May the Lord grant you grace and peace in the Risen Lord.

It is 18th April 2023.  We reflect on Acts 4:32-37 and John 3:7-15.

Are you part of an ideal community or an idle one?

We are living in a time when our communitarian care and love needs to be seen in all our sharing however insignificant and small it might be.  We are the fabric and fiber of our community.

“The whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.” (Acts 4:32).

An ideal community that cares for everyone is the community God resides and rests.

The first reading presents us with the ideal Christian communities with believing not belittling; sharing not shoveling; living in peace and harmony not in pieces and hedges; single-hearted person not hot-headed people; witnessing love and healing not promoting lust and hatred.

We need a lot of sons and daughters of encouragement in our communities like that of Barnabas.  The incurable and the most contagious bacteria that is eating our communities are materialism, individualism, egotism, consumerism, self-indulgence and indifference.   It is not the rich and wealthy people make the community enriching rather the poor with enriching attitudes and gestures.

Quality of being human is to be humane and humble in sharing the best we have at the time like this.  Someone somewhere is need of something in our community.  Whatever we have is useful for the community.  Let us join hearts, hands, minds and souls to protect the vulnerable layers of our communities. Our concern for each other must not get confined in our prayer times only, it needs to be translated in sharing our resources, and to render emotional, spiritual and pastoral support to all those in need beyond the boundaries of our religion, region, and race.

The responsorial Psalm praises, “The Lord is king; he is robed in majesty.” (Ps.91:1).

The Gospel continues the dialogue of Jesus with Nicodemus.  Without faith in Jesus, it is hard to accept Him as the Son of God and the redeemer of the world.  “No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.” (Jn.3:14).  Unless we are renewed spiritually, we are not able to transcend above our petty longings and ambitions.  To be born again is to rise above the clingy attitude to something or someone.  We need to be patriotic than parochial.

The new life we enter in through the Sacrament of Baptism needs to be seen in our witnessing for Christ in our communities.

Faith without the faithful is not Christian.  Our faith is not only to worship the Lord exclusively but to work for the community too.  To be born again one need not be charismatic.  No one is going to enjoy the eternal life without experiencing and rendering one’s life that cares, shares and loves.

God who loves the world loves every one of us through us.  There is no way God could divide, dissipate, destroy human relationships, love and care for the humanity over the way we worship and pray to God.  Anything that destroys the welfare of a community including worshiping God eccentrically needs to be pruned from our hearts and homes.  Worshiping God in a typical manner by an individual cannot exclude the welfare of a suffering individual.

To be born again means to treat people as God treats them.  May you all have a good day.