Message from the Shepherd. Dear Friends, First of all I take this opportunity to wish each and every one of you a blessed and grace-filled Easter season, a season when we continue to live and experience the grace of the resurrection, the core and fulcrum of Christian faith. As we remembered and lived the suffering and passion of Jesus during the Holy Week, we felt a sense of hatred and hostility to the Pharisees, Scribes and leaders of the Jews who planned and executed the death of Jesus. Evil seems to have triumphed. Good people felt a despondency that bordered discouragement and despair. Handful of good people, including the disciples of Jesus tried to take shelter by hiding. Today many people in the world are seemingly living the same type of discouragement and high degree of despair. There is feeling of total despondency because the evils that are taking place around us: in our state, in our country, in our neighbouring countries and the whole world. There is a systematic attempt to exterminate and wipe out Christians and Christianity from the face of the earth, led by ISIS. News of nerve wrecking and chilling instances of assassination of Christians in social media make us numb. Conversely, materialistic and hedonistic, atheistic and secularist philosophy that is aggressively propagated is corroding the basic human and Christian values and principles. Evil seems to have total control and sway in the world today. But evil could not and will not have the ultimate and final word. The evils carried out on Good Friday will always be defeated. Easter will be the final word in the battle between good and evil. This was the core message of Pope Francis during his Urbi et Orbi Blessing this year. Here I quote few sentences from Pope Francis. “The glorious Easter message, that Jesus, who was crucified is not here but risen (cf. Mt 28:5-6), offers us the comforting assurance that the abyss of death has been bridged and, with it, all mourning, lamentation and pain (cf. Rev 21:4)…Our world is full of persons suffering in body and spirit, even as the daily news is full of stories of brutal crimes which often take place within homes, and large-scale armed conflicts which cause indescribable suffering to entire peoples… The Lord Jesus, our peace (Eph 2:14), by his resurrection triumphed over evil and sin. May he draw us closer on this Easter feast to the victims of terrorism, that blind and brutal form of violence which continues to shed blood in different parts of the world, as in the recent attacks in Belgium, Turkey, Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire and Iraq (even in Pakistan – my addition)…With the weapons of love, God has defeated selfishness and death. His son Jesus is the door of mercy wide open to all...The Easter message of the risen Christ, a message of life for all humanity, echoes down the ages and invites us not to forget those men and women seeking a better future, an ever more numerous throng of Sharing: April - May 2016 -1 ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ migrants and refugees – including many children – fleeing from war, hunger, poverty and social injustice. All too often, these brothers and sisters of ours meet along the way with death or, in any event, rejection by those who could offer them welcome and assistance. May the forthcoming World Humanitarian Summit not fail to be centred on the human person and his or her dignity, and to come up with policies capable of assisting and protecting the victims of conflicts and other emergencies, especially those who are most vulnerable and all those persecuted for ethnic and religious reasons… Along with our brothers and sisters persecuted for their faith and their fidelity to the name of Christ, and before the evil that seems to have the upper hand in the life of so many people, let us hear once again the comforting words of the Lord: ”Take courage; I have conquered the world! (Jn 16:33)… To those in our society who have lost all hope and joy in life, to the elderly who struggle alone and feel their strength waning, to young people who seem to have no future, to all I once more address the words of the Risen One: “See, I am making all things new… To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life” (Rev 21:5-6). May this comforting message of Jesus help each of us to set out anew with greater courage and greater hope to blaze trails of reconciliation with God and with all our brothers and sisters. Of which we have great need!” Such has been the triumphant reply of people who has experienced the victory Jesus in the midst of personal suffering and tragedies. When Mr. Graham Stains, the Australian Christian missionary and his two sons were burnt alive in Orissa, on January 23, 1999, his widowed wife and his daughter who had to live such a colossal tragedy, expressed their faith in the new life and victory of good, when they sang in the memorial celebration: “Because He lives, I can face tomorrow, because He lives, all fear is gone; because I know He holds the future and life is worth living – just because He lives”. Most Rev. Dr. James Thoppil Bishop of Kohima Releasing Soon!! The much awaited Post-Synodal Exhortation on Family titled, “Amoris Laetitia” (The Joy of Love: On Love in the Family) will be released on 8th April 2016. Sharing: April - May 2016 -2 ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ Editor’s Note... Dear Readers, We are Easter People. Alleluia having been changed), according is our song! Easter is the Feast of all to Catholic teaching, into the body feasts. Our faith is founded on the truth and blood of Jesus Christ, then, that the tomb was empty. Over a span question comes, What is your of six weeks, Jesus appeared to a faith on the Sacrament of Christ variety of groups of various sizes in Body and Blood? Well, the Gospel of Matthew different locations. He appeared to tells us: While they were eating at the last super, over 500 at one point – a huge number Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and to be an outright fabrication. Not to giving it to his disciples said, “Take and eat; this mention, the people whom He is my body.” Then he took a cup, gave thanks, appeared to didn’t just see Him, but and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of ate with Him, walked with Him, you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which touched Him. Jesus even made will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness breakfast (John 21:9) at one point. This of sins.” (Mt 26:26-28; cf. Mk 14:22-24, Lk 22:17- is the basis of our faith and which gives 20, 1 Cor 11:23-25) hope and meaning to our life. We are Recalling these words of Jesus, the therefore invited to live firmly rooting Catholic Church professes that, in the celebration ourselves on Jesus who has risen to of the Eucharist, bread and wine become the Body experience Joy, peace, love and hope and Blood of Jesus Christ through the power of in our life. the Holy Spirit and the instrumentality of the priest. One of the major feasts which Jesus said: “I am the living bread that came down the church will be commemorated after from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live Easter is the Feast of Body and blood forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh of Christ on Sunday, 29th May, 2016. for the life of the world. For my flesh is true We, who participate in every Eucharist, food, and my blood is true drink” (Jn 6:51-55). sometimes are not able to grasp The whole Christ is truly present, body, blood, mystery of the “Eucharista.” Vatican soul, and divinity, under the appearances of bread II tells us, that Eucharist is “the source and wine—the glorified Christ who rose from the and summit of the Christian life” dead after dying for our sins. This is what the (Lumen gentium, no. 11; Church means when she speaks of the “Real cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, Presence” of Christ in the Eucharist. This presence no. 1324). Since the Christian life is of Christ in the Eucharist is called “real” not to essentially a spiritual life, we might say exclude other types of his presence as if they as well that the Eucharist is the “source could not be understood as real (cf. Catechism, and summit of Christian spirituality” no. 1374). The risen Christ is present to his Church too. The term Eucharist in the Catholic in many ways, but most especially through the Church is the celebration of Mass sacrament of his Body and Blood. using the bread and wine, it is The above questions further make us transubstantiated (their substance inquisitive. What does it mean that Jesus Christ Sharing: April - May 2016 -3 ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ is present in the Eucharist under the see what you see but did not see it, and to hear appearances of bread and wine? How what you hear but did not hear it” (Mt 13:17). does this happen? The presence of the In the Eucharist the Church both receives the risen Christ in the Eucharist is an gift of Jesus Christ and gives grateful thanks to inexhaustible mystery that the Church can God for such a blessing.