VALENTINE DAY ---- Romance or Love?

"Valentines Day" on 14th February each year is increasingly being celebrated as a feast of love in the secular world while in the Church calendar, St. Valentine, from whom this feast gets its name, is no more mentioned since 1969. Valentine, purported to be a 3rd century christian monk who risked his life helping young couples to remain faithful in love was venerated for centuries. The existence of such a saint has been lost in myths but the value of love, though distorted still remains. A search through the dictionary revealed the many aspects of Love with some equating it to Romance. However, in one dictionary I found a clear distinction between Love and Romance. It said: Love is a mutual commitment without conditions. Romance instead, is rather an affair surviving on many mutual conditions. As such therefore, Love tends to be a more permenant relationship "in good times or in bad times, in sickness or in health". Romance instead is a pseudo-love, or "puppy love" as the song goes. Too full of demands and conditions destined to crash the relationship at any time,before or after marriage. True Love in the pattern of Jesus' example is the biblical description: Greater love no man has than a man who lays down his life for his friend or spouse. All that goes by the name of love, today,is attractive Romance and explains the weak stability in marriage commitments. If Valentine Day is to gain its pristine purpose of fostering true love, our celebrations should shift from the trap of ephemeral Romance and promote true Love founded on honesty, sacrifice and faithful commitment.

PROVINCE COMMUNITY DAY - a celebration of 'BELONGING'

The "Feast of the Province" in the past chiefly focussed on the exemplary life of the patron saint, in our case,St. Francis Xavier, seen as a model for imitation. Traditionally, it was also a Day of Gratitude and appreciation of the person and performance of the Provincial Superior and therefore a celebration centered around an individual, hence, Provincial Day or at the local level, Rector's Day. Now that this official annual celebration has been termed "Province Community Day" is there any shift of emphasis or significant change in the understanding of this particular festivity in our present Salesian context? I believe Provincial Community Day more often, a Provincial Community Evening" is not a mere social ritual celebration limited to a devout Eucharistic Liturgy and a sumptuous dinner fellowship, in the provincial house or any one community of the province. Rather, in Post Vatican terms, it is the theological understanding and experiencing the Call to be and live in community that is rooted in the Divine Community of God, the Holy Trinity. The Provincial Community Day may be considered an annual "community building exercise" fostering a genuine oneness of heart and mind among the confreres of the province. May I observe that the "Province" is not only a legal term to indicate territorial bounds. To be a member of the Salesian Congregation, we enter through the canonical doors of a province. Our belonging is always registered through the process of selection, admission and profession in a province. In the Congregation we all are members of a Provincial Community. We do not "belong" to the local community where we exercise our assigned ministry. Our loyalty to the Congregation is expressed through our deep sense of belonging to the province. In fact, a confrere needs official permissions and motivating reasons to shift from one province to another. Has this always been our understanding? This principle is vital to the healthy life of the Provincial Community and must be clearly explained to Novices and young Salesians. Recalling this principle by senior Salesians is perhaps even more important. Polarization and disintegration of the provincial community takes place when confreres develop a greater belonging to a local community that belongs to the province. May the Provincial Community Day of Mumbai province on the feast of our patron, St. Francis Xavier, awaken in us a fresh missionary spirit and a convinced commitment of belonging, as Prophets of fraternal life

From Preaching to Practising Spiritual Retreats.

All these years, I have been preaching spiritual retreats to diocesan priests, religious men and women of different congregations and enjoyed the experiences. Needless to say, the generous appreciation coming from the retreatants added to my joy and kept me preaching. As age and illness oblige me to settle to a less engaging life style, and to be content with a more sedentary actitivity, I find myself becoming more reflective on my own life. The strongest realization that has gripped me since a few months now, is the truth Charles Davis the renowned post Vatican theologian admitted to himself when he writes: I realised people did not want God-talk, they wanted God. I looked into my life and it was empty. Preaching about God does not necessarily imply practising and I should have known that if only I had diligently   recalled the advise of Jesus who warned us against the "unpractising preachers" of his time.  

spiritual AIDS threatening our holiness.

We are certainly very clear about God's Will, our holiness. In fact, we thought Religious life is the path to holiness. Over the years after the fervent Novitiate period and First Profession we have to admit that the desire to be holy fades for some reason and we get trapped into a routine of practices of piety that we relish no more and get lost in ambitions and achievements mistaking them for apostolate or God's Will.

Care to reflect on this diagnosis! We are victims of "AIDS", a spiritual desease that eats into our spiritual life and weakens our religious motivations and resolves to grow in holiness.

AIDS stand for Acquires Indifference, Delay Syndrome. When we allow indifference and delay to enter our actions and attitudes, the growth in holiness ceases and instead threatens our very Vocation. 

The say that the opposite of Love is not hate but indifferene.
Procrastination is what Jesus points to, when the young man wanted some time to follow his vocation.

A simple "tot" on listening.

As educators, our specialization lies not so much in teaching as in listening.
While teachers often scream, "listen students!" over the classroom din, we may fail to pick up the pupils' pleading complaint: "teacher is not listening !"

Listening is an art of understanding the other. Too often we listen only to reply and the focus is on hearing the other and responding to what we hear.
Genuine listening involves the understanding of the whole person of the other and includes even what the other is not saying but reflecting in body language of gestures and expressions. Only then, does the Educator respond adequately.
Now, who's listening? 

Tradition versus Initiative.

Come to think of it, Life now oscillates between Tradition and Initiative .

The Fiddler on the roof mourned the erosion of sacred Tradition that preserved values of belief and behaviour in human society. In our world, "Tradition" reeks of staleness and stagnation and seems so meaningless to our postmodern generation. Is it time for a moratorium on Traditions?

"Initiative" is the watchword today. It springs from creativity and change, has its own value systems and priorities and keeps refreshing Life in a spirit of newness and novelty. Is Initiative the alternative to Tradition?

My reflection leads me to  consider Life as essentially linked to Tradition but constantly swinging towards Initiative. For me, Initiative means "living out of the box", and "living within the box" is Tradition. Think it over.

SPIRITUALITY OF WORK - my incomplete thoughts on work.

SPIRITUALITY OF WORK  - never secular, always sacred.
WORK is a component of our Humanity which is Body and Soul.
PRAYER  is the Soul of our Apostolate.
SDB Constitutions dealing on WORK..18, 41, 42, 78, 95
Dimensions of Work Spirituality:
*Theological – The Eternal Creator – OUR  GREAT, BIG WONDERFUL GOD!
A spirituality of work is based on a heightened sense of sacramentality, of the idea that everything that is, is holy and that our hands consecrate it to the service of God and in partnership with Him as co-worker with the Eternal Worker. “When we grow radishes in a small container in a city apartment, we participate in creation. When we sweep the street in front of a house, we bring new order to the universe. When we repair what has been broken or paint what is old or give away what we have earned that is above and beyond our own sustenance, we stoop down and scoop up the earth and breathe into it new life again. When we compost garbage and recycle cans, when we clean a room and put coasters under glasses, when we care for everything we touch and touch it reverently, we become the creators of a new universe. We sanctify our work and our work sanctifies us”.(Sr.Joan Chittister OSB)
*Christological – The Carpenter’s Son – “Father’s business” (Will)  “,,,, I work”(Jn 5,17)
                              Jesus redeems Work from punishment for sins to pardon through love
                             "Work," the Persian poet Khalil Gibran writes, "is love made visible."
*Ecclesiological – Building the Community, Work is worship.
A spirituality of work draws us out of ourselves and, at the same time, makes us more of what we are meant to be. Good work -- work done with good intentions and good effects, work that up builds the human race rather than reduces it to the monstrous or risks its destruction -- develops qualities of compassion and character in us. A spirituality of work puts us in touch with our own creativity. Work enables us to put our personal stamp of approval, our own watermark, the autograph of our souls on the development of the world. In fact, to do less is to do nothing at all. Work makes us accountable to God and Society
*Eschatological – The eternal Kingdom of God.
Work also develops everything around it and has an eschatological finality and purpose.. There is nothing we do that does not affect the world in which we live. In developing a spirituality of work, I learn to trust beyond reason that good work will gain good things for the world, even when I don't expect them and I can't see them. In that way, I gain myself. Literally. I come into possession of a me that is worthwhile, whose life has not been in vain, who has been a valuable member of the human race.
Finally, a spirituality of work immerses me in the search for human community. I begin to see that everything I do, everything, has some effect on someone somewhere. I begin to see my life tied up in theirs. I begin to see that the starving starve because someone is not working hard enough to feed them. And so I do. It becomes obvious, then, that the poor are poor because someone is not intent on the just distribution of goods of the earth. And so I am. I begin to realize that work is the lifelong process of personal sanctification that is satisfied only for the globe. I finally come to know that my work is God's work, unfinished by God because God meant it to be finished by me..
Types of  WORK : OPUS (productive and effective, a realization of God’s Will0
                          or LABOR (non-productive, squirrel activity, Man’s Will)
Models of OPUS: Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Don Bosco, every saint…… ourselves.
Only WORK the fruit of prayer, humility and obedience can lead to the OPUS (God’s Will)

WORK IN SALESIAN TRADITION.
Salesians:  Action-orientated, workaholics who give Don Bosco a bad name?????
DB: “Work, work, work ….. bread, heaven.
         “Tell the devil to stop working first”
         “When a Salesian dies working….. a gain for the Congregation”.
         “Dream of the ten Diamonds” The state of the congregation in …..
         “Poltroni, Mangioni, Testoni”
Salesian model: Young, thin and always on the run (now, gone old, fat but still on the run.)
Since Vat. II and SGC: a call for a paradigm shift from Action Spirituality to Contemplative.
                                      A call to RETURN TO Don Bosco’s “spiritual depth and solid faith.
We have strayed on to the paths of efficiency, professionalism, secularism and individualism and given Evangelization a bad name.
Looking closely into the life of DB, we note that the success of his mission came not from hectic activity but a deeper relation and UNION WITH GOD.