The Wall of Silence (Luke 16:19-31)

The Gospel does not accuse the rich man of cruelty. He never shouted at Lazarus. He never drove him away. His sin was quieter, more dangerous: he did nothing. He remained inside, while Lazarus lay outside. The wall was not of stone, but of neglect. This is the Gospel’s piercing truth: the greatest danger is not always the evil we commit, but the love we leave undone. The sin of omission is subtle. It hides behind excuses like “I am busy,” “It is not my responsibility,” “Someone else will care.” Inside there is abundance, purpose, order. Outside there is hunger, need, forgottenness. The distance between the two is not geography. It is the heart. And how often it happens within us too. There are peripheries of the heart, those neglected spaces where God stirs gently, but we silence Him because we are too purposeful, too occupied with “greater things.” We may not harm anyone, but we fail to tend the little places where mercy, patience, or kindness are waiting.

 

This danger is not only personal. It is also communal, historical. When people remain silent in the face of suffering, walls of indifference grow taller. Martin Niemöller, a Lutheran pastor during the Holocaust, realized this too late. Looking back, he confessed with deep regret that his failure to act became his greatest sorrow. His haunting words remind us of the cost of omission:

 

“First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out- because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out- because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out- because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.”

 

 Like the rich man, Martin Niemöller was  not guilty of direct cruelty. But like the rich man, he recognized that indifference builds its own wall, and that wall can become eternal. Today too, we face this same danger. Even as genocide unfolds in Gaza, much of the world remains silent, unmoved, indifferent. The cries of children, families, and entire communities echo like Lazarus at the gate, yet too many stay behind their walls of safety and distance. Silence itself becomes a participation in the suffering.

 

And so, the parable whispers to us today:

Who is lying at the gate of my life?

What corners of my heart have I left untended?

Where has my silence, my inaction, built a wall between God and me, between myself and another?

 

- Lilly Pushpam PBVM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Faithfulness in the Little (Luke 16:1–13)

The parable of the steward in Luke 16:1–13 begins with an uncomfortable label: dishonest. His past is shadowed by wastefulness, yet the story takes an unexpected turn. Faced with the loss of his position, he acts with shrewdness. What could have been only an ending becomes, surprisingly, a beginning. The steward did not sit before his failure saying, “It is over.” He did not treat the closed door as final. Even from a broken beginning, he found a way to step forward. Dishonesty names where he has been; shrewdness names his awakening. And Jesus takes us beyond both: “If you are faithful in little, you will also be faithful in much.” The final call is not simply to cleverness, but to faithfulness.

 

Faithfulness in little things rarely looks extraordinary. It hides in the way we return a borrowed book, in the patience with which we guide a child through mistakes, in the respect we show toward resources entrusted to us. It is present in a spouse who listens attentively even after a long day, in the small gestures of kindness exchanged in marriage, in choosing honesty over secrecy when using the phone or internet, and in the discipline of keeping our digital life clean and respectful.

 

These small choices, often unnoticed, carry the weight of eternity. Faithfulness also demands discernment: Who is the master I am serving in my ordinary acts? Every decision tilt the heart in one direction, toward self-preservation or toward God. The Gospel leaves no middle ground: “You cannot serve two masters.” I once heard of a woman who worked quietly as a support staff in a school. She would say, “I sweep these corridors as if Jesus Himself will walk here.” To others it was routine, but her faithfulness in the little transformed the very atmosphere of that place. She did not measure greatness by scale, but by devotion.

 

 That is the heart of this parable. Even when our past bears the name of failure, even when doors close, new choices remain. Dishonesty may belong to yesterday, shrewdness may describe today, but faithfulness is the path that carries us into tomorrow. The steward reminds us that a closing door can still be a doorway. Jesus reminds us that faithfulness in the little opens into the fullness of life with God.

 

In the end, the question lingers: With what I have today, however small, how will I choose to be faithful?

 

The Only Love (Jn 3:13-17)

There are many ways we speak about love… flowers, hearts, tenderness, friendship. All of these are beautiful, but when I stand at the Cross, I know there is only one love in history that carried its full weight. In the wilderness, the people were healed not by escaping the serpents, but by lifting their eyes to what were raised before them. The Cross is the same: healing is not found in running away from pain, but in daring to look at it, held in love.

 I am reminded of that story from the war: a mother found lifeless, her body shielding her child in the rubble. The child was pulled out alive, and one rescuer whispered, “This is what love looks like.” The Cross is God doing the same, placing Himself between us and despair. Not love written in soft symbols, but love carved into sacrifices. Augustine once said, “The measure of love is to love without measure.” That is the Cross, without measure, without limit, without condition.

The love of Jesus is not hidden in comfort or beauty. It is stretched open in pain, exposed for all to see. It is the love that does not walk away, even when betrayed. The love that does not defend itself, even when mocked. The love that empties itself, even when crushed. This is the only love that does not fade, does not deceive, and does not seek its own gain. It is not one love among many. It is the Love, the love that changes history, the love that steps into our wilderness and refuses to let us die there.

And when I stand at the Cross, my heart cannot hold back. Two things overwhelm me: The stretched hands tell me, “I have given you my all. Nothing more could I give. “Those same hands, still open, seem to reach for me, whispering, “Come as you are. I long to hold you.”

Here, before the Cross, I finally understand. This is love without measure, love without end. The only love strong enough to save me, and tender enough to embrace me.

 - Lilly Pushpam PBVM

Everything is found in God (Luke 14:25–33)

“It is said that before entering the sea, a river trembles with fear…” Kahlil Gibran’s words echo the heart of Jesus’ teaching. The river looks back at its journey, mountains, valleys, villages, and then faces the vast ocean. It fears it will disappear, but only in surrender does it discover it has become the ocean itself.

Jesus, too, calls us to that same surrender. Discipleship is not about clinging but about trusting, trusting that what feels like loss is in fact transformation. Our parents and loved ones are not “outside” of us to be renounced; they live within us, shaping who we are. What Jesus asks is that we hold them, and everything else, within the larger embrace of God.

Rumi reminds us: “The leaf of every tree brings a message from the unseen world. Look, every falling leaf is a blessing!”  Letting go does not wound us when we see it through God’s eyes, it blesses us. Every surrender is not an erasure but an expansion; every cost becomes a doorway into deeper life.

Jesus’ images of the builder and the king remind us that discipleship is deliberate, not casual. To follow Him is to weigh our choices, to step forward with awareness and readiness. Yet the paradox remains: what looks like cost becomes gift, what feels like emptiness becomes fullness.

To be a disciple, then, is not the privilege of a chosen few, it is the invitation to all. To let go like the river, to fall like the leaf, to trust that in God nothing is truly lost. What we release returns to us transformed, and in the letting go, we too are made new.

- Lilly Pushpam PBVM