Kurien Kunnumpuram Quotes

Uniformity is the death of life. Wherever there is life, there is diversity.

The Church in India needs to take more seriously the option for the poor and take concrete steps to alleviate poverty and misery in India.

It is our Christian task to make ourselves increasingly more free. As one of the beautiful hymns has it: “It is a long road to freedom”. There is a great danger that we will give in to external force or internal compulsion, thus jeopardizing our freedom.

Transcendence is the way God is immanent. God is present in every created reality, without being identified with it. This is the meaning of God’s transcendence.

Freedom is for love and service. Our ability to give ourselves away in love and service is the true measure of our freedom. After having declared: “For you were called to freedom”, Paul adds: “Through love become slaves to one another”.

Normally we think that it was Jesus’ mission to reveal the mystery of God to us. This he certainly did. But he also revealed to us the mystery of the human person. As the Council declares: “The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of the human being take on light” (GS 22). First of all, Jesus pointed out the God-dimension of human person.

Pope John Paul II is a tireless champion of peace who has dealt with the theme of peace often and at some length. Like his predecessors, John Paul II sees a close connection between justice and peace. John Paul II believes that justice is rooted in love and “finds its most significant expression in mercy”. Hence, justice, “if separated from merciful love, becomes cold and cutting.”

In the religious traditions of humankind there are at least four ways in which people have encountered the divine. First of all, there is the experience of God in nature, as the power behind natural phenomena. Such an experience usually leads to belief in nature gods. This is clearly seen in Hinduism. Secondly, there is the experience of God in the depths of one’s being. God-ward movement often takes an inward direction. This leads to the cultivation of interiority. The Upanishads bear witness to this kind of an experience of God. It is also found among the Christian mystics. Thirdly, there is the experience of God mediated through the rites and doctrines of religions. This is probably the most valued form of God-experience in popular Catholicism, in which the frequent reception of the sacraments is highly esteemed. Such an approach to the experience of God is found also among the followers of other religions. Finally, there is the experience of God in inter-human relationships and socio-political involvements. This form of God-experience is, I believe, typical of the biblical tradition.

The term spirituality is misleading. It gives the impression that we are concerned only with the soul and its activities like prayer and contemplation. The realm of the spirit is thought of as distinct from the material realm, the realm of work, of science and economics. Underlying this dichotomy is the Greek understanding of the human person as a composite of soul and body or as a soul temporarily housed in the body. The classical example of this is Plato’s image of the human person as the charioteer in the chariot.

The Church has consistently taught that justice and charity are the foundations of peace. It may be right to think of “charity as the soul and justice as the substance of international peace”.

Spirituality is a way of life. It is our total inward quest for growth, meaning and authenticity. And it is manifested in the quality of one’s life. In the last analysis, to be spiritual is to be touched and transformed by the Spirit of God. In a person who has been touched and transformed by God’s Spirit the fruits of the Spirit will be seen: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal 5:22-23). Besides, “where the Spirit of Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor 3:17).

Mission of the Church is to collaborate with God in his work for the wholeness of the human person, the human community and the cosmos according to the pattern revealed in Jesus Christ.

There is a lot of piety among us, but not enough spirituality. Piety consists in the performance of external devotional practices and is measured by one’s fidelity to these practices. Whether or not the faithful performance of these exercises of piety improves the quality of one’s Christian life is a question that is seldom asked. One is at times surprised that priests, sisters and lay people who are obviously pious are manifestly unfair in their dealings with other people. Some of them show so little of the compassion of Christ and are quite unwilling to forgive others.

Peace is the gift of God who through the death and resurrection of Christ, reconciled humans with himself and with one another. However, peace is also a human achievement since it is to be ushered in through the practice of love and justice.

It [Vatican II] does not look upon the ‘religious’ as one dimension among other dimensions of human existence. The religious dimension intersects with other dimensions. That is why the Council could speak of ‘the supremely human character’ of the Church’s religious mission.