31. Lk 12: 54-59

Lk 12: 54-59: People knew to read the signs of nature. So the signs which are seen around Jesus are enough for the sincere ones to understand that now is the time announced by the prophets to be converted and Israel must acknowledge it savior. The urgency of conversion for Jesus must be done before it is too late with a reconciliation between brothers and sisters because we are in our way to God’s judgment so that we can take advantage of the right situation we are then, if we are in the above said positions

30. Lk. 17: 20-37

Lk. 17: 20-37: The final coming of the kingdom of heaven is something men can never calculate or make research upon. Jesus says that in one sense the kingdom has already come. It is at work in people who have received the Good News of Jesus. False prophets will bring confusion in the minds of some people. The end of the world comes suddenly for which the believers are told to prepare and wait

29. Mk 10: 35-45

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. Lk 9: 23-27

Lk 9: 23-27: If Peter’s profession of Jesus is the truth but not the whole truth. To grasp the full meaning of Jesus’ definition of his identity, it is to have vast consequences for the lives of his disciples. We cannot take Christ without the cross; it will lead one to delusion. Nor can we take the cross without Christ, this leads to despair.

27. Lk 12: 35-40

Lk 12: 35-40: The message of preparedness is presented in a parabolic language here. The disciples are asked to wide awake to God’s gift and to the demands of God’s kingdom. One should be open to truth. It is not enough just not to avoid evil but to promote goodness

26. Lk. 18: 35-43

Lk. 18: 35-43: The cure of the blind man speaks not only of restoration of the physical sight but the gradual emergence of spiritual sight among the disciples. While the disciples saw what is happening in the outside world and so told the blind man to keep quiet, the blind man has an inner focused need to be rectified i.e. to regain sight. So he shouts for Jesus!

25. Mk. 2: 13-17

Mk. 2: 13-17: Jesus dines with tax collectors. The association with public sinners of which Levi the tax collector included could make one ritually unclean in these time. Jesus cracks open the status quo as he draws people into the kingdom by cleaning, healing them. Now the power to forgive which moves among us is the power of Jesus. He is the Messiah-our abiding agent of reconciliation and the source of liturgical power.

24. Lk 6: 12-19

Lk 6: 12-19: The 12 disciples including St. Bartholomew were called by Jesus to be with him as friends and messengers. They were called from the 72 disciples to become apostles to be sent out as ambassadors of Christ.  They were very ordinary men with strange mixture –hot tempered, zealots, tax collectors, fisherman with their own emotional attitudes. All of them found themselves peaceful co-existence in the company of Jesus. 

23. Mt 13: 10-17

Mt 13: 10-17: Jesus makes every parable a challenge. Every parable makes one to decide after understanding his or her situation in life in the context of the parable told. Confronted by God’s love erupting into our life, we are forced to decide. We either accept God’s love or reject it. Many Jews chose the latter. 

22. Mk 5: 1-13

     Mk 5: 1-13: A man, who was possessed with evil spirits, was cured by Jesus. The demon enjoyed a routine way of life in the man who was living among the tombs of the dead. Jesus comes there to disturb that routine. Life went peacefully on till there arrived ‘this disturbing’ Jesus. They complained to Jesus; they hated him. More people hate Jesus because he disturbs them of their wrong doings. They don’t accept Jesus by saying “Go away and let us be in peace.” Those who come out from their routine life serve the church but Jesus says they must start from their home.

21. Lk. 14: 1-6

  Lk. 14: 1-6: The Jews were corrupted by the interpretation and practice of the Sabbath laws. To them comes Jesus active. He revives them by giving new meaning for the Sabbath laws. He proves that ‘Sabbath is for the good of man and not man for the Sabbath’(Mk 2: 27).  

19.. Lk 18: 1-8

Lk 18: 1-8: If the persistent plea of a helpless widow gets through to an unjust, how much more effective will it be with God? Jesus the son of God will surely come however long – delayed his coming may seem towards the groaning under persecution of Christians living in difficult times. So the Christian should never cease praying and pleading for redemptive justice inspired by faith in Jesus.

17. 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.

16. Mt 12: 46-50

Mt 12: 46-50: Passage through the red sea inaugurated the beginning of the people of God. Our baptism is also the beginning of a process of our maturing in the Lord. The truly significant bonds that join people are not biological but spiritual: the shared experiences of school, seminary, political campaigns, joy, sorrow and deliverance. Jesus tells us that those who listen to and keep his word are his brothers and sisters in a new family that knit together by the Holy Spirit. We all have experienced deliverance through baptism.

15. Jn 2: 1-12

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. Mt. 9: 18-26

Mt. 9: 18-26: The ruler of the synagogue and the woman with hemorrhage came to Jesus with insufficient faith. The former came out of desperation and the latter with a superstition. Both were granted the favours they asked for or desired in their hearts. Jesus makes the event holy and memorable and inadequacy of our faith is made wholly.

13. Lk 6: 43-45

Lk 6: 43-45: A man cannot be judged in any other way than by his deeds. Teaching and preaching are both ‘truth through personality’. Fine words will never take the place of fine deeds. The modern secular movements can never be defeated by mere words, writing and so on than proving that Christianity produce better man and woman.

12. Lk. 17: 11-19

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?

11. Mk. 13: 3-13

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.

10. Mt. 10: 16-25

Mt. 10: 16-25: Jesus warned his disciples that the days to come they might well find the state, the church and family conjoined against them. Christianity preaches a view of man which no totalitarian state can accept. Christianity aims to obliterate certain trades, and professions and way of making money- it still does – and church can never closes her eyes towards the malpractices of the state, church and family members.  So is a Christian liable for persecution.

9. Mk 10: 35-45

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.

8. Mt. 7: 15-20

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.

7. Jn. 4: 27-38

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.

6. Mt. 17: 1-9

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. Lk. 16: 19-31

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.

4. Mt. 9: 35- 10: 1

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.

3. Mt. 22: 34-40

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

2. Lk. 12: 49-53

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.

1. Mt. 9: 35 - 10: 1

    Mt. 9: 35 - 10: 1: As Christians, we are invited to heal and cure the world, its many sicknesses, physical, psychological, social and ecological through our effective concern for our wounded planet. This requires a personal transformation which ultimately the gift of God’s spirit.