HOMILY BY MAJOR ARCHBISHOP MAR GOERGE ALENCHERRY

ON FEBRUARY 3, 2012 DURING THE CBCI MEETING

Dear brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ,

How much blessed we are all of us the pastors of the Church in India, and many of our collaborators, to assemble together during these days of the CBCI conference for the Eucharistic celebration, especially in the three ritual traditions of our Church! We have today the privileged presence of Their Eminences Cardinal Peter Turkson, Cardinal Oswald Gracias, Cardinal Telesphore Toppo, His Excellency the Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Salvatore Pennachio, and His Beatitude Baselios Mar Cleemis as con-celebrants.

In the first reading of today we heard St Paul appealing to us, “to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is our spiritual worship (Romans 12:1).” According to Paul one should order his total living, his full individual personality – that is the sense which he gives to the word ‘body’ -  as a living sacrifice and worship to God. In Ephesians 5:2 Paul speaks of Jesus who “gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” And he invites us too, to imitate him.

The sacrifice of Jesus for our liberation was not simply limited to his suffering and death on the cross. The whole life of Jesus was a sacrificial offering for our salvation. While entering into the world itself Christ said that he came to do the will of God, to make the sacrifice of his body and thereby abolishing the old sacrifices (Heb 10:7-9). At the age of twelve he proclaimed that he had to remain in his Father’s house, committed to do his Father’s will. Later he would even declare that his kith and kin are those who do the will of God his Father. It is in this sense that we have to understand the words of St Paul to ‘offer ourselves as living sacrifice.’ He exhorts us to be transformed through the renewal of our mind. We must discern the will of God – what is pleasing and what is perfect. A person who develops such an inner attitude can never be one who servilely conforms to the values and standards of this world. A true Christian puts on the mind of Christ. As the paschal mystery of Christ was the summit of the offering of the life of Christ according to the will of God, the disciples of Christ also have to pass over a life committed to do the will of God, conforming ourselves to the mind of Christ. We cannot preach and work for the establishment of the Kingdom of God without paying the price of sacrifice which our Divine Master paid. The greatest temptation for us is to be disciples greater than the Teacher, servants cleverer than the Master. In other words, we tend to replace the divine and heavenly wisdom with human and secular expertise.

In the Gospel today Jesus tells us the words that we have often meditated, “The harvest is abundant, but the workers are few. Ask the master of the harvest, therefore, to send workers to gather his harvest” (Mathew 9:37-38). The Church in India, where we have more than two hundred Bishops, above twenty thousand priests, about two thousand five hundred religious brothers, one hundred thousand consecrated women and thousands of zealous lay missionaries, are we short of workers to gather the harvest of the Lord? It is true that we need more evangelizers to preach the Good News to those have not heard it in many corners of this country itself; we need personnel to be shared among our own individual churches and also to be sent in countries abroad for diverse needs. But the want of personnel is not merely in number, but more significantly in quality. The Church in India has enough and more professionally qualified priests and the religious and the Church is recognized for its educational and social involvement throughout the country. But the challenge before us today is whether we can make a difference in our service to the humanity from that of the secular and other religious agencies. It is here that our reflections on our role for a better India becomes more relevant.

The Church in India all throughout her history of two thousand years, especially in the past two centuries, has contributed much to the development of the people, and more particularly, in the nation-building. The volume of our contributions has been proportionately far greater compared to the situation of our being a very small minority in the population of the country. We have much more to do for the poor, the marginalized and the oppressed sections in India. But, we may have to make certain shifts of emphasis in our lines of action. We may have to address the social situation in a globalized economy that makes the poor still poorer and the rich immensely richer. Is it not the decline of ethical and moral values of truth, justice and love that has contributed to the evils and inequalities that have caused the sufferings of people today? The Church in India may have to give a prophetic leadership for a spiritual renewal programme for an integral human development in close collaboration with the rulers of the country. This spiritual renewal should be powerful enough to question the structures of the society and the government that directly or indirectly become the causes for the generation of evils and injustices in the society. Without being violent or even aggressive the Church has to be an instrument of prophetic justice for the reform of the society that has become resigned to or remain hapless in the face of unjust practices of corruption and oppression. The Church may have to do this prophetic role even among its own rank and file. We may not be able to do everything for the poor and the marginalized, but, we can very well take effective measures both within the Church and the society to create the prerequisite of an ethical and spiritual renewal that pre-empt the creation of more and more violations of truth and justice. If the Christian community as a whole are advocating and practising probity in social life, creating conditions of equity for all sections of the society – especially the Dalits, the Tribals and women, moderation in private and communitarian spending, bridling the consumption of alcohol, executing just wages and remunerations without any excuse, respecting the ecological balance of nature and environment, and fostering dialogue of religions and cultures, it could be the beginning of a new gospel commitment to play our role for a better India. 

Let us recall the memory of the great witnesses of Christian commitment who have gone before us right from St Thomas, the Apostle, through St Bartholomew, St Francis Xavier, St Gonsalo Garcia, St Alphonsa, Blessed Mother Teresa, all other Blesseds and servants of God and also those whose sanctity and heroic service to humanity have been known to God alone. We celebrate this Eucharistic sacrifice in communion with the heavenly Church in which they are our representatives. Let us recall also the martyrdom of St Stephen, whose feast the Syro-Malabar Church celebrates today. The heroic witness of saints and martyrs in preaching and practice, in suffering and martyrdom, should become a driving force for us to present ourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. They meant what they believed and kept their commitments to God and the Church. We often fall short of our faith requirements and fail in our commitments, that too, sometimes, miserably. The Eucharistic sacrifice strengthens us by healing our ailments and bestowing the power of the Spirit to go forward in our Christian witness. In the tradition  of the Syro-Malabar Church, the Holy Eucharist is ‘Qurbana’, which means, ‘Offering’. It is the offering of our Lord Jesus Christ, in communion with humanity as a whole, for its deliverance from sin. Our Qurbana is the same offering of Christ, which we do in persona Christi for the continued experience of the same deliverance. Let us imbibe the same grace from this Eucharistic celebration to offer ourselves as a sacrifice acceptable to God, liberating ourselves to become agents of renewal in our country.

As Church in India, our mission is in communion with the universal Church. The sufferings and anxieties of the Church world over, of which the Holy Father is deeply concerned, should also become our concern. Let us offer this Eucharistic sacrifice in communion with the whole Church, especially those who are suffering in the middle-east, in Iraq, in Lebanon due to religious conflicts and in Egypt and Eritrea and some other countries due to ethnic conflicts and poverty. Let us put the new evangelization drive of the universal Church as a special intention for our prayers. May Mary, Mother of Christ, who at the foot of the cross interceded for us, be with us during this Eucharistic offering. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.