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November 27, 2023Syro Malankara Abu Dhabi (2023)
I am delighted to be able to celebrate with you the 25 years of the Syro Malankara community in the parish of Saint Joseph in Abu Dhabi.
My thoughts with joy now go to His Eminence Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, with whom I had the pleasure of working together during the Synod of Bishops last October. Greetings to the Syro-Malankara priests present today.
First, I would like to express my joy for your presence and story. You are a precious gift for our vicariate. You bring an original contribution, rooted in a glorious past, to our Church of Migrants living in the Gulf.
As you know, ours is a particular Church, truly unique worldwide. Here, none of us are citizens. Here, we are all migrants, including the bishop, the priests, and consecrated people. We come from different nations with different spiritual and cultural traditions. Ours is a multi-ritual, Church. It is a great gift to have so many differences between us and yet to form a single Church. In fact, each community has the task of maintaining its tradition and sharing it and making it known to others. Living alongside each other allows us to know and respect each other and to deepen our sense of belonging to the Church.
In fact, what can bring together the faithful who are so different in tradition, culture, language, and rites if not the same baptism? Even though we are different, we received the same baptism, which made us members of the same faithful People of God and, therefore, sons and daughters of God.
This is precisely the reality that Saint Paul reminds us of in the letter to the Galatians that was proclaimed. Christ made us move from slavery to being children of God. We are no longer slaves but children. This is why we are truly free. The slave appears as a number in a series without a personal face. While being a child means being called by name, it means being unique and unrepeatable and recognizing that we are loved, wanted and welcomed unconditionally.
Our name is the one we received on the day of our baptism, through which we became sons and daughters in the only son of God. We must live every day in the awareness of the dignity of being children.
In his letter to the Galatians, Saint Paul adds that if we are children, we are also heirs. Being heirs means having the ability to receive the inheritance, being capable of receiving a gift, and knowing how to make it bear fruit. We welcome the gift of divine life, the love of God, and we must ensure that this love bears within us the fruits of a good life and makes us witnesses of the joy of the gospel in the world. We are responsible for the gift given to us by God.
This is also the perspective that the Annunciation highlights. Precisely in the passage from the Gospel of Luke, we see this mysterious intertwining between the gift of God and the freedom of the human creature, between the grace and the responsibility of the human being. The Mother of God shows us, on the one hand, the absolute precedence of the gift of God. The gift of God surprises us and always precedes us. God's grace is a gift and not our conquest. On the other hand, this gift must be received, welcomed, and made fruitful within us.
In Mary, this dynamic of grace was realized in her perfection. In her, the gift of God was welcomed perfectly. She is full of grace. In her, the grace of God brought the most beautiful fruit: it gave us Jesus. We, too, despite being sinners, must enter into this dynamic. We, too, are called to welcome the gift of God, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and make them fruitful in ourselves. We, too, are called to bring Jesus to others through the testimony of our lives. May Mary most holy help us be docile to God's grace. May her example inspire us, and her intercession protect us.
Finally, today, we also remember the feast of Christ, the King of the Universe. Precisely, Jesus, born of Mary, who lived in the world, suffered, died, and rose again and ascended to heaven. We acclaim him as Lord of the universe, King of heaven and earth. But, as we know, the kingdom of God is not of this world. It is not a kingdom of power and dominion over others. Jesus reigns because he loves and loves us by giving his life for us. So, we, too, will reign with Christ if we love each other.
Dear faithful of the Syro-Malankara community, I thank the Lord for your gift for our Church and your Christian testimony in Abu Dhabi in these 25 years of history. May the Lord always keep us in his love and give you his Holy Blessing in abundance.
