Text: Luke 6:17- 26 17 He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coastal region around Tyre and Sidon, 18 who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by impure spirits were cured, 19 and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all. 20 Looking at his disciples, he said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21 Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. 22 Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. 23 “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets. 24 “But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. 25 Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. 26 Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.
Some Reflections: The above text records some powerful teachings of Jesus Christ to his disciples. The words of Jesus express the matters relating to the rich and poor, powerful and meek, land owners and landless, healthy and impoverished, the irrefutable and the discriminatory subjects, and engenders to envision the dream of God for the world. The materialistic world becomes a ponderous journey to realize God’s Kingdom and thus spirituality of Jesus sets a prolific way to introspect the quality of living through moral demand. Jesus articulated his teachings with utmost pragmatism and pursued the then existing issues like poverty, hunger, and antipathy and shed light on the dark spots of human complexities that erode the fabrics of God’s primordial blessings of fullness. The adequacy of life to the margins became the true concern of Jesus and He was bold to curse the exploiters, setting an alarming tone to the rich and the powerful. The words of blessings to the suffering subjects serve as the motivating hope and accelerates a new purpose for the poor to claim their intimacy with God. Jesus illustrates the spiritual parameters of the blessings of God in a correlative manner and presents a new paradigm of envisioning the “Kingdom of God.”
The real and eternal blessings of God are always scaled with concerns of human life because God is very much concerned with the wholeness of human beings, and he wanted them to live a life in its totality. Totality is a state of living that spontaneously connects every one with God and with the other. The passion for life can’t be partial and mundane. When our perspectives are limited to the mortal world, we lose the eschatological connectivity with God since the past, present and future are with Him. We strongly believe that time and space belong to God. Thus, God intersects in chronos (time) and in kairos (grasping experience). The futuristic hopes offered to the poor and the marginalized serve as the directive to have hope in the current life. The futuristic abandonment of the rich, who are without concern, alarms these subjects to repent to God and serves the central theme of the text.
Apparently, the miracles of Jesus are intuitive for the people who struggle for life and explicate the spontaneity and the passion of God in healing such wounded communities. This act of Jesus demands His current representatives, as we are the Body of Christ to ponder the pathos of the people. As true representatives of God, we are called to engage in establishing the Reign of God. The paradigm of “the Blessings and the Woes” (20-26) in this text do serve as spiritual meters and scales to introspect our originality and reality with God’s dream. The Christian Imperative does care for the poor and empowers the vulnerable to realize the fullness of life, both in the material world and eternal world.
Interestingly, the Woes or the curses communicate the demand of repentance from the rich, shuttling the divided humanity to recapitulate the original blessings of abundant life for all. The lacuna or the gulf can be patched only when people realize the true owner of all existing matters, GOD. This understanding will help the rich to share with the poor as a responsibility to navigate their true spirituality more than the self- claim in doing charity. The love for the Lord is possible only when we share our love in wholesome without reciprocity.
Friends, I am grateful to be a part of (you) our parishes as we engage in many sharing activities through various means, which I feel is the work of the Holy Spirit. The Church is a prolific body of Christ to continue the acts of Jesus of Nazareth. He is our model, the only model to live the life of God. Let God be with us. Amen.
Some Reflections: The above text records some powerful teachings of Jesus Christ to his disciples. The words of Jesus express the matters relating to the rich and poor, powerful and meek, land owners and landless, healthy and impoverished, the irrefutable and the discriminatory subjects, and engenders to envision the dream of God for the world. The materialistic world becomes a ponderous journey to realize God’s Kingdom and thus spirituality of Jesus sets a prolific way to introspect the quality of living through moral demand. Jesus articulated his teachings with utmost pragmatism and pursued the then existing issues like poverty, hunger, and antipathy and shed light on the dark spots of human complexities that erode the fabrics of God’s primordial blessings of fullness. The adequacy of life to the margins became the true concern of Jesus and He was bold to curse the exploiters, setting an alarming tone to the rich and the powerful. The words of blessings to the suffering subjects serve as the motivating hope and accelerates a new purpose for the poor to claim their intimacy with God. Jesus illustrates the spiritual parameters of the blessings of God in a correlative manner and presents a new paradigm of envisioning the “Kingdom of God.”
The real and eternal blessings of God are always scaled with concerns of human life because God is very much concerned with the wholeness of human beings, and he wanted them to live a life in its totality. Totality is a state of living that spontaneously connects every one with God and with the other. The passion for life can’t be partial and mundane. When our perspectives are limited to the mortal world, we lose the eschatological connectivity with God since the past, present and future are with Him. We strongly believe that time and space belong to God. Thus, God intersects in chronos (time) and in kairos (grasping experience). The futuristic hopes offered to the poor and the marginalized serve as the directive to have hope in the current life. The futuristic abandonment of the rich, who are without concern, alarms these subjects to repent to God and serves the central theme of the text.
Apparently, the miracles of Jesus are intuitive for the people who struggle for life and explicate the spontaneity and the passion of God in healing such wounded communities. This act of Jesus demands His current representatives, as we are the Body of Christ to ponder the pathos of the people. As true representatives of God, we are called to engage in establishing the Reign of God. The paradigm of “the Blessings and the Woes” (20-26) in this text do serve as spiritual meters and scales to introspect our originality and reality with God’s dream. The Christian Imperative does care for the poor and empowers the vulnerable to realize the fullness of life, both in the material world and eternal world.
Interestingly, the Woes or the curses communicate the demand of repentance from the rich, shuttling the divided humanity to recapitulate the original blessings of abundant life for all. The lacuna or the gulf can be patched only when people realize the true owner of all existing matters, GOD. This understanding will help the rich to share with the poor as a responsibility to navigate their true spirituality more than the self- claim in doing charity. The love for the Lord is possible only when we share our love in wholesome without reciprocity.
Friends, I am grateful to be a part of (you) our parishes as we engage in many sharing activities through various means, which I feel is the work of the Holy Spirit. The Church is a prolific body of Christ to continue the acts of Jesus of Nazareth. He is our model, the only model to live the life of God. Let God be with us. Amen.
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