Interment service – the defining moment for a Christian

 What's in your mind when you conduct a funeral service? I asked a priest once. Pat came the reply from the priest, a veteran in theology, “it's worth attending a funeral service. It brings you down to the earth... to the reality of what's awaiting each person.”
  The occasion was the funeral service of a senior member of a Catholic parish in Mumbai. The 64-year old man suffered a massive heart attack while travelling and died before reaching the hospital.
 “It's like attending a Charismatic prayer service. The funeral prayers, hymns and the procedure... It makes your more humble and brings closer to God. For any person, there's no escape from the physical death of the body,” he says. In the Syro-Malabar rite of the Roman Catholic Church, the funeral songs can hit you hard, prick your conscience, the lyrics are punchy and strong quotations from the Bible will force people to rethink and revisit their spiritual journey.
  What makes one more humble in life is the Rite of Committal, or the Catholic interment service – the time when the body is finally buried or interred. You might have made a pile of cash or huge real estate or plantations or you might be an influential person in the world, but it all ends in the graveyard with the Rite of Committal. It's a powerful moment when family and friends gather together with a priest to pray over the body one last time.
 For me personally, it's a defining moment each time I attend a funeral service. The time when the priest blesses the place before the body is to be placed and the body is committed to the earth. The question I always ask myself is: Are you prepared for any eventuality? Nobody wants to end up in the hell, keeping company to devil, the master manipulator and liar.
  Protestant-turned-Catholic theologian Paul Whitcomb says, “psychologists have long known that every human being, the atheist included-intuitively seeks God's help in times of great calamity, and instinctively pleads for God's mercy when death is imminent.” The renowned Voltaire, who was so eloquent in his denial of God while he enjoyed health and fortune, repudiated all of his atheistic writings on his deathbed and frantically sought the ministrations of a Catholic priest.
  Russian Communist leader Vladimir Lenin, as he lay on his deathbed, looked around him and frantically asked pardon of the tables and chairs in the room. “For as hunger for food proclaims the existence of food, man's intuitive hunger for God proclaims the reality, the omnipotence and the justice of God. Catholic belief in God, therefore, is purely and simply an expression of intellectual sanity,” Whitcomb says.
  Mathew 7:21 says, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” What's the will of Father? That's for us to find out and follow word by word. Our deeds and our relationship with Jesus will decide whether we will be on the right hand of God on the judgment day. Is He our Saviour and Redeemer?

Fr Cantalamessa gives his fourth Lenten sermon in Vatican

On Friday morning, the preacher of the Pontifical Household, Franciscan Father Raniero Cantalamessa gave his fourth Lenten sermon in the Mater Redemptoris chapel in the Vatican. Pope Francis (in white dress in the front) and others in the Roman curia were present to hear  Cantalamessa.

Indian church leaders join hands against attacks on Christianity

  After a spate of attacks on the Christian community, church leaders in India have come together to take on the perpetrators of the crime through peaceful and legal measures.
  The Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) took the initiative in evolving a common action plan and arranged a series of consultations, involving other Churches, Members of Parliament, legal and media fraternity, to tackle the parlous situation in New Delhi. “Let these thoughts be a clarion call for the Catholic Church to join hands with other Churches in India, and in a wider perspective, with other like-minded people of good will, to claim our legitimate rights and to demand for a peaceful life for all the citizens of India,” CBCI President Cardinal Baselios Cleemis said on Tuesday.

Cardinal Cleemis

  The Christian community has been at the receiving end for the last nine months -- after the BJP-led alliance came to power in New Delhi. A bevy of crimes of hatred and desecration of holy places of worship have angered and hurt the Christian community across the country. ‘Ghar wapasi’ programmes (reconversion), saffronisation of education and culture, the demands for a Hindu Rashtra from the sister organisations of the ruling party and desecration of holy places are again posing big challenges to the secular ethos of the nation in general and causing fear and consternation in the Christian community in particular. The rape of a nun in W Bengal exacerbated the situation.
  Cardinal Cleemis said after a series of meetings involving Members of Parliament, other Christian communities, legal and media personalities, several suggestions came up for a common course of action. “The present political change has come about due to peoples’ frustration and desire for development. In this context there is a need of focusing on the long term issues and action plans which should be communicated to the common people by engaging them to understand the current socio-political scenario and the need for a unified stand,” Cardinal Cleemis said in a statement.
  Another suggestion was that the Church’s preferential option for the poor has to be rediscovered and translated into action at all levels and our efforts to get the SC status for the Christian and Muslim Dalits should continue till the people get results.
  According to Cardinal Cleemis, social research and an effective resource centre is the need of the time in order to present documented data that would evoke convincing response to what is happening today. “Such a centre would also be a nerve centre that will process information and interact with the Government, political leaders and media,” he said.
  He said there were suggestions for more frequent interaction with the elected representatives, IAS officers and local leaders, who are favourably disposed towards the Christian community, which will strengthen relationships, create friendships and remove prejudices. “This should take place all levels – national, regional, local and institutional,” he said.
“When needed we should not shy away from taking legal steps for redressing our concerns and issues,” Cardinal Cleemis said.
“We should also workout our strategy for representation in the National Commission for Minorities, use scholarships and facilities available for Minorities and interact proactively with the Minority Commission,” he said.
  Cardinal Cleemis said, “to connect our mind and heart with all other minorities we need to create a forum at the National, Regional and Local levels to meet and discuss common concerns periodically and not only after experiencing violence or atrocities, and expose the fallacy of the conversion myth. Christians are still only 2.3 per cent of the population even after so many decades.
Cardinal Cleemis on Tuesday said he took part, along with Archbishop Albert D’Souza, Secretary General of CBCI, in four consultations in New Delhi.
According to him, on March 17, a full day national consultation with the theme “Upholding Constitutional Rights of Minorities, with Special Reference to Christians” was organized by the National United Christian Forum (NUCF) which includes Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) and Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) Council for Churches at Bible Bhawan.
This was attended by almost 150 delegates from all the three churches. Justice Cyriac Joseph and Prof. Dr. T. K. Oommen were the resource persons. “The meeting surveyed the global crisis in which people of faith are facing mass violence, even extermination in the Middle-East at the hands of religious fanatics and offered our prayers for and stand in solidarity with the Christian communities in Syria, Iraq, Pakistan and neighbouring countries,” he said.
It also expressed deep concern about the physical violence – arson, murder and rape of our religious personnel both men and women – as with the structural violence which is manifest in urban and rural India, in social and administrative excesses, and aberrant judicial pronouncements. As the President of NUCF, Cardinal Cleemis moderated the sessions. The President of NCCI, Bishop Tharanath Sagar, (Residential and Presiding Bishop, Bangalore Episcopal Area Methodist Church in India) and Bishop C V Mathew, president of the Evangelical Fellowship of India, Council of Churches, the Co-Presidents of NUCF were also present in the meetings.
  Cardinal Cleemis said three consultations were organised by the CBCI Office of PRO/ spokesperson. The first one was the meeting of the Regional PROs and spokespersons where 13 Regional Bishops’ Councils (out of 14) were represented. Justice Cyriac Joseph, Advocate Romy Chacko and Fr. Dominic Emmanuel were the resource persons for this one-day Consultation. It was unanimously agreed to strengthen the CBCI through networking of the Regional PRO set-up for timely and effective response to the happenings that affect the minorities and the Church in particular.
  Following the PROs’ meeting, a consultation with selected legal experts, senior journalists and social activists was held on the same day evening. The CBCI Office Secretaries, core team members also participated in this meeting.
  The finale of the series of consultations was the meeting with the Christian Members of Parliament at the CBCI Centre on March 17. “17 Christian Members of Parliament, belonging to different political parties took part in a very fruitful informal discussion. Cardinal Oswald Gracias was also present for this informal meeting. The MPs were very enthusiastic and appreciative of our efforts to defend Christian presence in India. They wholeheartedly extended their support irrespective of the party and State,” Cardinal Cleemis said.
  The two action plans approved by the General Assembly of the NUCF are: Convening a gathering of the representatives of minority communities and the Hindu leaders of good will and promoting the cause of Dalit Christians and backward communities with adequate support from NUCF as a common policy.

Watch out, if the advice is not right, it can destroy you

 There was a parish which was a model for prayer life, communion and co-operation for others. Reason: the parish priest was a pious man who took all right advices and implemented them. Years later, when Rev Fr Xavier Khan Vattayil who narrated this incident recently, went to the same parish, it was a different scene. It turned into something which an ideal parish should not become – parishioners were divided on various issues, prayer life took a turn for the worse and there was infighting and quarrel all over the place.

 He enquired about this transformation. How did this happen? The reason shocked Rev Fr Vattayil. When a new parish priest came to that parish, he turned to some wrong people for advices and he followed those wrong advices. Devil acted through these wrong advices.        

 “You must be careful about your friendship with others. You must not seek the advice from impious and wicked people. This will put you in trouble.”

This advice is from Rev Fr Vattayil, a man of God who has saved thousands of people for Jesus Christ. He’s a great preacher of God and a guiding force for the Catholic Church.

  “Many families, convents, prayer groups and even parishes are divided because of the wrong advices. Satan will divide and destroy good families, prayer groups and religious institutions through wrong advices from wrong friendships,” Rev Fr Vattayil says. I never miss a chance to hear him. He narrates stories and passages from the Bible and relates them to the current situations in a lucid and powerful style.

  On Sunday (March 22), I heard him talk about the impact and influence of friendship and advisors on people. There’re good and bad friends/ advisors. The catch lies there. “If we follow the wrong advice of a friend, it can destroy us. It’s very important to follow the good advice,” Rev Fr Vattayil says.

 Quoting from Psalms (1:1), he says, “Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers.” He says some of these so-called friends are tools in the hands of devil to deny us the blessing and grace from God.

  Rev Fr Vattayil explains the impact of wrong advice through a passage in 1Kings 12. It’s story of King Rehoboam, son of King Soloman. He rejected the advice given by elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him. He asked them, “What is your advice? How should we answer these people who say to me, ‘Lighten the yoke your father put on us’?”

  The young men who had grown up with him replied, “These people have said to you, ‘Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but make our yoke lighter.’ Now tell them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist. My father laid on you a heavy yoke; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.’” He implemented the wrong advice given by the young men and later paid a heavy price. His kingdom was divided. “The wrong advice given to him led to this division,” he said.

  You may have friends who give all types of advices, but ignore such friends as devil can act through them. 

Clericalism, boring homilies… and flight of Catholics

 Why are people scooting from the Roman Catholic Church in some of the countries?
  The flight of Catholics is a major concern for the Church. Pope Francis recently said the “flight of Catholics is caused by distance, clericalism and boring homilies as opposed to closeness, work, integration and the burning word of God.”

 He says it’s a phenomenon that affects not only the Church but also the evangelical communities.

  In a recent interview to Valentina Alazraki from the Mexican broadcaster Televisa, Pope said that in Latin America, a “strong clericalism creates a certain distance from people”. Clericalism in Latin America has been one of the biggest obstacles to the growth of the laity. The laity in Latin America grew only thanks to popular piety, which the Pope said, has given the opportunity to lay people to be creative and free, through worship and processions.

 But organizationally, the laity has not grown enough. They have  not grown because of the clericalism that creates distance, he told Televisa. 
 Pope Francis has been broaching the subject of clericalism in the church, much to the discomfort of many in the church. Clericalism is defined as a state of affairs in which there is an unnecessary or overly exaggerated importance attributed to clergy, in such a way that the laity relate to them as subjects to be ruled rather than a people to be lovingly pastored.

Boring homilies

 The Pope also spoke of “disastrous” homilies as another reason for the flight of Catholics. "I do not know if they are the majority - but they do not reach the heart. They are lessons in theology and are abstract or long and this is why I devoted so much space to them in Evangeli Gaudium,” he said.

 Typically evangelicals are close to the people, they aim for the heart and prepare their homilies really well. “I think we have to have a conversion in this. The Protestant concept of the homily is much stronger than the Catholic. It’s almost a sacrament,” he said.

 Pope Francis made these observations when the Televisa journalist asked Pope for a reflection on the proliferation of sects in Mexico and more generally in Latin America and the Churches’ responsibility in the loss of faithful.

 On evangelical movements, he said, “what they typically offer is personal contact, the ability to be close to the people, to greet and meet people in person.” Pope also made a distinction between honest and good evangelical movements and those that are considered sects. For example, there are proposals that are not religious and Christian evangelicals also reject them. There are sects -- some originate from the theology of prosperity -- that promise a better life and, although they appear animated by great religious spirit, eventually they ask for money, he said.

The continuing saga of vineyard parable

 When Rev Fr Biju Kollamkunnel explained the significance and connotation of ‘The Parable of the Vineyard’, it was a new revelation and strong reminder to many of the listeners, including this writer. We often glance through this parable, stoically, without understanding or trying to understand the essence of it and practicing in our lives. We need to take a serious view of the message it conveys, he says.
 Mathew 21:33-46 (read below) vividly describes how the landowner entrusted the vineyard to some farmers who, instead of giving the former’s share, treated his servants badly – they beat many, stoned others and also killed some of them. The landowner sent more servants and all of them met with the same fate. And finally, he sent his son. He was killed by the farmers who thought they would inherit the property in the absence of a heir.
 Rev Fr Biju, a pious priest from a Mumbai Catholic parish, says the imagery from the parable is very striking: the servants are prophets sent by God on various occasions, farmers are the people of Israel (religious people, Pharisees and Scribes etc), landowner is God the Father and his son is Jesus Christ. Various prophets who preached the Word of God were rejected and killed by the same people who were supposed to be God’s chosen people. Then, when God the Father sent His only Son Jesus Christ, He was also rejected and killed.
 The saga of ‘The Parable of the Vineyard’ continues even today. “Many of us behave like the farmers in the parable. In the parable, the story was not over with the killing of the son. The landowner appears and threw out the farmers from the vineyard and punished them. Our fate will be like this farmers if we don’t realize our mistakes and come back to God,” he says.
  According to him, we should not treat Jesus like the way farmers treated the son of the landowner. This raises several questions: Have we accepted Jesus as our Lord and Saviour? Or have we rejected Him? It’s very easy to find out whether we have accepted or rejected Him. If we are following the Word of God, we’re on track. If we’re doing what Jesus told us to do, then there’s nothing to worry.
  Rev Fr Biju says it’s significant to note that the landowner then brought new farmers who were ready to give him his share of the crop without creating any hassles.  Jesus didn’t stop with the parable. “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed,” Jesus said.
 This is a warning to us. What’s Jesus indicating here? He says the so-called religious people in Israel let their opportunity go in waste in favour of Gentiles. Jesus indicated that there will be a new people of God made up of all people who will temporarily replace the Jews so that Jesus can establish His church. This is relevant even today. We get many opportunities to work in the vineyard for Jesus, but we either ignore them or go after worldly things.
 Dr D John, one of my favourite Catholic charismatic preachers, narrated a story in a television programme recently. A poor family used to live in a slum in a North Indian town. The parents and four daughters used to live in a one-room shanty. “It was poor family… many days they went to sleep hungry. However, one great thing the parents told their daughters was to attend the Holy Mass daily. With the help of nuns and priests, they passed the 10th grade and then attended a nursing course. They got jobs in a Delhi hospital. Later they got jobs in the US,” Dr John said.
 “Now they own a 6-bedroom mansion in the US with swimming pool in the backyard. God lifted them from a slum to a good position in the US. Their faith has only increased over the years,” he said. The message: if we persist with our faith and seek His Kingdom, God will shower His blessings on us.     
 Rev Fr Biju says, ‘we can’t afford to be people who attend the Holy Mass on Sundays just to show that we’re Christians… and not bothered about other things that Jesus had told us.” Let’s listen to Jesus. We should not end up like the cruel farmers who turned against the servants and son of the landowner.        

Mathew 21:33-46
The Parable of the Vineyard

 “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place.  When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.
 “The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third.  Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way.  Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.
“But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”
 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?
 “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.” When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.

Why God is not listening to your prayer? You aren’t living as per the Word of God

 One day when Rev Fr Sharlo Ezhanikattu CST came out of the church after the morning services, he met with a middle-aged woman. She was crying. When asked, she said, "my son is the member of a rowdy gang who does anything -- even kill others -- for money. I prayed intensely, attended retreats and adoration services for his retrieval and redemption, but to no avail.”

  “Now I have decided to stop praying. I have decided not to go to church now. If God is not listening to my prayers, why should I pray?" the woman said.

  Rev Fr Sharlo was upset and a storm brewed in his mind. He prayed and prayed about this woman's problem. He thought over it again and again -- why God didn't listen to her prayer? One day he went to the chapel and prayed intensely for nearly 45 minutes. Then he got this message. "Listen! The Lord's arm is not too weak to save you, nor is his ear too deaf to hear you call," Isaiah 59:1.

 Looking at the Holy Eucharist, he continued his prayer. "Then why you didn't you listen to that mother's prayer?" Rev Fr Sharlo asked. He narrated this incident in his talk on “Shalom”, a Christian charismatic television channel from Kerala, India.

 He got another message. Isaiah 59:2: "But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear."

 It's very simple. God says our sins have kept Him away from us. Because of our iniquities and sinful life, I'm not listening to your prayer. This is what God says.

  “For many years, we Christians attend Holy Masses, adoration services and pray rosary every day. You probably started your family life 15 or 20 or 25 years ago, but still you were unable to save your family,” Rev Fr Sharlo said. What does it mean? You were unable to get the blessings from God. “There's only one reason. It's very important. You are not living as per the Word of God. You are not leading a life as desired by God. That's why blessings, grace and holiness are missing in your family life,” Rev Fr Sharlo said.

  Do you know the basic problem with Christians these days? “They lead a life as they like or prefer it. They do whatever they like in life, and are least bothered whether God likes it or not. After leading such a life, they pray religiously -- day in and out. Daily. But they don't get the blessings and grace from the Lord as they don’t live according to the Word of God,” he said.

  Most of us start praying intensely only when we face a crisis in our life. But there’s no solution and God is not listening to the prayer. Why?

  Many people are now rushing to charismatic retreat centres for healing and blessings. They ask – ‘I attended several prayer meetings, adoration services, rosaries and Holy Mass, but why I'm not getting any blessing or healing in my life? Why is God not giving any grace in our life?’ 

  “Please understand, it's not because of lack of prayers that Christians are not being saved. Christians are not saved because they are not leading a life as per the Word of God. They are not coming out of their sinful life and praying to God,” Rev Fr Sharlo said..
 "For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil," says I Peter 3:12.

 Psalms 91:14 says, ""Because he loves me," says the Lord, "I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name."

 Look at Saul in the Old Testament. He didn't have anything. He knew only to pray. When he started living as per God's wishes, he got blessings from the Lord.

 How can you love Lord? How can you come closer to Him. The only way is to come out of the sinful life and break all the friendship with Satan. "For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?" says Luke 9:25.

 It's very clear. Only people who forsake the "pleasures" offered by the world and reject the machinations of Satan can enjoy the grace, blessings and happiness offered by God. We need to change the practice of leading our own worldly life and then go and pray incessantly. “If you lead a life as per the Word of God and then make an offering to the Lord, then He will listen to you. Who will enter the Kingdom of God? Please read Psalms 15,” he said.
Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent?
   Who may live on your holy mountain?

 The one whose walk is blameless,
    who does what is righteous,
    who speaks the truth from their heart;
 whose tongue utters no slander,
    who does no wrong to a neighbor,
    and casts no slur on others;
 who despises a vile person
    but honors those who fear the Lord;
who keeps an oath even when it hurts,
    and does not change their mind;
 who lends money to the poor without interest;
    who does not accept a bribe against the innocent.
Whoever does these things
    will never be shaken.

 For, every Christian should understand one thing. We should not be just leading a prayer life. “We should bring our life also into it. If you lead a life of your own without bothering to follow God's ways, they there won’t be any grace or blessing in your life,” Rev Fr Sharlo said.

 What we need is both prayer and a life as per the Word of God.