. Mt. 18: 10-14

1 Mt. 18: 10-14: Jesus instructs his faithful and disciples not to preoccupy with ranking themselves but with serving the rest. The lost sheep teaches us that though there is joy in finding the strayed one but we must be more concerned to go behind the wandering ones to seek them out and to bring them back to the fold.

18. Lk 8: 41b-56

1  Lk 8: 41b-56: We find again a man Jairus by name who could pocket his pride within himself to present his need and request for help from Jesus. We also find a woman who dares to touch Jesus’ cloak in her dire need. Both people showed immense faith in Jesus. The woman is not the last in the crowd to receive a favour from Jesus. Jesus treats her as if she is the only one in the crowd. So God loves each one of us as if there was only one of us to love.

17. Jn 12: 20-26

1Jn 12: 20-26: Jesus will die and the universal church will be born. Jesus allows his lifeless body to be laid in the earth; on rising from the tomb, his same body, now glorified, will also embrace the believers united to him. The life that is now his will be communicated to all the children of God. St. Alphonsa understood and lived according to what Jesus preached and practiced. 

16. Jn 10: 1-15

Jn 10: 1-15: Jesus warns the disciples of ‘false shepherds’ who pretend to guide others without being mandated for it. Jesus is the ‘good shepherd’ who leads them out to green pastures, to happiness, to genuine blooming out, to real nourishments ‘who calls his own sheep’ by name, who fights against ‘anonymity’. Jesus is the one who opens for mankind a new ‘vital space’. Without him one is closed within oneself without ideology, theory, religion which delivers one from fatality

15. Lk 9: 28-36

Lk 9: 28-36:It was as if the princes of Israel’s (Moses and Elijah) life and thought and religion approve to go ahead of the salvific act during the transfiguration of Jesus. The passage comes with a vivid message in the verse ‘when they were fully awake they saw his glory’. In life we miss so much because of our minds sleeping because of our prejudices to new ideas, because off our mental lethargy for strenuous thought with our unexamined life and because of our love for ease that shut our minds against any disturbing thought. So transfiguration of our Lord teaches to be awake to grasp the meaning and significance of things around us and the events in our life.

14. Lk. 11: 24-26

Lk. 11: 24-26: The purity of the external dimension without the purity of the spiritual power always invites the evil and demons. No one can take away the Holy Spirit away from us. We are the only ones who can cut off His influences

13. Lk 11: 14-23

Lk 11: 14-23: The cosmic dimension of that ultimate battle took local form in the ministry of Jesus. Jesus is accused of destroying the kingdom of God! So he experiences another form of poverty – misunderstanding, misinterpretation and his words or intentions distorted. In this controversy Jesus stresses the importance of unity. Division leads to failure and destruction. So Jesus, who establishes unity and destroy the failure of everyone who has faith in Him.

12. Lk 10:38-42

Lk 10:38-42: Martha while offering her culinary services to Jesus, Mary sits at Jesus’ feet and listens to his words. This signifies discipleship and Jesus recommends such discipleship as the ‘better half’ as the most important choice amidst the many concerns of life. The way to God is closed to nobody

11. Mt. 20: 1-16

1.    Mt. 20: 1-16: The late workers were paid as much as the early workers here in this passage. The message of the parable is to show that God rewards not according to the time of work but according to one’s entry to God’s call. Applying to ourselves it means that God does not compare us with known or popular saints. The Lord looks at what we have done with what we have. He examines how we have used the opportunities and skills we have been given. We fashion our own spiritual life or death. 

10. Lk. 10: 17-21

1.    Lk. 10: 17-21: The disciples are seen overjoyed about the subjecting of the demons in the name of Jesus. Jesus is more powerful than Satan they understood. This power of casting away of demons is received by those who try to live and preach the Gospel with sincerity. By this power, they can set an individual free to become the son and daughter of God by which he or she was destined to be at birth it is by this way one restore the original order of creation. 

9. Lk. 21:7-19

1.     Lk. 21:7-19:  Jesus warns about the imposters and persecutions of many ways that the church will have to face. The persecution in our country takes the form of a subtle nature. We are subjected to a barrage of stereotyping through the media, attacks upon the institutions of the church-career and professional discrimination against Catholics. The old colosseum of persecution has now become the board offices, universities, television studios, classrooms, government offices and legislatures and so on. 

8. Jn. 5: 39-47

1.    Jn. 5: 39-47: ‘If another comes in his own name, him you will receive’ (v.43b) Jesus attacks the imposters who come and preached what people desire – victory and material prosperity but Jesus preaches the cross. The characteristic of these imposters are to offer the easy way while Jesus offers the hard way to God. The imposters perished while Christ lives on. This knowledge of the way to the kingdom of God is being given only to the Jews then. It become their privilege but failed to use them and thereby had become their condemnation. Responsibility is always the other side of privilege. 

7. Lk 20: 20-26

1.    Lk 20: 20-26: For a Christian, God has the last word not the state. The voice of the conscience is greater than any other man-made laws. To be the conscience of the heart to be allowed to work in the state, a Christian should be part of the government and he must be one and the same time fear God and honour the state authority. 

6. Mt. 5: 13-16

1.    Mt. 5: 13-16: Like salt and light, our faith is most operative when it is part of the everyday texture of our lives. The disciples are to be salt and light not only for the revival of Judaism but of the whole world. If we refuse to be the salt and light of the earth our faith can easily become vulgarized into harmless chocolate images of Christ and religious scenes painted on dinner plates – the harmless artifacts of a faith with all the backbone of a seedless grape. 

5. Mk. 6: 18-29

1.     Mk. 6: 18-29: The story of John’s death is placed here to advert to the shadow of the cross that is darkening the ministry of Jesus. When we live and speak the Gospel clearly and directly, we are most like Jesus in his ministry suffering and hidden glory. The shadow of the cross is always on the horizon of the church’s work. The ministers of the church die and sometimes violently and pass on to the Father every day. 

4. Mt. 15: 21-28

1.    Mt. 15: 21-28: The Canaanite woman is ‘low caste’ in two ways. By birth she belongs to another religion. Being a woman she is oppressed under men. But she has the humility to accept what she is and thereby Jesus acknowledges her faith though she belongs to a different religion. So Jesus teaches us to appreciate the goodness in others whether they belong to different caste, religion or status. 

3. Mt. 11: 25-30

1.    Mt. 11: 25-30 It is the Christian conviction that in Jesus Christ alone we see what God is like and Jesus can give that knowledge to anyone who is humble enough and trustful enough to receive it. Jesus is compassionate to those people trying to find God to be good and doing so, driven to weariness and despair. 

2. Mt. 18: 10-14

1.    Mt. 18: 10-14: Jesus instructs his faithful and disciples not to preoccupy with ranking themselves but with serving the rest. The lost sheep teaches us that though there is joy in finding the strayed one but we must be more concerned to go behind the wandering ones to seek them out and to bring them back to the fold.

1. Mt. 18: 1-5

1.    Mt. 18: 1-5: The child is held up as a model for the disciples not because of any supposed innocence of children but because of their complete dependence on, and trust in, their parents. So must be the disciples in response to God and the humility with which the child is known as a pattern o Christian’s behavior to his fellow man.