Sunday, February 21, 2016

Second Sunday of Lent Feb. 21st

Many artists and poets have painted transfiguration of Jesus, many ascetics have meditated up on Jesus's transfiguration and many have enlightened by reading transfiguration passage.
What is transfiguration? For western Christians it's an explanation of mysticism or asceticism and for eastern Christians it is a passage of enlightenment that the disciples of Jesus should go through once in their life time.
Arch bishop Raya hierarch of Melkite church  says, " transfiguration is not simply an event out of the two thousand years old past, or a future yet to come. It is rather a reality of the present, a way of life available to those who seek and accept Christ's nearness".
I would say transfiguration is a private and intimate moment of discipleship. It takes about what happened to disciples than what happened to Jesus. At this moment of enlightenment the disciples realized who Jesus is, he is the one they were expecting, he is the one Father is pleased with and he is the fulfillment of law and prophet.
And today as the second week of lent we remember transfiguration to remind us that our faith would be incomplete if we do not experience private and intimate moment with Jesus.
When apostle Peter had that moment of private and intimate  he said, "Lord, how good it is for us to be here!”

Pope Paul VI once said in a homily that Christ "is necessary, and we cannot do without him; he is our fortune, joy and happiness, our promise and hope; our way, our truth and our life"

We can see many private and intimate experiences with Jesus in the Bible.
Look St. Thomas the apostle when he had a private and intimate Jesus' experience, he said loudly; my lord and my God. St. Francis Assisi when he had Jesus experience, he said my lord and my all. St. Paul when he had Jesus experience he was blind for three days and he couldn't eat or drink anything. In Indian spirituality we call this as enlightenment, some western philosophers call it as aha moment.

Lent is a time of enlightenment, aha moment and Jesus experience. It's time to evaluate what is my experience with Jesus? Did I ever had an intimate and private experience with Jesus? Who is Jesus for me?

I gave Holy Communion to one of our children who has been respiratory assistance. His name is Emil and he is 11 years old. After receiving First holy communion at kosair hospital he shed tears, I asked why? He said  tears of Joy.
I found in the room of one of my friends- "Jesus is intoxicating than drugs". He wrote this after he stopped drug and alcohol through 40 days of prayer.

Lent is a time of Transfiguration and remind us to transfigure ourselves.
To have this transfiguration what we have to do? We have to go with Jesus- go to the mount. Mount is a place of silence, it's a place where we are quiet and away from your busy world.
Then you will encounter Jesus and experience Christ's nearness.

Once we have this encounter, a  wow moment, it will transfigure our lives, our marriages, our homes, our work, our relation and our community.  
Without this enlightenment, aha moment, wow moment, without having a private and intimate moment with Jesus, our faith is incomplete and our faith will be lukewarm.

Buddha was having bath in a river and a disciple came and asked him, how can I be enlightened? Buddha invited him to the river and pushed his head in the water for few seconds. Disciple used all the power to come up on the water. Buddha said, seek God as you searched for breath under the water.
Let us pray that this lent season will be a time of enlightenment and transfiguration. Let us pray that we will have a private and intimate experience with Jesus to become people of enlightenment and transfiguration.

Thursday, February 18, 2016



Ash Wednesday
February 10, 2016
Jl 2:12-18 // II Cor 5:20-6:2 // Mk 6:1-6, 16-18
 
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Jesus,
It is so cold outside and we all know that this winter is only half way reached, yet I want to call this day as the first day of spring- first day of spiritual spring. Some of you may think in your mind- you have to correct yourself, that this is the first day of thinking on fish fry! Those who are thinking in that line, may I say that I am not totally against you. But something more than our physical appetite is reflected during this whole season of Lent, which will produce the fruits of new hope, optimism and new directions in our Journey. That is why, I named this day as the first day of Spiritual Spring.

We have passions and desires. May be for someone of us these passions, dreams and desires are the reasons to live. A life without dreams and desires are unimaginable. The material growth and the prosperity that we enjoy today in our society is the realization of the dreams and desires of our ancestors. It is also an undeniable truth that we have a holy desire deep within our heart. A holy desire for God. Because of our daily burdens of our life, we keep aside this holy desire, thinking that we can look into it at some other time. Lent is the time to take a look at your holy desire. In fact, St. Augustine, one of the most important church fathers, says that the Christian life is an exercise of holy desire. It does not demand us to uproot our natural desires, but to raise and purify them. Our desires are too small if our ultimate values are those of this world; We have experience or is experiencing, even when I fulfill the brim of my desires, I am not so happy. What does it mean? It proves to us that we have some higher desires which makes us ease, peaceful and joyous. During this Lent we tune in to these higher desires, to deep-down our longing for God.
I am really positive that the social group with the help of professional crew will serve best possible fish fry at our Saffin center. But imagine if I don’t have an appetite for eating, does the food that is served to give me any good?
Lenten Season is the greatest season that one can cultivate values and virtues in one’s life. But if we don’t possess a spiritual appetite, it will not turn to me any good. So we need to sharpen our spiritual appetite, so that we can turn some good out of this season.
So let us be serious with our traditional triple ways: Prayer, Fasting and alms giving. This is the spirit of today’s Gospel and the spirit of Lenten season. Prayer will satisfy our longing for God and mend our relationship with him, Fasting will sharpen our spiritual appetite for God and Alms giving will help us to open our eyes to our brothers and sisters and realize that I am not alone in this world.

May your longing for God be deepened during this season of Lent.

Fr. Tony Vattaparambil

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

First week of Lent Homily (Feb. 14)