Sic transit gloria mundi

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Recently, a social commentator, whose podcast I follow, drew my attention to the link between culture of death which underlies two increasingly normalised evils of our times - abortion and euthanasia - and two prevalent philosophical positions, nihilism and hedonism. A simple explanation for nihilism is that it is the position which perceives life as purposeless and meaningless, whereas hedonism regards personal satisfaction and self-fulfilment as the only criteria to measure the worth of anything. It is interesting how we see these two modern destructive positions in our first reading and the Gospel.

The first reading taken from the Book of Ecclesiastes opens with these iconic words: “Vanity of vanities, the Preacher says. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity!” In modern English, the word vanity means an excessive pride in one's appearance, qualities, or achievements. But it may also refer to something that lacks value, that is worthless or trivial. This is the most ancient meaning of the term, and the one that is intended in this passage. This is not the kind of message that you would expect from holy scriptures. In fact, the Book in its entirety is somewhat discouraging as the author constantly emphasises the vanity or futility of created things. If you didn’t know better, you would actually suspect that the author is your typical text-book nihilist who has come to this cynical outlook after having lived a life of hedonism which ended in shattered dreams and failed projects.

The author, presumably King Solomon who had acquired great wealth and fame and enjoyed countless pleasures, waxes lyrical as he dismantles the purpose of his youthful pursuit of knowledge, riches and pleasure, which doesn’t seem to bring him any closer to the elusive goal of happiness and personal achievement. If one were to just confine our reading to this bleak rumination of an obviously disillusioned man, we too would be sucked into a quagmire of despair. If all efforts at striving are futile, why bother at all?

The doom-and-gloom conclusion the Preacher reaches at the end of our reading, points in two directions. First, it reminds us of what this Sunday’s Gospel teaches: that you can’t take it with you. No matter how much wealth you accumulate in this life, it will die with you. In the end, there’s no rich or poor person after death. Second, Ecclesiastes brings us face to face with the deepest questions that we should be asking, struggling with and seeking answers for. In fact, the Catholic philosopher, Peter Kreeft, says that Ecclesiastes is the question to which the whole Bible responds. He says, “It is divine revelation precisely in being the absence of divine revelation. It is like the silhouette of the rest of the Bible.”

But thank God, our lectionary matches and juxtaposes this reading with both the second reading and the Gospel. Read in the light of these two other passages, Ecclesiastes is not nearly as bleak as it may seem at first glance. It is a necessary meditation, nevertheless - for how can one learn to appreciate the invigorating power of light unless we have experienced the alienating pain of darkness? How could we hunger for the endless joys of heaven unless we have seen or tasted the pains of hell? From that low point of desperation, we can turn to God, seeking the answers to our longing for meaning in His Word, in His Son, in His Sacraments. We will find that life is far from the nihilistic meaninglessness the Preacher finds. Instead, we are made for a beautiful, eternal communion with God where we will find our ultimate fulfillment.

The message of the Preacher in the first reading seems to find a striking parallel with the parable of the Foolish Rich Man in the Gospel, but with one significant difference. The most significant difference is that Jesus Christ, Divine Wisdom and not just another wise philosopher, could speak authoritatively of a future life with our Heavenly Father while the authors of the Old Testament books, including the supposedly wise philosopher king who authored Ecclesiastes, could not. Whereas the Preacher seems to be mulling and venting over the perplexity of life, which our Lord also reiterates in His parable, our Lord and St Paul in the second reading are actually stressing that we should be concentrating more on our eternal destiny. As St Paul wisely exhorts us: “Let your thoughts be on heavenly things, not on the things that are on the earth.”

The Gospel gives us not just one but two examples of a disordered relationship with material goods, one drawn from real life and the other, a parable. They share a common theme, namely, a disproportionate attachment to material things upends one's sense of tranquillity and order, and can misdirect one away from Eternal Life. In the first instance, a man approaches the Lord with a complaint that he is being treated unjustly in the matter of an inheritance. It is easy to empathise with his dilemma as we all know how it feels to be the victim of injustice.

Rather than solving this man's problem, our Lord deflects it with a parable. It is the story of the "rich fool." The Biblical meaning of "fool" is one who rebels against God or who has forgotten Him. The man of the parable is so concerned with maintaining his wealth that there is no place for God in his life. He will die that night, and despite his possessions, he will appear before God empty-handed. This is why St Paul in the second reading exhorts us that “you must kill everything in you that belongs only to earthly life: fornication, impurity, guilty passion, evil desires and especially greed, which is the same thing as worshipping a false god" (Col 3:5). Our true treasure is being a child of God, having received new life in Christ. In the end, “there is only Christ: He is everything and He is in everything”. All other treasures are transitory and barren, and will one day fade away.

As foolish men surround themselves with trophies of their achievements and build monuments in honour of their conquests, wise rulers throughout history have often taken care to surround themselves with salutary reminders of their own frailty and the transitory nature of power. The Pope is no different. There is a Latin expression that was once spoken at the coronation of Popes, “Sic transit gloria mundi”, which means, “Thus passes the glory of the world.” The last Pope to have heard it would be Pope St John XXIII.

As the new pontiff was carried around St. Peter’s Basilica, sitting in his sedia gestatoria, his portable throne, the procession with all its pomp and pageantry, would stop in three different places. At each stop, the priest, holding a burning flax, would chant to the pope “Pater Sancte, sic transit gloria mundi!,” “Holy Father, thus passes the glory of the world,” reminding him—and the rest of the Church—of the transitory nature of worldly honour and glory. So that amidst all the pomp owed to the dignity of their sacred office, the Supreme Pontiffs might not forget the humble origins of the papacy in the Galilean fisherman, who betrayed Christ out of fear of the washerwoman. Everything in this life passes away — only God remains (as St Teresa reminds us in her prayer), and because of this reason, only He is worth struggling towards.

So, my dear brothers and sisters, heed the words of St Paul: “Let your thoughts be on heavenly things, not on the things that are on the earth, because you have died, and now the life you have is hidden with Christ in God.”

Persistence in Prayer

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

The Our Father prayer, which we usually pray at Mass or when reciting the rosary, comes from the Gospel of St Matthew. St Luke’s version is shorter and certainly more stark and direct in its wording. If St Matthew has his version of this prayer at the beginning of our Lord’s ministry while He was preaching the Sermon on the Mount, St Luke places the Lord’s Prayer about halfway through his Gospel. At this point, the Lord is on His journey to Jerusalem where He knows He will have to suffer before His mission can be accomplished. He has predicted His death twice. He has told His disciples that if they want to follow Him, they will have to suffer too. At this crucial point, a disciple asks our Lord to teach them how to pray. Our Lord then provides a catechesis on prayer.

“Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” This request raises a question. Why do John’s and Jesus’s disciples need to be taught to pray? Adult Jewish males were expected to pray morning, afternoon and evening in the direction of Jerusalem, three times a day and before and after meals. Like the Pharisees and scribes, John’s disciples fasted and prayed. The Lord’s disciples, on the other hand, had been criticised because they did not seem to be as fastidious in these pious practices.

One of the functions of having distinctive prayers was to create and maintain a sense of identity and community for members of a sect. At a certain point in the Gospel, our Lord’s disciples didn’t have to fast and pray because He was still among them. But now, the Lord is preparing them for the time when He will not be among them much longer. The community needs sustenance for the future, a foundation for their continued communal life, and such sustenance and the foundation of their bond would be found in prayer. Remember the Lord’s promise: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matt. 18:19–20.) Christ will continue to remain with them whenever they prayed.

What was needed by the early Christian community to sustain them in times of crises, and inspire and empower them for mission, continues to be relevant to us today. In a world where groups try to build social cohesiveness through team building exercises and other forms of group dynamics, the Christian community’s need for prayer remains foundational. If we are only united in function and efficiency, then we cannot claim to be members of the Body of Christ. But if Christ is our inspiration and model, prayer must be the ultimate foundation of our bond. The Church without prayer, is as inconceivable as a Church without Christ.

After the Lord had given a helpful pattern for prayer, He turns immediately to one of the primary problems in prayer, a problem that will become obvious almost at once. God does not always answer upon our first request. Indeed, experience tells us that when we pray earnestly, sometimes nothing seems to happen. In response to this dilemma, our Lord calls for persistence in prayer. He calls for us to keep on praying even when it seems that nothing is happening.

The Lord uses a parable to illustrate this point. The scenario of the parable places it as an emergency request, made at a ridiculous hour to a reluctant neighbour. This is not because the Lord is comparing the reluctant neighbour to God. He is not suggesting that there is any reluctance in God to respond to our prayers. However, there are times that God does “appear” to be like the reluctant friend, especially when we don’t seem to get any answer. However, He is assuring us that if a reluctant friend will get up at midnight to respond to the persistent appeal of a friend, how more so will the God of love and mercy, hear our prayers and answer our request.

What the Lord has illustrated in the parable, He now sets forth in the precept. Our praying is to be marked by persistence. If the answer does not come at once, we are to keep on praying. If we do not find what we seek at once, we keep on seeking. If the door does not open to us at once, then we keep on knocking. We are to see progression in the use of ask, seek, knock. Everything in the person’s being is involved in an attempt to break through to the answer. No wonder many of our prayers go unanswered. So many give up after only a few feeble attempts. If we go on asking, seeking, and knocking, then we can be certain of results.

Does this mean, that if I persist in praying that I will get exactly that which I ask of God? I hope not. “No” is just as much an answer to prayer as “yes”. No wise parent always says “yes” to the requests of their child. Many of us have forgotten this time-tested piece of parenting wisdom, especially when we are constantly bombarded by incessant requests from an entitled generation. We imagine that if we give our children what they want whenever they ask for it, they will be finally satisfied and stop harassing us. The problem of a permissive culture is that it creates an entitled generation. As that iconic song from the Greatest Showman declares: it will never be enough! Never! Never! Ever!

Sometimes we need to say “no”' because the thing requested, is not really the thing needed. No amount of persistence will wear down a good parent if he knows the thing requested is not the right thing for his child. It took me a long time to grasp this truth because it is always easier to say “yes” to parishioners. Sometimes the proper and prudent thing to do is to say “wait”. The thing sought will be a good thing later, but the person is not ready or the timing is not right. The same could be said of God. But we can be certain that as we persist in prayer, that God is going to respond to the prayer. Our prayers will not be ignored. But for the moment, God’s answer is “wait!”

So, what is the value of waiting? What is the value of our persistence in prayer? Through prayer, daily life can become a classroom of communion. Through prayer, darkness can be dispelled and the path of progress illuminated. Through prayer, we can learn to die to self and to our insatiable sense of entitlement. Prayer does not change the mind of God, rather prayer changes us. Through prayer, we learn to conform to the Will of God and not demand that He confirms to our wishes. Through prayer, we are drawn by Love into a deepening relationship with Jesus, who died for us on the cross.

God holds nothing back from those whom He loves. He gives us the Holy Spirit, His life and grace. But most of all He wishes to give us the gift of salvation, the invitation to be with Him in Paradise forever. That is our real problem. It is not that our requests are too big for Him to grant but rather, we often ask too little. We ask for the pleasures of our earthly lives, we ask for good health and longevity, even though we know that one day our mortality will catch up with us. The Lord waits for us to ask the one thing which matters most – our salvation, Eternal Life. In prayer, we find the strength to pull ourselves up, after each fall. In prayer, we find the strength and the resolve to bear with our daily crosses. In prayer, we find our way after a life of asking and searching at the very gates of heaven, where our persistent knocking will finally bear fruit, where the answer to our deepest longings awaits us.   

Welcome to the Lord's table

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

One of the most famous of all Russian icons by the great 15th century Russian iconographer, Andre Rublev, is a beautiful and compelling visual expression of the passage we’ve just heard in the first reading that describes Abraham’s hospitality to three travellers. Although the icon is most commonly titled by our Orthodox brethren as “the Hospitality of Abraham,” it is better known in the West as the icon of the Most Holy Trinity. How can we reconcile these two seemingly irreconcilable epithets? The first title seems to focus on the action of Abraham as the main actor, whereas the second focuses on the Three persons of the Most Holy Trinity. The most obvious connexion between these two realities is that the number of travellers whom Abraham welcomes, corresponds to the number of persons which make up the Divine Trinity. But is that all?

Very early on, Christian exegetes noted that even though there were three travellers who showed up at Abraham’s tent, when he prostrated before them, he addressed them in the singular as Adonai, “Lord,” a title which is used to address God in a most reverential way to avoid naming Him. Some commentators interpreted Abraham’s greeting to mean that one of the visitors was God, and that He was accompanied by two angels. However, the interpretation that became classic was that Abraham’s three visitors were the three persons of the Most Holy Trinity, whom he believed in as the One true God. There is a concise Latin dictum which captures this truth: “Tres vidit, unum adoravit” — He saw three, he adored one.

We can now see how the passage is not just a story of Abraham’s hospitality offered to his visitors, but more importantly, it is the hospitality offered by the three visitors, presumably the Most Holy Trinity, to Abraham. Yes, the theme of hospitality strings together both the first reading and the Gospel, but whose hospitality you may ask?

To find an answer to this riddle, it would be good to look at the first reading through the lenses of Rublev’s icon. The icon, being a window into the unseen world by using symbols from the visible world, shows us something amazing which we would normally miss in our reading of the passage from Genesis. In the famous Icon of this scene, the hospitality of Abraham, you can see the three figures sitting at the table, but you can’t see Abraham. The table is rectangular with four sides. Three sides are occupied by each of the angelic figures but the fourth side, the side closest to the viewer is empty. There is room at the table for another. That space is welcoming Abraham in, welcoming us in, to sit at the table with God, the Most Holy Trinity.

When Abraham gives them the water, who really gives the water of life? When Abraham refreshes them by washing their feet, who really makes who clean? And when Abraham offers them bread, who really gives the bread of life? If you can figure out this riddle, you are one step closer to enlightenment. I’ll give you a clue… it isn’t Abraham who is the giver of all gifts. This isn’t a story about ordinary hospitality. And neither is the Gospel reading too. It wasn’t Abraham who was really being hospitable. It was God, God giving Abraham the bread of life and the water of life and the washing of salvation.

And this is how we should read and understand the dynamics of the two sisters, Mary and Martha, in today’s Gospel passage. Our Lord is in the home of Martha and Mary, and the story seems to be another tale of misguided hospitality. Most people would just notice the obvious: Mary listens to Jesus but Martha is distracted by the tasks of the world.

But there is more to the story than meets the eye. First, Martha isn’t just distracted by the cares of the world. Luke says she is distracted by something very specific. She’s distracted by diakonia… ministry. It’s where we get the word “deacon”. Martha isn’t distracted by looking up the latest fashions nor busy pursuing a career like a 21st century modern woman. She’s distracted by something which is really important. Ministering to others. She was distracted, ironically, by her desire to serve. Distractions come in all forms – sometimes by things which seem blatantly frivolous and selfish, and sometimes even by the things that appear selfless.

Second, does the Lord actually criticise her because she is distracted by her work? Let us look at His words: “Martha, Martha,’ He said ‘you worry and fret about so many things, and yet few are needed, indeed only one. It is Mary who has chosen the better part; it is not to be taken from her.” His point—one of them, at least—is that hospitality does not consist in impressing our guests with how much we are doing for them, but in our willingness simply to be present to them and to listen to what they have to say. Martha, if you think about it, is doing exactly what Abraham was doing… offering the Lord some refreshment. The thing she has missed, is what the Lord really wants from her and from us… our love and our complete attention. This is what Mary does and what she is praised for. She allows the Lord to serve her with His teaching and presence.

Both of these apparently simple but exceedingly profound biblical stories offer a guiding word to Christians who yearn and thirst for hospitality, as we struggle to offer the warmth of hospitality to others. So, what should we do? Should we make like Abraham and Martha to scramble to serve our God who lives among us? No. Remember Mary who sat at the feet of the Lord. If you think the Christian faith is about doing enough to earn God’s love… then you’ve completely missed the point. The astounding paradoxical truth is this: we don’t serve God. God serves us. We don’t need to feed God. God feeds us. We don’t need to provide for God. God provides for us. We don’t need to protect God. God heals and holds us in our brokenness. We don’t need to sacrifice to God. God has already sacrificed Himself for us.

At this and every Eucharist, God invites us to the altar of His perfect sacrifice, to the meal which is a foretaste of the heavenly banquet, to have a seat at the table and share in the fellowship of the Most Holy Trinity. It is here where we will be fed, we will be refreshed, and where we are saved. As we nervously approach the altar, fully aware of our unworthiness, we hear the Lord who beckons to us, as how He had gently spoken to Abraham, Mary and Martha: Come… sit down… and taste. Fret no longer in what you can do but pay attention to what I can do for you. With me you will learn love. With me you will discover life. With me you will find a most welcoming eternal home.

Asking the right question

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

The punchline of the parable of the Good Samaritan is found both at the beginning, as well as the end of today’s passage, and it is not the Lord who delivers it but instead a nameless onlooker, an expert of the Jewish Law. The “lawyer” begins this whole dialogue with this question: “Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” The perennial question posed by this man is indeed a question for which humanity has often sought an answer.

It is not enough to know how we should live but the weightier question would be how do we live forever. This loaded question indeed shows that this lawyer has some insight into the teaching of Christ Jesus. For he understands that the promise and inheritance which Jesus speaks of is not just the Promised Land, as his ancestors would have believed, but rather unending life, and he wants to make sure he gets his share of this reward.

Instead of providing an answer, the Lord uses the Socratic method - He answers this man by asking another probing question, compelling the man to give his own answer to the question he had posed. And so, the man cites the Torah to answer his own question on the criterion for inheriting eternal life: love God and love your neighbour as yourself.

Our Lord agrees with the lawyer’s answer, but then the latter adds an additional question: “Who is my neighbour?” Our Lord’s parable of the Good Samaritan is the answer given. There is no denying that the lawyer had asked the right question. But his motives were far from pure. In fact, he had come to the Lord not as an ardent student thirsting for knowledge, but as it says in the text, the lawyer’s motive was to “disconcert” Jesus. This was another attempt to trap the Lord, in order to accuse Him of not following the Law.

There is great irony in this story. The lawyer comes to Jesus fully recognising that the law commands him to love God and neighbour. Yet he approaches the Lord without love and with a hostile intent to trap Him. It was a gotcha question. The irony of his motive points to this important lesson: The law of love is not meant to be contemplated as if it was a legal or academic exercise. The law of love is meant to be lived out in a relational way. No wonder, after praising the lawyer’s answer which was quoted verbatim from the Law, the Lord then exhorts to him to “do this” and eternal life would be his.

Our Lord’s parable is the timeless tale of an assault and robbery, and the unlikely hero who comes to the victim’s aid. Love is owed to a stranger left for dead on the side of the road, and it is not the paragons of Jewish piety, a priest and a Levite who reveal it, but a cultural and religious outsider who extends it. Our Lord had already taught His disciples to love their enemies and this Samaritan would be the perfect illustration of His teaching.

In the example of the Good Samaritan, our Lord collapses the two great commandments. If we love God, we love our neighbours, whoever they are. We love our neighbours because we love God. Our way to God is one that leads us to the other -the way through the brother or sister whom I must love.

The parable actually does not provide a direct answer to the question asked by the lawyer but changes the orientation of the question instead. Our Lord is in fact telling him not to ask, “who is my neighbour”, but instead he should be asking, “how can I prove myself to be a neighbour to others?” The onus is not on others to show that they are deserving of our care but on us, to show how we can be caring to others, even when they don’t seem to be deserving of our love and compassion.

The story of the Good Samaritan, therefore, is meant to illustrate that true love requires mercy for other people. Mercy is always shown to the undeserving. If they were deserving of our love and compassion, it would not be mercy. True love is not based on legal obligations to provide for one who deserves my love. Rather, true love is pure gift-giving, showing myself to be neighbour to others, even to those who haven’t earn the right to it.

It is for this reason that true love does not end up focusing on the self and how good I am. To love our neighbours, means that we seek the good of our neighbours in the same way that we seek good for ourselves. Take all the zeal, all the ingenuity, all the perseverance which you use to get good for yourself, and seek your neighbour’s well-being.

How troubling and shocking it is to see that those whom we would have expected to offer their assistance to the maimed traveller, namely the Priest and the Levite, passed by him without being affected or moved to pity. How extraordinary that the same individuals who worshipped God daily by offering prayers, singing hymns, and doing everything that was formally required of them and ordained, were truly destitute of kindness and of love, and failed miserably to practice charity. Their worship had become “self-referential.” It is a stark paradox that those who boasted to love God were doing so only in form and not in essence, for St John reminds us that “if someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” (1 Jn 4:20)

St John was right - we cannot say that we love God, if we do not have the same love for our neighbour. St. John Chrysostom, the great Doctor of the East, said “Remember brothers that you will have to give an account not only of your life, but of everyone.” The more one is united to his neighbour, the more he is united to God. The greatest lesson of our Christian faith is that, our love for God cannot be separated from our love for every other person in the world.

Yes, asking the right question opens new vistas to our thinking and creates opportunities for learning. But in our context, asking the right question may lead us down the road of salvation, whereas the wrong question, down the path of perdition. It’s never “what would become of me, if I were to help him.” That would always be the wrong question. The right question would be “What would become of him if I did not help him?” That would be the right question to ask. The answer to our future lies with our neighbour’s well-being. If you have understood this truth, heed the Lord’s exhortation: “Go, and do the same yourself.”