In the Gospel of known to be that of Luke, in the context of the Jerusalem temple Jesus says that the temple will be destroyed without a stone upon another. In the year 70 AD, the Jewish community was under great persecution by the Roman emperor and their only temple was completely destroyed. It is widely believed that this Gospel was written in the 80s. Although during his lifetime Jesus may have spoken many things about the temple, the end times, and the persecutions that w

In English there is this word Bullying. I think we don't have an exact word for this in Malayalam. The dictionary definition is "A person who habitually seeks to harm or intimidate those whom they perceive as vulnerable". It is something very common in our schools, workplaces, society, public spaces and especially in the cyberspace. At the college level bullying has come to be called in India by an appeasing term "ragging". Bullying involves imposing one's physical, psycholog

The last three months of the year are my favorite. The feasts of four saints whom I love most are in October: two women and two men. In December, comes Christmas- the most tender time of the year. Then there are also the feasts of six saints towards whom I have special veneration to. Sandwiched between these two months is the month of November with most profound celebrations- other than the usual celebration of individual saints. Since it is the last month of the liturgical

The last three months of the year are my favorite. The feasts of four saints whom I love most are in October: two women and two men. In December, comes Christmas- the most tender time of the year. Then there are also the feasts of six saints towards whom I have special veneration to. Sandwiched between these two months is the month of November with most profound celebrations- other than the usual celebration of individual saints. Since it is the last month of the liturgical

Remember? -the Malayalam movie titled 'ABCD'? Two young Malayali friends who grew up in America without any sense of responsibility are in a way deported to India by one's father without providing any financial security- was the background of it. In a sense, it was a survival movie. Those young people, in unfamiliar and poor conditions, take out their survival skills and manage to return to the United States was the theme. If we consider it in another way, the story was about

Seminary training has never been perfect. There is not much of a difference between me and those who came out before me and those who came out after me. All those who give a serious thought about the renewal of the Church arrive at the seminary. It has been six months since Pope Leo XIV took office. He has already commented about it several times. He has put forward similar interests to that of his predecessor, Pope Francis. Priestly training should be aimed at forming proph

When I was in the Philippines for a while, I lived in an ordinary parish in Metro Manila. I was the fourth in presbytery aside from the Parish Priest and two associate priests. Since I didn't know Tagalog, the national language, my pastoral involvement was very limited. When someone dies there, the body is brought to the funeral homes. The funeral takes place after seven or nine days. The family stays with the embalmed body for those days. Mostly they ate and slept there. In

The orca whale, is one of the most endangered species in the world. Only 73 of them are alive today. An orca named Tahlequah - the one in the picture -gave birth to a calf in 2018. For some reasons, the calf died within minutes of giving birth. The mother whale could not bear the sorrow of the death of her baby, which had grown in her womb for eighteen long months and had given birth with great pangs. She carried her baby's dead body above her nose and travelled in moaning. S

"The Seventh Seal" (1957) is one of the masterpieces by the legendary filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007). The film, which is in the surrealist drama genre, is considered one of the classics in the history of world cinema. After spending ten years in crusade service, Antonius Block, a knight, gets tired of it and returns to Sweden, his native land. When he arrived, the plague called Black Death was slowly getting spread in the country. The plot of the film is Antonius' doubt

It's the Solemnity of all the Saints. Yahweh is the name of God in the Old Testament. The etymology and other things have been discussed before. The people of the Old Testament understood the holy name Yahweh as the one who is; the one who is in oneself; the one who is there; one who is everywhere. When interpreted, the meaning becomes that God is everywhere, God is in himself, God is in himself- and so on. When this is understood rightly, the 'I' in me becomes a holy space a

The parable that I think is perhaps the most problematic or devastating of all the parables that Jesus had told is the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican. Jesus begins the parable by saying, ‘Two men went up to the temple to pray: one a Pharisee and the other a Tax collector.’ After referring to the body language of their prayer, he briefly describes the exact prayers both of them made. The Pharisee’s prayer has several issues in it. The tax collector’s prayer was a si

Family has no single form in nowhere in the world. If you take ten families in the same neighborhood, they will all be ten different. They can range from families with very narrow family-values and strict rules to families that are very transparent, democratic and progressive. They can range from families that are very patriarchal to families that practice gender-equity and equal partnership. The term 'family' has never been uniform in all over the world. Therefore, generaliz

Recently I happened to read a few articles from the domain of anthropology. They are moving towards findings and positions that are very different from the conclusions that the scientific world had reached earlier regarding the social structure of primitive humans. It is good to remember that most statements in anthropology are not theories, but inferences and therefore hypotheses. It was generally believed that in its early stages, the human race lived alone or in pairs, and

"A monkey that jumped on the trees Has worn a man's attire" These are from the lyrics of an old film song in Malayalam. The poet is probably mocking the lack of consistency and moral convictions of humans. There is a synonym for monkey in Malayalam, " Vaanaran " literally meaning 'man with a tail'. But is a monkey actually a man with a tail? Science will never say so. What is the difference between a monkey and an ape? A monkey has a tail - an ape doesn't have a tail. An ap

Of all humanity, she heard the good news from the angel Gabriel. She said, come what may, "God's will must be done". Being told that Elizabeth in her old age had conceived, she sets out on a long journey to render her service. She filled Elizabeth with joy and Elizabeth's unborn child with the Holy Spirit with her single word of greeting. She sang the Magnificat to God, who brings down the mighty from their thrones and exalts the lowly. She ministered to her elderly cousin f

I like Luke a lot. The Gospel of Luke is placed third in the Canon of the New Testament. Born in Antioch to pagan parents of Syrian origin, he was a disciple and companion of Apostle Paul. A physician who became a good investigative journalist and writer. "The Pentateuch" of the New Testament is the five "historical" books, which include the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. The Acts and Gospel of Jesus and the Acts and Gospel of the Holy Spirit (as the Acts of the

I think that another perspective on shame is possible. What are we usually ashamed of? Our life circumstances, our past and present, our family, our relationships, our shortcomings - we feel ashamed when we think that these are less than standard. I am not good enough, my parents are not good enough, the poverty and deprivations of my childhood were certainly not good; my standard of living is not good enough, not only my past but also my present are inadequate. All these are

I am not sure if I have written about this before. It must have been in 1991 or '92. Eight of us went for a special type of retreat. It was a time when the high range regions of Kerala, especially the small and poor farmers, were financially suffering due to the disease that affected the black pepper vines and cardamom plants and their prices went down. Fr. Sebastian Kizhakkekuttu of the Pala diocese, Br Mathew Paikada, my classmate Br Anto Arackal, and our theology students

There are clear hints in the Old Testament about loving one's enemies. There are such passages in the book of Ecclesiastes and the book...

These years we are celebrating the 800th anniversary of the many events that took place in the last years of Brother Francis' life....