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.

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!

Angels in Disguise

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Feb 2016

Right from our childhood we’ve been hearing about different stories of angels. Among the different type of angels, ‘guardian angels’ was one of the most commonly referred kinds. The belief is that each one of us have got a unique angel assigned to us as long as we are here on Earth to protect us all the time.

Have you ever believed in angels? Have you ever experienced the care and love of your guardian angel? The fact of the matter is you’ll possibly never see an angel coming to you in a lovely wardrobe with large fluttering wings and a magic wand that can protect you from all troubles. But if you really observe you’ll still be able to experience the love and care of your guardian angel in one form or other. This is what is ingrained in the prayers after the vows in the Christian weddings which goes like, “God bless you with lot of genuine friends in your life especially during when you need them”. Here are some of the beautiful moments in my life when I experienced the love of my guardian angel.

A few years back I had my very first ever travel outside India and that too all the way to the other side of the world, Atlanta. I was feeling totally home sick and was really lost with everything around being totally new and strange. Those were the days of Orkut where I posted a picture of a nearby Pakistani restaurant named Lahore Grill. I gave a comment stating how much I missed food from home. Within a few minutes I got a reply from a school friend of mine whom I’ve not met for ages who happened to be in the same city. The next day he was at my place! For the next three months while I was there in Atlanta he made sure that I never felt home sick.

 

Some years later I got married and after a while we decided to move to Dubai. It was the first week in the new country with no one for company and a hard timeline of two weeks to find my own accommodation. I was reminded of Atlanta days with the exception of food since Dubai had more options for Indian food than maybe even what India could offer! I was running around with hardly any guidance on how to find a good accommodation. Facebook was popular by then and I posted a comment about being in Dubai. Lo and behold there comes a call from a college mate whom I’ve not been in touch since college days! He came over and from that moment I didn’t even have to worry about even the smallest of needs of settling down in Dubai.

Almost half a decade in Dubai and with two kids, life was going on pretty well with God’s grace. One fine day our elder one being four years decided to explore the sofa a little more and started jumping up and down on two big pillows kept on top. One of the jumps went wrong and he ended up hitting the hand rest of the sofa with face first. Needless to say he was bleeding profusely with a nasty cut on one of his gums. I rushed him to a hospital from where got redirected to a pediatric dentist who will do nothing less than stitching up the gums. He suggested meeting a plastic surgeon who went a step ahead and said he wanted my little one to be admitted, given anesthesia and undergo a surgery. I was sitting next to the emergency room completely feeling helpless. While my wife and I were discussing what could be the best way forward, we got reminded of a fantastic dentist back home in Kerala. A quick phone call to him and a few exchanges of pictures over WhatsApp, a simple solution was proposed by him. No stitches, anesthesia or surgery was required!

Believe or not, your guardian angel is always in the lookout for you. See for yourself the ways your angel works in your life through the people around you, some of them you may not even remotely imagine will influence your life!

May the good God help you experience the love and care of your guardian angel through such selfless people in your life and more importantly, may you be the face of guardian angels for many! 

A Deal in Heaven

He was pleasantly surprised to see a large contingent of angels waiting to receive him at the gate. The group was led by a Seraph himself and greeted him with a very warm smile. A question came to his mind and he promptly asked the Seraph, “Is this how you normally welcome the new ones?”

The Seraph replied, “Oh not at all! You are very special to have made to the Level Five of Heaven directly and hence this remarkable welcome. Only a few I knew have achieved this before you. Congratulations!”

He felt good and asked again, “You said Level Five. How many more are there?”

“Look up yourself” was the reply from Seraph.

He looked up and saw five more levels right above, with the top most being the one where the Almighty resides. Many more questions came to his mind. But it was almost time to welcome him in and the Seraph reassured him that they’ll have a chat later the day.

After the joining formalities were completed, he was asked to take some rest. The journey from being mortal to immortal wasn’t quite easy. He had a good sleep and woke up to see the compassionate face of the Seraph who greeted him at the entrance.

“Hope you are feeling good?” Seraph enquired.

He replied in affirmative and was quite curious to see a notepad in Seraph’s hand. He enquired what it was and the Seraph replied in a hushed tone, “You are about to enter into one of the most important deals here in Heaven. You asked me earlier about the levels of Heaven and I could sense many more questions that you’ve in your mind. Are you ready for the deal?”

He felt a bit nervous; nevertheless being in high spirits he said, “Bring them on!”

The Seraph started, “This is the Book of Remembrance. As I said earlier you are one of the very few lucky ones to have directly reached Level Five of Heaven. Most of them start with Level Zero and earn their way up based on this Book. Each time someone back home remembers you in their prayers you get one point. You can accumulate these points and when a specific limit is reached you can use them to gain entry to the next level. Sounds simple, isn’t it? But of course conditions apply like what you people say back there in Earth.

Remember that just like you, there are zillions of others here in Heaven who wants to reach the next level. You need at least a million points to even qualify for the next level and with each level the required points go up making it quite a challenge! There are further criteria which I’ll explain later of what will really make you stand out among the qualified few. What’s important is that prayers from your near and dear ones need to keep flowing continuously for you to go up.

Don’t get disheartened. I’m not done yet. Each time you get a point based on a prayer, the person who prayed for you opens an account as well. Each of the points you earn will translate to half a point for them in their account. Once those points reach a limit you could redeem them to grant one of their wishes. So the deal is really between you and them! Isn’t Bartholomew a genius?! He is the one who came up with this score card system.”

He took the notepad from the Seraph. Walked to the window of his room and looked down to Earth. He could see his loved ones mourning their loss. He wanted to scream at the top of his voice, “Stop crying you morons! Start praying for me so that I can get the elevator to the next level and even grant your wishes!”

The Seraph smiled… 

When God answers…

Raphael was seated at the chair kept for him at the dining table next to God Himself. It was breakfast time though that was not what he was there for. He had a small notepad with him in which he is expected to quickly note down what gets dictated from the Almighty.

The first set of requests taken was from Alice. God started granting one by one. In between He asked Mother Mary to pass on the bottle of jam. While applying the jam on to a slice of bread, He continued to grant a few other wishes as well for Alice. But a couple of them fell through when He was reaching out for the jam bottle. Alice had asked for these during her usual prayer time, but she took a quick break in between to check if there was enough jam left for the next day morning breakfast.

Paul's requests turned out to be next. This was a big one with requests for promotions, job change and what not. God was almost half way through His breakfast by then. He started granting Paul's wishes one after the other. It came to the promotion bit and that's when Gabriel walked in with a message that needed His attention. By the time He was done with the interrupting message, Paul's request for promotion was lost somewhere. Interestingly Paul while asking God for these had got a call in between which he answered before continuing with rest of the prayers.

Donna, Peter, Sylvia and Robert; each one of them had their own set of requests that got delivered to the Almighty. Most of them got answered. A few got misplaced in between. Those were the exact ones that were requested to God while each one of them was busy doing something else in between the prayers.

Focus, when you talk to Him. He listens, always.