Saturday, July 12, 2025

The Gold Standard of Hospitality

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C


Heaven in popular imagination invokes a brightly lit realm above the clouds, a realm devoid of walls, private spaces or homes, where the heavenly denizens are free to roam and wander at will with no one complaining about another invading their private space. But our Lord’s own description seems far from this: “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” (John 14:2) At one level, the Jews who first heard these words would have thought immediately of the Temple. If God was indeed Jesus’ father, the Temple which is God’s House (literally this is what the Hebrew word “Bethel” meant) is the “Father’s house” which our Lord is referring to in this text. The Temple of Jerusalem was indeed made up of several rooms or spaces and the closer you get to the inner sanctum of the Temple, the more groups of people would be excluded. For all purposes, it was not a very welcoming or hospitable house.

So, our Lord’s reference to the “Father’s house” which He was returning to, the house with “many rooms”, the house where He was preparing a place to welcome us, could not possibly be referring to this building. In the year 70 AD, after the siege of Jerusalem, the Temple would be destroyed by the Romans, the Jews would be dispersed to the far corners of the empire, and they would be a homeless and stateless nation as once their ancestors were in Egypt and later in Babylon. For our Lord, the true home which He was preparing, would not just be a place to visit, but one to stay. It would be a “dwelling place.”

This is at the heart of God’s hospitality that we encounter in today’s set of readings. The first reading and the gospel provides us with two stellar examples of hospitality - Abraham and Martha. But there is a twist to the ending of both tales demonstrating that as much as we wish to offer hospitality to others and to God, it is we who are the real beneficiaries of hospitality, especially of God’s.

The first reading 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, which Christians would later identify as the Most Holy Trinity, to Abraham. Our attention is usually focused on the acts of hospitality which Abraham shows to his guests, but are we correct in doing so? The ending of the story which tells us how the three guests would bless Abraham and his seemingly barren wife, both in their old age, with a child, should be the key that unlocks the secret of this tale.

When Abraham gives his guests 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.

We turn our attention to the gospel. In wanting to show hospitality to the Lord, Martha expresses hostility towards her own sister whom she believes is unsympathetic to her hard work in the kitchen. For Martha, the “better part" of hospitality is to make her guest feel welcomed, accepted, and loved. Many of us would agree with her.

But our Lord by pointing to the action of Mary shows us that the “better part” is to sit at His feet and listen to His life-giving Word. The best hospitality we can give to the Lord is to listen to Him, which is another way of saying, to accept His hospitality.

Throughout scriptures, it is God who offers hospitality to us. The two bookends of the Bible speak of God’s hospitality - Eden and the Heavenly Jerusalem, both representative of God’s desire to dwell with us and among us. Everything that comes in-between shows God’s unwavering attempt to draw estranged fallen humanity home - whether it be through the establishment of a family of nations under the patriarchs, the call of the prophets to return to the covenants and finally the sending of His only begotten Son to save mankind.

Rather than assume that we can do something exceedingly great for God like Martha, we should imitate Mary in her docility in humbly accepting the gift of hospitality from Jesus, which is salvation. Our place is at His feet in humble adoration and submission. And unless, we recognise that our place is at His feet instead of arrogantly barking orders to others or even to God in order to get our way, our feeble attempts at hospitality would only result in more hostility. The best thing we can do for God, to please Him, is to accept His hospitality without any conditions. 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.

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. 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.” If we have received such astounding hospitality at the hands of God, it should not be difficult for us to share a fraction of that with others. Remember: “You received without charge, give without charge.”

Monday, July 7, 2025

How have we come to salvation?

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C


Whenever an anecdotal story is shared, it begs the question: “what’s the moral of the story?” Most homilies on the parable of the Good Samaritan would most likely attempt to provide the answer to this question and it would often sound like this: “do good to others, even those who are not your friends.” If it was only that simple, this would be the end of my homily. But the truth is that there is more than meets the eye in this most familiar parable of our Lord.


The context of our Lord telling this parable is that it serves as an answer given to a question posed by a lawyer, not to be confused with modern advocates and solicitors. The lawyer here is also known as a scribe, an academician or scholar, who has devoted his life to studying the Mosaic Law in order to provide a correct interpretation and application of the Law to the daily lives of fellow Jews. The question he poses is not just a valid question but one of utmost importance because it has to do with our ultimate purpose in life: “Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” That is the question that every religion and every philosophy has ever attempted to answer. Though a valid question and one which all of us should want to know the answer, the evangelist tells us that his motives are less than pure. It is said that he asked this question “to disconcert” the Lord. It was a trap. In fact, the lawyer already knows the answer to his question. But knowledge of the answer does not necessarily mean that one is living the answer, which is what the Lord wishes to expose here. He speaks eloquently of love but has no love for our Lord or even his audience. And so our Lord tells him that even though he has answered right by citing the two-fold commandments of love, there is still something missing in his answer: “do this and life is yours.”

Having been found out by the Lord and therefore, humiliated, he continues to try to “justify” himself by nit-picking: “And who is my neighbour?” In other words, the lawyer seeks to corner Jesus by forcing Him to tell who is deserving of our love. The surprising thing about the parable of the Good Samaritan is that it does not really provide a direct answer to the lawyer’s second question of defining one’s neighbour. If Jesus had been asked, “How should we treat our neighbours?” and had responded with this story, perhaps “Be like the Good Samaritan” would be an acceptable interpretation. Such a moralistic interpretation would mean that the “neighbour” in question is not the one who is deserving of our love but the one who demonstrates love. It turns the question completely around. But, the intention of the parable is more than a mere call to display altruistic behaviour to one’s neighbour. It addressed a more vital question: how have we come to salvation?

According to the Fathers of the Church, this parable is as an impressive allegory of the fall and redemption of all mankind – how we came to be saved! This is clearly depicted in a beautiful stained-glass window in the famous 12th-century cathedral in Chartres, France. This window is divided into two parts. At the upper section of the window, we see the story of Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden, at the bottom section of the window, the parable of the Good Samaritan; therefore, the narrative of the creation and fall of man is juxtaposed with that of the Good Samaritan. What does the parable of the Good Samaritan have to do with the Fall of Adam and Eve? Where did this association originate?


The roots of this allegorical interpretation reach deeply into the earliest Christian Tradition. Various Fathers of the Church saw Jesus Himself in the Good Samaritan; and in the man who fell among thieves they saw Adam, a representative of mankind, our very humanity wounded and disoriented on account of its sins. For example, Origen employed the following allegory: Jerusalem represents heaven; Jericho, the world; the robbers, the devil and his minions; the Priest represents the Law, and the Levite the Prophets; the Good Samaritan, Christ; the ass, Christ’s body carrying fallen man to the inn which becomes the Church. Even the Samaritan’s promise to return translates into Christ’s triumphant return at the Parousia.


Understanding this parable allegorically adds an eternal perspective and value to its message. It certainly takes it beyond the cliché ‘moral of the story’: ‘Be a Good Samaritan.’ Before we can become Good Samaritans to help others, we need to remember that we have been saved by the Good Samaritan – the story helps us become aware of where we have come from, how we have fallen into our present state through sin, and how Christ has come to save us, the Sacraments of grace continue to sanctify us and the Church continues to nurture and heal us. In other words, this Christological interpretation shifts the focus from man to God: from ‘justification’, how do we work out our salvation, to sanctification, how does Christ save us and continue to sanctify us. As the old patristic adage affirms: “God became Man so that men may become gods.” It moves us away from the humanistic mode of being saviours of the world to a more humble recognition that we are indeed in need of salvation ourselves - we are that fallen man by the wayside waiting for a Saviour and we have found Him in Christ!

In a rich irony, we move from being identified with the priest and the Levite who were solely concerned over their personal salvation but never perfectly love others “as ourselves,” much less our enemies, to being identified with the traveller in desperate need of salvation. The Lord intends the parable itself to leave us beaten and bloodied, lying in a ditch, like the man in the story. We are the needy, unable to do anything to help ourselves. We are the broken people, beaten up by life, robbed of hope. But then Jesus comes. Unlike the Priest and Levite, He doesn’t avoid us. He crosses the street—from heaven to earth—comes into our mess, gets His hands dirty. At great cost to Himself on the cross, He heals our wounds, covers our nakedness, and loves us with a no-strings-attached love. He carries us personally to the shelter of the Church where we find rest, where our wounds are tended and healed. He brings us to the Father and promises that His “help” is not simply a ‘one-time’ gift—rather, it’s a gift that will forever cover “the charges” we incur and will sustain us until He returns in glory.

So the parable is not just a moralistic tale of what we must do as Christians but the history of salvation in a nutshell - it tells us what Christ has done for us and continues to do for us?

The context puts the Lord’s final exhortation to “go and do the same yourself” in perspective. It puts every work of charity, gesture of kindness, expression of hospitality on our part within the greater picture of the wonderful story of salvation. The great commandment of love isn’t about some altruistic humanistic project – us saving the world. Reaching out to others, especially to those who labour under the heavy load of toil and suffering, is not just an act of goodness. It is a participation in the economy of God’s salvation – God saving the world through us and in spite of us. We can love only because we have been loved. We can only heal because we have been healed and continue to be healed by the Good Samaritan Himself, Jesus Christ. To understand what it means to love, does not mean attempting to be a ‘Good Samaritan.’ To understand what it means to love, we need to gaze upon Jesus Christ, He is the ‘Good Samaritan’ who has laid down His life and atoned for our sins. This is eternal life!

Monday, June 30, 2025

We are prophets of a future not our own

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C


There is irony in the mission which our Lord entrusted to His disciples. On the one hand, He does not soften the blow by assuring them that the mission will be easy. In fact, He tells them from the outset that they will be sent into hostile territory where they will inevitably face opposition, sometimes subtle and sometimes explicit: “I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.” The contrast couldn’t be more stark.


Sheep are prey animals, what more when you are a young lamb. Sheep are defenceless. They can’t fight, so they can only flee or huddle together when threatened. Their best chance of survival is to stay close to the larger flock and under the care of a shepherd who serves as their personal bodyguard. Leaving the flock would only mean certain death. And yet, it is our Lord who commands them to leave the safety of His pastoral care and venture out in the wide world on their own. The imagery invokes this frightening prospect – they will be easy prey for predators.

And this is what our Lord promises will precisely happen to us. We are not sent out into a Christian friendly world and we should not live under the illusion that we would be warmly welcomed. It will be a world hostile to our values, indignant to our presence and in clear opposition to what we stand for. Using the image of a wolf or perhaps even a wolf pack in contrast to us hapless lambs is meant to highlight the risks of our adventure.

But instead of equipping ourselves with necessary weapons which would ensure our safety, like a big stick or being armed to the hilt like Rambo, we should go forth unencumbered by things which would provide us with additional security. Our presence in the world should be one of innocence, wishing no offence on anyone and yet treated by others as offensive just by existing. Furthermore, our message should be a simple one: “Peace to this house!” No warning of retaliation to any potential threat like: “If you touch me, you will be obliterated!”

“Peace be to this house!” The Hebrew term sālom', or shalom (or the longer greeting “Shalom eleichem”), is typically translated as "peace" and was used in ancient greetings and farewells as of today, much as the Arabic “Assalamualaikum”. Shalom can mean the opposite of war, but it also refers to completeness, soundness, and welfare; it includes a sense of calm security in circumstances and relationships. In an Israelite context, wishing someone shalom means to say, "May God be with you." For ultimately, such peace could only be attained when one’s will was in total harmony with the will of God, when our thinking is aligned with His.

Our Lord doesn’t stop here. He seems to micromanage the entire adventure of these disciples. They were to take nothing with them–no money, no change of clothes, no itinerary. There is to be an urgency to their mission - no extra time to exchange pleasantries with people on the road. And when they enter a town, they were to accept hospitality from the first person who offered it. They shouldn’t be picky with regard to their accommodation or look around for better housing. But then our Lord adds this practical advice. When they encounter hostility, our Lord instructed them to just leave and shake off the dust from their feet while doing so. When people reject us and our message, He gives us permission to depart with no regrets. This assignment is rather amazing from a modern perspective. Do you know any person who would set out on a trip with no luggage, no money (or credit cards), no schedule, no clear strategy, and no host organisation or family to greet them at their destination? That’s a crazy way to travel, right? Sorry, but in this case, it was the Lord’s way to do missions.

But what is more surprising is the brevity and the simplicity of the message which they were to proclaim: “The kingdom of God is very near to you.” What or who precisely is this Kingdom? In terms of a succinct explanation, no one does it better than Pope Benedict XVI of happy memory who wrote: “the Kingdom is not a thing, it is not a geographical dominion like worldly kingdoms. It is a person; it is He… By the way in which He speaks of the Kingdom of God, Jesus leads men to realise the overwhelming fact that in Him God Himself is present among them, that He is God’s presence.” (Pope Benedict, Jesus of Nazareth, Part 1)

When, the disciples returned to give a report of their successes, our Lord’s answer that He saw Satan fall is an important corrective to their skewed understanding. Satan fell not because of the disciples’ efforts. It was not something which had just happened. The fall of Satan before time was witnessed by our Lord who existed before time. In fact, it is the Lord who caused the fall of Satan and his minions. It is the Lord who has established His own kingdom, whereas we His disciples, are merely invited to share in His victory and the benefits thereof. If Christ had not won the victory, our efforts would be futile. Ultimately, there is no reason to boast of what we’ve done. Rather, should we be given an opportunity to boast, we should boast of what the Lord has done for us. This is precisely what St Paul tells us to do in the second reading: “the only thing I can boast about is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world.”

Our mission is best summarised in the beautiful prayer written by Fr Ken Untener and attributed to martyred Archbishop of San Salvador, St Oscar Romero:

“It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us. No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the Church's mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything”.

“This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realising that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.”

Monday, June 23, 2025

Twin Pillars

Solemnity of Saint Peter and Saint Paul


Today’s feast is an important one in our Church’s calendar but is not one which gets the attention it deserves because it’s not always that the twenty ninth of June falls on a Sunday. So, don’t be surprised and think this is a new celebration in view of the fact that we have a newly minted Pope. It is a feast of not only one but two Apostles of the Lord, in fact, described in Tradition and in our liturgy as the Princes of the Apostles. St Peter, whose birth name was Simon, is one of the Twelve. St Paul, though not one of the Twelve and not one of the followers of the Lord while He was still on this earth, is also regarded an apostle of the Lord by his own designation in his letters. Some mistakenly believe that Paul also underwent a name change after his conversion, but he actually had two names - Saul was his Jewish name and Paul was his Latin name, since he was a Roman citizen.


Though Saints Peter and Paul were not martyred on the same day, they lived and died as twin giants for one Church and share a feast day, befitting their friendship and their leadership. There is something wonderful in these two holy heavyweights sharing a feast, forever shouldering each other like brothers in their zeal for the Father and acting as twin pillars of the Church. One of the reasons, among many, why they were paired from the earliest centuries of the Church, is not because of their association and encounters recorded in the Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s letters, but because they served as a new paradigm for the refounding of the city of Rome, contrasted with another set of siblings - the legendary twin founders of the Eternal City who were said to have been raised by a she-wolf.

According to legend, Romulus and Remus, the former after whom the city of Rome was named, were abandoned at birth and cast into the Tiber River where they were discovered by a she-wolf who nursed them. When they grew up, the twins embarked on a quest to found their own city. Romulus and Remus disagreed about which hill to build their city on. Eventually, Romulus just started digging a ditch around the Palatine Hill and built a wall to mark the boundaries. Remus mocked his brother’s work, and in a fit of anger Romulus killed him and then buried him under the wall which Romulus erected around the city. The story is reminiscent of the first account of fratricide in the Bible; Cain killed his brother Abel. It is also ironic that Rome and her empire were founded on fratricide.

Now contrast this with the re-founding of Rome through the spread of Christianity by Saints Peter and Paul. Although both were unrelated and came from vastly different backgrounds and places of origin, they would find a common home in the city of Rome where both will be martyred. It is more than coincidence that their places of martyrdom and burial would be separated by the ancient wall which had separated the two ancient founders of Rome. St Peter would be martyred and buried within the walls while St Paul would be entombed outside the walls. Two eponymous major basilicas sit above their respective tombs.

Like Romulus and Remus, Peter and Paul too had their disagreements. If anyone had a cause for strife and division, it was these two. They had little in common. Paul was the chief persecutor of the early Christians led by Peter. Even after Paul’s conversion, there were also heightened moments of tension and disagreement between the two, especially on how Gentile converts to Christianity should be treated. In fact, Paul speaks of confronting Peter to his face for backtracking on an earlier decision to welcome these Gentile converts without condition. It took divine action to make these enemies into brothers. Peter and Paul were ultimately bound together in a bond stronger than blood: the love of Christ.

It is in this love that Peter and Paul had the foundation of their relationship. Through Christ, these two men were closer than twins in the womb. Peter and Paul are often depicted together in iconography in a circle, embracing one another in a brotherly hug with expressions of affection, like a pair of twins in the womb of their mother. This orientation is also reflected in the two Roman basilicas built over their tombs. Instead of just facing East, the direction of the rising sun from which the Lord is said to return, the two basilicas face each other across the Tiber - as if perennially yearning to be united in an eternal embrace. In contrast, images of Romulus and Remus, the mythological twins, are usually facing away from each other, as one ended up killing the other.

Peter and Paul remind us that brothers can be born from unlikely sources and that the spiritual bonds of fraternity can be stronger than blood ties. What is stronger than the blood which runs through our veins is the blood shed for us on the cross, a blood which has inspired so many Christians to give up their own life’s blood in knowing that eternal glory awaits them on the other side of the threshold of death. Peter and Paul were united in such a death as this. Early Christian tradition tells us they were imprisoned together for nine months before their martyrdoms on the same day. If the Old Rome was built on fratricide, brother killing brother, the New Rome and her Kingdom were founded on fraternal love, brothers dying for each other.

Today, the effigies of these two great Apostles stand as guardians to the entrances of the major Basilica of St Peter, as stone lions would in front of Chinese temples in the East. If the stone lions were meant to keep evil and inauspicious forces out, our two saints beckon to welcome pilgrims of the world to enter. A pillar must always have a partner, and so Peter and Paul are the twin pillars that hold up the doorway of the Church. So staunch are they that the rest of the faithful must celebrate their feast days together as one. They shared their life for the Faith, and so, to this day, they share it also in the observation of their glorious entrance into life eternal. As we celebrate the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, let us look to their model of fraternal correction and mutual love as we work to spread the gospel message in our own lives.

Monday, June 16, 2025

What's missing in your life?

Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ


When the coronavirus pandemic first hit, I came to realise that I had taken many things for granted - a congregation at every Mass. The faithful could also expect a Mass waiting for them at every church and those who lived in urban areas could even pick and choose the time and place based on personal preference and convenience. But all that changed with the pandemic. Even when churches were reopened gradually, attending Mass was a privilege and a luxury because of the radical restriction of numbers and SOPs. I guess for all of us, the suspension of public Masses and closure of churches had helped us see what we had regularly taken for granted. We had received the Eucharist merely out of habit and could only appreciate its irreplaceable value when it was missing from our lives. Perhaps, God allowed this all to happen so that we might reevaluate the way in which we’ve been receiving the Eucharist.


This experience is not without precedent. There have been times throughout history when Christians were prohibited from worship. In the early centuries, attending Mass was not just a dangerous thing but life-threatening, not because there was a raging pandemic that threatened the safety and life of every congregant. Attending Mass could get you killed. In the Year 304, Christians of the northern African region of Abitinae gathered for Mass despite a prohibition on penalty of death. They were arrested and summarily sentenced to death. No one, neither old nor young, was spared. When confronted by the authorities about why they defied the Emperor, they replied, “Sine Dominico non possumus” – “Without Sunday, we cannot live.” Just like one cannot survive without food or oxygen, these Christians understood that they could not live without the Eucharist. They would risk everything, including their personal safety and lives, just to have a taste of the Bread from Heaven.

Can we live without the Eucharist? The pandemic has helped us become aware of how much we take the Eucharist for granted. When we do not eat, we grow weak and become sick. The lack of reception of the Eucharist makes us vulnerable to sin, we literally become spiritually dead. Without the Eucharist, we lose direction in life and we risk losing something far greater - eternal life, our immortal soul’s salvation.

The Solemnity of Corpus Christi was instituted in the 13th century to address this concern. It was a direct result of the private Eucharistic devotion and mystical experiences of a nun, St Juliana of Liège. When Juliana was 16, she had her first vision which recurred subsequently several times during her Eucharistic adoration. Her vision presented the moon in its full splendour, crossed diametrically by a dark stripe. This was not the dark patches that one can see on the moon surface on a clear night. It was something entirely different - unnatural.

The Lord made St Juliana understand the meaning of what had appeared to her. The moon symbolised the life of the Church on earth; the opaque line, on the other hand, represented the absence of a liturgical feast: namely, a feast in which believers would be able to adore the Eucharist so as to increase in faith, to advance in the practice of the virtues and to make reparation for offences to the Most Holy Sacrament. In other words, Juliana was shown what was significantly missing from the liturgical life of the Church.

When Pope Urban, who was personally acquainted to St Juliana, finally declared the Feast of Corpus Christi, he did so not because of any personal favour owed to this nun or because they both hailed from the same locality. Some questioned whether it was even necessary to add another feast since the Institution of the Eucharist is already celebrated on Holy Thursday.

But our Lord in the vision granted to St Juliana explained that: “Holy Thursday is more a day of sorrow than of joy,” since it coincided with Good Friday. Pope Benedict XVI also added that: “The Feast of Corpus Christi is inseparable from Holy Thursday, from the Mass in Caena Domini, in which the Institution of the Eucharist is solemnly celebrated. Whereas on the evening of Holy Thursday we relive the mystery of Christ who offers himself to us in the bread broken and the wine poured out.” But he adds, “on the day of Corpus Christi, this same mystery is proposed for the adoration and meditation of the People of God, and the Blessed Sacrament is carried in procession through the streets of the cities and villages, to show that the Risen Christ walks in our midst and guides us towards the Kingdom of Heaven.”

The Solemnity of Corpus Christi allows the faithful to look at Our Eucharistic Lord with a greater sense of appreciation for the Blessed Sacrament and to tell the world: “this is exactly what you are missing in your lives!” That is why this celebration is marked by Eucharistic processions. These processions specifically are a reminder that we are to share the gift of the Eucharist with the world and make a bold proclamation of our belief in the Real Presence. We cannot control how other people react to Jesus but we can control how we respond to indifference, and our response should ultimately be one of charity. Public processions provide us with an opportunity to be a faithful witness to Christ in a world that has become indifferent or in some cases hostile towards Him. We are declaring to the world: “Without Sunday, without the Eucharist, we cannot live!”

In a world so obviously confused about the nature and purpose of human life, where so many sense something deeply missing and struggle to grasp at straw to fill that empty space, the sacred liturgy rightly celebrated is a most effective tool of evangelisation. In the sacred liturgy it is our Lord Himself who speaks to us and whose grace is at work in and through us, perfecting our nature and transforming it so that it might participate in the very life of God Himself. Thus, the Mass brings our Heavenly Lord down to earth but it also takes us up to Heaven. When the Mass is celebrated with reverence, love and devotion it truly becomes the most beautiful thing this side of Heaven.

Bishop Athanasius Schneider beautifully describes the symbiotic relationship between the Church and the Eucharist: “The Eucharist is at the heart of the Church. When the heart is weak, the whole body is weak. So, when the practice around the Eucharist is weak, then the heart and the life of the Church is weak. And when people have no more supernatural vision of God in the Eucharist then they will start the worship of man, and then also doctrine will change to the desire of man.”

So, today, if you sense that there is something missing in your life, look no further - that something is a person: Jesus Christ. He comes to us in the Blessed Sacrament of His Body and Blood, to feed us when we are hungry, to quench our thirst when we are thirsty, to accompany us when we are lonely. He alone can fill the emptiness inside of us with joy, and by so doing, give our lives purpose and meaning.

Monday, June 9, 2025

The Foundation of Truth

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity


If someone tells you that they have a simple way to explain the dogma of the Most Holy Trinity, don’t believe him for a second. It’s a scam! If it was so simple, our Lord Himself would have taken every effort to explain the concept exhaustively and leave nothing to chance or speculation. If it was so easy, then the volumes of tomes on the subject would have been unnecessary. Our Lord did not dismiss the complexity of the topic. In fact, He acknowledged at the beginning of today’s passage that He “still (has) many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now.” Our experience of God can resonate with this truth bomb. In all humility, how could the finite claim to fully comprehend the infinite? At the popular level, even among Christians, the Trinity is generally thought of as a hopelessly obscure piece of doctrine at best and a self-contradiction at worst.

Of course, one should not stop with the first line of our Lord’s words in today’s gospel passage. To do so would be to condemn ourselves to perpetual intellectual darkness when it comes to contemplating the mysteries of God, an impenetrable brick wall that prevents us from seeing beyond the “cloud of unknowing.” We will never be able to “know” God, and progress in our relationship with Him because to love Him and serve Him and be with Him in Paradise forever is premised on our knowledge of what He has revealed to us in the first place. We should, therefore, continue to the next line, a line which changes everything with the coming of the Holy Spirit: “But when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come.” It is interesting to note that the Spirit’s role in the complete revelation of God, the Most Holy Trinity, is reflected in our liturgical calendar. The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity falls no earlier than the Sunday following Pentecost Sunday.

What is this “complete truth” which our Lord is referring to? For one, it is objective and eternal. In other words, truth is not a matter of consensus. We don’t fashion truth to suit our opinions or desires. It is common today to speak of “your truth” and “my truth,” and that is instead of looking at objective facts, we often hear people speaking of their “lived experiences,” suggesting that every person’s truth is unique and irreplaceable and therefore, infallible and unchallengeable. The complete Truth of the Lord, however, cannot be something malleable, easily moulded according to our personal agenda, our likes and dislikes. Rather, it is we who must conform to the objective Truths revealed to us by God; and if we are humble and strive to be faithful, then the Holy Spirit will gently lead us and transform us with that Truth, into God’s own likeness.

But the most complete Truth is not like any other objective truth which we can speak of. The self-revelation of God is in fact that “complete truth,” for above the Truth of God, there can never be any other truth, and all truth found in the created world is only a shadow and a reflexion of His Truth. The inner Truth of God is this: that the most original and unconditional love of the Father is matched and answered by the equally absolute reciprocal love of the Son. We can understand and participate inwardly in this mystery of love, if the Spirit, who is both the mutuality and fruit of this eternal love, is made to penetrate us. The Spirit binds us to divine love itself. Indeed, this is what St Paul proclaims to the Romans in the second reading, that “the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us.”

Far from being obscure, the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity is the breath-taking Truth that makes sense of all other truths, the Luminous Mystery that illuminates all other mysteries, the dazzling sun that allows us to see all things except itself (and this is not because of darkness but its excess of light). All of human thought and experience point in one way or another to the summit of knowing and loving that we call the Trinity. It is the revelation that makes sense of everything in our experience, everything.

It is an undeniable reality that we who believe in the primacy of the Truth revealed to us by God, are now engaged in a direct confrontation with the greater culture which denies the existence of objective truth, what more the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity that finds no equivalent correspondence in this life. Perhaps, the world continues to reject the revelation of the Trinity, precisely because we have been bad witnesses - our lack of love or care for others, our penchant to be selfish and individualistic, our tendency to pander to the maddening crowd, rather than stand up to defend the Truth. How wonderful it would be if we could just reflect the life of the Most Holy Trinity in our own lives? That would be our most convincing and effective way of evangelising - not just with eloquently profound theological explanations (which are undeniably necessary) but, simply through the way we live our lives.

And so, on this day we affirm once again the truth of the One True God in three persons, co-equal in dignity and substance, we recognise that it is less important to focus on the math of the Trinity and more important to focus on the why. Why would God go to all the trouble of creating the world, creating us, and then sending His Son to save us and His Holy Spirit to guide, inspire and sanctify the Church? We arrive at the same answer as the early disciples. God is love. God is not revealed to “be” love in any other religion in the world other than Christianity because in order for there to be love, there must be a beloved. It is impossible to love in the vacuum and to claim to love “no one.” We need an “Other” to love. From all eternity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have poured themselves out into each other in an infinite act of love, which we, as Christians, are called to experience through faith and the sacraments by which we are lifted up into that very love of God itself (Romans 5:1-5). “God has no other reason for creating than his love and goodness: ‘Creatures came into existence when the key of love opened His hand’” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 293).

Yes, “the key of Love has opened His hand.” It is the love of God - the love of God the Father, the love of God the Son, the love of God the Holy Spirit - that binds us, heals us, and makes us children of God. It is this love which compels us to know Him, not just partially but fully, in order that we may love Him fully, and not just partially, and then serve Him wholeheartedly so that we may share in the eternal life which He has promised us from the very beginning. That is the complete Truth, and nothing less than the complete Truth. That is the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. May His Holy Name be praised!

Monday, June 2, 2025

Inspiration, Education and Freedom

Pentecost Sunday


It’s been 50 days since Easter, 49 days since the passing of Pope Francis and exactly one month since the election of a new Pope, Pope Leo XIV. Yes, I’ve been keeping count. Some can’t contain their exhilaration. Others are a little more cautious, observing a “wait-and-see” attitude. Still others remain disappointed that their preferred candidate wasn’t elected, though mostly hiding their disappointment publicly for fear of retribution or judgment. The question that was being floated before, during and even after the short conclave which elected the new pontiff has been this: what role did the Holy Spirit play in all this? Was it purely politics and human machinations or was this the result of divine intervention, the Holy Spirit at work in the Church?


It is not hard to come to such an assumption because if there is an implicit assumption that the Pope can be infallible (in whatever way that is claimed), then surely the election of the Pope must be equally infallible? It must be stated from the very beginning that we should not conflate the doctrine of infallibility with the election of the pope. The cardinals are not guaranteed infallibility. Furthermore, although secrecy is imposed on the participating cardinals under an oath that could lead to one’s excommunication, it doesn’t take much to assume that the entire conclave was conducted under a highly charged politicised atmosphere where much energy is spent on canvassing, persuading, negotiating, dissembling and organising. Is there even room for the Spirit to work?

On this feast of Pentecost, a feast that is specifically focused on the Holy Spirit, it would be good to understand how the Spirit works within the Church. Back to the question of the Holy Spirit’s role in the election of a pope, Pope Benedict XVI, while still Cardinal Ratzinger (and so cannot technically make any infallible pronouncement at this stage of his life), was asked by the Bavarian television: “Is the Holy Spirit responsible for the election of a pope?” Though not having the character of being infallible, his answer is perhaps the best answer we can have on the issue: “I would not say so, in the sense that the Holy Spirit picks out the Pope… I would say that the Spirit does not exactly take control of the affair, but rather, like a good educator, as it were, leaves us much space, much freedom, without entirely abandoning us. Thus the Spirit’s role should be understood in a much more elastic sense—not that he dictates the candidate for whom one must vote. Probably the only assurance he offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined… There are too many contrary instances of popes the Holy Spirit obviously would not have picked!”

Then, Cardinal Ratzinger, provided us with three important points which apply to an election of a Pope, but I would also like to propose that these same principles can apply to how the Holy Spirit works within the Church in general, outside a conclave tasked with electing a pope. These three principles are control, education and elasticity.

The first principle is “control” or the lack of it. Although the word “inspiration”, used to speak of the source for both sacred Scripture and Tradition, suggests that it is the Holy Spirit who is the author and mover, He does so not in the manner of spirit possessions which the mediums of some non-Christian religions believe in. When the Holy Spirit “inspires” us, He does not take full control of our minds or wills as if we have to abdicate both and lose all consciousness or our freedom.

It is here that we need to make a clear distinction between prayer and magic and not confuse the two. It is all too easy to confuse prayer with magic. Magic is all about control – whether it is controlling our fate or our environment or even the gods. But prayer is not about control—it is the opposite. It is an act of surrender. It requires the surrender of our own will to the will of the Father. Discerning the will of God is not easy. We pray “Thy will be done” several times each day, but it never becomes easier to engage in the effort of discernment—of telling the difference between my will and Thy will.

This leads us to the second principle, which pretty much describes the mission of the Holy Spirit in today’s gospel - educator. Our Lord assures us that “the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all I have said to you.” The educator offers to teach, show, provide insight and wisdom. But, just as you can lead a horse to water but cannot make it drink, so the Holy Spirit offers H imself to the Church—but with preconditions. The first is that one prays. Prayer in practice is much harder than talking about it. It involves the sacrifice of time, the surrender of will, an abandonment of control, and the preferring of the slow, still, small voice. It also involves triangulation with the prayers of others.

Lastly, the answer of Cardinal Ratzinger helps us see that the relationship between the Holy Spirit and the Church is often elastic. It is not one where the Holy Spirit is the puppeteer and we are mere puppets in His hands. His direction, guidance and inspiration does not compromise our freedom. He gives us room to grow, to stretch, to discern the path that we must follow for our sanctification. We too must learn to give room to the unexpected, to spontaneity, to the Holy Spirit. Benedict’s notion of elasticity is wise and compelling. It combines the light touch of love with the firm grip of connection.

God will never let us go, never abandon us—but nor will He control us if we choose to wander. Benedict reassures us that God will not allow the Church to be utterly ruined. But He will allow us the scope to spoil it by our own wilfulness if we insist. How else do we explain the existence of some very poor popes who did great damage to the Church? As St Paul reminds us, where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. It is the nature of God’s rescue mission that He can take the mess we make and reconfigure it into material for renewal, forgiveness and hope. That’s the “happy fault” sung by the priest during the Easter Proclamation, the Exsultet.

So, we rejoice that the Holy Spirit, the gift of our Lord to the Church, continues to inspire us, educate us and free us. The Holy Spirit will always act with Christ, from Christ, and conform Christians to Christ. It is the Holy Spirit who carries out Christ’s promise to Peter that evil would not prevail against His Church. Not that it could not spoil, corrupt, confuse or disturb. The history of the Church has been marked by many dark episodes when her shepherds and flock have given in to sin, sometimes to the most depraved kind of sin. But history shows that whenever the Church slips into corruption, God raises up saints and renews it afresh by enabling “the Church to grow young, perpetually renews it, and leads it to complete union with its Bridegroom.”

Come Holy Spirit and fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Thy love!

Soul Quenching Spirit

Pentecost Vigil


Last week, the indigenous communities of Sabah and Sarawak celebrated their respective harvest festivals. This week the Jews do so with the Festival of Weeks or Pentecost, which is its Greek name. The words of our Lord in today’s gospel were not spoken on Pentecost. In fact, the Feast of Pentecost, which is a harvest festival and one of the great pilgrimage festivals of the Jews, is never once mentioned in any of the gospels. The first time we hear of it in the New Testament is found in the Acts of the Apostles, in the scene which is identified with today - the descent of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Church.


The words of our Lord in today’s passage is spoken on another Jewish festival - the Feast of Booths or Tabernacles. This feast, Sukkoth, is most well-known for the little huts or “booths” (from which the feast derives its name) that the Jewish people would construct and live in throughout the week of the Feast. The feast, like all the other major festivals, was a throwback to the time of the Exodus. It was a celebration of God’s gracious provision for the Israelites in the wilderness before they could even plant or harvest crops. But when they had arrived in the Promised Land, the feast took on an additional significance – it marked the completion of the year’s harvest, for Sukkoth was the last of the three great pilgrimage festivals (the other two being Passover and Pentecost) for the year.

Sukkoth was observed over a week, seven days. On these seven days, the priest will undertake a water drawing ceremony - he would go to the pool of Siloam, fill up golden pitchers with water from the pool and make a grand processional back to the Temple, trumpets would resound, there would be great rejoicing, and singing praises from Scripture like Isaiah 12, “Let us draw water from the wells of salvation,” and along with the singing of Psalms. Thousands and thousands of people from all over Israel would throng the streets of Jerusalem waving palm branches, much like what happened when our Lord entered Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives at the start of Holy Week.

Excitement and jubilation filled the air, as the priest would pour out the water beside the altar. And then they would all fall silent as the priest poured water over the altar. This takes place on the last day of the Feast (described by John as “the last and greatest day of the Festival”), and it’s at the end of all this ceremonial pomp and circumstance that Jesus stood up and shouted, “If any man is thirsty, let him come to me! Let the man come and drink who believes in me.” Can you imagine the shock and utter annoyance of the priestly caste and religious leaders at these words? While all eyes were focused on the golden pitcher of water being poured out over the altar, the Lord Himself is declaring – “Look at me! I am the true source of that water!”

The water poured out by the priest on the altar symbolised the blessings that would come with the future Messiah, and his spiritual life-giving water would stream out over all the earth, just as the water flowed from the rock in the wilderness. Amid this great liturgical ceremony, rich with Biblical allusions and symbolism, the Lord Jesus points people to Himself and says, “the Promised one is here!” The offer of salvation goes out to all people because it’s only through Jesus Christ that your soul’s thirstiness can be quenched. “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.” But what exactly is this “water” which the Lord is offering?

Should anyone misunderstand the words of the Lord, St John the Evangelist then segues into giving a definitive interpretation to the nature of that water which flows from the Lord: “He was speaking of the Spirit which those who believed in him were to receive; for there was no Spirit as yet because Jesus had not yet been glorified”. He provides this interpretation by citing a quotation from scripture: “From his breast shall flow fountains of living water.” Here’s the problem - there is no exact quotation from the Old Testament which can be found in the Old Testament. There are, however, two references to living, flowing water: Ezekiel 47:1ff and Zechariah 14:8. Both references are speaking of the future temple in the Millennial kingdom and pictures water flowing from the temple. However, neither of these references show that the source of that water comes from “the breast” of the Messiah nor do they point to the Holy Spirit in the way that John does in his gospel.

In Hebrew, the word used to speak of the spirit is “ruah,” which could also translate as wind or breathe. The wind represents the Holy Spirit’s share in the creation of the world (Gen 1:2), and the breath or wind of God represents the Holy Spirit’s participation in the creation of human beings (Gen 2:7). On the day of Pentecost, before the appearance of tongues of fire, there was the sound of a powerful wind which filled the entire room.

But water is also another symbol of the Holy Spirit and this is why when our Lord invites His listeners to come to Him and drink, He is inviting them to partake of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Water cleanses, quenches, refreshes, and gives life. Wherever the rivers flow and rain falls, there is life. Water represents the Holy Spirit’s ability to refresh us, quench our spiritual thirst, cleanse us, and bring forth life wherever He flows. He is the rain of Heaven, and He is the living river that flows from within.

The message which the Spirit inspires us to proclaim is a message of hope. It is a message the world needs especially at this moment. Hope at a time when divisions between peoples are being actively promoted. Hope at this time when our prayers may seem fruitless. Hope at a time when our spiritual lives seem tired and drained. The demands of living, paired with a waning prayer life, can produce a dryness of the soul. In this spiritual desert, you become tired, frustrated, weak, and apathetic. Responsibilities and needs, like the intense heat from the beaming sun, drain you of vitality. Life can sometimes be like a desert, but the Holy Spirit is that ever-flowing living water that quenches the thirst of our souls.

Be assured of this, the Spirit is at work even when we may not see it, when we may be tempted to be discouraged. Tonight, as we begin the celebration of Pentecost, we ask the Holy Spirit to come on us anew as He came on the disciples. To come on us to enable us to be that source of hope for the world, to work in us so we can play our part in bringing creation to its fulfilment, to work in us so that we can share the message that all people are united in Christ, to refresh our dry and withered souls, to work in us so that we can offer people the hope of the new life Christ brings. Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth.

 


Monday, May 26, 2025

In the One we are one

Seventh Sunday of Easter Year C


Not even an hour had passed after his election as the supreme Roman Pontiff, and when his name was announced from the central loggia of the Basilica of St Peter, both Catholics and non-Catholics began trawling the internet to gather as much background information as possible on this dark horse candidate which no one seems to have predicted or mooted. Despite delving into past social media postings, quotations from recent speeches and homilies, reading perhaps too much into his words and papal attire, Pope Leo XIV remains an enigma. We can only speculate as to the future of his pontificate from what he had said or done in the past, but there should be humility in admitting that the jury is still out as to how he is going to steer the Church, the barque of St Peter. I am in agreement with one commentator that we should just let “Leo be Leo” instead of trying to shape his pontificate in “our image and likeness.”


A clue that can throw light on his fundamental theological and pastoral position is his motto: “in Illo uno unum,” which translates as “in the One we are one.” The phrase is paradoxically both simple and profound. It is taken from Saint Augustine's Exposition on Psalm 127, where the great doctor of the Church explains that “although we Christians are many, in the one Christ we are one.” Being an Augustinian priest before his elevation to the episcopacy, it is natural that this self-styled “son of Augustine” should adopt his motto from the Augustinian tradition.

The Rule of St Augustine to which Augustinians live under and are guided by, is really big about discovering God in community. Augustine believed that shared love of something always generated love of one another. Shared affinity sparks synergy which leads to unity. And that’s the meaning of Pope Leo XIV's motto: “in illo Uno unum” - in the One we are one. We're made one by loving the One. Someone noted: “Fans of the same team like each other. Music lovers normally get along well. And Christians should love Christ passionately enough that it translates into loving each other.” The members of the Church are supposed to get along because of the One we love in common. We all stand and fight under one big banner that flies above us as a standard and identity marker of who we are and what we stand for.

Perhaps, this is a most necessary corrective in an age where the Catholic Church seems threatened by factionalism, where we witness members who are fiercely individualistic and tribalistic, where Catholics most often than not identify themselves with commonly used political labels, whether on the left or the right or in the middle, rather than in the foundation of our common bond as Catholics.

Just in case you think that this is exclusively an Augustinian thing, our Lord reminds us in today’s gospel that this is fundamentally a Christian thing, indeed a most Catholic thing: “May they all be one. Father, may they be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me.” We are one because our Lord wills it and because He and the Father (and the Holy Spirit) are one. The Church, the Christian communion, has a fundamentally Trinitarian structure and foundation. And the truth of the Most Holy Trinity, Unity in Diversity, is most evident when expressed in authentic community living.

In today’s Gospel, taken from the High Priestly prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper, our Lord prays for the whole world, asking that the love with which the Father had lavished upon Him might also be ours, and that through us the Father’s love might be evident to the world. That is what He died for. This prayer is not just empty rhetoric. The prayer puts into words the very mission of Jesus, the project of Jesus, that is to bring about the community of humanity in communion with the Most Holy Trinity. “Holy Father, I pray not only for these, but for those also who through their words will believe in me. May they all be one.” The Lord’s death on the cross, the gift of Himself to us, was the embodiment of these intercessions; and His resurrection embodied the Father’s answer to that prayer.

And so, the prayer of our great High Priest, that “all be one,” transcends time and space. This unity is not meant to be sustained by a long history of human endeavour. In fact, just like in the past, human endeavour to preserve unity had often proven inadequate and the weak members of the Body of Christ had been responsible for causing great divisions and injury to the unity intended by Christ. We are not the primary agents of the Church’s unity. No, the bonds of unity among the disciples of Christ must be built on a much stronger and studier foundation. The unity of God’s people can never be fabricated by man. It must be generated by the Spirit of God. True authentic unity in the Church is never achieved by sharing an ideology or personality. Our unity, our communion, can only be found in our love for God. In Him we are one. Christians are drawn to one another because they are drawn to a common centre, Jesus Christ Himself. For that is the source of the power of that unity. As long as we remain separated from Him or His will through wilful sin, as long as we insist on our way of doing things or our opinions are the only correct ones, we will never be able to arrive at that unity.

As we await Pentecost and the return of the Holy Spirit, let us as members of the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, call upon the Bridegroom to come, for we wish to be united with Him and through Him, with each other. At the Mass of the Initiation of his Petrine Ministry, Pope Leo XIV made an impassioned call to unity, but it is a unity not built on sharing one ideology or another, but on Christ. Let us continue to pray for him and the Church whom he leads as we heed his words: “Look to Christ! Come closer to him! Welcome His word that enlightens and consoles! Listen to His offer of love and become His one family: in the one Christ, we are one.”

Worship and Mission

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord Year C


It is significant that St Luke tells the story of the Ascension twice, and we have the benefit of hearing both accounts today – the account from the Acts of the Apostles in the first reading, and a second account in the Gospel. Each narration brings out a different aspect of the truth but the theme of witnessing seems to bind both Lucan accounts. For St Luke, the Ascension was a significant moment in the disciples’ personal transformation. It marked a critical turning point, the passing of the Lord’s message and mission to His disciples.


In the Acts account, just before He ascends, the Lord promises His Apostles, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and then you will be my witnesses not only in Jerusalem but throughout Judaea and Samaria, and indeed to the ends of the earth.” Similarly in the Gospel, having reiterated the kerygma, the kernel of the Christian faith, that “Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead,” the Lord gives them this commission: “In His name repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses to this.” In other words, when Christ ascended, He left with the intention that the Church takes up where He left off.

The Acts version of the event also paints a rather comical scene should it be depicted in art. In my recent trip to Spain, I encountered a piece of iconography which seems strange and unique to our times but was quite prevalent during the Middle Ages to depict the Ascension of the Lord. The Apostles are gathered in this scene. Nothing unusual about this. But they are gazing up to see a pair of feet sticking out from the cover of clouds above their heads.

They would have continued staring if not shaken out of their stupor by the question posed by two men in white, presumably angels: “Why are you men from Galilee standing here looking into the sky?” The question could be paraphrased, “Do you not have something better to do than to stand here and gawk?”

Here lies one of the greatest challenges to Catholics – our inertia to engage in mission. We seem to be transfixed firmly in our churches but feel no need or urgency to reach out. We Catholics have been “indoctrinated” to attend Mass every Sunday and on holy days of obligation. The Liturgy is supposed to be the “source and summit of the Christian life.” So, we should see it not just as an end but also as a starting point for mission. Yes, worship is our primary activity. But what about mission? It is a false dichotomy to pit worship against mission. It’s never a hard choice between the two. Both worship and mission are part of the life of a Christian. They feed off each other.

The Ascension reminds us that the Church is an institution defined by mission. Today all institutions have a statement of mission; but to say the Church is defined by mission is to say something more. The Church is not an institution with a mission, but a mission with an institution. As Pope Francis of happy memory is fond of reminding us - the church exists for mission. To be sent, is the church's raison d'être, so when it ceases to be sent, it ceases to be the Church. When the Church is removed from its mission, she ends up becoming a fortress or a museum. She keeps things safe and predictable and there is a need for this – we need to be protected from the dangers of the world and from sin. But if her role is merely “protective” she leaves many within her fold feeling stranded in a no man's land, between an institution that seems out of touch and a complex world they feel called to understand and influence.

On the other hand, the Church cannot only be defined by her mission alone, but also by her call to worship the One who has sent her on this mission. If this was not the case, she would be no better than an NGO. As the Church of the Ascension is drawn upward in worship, she is also pushed outward in mission. These are not opposing movements, and the Ascension forbids such a dichotomy. The Church does not have to choose whether it will be defined by the depth of its liturgy or prayer life, or its faithfulness and fervour in mission. Both acts flow from the single reality of the Ascension. Both have integrity only in that they are connected to one another.

At the end of every Mass, the priest dismisses the faithful with one of these formulas, “Go forth, the Mass is ended!” “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord!” etc. Mission is at the core of each of these formulas. The Sacrifice of the Mass is directed and geared towards this purpose – the continuation of the mission of Christ. If worship is the beginning of mission, then mission too must find its ultimate conclusion in worship – for the liturgy is the “source and summit of the Christian life” as taught by the Second Vatican Council. The Ascension event reminds us that mission must always be anchored in Christ through prayer. So, the more authentically missionary a church becomes, the more profound will be her life of worship, since mission always ends in worship.

The Lord has ascended to heaven and is now seated at the right hand of His Heavenly Father. But this does not mean that He is now retired or has completely withdrawn from the mission of the Church. He continues to act through the Church, through the sacraments which He had given to the Church. The Eucharistic Lord continues to invite us, He commands us, to share in His mission, and to preach the Gospel everywhere. Those first Apostles took seriously our Lord’s command that they preach the Gospel to all nations, and the fact that we are Christians here today centuries later and thousands of miles away from the birth of Christianity, is positive proof of how seriously they heeded His command. From its very origins then, the Church has had an outward missionary thrust. The work Christ began here on earth, He has now entrusted to us so that we may continue. If we have truly caught on to the message of the risen and ascended Christ, we should not just stand here looking up into the skies, waiting for an answer. We are called to get going and do the job our Lord has given us to do, never forgetting that we must remain connected to Him through our worship and prayer. With the help of the promised Holy Spirit, you will be His faithful witnesses “not only in Jerusalem but throughout Judaea and Samaria, and indeed to the ends of the earth.”

Monday, May 19, 2025

Obedience frees us to love

Sixth Sunday of Easter Year C


When I was a lay person gradually re-discovering my faith beyond the pages of catechism text books, experimenting with new ideas which I gleaned from the writings of Protestants and progressive theologians, I used to question what I thought was an unjust monopoly by the hierarchy over doctrines of faith and its more practical applications in canon law and the liturgy. I used to wonder why I had no say in the matter. In my hubris, I would imagine myself revising and outright reversing some of the doctrines, disciplines and rubrics if given the chance. The Church had to listen to me, not me listening to the Church.


As I look back at those years and the theological framework (more like ideological framework) which drove my moral compass and directed my actions, I never for once thought that I was being “disobedient” to the Church when I chose to depart from what I knew was normative. It was just that I didn’t take my obedience as some sort of blind docility. I finally found a name in my peculiar position when my close Jesuit friend told me that in his society, it’s called “creative fidelity,” and he cheekily explained that it is “being obedient without really being obedient.” That’s kind of an oxymoron. Such fidelity is creative, because it calls on the individual's freedom and resourcefulness. But in all honesty, the only person we are obedient to is ourselves, our ideals, our agenda, even though we claim and protest that we are still being obedient to God and His Church, it’s just that God and the Church haven’t “got it” yet like us. We can only hope that one day they will finally come around to realise that “I” was right.

Our Lord makes it clear in today’s gospel that if we truly love Him then we will show it by obeying His commands. To obey God is to love Him. Obedience is His love language and that is how He receives love. We may think of “obey” as a cold, dutiful verb, preferring “love” which feels more liberating and authentic. Recently, there had been many celebrities who proudly and publicly declared that they were finally free to love themselves and to break free of social norms. We can even hear the resounding finale of the musical “Wicked,” above their protests: “And nobody … is ever gonna bring me down!” One commentator exposes the hypocrisy of the statement: “this is not love, it’s called selfishness.” The world seems to believe that if we wish to be happy and to authentically love oneself, it means choosing not to love others or be accountable to them.

In contrast to this mantra of unfettered autonomy and disobedience, our Lord tells us, “If anyone loves me he will keep my word.” In fact, in an earlier verse He declares, “If you love me, keep my commands” (John 14:15). This simply sets the record straight - there is no contradiction between love and obedience. To love God is to obey Him. To obey Him is to love Him. To honour Him, serve Him, and please Him is the deepest cry of our hearts. That is what it means to be authentically “me.”

We are mistaken that obedience compromises our freedom to love God because it seems to compel. On the contrary, obedience is what makes us truly free to love. St Thomas Aquinas explains that by obedience we slay our own will by humbly giving way to another’s voice. He means it in that our wrong desires are done away with and that we only desire God’s will for us whatever it entails. It is a freeing of our own wills to desire what is good and to acknowledge that we do not always know what is best. As long as we are not obedient to God’s will, our true motivation, whether we are willing to admit it or not, is selfishness. Our supposed “love” would only be a disguise, a cover for our self-serving attitude.

But obedience does not only free us to love; love makes it possible for us to obey without compulsion. Love and obedience possess a symbiotic relationship. It will be easy to keep and obey God’s commands if I love Him. Now, it must be clear that the depth of my love isn’t dependent upon my obedience. My obedience however, is rooted in my love. The more I love God with all that I am, the more I want to obey Him, serve Him, and honour Him. It is the desire to love that drives me to obey.

It should be clear by now that obedience doesn’t always lead to love and desire for God, but love and desire for God always lead to obedience. Sometimes, we obey out of fear of being punished by God. Sometimes we express obedience as a kind of virtue signalling - it is performative, thinking that we can earn God’s love and other people’s admiration. But the truth is that God loved us while we were still sinners, undeserving of His love, and yet He shows His unconditional love by offering us the life of His Son. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God’s love for us is transformative if we are willing to accept it. True love reshapes our inner being, reorientates our lives away from self to the other. Obedience is the outward result of an inwardly transformed heart. In a way, it is sacramental. When we obey God out of love, His commands are not burdensome, “For His yoke is easy and His burden is light.”

Obedience is a virtue that we are all called to have as Christians. Disobedience to God was part of the first sin of the human race; obedience, therefore, is its antidote. God wants us to obey Him and His commandments but also obey Him through other people who have authority over us. It is easy to say that we obey God, but the proof of such obedience is to be seen in our obedience to those who exercise legitimate authority as long as that authority is not in violation of God’s express will. We cannot choose to be obedient only when it is convenient to do so, when the decision of the one in authority aligns with my own personal ideas.

The reason obedience is so important is because obedience is the proof of love. Many people say they love God, but their lives don’t reflect it. It is hard for our human eye to measure just how much someone’s heart loves God, but we can measure it by their actions. God cannot be deceived. To say you love God and no one can judge your relationship with Him based on your actions is a deception. Just like you can tell when a young man is madly in love with a maiden by the way he swoons over her, he talks about her, and his grand romantic gestures towards her, so it is with a heart in love with God. Likewise, if you truly love God, your life will reflect it.

So, let us pray that the Lord will refine us from the inside out. May we only have one desire: To love the Lord with all that is in us. And that means, submitting our will to His. That my friends would be truly “defying gravity”, the gravity of my selfishness and self-centredness dragging me down, so that I may soar and reach the heavens.

Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Faith, Hope and Love

Fifth Sunday of Easter Year C


One of the greatest malaise of our times and our present generation is that we seem to be totally demotivated. In fact, our generation has been described as Generation D - the generation which is highly demotivated, disillusioned and most easily disappointed. Most people have lost fervour, direction or purpose in doing anything. From the student to the worker, from the person serving in a church ministry to the priest himself. We seem to have run out of fuel or new ways. And so, we have motivational speakers raking up millions just to give us shallow talking points to make us feel sufficiently good enough to carry on another day without having to drag our feet through the mud or just sit down and wallow in it.


Many of you may be hoping that a homily you hear from the priest on a Sunday would serve the same purpose, with perhaps less hype and without much injury to your wallet. Looking at our Sunday collections, I honestly wonder whether we priests have met up with even your lowest expectations.

But guess what? Today’s readings provide you with a treat. Scripture, the Church, offers you not just one but three essential points on how to reignite the fire in your life and keep you going. Nothing novel here but sometimes the best piece of advice would be the perennial truths we have forgotten but need the most. The three readings provide us with the remedy to our triple D problems - they are the three theological virtues - faith, hope and charity.

What is a virtue? The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that “a virtue is a habitual and firm disposition to do the good. It allows the person not only to perform good acts but to give the best of himself.” As you can see, virtue is not just a lack of doing what is evil. To refrain from looting, burning, and name-calling does not make us virtuous. The CCC (1804) says “The virtuous man is he who freely practices the good.” Personal virtue is the key to improving the world, finding happiness, and helping other people to be good and happy too; yet the ultimate end of virtue is even greater than these great goals: “the goal of a virtuous life is to become like God”. (CCC 1803)

Virtues can be categorised into basically two large categories. The Cardinal human virtues are four: temperance, fortitude, justice, and prudence. They are acquired through human effort, like how one builds up one’s muscles to regular and appropriate exercise. But today, we wish to focus on three theological virtues which are infused in each person at baptism: faith, hope and charity. According to the CCC (1813), “They inform and give life to all the moral virtues. They are infused by God into the souls of the faithful to make them capable of acting as his children and of meriting eternal life.” All these three theological virtues relate directly to God and are necessary for a relationship with Him. With faith, we believe in God and all He has revealed to us. With hope, we recognise that God is our fulfillment. We trust in the promises of God and desire His kingdom and eternal life with Him. Through charity “we love God above all things for his own sake and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God” (CCC 1822).

In the first reading taken from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear of the exploits of St Paul and St Barnabas, the earliest missionaries of the Church. Their mission was to strengthen faith for those who already believed but were now facing hardships in the form of opposition and persecution, and also to plant the seeds of faith among those who had not heard the gospel of Christ. To ensure that faith continued to flourish, it was essential that they established stable community of Christians under the leadership of persons whom they have appointed. Though faith is a theological virtue that is given by God, it must be planted with preaching and witnessing of the gospel, and then nourished, tended and strengthened. This is an important reminder to us that we too are called to share in Christ’s mission to witness the gospel and thereafter to mentor and accompany others as we grow together in faith.

In the second reading, we have a powerful glimpse at the New Jerusalem which awaits the faithful after their long and arduous sojourn on this earth. “Here God lives among men. He will make His home among them … He will wipe away all tears from their eyes; there will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness.” Such a spectacular vision is necessary because the gift of eternal life promised by Christ can be so easily obscured and forgotten in the midst of the troubles, suffering and hardships we have to endure on earth. When faced with obstacles which drag us down, where do we find the energy to press on, the second wind to finish the race? The answer lies in the virtue of hope. Hope is the strongest source of courage and strength. If you trust God’s promises of the incomparable happiness of Heaven, you can give up any earthly good or endure any earthly trial for that.

In the Gospel, we hear our Lord present to us His disciples the new commandment of love, to love one another as Christ loved us. Since the world brandishes the word love indiscriminately, we often get confused with the concept of love in its many expressions and incarnations. It is clear that the love which our Lord references here is more than just “being nice”, or “tolerant”, or “affectionate. Now there’s nothing wrong with tolerance, or affection or basic decency. But these, in themselves, are not the love that our Lord taught, the love He lived. His love transcends mere feelings of affection, and it’s exponentially harder than simple kindness or even basic tolerance. People don’t get crucified for being nice.

So, what is this love that the Lord says is the be-all and end-all of human living? This is a kind of love, in the words of Pope Benedict, that “seeks the good of the beloved…ready, and even willing, for sacrifice.” Love is giving one’s very self freely to and for the other, even when it hurts the giver. This is the love the Lord taught. This is the love He lived, all the way to the cross. Make no mistake: there’s nothing wishy-washy or mushy about this love.

What the world believes in today is not a faith in God but in science and in man’s resources. What the world promotes today is optimism, a false substitute for hope. What the world calls love today, is a counterfeit of love - it is self-preservation rather than self-giving. What passes as faith, hope and love today, is another excuse for sin. But the truth is that sin has nothing to do with faith, hope and love. In fact, sin is the exact opposite of authentic faith, hope and love. Sin obscures faith, drags us into despair and distorts and destroys love.

So, we must be like the missionaries St Paul and St Barnabas in the first reading – we must never tire of putting “fresh heart into the disciples, encouraging them to persevere in the faith.” If the road seems long and the work seems dreary, keep your eyes on the finishing line - the new heavens and the new earth, where every tear will be wiped away, death and mourning will be no more. But until that day, let us do everything with love. Love compels us Christians to preach the Good News in and out of season, even when it is unpopular to do so. Seems simple enough but you and I know how challenging it is to live out the demands of love, which call us to not only pay lip service but sacrifice for one whom we profess to love. Faith, hope and love are what motivate us to move forward even when the odds are against us, when the challenges seem impossible and when all seems lost and hopeless.

Saturday, May 3, 2025

Think and Feel with the Church

Fourth Sunday of Easter Year C
Good Shepherd Sunday
Pilgrimage 13 - (Anticipated Mass in Lisbon)



As we come to the end of our pilgrimage, I would like to thank all of you for being good sheep that have listened attentively and obediently to the voice of your shepherd. Some would call it blind docility. Others would call it basic survival skills. Whatever may have been the reason for your exquisite cooperation, it has been a blessing and a privilege to have guided you through this entire journey of faith and discovery. We are thankful that we have lost no one on this trip.


What has been the secret of us staying safe, staying focused, staying on the right path? Our Lord provides us with the answer: “The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice.” Listening is at the heart of the Christian life. But if we wish to listen, we should start with obeying. Obedience comes from the Latin “to listen” (obedire). Obedience, according to St Augustine, is “the mother and guardian of all other virtues.” It ensures a life of goodness because it entails hearing and following God, the source of all goodness. This obedience is not for some in the Church but for all, from the child kneeling in the pew to the Pope presiding in Rome.

God alone is this obedience owed and given, but it is given to God through the Church because God gives Himself to us through the Church. Here is where many begin to engage in hypocritical casuistry. Some would claim that they are obedient to God but not to men, like the Pope or bishops, or man-made institutions like the Church. But God places us in a Church as a part of the body where Christ is the head, and we are the parts. This is why our Lord chose not to appear to Thomas in the gospel of Divine Mercy Sunday until he was prepared to return to the community of believers, the Church. As much as the Church is maligned and judged for the failures of her shepherds and members, there is no denying that our Lord instituted the Church to be the redemptive tool of the world, to continue to shepherd His flock, with Him as the Head and the body, with all its different parts working together to bring redemption to the world.

One phrase that captures this principle of listening to the voice of the Shepherd through His Church is, “to think with the Church;” or, in St Ignatius of Loyola’s formulation, sentire cum ecclesia. “Sentire”, of course, is not simply “to think,” which in English is often meant in a cold, rational way. Other words that are used to translate sentire are sense, feel, and perceive. “Feel” is a great translation that can also carry connotations of “think” except that “feel” can also imply the lack of rational thought.

What does it really mean to “think with the Church”? For one thing, thinking with the Church means giving a unique respect to our bishops and to the Pope. A filial love for our shepherds is a necessary expression of wanting to listen intimately to the voice of the Good Shepherd. We must, however, acknowledge that sometimes shepherds speak with their own voices rather than with that of Christ and the Holy Spirit. And this is the reason why confusion, heresy and even schism can break the unity of the Church and disrupt her mission.

We must, therefore, make a distinction between what is and is not meant to think and feel with the Church. First, it might be helpful to describe what the Church is not. The lay faithful are not pawns who are to take marching orders from their priests and bishops, nor bishops from the Pope. The Church is not a secret organisation where information (or revelation) is possessed in full only at the top and then is distributed selectively and imperfectly throughout. To think with the Church does not mean “to let the Church think for you.” Discernment is required.

But discernment without a guide or standard may lead us to error, that is to substitute Christ’s teachings with our own personal opinions. This, then, is precisely why the Magisterium, the teaching authority of the Church as a guardian and servant of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, is so necessary if one desires to think with the Church. Magisterial interventions serve to guarantee the Church’s unity in the truth of the Lord. They aid her to ‘abide in the truth’ in the face of the arbitrary character of changeable opinions and are an expression of obedience to the Word of God. The Magisterium exists precisely for the purpose of ensuring that the Church can authoritatively distinguish what derives from faith and what is merely an opinion. Even Popes and bishops must submit to the Magisterium as faithful servants as much as they are the very teachers whose teaching authority flows therefrom.

Episcopal and papal authority depends on obedience to what has been revealed and handed down by means of the Holy Spirit. To be a teacher of the faith is first and foremost to be a learner of it. Though bishops and the Pope have specific teaching roles, the whole Church is a listening Church, a learning Church and so the whole Church is the teaching Church. Our mission is to conform to what has been taught so that we in turn may be true teachers of the word. A person ceases to be a teacher of the faith when he ceases to let himself be instructed by universal tradition. Our teaching must be shaped by our obedience to universal tradition and never by our own ideas, by our own standing, or by our own times. This is what it means to listen to the Good Shepherd instead of talking or shouting over Him.

During his papacy, Pope Francis proposed that we follow the synodal path of becoming a listening church. That is indeed a noble idea. But to be truly listening, we must first be ready to listen to our Lord who has spoken through scripture and Tradition through the ages. If not, we will end up listening to the spirit of the world, instead of the Spirit of Christ and be misled ourselves and in turn lead others astray. We can have a listening Church only if we have an obeying Church. Obey; listen; proclaim. God has spoken; our task is to hear that Word and speak from it. We are not to speak from our times but to our times from God’s Word. Only then, can we be assured of being partakers of eternal life and not be lost.

As we depart from Lisbon for home, continue to listen carefully to the voice of the Shepherd in whatever situation you may find yourself. You came here as pilgrims. You will leave here as missionaries bringing the good news of Jesus Christ with you to the ends of the earth. But first, let us start with our neighbourhood and parish!