Arulvakku

12.11.2024 — Masters or Slaves

Posted under Reflections on November 12th, 2024 by

32nd Week in Ord. Time, Tuesday – 12th November 2024 – Titus 2,1-8.11-14; Luke 17,7-10

Masters or Slaves

In the Gospel, Jesus invites his apostles to ponder their role as leaders: Should they act as masters or as servants? In the beginning, Jesus invites them to contemplate how they, if they were masters, would treat their servants. If their servants just came from plowing their fields or tending their sheep, would they, as masters, expect their servants to sit down, eat a good meal and take a good test or to continue working and wait on them? Naturally they would expect the continuous service of their servants. However, at the end of the parable, Jesus turns the tables and invites his apostles to identify themselves not with a master but with the servants. Just as a servant should not expect their master to be exuberant and grateful when they have only done what they have been commanded to do, so also the apostles should be humble in their service to their God and Lord. Lord Jesus is the servant par excellence. He is the Lord who stoops down, casts off his garment, and washes the feet of his servants to cleanse them from their sin.

29.10.2024 — Mystery of Mutual Love

Posted under Reflections on October 29th, 2024 by

30th Week in Ord. Time, Tuesday – 29th October 2024 —  Eph 5,21-33; Lk 13,18-21

Mystery of Mutual Love

The first reading begins about family relationships, especially about the relationship between husband and wife. Paul seems to use the relationship of Jesus with the Church as an example of the relationship of the husband to the wife. In fact, it is the love of Christ for his Body, the Church, which is the very model of Christian marriage. He emphasizes not on obedience and subjection, but rather on a mutual, self-giving love. By drawing a parallel between a human marriage and the marriage of Christ to his Church, these two concepts are made to illuminate each other. Christ is the spouse of the Church because he is her head and because he loves the Church just as a man loves his own body when he loves his wife. Paul, in using the analogy of marriage, describes this mutual love as a ‘mysterion or sacramentum’.  He highlights that a husband’s complete love for his wife and a wife’s for her husband should be a representation or sign, in other words mysterion or sacramentum, like the love of Jesus for the Church. The more they love each other, the more they give witness to the love of Jesus for His Body, the Church, and the Church for Jesus.

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