Jubilee Homily
Prayerful Jubilee Greetings to all the Jubilarians. A jubilee celebrating one year of something is known as Paper jubilee. The fifth anniversary of something is known as wooden jubilee. Tenth is Tin. Twentieth is China, thirtieth is Pearl, fortieth is Ruby. We are not celebrating any of these today. Instead, we have 60th which is Diamond, 50th which is Golden and 25th which is Silver. So once again “Happy Jubilee” Greetings to the Diamond, Golden and Silver Jubilarians of Religious Profession or Priestly Ordination.

In the Bible, seven is a special number. Just as the seventh day of the week was set aside as a day of rest in ancient Israel, so the seventh year was set aside as a year of rest for the land. Fields were to remain uncultivated during the seventh year; whatever fruits or grain grew on their own were to be left for the poor. The seventh or the “Sabbatical year” was a reminder to the people that the land actually belonged to God, not to them. Therefore, as we celebrate the different jubilees, we are strongly reminded that we belong to God. He is our Lord and Master. Everything comes from him: our parents, our life and all the blessings that came along with it. And think of all what the Loving God has in store for us in the days to come and for all eternity.

Along with you all and especially in the name of the jubilerians, I say thank you Lord. Thank you for all your blessing all along our 60, 50, and 25 years.

Going back to the idea of Jubilee, we may say that though seven is a special number, seven times seven plus one is very exceptional. The fiftieth year –the year after seven times seven years – is a special Jubilee year, and God’s Law demanded some very special things to happen. The people were to take a year of vacation [I do not know if any Jubilarian here has asked Fr. Provincial for a year of vacation!]. But remember it is vacation from the normal routine. It is not doing nothing, but doing many things different from what one has been accustomed to. It is in Don Bosco’s words “change of occupation” to equip us to take care of the integral formation of youth.

The one year vacation of the Jubilee year for the Israelites meant no planting for a farmer, no lending for a banker, and no big sales for a merchant. It was so because God wanted the jubilee year to be a time when everyone started amew with a clean slate. It is equal to our starting afresh in Christ, starting afresh with Don Bosco. In the Israel of old, during the Jubilee, all land was to be returned to its original owners, and all Israelite slaves were to be set free. Debts were to be forgiven and justly settled.

Isn’t this a beautiful invitation to each of the Jubilarians, to forgive and forget to refresh relationships and to begin anew with greater enthusiasm filled with thanksgiving and a sense of joyful optimism? In modern terms and living in a world of digital technology this would mean to press the reset button. In Jubilee terms it would mean “returning to our original setting” of first profession or priestly ordination. A prayerful reading of Leviticus, chapter 25 can help us to undertake this process of using the reset button.

The Word of God
The Word of God we listened to from Acts Chapter 20 and John chapter 4 can inspire us to begin afresh as we press the reset button of our lives. In Jn 4: 1-42, Jesus engages a Samaritan woman in conversation. She has no idea who Jesus is, and what living water he is referring to, but she stands and listens. She is changed as a result. She comes to believe in Jesus and goes to tell others about the Messiah. John uses her as a role model for those who believe.

As believers, as priests and religious we are asked to look inside the well of faith within us. How deep is that well? Do we thirst for a deeper relationship with Jesus? Let us take a closer look at this beautiful and significant passage of John.

“Jesus comes after a long journey. He had taken the shorter route from Judea to Galilee passing through Samaria. He climbed up the hill in a hot Sunny day. Naturally, he was tired. So, he sat down by the well, and asked for some water to drink from a Samaritan woman. It was “about noon”.

These initial lines of today’s Gospel passage certainly reflect the lives our dear Jubilarians. They too are tired due to their hard work. They too realize that evangelization costs. They too have been traveling over hills and through valleys, and villages and towns. They have been toiling in institutions, caring for the sick and poor, instructing young minds and guiding older ones, supplying the Good News in myriad forms appreciating, encouraging correcting and supporting in a thousand and one way. Like Jesus, they too are tired. For a little while, they too will be sitting at the well of a Jubilee Celebration only to continue their God-given mission of evangelization.

Jacob’s well was deep. It represents the history and the wisdom of the Old Testament. But one needs to transcend it, not by bypassing it, but by delving deeper into it so as to supersede it and to substitute it with the wisdom of someone who is greater than Jacob, namely Jesus Christ, the Son God and Saviour of the world, and share Him and His Good News with the millions of our land, of the North-East in particular. Perhaps, there is no better methodology for it than what Jesus Himself shows us in today’s passage. A methodology of a journey, a gradual discovery of Jesus as a good and kind person, as one of us. He too is thirsty. He asks for some water. On a hot day and in dry season, a cup of water can symbolize that one thing which alone can satisfy us completely, fully. Water acts as a strong symbol. Water appears in various meanings. As a spring that “bursts forth from the womb of the earth”, it reminds one of uncontaminated and immaculate freshness, of unsullied beginning, of abundant fruitfulness. As flowing water, it reminds one of new life as on the banks of a river. Jesus helps the Samaritan woman to move closer to a new life symbolized by water when he tells her, “...those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty...it will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (Jn 4:14). Jesus thencontinues to reveal Himself with astonishing graduality. First, as an ordinary Jew like everyone else, but a Jew who can make a difference. A Jew who knows the Jewish Culture inside out, who understands the Samaritan woman more than anybody else. A Jew who shares the cultural wisdom of the past through dialogue, dialogue of “life and heart”. He makes the Woman experience that there is someone greater than the Patriarch Jacob. The language he uses is simple, related to everyday life and at the same time profound. This Jew with a difference leads the Samaritan woman to recognize in Him a Prophet, a Messiah and the Saviour of the world.

In the course of her conversation with Jesus, the woman tries to place Jesus in the traditional religious categories, but Jesus takes her forward to newness, to greater things. He opens before her a new horizon: “If you only knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘give me a drink’, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water” (Jn 4:10).

When the disciples returned from the market, they were astonished! They had their reasons: for, in the first century Israel, men did not talk to women, especially strangers, in public places; second, the Jews did not talk to Samaritans who were considered guilty of false worship; and finally, the woman with whom Jesus was talking was a known sinner, having married too many times. So, the Apostles had their reason to be surprised. But Jesus who could read what was in her heart and who understood her from her cultural roots succeeded to engage her in a fruitful conversation.

In its evangelizing mission, the Church in the North-East with its over 250 different cultural groups is on the right track learning languages, going deeper into the cultural heritage of the people – their proverbs, folklore, history, mythologies, fine arts and dance forms, their written and unwritten wisdom, their music and the lives of men and women who have contributed to what they are today. The Church in the North-East is on the right track with its capacity for dialogue – dialogue of life – dialogue of wisdom to learn from ancient traditions and discover that the seeds of the Good News are present in the cultures of the people in a thousand and one form. The Jubilarians whom we felicitate today are the one’s who have seen these seeds, watered them and have taken care of them through thick and thin to lead people to deeper realities of life as Jesus at Jacob’s well did with the Samaritan woman. And just as the Samaritan woman placed before Jesus some of her doubts, so too peoples everywhere have something more to learn. The woman said “Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem” – what do you say about that? Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem ...the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth...” (Jn 2-24). As you see, the answer looks simple. But it takes the woman to a dizzying height of truth! His reply would mean that the new way of relating to God “in spirit and truth” is much different from man seeking God through determined rituals, in determined places, within determined institutions. Worshipping God in spirit and truth would mean worshipping God in and through Jesus Christ who is the Spirit of God and the Truth of God. And that is possible anywhere in the world, in and through any cultural expression provided it is in keeping with the Good News that Jesus came to proclaim. It also means that Jesus in whom and through whom we render worship to God is much more than all the rituals, places and institutions of worship whether it be in Jerusalem or on Mt. Gerizim or for that matter, anywhere in the world. And something wonderful with this God in Jesus Christ is that He is in search of us much more than we are in search of Him. And the Spirit and the Truth of it is that the God of Jesus Christ loves us with the unconditional love of the Father, the totally self-giving love of the Son and the unifying and fructifying love of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ sums it up all when He reveals Himself to us as the Way, the Truth and the Life. To see Him is to see the Father. “He who sees me, sees the one who sent me”.

All what our Jubilarians have been doing during the past 60, or 50 or 25 years of their religious or/and priestly ministry was to offer to the people Jesus Christ and His Good News so that everyone could worship God in and through Jesus Christ who is the Spirit and the Truth of God. I am sure the Lord will congratulate them for the hard work they did all along to bring people closer to Jesus Christ and to His Good News.

We may also add that the major challenge the Church in the North-East – faces is to make individuals and communities experience that God in Jesus Christ “is greater than our hearts and that He knows everything” (1 Jn 3:20). His love is more than what our hearts put together can contain or imagine! It is in Him and through Him that we can worship God “in the spirit of truth”, and that worship goes beyond all rituals, places and institutions. “The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ [who is called Christ]. When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us’. Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you’ ” (Jn 4:25-26). In this self-revelation of Jesus we are touching not only the deepest level of Jacob’s well, but we have also superceded it and transcended it.

The encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman took place at about noon. Noon, as we know, is the turning point of the day. The Church in the North-East is at a turning point. It finds itself at the threshold of communication revolution. “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep” is no more an excuse for not proclaiming the Good News. If we have the same fire that burned in the heart and in every fibre of Paul, and which made him say what we have just heard in the first Reading, then we can say that the Church in the North-East is at a turning point in evangelizing mission. “You yourself know how I lived among you ...I did not cease night or day proclaiming the message...enduring trials...teaching you publicly and from house to house..” (cf. Acts 20: 18-31). When Paul had finished speaking to the elders of the Church at Ephesus he knelt down with them all and prayed...They embraced him and kissed him. I am certain that the fire that burnt in the heart of Paul has been spreading ever since and that each of the Jubilarians too is a proof of that fire. The affection which they have experienced from the people among whom they have toiled day and night proclaiming the Lord Jesus Christ...in all humility and boldness is, indeed, the result of the same fire.

May this solemn Eucharistic celebration help all of us to rekindle in our hearts and in every fiber of our being the desire to be missionaries after the example of Paul, for “A fire can only be lit by something that is itself on fire”. And may our evangelizing mission reflect that methodology which Jesus had in His encounter with the Samaritan woman, a methodology which includes intimate communion with the Father a deep knowledge of the Samaritans, of their cultural world, gentleness in dealing, great patience, and the capacity for dialogue and the ability to lead her step by step to experience the presence of the Messiah, the Saviour of the world. Moreover, what Jesus told her is relevant also today:

“See how the fields are ripe for harvesting...” As we celebrate our Jubilee, we shall not rest on our laurels. We still have miles to go to experience more personally the words of Jesus, “It is more blessed to give than to receive”. Let us continue to give our lives for the sake of the Gospel wherever we are placed and let us have a special love for those who are poor, especially because they have had no chance of hearing about Jesus and His Good News. It may be in a village, or a town, a village school or a well-equipped computer centre; it may be through speaking or writing, suffering or enjoying good health...the fire can burn anywhere and at all times...

May Our Blessed Mother intercede for us, and may Don Bosco inspire us.
Once again, prayerful Jubilee Greetings to all our Jubilarians as we continue with the Eucharist.

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Homily by Fr. J. Puthenpurakal SDB on the occasion of the Jubilee Mass in honour of the Jubilarians of Guwahati Province, at Savio Juniorate, Mawlai, Shillong, India, on Thursday 18th June, 2009.