Eucharist 6000 Miles Away

2020 will go down in the history as a defining year for mankind. After a gap of hundred years, human beings are forced to stay totally indoors with the fear of being annihilated by a microorganism, the likes of which the world has rarely seen from the time of inception. A similar incident was cited in 1920s in the form of Spanish Flu.

The day when I turned 39, I started working from home. Five months later, as I write this, sitting in Dubai, the practice still continues with the exception that I’ve started going to office once a week since the last couple of weeks.  

Covid-19 or Corona virus has redefined literally everything in our lives. Starting from grocery shopping to getting a car registration renewed is all done online. E-learning, from being an exceptional form of learning has become a norm for offices and more importantly schools. Business folks who vehemently insisted on the absolute necessity for face-to-face meetings happily conduct sessions online. The world has locked down itself within the perimeter of an electronic screen.

Spiritual wellbeing was equally impacted. Along with everything else, Churches and other places of worship were all shut down. Being a part of the Holy Mass and receiving Eucharist was no longer possible. The Holy Week also was not spared as it came in between the lockdown period. Churches across the world made arrangements for live streaming of Holy events so that people could be a part of it. We started following the routine of taking part in the Holy Mass on TV, something that was never practiced in our lives before. Even with all these, something was still missing.

While we tried to be a part of the Holy Mass on TV from various churches, we truly felt a gap in experiencing Christ. That’s when it happened. One day we chanced upon the Daily TV Mass from the historic Loretto Abbey Chapel in Toronto, Canada. Father Michael J Coutts celebrated the Holy Mass that day. It was magical! He took us to experience the divine feeling of being one with God in that short period of time we were in front of the TV. We didn’t even realize that we were not in a Church. Through his beautiful homily and the prayers that directly touched our hearts along with the lovely songs from the Church choir team, we truly celebrated the Holy Mass as though we were doing it right in the presence of Christ our Lord himself!

It is indeed a blessing to share the experience of having someone holding your hands while standing at an Altar more than 6000 Miles away and still elevate you to be one with the Spirit of the Lord. This we believe is indeed a God sent gift and we all look forward to the days when we could join Fr Michael and share the happiness of Eucharist with the Miles no longer separating us!

We also have a dream that one day when this crazy pandemic ends we would love to visit the chapel and share the bliss we experienced with Fr Michael himself and even celebrate a Holy Mass along with him engulfed in the holiness omnipresent in that historic chapel.

Game of Gods

I could see the father and son in the game room staring at the black and white squares on the chess board. No other game gifted these two the kind of adrenaline rush this one created. What can be more exciting than deciding the destiny of people you see around everyday?!

I took a closer look at the pieces on the board. They all looked like someone or the other I know. King had dad's face and queen resembled mom. Knights, bishops, rooks, pawns... They all were either family or friends.

Something baffled me though. The game is in an auto-play mode. The pieces move at their own command. There are defined rules, though at times a few are broken. That’s when I see the father getting involved. He'll mercilessly knock down the piece that didn’t follow the rule. The son though pleads every time to give them a second chance which he manages to get.

This continued for a while. All of a sudden something bothered the father. Soon enough he turned red with anger. Even before the son could do anything the father shook the entire chess board!

I saw the queen falling down along with the knights and rooks. But the son managed to retain them on the board. The bishop was not that fortunate. Though the son reached out he helplessly watched him fall through the crack of the fingers and hit the floor head first.

Somewhere far away, mom, the queen, got admitted in a hospital. A couple of cousins, the knights and rooks, had to go to clinics feeling sick.

Tomorrow is the funeral of a friend, the bishop, who met with a freak car accident!

The game continues...

The Last Birthday

It was an awesome evening! The whole gang was there at his place to celebrate his birthday. His mom made a sumptuous dinner for him and his friends as she knew this birthday was really special for him. Turning 33 was perhaps the most important milestone in his life.

Dinner was quite heavy and they all were relaxing under the dark blue sky showered with numerous stars. It was as though the whole celestial beings turned up for his birthday. He was in an animated conversation with someone up there in the skies and didn’t notice his best buddy John coming over. ‘Many more happy returns of the day brother’, wished John. They shared a very special bond. Both of them knew what it was like to be brothers though from different mothers.

He looked up and their eyes met. But he didn’t thank John for his loving wish since he already knew that this day will never return. His eyes searched for his mom and saw her clearing the dishes and will soon begin to prepare the bed. Her eyes were moist with tears fighting their way out. Was it the tears of happiness of a well celebrated birthday or tears of realization that everything good needs to end one day? Did she know how close the end really was?

‘What’s wrong?’ John asked. This man was everything for him. Friend, philosopher, brother, mentor and what not. He couldn’t stand the sight of a dear one writhing in so much of mental agony especially on a day when he must be really happy!

He heard the question and looked at John. Two people whom he kept close to heart were the only ones who seem to be concerned about him today. He got up from his place and took John straight to his mom. He placed John’s hand in his mom’s palm and said to his mother, ‘Mom behold your son’! He then looked at John and said, ‘Behold your mother’!

He knew he’ll say these exact words four months later to both of them looking high up to him lying on a crucifix on top of Golgotha!

From Hail to Holy

Imagine yourself as a young girl from a small family in your neighbourhood who recently got engaged. All of a sudden, one day you are elevated to the highest pedestal a human can ever reach. This is the story of a young girl named Mary who was transformed from a least known mortal to the one who is empowered with the ability to salvage souls of lesser mortals!

The prayer Hail Mary starts with a salutation to a humble soul where the Archangel congratulates Mary for being the chosen one. The angel then appreciates her for the good life she led till then, knowing all the while that she was pre-destined by the Father to be the mother of His Son in Holy Spirit. A transformation is initiated next with the statement ‘Lord is with you’. It is quite natural for anyone, especially an unmarried woman who got recently engaged, to get a shock of her life to hear the kind of message that followed. Hence it was quite important to prepare her for the news by telling her that you are not alone. You are one with Lord now, literally and figuratively!

Millions of women were born before her. Many lived around her, far and near. Many more will be born after her. But she is the blessed one and that is what set her apart. Next came the biggest revelation in the history of mankind. A virgin who had never known a man gets told that she is carrying. From that moment onwards she realized that she is no longer just another girl. She is a mother! A mom who was lucky to carry God Himself in her womb and know the name of her baby exactly at the time the tiny life started growing in her.

The transformation is now complete. The young girl who was once hailed for her good life is now the holiest among the holy ones!

The title ‘Mother of God’ does not need any further detailing. The startled youngster in her previous life is now bestowed with tremendous powers to pray for those beings among whom she once shared her living moments. She, the one who was born without sin, is given the right to pray for all of us, who were born into and lives in a life surrounded with sins. This power of hers if we invoke daily, works wonders as it is a shield that protects us from the sins that are omnipresent. It is all the more important that we invoke this power of hers everyday as it provides the much needed support to our soul at the exact moment it departs from our body, the time of which is probably the greatest mystery for humans!

Mary is called by the Supreme Power to be the mother of Jesus. But her greater calling is being the mother of the whole universe where she is entrusted with a task of our redemption for generations that went by and many more that are yet to come.

This wonderful invocation perhaps is the shortest prayer that bridges BC with AD. The prayer transcends the boundary before Jesus was born and after he was crucified and died. Hence the bridge between these history dividing events.

Let us walk the path from hail to holy along with our mother.

God bless!

God’s Nightmare!

The noise of the crowd was so deafening that it even startled him in his mother’s womb where he was getting ready for an afternoon nap. He had sensed something wrong from the day he started taking shape in her. He could feel his mom quite tensed from day one, but couldn’t figure out why. He listened to the noise, everyone in the crowd was jeering at her. His mom was made to sit in the middle of a ground where convicts were brought in for punishment. A pile of rocks awaited their chance to rewrite her destiny.

A beautiful young woman she was and from a simple family in the neighbourhood. Belonging to a society where marital norms were strictly followed, getting pregnant before being married was considered an unpardonable offense, the price of which you pay with your life. The verdict for this was known to all. Stoned to death!

He forgot about his siesta and straightened up in the womb. He wanted to reach out and kiss his mother on her forehead and pacify her. While the punishment was imminent, a sweet smile crossed his face. He was seeing a scene from future. There was another woman this time, who incidentally shared the name with his mom, awaiting a similar sentence. He saw himself stooped down and writing in the dust with his finger while a crowd demanded an answer from him. He stood up and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” The accusers hearing this, slipped away one by one until only he and the woman were left.

Today, the scene was different. No one heard him. The crowd was getting violent with every minute passing. People started to pick the stones to hurl at the woman who brought shame to the community. Another minute went by and the first stone shot through the air aimed right at the young woman’s head. He could feel her mother all shaken up and resigned to her destiny. He felt himself being cringed inside the womb, where a baby is supposed to be safe from all danger.

The stone almost hit her right at the forehead. That’s when it happened! A man with powerful arms, typical of a carpenter, blocked her from the deadly stones with a cloak that carried the image of Gabriel, the archangel. He looked up from the womb and was so happy to see the loving face of the man who was chosen to save him not just once, but twice, while he was among the mortals. He screamed with happiness, “Dad”!

He woke up from his nightmare to see the smiling face of Joseph and Mary sitting right next to his bed. He reached out and hugged his dad and mom just the way he hugged them earlier in the evening at the Church where they thought they missed him!

The Other Side of Faith

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Aug 2016

During a recent retreat I attended, one of the brothers shared an experience. One evening his 2 year old son developed a fever. They tried to give some medicines but the fever was not subsiding. He tried to call up one of his doctor friends, usually always available on call, but that day he never answered the phone. He then tried contacting a nearby hospital and for some strange reason even after multiple attempts the hospital staff also didn’t answer.

He got really worried about the situation and that’s when he suddenly felt someone talking to him from within. He very clearly heard a question being asked to him. “You’ve tried giving medicines, called the doctor twice and called the hospital multiple times. How many times did you call Me?” That’s when the brother realized that despite being a man of faith, God became the last resort for him in the event of an emergency instead of being the first one to have called for help. He apologized and the rest is history!

How many of you could really relate to this story? It is an interesting observation that I saw him making that day about many of us. Most of us, especially facing adverse situations in life, often tend to resolve the problem ourselves initially in many ways. At last when everything else fails, we turn to our good God for help. Our faith most often becomes the last thing to be taken out and applied in our lives. Ideally it should’ve been the very first weapon we should’ve wielded to fight against the negative forces that cast its shadows in our lives.

Faith plays a crucial role in every form of life, married or otherwise. The complexities increase in your life especially when you share your life with someone and later when you are blessed with children as well. This makes it all the more important to be aware of the fact that it is not just enough to practice your faith, but to live it. Going to a church on a weekly basis or remembering God during bad times are merely practicing your faith. It isn’t that easy to bring in the concept of living the faith in our lives though that’s what we are required to attempt.

One of the easiest things to do in life is to take people or things for granted. Look around and observe how many blessings that we’ve in our lives that we never bothered to be grateful for. Right from our childhood; think about all the good things that happened in your life. Starting from loving parents and siblings; getting good education, landing up in a good job, being blessed with a wonderful partner and kids, leading a healthy life and many more positive aspects in your life. How many of them are we really thankful to God for. We take many of them for granted as if we were supposed to get it!

There are many good things that happened to you in the past and there are many happening now and many more are bound to happen in future. They are all there, not because you worked for it, but because you are blessed to receive it. This blessing requires you to be constantly thankful and the only way to do that is to live in faith. It is quite easy to be complacent and ignore the source of these blessings. It is easier to question your faith especially when you go through bad times. But that’s when you need to remind yourself about the other side of your faith. It is the side where you go across your current boundary of faith and experience the love of your Creator.

Your bad times are similar to those days when you have a fight with your partner. The day when you hug each other and look in the eyes of your sweetheart and say a sorry, you feel the rush of happiness back in your life. The feeling is similar when you get back to your Creator and try to be one with Him in your faith. You won’t even realize how quickly bad times give way for good ones!

May you be blessed to experience the other side of faith and live in the love and peace of our good God!