We need Disciples, not Volunteers

Twenty Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

As a priest I must admit, I have my good days and bad days. Good days when I feel no regrets at being a priest, when the ministry is rewarding and fruits are evident. But then, just like all of you, I have my bad days. When my decisions and best intentions are met with criticism, hostility and other forms of negative reaction. I am tempted to ask myself: is this all worth it? Did I sign up for this abuse? Or in exasperation I may even decry that I don’t get paid enough for this - in fact, I get paid peanuts for the job! That’s true, but that is the difference between a job and ministry, between a volunteer and a disciple. I constantly need to remind myself before I remind others - we in the Church are called to share in the ministry or the apostolate of the Church. Though it entails work, sometimes thankless tiring work, it is not a job but a vocation. We are called to be disciples of the Lord and not just part-time volunteers.

I guess the culture of volunteerism has taken a firm foothold in Church ministry and mission. The frequent cry you often hear in most churches is this, ‘We need more volunteers!’ Volunteering has become the primary way in which Christians are invited to participate in the work and mission of the Church. Over the years, I find that sustaining morale among church volunteers has become a real challenge, sometimes it seems even impossible. We see our volunteers suffering from disillusionment and a constant need for tender-loving-care. The usual complaints we hear is that many feel unappreciated, ill-equipped for the job, a lack of support from others, and have become tired of the numerous criticisms heaped against them.

But perhaps the greatest problem lies in the area of quality control. This is particularly true in the case of the Catholic Church. Well, you know what they say, ‘when you are only willing to pay peanuts, expect nothing less than monkeys!’ (What does that tell you about us priests?) The most troubling issue when dealing with volunteers is that of commitment. There is no doubt that volunteer work is often a thankless and demanding endeavour, requiring great generosity, time and effort. We’ve eventually come to accept that if we demand too much of these volunteers, they would break and quit. We tip toe around their mistakes and find it hard to hold them accountable. Too often we settle for less rather than for more. In order to keep and please our volunteers, we end up lowering standards, compromising values and ultimately crippling the radical demands of discipleship in the name of survival.

It’s important and liberating to remember that volunteerism is not discipleship. While volunteerism has great value, even in the Church, it is not the central model for Christian life and service. We don’t need to recruit church volunteers—our Lord’s command to us was to go and make disciples. When it comes right down to it, there is a huge difference between volunteering from time to time, being a fair-weather follower, and belonging totally to Jesus Christ. The individualism and consumerism that shapes how we participate in volunteering are incompatible with the selfless, all-demanding devotion that Christ calls for in participating in His mission. One of the benefits of being a volunteer is that there is always the option to take a break or even to quit. Volunteers set the agenda- when, how much, where, and what it is they will volunteer for. Discipleship, on the other hand, is not periodic volunteer work on one’s own terms or at one’s convenience. As it is clear in the strong statements we find in today’s gospel, discipleship is total, unconditional, limitless commitment to Christ, requiring the greatest sacrifice, even enduring suffering and death.

Structurally, today’s gospel selection is comprised of a catena of sayings on discipleship, followed by two parables. The sayings demonstrate a literary device in Semitic literature, the hyperbole; a figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect, as in ‘I could sleep for a year’ or ‘This book weighs a ton.’ The hyperboles or exaggerations help us to appreciate and imagine the gravity of what is being expressed. Thus, the forcefulness of the first saying in today’s gospel to turn one’s back on, or literally to ‘hate’ father, mother, etc, is shocking. Naturally, this is not an actual call to hate your family – hate is incongruent with the Christian life. To hate here means absolute detachment in the strongest possible terms. ‘Hating’ parents simply meant loving Jesus first and foremost, above family and even above self. From that love would flow the willingness to follow the Lord by taking up the cross.

Therefore, the gospel sets out the difference between mere volunteerism and hard-edged discipleship. It boils down to the answer you give to these set of questions – What are you prepared to lose? What are you prepared to give up? What is the cost you are willing to pay? Disciples are willing to pay the price of giving up everything for the sake of the kingdom. Discipleship is costly because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it cost God the life of His Son: “you were bought at a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.

In the two short parables you just heard, our Lord communicates the necessity of entering into the process of discipleship with a clear head and the intention of persevering, holding fast till the end. The man who wants to build a tower must count the cost to make sure he has enough to finish the job. The king who is going to war must first count his troops and resources to make sure he can win the battle. In both parables the message is clear: Those who begin a major endeavour need to be prepared to see it through to the finish. Throughout our lives we will be tempted to quit when suffering threatens us, when we face criticism, when the cost seems too heavy, when we receive little reward or encouragement. The importance of counting the cost of discipleship is apparent when we see the point of our endeavour is to finish the race, not just merely to start it. Some say the hardest part is getting started. If this is true though, why do we hear stories of people who give up on their diet, stop writing a novel or quit a difficult task at work. Maybe it’s not the start but the finish that’s so difficult. The goal should always be to finish, not start. And in order to finish, we must be prepared to pay the cost and make sacrifices.

Today, what the Church needs is not more volunteers. We have enough of that and we could do with less of that! What the Church needs, what Christ wants, what salvation demands is this –men and women who have counted the cost and who are committed to Jesus regardless of the cost, and who will not stop in the middle of the stream and go back. What the Church needs are disciples! Discipleship is not for the faint of heart. Discipleship is not for the lukewarm. Discipleship is not for the fence-straddlers. Discipleship is for the committed, for the consecrated and dedicated. Discipleship is for those willing to put their hand to the plough and not look back. Discipleship is not for a day, or for a week, or a year. Discipleship is for the rest of our lives. Discipleship is for those who are willing to follow Him regardless of what they have to let go of and leave behind. These are the clear job descriptions that disciples must know and be prepared for: No reserves – sacrifice everything, no retreats – press on, no regrets – finish the race.

The Drama of our Salvation

Good Friday

Why are many folks, who do not understand a single word of Korean, glued to every episode of a Korean drama and would even skip meals, family time and church, so as not to miss the next intriguing episode? The short and simple answer is the drama - the drama that sucks the viewer into the very scene, the emotions of the characters, the perplexity, twist and turn of the plot playing out on the screen.

Today’s passion reading is like that. We are sucked into the drama of the narrative as we even assume the role and the voices of the blood thirsty crowd in a kind of liturgical flash mob. Perhaps, with greater intensity because it is based on “true events” and the protagonist is not some actor playing a role but the Son of God Himself, in the flesh. Like every well-written drama, within the Passion account, we find every kind of human emotion expressed. There is jealousy, betrayal, anger, fear, hypocrisy, falsification of truth, perjury, failure or denial of justice, abandonment, torture, death – and within this, a Love of an impossible kind, a love that binds and unites.

But unlike the actors who are merely acting on the silver screen for our entertainment, all the characters of the Passion story are real. Every word, every action, every accusation, every spit, every slap, every nail, every scourge, every drop of blood or opened wound was real - no one was play acting and none of these were mere props. Our Lord was not acting. He truly suffered the violence inflicted on Him by His enemies, the betrayal directed against Him by His own disciples, and the death which was imposed on Him by the Roman authorities at the behest of the Jewish religious leadership. If it was all just acting, we would just have sighed with relief and praised the actors for a starling performance. But because it was all real, we have reason to be thankful for our sins have really been forgiven, the guilt we have incurred has really been lifted and Death which pursues every man and woman has really been defeated.

The passion narrative of Good Friday is full of movement and action - sitting, fleeing, sleeping, standing. But it is the standing which takes the cake. Many of you may have felt the pressure on your legs building up as you stood throughout the passion gospel reading. In my younger days as a priest, I used to issue a preliminary instruction that doesn’t appear in the rubrics to ask everyone who couldn’t stand that long, to remain seated. I used to think it was plain mindless superstition that no one took that instruction seriously and kept standing, both old and young. It was my hubris disguised as compassion that saw them in this light. Today, a bit wiser and humbled by a tad bit more experience, I have come to realise that it is not stubborn foolishness but loving devotion that kept people standing as they heard and participated in the drama of the passion narrative. Unlike the disciples who fled in fear, you have decided to stand with Jesus, and to stand for Him, as did a few women and St John, the Beloved Disciple.

We hear in the text, and only here in the Gospel of St John, “Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala … and the disciple he loved standing near her.” Not standing at a distance like in St Mark’s account, but here beside the cross, up close and personal. So close that they were within hearing range of the last words of Christ and that John could later write that he was an eyewitness of the events and did not come to this knowledge through hearsay. They were so close that they were within range of the insults, ridicule and rage hurled at our Lord and perhaps subjecting themselves too to the risk of being arrested and similarly sentenced. It took courage. But more importantly, it took love. Perfect love casts out all fear!

I take this position of standing, as the highlight and climax of our participation in the drama of Good Friday. It is no wonder that the primary devotion for Lent is the Way of the Cross, where we pause (or at least done by the priest and servers) and stand before each Station of the Cross. The word “station” comes from the Latin “statio.” And the word statio derives from the Latin verb sto, “to stand” and signified how early Christians gathered and “stood with” the local clergy, bishop, patriarch or the pope himself in prayer. Statio also was a Roman military term meaning “military post.” Like soldiers we stand. Wasn’t it Moses who instructed the Israelites with these words when they were pursued by the Egyptian army: “Stand firm, and you will see what the Lord will do to save you today …The Lord will do the fighting for you: you have only to keep still’? Statio, therefore, also means a vigilant commitment to conversion and to prayer.

So, on this day as we commemorate the Passion and Death of our Lord, as we reenact the whole drama of salvation, let us imitate Mary, the Beloved Disciple and the other women as they stood by the cross. Though the story of our Lord’s passion is filled with betrayal, jealousy and false accusations, patterns we recognise in our own lives, behaviours which destroy and rip apart relationships, the last act of our Lord on the cross is to bring reconciliation and union. Despite the barbs that had been hurled at Him, wounds which would have hardened the hearts of the strongest men to become resentful and loveless, He pours out His last act of love on these two individuals representing His Church and brought them together in an inseparable bond of fraternity and maternity. “Woman, this is your son.” “This is your mother.”

Today we DON’T celebrate death, we celebrate the life we receive through the cross. We celebrate that Jesus waits high on His cross to take away our death, whether it be physical, moral, or mental. The Church has endured much drama. Each of us who are members of the Body of Christ have endured much drama - betrayal, envy, false accusations and loss. And yet, the story does not end in failure, defeat and resentment. If we choose to stand with our Lord to the very end because we have not decided to flee out of fear or self-preservation, or walked away out of boredom, or decided to leave early because we think the story is over, we will see the amazing ending of the story. The story ends with reconciliation, not disintegration. But even that is not the real ending.

If you do not return tomorrow and the day after, you would have missed the most important post-credits that really define the whole story and unravel the mystery of what you’ve witnessed today. While you may be currently struggling with some crisis or other, in your prayerfulness, in your life, turn over everything to the Lord. Your pain, your hurts, your loss, your addiction, your crisis - turn all that “drama,” turn everything over to the Lord. In these uncertain times: Remember, Death is defeated. Only Jesus has the power. Only His love is stronger than death. Don’t take my word for it. Come back tomorrow night or on Sunday and see for yourself.

The Towel and the Cross

Maundy Thursday

Some people are so good at talking big but fall short in delivery. When push comes to shove, they will easily bend and break. This is what we witness in the gospel. Our first Pope whom the Lord Himself declares as a rock-hard foundation to His church, changes his position not because of some profound enlightenment but melts under pressure. One can’t help but laugh at the 180 degrees turn of St Peter, from refusing to accept the Lord’s offer to wash his feet, to clamouring for a full-body bath!

First, he starts with this: “You shall never wash my feet.” We may even suspect that his refusal was just fake shocked indignation at best, or false humility at worst. And as for the turnaround, doesn’t it seem to be some form of histrionic over-exaggeration on his part? “Not only my feet, but my hands and my head as well!” In both instances, St Peter had misunderstood our Lord’s intention and the significance of His action. And in both instances, his incomprehension and misstep had given our Lord an opportunity to make a teaching point.

Let us look at the first response given by our Lord to Peter when he refused to allow his feet to be washed: “If I do not wash you, you can have nothing in common with me.” A superficial reading of this statement may lead us to conclude that our Lord was just asking Peter and all of us to imitate His humility in serving others. This may be the message at the end of the passage, where our Lord says: “If I, then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you should wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you.” But the words of our Lord in His response to Peter’s refusal to have his feet washed, goes further than that.

What is this thing which makes us “in common” with our Lord? In other words, what does it mean to have “fellowship” with Him? It is clear that it cannot just mean menial service, but rather the sacrifice of our Lord on the cross. This statement actually highlights the relationship between the foot-washing and the cross. The foot-washing signifies our Lord’s loving action and sacrifice on the cross. If foot-washing merely cleans the feet of the guest who has come in from the dusty streets, our Lord’s sacrifice on the cross will accomplish the cleansing of our sins which we have accumulated from our sojourn in this sin-infested world. Peter must yield to our Lord’s loving action in order to share in His life, which the cross makes possible.

The foot-washing may also be a deliberate echo of the ritual of ablutions, washing of hands and feet, done by the priests of the Old Covenant, before they performed worship and offered sacrifices in the Temple. This may explain Peter’s further request to have both his feet and head washed by the Lord. Without him knowing it, he may have inadvertently referred to his own ordination as a priest of the New Covenant. It is fitting that the washing of feet occurs while the Apostles are entrusted with the Eucharist. No priesthood, no Eucharist - it’s as simple as that.

“No one who has taken a bath needs washing, he is clean all over.” Our Lord was not just making a common-sense statement that those who are clean have no need for further cleansing, but an allusion to the Sacraments which leave an indelible mark on their recipients, two in particular - baptism (confirmation) and Holy Orders. Our Lord’s words resonate with two popular Catholic axioms: “Once a Catholic, always a Catholic” and “once a priest, always a priest.” There is no need for re-baptism or re-ordination even if the person had lapsed. What is needed is confession.

This second set of words also points to the efficacy and sufficiency of what our Lord did on the cross. Christ’s bloody sacrifice on Calvary took place once and for all, and it will never be repeated, it need not be repeated because it cannot be repeated. To repeat His sacrifice would be to imply that the original offering was defective or insufficient, like the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament that could never take away sins. Jesus’ offering was perfect, efficacious, and eternal.

The Holy Mass is a participation in this one perfect offering of Christ on the cross. It is the re-presentation of the sacrifice on the cross; here “re-presentation” does not mean a mere commemoration or a fresh new sacrifice each time the Mass is celebrated, but making “present” the one sacrifice at Calvary. The Risen Christ becomes present on the altar and offers Himself to God as a living sacrifice. Like the Mass, Christ words at the Last Supper are words of sacrifice, “This is my body . . . this is my blood . . . given up for you.” So, the Mass is not repeating the murder of Jesus, but is taking part in what never ends: the offering of Christ to the Father for our sake (Heb 7:25, 9:24). After all, if Calvary didn’t get the job done, then the Mass won’t help. It is precisely because the death of Christ was sufficient that the Mass is celebrated. It does not add to or take away, from the work of Christ—it IS the work of Christ.

When the Lord tells us: “I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you,” it is not just the ritual of foot-washing that He is asking us to imitate. Our Lord is most certainly pointing to His work of salvation on the cross which He offers to us as a gift through the Sacraments. Some people continue to resist Christ because they do not consider themselves sinful enough to require Him to wash them in Baptism or the Sacrament of Penance. Others have the opposite problem: they stay away because they are too ashamed of their lives or secret sins. To both, our Lord and Master gently but firmly speaks these words as He did to Peter: “If I do not wash you, you can have nothing in common with me.”

Hope will not disappoint

Second Sunday of Lent Year C

The word “hope” is thrown around a lot. “I hope I win the lottery!” “I hope that I do well in my exams!” “I hope that I get a raise.” “I hope Father’s homily will be short!” As you know from experience, most of the time you don’t get what you “hope” for. So, keep hoping!

For most people, optimism and hope are interchangeable, but are they really? The objects of both concepts are worlds apart. Optimism focuses on making this life and this world a better place. Nothing wrong with that, unfortunately the future and the outcomes of our actions are never truly within our control. We want things to be better. We want our problems to be resolved. We want crises to end. We want the best possible future for ourselves and our loved ones. But the best we can accomplish is to have strong aspirations. We can never guarantee their final outcome. The truth is that life is not a genie released from a bottle who can guarantee the fulfilment of all or any of our wishes.

On the other hand, Christian hope is different. It’s not wishing for good things with this life as our goal. The ultimate object of Hope like the other theological virtues of faith and charity, is God. As St Paul assures us in his letter to the Romans, “Hope will not disappoint” (Rom 5:5), precisely because God will not disappoint. Hope does not spring from a person’s mind; it is not snatched out of mid-air. It results from the promises of God. It is grounded in God, the God who does not break His promises, the God who remains faithful to His covenants, the God who surprises us with something greater than we can ever conceive or perceive, the God who will certainly and irrefutably never disappoint. This is what we see in the readings we have heard this week.

In the first reading, we have God promising to give Abram something which seemed humanly impossible to this old and childless man. God uses the stars to birth faith in Abram. Throughout Abram (who was later renamed Abraham) and his wife Sarah’s lives, God brought them into situations that stretched their faith and required the continued exercise of hope and trust in God. Abram had left everything he knew—his extended family, an assurance of wealth and stability in a well-established homeland —to follow a voice that called him by name into the unknown. Like a blindfolded trust-walk, Abram took step by step in the wilderness, moving forward in God’s plan for his life. When he started to question the journey, he simply needed to glance up to the stars to remember the One who showed him the expanse of the heavens and all the stars therein and then promised to make Abram’s descendants into a great nation as numerous as those incalculable stars. St Paul reflecting on this act of faith and hope wrote: “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations” (Rom 4:18).

Abraham’s faith and hope did not require a denial of reality, nor would such a denial have been healthy. False optimism, on the other hand, does that. How many of us have been miserably disappointed because we have held on to some false optimism that eventually turned out to be a lie or a delusion? But here Abraham acknowledged his own personal and natural limitations (old age and barrenness) without weakening in faith. In some circles, the power of positive thinking and speech receives such an emphasis that people feel they cannot speak honestly about their circumstances. Positive thinking merely denies reality, it cannot reshape it nor create it. That isn’t walking in hope. Hope acknowledges the facts and then looks beyond them to the truth of what Scripture reveals about God, His power, and His ability to fulfill His word.

In the second reading, St Paul reminds us that our true homeland is heaven. Many have forgotten this. Too often today when people talk about “heaven” they mean a purely spiritual destination where spirits float around with God in the clouds. That’s a non-Christian hope. That “heaven” is not what we look forward to. In place of a heaven which means perfect communion with God, man has tried to replace it with surrogates, always looking for the elusive utopia, the earthly paradise of our own making. But any “earthly paradise” which excludes God from its definition, is a false paradise, and eventually would turn out to be a living hell. We need only look towards the “paradise” which both the Nazis and communist regimes attempted to create on earth. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit” (CCC 1817).

Finally, we have the gospel passage which is St Luke’s account of the Transfiguration. This story appears in all the synoptic gospels and each version is always read on the Second Sunday of Lent. This event takes place as our Lord is proceeding to Jerusalem with His disciples to meet His fate - His atoning death on the cross which will lead to His saving resurrection. The Lord was transfigured so that “the scandal of the Cross might be removed from the hearts of his disciples” (Roman Missal, Preface for the Feast of the Transfiguration), to help them bear the dark moments of His Passion. The Cross and glory are closely united.

The transfiguration was meant to instil hope and strengthen their faith in the face of the Lord’s impending suffering and death. Even witnessing Jesus' tragic death, they were not to lose faith, knowing that suffering and death do not have the final say. That is why the message of the Lord’s transfiguration is so important. It offers us a glimpse into a different world - eternal life, the life of the resurrection, heaven itself. In the presence of suffering, we see our Lord’s glory, we see Moses and Elijah who were deemed dead or at least removed from our human existence, alive in God and we hope that one day we will be with them. This vision offers us hope as we journey through life, knowing that something beautiful awaits us after the trials of this world.

As the ups and downs of life continue, hope remains an important virtue for all of us. Hope can sustain us amidst the difficulties of life. There are times when the enormity of our pains and trials leads us to despair, questioning whether God sees our suffering and what His purpose is in it. But imagine someone showing you a glimpse of your future life beyond this world – a life in the presence of God, reunited with loved ones, free from suffering. Such a vision, however fleeting, can make a profound difference in how you view your earthly life and the manner in which you choose to live it. When our eyes are fixed on the light at the end of the long dark tunnel, even though that light may seem faint and tiny at times, the going gets easier and our strength to press on is renewed. As the Catechism says, hope keeps us from discouragement, sustains us when abandoned, and opens our hearts in expectation of heaven (CCC 1818).

A Season of Redemption and Release

Ash Wednesday 2025

Everything about today’s liturgy screams of “penance,” from the ashes which you would be imposing on each other, to the readings which speak of the penitential practices of fasting, almsgiving and prayer. The entire liturgy is so penitential that the Church omits the penitential rite at the beginning of today’s Mass. I guess to a non-Catholic observer, our Catholic “obsession” with penance seems morbidly strange. Why would anyone relish the thought of denying yourself something pleasurable and make a celebration of it?

Penance comes from a Latin word, ‘paenitentia’ which derives from a Latin noun, meaning repentance, and ultimately derives from the Greek noun ποινή (poine). The original Greek word seems more austere than the Latin and English. It’s practically “blood money” – the price you pay as compensation for taking the life of another. For the uninitiated, mortification and penances in the Catholic context do not involve any form of blood-letting. Thank God for that. You do not have to cut your wrist or mutilate yourself or even pay an exorbitant price as compensation for the harm that you have done to another. But someone had to pay the price and someone did. Someone was mutilated for our crime. Someone had to exchange His life for ours, He took the punishment which was our due, He died so that we might live. You know who it is – it’s Jesus Christ.

Because of what the Lord has done for us on the cross, penances are no longer ways of earning God’s forgiveness; nor, for that matter, is going to Confession. Christ has already won that forgiveness for us by means of His sacrifice on the cross. And that forgiveness is made present for us by the work of His Holy Spirit. But if God has already forgiven us, and if Confession makes that forgiveness present to us in concrete, visible, audible ways, what’s the penance for?

Because of what the Lord did for us, the word “penance” now takes on a broader meaning – it now involves “recompense, reward, redemption, or release.” Let us first look at our own experience of human relationships and the dynamics of forgiveness offered to someone who has hurt us. Even if someone forgives you, this by itself doesn’t mean you are yet, in yourself, changed. “Forgiving” is something the other person does; what do I do? Have we internalised that forgiveness? Has it changed us?

Forgiveness opens the door to a changed relationship and a new life. But it would be a mistake for me to think that the forgiveness is the final step in the process when forgiveness is the first step. The next step is for that love to change my heart and set me on a new course in life. Doing penance is about making those first few steps in a new direction. God’s transforming love doesn’t leave me in my sin; its goal is to transform me. The grace of the sacrament works by changing my heart. And if my heart is truly changed, then I need to begin to live differently as well. So, by doing penances, we shouldn’t mistakenly imagine that I’m “earning” God’s love and forgiveness. No, we love, “because God has loved us first.” (1 Jn 4) It is only by accepting God’s love and forgiveness that I can be changed. Penance completes the process of reconciliation.

Another dangerous view of penances is to imagine that penance is an outmoded concept, that we are not expected to make any effort to put things right, since our Lord Jesus has already done it all for us. This suffers from the sin of presumption - presuming that heaven is guaranteed and hell is only a boogie man, a myth, to scare poor Catholics into submission. But both these views of penance are both inaccurate and dangerous. They reduce penances to performative acts – either playing to the crowd or to God.

Today’s readings recover the correct view of penances. Penances are the means by which we right our relations both individually and collectively with God, our neighbour and ourselves. It is seen as the antidote or cure to the three-fold wreck of sin. This three-fold movement is a theme that is revisited again and again in the scripture. We see a disintegration of man’s personal integrity, his relationship with others and with God, at the Fall. This same movement appears again in our Lord’s three-fold temptation – to worship Satan instead of God, to seek approval instead of basing one’s relationship on truth, to prefer material comfort to one’s spiritual good.

In our Lord’s public ministry, the temptations come again and again – He hungers and thirsts, though He is able to make food out of nothing; the people wish to make Him King, and He evades them; the demons proclaim Him as the Holy One of God, and He silences them. This three-fold patterning continues in the Passion: in the agony in the Garden, in the trial before His accusers, in the three-fold denial of Saint Peter, in falling three times according to tradition, and from the cross He rejects the sedation of the wine (material comfort), the physical comfort of passers-by and finally, even experiences the desolation of being forsaken by God.

What does this mean for us? It means that the temptations that assail us on a daily basis are also the means by which God uses to strengthen us. Therefore, the penitential practices which we undertake are not to appease a God who has distanced Himself from our trials and sufferings. We can never accuse God of this because of what our Lord Jesus had to endure. Rather, our penitential practices are meant to unite us with our Lord who redeemed our pains and sufferings through His own. Fasting, almsgiving and prayer are the three means by which we conform ourselves to this three-fold patterning – By fasting we reject bodily comfort, by almsgiving we turn away from temporal power and the need to please the crowds, and by prayer we acknowledge the primacy of God. But in order to do this we should first earnestly seek the assistance of the Sacrament of Penance, confession, lest our spiritual exercise be subverted by pride. Penitential acts, when done without true humility and repentance, will ultimately become performative. And when our acts become performative, God is not honoured, only man.

The goal of Christian penitence is not to pay the ransom, our Lord has already done that. The purpose of our penitence is to participate in the joy of the redeemed, as returning prodigal sons and daughters to receive the cloak and ring and banquet from the One by Whose stripes we have been healed. Through our penances, done with humility and love, we regain what we have lost, we receive healing for what is wounded, we restore what has been damaged by sin. As we begin this Holy Season of Penance, let us be assured of the abundant graces of mercy which our Lord has poured out and continues to pour on us from the cross.

Be a little Christ

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

The lofty demands by the Lord in today’s gospel reading would often elicit this immediate response: “I’m only human.” This is not a humble admission of one’s fallibility or inability to live up to the ideals of Christian living, but often used as an excuse that such demands are only meant for angels and the saints, and beyond the reach of mere mortals like us. When we hide behind the label of being “human”, our nature is not seen as a gift but rather as a deficit. We forgot that we are made in the image and likeness of a loving God who only wants what’s best for us and to be our best, not our worst.

We find in the course of salvation history and the pages of the Bible, individuals, families and nations called, chosen and sent by God on His mission not because of their good genes, immaculate backgrounds, exceptional talents or heroic prowess. In fact, most of these figures appear to be failures and losers, or as my bishop is fond of saying, they are members of “the least, the little, the lost and the last.” The reason for such seemingly defective candidates directs the spotlight away from them and points it glaringly at the One who is the real hero and protagonist of the story - God. Scripture is not the revelation that exposes the gradual evolution of man into some sort of Ubermensch (Superman), but rather the revelation of a God who qualifies, empowers and sanctifies the unqualified weak sinner.

In the first reading, we are given a beautiful portrayal of young David before his ascension to the throne. In his loyalty to God, he spares the life of his king who had hunted him and who had threatened to kill him out of envy. As magnanimous as David may be, epitomising the virtue of compassion and offering forgiveness to his enemy as the Lord exhorts in the gospel, David proves to be a weak man and a great sinner later in life. As much as he is seen as a national hero and in fact, the gold standard of kings, David remains a weak and imperfect man. He would later be found guilty of the most egregious crimes of adultery and murder. The Messiah is prophesied to be of his lineage and it is this lineage and link to David which would serve to validate and legitimise the office of the Messiah. But the gospels would soon reveal that it is the Messiah, Jesus Himself, who would validate His ancestor.

St Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians also draws a contrast between the first Adam and the second or last Adam, who is Jesus Christ. The contrast could not be starker. Christ is the founder of the new humanity, just as Adam is the founder of fallen humanity. The obedience of Christ, the Second Adam, undoes the disobedience of the first Adam. Just before this passage Paul has explained that in the resurrection, we will all be changed, and transformed into the heavenly sphere, in the image of the Risen Christ. What was weak will be strong with the strength of God, what was corruptible will be incorruptible with the incorruptibility of God, what was contemptible will be glorious with the glory of God. So, a Christian’s goal is not just to aspire to be the best and most perfect man (“Adam” means “man”) but rather our goal should be to imitate and be another Christ. That is why we are called “Christians.” “Christian” means “a little Christ.”

The gospel provides us with one of the most important aspects of Christ which we must imitate - His mercy and compassion. The problem is that one of the victims of our banal culture is compassion. Compassion is a precarious word, often used interchangeably with pity and sympathy. The word “pity” means a feeling of sadness or fear at the unavoidable lot of another, either deserved or undeserved. But the message we hear in today's gospel is entirely different. Being a bleeding heart, having pity and sympathy for others just doesn’t cut it. It must go much deeper: Our Lord says, "Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate."

So that compassion may not descend into shallow banality, we look to Jesus who provides us with a radically new benchmark. In fact, every example that He cites in today’s passage is something which the Lord Himself had done, especially during His Passion. He forgave His enemies who had delivered Him to His executors right at the moment of His death on the cross. He was mocked, slapped, humiliated and tortured but did not retaliate. He was stripped of His clothes and then made to walk a mile and beyond to the place of His execution. Our Lord demonstrates not only through His teaching, His miracles, His public ministry, the shape and content of compassion, but most certainly through His passion and death.

This is what compassion entails. From the Latin root, the word literally means to “suffer with” and this is what our Lord, our true Hero did for us. That means sharing our goals, our fears, our intentions, our pains and our suffering. One can't even begin to speak of compassion unless one is prepared to pay the price for it, an often expensive price that may even entail sacrificing our personal happiness and well-being, and finally our entire life. So, compassion is never of the saccharine kind. It bears within itself the precious cargo of patience, humility, and growth in the conforming of our will to God's will, to the will of Jesus Christ, our friend. To become more like Him is to become more, not less, human. Only in this way, as the whole of our being takes on the qualities of truth and righteousness, is love and compassion true. Its inner demand always includes suffering. At a deep level, the essence of love, the essence of genuine compassion, means self-abandonment, self-giving, it bears within itself the sign of the cross.

How do we grow in sacrificial love and compassion? We do this by uniting our own sufferings with His, dying to our selfish will, and rising to new life in Christ through humility and obedience to His will. So by declaring that “we are only human” is not a resignation to our weak fallen nature, an excuse to abandon what is difficult, but should be testimony that we wish to be “modelled after the heavenly man,” Jesus, whom St Paul so proudly declared. In embracing our humanity, we must also enter into solidarity with fellow humans. We are all united by our humanity and because of that we are also united by our fallen nature and need for salvation. The good news is that we are also united by grace, because the One who has come to save us chose to unite with us so deeply that "He became sin who knew no sin” (2 Cor 5:21).

Each of us can resolve to imitate Christ in our own lives, by reaching out in love and compassion to assist and comfort others who are suffering. At times this can be relatively easy, such as simply spending time with a friend who is suffering with a problem and may need someone to listen. At other times the witnessing of suffering may require much greater effort, such as when a loved one is dying from a painful illness. It would mean embracing the pain, the suffering, the frustration and the anger of the friend. And even in the face of the greatest offence which we had suffered at the hands of this person, we should also acknowledge - “he is only human” - and at least remember to treat others as how we wish to be treated in return. If we desire mercy, show mercy!

The Light which enlightens

Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

Although today’s feast is clearly not part of the Christmas season, it does complete the Christmas cycle. I like to call it “the icing on the cake.” It is considered a Christmas feast because we are still contemplating the Lord Jesus as an infant rather than as an adolescent or an adult. Today’s feast usurps the Sunday liturgy, which is a rare thing in the first place but prescribed by the rubrics. Usually, other feasts have to give way to the Sunday liturgy which ranks much higher, but not today. In other years, where this feast is celebrated ideally early in the morning or in the evening for obvious aesthetic reasons, the Mass begins with the blessing of candles followed by a candlelight procession into the Church. Apart from the evening anticipated Mass, we have been deprived of the benefit of witnessing the most apparent feature of this liturgy, which you can deduce from the old name for today’s feast - Candlemas – or the Mass of the candles. Today is the Church’s Festival of Lights.

If you had not come for the service in the evening, you would have missed out on one of the major highlights of today’s feast – the candlelight procession, as the priest and the congregation enters the Church. This procession takes on a greater significance when we understand the history of this feast. According to the erudite Pope Benedict XVI, today’s feast supplanted an early rowdy pagan celebration which also featured a procession: “the pagan world’s wild cry for purification, liberation, deliverance from dark powers, meets the “light to enlighten the Gentiles,” the mild and humble light of Jesus Christ. The failing (and yet still active) aeon of a foul, chaotic enslaved and enslaving world encounters the purifying power of the Christian message.”

But in order to appreciate the wonder of the light, our story begins in darkness. Even though it is hard to appreciate the interplay of shadow and light in broad daylight, we can understand why it is important to have darkness in order to discern the importance of light. Light makes no sense without the darkness. In fact, shadow and light are the reality of our lives and our world.

As promised, our reflexion must begin with a meditation of darkness. Darkness is not just the absence of light. It has come to be synonymous with all that seems “negative” and “bad.” We recognise the darkness of the world around us – death, violence, selfishness, injustice and sin. We fear both the darkness and yet seem attracted to it. Sometimes we hide in the darkness avoiding the light because of our shame or guilt. There is also the darkness of uncertainty, especially about our future. There is a sense of powerlessness and life seems out of control. Sometimes we experience the darkness of ignorance and confusion.

But as Simeon would discover, there is a light which no darkness can keep out, there is a light which the darkness cannot defeat, there is a light which persist to shine in the darkness. No matter how large the shadows or how dark the night, the light is still present.

Something happens when we encounter the light. There is power in this light. It is a light which conquers the darkness. Wherever there is the least bit of light, darkness is forced to flee. You can be in the darkest place imaginable and just a tiny match, when lit, has the power to drive away all that black, oppressive darkness. Without light, our world would be dark and it would be drab. There would be no colour. But with light, a dreary world becomes brighter, and even the coldest chill will thaw. The light also gives life and thus is the enemy of death. God uses the light of our witness and testimony to warm the dead sinner’s heart and to draw them to Jesus for salvation. And then there is the Light which brings order to chaos – a Light which sets everything right, in its proper place and order.

But that Light, that Illumination, also reveals. It reveals hope, especially in this Jubilee Year of Hope – the hope that the night of darkness will not last for ever. Hope is sure to come with the dawning light. It reveals mercy and forgiveness in the shadows of guilt and shame, presence and courage in the night of fear, compassion and hope in the black holes of sorrow and loss, a way forward in the blindness of ignorance and confusion, and life in the darkness of death. The flame of God’s love consumes the darkness, fills us, and frees us to go in peace, just as God promised.

But every revelation is also a bittersweet reality. Truth can be painful. God’s salvation will be costly, not only for Jesus, but also for those who love Him. So, instead of offering Mary congratulations on her fine Son, Simeon prophesies that a “sword shall pierce” Mary’s heart. This prophecy does not only reveal the suffering which the mother must endure but also provides a glimpse of what is to become of the Son. In the Light which enlightens, we see the silhouette of the cross. But it is in the cross, that Christians will behold their brightest light – the light of the resurrection, God’s final victory over death, sin and darkness! And that is God’s promise to us on Candlemas Day: that whatever we’re going through, light and hope will win out in the end.

Christ is King!

Solemnity of Christ the King Year B

The declaration that “Christ is King” seems innocent enough for us Catholics, albeit somewhat hackneyed. But this has not been the case in America’s highly polarised political climate. On the one side you have people saying this is an affirmation of the Christian faith and a desire to not give in to secular culture. On the other side, you have people saying the phrase Christ is king is antisemitic, or expresses contempt for Jewish people, as the gospels seem to lay the blame on them for killing Jesus, although the actual executioner is Pontius Pilate as we had heard in today’s gospel. And in the weeks leading up to the highly contested presidential elections in the United States, the statement has been construed by those on the left as a pro-Trump dog whistle.

It is obvious that the title has political connotations. It is for this reason that the Jewish leaders brought our Lord before the Roman authorities on charges of treason. In the Empire, only Caesar was truly sovereign and all other client puppet rulers within his domain would have to seek his mandate before they could claim any title or authority. Since the Sanhedrin, the Jewish High Council, was unable to impose capital punishment under their religious blaspheme laws, getting the Romans to adjudicate the case and pass the death penalty was the only option. So, the “crime” of Jesus had to be elevated from a religious sin into a political high crime of treason.

When our Lord was given an opportunity by Pilate to refute the charges of claiming to be “king”, He in fact confirmed the title when the question was put to Him: “Are you the king of the Jews?” And after clarifying that His “kingdom is not of this world,” our Lord proceeds to unequivocally declare: “Yes, I am a king. I was born for this, I came into the world for this: to bear witness to the truth; and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice.” For having affirmed the truth of His kingship instead of denying it, our Lord was condemned to die by crucifixion. He could have lied even when it was inconvenient and politically incorrect to state the truth. He could have protested that it was all a misunderstanding, but He didn’t.

So, for those who clutch their pearls whenever they hear this statement as an anti-Semitic and right-wing slogan, here are some salient truths which is bound to trigger you, rather than lower the temperature: The good news is that Jesus Christ is really king. But He’s also a Jew and in fact hailed as “King of Jews,” the very charge written on the titulus placed on the cross. So, it is an oxymoron to claim that an esteemed royal Jewish title given to a Jew would be anti-Semitic. In fact, this feast was inaugurated by Pope Pius XI as the Church’s challenge to the secularist fascist regimes which were not just anti-semites but also anti-Christian.

It is also important to remember that the “Jesus is King of the Jews” language would have been self-evidently a kind of joke, making fun of both Jesus and his fellow Jews under Roman occupation. The joke is that a king on the throne of David would not be drowning in his own blood, helplessly fixed to a Roman cross. To call him that would make a cruel point not just to any future insurrectionist but to the hopes of Jewish people generally—No one is coming to liberate us. Caesar is king and will remain king. Furthermore, the motives of Pilate’s soldiers in applying the “Christ is king” imagery was even clearer. The purple cloak and the crown of thorns were meant to be a parody—as the Roman soldiers sarcastically saluted Jesus, yelling, “Hail, king of the Jews!” (Mark 15:18). They mocked Jesus both for His alleged claim to kingship and for His Jewishness, both seen as being beneath the majesty of Roman power.

But Jesus is not making any claims to the Roman imperial throne. He has no desire to do so. Our Lord Jesus Christ is not a true and better Caesar. His kingship is something altogether different, in fact, it is not of this world. That’s because the kingdom of God is not a capstone of the aspirations and power games of this present order; it’s a repudiation of them.

If the kingdom of God were about external conformity, tribal membership, or “winning” in the sense that we define it, Jesus could have embraced all of that from the crowds around Him or would have trained His closest associates to become a more effective group of insurgents. The kingdom of God cannot be understood or articulated without seeing that the Crucifixion is not a plot obstacle on a hero’s journey. The way of the Cross is, in fact, the Way to victory and glory, while the way of Caesar leads to death and humiliation. The Cross is indeed our Lord’s true throne. Pope Pius XI taught that Christ the King “has dominion over all creatures, a dominion not seized by violence nor usurped, but His by essence and by nature.” The cross is not what robbed us of our king but in fact, gave us a king.

At a recently concluded Pax Liturgica Meeting in Rome, which went for the most part unnoticed because it was eclipsed by the hyped Synod on Synodality, Cardinal Gerhard Müller warned against bishops betraying their divine mission by relativising doctrine and failing to uphold the orthodox faith. "We must not give in to the following suggestion: If you want to reach people today and be loved by all, then, just like Pilate, leave the truth aside, then you will be spared persecution, suffering, the cross and death! Secularly speaking, the power of politics, media and banks is the safe side, while the truth defies contradiction, and promises suffering with Christ, the crucified Saviour of the world."

So, by declaring that Christ is King is not a triumphalist slogan weaponised against others but a humble acknowledgement that God comes first, above every political movement, above every economic option, above every ideological agenda, above every expression of our narcissistic world-view. To declare that Christ is King is not the symptom of a diseased mind but actually its antidote. To declare that Christ is King is not a refutation of the cross, but, the embrace of it!

Being redeemed in Christ is the antidote for toxic social dynamics. Rather than gaslighting, we have truth; in place of narcissism, there is humility; instead of manipulation, there is a guileless spirit; in place of helplessness and powerlessness, there is the armour of God; rather than oppression, there is deliverance; instead of exhaustion and exploitation, we are made new. So, let us not be abashed or ashamed of declaring with whole-hearted conviction: Christ is King!

The Once-and-for-all Atoning Sacrifice

Thirty Second Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

The holiest day in the Jewish calendar was marked by a unique ceremony that had to be repeated every year, at least while the Temple was still standing. This is Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement. Although no living person in this day and age has ever witnessed this elaborate ceremony, we have the benefit of its detailed records in the Bible, in the Book of Leviticus, a book of rites and ceremonies.

The book of Leviticus says that the High Priest on this most holy day was to enter into the Holy of Holies, which is the inner sanctum of the Temple, the place where the tabernacle was kept. By the time of our Lord, the tabernacle was missing which meant that the Holy of Holies was an empty shell. But that was no excuse to stop this ceremony. The High Priest’s primary responsibility was to offer the sacrifice on Yom Kippur for the forgiveness of the sins of all the Israelites. On the Day of Atonement, the priest would be stripped of his clothes, wash his hands and his feet, and then immerse himself in water and dried off and put on white garments, similar to the white alb the priest and altar servers put on before they enter the Sanctuary. Then the High Priest would offer a bullock, a young bull for his own sin offering as our second reading reminds us, and fill the Holy of Holies with incense; thus, he would be considered purified and ready to offer the sacrifice for the people.

The people would then bring to the High Priest two goats, one goat would be offered to the Lord and the other would become the scapegoat. After the first goat was sacrificed to the Lord as a sign of propitiation (communion with God), the High Priest would take the live scapegoat and lay his hands upon the scapegoat and confess all the sins of the Israelites onto it. This goat represented the act of expiation (the purification from sin). Then a Gentile, because no Jew would want to go near the goat that had all their sins, would tie a scarlet red ribbon around its neck, lead the scapegoat out into the desert, and push it over the cliff. So, when the scapegoat would be pushed over the cliff and die, the Israelites knew all their sins were forgiven.

And here is where the scapegoat gets fascinating. The way the Israelites would know their sins were forgiven is because the High Priest would tie another crimson red ribbon on the door of the Sanctuary. According to the rabbis whose teachings are recorded in the Mishnah, the oral tradition, every year whenever the scapegoat was pushed over the cliff that crimson red ribbon tied on the door to the Sanctuary would miraculously turn white, that way all the Israelites would know their sins are forgiven. And what is even more amazing is that according to the same Jewish tradition, the miracle of the red ribbon turning white happened every year until the year 30, the time of Jesus Christ upon the earth. Though this remained a mystery among the Jews, it is clear to us Christians. We all know what happened on Good Friday – the Lamb of God took away the sins of the world on the cross.

The Cross is the final sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins of all people. Jesus Christ replaces the scapegoat that was offered by the high priest at the Holy of Holies in the Temple at Yom Kippur; He is the sacrificial lamb, who gave Himself up for our eternal life. He, who was without sin, took on the sins of world by His Passion. But He is also the other goat who is sacrificed in the Temple to bring about our complete reconciliation with God, something which all the bloody sacrifices of the Temple could never accomplish. His sacrifice both expiates and propitiates – purifies us from sin and unites us with God. Like all the Jewish High Priests, Jesus too was stripped of His clothes before He was crucified, therefore Jesus is the Great High Priest who offered Himself as the final sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins.

Now, all this alignment between the ritual of the old covenant and what took place on the cross at Calvary on Good Friday would certainly help us to understand what is written by the author of Hebrews in the second reading. But what about the story of the two widows in the first reading and the gospel? Both are certainly models of unrivalled generosity as both gave up their last resort of survival, the first for a stranger and the second for God. In a way, both widows epitomise the two-fold great commandment of love owed toward God and neighbour, which we heard last week. Both women are actually typological figures pointing to another who gave up much more - the One who sacrificed His life for us in order to atone for our sins and reconcile us to the Father. The two small coins of the second widow in our gospel story perhaps symbolises the two-fold action of our Lord’s sacrifice - expiation and propitiation.

It is through this lens that we must now consider the story of the widow’s mite. The main point of the story of the widow’s mite is not what most people have assumed. Have you ever noticed our Lord does not praise the widow for her offering? He does not even encourage us to duplicate her behaviour. He simply states what she did as a fact. The widow’s sacrificial offering points us toward the life of sacrifice Jesus modelled for us. Our Lord offered Himself willingly. He spared nothing, and it cost Him everything. Unlike the animals whose lives were taken against their will, our Lord went to His death willingly for our sake. If you think the widow’s actions as astoundingly generous, it still comes nowhere close to what the Lord has done for us. His generosity knows no bounds.

By shining a light on the unnamed widow’s generosity, our Lord reminds us that what is most important to God is not the quantity of the gift, but the generosity of the one doing the giving. The value of a gift depends not on its absolute worth, but in the love with which it is given. This woman of God gave an offering that resounded louder than the heaps of coins dropped into the treasury by others. Nothing showy. No virtue signalling. In fact, her actions may actually earn her ridicule and derision. But her love for her Lord who had given so much to her blinded her to the burning and judging gaze of others.

Many of us would be guilty of looking at what we possess and be conditioned by a mentality of scarcity, believing that it is never enough for us to share with others. In contrast, a heart of abundance, just like the two widows, looks at the One who provides what we have in our hands. As we recognise our God as the one who provides everything— life, possessions, time, energy, love, and all of who we are—we will grow in our trust of Almighty God’s abundance.

At every Mass, we are brought before the One who sacrificed everything for us, who took our sins upon Himself although He had none, who drew the ire and hatred of the world so that we may be freed from shame and guilt. But unlike the sacrifice of Yom Kippur which had to be repeated to no avail, the Holy Mass is the ‘once for all,’ perfect sacrifice of Calvary, which is presented on heaven’s altar for all eternity. It is not a ‘repeat performance.’ There is only one sacrifice; it is perpetual and eternal, and so it needs never be repeated. And it is by this once for all sacrifice that heaven is finally opened, the gates of God’s abundant graces finally poured upon us, and our reconciliation with Him is finally sealed “once and for all.”

Wisdom pursues eternal life

Twenty Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

If you had a chance to walk through the main doorway of what was once the greatest church in Christendom, the Church of Hagia Sophia (now relegated to a working mosque), a privilege that was once reserved only for emperors and their consorts, your attention would be immediately drawn to the strange mosaic icon on the tympanum which depicts a scene of an emperor kneeling, almost prostrating himself before an enthroned Christ, the Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom). The kneeling monarch is Leon VI or better known as Leon the Wise. He is not specifically famous for his intellect but had earned the notoriety of being married many times with even rumours of him killing his wives in order to be free to marry again. He was the Henry VIII of Byzantium. Leon took a mistress as his concubine and after she had given him a son, decided to make her his fourth wife, which could only be done after having performed a long penance and having made a vow to not seek any further marriage. Thus, the image appears to depict the repentant Leon begging for mercy.

Leon serves as a symbol for all other emperors who have passed through these doors. While the walls of this Church is littered with the royal portraits of other emperors and their consorts occupying seats of honour on the left and right of an image of the enthroned Christ, only here do we have a clue to the answer to the rich young ruler’s question in our gospel: “Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” True wisdom is to be found in humbly kneeling before the One who is the True Source of Wisdom, Christ. He is indeed the source of eternal life. No amount of accomplishments, wealth, power or influence or even virtuous deeds can win us that honour. The hubris of believing oneself to be important, on the other hand, is the epitome of abject folly.

It is obvious that the man who is a seeker in today’s gospel had not internalised the words found in the Book of Wisdom: “I esteemed her more than sceptres and thrones; compared with her, I held riches as nothing. I reckoned no priceless stone to be her peer, for compared with her, all gold is a pinch of sand, and beside her silver ranks as mud.” In Luke’s gospel he is described as a “ruler,” someone of authority and of important social standing. Furthermore, all three synoptic gospels speak of him as a man of great wealth. If he had truly grasped the real worth of “eternal life” which he sought, our Lord’s challenge to go and sell everything and to give the money to the poor would have been easy. His reaction to our Lord’s challenge betrays his real priorities - his wealth was more valuable to him than the eternal life which he claims to be seeking. When it came down to a simple choice between the two, he chose the former, which meant he chose to walk away from Christ.

But to be fair to the rich young ruler, there is depth to his question, something which most of us would never ask God if we were given a blank cheque. The usual list would certainly include wealth, health and success. But to ask for eternal life - that item would most likely not appear on our average radar. Perhaps, it could be argued that this man had already attained all three commonly sought after achievements and felt that there was only one thing lacking - the last item on his bucket list - eternal life. Our Lord had rightly noted that there is one thing he lacked - but the irony is that his “lack,” the emptiness in this man’s life was due to the fact that he lacked nothing. He claimed to have achieved and possessed everything, even in keeping the commandments. When man lacks nothing, he will have no need for God.

This is the reason why the first of the beatitudes speak of the happiness and pronounces a blessing on the poor. The beatitudes are not meant to canonise poverty as a virtue in itself. Jesus is not praising poverty. He is calling His disciples to acknowledge their own powerlessness and utter dependence on God. For who are the poor but those who do not have the resources to meet their own needs. They are poor to the extent that they recognise that everything we are and everything we have, is a gift from God on whom we are totally dependent. The “poor”, therefore, are those who welcome the good news. They are the ones who are ready to “follow” the Lord, because they have no possessions or achievements or accomplishments that will hold them back from this path. This is the wisdom of Christian discipleship, which the world scorns and condemns as folly.

The rich, who are already satisfied with what they possess, or continue to desire for more of such treasures, have little appreciation for the greatest treasure of all - the kingdom of God. They are already self-sufficient and would be unwilling to recognise their own powerlessness, poverty and need for God. Their pride causes them to be self-reliant and closed themselves to the graces and blessings of God. They are the foolish ones even as they scoff those Christians who have chosen to prioritise God and His Kingdom above all else.

The poor, on the other hand, are happy and blessed because they recognise their total dependence on God. In this world, they may have nothing which they can boast of, and yet they are rich beyond measure in the kingdom of heaven, because such riches are not part of this world which is passing, but they are part of a realm that will never pass away.

Now, though the hidden logic of this way of thinking is apparent now but it begs the question, is this practical or even doable? The disciples thought otherwise as they exclaimed in utter despair: “who can be saved?” It is here that our Lord reveals another layer of wisdom to them. Salvation is never just a matter of personal effort, no matter how heroically holy we strive to become. Our Lord reminds them and all of us as well: “For men … it is impossible, but not for God: because everything is possible for God.” Without the sacraments, without the Mass and confession and the prayers of friends, neighbours, saints, and angels, without God’s grace, where would we be? Be assured of this - God doesn’t give you any challenge He won’t send you the grace to handle. If you’re faithful to His calling, you will survive; you will thrive; you will inherit eternal life.

Many decline the path to holiness because they are anxious about failing, even before they have even tried. But the “good news” is that it’s not wholly up to you. The “good news” also involves the way of the Cross. Many of us think we need a beginner’s hack, an extra push, a miraculous spark of luck to get to where we need to go. We forget we need what only Christ’s eternal victory over sin and death can provide. But don’t be in a hurry to see quick results or push your timetable which you expect Him to keep. He’ll do things on His schedule, and not a moment earlier. The process takes time. It takes effort. It requires faith. But the final results are not in doubt: God will make what seems impossible possible. So, in the meantime, as the Book of Wisdom suggests, pray that understanding may be given to you; entreat, that the Spirit of Wisdom may come to you, and as you fall at the feet of the Lord of Lords, He will confer on you what no one else can give – the gift of eternal life.

There can be no gospel without the cross

Twenty Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Today’s gospel reading takes us to the structural centre and turning point in the Gospel of St Mark. It highlights this important truth in life - sometimes when you think you’ve got the right answer only to discover that you were wrong due to some prior presumption. In answering our Lord’s question, “who do you say I am”, St Peter gives the correct answer but we would soon see that he lacks complete understanding of what he had just blurted out.

He is like the blind man of Bethsaida whose miraculous healing had just taken place prior to this episode. No other miracle is like this one. The healing involved a two-stage process – a first part which was only partially successful while complete healing only took place after our Lord had spat into the eyes of the blind man (I understand that even the thought of someone spitting into your eyes will disgust you). The two-stage process was not the result of any inadequacy on the part of our Lord but was meant to be instructive. Peter and all the disciples, including us, are like that blind man. We too need to have our eyes of faith opened in stages, and this is what we witness in today’s passage.

At the beginning of this passage, our Lord asked two questions of the disciples: one concerning the view of the people regarding Himself, and another concerning the disciples' own view of Him. The first question elicited the current speculations that was circulating in the market of opinions - that He was John the Baptist back from beyond the grave, that He was Elijah who was expected to return before the arrival of the great and terrible Day of the Lord, and finally, that He was a prophet in the line of prophets from the Old Testament, just like how many had thought of John the Baptist. Never once is it recorded that the populace had even the slightest inkling that this is the Messiah. They thought of Him as one who was looking for another yet to come, and there is no indication that they ever got beyond that view.

But now our Lord cuts through the popular speculations and demands an answer from His own disciples. “But you … yes you … who do you say I am?” They could no longer hide behind the opinions of others. Our Lord now confronts them with this penetrating question which demands an honest answer. Their answer will either reveal their knowledge or expose their ignorance. The disciples had been the only ones privy to the secrets and mysteries revealed by the Lord. Peter's reply is immediate and definite: "You are the Christ." And this is indeed the correct answer. All that the Lord had done up to that point had been designed to lead them to this understanding of who He was, that they might then answer their own question.

"Christ" is simply the Greek form of the Hebrew word "Messiah". They mean exactly the same thing. And it is not a name, but a title. Jesus is His name, Christ is His office. And, in either the Greek or the Hebrew form, it means The Anointed One, or the One anointed by God. In the Old Testament there were two offices which required anointing: king, and priest. Our Lord, therefore, fulfils both roles but in a most perfect and unexpected way. And it is clear from what happens next that Peter’s and the other disciples’ understanding of the significance of this title is still not up to par. They were still stuck in their Old Testament categories and contemporary expectations of a political messiah whose mission was confined to the political liberation and restoration of the kingdom of Israel. For this reason, the Lord commanded them to remain quiet about this knowledge and not spread it because it would only fuel more false expectations of His mission.

We can see why the Lord did this, in the light of the story of the blind man which preceded this passage. This is that first touch, which opened their eyes to partial truth. They saw Him, but not clearly. They were astounded by Him, amazed and dazzled and fascinated, but not comprehending of what He really was like. They still require the second touch.

And the second touch came in the form of our Lord’s prediction about His passion and death. This was so essential to understanding His office and mission as the Messiah that our Lord repeated it three times, each time with additional details. In other words, to truly understand our Lord as the Christ, the long-awaited Messiah, the Anointed One of God, they must see Him in the light of the cross. This is where the image of the Suffering Servant mentioned in the first reading is woven into the prophecies of the Old Testament. The Saviour of Israel and indeed of the World, is also the One who comes not to be served but to serve and to give His life as ransom for many (Mark 10:45). And this time, He said all these things about His own passion “quite openly.” There was no longer any need for secrets to avoid confusion. It is clear that they understood what He said because Peter’s immediate response would be to attempt to convince our Lord from speaking in this fashion or even contemplating “political suicide”, which rightly earned our Lord’s rebuke: “Get behind me Satan!”

Peter and any of us speak with the voice of Satan whenever we try to reason away the cross or put forward a cheap form of discipleship which demands little or no sacrifice from us. This is what Satan attempts to do - present us with a saccharine saturated Christianity of nice platitudes, big promises of blessings, a final solution to all our troubles, but a path without the cross. Christianity without the cross is not Christianity at all, but a shabby, slimy substitute. The cross is what makes it Christian.

A gospel without the cross is a gospel of "self-sufficiency," "self-reliance." And a gospel of self-sufficiency is a gospel that claims to have no need for God or grace. Embracing the cross and following Christ means entrusting ourselves to His providence and care. It means placing our trust in Him and His grace rather than in our own resources, efforts and strength. The path of discipleship necessarily involves sacrifice. And sacrifice in order to be sacrifice needs to hurt. We often tend to shield ourselves and others from pain, failure, suffering, and setbacks, failing to realise that whenever we do so, we assume the position of Peter in wanting to avoid the cross. The cross in our lives does not spell destruction but actually entails salvation.

Giving the right answer is just the first piece of a puzzle. Living the right life is what completes it. This was the lesson St Peter had to learn and which each of us disciple-wannabes, must take to heart. The call to discipleship is radical and ultimately intertwined with the cross. The cross of our Lord Jesus is inseparable from the life of a Christian. We cannot claim to want to follow Christ if we are unwilling to renounce ourselves, take up our crosses and follow Him on the Way, which He has set for us. It goes without saying that Christ and the cross, are a package deal. But, instead of seeing it as a burden to endure, a peril to flee from or a curse which we cannot avoid, recognise the cross as the only way to salvation. There can be no resurrection if there was no cross. As St. Rose of Lima said, “Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven.”

Glory and Victory

Good Friday

The passion account from the four gospels provide us with four separate and distinct viewpoints of Jesus' suffering, betrayal, trial, and Crucifixion. Although the passion gospel for Palm Sunday follows the three years lectionary cycle, the passion gospel for Good Friday is always taken from St John’s Gospel, year in year out. The liturgy seems to express the Carthusian motto in choosing to stick with this one text as an immovable axis despite the revolving lectionary cycles: “Stat crux dum volvitur orbis” - “the Cross is steady while the world turns.”

Why would John’s version be chosen as the Passion for Good Friday? What do we encounter in John’s account of our Lord’s death? All the great themes of St John’s Gospel are featured here: love as sacrifice, glory as life laid down, the majesty of the suffering Christ whose crucifixion is exaltation and whose cross is a royal throne. The key to understanding John’s Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ is found in this theme: “glory”! “Glory” is St John’s most distinctive word. “We have seen His glory, full of grace and truth” John says at the beginning, in the epic prologue of his gospel; a word picked up frequently as the gospel unfolds. The paradox of this theme is that the glory of Jesus is ultimately revealed in His suffering and death on the cross. It is at the precise moment of His passion that Christ appears most kingly, most glorious! His kingship is acclaimed even in His passion. In fact, it is most apparent.

Unlike the other gospels where Simon the Cyrene helps our Lord carry His cross, here our Lord carries the cross Himself. He has no need of our help or any help. He’s quite capable of carrying the entire burden of the world and its weight of sin. Unlike Luke’s gospel where the women of Jerusalem weep out of pity for Him, here our Lady and three other women (including the Beloved Disciple) stand beneath the shadow of the cross, almost composed and in awe as they have profound confidence in our Lord’s authority even at the hour of His death. Our Lord has no need of our pity or sympathy. Unlike Matthew and Mark’s account, there is no loud exclamation of abandonment (“My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me!”). Instead, our Lord continues to issue commands from the cross as a King would and should: “Woman, this is your son” … “this is your mother.” Till the very end, our Lord is in charge.

Therefore, the Passion of St John, chronologically speaking, is not first a defeat then a victory (as might be said regarding the other gospels or in the Liturgy) but the Passion, in itself, is a victory right from the very start. At one and the same time, the Passion seems an apparent defeat and the greatest victory. This is why in the Byzantine Rite (be it Catholic or Orthodox) the “Alleluia” – a song of praise and joy – is sung when the Lord dies, because what occurred on the Cross and His holy death are seen already as a victory over evil – something not experienced in the same way in our Roman Liturgy. Our Eastern brethren can’t wait for Easter to do this!

In St Luke’s Gospel, our Lord dies as the obedient servant with a goodnight prayer on His lips: ‘into thy hands I commend my spirit’. But in John, the last word from the cross is a single word in Greek: tetelestai, or in our translation: “It is accomplished!” That word is the clue to the entire Passion and indeed to the Fourth Gospel. What does this mean?

This last word of our Lord is not the last utterance of a dying man, fading away into nothing, as if it stands for resigned acceptance of an inevitable, tragic destiny with the overtones of defeat: ‘it’s all over’? No! This is no cry of defeat but a stirring victory song. The meaning of this word is captured by the line in Bach’s musical rendition of St John’s Passion: “the hero of Judah wins with triumph and ends the fight.” His message is that while death is indeed ‘the last enemy’, this death marks the beginning of the great reversal through which life is given back to the world: not defeat but victory. If this is how the passion story ends, then Golgotha must be understood not only as a place of pain but of transfiguration.

John’s invitation is to contemplate with him what Jesus realises on the Cross. Since Adam’s Fall, we have been separated from God. The Tree of Life was no longer available to us, and all must now suffer death. The Incarnation is only one step in the journey that God makes to draw Himself closer to us. The first step. But it is on the cross that our Lord completed that work of reconciliation. It is in this context that we can understand His final words: “it is accomplished.” It is at the moment of His holy death that our Lord completes His grand work of restoring what was lost to us, but now in a more resplendent and glorious form. He gives His own divine life to us on the cross. The Cross, the tree of death, is paradoxically, the Tree of Life, our guarantee of entrance into Paradise! This is why this Friday is known as Good Friday. In fact, calling it Good Friday is an understatement. In other non-English speaking countries, today is actually called the Great Friday.

Although our world is often plunged into darkness with every crisis that we encounter, a loved one whom we have lost, a friendship or relationship that is severed, a plan that experiences setback, an endeavour which ends in failure, or a physical pain or terminal ailment that is unbearable, we can still find strength, hope and joy in knowing that our lives continue to be illuminated by the brilliant transforming power of the Cross. If we entrust to the crucified Lord our sufferings, He transforms them. The Cross, in sum, is a true transformer, that takes all our darkness, bitterness, sin, death and gives us back light, sweetness, grace and Life.

We have this beautiful assurance and reminder from Pope Benedict XVI: “A world without the Cross would be a world without hope, a world in which torture and brutality would go unchecked, the weak would be exploited and greed would have the final word. Man’s inhumanity to man would be manifested in ever more horrific ways, and there would be no end to the vicious cycle of violence. Only the Cross puts an end to it. While no earthly power can save us from the consequences of our sins, and no earthly power can defeat injustice at its source, nevertheless the saving intervention of our loving God has transformed the reality of sin and death into its opposite.” (Pope Benedict XVI, Nicosia, Cyprus, 5 June 2010)

Have a Good Friday! Nay, have a Great Friday!!!!

A Week of Decisions

Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord

Before the advent of sophisticated computer games, in a much simpler world, ordinary objects like sticks and stones, house furniture and flowers could be transformed into the most ingenious objects of play and entertainment. One simple single player game served as a kind of divination as to whether someone who is the object of our affection is willing to return the affection. As you pluck the petals of the flower, you alternately speak the following phrases with each petal representing one or the other proposition: “she loves me” or “she loves me not.”

If you had paid attention to today’s reading, you would be wondering how the crowds’ love-hate relationship with the Lord will eventually play out - will they love Him or love Him not? Today’s liturgy, especially the first gospel before our procession and the passion reading we’ve just heard, seems to give us an impression of the crowds that is bipolar. When it comes to Jesus - you will either love Him to bits or hate Him to the core. Sometimes, both at the same time and by the same folks.

The crowd described in the gospel at the start of the procession and the one that gathers before Pilate during our Lord’s trial could very well have been made up of the same cohort. The same jubilant fan club that welcomed the Lord as a homecoming hero at the start of the story adds their blood thirsty voices to the lynching mob at the end. There is no way of avoiding the discomfort that comes with the whiplash of hearing shouts of “hosanna” one minute and “crucify him” the next. This day, like the week it begins, is all about the extremes.

What could have transformed an excited jubilant welcoming committee into a bloodthirsty lynch mob? They had expected a Messianic king who will lead them in rebellion against the Roman Empire but instead Jesus proved to be a major disappointment since He refused to rally His supporters in open rebellion. For that they had turned Him over to the very authorities whom they despised. If our Lord was not willing to kill the oppressors, He will be left to die in their hands.

How the Roman authorities got involved would also require a bit of explanation. The Roman prefect of Judea, Pontius Pilate, would travel to Jerusalem from his palace on the coast at Caesarea. He was there for a specific reason. It was the feast of Passover, one of the three major pilgrimage festivals which meant that Jerusalem’s population would have swelled from its usual 50,000 to many times its normal size. He came to be where the action is and to make sure the Jews didn’t start making any trouble. Passover was significant because it commemorates the Jews’ deliverance from Egypt. The Passover Seder commemorates the bitterness of slavery under an oppressive regime and a sweet taste of freedom from a reign of terror – and you can see why that made the Romans nervous. That’s why Pontius Pilate had to come to Jerusalem in all of his imperial majesty, to remind the Jewish pilgrims that Rome was in charge.

In a city rife with trouble and rebellion, our Lord was caught in the crosshairs. He refused to bend to the crowds who demanded that He be a king of their design. Neither would He admit to Pontius Pilate that it was all a mistake. For this, He willingly accepted the second parade. This time there will not be admirers and supporters lining the path to wave Him on with expectant jubilation but a cruel angry mob mocking His passage and ushering Him to His humiliating death. Though the first parade seems to befit a king and the second a criminal, it was actually the second parade which highlights our Lord’s true glory and majesty. Here is a King who will not just inspire His subjects to die for Him. Here is a King who would willingly die for His people, even those who had rejected Him.

Just as you can’t have the resurrection on Easter without the cross on Good Friday, you can’t fully experience the Passion narrative without the rest of Holy Week. We need the story of the Palm Sunday parade that welcomed a King. But we also need to hear the parade to the place of execution, the way of the cross undertaken by a man condemned to suffer on our behalf. This is the king we are called to follow—humble, riding on a donkey, calling those who would follow Him to embrace the way of sacrifice, suffering, and servanthood. His call is not to a throne, but to a cross. Jesus isn’t waiting around for us to ask Him into our lives—He’s calling us to be in His life, to walk His way, to join His march to the cross.

When we arrive at the cross, will we be like the crowds who would readily shout “we love you” when things are going our way but immediately turn our backs on Him when He fails to meet our expectations and declare with disdain: “we love you not”?

This is a week of decisions. This is a week of extremes: of highs and lows; of joys and sorrows, love and hate but it only works if we are willing to accept it all. You need to walk in the way of our Lord's suffering and live in the tension of His judgment, so that you can properly share the joy of His resurrection.