Life is meaningful not when we earn, but when we loose.
It is the time set for each one of us to refrain from this world of commotion, where we make and hear a lot of cry. We are bursting to talk about inflation, scams, saving environment and tigers. Yes, it is an urgent need to speak out and do something. But the question is whether our hearts do remain lively as a garden that is looked after well, or is it like a deserted place? Are the promptings of the Spirit dying out like a cry in an open field, even without an echo? Or are they like a little girl who is conversing to her beloved doll with all her gentleness and innocence but still gets back no reply?
As Jesus is going to take away our brokenness, are we preparing ourselves to be given completely into His hands? What I believe more than anything is the need to do something in this season to save and create new intra, inter and transcendental relationships. For Israelites the liberation from Egypt, was the greatest God experience not because God was with them in the form of a cloud during day and a pillar of fire at night, but because they were one- with love suffusing through their hearts, nerves and veins calling each one to focus on their destiny- moving through the desert for forty years, at times carrying others and being carried by others. It was a splendid experience for them not because they conquered many nations on the way but they lived each moment of these years in an altruistic way.
When we do so we are indeed creating spiritual reservoirs for ourselves which will take us past through any desert- when faith and hope seems dead- even for years. When our Muslim brothers go to Mecca and our Hindu brothers to Ganges and to many other places as pilgrims to wash away their brokenness, we see a God who is coming into the backyard of ours- calling us not to Jerusalem or to Mount Calvary- but to join hands with our neighbours irrespective of their conditions, to wash away our brokenness. He is willing to be broken down anywhere and to any extent to make us complete. The wheat fields around us are adorned with golden colour, signifying the time of Fulfillment. Now why should we hold on to ourselves? Everyday let us live a moment for others.
Down the ages, there were a few people who lived with an altruistic spirit. Mother Mary, after hearing the Good News from the angel did not hold back but in the nick of a moment rushed to serve Elizabeth. What Mary started on that great day, came to a full circle when Jesus stretched out His hands on Mount Calvary. It was this outpouring of love that turned the obscure village called Nazareth, then the little city called Jerusalem, into a Holy Land and not by their divinity alone.
The radical following of this love can be seen in Mother Teresa’s life too. Mother Teresa was soaked in this love and that is why from the very dawn of her mission up to her very last moment she could give. The amount of money- with money everything else comes- that came into her hands is unimaginable. When she walked down the streets of kolkatta and when she went to Norway to receive the Nobel Price, the size of her cloth bag was same. She never left her zone and for me she always remained as ‘The Monk with Ferrari’. She was like a sponge soaked in the water which once you remove from the water and press, it gives away everything. The harder the demand, the better she could give. When you transform love into service- that is the greatest spirituality one can attain.
The question is, are we willing to lose a bit of ourselves? By sharing the sufferings of others and being with them in their loneliness, we can take part in the sufferings of Christ, and so we can also help others to resurrect from their shackles of life.
Each raindrop makes a big ocean. Likewise each moment of our life makes our life span. So when we dedicate a few seconds for our neighbours the words of Jesus are indeed being fulfilled in our life too. He says, “no one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s own friends.†(John 15:13). Let us pray that God may teach us the Language of Love that is understood by all.
– – – written by Fr. Jobin Manivelil SVD
