Jubilee Mass Homily: 15Aug2022

Readings: Rev 11:19a, 12:1-6a, 10ab – I Cor 15:20-27 – Lk 1:39-56

Jubilarians: Fr James Rodrigues SJ, Fr Alangaram SJ, and Br Tony SJ

Road to Liberation

Jubilee: Religious life is a road to liberation. In the Biblical tradition, as indicated in Leviticus Ch 25, Jubilee year is a time of restoration or returning to the original spirit or situation: Every one claims back his/her properties or status. Slaves and prisoners would be freed; debts would be written off; offences would be forgiven; and the mercies of God would be particularly manifest. It is the dawn of a new era with a new spirit of grace and a new beginning with new hope.

In the Catholic tradition, the Jubilee year is a special year celebrated from 14th century when Pope Boniface VIII convoked a holy year – It is a year every hundred years, then fifty, and now fewer in which remission from sin could be granted as well as indulgences would be gained upon making a pilgrimage to Rome or now to some nearby shrines.

Liberation: Today, it is a day to remember what the Lord has done to us and what his grace could accomplish in and through us. He could make a human being divine – God enabled a woman get assumed into heaven. The abundance of God’s blessings has freed Our Lady from this world and liberated her to heaven. This is also the day of liberation for India – We celebrate the 75th year of independence. It is also the day when the Lord’s grace freed three of our fellow Jesuits from the world of selfishness; and freed them as men for others, especially for the needy. We thank the Lord for the gifts of Frs James Rodrigues and Alan and Br Tony. Fr Rodrigues has completed 70 platinum years, while Fr Alan and Br Tony have accomplished 50 golden years each. Today we celebrate great contribution of 170 years of all these great men did. They have lived their lives to the full and they are eager to go forward. And we thank the Lord for them and we gear up to accompany them to continue their work and to do even more. And today our spirit ascends heavenward to thank the Lord for all He has done in and through our Jubilarians. Their presence here is not only our inspiration but also our blessing and God’s grace today. A person’s most valuable asset is not a brain loaded with knowledge; but a heart full of love, with an ear open to listen and a hand willing to help the needy.

Readings Today: The readings today represents the yin-yang principle. Yin and Yang could be understood as complementary, rather than opposing, forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is embedded. In the readings today we see this principle running through. The assumption of our Lady is a road of liberation connecting this perishable world here below with the eternal world above.

The vision of John in his book of Revelation is the yin-yang of the good and the evil. Our Lady is clothed with the sun with stars for her crown and the moon as her footwear. She is the radiant light giving birth to the Light of the world to bring in life in abundance (Jn10:10). Simultaneously, we see the evil of destruction to bring in gloom and doom. There is constant and continuous combat between the good and the evil – But the good would prevail at the end. And Paul preaches the philosophy of yin-yang of death and life. Adam brought in death but Jesus came in to restore life. The first Adam brought in damage and destruction of sin but the second Adam brought in beauty and wholeness of grace. The evil has been trying to subjugate everything and everyone, but Jesus came in to liberate all chained in the fetters of sin and evil. And this yin-yang philosophy is again depicted in the Gospel story today: Our Lady, in the presence of her cousin Elizabeth, recollects the mighty deeds of Yahweh, bestowed on an insignificant rural and poor lady, as a set of contradictory things. She recalls the mighty and the weak, the proud and the humble, the affluent and the lowly, the over-fed and the hungry, the rich and the poor, the celebrated and the ignored etc. And she is thankful to the Lord for making the lowly as the powerful and the mighty. God makes the insignificant in the world as the admirable one in His sight.

As religious, having the Lord as our cup and portion (Ps 16:5), we live amidst people of truth as well as people of lies (Jn 8:44). Our mission is to make all truthful, as truth alone could set us free (Jn 8:32) and make us glorious. The world consists of people of Property, Position, and Power and of people of  Poverty, Punished, and Powerless – As religious, following the model of Jesus, we are invited to take our stand with the marginalized and the discriminated.

Contemplation in Action: In a conflicting religious tradition of either action or contemplation, Ignatius brought in  something new, namely contemplation in action. If you put your heart and soul in your work and do everything consciously, that becomes a prayer for the wellbeing of others. As Rabindranath Tagore asserts, instead of worshipping God in the lonely dark corner of a temple/church, one needs to find Him elsewhere. He says:

“He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground
and where the path-maker is breaking stones.
He is with them in sun and in shower,
and his garment is covered with dust.”

When we celebrate the jubilee today we feel the Lord walking with our friends. The Lord has been walking with our Jubilarians as with the Israelites ‘with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm’ (Deut 26:8). The outstretched arm embraced them and protected them; and the mighty hand smashed any power of evil that crossed their path of ministry for His people.

Jesuit Jubilee: Religious life is a song of praise. The Psalmist proclaimed, “seven times a day I praise you for your righteous laws” (Ps 119:164). There are two parts in this: i. praise; and ii. righteous laws. The classical religious Orders followed the spirit of praise. As per the Benedictine rule of spending 8 hours in prayers, the monks in a monastery would come together six times: when one gets up, before lunch, before tea break, before dinner, before going to bed, and at midnight. And they would sing in choir each time for about an hour. But Ignatius saw the other aspect in the words of the Psalmist, namely ‘righteous laws’ of the Lord. The people of God should be served with justice and fairness – The best is to be given to the least. Hence, consciously applying one’s heart and mind in one’s work is contemplation. Jesuits are contemplatives in action – Hence formation is in head, heart, and hand. Clarity and critical thinking and compassionate heart when combined with a hand ready for action, a Jesuit becomes an instrument of God’s presence and blessing to others. What we think and feel, we create in the world. And we create what we believe[1] – We, as Jesuits, believe in the liberation of the fettered and our fullness of life is the outcome of the wellness of the people we serve. In this sense, the life of a Religious is the road to liberation which is always under construction.

Characteristics of Religious Life: Religious life is

Often we get confused, in religious life, between ‘love’ and ‘attachment’: Love brings out compassion and service for the other, while attachment promotes our expectation leading to disappointment, especially if the attachment is with power or positions. The greatest challenge in life is to discover who you are; and the second greatest thing is to be happy with what you find. And the constant search in the religious life is to find this happiness by discovering oneself in the context of others, especially the needy and the marginalized.

Personal Relationships: What makes religious life enriching is personal relationships, that are meaningful and lasting. And we celebrate today three veterans who have been on the road to liberation for themselves and for others. For the religious, what is important – the journey or the destination? Neither, it is the company. We work not as individuals but in group – God calls us individually but entrusts a mission collectively. Our brethren have been walking the road of liberation for and with others.

Fr James Rodrigues was a specialist in modern mathematics – I did my doctoral research where he did his Master’s in modern mathematics, namely Boston College, USA. When he was Vice Provincial he was known for his concern for the scholastics. When he was my Rector in Loyola. His complaint to the Provincial about me was: ‘There is always light in Francis’ room’ implying I was overworking – He encouraged me to take a break often and to go out for relaxation. He wanted people to be liberated from the constraints of long hours of hard work.

Fr Alangaram was my guardian child in the noviciate – He came in with his civil expertise. His studies in commerce made him a salesman of God’s theology. I remember Albert Schweitzer writing about researches on Jesus in The Quest for the Historical Jesus. He said, each researcher approaches Jesus with a preconceived frame such as a revolutionary, a mystic, a teacher par excellence, a radical, etc but no one could domesticate Jesus within that prefabricated frame. As the professor of theology, Alan personalized Jesus and evolved the Asian Jesus. My suggestion of his going in for writing and publishing has taken him to newer heights. He could liberate people from their inhibitions.

Br Tony and I have had a journey of longer duration. We came to know each other as classmates in 9th standard and then as co-novices. We were formed together. Tony had worked in national as well as in international milieu. Nationally he worked as administrator in ISI-Bangalore; and internationally he had been in Rome and Jerusalem. Later, he could easily switch gear to school administration. He has been a jack of all trades but he has mastered them all. His enthusiasm and encouraging words would liberate anyone from diffidence and disappointment.

We greet them all today and thank them for their wonderful services and assure them of our prayers for their continued good health as well as effective ministry.

Road to Remember: Religious life, though lived for others, is a road to remember. Maya Angelou said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you make them feel.” Our Jubilarians made people, whoever encountered them, feel appreciated, accepted, and accompanied. Along this road to remember, they worked amidst hurdles but they grew in confidence. For them, failure was a learning process – It is failures that keep us closer to God and reveal more of God to us. They had, just like anyone else, disappointments. In life, disappointments come not from people nor from events but from our own expectations. Our disappointment is proportional to our expectation. This is what Jesus meant when he said let not your left hand know what your right hand is doing (Mt 6:3). If the left hand knows, what is done by the right hand, it might remember the deed and might expect something in return. The result would be disappointment or disillusion.

In religious life, one thinks that the vocation is to follow God but actually it is a privilege given to each one to accompany the people of God as Moses did. Moses would take his stand with the people, in preference to taking his stand with God, whenever Yahweh vowed to destroy His people.

For a Jesuit, the vision is to see the invisible; and the mission is to achieve the impossible. This is possible if the purpose and focus of our religious life is, as Micah would advise, “to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Mi 6:8). And finally religious life is socially uplifting and spiritually heavenward. Mary, our Lady, was there for and with the apostles even after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, strengthening them in faith. Hence, God took her heavenward. Our jubilarians have been walking along the road of liberation, uplifting the socially marginalized and they have been in their company leading them spiritually heavenward. Let us continue our march towards the mission of marching with the marginalized upward, onward, and heavenward. ‘Kingdom of heaven is within you’ (Lk 17:21) implies, the kingdom of happiness is within you and it becomes concrete reality in the service of our needy. Happy jubilarians day and happy independence day as well. May our Mother Mary intercede for us.

Francis P Xavier SJ

15Aug2022

[1] J. Murphy, The Power of your Subconscious, Amazing Reads, Mumbai, p.150.