We dare to say

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

The prayer of Abraham in the first reading stands in contrast to that of our Lord’s in the gospel. If Abraham struggled to find the words to intercede on behalf of the depraved inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah and even attempts to haggle and bargain with God in making a deal, our Lord provides us with the blue print of prayer in the gospel. There is no longer any need on our part to haggle with God or broker a deal like an astute lawyer, businessman or politician. God, the party on the other end of the transaction (if you see prayer as transactional), is already disclosing to us all His cards and the key to winning His favour and acquiescence.

Although what we’ve just read and heard is a different and shorter version of the Lord’s Prayer which we pray at every Mass and in our devotions, it doesn’t tamper the radical demands which we make of God. In fact, the prayer has the audacity of making the following demands of God: we demand intimacy and familiarity with God’s person and name that borders on the contemptuous and blasphemous, we demand the coming of the kingdom, we demand the terra-forming of our trouble ridden earth so that it may become more like a trouble free heaven, we demand daily sustenance from on high, we demand that our sins be forgiven, and finally we demand shelter from temptation and deliverance from evil. If the school of hard knocks has taught us anything, it would be this: never make unreasonable demands, don’t expect the impossible. Well, for man all these may seem impossible; but for God, everything’s possible! We shouldn’t, therefore, feel uncomfortable or embarrassed to recite this prayer, as it is the Lord Himself who teaches us to do so!

This point is recognised in the introduction spoken by the priest at every Mass before the community recites in unison the Lord’s Prayer, "At the Saviour's command and formed by divine teaching, we dare to say..." The phrase ‘we dare to say’ inherently recognises our insignificance before the Father. We are humbly admitting that it has nothing to do with us, in fact, it admits that it is not even something which we can ever hope to accomplish. The words convey a profound sense of unworthiness; we are in no position to make any claims or demands.

The whole phrase places the Lord’s Prayer in a different light – it is no longer to be seen as a cry of entitlement, a demand made on God to fulfill our petitions and wishes. But rather, it is a prayer of humility by someone truly unworthy to even stand before the august presence of God and yet dare to address Him with the familiar “daddy” and make a series of demands of Him. The catechism tells us that “Our awareness of our status as slaves would make us sink into the ground and our earthly condition would dissolve into dust, if the authority of our Father Himself and the Spirit of his Son had not impelled us to this cry . . . ‘Abba, Father!’ . . . When would a mortal dare call God ‘Father,’ if man’s innermost being were not animated by power from on high?” It is by placing ourselves into the position of a child, calling God our Father, that we open ourselves to the grace by which we approach God with the humble boldness of a little child.

This is how we should approach prayer. It should neither be some arcane magical formula that forces the hand of God nor just a mechanical and superficial repetition of words just to appease Him. Prayer should always be rooted in a father-child relationship where the child trusts that the father will always have his best interest in mind even if he doesn’t always get want he wants. The supplicant who comes before God doesn’t need to approach Him as a lawyer who comes before the judge, hoping to outwit and win an argument with the latter. He already knows that the Supreme Judge will always stand with Him and even stand in His place to take the punishment which he deserves.

There is a Latin maxim that addresses the centrality and priority of prayer in the life, identity and mission of the Church; “Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi”, the law of prayer reflects the law of faith which determines the law of life. Too often it is the other way around. Our lifestyle choices force our beliefs to conform to them and thereafter affect the way we pray. But when it comes to us Christians, everything begins with prayer. Our lives must be conformed to prayer and not the other way. How we worship and pray not only reveals and guards what we believe but guides us in how we live our Christian faith and fulfill our Christian mission in the world. As much as we are sometimes taken up with the spontaneity of the praying style of our Protestant brethren, and many of us too are tempted to venture into some innovative and creative explorations on our own, we must always remember that the best prayer, or as St Thomas Aquinas reminds us, the most Perfect Prayer, is still the prayer not formulated by any human poet or creative genius but by Christ, the Son of God Himself. In a way, God provides us the words to speak to Him.

Thus, our ability to pray in this way can only come to us by the grace of God - it is only because our Saviour has commanded it and because we have been formed by divine teaching, that ‘we dare to say.’ There is no arrogant audacity in the tone of our voice or the content of our prayer. We take no credit for this prayer. All glory goes to God and to His Christ, Jesus our Lord. We are not the natural sons and daughters of the Heavenly Father. We have no right to address Him by this familiar name. All our words seem banal and fall empty in the light of the pre-existent Word. But because of Jesus through baptism, I have become an adopted child. The Father is revealed to us by His Son and we can approach Him only through the Son. Because of Jesus, my prayer now derives an amazing and miraculous efficacy. For that reason, we dare to call God “Our Father.” Through this prayer, the unapproachable God becomes approachable. The unknown God is made known. The strange and unfamiliar God becomes familiar and a friend. The prayer unspoken is already answered!

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.

Start all over, make a new beginning

Easter Sunday

Some folks are simply morning people. They go to bed early and wake up in the wee hours of the morning while everyone else is still tucked snugly into their beds counting sheep. I’m not one of those folks. I follow a diametrically opposite regime - late nights and waking up just in time for morning rituals and Mass. I’ve often admired the members of our morning Mass animating team who get up early every morning to prepare our chapel for daily Mass and still have time to spare for morning devotions and Lauds before Mass. I guess they too would have been the first to discover the good news of what had happened on that first Easter morning, while the rest of us are still shaking off the slumber of the previous night.

Well, Mary Magdala in today’s gospel was indeed rewarded with her early morning ritual on this very day over two thousand years ago: “It was very early on the first day of the week and still dark, when Mary of Magdala came to the tomb.” Only in John’s account is Mary pictured alone. She is accompanied by other women in the other gospel accounts of the resurrection. It would make more sense for a gaggle of women, for strength lies in numbers, to make their way to this place, to a cemetery, what more a place guarded by soldiers. But St John the Evangelist is content to state that Mary made this journey alone. Perhaps, it was too early for the others or they had stayed away due to fear for their own safety. The male disciples were no where to be seen. They must be drowning in sorrow, grieving over the death of the Lord or perhaps were still held captive by fear.

Mary was there because of unfinished business. On Good Friday, we heard at the end of the long Passion reading, how our Lord was hurriedly prepared for burial, wrapped in a shroud filled with spices, “a mixture of myrrh and aloes.” In the other gospels, it was noted that it was done in such a hurry because the sabbath, which prohibited such rituals, was about to begin and there was no time to complete what needed to be done. Whatever may have been the circumstances, Mary was there because she had unfinished business. Firstly, to complete in a more thorough manner the dictates of Jewish burial customs and secondly, to bring some closure to her own profoundly deep sense of loss.

Mary was there early in the morning just as we are here this morning because it is insufficient to close an episode of our lives after the death of a loved one with his or her funeral. Sometimes we believe that if the person who hurt us passes away, like a parent or spouse, their death will bring peace to our lives. However, in reality it usually brings more sorrow and regret because it leaves us with a sense of things being left unfinished. Funerals can be beautifully consoling experiences, bringing solace to the grieving, camaraderie among the survivors, healing to scars opened by the barb of loss, but it can never truly bring a closure to the wounds we experience both emotionally and psychologically.

If funerals are the last thing we can do for the one we have lost, there is much unfinished business that needs attention and further resolution. Our commemoration of the Lord’s life cannot end with Good Friday. It must find fulfilment and completion on Easter Sunday. And that is why Good Friday is leavened with the promise of Easter. Easter is when our Lord completes His work of redemption. On Easter, our Lord completes the unfinished business often left hanging in our lives.

There’s a song from one of my favourite artists from the 80s and 90s, Tracy Chapman, that has a stanza in it that goes like this:

“The whole world’s broke, it ain’t worth fixing
It’s time to start all over, make a new beginning
There’s too much pain, too much suffering
Let’s resolve to start all over, make a new beginning.”

Easter means the “making right” of things that have gone wrong: the forgiveness of sins; the reversal of death; the repair of broken relationships with God, each other and creation. This is not just an elusive ideal but a reality. Christ’s resurrection has made this certain. This is the powerful message of Easter that continues to unravel its mysteries over the course of our lives. This is what we look forward to, a new creation. A transformation. We will not merely be going back to normal, we will be going forward to something different, something new. It’s an illusion to think that we’re going to return to the way life was before. There is no going back. The past is an empty tomb. Our Lord is Risen, He is not there!

What unfinished business is waiting for us? Is it a conversation we’ve been afraid to have with someone? Is it a decision we’ve been putting off? Is it a relationship with someone that needs mending? Today’s message is really that none of these questions need receive a silent answer nor lead us to a dead end. We are challenged once again to engage the unfinished business before us and live the resurrection—through the actions we can take, attitudes we can adopt, ready to allow the Lord to write the next chapter in our own gospel. And also, ready to discover how the risen Jesus is present NOW, in our time and place. As St Paul assures us, be “confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil 1:6). Christ IS risen. He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

Inwards to Outwards, Downwards to Upwards

First Sunday of Lent Year C

People have often noted that our society has become increasingly Godless or more atheistic. Is this true? There are countless of studies done in the West that seems to support this proposition. When surveyed, the majority of individuals state that they don’t identify with any religion. As Chesterton said, “He who does not believe in God will believe in anything.” Just recently, Lady Gaga when receiving her Grammy award, proudly declared: “music is love,” perhaps a deliberate spin on St John’s declaration that “God is love.”

We may be tempted (forgive the obvious pun) to focus merely on the temptations of Christ on this First Sunday of Lent, but the readings actually take us along another path of reflexion - what do we really believe in - the faith which we profess. You will notice that during the season of Lent and Easter, it is strongly recommended that the longer Nicene Creed is substituted with the shorter Apostles’ Creed. The reason for this substitution is not due to the brevity of the latter since our liturgies of Lent are typically lengthened by the Rites associated with the RCIA. The real reason is that the Apostles’ Creed is the creed used at baptism and the focus of both Lent and Easter is the Sacrament of Initiation, which begins with Baptism.

That is the reason why we have two ancient examples of professions of faith in today’s readings, the first predating Christianity, while the second is one of the earliest Christian creeds.

In the first reading, we have the ancient profession of faith which focuses on what God has done for the Israelites during the Exodus. Moses instructs the people that this creed is to be said by the priests when making an offering on behalf of the people, reminding them of the reason why the sacrifice is made. They should never forget that God is the very reason for their existence, their survival, and their freedom.

In the second reading, St Paul explains that the Christian profession of faith should focus on our belief in Jesus as Lord and what God has done by raising Him from the dead: “If your lips confess that Jesus is Lord and if you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you will be saved. By believing from the heart you are made righteous; by confessing with your lips you are saved.”

Finally, in the gospel we come to realise that creeds are not just meant to be propositional (mere statements of belief) but are meant to be practical (to be lived out). Here we have the three temptations posed by Satan to the Lord. St Luke’s ordering of the temptations is slightly different from Matthew’s version (the second temptation is switched with the third). On the face of it, these three temptations appear to have nothing to do with our profession of faith but are in fact an inversion, a parody of our fundamental faith. Satan, the adversary of God and man, is attempting to lure our Lord into making a mockery of faith by professing a faith which places trust in His own resources and even in the devil, as opposed to placing our trust and faith in God. Before we affirm our faith in God, we must renounce our dependence on Satan.

This is the reason why during the rite of Baptism and the renewal of baptismal promises made at Easter and before one receives the Sacrament of Confirmation, the renunciation of sin is a necessary prelude to the profession of faith and both precedes the administering of the sacrament of baptism and confirmation. Because of the renunciation of sin and profession of faith, which forms one rite, the elect would not be baptised merely passively but will receive this great sacrament with the active resolve to renounce error and hold fast to God.

As I had mentioned earlier, St Luke’s ordering of the temptations differ from that of St Matthew’s. Unlike St Matthew, Luke concludes the list of temptations with the temptation that takes place within the Temple precinct and not on a mountaintop. Here, we witness the audacity of the devil to challenge God’s sovereignty, the ultimate basis of all temptations. These temptations are not merely luring Christ or each of us to place our trust in the cravings of the flesh or the material things of the world. Sin ultimately turns us away from God. The devil is actually selling us this lie - trust in your own desires, trust in your own power, trust in your own strength - because trusting in God is wholly insufficient! It is never enough!

The gospels in setting out these three temptations are trying to juxtapose to the experience of the Israelites in the wilderness with our Lord Jesus’ own experience. The three temptations of Jesus recall the three failures of the Israelites in the desert. Where the devil tempts the Lord to turn stones into bread, we see how the Israelites complained about the lack of food in the desert. Where the devil places our Lord on a mountain and promises Him lordship over the world if only He would bow and worship him, the Israelites questioned the lordship of God and instead worshipped an idol, a bronze calf. Where the devil tempts our Lord to test God, the devil had succeeded in getting the Israelites to test God while they were in the desert.

Satan was tempting Jesus to recapitulate the Israelites' lack of trust in God. Jesus would have nothing of it. In one of the most beautiful lines in Sacred Scripture, the letter to the Hebrews tells us, "We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet never sinned" (Heb 4:15). The story ends with our Lord’s victory. Temptation does not necessarily lead to sin. If we hold fast to the Lord, and rely on His grace and strength, we will be victorious. Lent is the season when we are called to recapitulate our Lord’s victory over sin rather than the Israelites’ failure. The Church aids us in the battle by recommending the three practices of Lent – fasting, almsgiving and prayer. The practices of Lent are the remedy to the temptations of the Evil One.

At the end of this Lenten season, we will celebrate and profess the mystery of faith - the death and the resurrection of the Lord. At Easter, the priest will invite you to renew your baptismal promises with these words: “Dear brethren, through the Paschal Mystery we have been buried with Christ in Baptism, that we may walk with him in newness of life. And so, let us renew the promises of Holy Baptism, which we once renounced Satan and his works and promised to serve God in the holy Catholic Church.” We turn away from being ‘inwards and downwards’ to being ‘outwards and upwards.’ Having rejected Satan and all his works and empty promises, let us with firm conviction profess our faith publicly in God the Father and His works, in God the Son, Jesus Christ, and His works, and in God the Holy Spirit and His works. Those works, which the Lord has begun in us, will continue in us throughout this season of Lent and beyond until the Lord completes it when we go forth to meet Him as He returns in glory.

The Cursed and the Blessed

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

What does a world without trust look like? If subjects no longer trust politicians and their leaders, our society would descend into chaotic anarchy. If consumers no longer trust that their data and money can be safeguarded, then the modern financial system could collapse. If litigants no longer trust the legal and judicial system, justice would be an elusive illusion. Marriages will breakdown, families will divide and communities would be perpetually splintered. Trust is the base layer of all human relationships. Without trust, there can be no value exchange, no community, no intimacy. It would seem that Confucius was right when he declared: “without trust we cannot stand.”

And yet, our Lord begins His soliloquy in the first reading with these words: “A curse on the man who puts his trust in man, who relies on things of flesh, whose heart turns from the Lord. He is like dry scrub in the wastelands…” Is God calling us to abandon trusting humans altogether? Is He advocating that we should be perpetually weary of the deceit and untrustworthiness of others? I believe reading the passage in its entirety will help us to understand these troubling and challenging words.

If we were to go to the beginning of this chapter in the Book of Jeremiah, which has not been included in our lectionary selection, the prophet correctly observes that “sin is engraved with an iron tool, inscribed with a flint point on the tablet of their hearts.” That hardened sin is why God is so harsh in His condemnation of Israel and it is sin which has rendered the heart “deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” So, what the Lord is warning us is to distrust sin which causes man to be deceitful. The problem with marriage that results in divorce is not the institution of marriage itself nor due to some inherent defect of the partners to the marriage, but sin which corrupts the heart and leads us to break covenant with each other. Sin makes the human heart inherently self-centered, unable to see itself accurately and correct itself.

On the other hand, the man who places his trust in God will not be disappointed or as the text of Jeremiah assures us, he will be “blessed.” The reason for this is that God is not only truthful, He is truth, and therefore, ever faithful, and borrowing the language of a marriage covenant, He is true to us in good times as well as in bad, in sickness and health, and unlike the partners to marriage, even death cannot separate us from the love of God. At the end of the day, our Lord is not advising us to treat every person with suspicion. No relationship can be sustained and no society can survive without learning to trust others. But trusting in others requires faith in someone far greater than them. We lay our hearts on the line knowing God is the only one who ultimately keeps them.

There is no greater proof of this proposition than the Catholic Church. Christ founded His Church on the foundation of weak men and where is the Church today? She remains standing despite centuries of persecution, ostracisation, schisms, heresies and bad shepherds. On the other hand, look at the empires, kingdoms and governments built by strong, talented and charismatic men. Where are they now? Most are in the dust and reduced to the pages of history books. One thing is true, our trust in God would not disappoint because God will not fail us. If men can betray us, break their promises to us, disappoint us with their failures, God will never do so. He can’t. It’s against His very nature. This is why St Paul can declare that “hope does not disappoint” (Rom 5:5), because that hope is founded on a God who will not disappoint!

So, we can now understand the simple binary picture painted in both the first reading as well as in the gospel, where our Lord Jesus sets out Luke’s version of the beatitudes matched by a set of woes or curses. Those whose hearts turn away from the Lord are cursed and those whose hearts trust the Lord are blessed. It’s as simple as that. There are just two kinds of people in the world—the cursed and the blessed—and the difference is whom they trust. In a world filled with differences and divided by those differences, that is a revelation. It’s not black or white, rich or poor, Jew or Gentile, male or female, old or young that ultimately matters. It is where the heart of each person places their trust.

If you still can’t see the difference in this morally ambiguous world of ours, Jeremiah sets it out in stark contrast. He describes what being “cursed” means with an image of a bush in the desert, where there is no steady water supply. Such a person will live on the edge of existence, always thirsty for more water, always on the verge of dying, so that when water finally comes in the form of an occasional thunderstorm, it won’t lead to a good harvest or abundance. Such a person will survive, but just barely. Life will be parched and lonely and unfruitful at its core.

And then Jeremiah describes what “blessed” means with the image of a tree planted by a stream that never dries up. Because its roots are sunk deep in the “spring of living water,” the person who trusts in the Lord does “not fear when heat comes,” “in a year of drought.” His life is always verdant, and he continually bears fruit. So, he does not live in fear and worry. Life is abundant for the person whose heart trusts in the Lord, rather than in human beings.

So, how do we grow in trusting God rather than in ourselves and our resources? The answer is prayer. When man works man works but when man prays, God works. The self-sufficient man does not pray because he sees no need for prayer. The mystic and saint, Padre Pio puts it in the simplest terms: “Pray persistently, daily, and with love. Pray in the face of every challenge, every crisis, every failure, every cross. Pray, and hope, and don't worry, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we shall renew the face of the earth.” Don’t let prayer be your last resort when all else fails. Begin every venture, every decision, every challenge with prayer. Do not just do your best and let God do the rest. Let God be the fuel, the guide, the inspiration and the object of everything you do.

To sum it, let us listen to the words of this spiritual author, Thomas a Kempis who gave us this classic literature on spirituality, The Imitation of Christ:

“Vain is the man who puts his trust in men, in created things.
Do not be ashamed to serve others for the love of Jesus Christ and to seem poor in this world. Do not be self-sufficient but place your trust in God. Do what lies in your power and God will aid your good will. Put no trust in your own learning nor in the cunning of any man, but rather in the grace of God Who helps the humble and humbles the proud.”

Preach the Complete Truth

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

This passage has often been cited as a model for preachers to keep their sermons short and sweet. If you had paid attention to the last line of the passage, many have claimed that this is indeed the shortest sermon ever delivered: “This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen.” But such a claim is grossly inaccurate and in fact, quite mischievous. It is clear that when we read the rest of the text in this pericope, our Lord has much more to say. And it would be stretching it to see how our Lord won the approval of the audience and caused them to be “astonished by the gracious words that came from His lips,” with just this one liner. The “gracious words” here, would obviously point to other things which our Lord said, as evidenced by our Lord’s use of two Old Testament illustrations if you read the rest of the following verses, which are not included in our lectionary selection.

Pope Francis has often reiterated his preference for brevity in preaching, which in his opinion, should not exceed 10 minutes. By the number of likes and retweets we see in social media whenever the pontiff’s advice on succinct preaching is reported, we get the impression that many Catholics are certainly in support of this guidance and show us how little our well-thought-out homilies are appreciated by the masses.

But should our homilies be solely measured by their length? It is good to note that our Lord was not known for the brevity of His Sermons. We have both the Sermon on the Mount (St Matthew’s Gospel), which stretches across three chapters, and the parallel albeit shorter Sermon on the Plain (St Luke’s version), as proof that our Lord did deliver lengthy sermons when necessary. His lengthy discourses in the Fourth Gospel are further evidence of this point.

In short, it is always much more effective if you can say things in a far more efficient way with less verbosity, but brevity can never be the sole or the most important criterion. In fact, I dare say that our generation suffers more from a lack of hearing the Word than it does from over-hearing it. Our problem is not “too much” of the Word of God” but rather “too little.” Our generation can sit through a two-hour or sometimes three-hour movie, a student can endure an hour-long lecture involving complex ideas, a young person can be totally engrossed in his gaming for hours on end without requiring any break, and yet, find a ten to fifteen minutes homily something beyond endurance.

A good homily is never to be measured by its brevity or entertainment quality but by how it corresponds with God’s agenda as in the case of our Lord’s preaching in today’s passage. Our Lord was not just spewing nice platitudes and entertaining anecdotes. He was setting out not His own agenda but God’s programme for His ministry which He faithfully desired to adhere to. So how long should a sermon or homily take? As long as it is necessary to convey what God wishes to say to His people, and no clock is going to put a cap on that.

Returning to our gospel passage and our Lord’s supposed short 10 seconds sermon, it is good to remember who Jesus is, which no one else can claim to be. It would seem from the brevity of our Lord’s sermon that the words of the prophet Isaiah which our Lord had just read were sufficient and our Lord only needed to declare that if His congregation wished to understand its meaning, they only had to look at Him. Our Lord, the Word Enfleshed, is the living fulfilment of that message. So, our Lord has the sole privilege of delivering the shortest 10 seconds homily, only because He is the Word. The rest of us poor preachers need more time to get the message across, precisely because we are not the Word, merely its servants.

The homily provides an unmatched opportunity for us priests to remind or inform our congregation what exactly we believe, and why. It is said that St Dominic often reminded his confreres in the Order of Preachers that they only had two tasks – to speak with God or to speak about God. Notice what’s missing from this formula? The homily is not meant for the priest to speak about himself. It is not meant to entertain, to provide practical self-help or adapt to your comfort level. It is a chance for us to provide a clear, unafraid, proclamation of the fullness of the Truths taught by the Scriptures and the Church which guards the deposit of faith. We may or may not need 30 minutes to achieve that, but we do need to make sure that what is said is distinctively and challengingly Catholic.

Just before Christmas last year, Elon Musk tweeted a photo of two piles of documents which were meant to be passed by the US Congress to ensure that their government did not shut down. One was a voluminous bill with thousands of pages and the second was just a thin tiny fraction of the former with just over one hundred pages. The message of the juxtaposition was clear and simple. Smaller, thinner, less is better. A Catholic apologist affixed his own commentary to the picture. The thicker pile represented the deposit of faith of the Catholic Church while the vastly thinner pile represented the Protestant watered down version. When it comes to matters of faith, the Word of God, more is always far superior than lesser.

On this Sunday of the Word of God, let us make it our resolution to be read more, immerse ourselves deeper, and listen more attentively to the Word of God. Lesser isn’t better. In fact, we may spiritually die from being impoverished in reading and hearing the Word of God being proclaimed and preached. Instead of demanding for shortcuts and soundbites, let us be hungry for the full and complete Truth. God intended to give us solid food, let’s not settle for baby’s mushy gruel. He wants to reveal to us the complete Truth, let’s not be satisfied with partial truths. There will always be depths of God’s revelation that needs to be plunged, mysteries that need to be explored, theological understanding that could be better expounded. Likewise, in sharing the Catholic faith with others, we should always resist the temptation of dumbing-down the message of Christ. People are hungering for the complete Truth, don’t give them sound bites. It’s either the complete thing that we must demand for or it’s a fake.

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.”

Be opened!

Twenty Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Today’s text will trigger the ire of those with a penchant for the pedantic. As it is often said, “the devil is in the details!” Our Lord travels North before travelling eastward in order to make His way home to the South. A straight path in the direction of Galilee to the south of His current position would have been the most efficient and quickest way to get home. But our Lord chooses to make a round-a-bout detour to get to where He wishes to go. This is no coincidence nor directionless meandering. Everything our Lord does is calculated.

Today’s episode takes place again in Gentile or pagan territory, the Decapolis, the very lands where He was expelled after having exorcised the Gerasene demoniac. The reason for His summary dismissal is unclear. His healing and exorcism of the demoniac may have frightened the locals and the episode of the swine plunging into the sea in a lemming-like mass suicide and the ensuing economic loss to the owners may have been squarely blamed on Him. But here, the people of the area seem to have forgotten their past hostility. In today’s story, they see the Lord as a problem solver by bringing this deaf and mute man to meet the Lord.

Now we can assume that this deaf mute was also a local, thus a Gentile and not a Jew. It is indeed strange that our Lord would use an Aramaic word “Ephphatha” instead of some other more commonly known word in Greek, the lingua franca of the area. Well, it may be argued that this would not have made a difference since the man could not hear.

But it is the actions of our Lord which deserve our attention. To heal the man, the Lord placed His fingers in the man's ears and His spittle on the man's tongue. To us modern folks, this is indeed cringe worthy. Many have wondered why He did such things in healing the man. Some suggest that it was a sign that gave the Gentile man additional confidence that Jesus was in fact healing him, for Gentiles sometimes employed such methods in their attempts to heal people. Others have proposed that this foreshadows the outpouring of the blood of Christ that will bring full restoration not only to our souls but finally to our bodies in the new heaven and earth.

Perhaps, the depths and significance of this miracle is lost on the deaf mute and the audience, but every Jew was seeing in this miracle the fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies which we had just heard in the first reading: “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unsealed, then the lame shall leap like a deer and the tongues of the dumb sing for joy.” Our Lord would subsequently heal both the blind and the lame and complete the list of healings mentioned in the prophecy. But these miracles are merely signs pointing to a far greater prophecy of Isaiah: “Look, your God is coming, vengeance is coming, the retribution of God; he is coming to save you.” Our Lord is no mere wandering miracle worker. He is the promised Saviour not just of Israel but of the whole world. In fact, His name “Jesus” means “God saves.”

But the Gospel intends to go beyond showing us the ability of our Lord to physically heal the deaf and fulfil the prophecies of the Old Testament. The deaf mute man is a symbol of humanity, of modern society in particular. We are witnessing a society that has grown deaf to God, a society that is no longer “open” to the voice of God speaking through every man’s conscience, a society that can no longer speak or communicate with God because it has lost the vocabulary of prayer. And when man ceases to listen and speak to God, he can no longer authentically communicate with his neighbour. Although we often boast of living in an Information Age with the most sophisticated means of communication available at our finger tips, there is a lack of deep meaningful communication that builds community.

We could say that the world has become deaf and tongue-tied! How is it possible to listen to the Divine voice while tuning into the clamour of the television, the internet and so many other things? Ears filled with a hankering for the things of this world cannot distinguish the voice of the Almighty, for it is impossible to pay attention to two conversations simultaneously. Either one speaks with God, or with Satan! Today no one speaks of God, of the striving for sanctity, the hatred that we should have for sin or the great risk that modern man runs of being thrown eternally into hell. In general, people’s lives revolve around personal concerns, trivial matters inflated beyond reality, while choosing to be forgetful of the Creator and supernatural realities. Those who do not externalise their love for the Lord through prayer and an intimate relationship with Him, are deaf by choice.

If we sense our own deafness in the face of this grave scenario, we ought to ask ourselves: what is the solution? This Sunday’s Gospel does not only diagnose the problem but provides us with the cure. We must approach the Lord in faith through His sacraments and His Church. When we encounter our Lord in the sacraments in which He instituted, we too are similarly transformed and our spiritual senses healed. Our vision, our hearing, our sense of touch, taste and smell should be overhauled by a glimpse of God’s Truth, Beauty and Goodness. That is why our churches must be beautiful and our liturgies rich in symbolism and grandeur. Beauty is not just a matter of aesthetics nor is it a question of personal taste. It is meant to open the “eyes of faith,” to put in sharp focus and vivid colour, what God is bringing about in the world. We have become too over familiar and comfortable with our own iconoclastic and white-washed churches. We have become blind and deaf to the means by which God wishes to communicate to us.

Just like our Lord looking up at the very final moment before the deaf man is healed, our common mundane everyday human situation is elevated into the presence of God in these moments when we encounter Him in the beauty and elegance of our churches and liturgy. Beauty, justice, love, and mercy are no longer external to us but now we participate intimately with their source in the triune God. Heaven and earth overlap, time collapses.

Life and reality viewed through the sacraments put our most basic assumptions on trial. God is not somewhere else, too busy, or unconcerned with the created order. Instead, all of creation is “charged” with the goodness of God and every inch of it participates in the life of God sacramentally. In this way, the sacraments and sacramentals serve as a revelation of sorts, a window into what is most real, and helps us wonder more truly about what God is doing in the world. Through and in the sacraments and sacramentals, we hear our Lord’s command once again: “Ephphatha!” “Be opened!” They help us to see sacredness even in the midst of human depravity, wealth in the midst of poverty, and redemption in the midst of human fallenness.

So be it!

Twenty First Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

“Amen”, perhaps the most common Hebrew word apart from “Alleluia” used by Catholics. We utter it at the end of every prayer, we insert it in the comments of social media as if it is some kind of religious “like” click, and we utter it before holy communion just after the priest or the extraordinary minister of holy communion holds up the consecrated host and announces, “the Body of Christ.” Our repetition and common usage have certainly resulted in many trivialising the true significance of this simple and yet deeply profound word. Amen means “so be it.” Or another way of saying “it is true” or “I agree.”

Amen is thus an acclamation of faith and commitment, just like how Joshua insisted that the Israelites must renew and restate their commitment to the covenant. He declared openly to the people: “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,” which inspired the people to also make their own commitment and promise: “we too will serve the Lord, for He is our God.” In a way, both Joshua and the Israelites were giving their assent of “Amen” to the covenant, undertaking to serve the Lord.

The scene in the first reading is deliberately chosen as a parallel to the gospel. Just as Joshua challenged the Israelites to make up their minds whether or not they intended to remain loyal to the Lord, in the same way our Lord challenges the disciples at the end of the Bread of Life discourse to make up their minds if they wish to stick with Him regardless of the mass exodus of others bailing out when push comes to shove. The similarity is not only a challenge to loyalty, but specifically to covenant loyalty, to not only assent to what He has taught but to His very person. Can they and will they accept the truth that Jesus is indeed the Bread of Life from heaven and unless one eats His flesh and drinks His blood, they will have no part in His life? It is the final ultimatum given to them.

It is clear from today’s passage that many chose to walk away. If the Lord had just met their material needs of having a leader and an endless supply of food, they would have been happy to follow Him. But in matters of faith, unlike a democracy, we don’t get to choose our Messiah. God chooses those whom we need, very seldom not those whom we want. He’s the anointed One of God whom God calls, chooses and sends. Even as our Lord begins to describe the type of Messiah that He is, the people are not able to accept Him on these terms. They find His teachings “intolerable” and refused to accept them.

Over the years, we know of many Catholics, fellow parishioners who have chosen to walk out of church and to walk away from the Catholic faith. There is a myriad of reasons or excuses given. They have been insulted by someone; they have had their requests turned down; certain rules do not square with them; the music for the Masses and the homilies are boring and not engaging. Ultimately, any one of these things are deemed “intolerable,” and so they choose to leave.

Often, as a parish priest, I have been advised and told by others to address their concerns and accede to their requests, to somehow bend backwards, if necessary, to get them to return. Reaching out to those who are lost or who have chosen to walk away must always be a priority as we are called to seek the lost like the good shepherd after the heart of Jesus. But if this means lowering the bar of morality, bending the rules, stifling the teachings of the Church and making exceptions for the sake of friendship alone and nothing else, I too have made my decision and have taken a stand. I will not back down because Jesus did not. He didn’t pull back His challenging words, in fact, He chose to double down! Ultimately, I would work to convince these people to return for only one reason - only Christ, the Holy One of God, the one truly, really and substantially present in the Eucharist, can offer us “the message of eternal life” and “food which endures for eternity”. And if they should return and remain with the Church, that should be the only reason that matters.

You too may be considering leaving for one of many reasons. When people speak of being upset and disappointed with the Church, they are most likely expressing their disappointment and anger with members of the Body of Christ, the Church. This could mean any other person sitting in the pew, or a person serving in the parish or even the priest. But I would like to repeat one important truth which St John Paul II taught in his encyclical “Ecclesia de Eucharistia”: “The Church draws her life from the Eucharist. This truth does not simply express a daily experience of faith, but recapitulates the heart of the mystery of the Church… For the most holy Eucharist contains the Church's entire spiritual wealth: Christ himself, our Passover and living bread.” If you choose to walk away from the Church, you are walking away from Christ.

Today, our Lord is asking you and me the same question He asked Peter: “What about you, do you want to go away too?” Simon Peter answered, ‘Lord, who shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we know that you are the Holy One of God.’ Thank you, Simon Peter. Thank you for asking the question that matters most. And thank you for giving us the only answer which matters most.

Before we receive our Lord Jesus Christ who is truly, really and substantially present in the Eucharist, we too are given an ultimatum - we are challenged to make an assent of faith, a declaration of our commitment to our Lord and an acceptance of what He tells us as true. Our “Amen” is not a demand that Christ and the Church must comply with our every demand, whim or fancy. Saying “Amen” means that we will accept the Lord on His terms and commit ourselves to transformation just as how bread and wine is changed into the Body and Blood of Christ. “Amen” is saying “I will change!” Saying “Amen,” means we assent to our faith with our head and heart and will, that what we are about to receive is truly, really and substantially the Body of Christ. Not only do we believe in the real presence but we also commit ourselves to living and acting as Jesus did and does. St Augustine tells us: “You reply ‘Amen’ to that which you are, and by replying, you consent... Be a member of the body of Christ so that your ‘Amen’ may be true!”

Bread which is Flesh

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

It is said that the New Testament is concealed in the Old and the Old Testament is revealed in the New. This is never clearer than when studying the Eucharist throughout Scripture. The juxtaposition of the gospel with the story of the Exodus continues. As the Israelites complained in the desert that they had no food to eat nor water to drink, the crowds here begin to complain about our Lord’s audacious claims that He is “the bread that came down from heaven.” It must be noted at this stage that the crowds’ main objection was not that our Lord claimed to be the new Manna.

Their main objection at this stage, as in other parts of the gospel, had to do with His origins. The Lord claims to have come from heaven. But this was a necessary claim in the schema of claims which our Lord had made and will be making. Only by coming from God, could He reveal things about God known to Him alone and only if He came from God could He offer them life here and in the hereafter. But these claims were too much for His audience to stomach. Their incredulity is supported by the fact that they thought they knew His parents, His family, and His all-too human origins. “Who is this upstart who now claims to come from heaven?”

Before our Lord moves to explaining how He is indeed the Bread from heaven which they must eat if they wish to enjoy everlasting life, He provides a fourfold path to receiving His message. They must acknowledge that they are being taught by God, hear His teaching and learn from it and finally, believe in Him. This Bread from heaven sounds like the Divine Logos, the Word, introduced by St John in his prologue to his gospel: “In the beginning was the Word: the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Jesus is indeed the Word of God and our response must be to acknowledge that He comes from the Father, listen to Him, learn from Him and finally believe in Him.

So, far this claim that our Lord makes is still somewhat acceptable. For Israel, the manna as food provided by God Himself had stopped when they took possession of their land, but a new “bread from heaven” continued in the Law - God’s revelation to His people. The Israelites believed that through the Law, God was literally “feeding” His people. In their minds, our Lord was merely applying the same principle to Himself. In other words, they thought that our Lord was merely suggesting to them to consume His wisdom as spiritual nourishment.

But the Word is not just a concept to be heard like the Old Law. This Word has become flesh and here our Lord proceeds to lay down the foundation of His Eucharistic theology - this Word is also the Bread of Life from heaven and “anyone who eats this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.” In this way, our Lord is saying that He has not come to annul God’s former gifts, whether it be the manna or the Law, but to bring them to completion in Himself. The manna in the desert, though it appeared miraculously, could not offer eternal life, but our Lord being “the living bread which has come down from heaven” can now offer them this gift. He is the perfection of the gift of God to Israel.

Our Lord dismisses all suggestions that He is speaking metaphorically with the last statement which closes today’s segment of the discourse: “the bread that I shall give is my flesh!” “My flesh!” If our Lord had kept to speaking of Himself as Bread, they would not have had such a violent reaction but now when the Lord speaks of His flesh as real food (and next week, He introduces His blood as real drink), the very thought of cannibalism was the most revolting thing imaginable for a people who were obsessed with dietary restrictions and ritual purity.

His listeners were stupefied because now they understood Jesus literally—and correctly. In next week’s installment, He will again repeat His words, but with even greater emphasis. When our Lord refers to Himself as a vine, or a door, or any other metaphor, no one is offended, has trouble understanding, or leaves Him. It is only when He says they must eat of His flesh that many are shocked and compelled to abandon Him. This tells us that the disciples understood our Lord to be speaking literally and not figuratively. Whatever else might be said, the early Church took these words literally. St Justin Martyr, wrote, “Not as common bread or common drink do we receive these; but … both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus” (First Apology 66:1–20). St Cyril calls the Eucharist “the medicine of immortality.”

But this spiritual food which our Lord wishes to give us is also food meant as provision for the journey of life. The scene of Elijah in the first reading being fed by the Angel is often seen by the Church as an Old Testament allegory of the Eucharist, especially when the Eucharist is given as “viaticum.” “Viaticum” literally means food “to take with us on the journey.” The Latin word once denoted the provisions necessary for a person going on a long journey—the clothes, food, and money the traveller would need along the way. The viaticum was vital provision for an uncertain journey. Fittingly, the early Church employed this image to speak of the Eucharist when it was administered to a dying person. The viaticum, the bread of one’s last Communion, was seen as sustenance for Christians on their way from this world into another, “food for passage through death to eternal life.”

The journey of life is never easy. It is often a long trek, sometimes through the bleakest of landscapes, towards the promised land, our Heavenly homeland. Sometimes we give way to the longing for the comforts of culture’s captivity and drown in the world’s materialistic allures. Sometimes we yield to the temptation like Elijah to sit beneath the broom tree of despair and wish for death. But today’s readings remind us that even in our weakest moments, even in our darkest hour, even when we stumble and grumble, even when we sometimes lose sight of the goal, God does not forsake us. Christ continues to feed us with this divine food, giving us strength to endure. It is the food that will serve us “when all else fails.” And so, we do not lay down to die; we walk on, from exile toward home, from shadows and appearances to beholding God face to face.

Not Born but Intentional Catholics

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

One of the common self-descriptions you would hear from a Catholic, and only from Catholics, is this: “I’m born Catholic.” That is not entirely accurate, which is to say it is a false statement. No one is “born Catholic.” Through baptism, we all “become” Catholic. We are not exactly “natural” sons of God, but “adopted” sons, as St Paul teaches. The only “born” Catholic was Christ. It may be more accurate, therefore, to describe the person as a “cradle Catholic” rather than “born Catholic.” But often the term has come to describe a prevalent condition which many Catholics possess or suffer - we are Catholics not by our own choice, not intentionally, but often only nominally, that is in name.

Borrowing an idea from the Protestants, Catholic author, Sherry Weddell, wrote a book entitled “Forming Intentional Disciples” to propose a solution to this malady by fostering a culture among Catholics to consciously and intentionally see themselves as disciples of Jesus Christ and to follow and imitate Him by being His messengers to the world. Before I share some salient points from her book, I believe our readings for today provide us with an excellent template for becoming intentional Catholics. The dynamics of the three readings could be simply stated as this: we are called, we are chosen and we are sent.

The first reading speaks of the call of the prophet Amos. Here was a prophet that was sent by God to a foreign nation that needed him but did not want him. The reading begins with Amaziah, the priest of Bethel in the north, practically shooing off Amos and telling him to go back to where he came from, which is the South, Amos’ homeland, and to do his prophesying there. The irony of this encounter is that Amos too expresses his true feelings about his ministry, something which he had not bargained for nor had he personally preferred: ‘I was no prophet, neither did I belong to any of the brotherhoods of prophets,’ Amos replied to Amaziah ‘I was a shepherd, and looked after sycamores: but it was the Lord who took me from herding the flock, and the Lord who said, “Go, prophesy to my people Israel.”’

Just like Amos, most of us have no sense of being called. We would have preferred being left alone to our devices, going about our own business and doing what we have to do to earn our living and get along in life. But being called means that each of us is given a mission beyond what we would have personally desired or chosen. By our baptism, each of us is called to be priest, king and prophet. We are called to be priests because we are called to intercede for others. We are called to be kings because we are called to serve others. We are called to be prophets because the Word of God must be proclaimed by us.

This begs the question: “why me?” If you’ve paid attention to the readings for the past few Sundays, that it’s never about you. God chooses us not because we are qualified, or naturally gifted or because we are worthy. Quite often He chooses those who are not. This is what St Paul tells us in the second reading: “Before the world was made, He chose us, chose us in Christ, to be holy and spotless, and to live through love in His presence, determining that we should become His adopted sons, through Jesus Christ for His own kind purposes, to make us praise the glory of His grace …” That’s it! We are called, we have been chosen. Why? For God’s glory, for the praise of His glory. Not for our glory or because we have merited His attention, so, don’t get swollen headed!

And finally, we have the Gospel where we hear how the Lord sends out the Twelve apostles on a mission. They are called. They are chosen. They are sent out. They are given a mission. They are asked to take nothing along with them because that too is part of their witness. If they are going to lead people to have faith in God, it must start with them. But the call, the choosing and the sending is not just confined to the Twelve. How much easier for us if God only chose the Twelve Apostles and not us! How much easier for us if only the pope, the bishops, the priests and the religious must have responsibilities for preaching and spreading the Word of God and the joy of His Church!

So, knowing that we have been called, chosen and sent, is only the first step. How do we now make the response? I’m going to return to Sherry Weddell’s book and borrow some of her thoughts on this matter. She proposes 5 simple steps.

Step 1 is initial trust. Just like Amos, we must trust the Lord’s call and His mission even if it means getting out of our comfort zones. The greatest obstacle to being an intentional disciple of the Lord is to be contented with what is convenient and secure. Like the apostles in the gospel, we must gradually learn to let go of our crutches - material and emotional- and begin to learn to trust God more each day. If God has called us to this mission, He will provide us with the wisdom, the tools and resources to carry out His will.

The next step is spiritual curiosity. As Weddell says, “When we live lives that are inexplicable apart from the grace and power of the Gospel, we will often find that curiosity is sparked among people who were formerly hostile to the Faith. To be a witness does not consist in engaging propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist.”

The third step after trust has been given, curiosity aroused, it is time to challenge our listeners. Often, we tip toe around difficult subjects and try to soften the demands of Christ. But without this challenge, Christians will remain infants, perpetually “born Catholics” or “infantile Catholics”, who are unable to make a breakthrough in their spiritual growth.

All the previous steps will lead to the fourth step - spiritual seeking. Here, the seeker is abandoning the false notion that God stands in the way of freedom and happiness, and realising that God is the good he or she has sought all his life in his pursuit of the shadows and copies of beauty that are mere earthly beauties.

So, how does one live the Catholic faith in the real world? It is certainly not enough to be “born Catholic” or even to be a “cradle Catholic.” These labels mean nothing unless we are intentional about it. Our lives cannot just be dictated by doing the bare minimum, even though many cradle Catholics these days don’t even do the bare minimum like observing the precepts of the Church – attending Mass every Sunday and holy days of obligation, making confession at least once a year etc. We must be consciously aware that we are called, we are chosen and we are sent. Today we are invited, each one of us, to recognise our own calling and to seek to know what God asks of us in order to spread the Good News of the Kingdom. Let us open our hearts and our minds in faith. No more excuses. No more delays. Time to get out of our cradles and be rock solid intentional disciples of the Lord!

Not Why but What

Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Someone once gave me a tip on how to sound smart even when I am not. “Ask a question which you do not have the answer. The other person most likely may not know either.” Of course, if the person did know the answer, you can always curtly tell him: “Wrong. When you find the right answer, come look for me!” Mischief managed!

Today’s readings are sandwiched between questions. In fact, the first reading is a set of rapid fire questions which God poses to Job. The gospel closes with the disciples asking this question about Jesus: “Who can this be? Even the wind and the sea obey him.” Ironically, the answer to the questions in the first reading would also serve to be the answer to the last question posed by our Lord’s disciples in the gospel.

Throughout the book of Job, we see our protagonist and his friends asking all sorts of questions directed at God and Job’s righteousness. The basic question is whether Job deserves his current loss and suffering. His friends say “yes” but Job defiantly protests his innocence by saying “no.” God finally breaks the silence and the book presents it in a most dramatic way: “From the heart of the tempest the Lord gave Job his answer.” Just like our Lord answered His disciples in the gospel in the middle of a storm.

God’s first question to Job (which has unfortunately been redacted from our first reading) sets the tone of their mostly one-way conversation and series of rhetorical questions, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding” (Job 38:4). In short, God is reminding Job and his friends, “Who are you to question me?” At the end of this age, we will stand before our Lord as Judge and King of the Universe. It is we who will be questioned, and it would be audacious for us to believe that we are entitled to question Him.

St Paul puts it more directly: But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” (Rom 9:20). Some translations of this passage in fact make this point clearer: “can a pot question the potter why it was made this way?”

Does it mean that we should never ask questions? Certainly not. As St Anselm wisely reminds us: “faith seeks understanding.” This is what we see in the episode of our Lord calming the storm in today’s gospel passage. The lack of faith exhibited by the fearful disciples who thought that they were drowning and that the Lord had abandoned them were now challenged to ask questions, questions which would deepen their faith and expand their understanding of who the Lord is: “Who can this be? Even the wind and the sea obey him.“ It’s a rhetorical question that can only have one answer. The answer, of course, is God - Jesus is God because only God could have such power and authority over the wind and sea - and yet, they were not ready to make that leap of faith, a leap which they will eventually make after the resurrection when they witness for themselves that Jesus also has authority over death, His own death.

There is, therefore, no dichotomy between faith and reason. But our pursuit for full understanding should not be the reason to demolish faith. The basis for asking questions and the goal for seeking answers should propel us to recognise our limited knowledge in comparison to God’s immense wisdom which is always beyond and above ours. Curiously embedded in the midst of our questioning nature is a profound insight into the human condition. At once this both affirms our search for understanding and demonstrates its limits.

The wisdom God puts in our inward parts makes it possible for us to yearn for an answer to the mystery of suffering. Yet our wisdom comes only from God, so we cannot outsmart God with wisdom of our own. In fact, He has implanted in us only a small fraction of His wisdom, so we will never have the capacity to comprehend all His ways. As we have seen, it may be good for our souls to voice our complaints against God. But it would be foolish to expect Him to admit His error, that He had made a mistake. The truth is that God never makes mistakes. We do but He never does.

It’s not wrong to experience grief or anger or any other emotion when we’re going through a hard time, when we find ourselves in a middle of a maelstrom wondering whether the Lord is sleeping on the job or that He has abandoned us. It’s ok to ask God our questions. It’s ok to tell God how we’re feeling, He already knows anyway. A key invitation of our spiritual journey is to be emotionally honest about our uncertainties. Questions…are signs of a living, growing, active faith, not evidence of a dying one.

But when we do ask questions, it is good to remember that we may not always get an answer right away, but when it comes, it will certainly shift my perspective. God is giving us a larger picture of our circumstances, just as He was doing it for Job and for the Lord’s disciples. Much like someone who stands too close to a painting and cannot appreciate the artist’s perspective, we need to step back a few steps so that we can glimpse — if not fully understand — God’s larger purposes with greater clarity. Part of this enlightenment is to show us that we may have been asking the wrong questions.

The question to ask is not “why?” but “what?” with a heart to learn God’s wisdom and purpose for us. Instead of asking, “why did this happen?”, we should actually be asking, “What do you want me to learn from this experience? What good do you want to come from this?” God generally does not answer any of our ‘why’ questions, but He will gradually answer those ‘what’ questions as He moulds us into a stronger person of faith. Because He wants us to trust Him like never before.

If we are looking for a reason for Job’s suffering or ours, we may not find it. But this we do know: Job’s ordeal has given him an even greater appreciation for God’s goodness. Job’s relationship with God has deepened, his faith has grown stronger and he has become wiser as a result. The same could be said of us whenever we experience hardship or face adversity. It’s not always easy to trust in the Lord’s providence and wisdom. But we are assured by St Paul, “we know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). We may not see it clearly now, but it makes the hard times a little easier to bear, knowing that there is something to learn (and one day, to teach and encourage others) and that God will answer us “from the heart of the storm.”

It's not about you

Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

We often oscillate between two extremes - on the one hand, we feel so motivated that we are totally confident in our ability, capacity and sufficiency of our resources to move mountains and reach for the stars - a kind of Thomas the Train or Obama concession speech, “yes, we can!” moment. On the other hand, after a series of setbacks and failures, a much wiser and less naive tone sets in, sometimes to the point of hapless despair. Our initial “yes, we can” is now replaced with a more realistic “no, we can’t. It’s simply impossible.”

Our Lord offers us two agrarian parables which offer us a different way of looking at things. You see, Christians are neither expected to become naive optimists nor cranky pessimists. We are asked to be people of faith and hope. Both optimism and pessimism are inadequate categories. Though they appear to be at opposite ends of the spectrum of how we should perceive life and any situation, they both share something in common. They are both flip sides of the same coin. Both give too much emphasis to self - either to our ability or inability to accomplish something.

In one of the most epic scenes in the movie Dr Strange, which sets the stage and prepares our eponymous hero for the final showdown, the hero enters into this profound conversation on the spectral plane with his mentor, the Ancient One, as the latter lies dying in the emergency operation theatre. It is the last piece of wisdom which the Ancient One imparts unto her student. Dr Strange started off as a cocky brilliant brain surgeon, so confident in his own ability to heal, but after a disastrous car crash which ended his career, he is now uncertain about himself and fears failure. The Ancient One tells him: “Arrogance and fear still keep you from learning the simplest and most significant lesson of all.”
Dr. Stephen Strange: “Which is?”
The Ancient One: “It’s not about you.”

Yes, this is the powerful message of these parables and the first reading: “It’s not about you!” Rather, it is all about God. In the first reading, after the glory of Jerusalem had been destroyed and the Temple laid waste, the returning exiles from Babylon would have felt a heavy pessimism hovering over their future. Could they ever dream of rebuilding what had been destroyed and lost? Where would they find the resources to do this? It all seems to be a hopeless situation even if they are now given the opportunity to return to their homeland. This is where we see the prophetic genius of Ezekiel at work, painting a picture of how God would do the rebuilding and reconstruction of their nation by using images from nature. Ezekiel promises that Israel will again become a great cedar tree, in whose shade the nations will come to take shelter. But this great tree would not be the result of human planting or cultivation. It would be God’s doing.

The parables we find in the gospel reinforces this theme of God’s assured Providence. In the first parable which emphasises how the seed sown grows into a plentiful harvest with little intervention from the farmer and unbeknownst to him, we are assured that God’s purposes are accomplished in spite of our feeble and fumbling efforts. God is constantly working behind the scenes and His work is always successful, despite us not being able to discern it in a sensible manner.

The second parable adds an additional aspect to this theme. The beginnings of God’s work of building His kingdom often seems tiny and imperceptible, but never underestimate the outcome which will be massive. Small beginnings can produce grand endings. This would come as a message of hope to the early Christians who saw their movement as one led by a motley crew of underdogs, obstacles at every turn, impossible hurdles to overcome, and having to face the constant threat of extinction. What could a tiny mustard seed accomplish? It was not hard for these Christians to see how this metaphor applies to them. Yet, that very same mustard seed planted by God and nurtured by His hands would grow into a Church that would eventually overturn an empire without unsheathing a single sword. This was no optimistic vision of the future but something which eventually became a reality despite all the odds being stacked against it. The reason is simple. God is the mover, not us! So, don’t flatter yourself nor denigrate yourself, “it’s not about you!”

This is what Christian hope is about. Hope provides us with a vision of seeing the world, our current situation and the future through the lenses of God. The glossary section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church describes hope as “the theological virtue by which we desire and expect from God both eternal life and the grace we need to attain it.” An optimist may view things as attainable because of his strong confidence in his own ability to determine the outcome of his actions. A pessimist views a goal as unattainable because he only focuses on the futility of his own actions. But a man of faith with hope, is confident that God would fulfil what He has promised us and that He will supply us with sufficient grace to both endure our current situation and to attain the purpose which He has destined for us.

The solution to our despairing culture is not to pump it with more motivational hog wash and sell us the over-used idea that we are incredible, brilliant, capable and strong. What these programmes are trying to message is this - it’s all about you. You determine your future. You determine your own success and failure. You are in charge of your life and your destiny. The harsh reality of life would soon burst the optimistic balloon and expose these propositions as lies. The more you lead a self-focused life, the more you’re prone to discouragement. Every time you forget that it’s not about you, you’re going to get prideful or fearful or bitter. Those feelings will always lead to discouragement because they keep you focused on yourself.

The good news is that you don’t need to have all the answers. You don’t need to rescue yourself or others from a fix. You don’t need to be in control. You don’t need to be superman or superwoman. God has your back. God is the answer. God is always working even when nothing seems to be happening. God will always accomplish His purpose even when our efforts seem to fail, and every situation seems hopeless. This is the reason why in scripture, we often see God deliberately choosing men and women that culture overlooks to expose the hollow pretensions of the people who think they are something. God chooses what the world considers nonsense, weak, and ordinary to not only shame but also destroy all pretentious thinking and inflated pride. He does this so that the only thing that one can boast about is – Christ. Let us exclaim with St Paul “that we are full of confidence” not in ourselves or in our meagre resources but in Christ, who one day we hope would welcome us home!