Obedience frees us to love

Sixth Sunday of Easter Year C

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rejoice! Indeed the Lord is near!

Third Sunday of Advent Year B

As that 60s Christmas song claims, “it’s the most wonderful time of the year.” But is it? It is true that for most people, there are many reasons to revel in the season - the exhilaration of Christmas shopping and carolling, the excitement of receiving gifts, partaking in family reunions, enjoying year-end holidays and taking the necessary break from work and school. But it can also be the season that creates much stress, anxiety and even depression. When more is expected, there can be more reasons to fail. Add to this natural predilection for disappointment and failure would be a global inflation gone out of control, a country with an uncertain and worrying political future, two major conflicts threatening to escalate into another world war.

Against this tide, not just a tide but a tsunami of despair, today’s liturgy shouts out this refrain: “Rejoice! Exult for Joy! Be happy at all times!” Our senses seem to want to shout back: “What’s there to be joyful about?” “Is the Church blind?”

And yet on this Sunday, the Church’s liturgy demands that we rejoice: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice!” These words are a paraphrase of the passage from St Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians which we heard as our second reading. Indeed, the Third Sunday of Advent is called “Gaudete Sunday.” “Gaudete” is the Latin word meaning ‘rejoice.’

What joy can there be in the midst of so much pain, suffering, gloom and darkness? It is certainly not the joy that emerges from some false optimism on our part that things are going to get better – too often, we can attest to this, things in fact get worse. Neither is it the joy that comes from creating an illusory world in our minds where pain and suffering is denied. So, what is this joy which the readings are speaking of? So, why should we be happy, and be happy “at all times,” albeit in good times or bad, in sickness or in health? St Paul tells us that this rejoicing is required of us simply “because this is what God expects you to do in Christ Jesus.” And the Church adds in her liturgy, “Indeed, the Lord is near.” The answer lies in Christ. True lasting joy is found only with God in Christ.

We are called to rejoice, because the Lord is coming – He is coming to save us, to liberate us, and to give us new life. Many of us may be experiencing some form of darkness in our lives. We find ourselves in the midst of problems without any apparent solution. We see ourselves ‘captives’ of our difficult circumstances, there seems to be no way out. Our hearts may be broken because of rejection or we have been hurt by the actions and words of others. We see ourselves poor, hungering and thirsting for friendship, understanding and a sense of belonging. Some of us find ourselves trapped in the darkness of sin.

If we see ourselves in any of these situations, rejoice and be glad, because the readings promise good news. This is the promise of God, as St. Paul tells us in the second reading: “God has called you and He will not fail you.” God is always faithful. God keeps His promise. God will not fail you. And what is this promise? The prophet Isaiah announces that the coming of the Lord’s anointed messenger will mean healing and liberation to all who are poor, broken-hearted, oppressed, and captive. The Good News is that which is announced by John the Baptist in the gospel – the Anointed One has come - Jesus has come – He is the Light of the World – and He is waiting to enter into your hearts and into your lives once again.

Therefore, we Christians anticipate the End Times not with fear and trembling, but with rejoicing. St Paul reminds us in the second reading, “Be happy at all times, pray constantly, and for all things give thanks.” Like the prophet Isaiah in the first reading, the thought of the “end times,” of Christ’s coming, should be met with euphoria, “I exult for joy in the Lord, my soul rejoices in my God!”

Sometimes we have an image of John the Baptist as an austere ascetic. In depicting the Baptist in this fashion, we tend to forget the joy that is associated with his entire life and vocation. It was him who leapt for joy in his mother Elizabeth’s womb when she encountered the Mother of the Word Incarnate. In the fourth Gospel, St John speaks of the source of the Baptist’s supernatural joy - it is the joy of the best man, who rejoices greatly at hearing the bridegroom’s voice. And thus, his humility opened a space within him for true joy, the kind which comes from the real presence of the Lord. So it can be, for each one of us.

Thus, John stands as a sign for us today on Gaudete Sunday. He points out for each one of us the path to lasting joy, not just a forgery or a fading type of joy. We should imitate his lifestyle of self-emptying – a life marked by humility – we prepare for the coming of the Lord by always holding on this basic principle that defined the Baptist’s life and mission, “He must increase and I must decrease.” Despite the difficulties he encountered, the harshness and austerity of his life, his imprisonment and execution at the hands of a local tyrant, John understood that as his own light dimmed and faded, another light was coming, the true light was coming to illuminate the darkened world and cast aside the shadows of sin. The Baptist only caught a glimpse of the first glimmer of light before the sunrise. We, on the other hand, have the privilege of knowing and witnessing that sunrise at Easter. We can, therefore, know no lasting peace and joy, unless we come to know Christ, the true Light of the World, and allow the light of His grace to transform us.

So, this Sunday, Gaudete Sunday, Rejoice Sunday, becomes another opportunity to be joyful, indeed it is a joy that is greater than it was in the days of the prophet Isaiah or in the days of John the Baptist. What they could only envision in a time of prophecy, we now experience in a time of reality. In just a matter of days we will celebrate the Feast of the Nativity of the Lord. But we do not just commemorate the past. The Liturgy anticipates the future, the coming of our Saviour, our Liberator, the Christ who will bring to completion the good work He has begun in us. For this reason, Holy Mother Church commands us in the imperative – “Rejoice”! Notice that this is a command, not a suggestion. “Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete: Dominus prope est.” “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Indeed the Lord is near!”

Love and do what you will

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

The slogan, “Love and do what you will” seems more suited on the lips of a libertine than on a saint. We can understand why a libertine would promote this since he is devoid of moral principles except perhaps the most basic moral principle of not doing harm to anyone. In fact, Nike could have even reframed and rebranded the slogan in the form of its famous tagline: “Just Do It.”

Most of you may be surprised and shocked to know that these words were indeed spoken by a saint, and not just any ordinary saint. It is none other than the great Doctor of the West, St Augustine, who wrote extensively on original sin and the necessity of grace for one’s justification. Why would such a great theologian, regarded as only second to St Paul, make such an irresponsible statement that could serve as a license for future generations to “just do it”, seemingly regardless of moral bearings and eternal consequences?

Well, these words would have been irresponsible if St Augustine is saying that as long as you love God, you can go ahead and do pretty much anything you want to, even something sinful, and it’s perfectly okay. Sounds very much like the tagline for advocates of same-sex marriage and other sexual aberrations – “love is love.” But thank God, this is not what Augustine meant. Because of our sinful and fallen nature and without the aid of grace, we can’t “just do it.” That is why the Incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus are essential, if anyone is to have eternal life. Only if we love completely as our Lord has commanded us to do in today’s gospel, then whatever it pleases you to do will be the correct thing to do.

In explaining his point, St Augustine gives several illustrations to highlight two issues which may lead many to confuse genuine love with a self-serving attitude. Firstly, people tend to be easily misled by appearances. Coddling a child may give the impression that you are loving but it could just be a selfish way of winning the child’s confidence and approval. On the other hand, punishing or admonishing a child may seem harsh and unloving but this could actually be an act of loving discipline, hoping that the child will amend his ways. How would we know which is which? St Augustine tells us to look at the motivation. Our actions need to be motivated by love. St Augustine tells us that we can love and do what we will because true love desires only the good of the beloved. Love goes so much farther than simply not hurting anyone. This is often the excuse used to justify sexual sins. “What’s wrong with masturbation or pornography? I’m not hurting anyone?” No, love seeks good. The good of the other and our good too. And all sin continue to hurt God and ourselves, if not others.

St Augustine’s maxim helps us to see how the two parts of the Great Commandment of Love are inseparable. The moment we attempt to separate them and to favour one over the other, the whole thing falls apart.

Loving God is the foundation of the very possibility of loving anyone else for the simple reason that, only in the relationship with God can we feel fundamentally loved. Only in the relationship with God can we feel truly forgiven despite our fragility and offer forgiveness to others. We can only generate love if we feel truly acknowledged in this relationship that is rooted in the deepest depths of our hearts. Many people are unable to love because they are not willing to undergo the deep experience of recognising that they are sinners and yet loved undeservedly. If someone feels unloved because he feels that he is undeserving of love, he will likewise be unable to love others whom he thinks is undeserving of his love.

If you love God first and love Him truly and completely, then you will only desire that which is pleasing to Him, you will desire to follow His commandments. To profess that you love God while going against His Will and His Laws will immediately expose you as a liar and a hypocrite. One can never claim to love God while one persists in sinning. St Augustine doesn’t give us a license to do as we want, but a reason to do what God wants - that reason is love.

Our Lord has freed us from the bonds of sin and death. But that freedom is not a license to do as we please. Being free to choose sin is not true freedom. In fact, we can freely choose to enslave ourselves once more to sin. St Paul therefore warns us, “Do not use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, serve one another through love” (Gal 5:13).

It follows that the commandment to love our neighbour must first recognise that human life will not work out if God is left out: its aspirations are nothing but contradiction. Nothing can be considered good if there is no ultimate basis for all good. Nothing can be considered true if there is no Absolute Truth which is ageless and always true, and not just true for a certain time and for a certain people. How could we possibly grow in love if there is no ultimate benchmark for love?

Loving our neighbour, especially the poor, the weak, and the marginalised can never just be a dictate of justice. Loving others without rooting it in the love of God eventually ends in a pale surrogate of love, a distortion of true love. This is why the love that our Lord speaks of is not a mere human love. Only if we are anchored in the primary relationship with God can we begin to love others in a wholesome and unselfish way. Without such connexion, our weak attempts at loving end up following the idols of egoism, of power, of dominion, polluting our relations with others, and following paths not of life, but of death.

If we lose sight of God, then all that remains as a guiding thread is nothing but our ego. We will try to grab as much as possible out of this life for ourselves. We will say that we are motivated by altruistic values or even love, but the truth is that we are in it for ourselves. We will see all the others as enemies of our happiness who threaten to take something away from us. Envy and greed will take over our lives and poison our world.

For this reason, it is critically important to remember that only if this fundamental relationship with God is right, then can all other relationships be right. Our whole lives should be driven by this motivation to practice thinking with God, feeling with God, willing with God, so that love may grow and become the keynote of our life. Only then can love of neighbour be self-evident. Only if we love as how God loves, can we “do what you will!”

Wisdom and Freedom

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Today’s gospel is made up of two parts. And if you really take a second closer look at both parts and consider the implications of what the Lord is telling us, both are equally inexplicable.

God does seem to be a Divine Troll who likes to play cruel tricks on us by “hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children.” To find a clue to this paradoxical statement, one must go back to the primordial garden of Eden where Adam and Eve were permitted to eat all the fruits of the fruit bearing trees in that garden save and except, for the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Despite this warning, our first parents disobeyed the clear and unambiguous instructions of God and consumed the forbidden fruit.

One may think that God’s verdict is an overreaction to a petty crime. But when examined closely, the story reveals the same theme which our Lord wishes to convey in the first part of today’s passage. True wisdom, “knowledge of good and bad,” can only be arrived at by humbly submitting to God and never apart from Him. Adam and Eve sought autonomy from God in making future moral judgments and this was their biggest mistake, the height of human folly. As the Psalmist reminds us: “The fool says in his heart, “There is no God”” (psalm 14:1; 53:1).

St Paul draws upon this reasoning when he concludes in his letter to the Romans that those who live unspiritual lives (lives without God) will die, whereas those who live spiritual lives, will live. The former may think themselves clever and wise in the ways of the world but would be proven the fool when they stand before God spiritually bankrupt.

We live in two worlds, the visible and the invisible. But all too often we focus so much on what we can see and hear that we neglect the world of the Spirit. It is in this invisible interior world that we see God more clearly. I’m reminded of the story of how St Brigid, one of the three patron saints of Ireland, performed a miracle by healing the blindness of an old and holy nun so as the latter could view a most beautiful sunset. After having admired God’s creation for a few moments, the holy nun turned to St Brigid and made this request: “Close my eyes again dear mother, for when the world is so visible to the eyes, God is less clearly seen to the soul.”

So, when God conceals something behind the veneer of mystery, He does so not out of spite or cruelty. He hides that which is most valuable because the things which are easily accessible often lose their value in our estimation. Familiarity breeds contempt while mystery heightens our desire for it.

We must now turn our attention to the second part of our Lord’s teaching. Some may think that this second half is preferable to the first part, since our Lord has promised us rest and that He will remove our burdens if we were to only come to Him in trust. But a closer look at the words of our Lord will also result in something no less befuddling than the first part.

Don’t you think it’s a little bit strange that the Lord’s idea of getting us to rest in Him involves putting on a yoke? A yoke was not created for rest; it was created for work. It literally has nothing to do with rest at all. When our Lord invited the weary and heavy laden to come to Him and find rest, we would expect Him to say something like; Take off that yoke you’re wearing — you don’t need it anymore! But Jesus’ solution for yoke-weariness was not to cast off the yoke entirely; it was to yoke ourselves to Him, to walk in step with Him, to work in sync with Him.

What is the yoke of Christ? The yoke came to be understood by the Jews as a metaphor for the Law. The Jews would use the yoke of the Mosaic Law to pull their life and everything in it along. It left them, however, tired, worn out, and burned out on a religion which laid on more burdens than lifts them. The yoke of grace which our Lord offered was contrary to the yoke of the Law. It was a move from depending on one’s own efforts and ability, to depending on God’s grace and power. This is a different kind of yoke, one perfectly fitted to support and aid us in fulfilling His purpose for our lives. That doesn’t mean being yoked to Christ will always be comfortable, but it’s not supposed to crush us either. You see, that when we are yoked to Christ, He carries most of the weight. He makes Himself become a beast of burden, a donkey like what we heard in the first reading, to bear us and lead us to victory and rest.

Today, most of us don’t suffer under the yoke of the Law like Jesus’ listeners did, but we have other yokes. Chief among these I would suspect is the yoke of performance, the yoke of living up to other people’s expectations, real or imagined. For example, we want to be the best parents possible, so we look for the ideal parenting methods. How our kids turn out is the measure of our parenting success (we think), so we stress out about every little thing they do wrong or might do wrong. Or perhaps we want to be the best at our jobs, so we take on more and more responsibilities because we are afraid that saying no means we might fall behind, lose some of our perks, or be overlooked for the next raise or promotion. Eventually, the overwhelming demands on our limited time and energies render us incapable of hearing the voice of God because we don’t even have time to stop and listen.

When we pull the burdens of life by the yoke of our own performance, then performance sets the pace. We race faster and faster, trying to outdo our last personal best or to measure up to the expectations of others. But when we take on the yoke of Christ and let Him lead, He determines the pace, and we find that His grace makes up what we lack.

So, in these two principles laid out in the Gospel, our Lord presents us with the paradox of Christian discipleship in a nutshell. The wisdom of God may seem foolish in comparison to all the cunning wiles of the worldly and unspiritual people of this world, and yet it is the only wisdom that can guarantee our salvation. The man who counts himself wise in the ways of the world may end up the fool in the after life because the wisdom of God has been hidden from them, as a result of their own choice in pursuing worldly riches.

Likewise, in wishing to be truly free, we must not cast off everything in pursuit of libertine hedonism but instead humbly submit to the yoke of Christ which is light and easy. The yoke of Christ is perfectly fitted to support and aid us in fulfilling His Father’s purpose for our lives. It’s not always comfortable, but that’s not the point. It is always what I need for the path He wants me to walk. Under the yoke of grace, I rest content with where I am right here, right now, weaknesses and all — as long as I am walking close to the Lord Jesus, knowing that with Him, in Him and through Him, I will be led to greater heights.

Power vs Authority

 Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Our discussion these days often revolves around power - who has it and who doesn’t? The powerless often decry that the powerful have a monopoly over power which they do not hesitate to abuse and the powerful would often justify the exercise of such power for a greater good, i.e. they are doing it for the people. But discussions on power often leaves everyone dissatisfied. The powerful will always claim that they need more power, and those who claim to be powerless will always complain that they do not have enough power. The problem is confounded when we conflate power with authority – we often think they are one and the same thing.

A distinction is made between power and authority in today’s gospel. We see the unrestrained power of evil and the liberating authority of Christ. The unclean spirit’s power over this man had subjugated his mind and will. The man was no longer free. On the other hand, we witness the unique authority of Christ, an authority which is not based on imposing one’s will on the other, an authority which does not rely on the wisdom of others, an authority which does not seek to dominate, but one which liberates.

Let’s be honest, if authority was exercised by any other person other than our Lord, it would immediately trigger an adverse response from most of us. "Authority" is a word that makes most people think of law and order, command and control, dominance and submission. We focus over and over again on the oppressive side of authority. One tragedy of our time is that "authority" has become almost a dirty word in our society, while opposition to authority in schools, families, society and the church generally is cheered upon and seen as something fine. The reason for this is that we are unable to distinguish authority from power.

Scripture, by using two Greek words, makes a distinction between power and authority.  “Dunamis” is usually translated as “power,” from which we get our word ‘dynamite.’ “Dunamis” implies power, strength or even violence. In the New Testament, this is often associated with the ability to do miraculous things. Whereas, the Greek word “exousia” is usually translated as “authority” and suggests jurisdiction, right, and strength. Jesus indeed had dunamis, but more importantly He had exousia, the authority of the Son of God. And that very same authority has been entrusted to the apostles and to the Church. Without such God-given authority, the exercise of power would be ruinous. Instead of being a gift, power without authority can become a great source of temptation.

In today’s gospel, our Lord exhibits power in driving out a demonic spirit but more significantly His teaching was recognised by the people as one “with authority.” But they do not fully understand that authority. At this stage of the gospel, only the demon is able to recognise Him, for the power of evil knows its adversary, it knows that the time of its defeat and destruction has come. The demon understands that our Lord comes with the authority of God. The story reflects the great cosmic battle between the power of God and that of evil, where God is always triumphant. At the very same time, this story helps us understand how authority can also mean freedom and liberty. The authority of Christ is one which frees man from enslavement to sin and evil.

But not all exercise of power is liberating. When power is separated from authority, it descends into authoritarianism. Authoritarianism is authority corrupted, twisted. It is power without authority. It is the exercise of power without accountability. The unclean spirit had power over this man but it did not have the authority to be there. Its control over this man was an abomination in the eyes of God. Authoritarianism appears when the submission that is demanded cannot be justified in terms of truth or morality. Authoritarianism betrays an imperious mentality that thinks that one’s actions must always be without constraint. Authoritarianism often involves a greasy, sneaky and even manipulative abuse of power. But perhaps the most insidious distortion of authoritarianism is that it actually denies legitimate authority in order to hold that authority for oneself autonomously.

But true authority is sacrificial and giving. Such authority is a matter of service rather than one which lords over others. Our Lord demonstrated such authority in His ministry – He came to serve and not to be served. Secondly, true exercise of authority demands that we be accountable to another. Legitimate authority is needed to keep unbridled power in check. It is not meant to legitimise authoritarianism nor empower the ruthless.

Most people today would cite conscience as the licence to do whatever you will. Conscience, though it is the subjective moral seat of judgment, cannot unseat the objective source of moral authority which is God who communicates His will through Christ, through natural law, through reason and through the moral authority of the Church. When subjective conscience is raised to a level that supersedes all the others, when its primacy is declared above others, it does not liberate but enslaves or abandons us, making us totally dependent on personal taste or prevailing opinion. This is what Pope Emeritus Benedict called the “dictatorship of the subject.”

Today, modern man fails to recognise the irony of his predicament. He believes that the rejection of any external authority, especially in the area of moral authority, will guarantee his personal liberty and freedom. We live in a culture that is steeped in relativity, one that promotes the individual’s right to question all authority. In a world where there are no clear absolutes, everyone claims to speak with authority - dogmas are substituted for opinion, objective science is substituted by what is politically convenient, objective truth is substituted with subjective feelings (“I feel that this is the right thing to do” rather than “this is the right thing to do, even though I don’t feel like it”). Relativism is a form of enslavement – we are enslaved by our own thoughts and feelings, believing them to be the only valid truth that is worthy of submission to. But real freedom is only ever found under authority — God’s authority in Christ and that same authority now exercised by the Church. It is freedom not to do wrong, but to do right; not to break the moral law, but to keep it; not to forget God, but to cleave to Him every moment, in every endeavour and relationship; not to exploit others, but to lay down one’s life for them.

By rejecting authority, we are certainly not bringing about a correction of the abuse of power. On the contrary, those who abuse power do so precisely because they reject legitimate authority, they reject accountability. Aren’t tyrants observing this principle: “Rules for thee but not for me?” But if we recover the proper use of authority, an authority that is accountable to God, to His Christ and to the Church, then freedom is enhanced, power is channeled to its proper goal and the common good is served. True authority is motivated by love, it serves love and engenders love.

#LoveWins?

Thirty First Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

When the US Supreme Court ruled by a 5 to 4 vote in 2015 that the US Constitution guarantees the right of marriage to all persons, without exception, meaning same-sex marriage is now a constitutional and legal right, supporters celebrated by making the hashtag #lovewins viral on social media. Outside the Supreme Court, the police allowed hundreds of people waving rainbow flags and holding signs, to advance onto the court plaza as those present for the decision streamed down the steps. “Love has won,” the crowd chanted as courtroom witnesses threw up their arms in victory. It is ironic, that those opposed to the decision to redefine the age-old definition of marriage came to be labelled as “haters” – the logic – if you are against same-sex marriage, you are against love, therefore, you are a “hater.”  It is interesting how “love” too has been redefined to include those who agree with one’s ideological positions and excludes those who don’t. It is more ironic that if you are a supporter of a traditional viewpoint of marriage, you are a “hater” too. To put a label on people as a way of closing off the debate or as a way of vilifying those who disagree really runs counter to this whole idea of “love.”

So much hatred pours daily into our newsfeed. Ironically it’s all directed in the name of tolerance, progress and love. I don’t think that the word “love” means what they think it means. Our culture uses the word love to mean just about everything except what the Bible means by it. “Love,” hasn’t just become synonymous with unfettered sexual expression, it has become tantamount to a kind of sexual gospel that is blinded to all other concerns, especially moral concerns. It’s not merely enough to have the freedom to marry or kiss whomever one chooses, but one has to submit to celebrating this kind of sexual liberation to show any conception of love. This secularised appropriation of love shares much in common with the corrupted form of the Greek “eros”— erotic love that is presumed to lead humans to “supreme happiness.” Yet, as Pope Emeritus Benedict warned in his 2005 encyclical Deus Caritas Est, “this counterfeit divinisation of eros actually strips it of its dignity and dehumanises it.”

Anything that defies this new secular religion which glorifies “love” as doing what you want with whomever you want, and does not cater to the personal and explicitly sexual desires of the individual, is immediately described as “hate.” But, philosophically speaking, this self-defined dichotomy of love and hate undercuts the dynamic nature of love itself. Not only does it remove the biblical notion of agape (which is the word used in today’s gospel), or a kind of love that, in the words of Pope Benedict, “seeks the good of the beloved…ready, and even willing, for sacrifice,” but it removes God from love. In a way, a love which is separated from God eventually leads to a rejection of God. After all, St John tells us that “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 Jn 4:16). 

Let’s come back to today’s gospel. Many of us have been conditioned to believe that the greatest commandment is simply love. You will be shocked to discover that Love (love per se) is not the greatest commandment. Look keenly at the words our Lord uses. There is the first commandment which is very important than any other command. To be ‘first’ in this context is closer to the idea of being the first stone laid—the cornerstone, upon which all of the other stones must rest. Consequently, the greatness of the love commandment lies not in its surpassing value over and against all of the other commandments of Jewish law but, rather, in its ability to hold up all the rest. This is the love of God. All other commands have a basis and root in this command. So, if any person asks you what is the greatest command, do not say love, but love of God. To take God out of the equation would be a gross misrepresentation.

Quoting from the “Shema”, the fundamental creed of the Jewish People, the love of God must be total. Loving God with one’s entire heart means loving Him from the very root of our being; loving God with one’s entire soul means loving Him passionately; loving God with all of one’s strength means loving Him with all of the power we can muster; and loving Him with all of one’s mind means loving Him by studying His ways and learning to do His will. That is why in the Fourth Gospel, our Lord tells His disciples that if they love Him, they should keep His commandments. The true litmus test for love is obedience to the Father’s will and God’s commandments. Love can never mean abusing our freedom and seek to live a life at odds with God’s plan for us, for our relationships, and for marriage and family.

You can see from the above that to love God supremely and to love man in a corresponding way is no light task. It is sheer human impossibility! Everything rational in our mind tells us that we ought to have such love. But every irrational thought tells us that we cannot. If we are honest with ourselves, we will confess that none of us has loved God in such a way. We might love God more today than we loved Him yesterday, but we still do not love Him as we ought. That is why we will always fall short of living up to the demands of the commandment and that is also why we must repent daily for our failure to keep it.

Our Lord knew what He was saying by saying that the greatest command is love. The world teaches that you can love your neighbor without even caring or loving God and this is the highest degree of hypocrisy. A man cannot love neighbour without first having the love of God. True love comes first from loving God and without God there is no love even to neighbour.

What, then, should be the Catholic response to both the hijacking of “love” and “hate”? The answer is simple: We must love in a Christian sense. We must show that love is, and can be, more than two men kissing; more than a hashtag and a rainbow flag; more than something that benefits just us. We must show love in all of its healing power of forgiveness, in charity, and in what is no longer rational, yet still reveals the light of faith. We must also never blur the lines between sin and virtue. We cannot and should not obfuscate the nature of evil. Let’s call a spade a spade – sin has nothing to do with love. In fact, sin is the exact opposite of authentic love.  Above all, we must have courage, and we must continue to live our lives with faith, showing the world the true value of loving God with all our hearts, all our souls, all our beings, and being witnesses of this self-giving love to others, especially to those on the fringes of society and even to those who are undeserving of love.

Today, the hashtag - #LoveWins -popular on social media, is easier to understand and accept than the Church’s unchanging teaching on what love and marriage is and what it is not. In the end, we Christians do agree that love will win in the end, the love that Saint Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13:4–6: “Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, it is not boastful, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.” It’s an important reminder that “love” and “truth” go hand-in-hand: We must speak the truth in love to our fellow men and women, and there can be no love that denies the truth. “Love is the light—and in the end, the only light,” Pope Benedict tells us, “that can always illuminate a world grown dim and give us the courage needed to keep living and working.”

Our Faith and Public Witness

Twenty Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

When I began writing this homily a month and a half ago, I wasn’t sure whether it would be preached before the National Elections or in the aftermath. It did seem at the time, that the timing and outcome of the elections would have a significant bearing on my homily. But since I am neither a prophet nor a political pundit, I felt inspired to write a homily that would transcend such specific alignments.  You see, it is not the gospel that must be accommodated to suit the political climate and contemporary situation of our country; on the contrary, it is society and us that must constantly seek to live up to the demands of the gospel.

I know that many suffer from a distaste of politics. Many of you are even tempted not to cast your ballot at all. The options are not very promising. It often feels like we are faced with an almost impossible decision, like having to choose between the devil and his henchman. And yet, we should take solace in God’s providence and His ability to write straight with crooked lines, but it still leaves us wanting. The word crooked has been used quite a bit to describe our political system and politicians in general. I am sure many of you may think that it is too mild a word to describe the present line up of candidates, politicians and parties in general.

How should we Christians view our role in politics today? If the Lord walked among us today, what would He say? Well, the Lord did walk among us when Caesar was the ruler of the Roman Empire. And the very subject that occasioned this discussion then remains the same issue that continues to trouble many of us today – taxation. Caesar presided over a corrupt and unjust system of government that exacted oppressive taxes and resources from colonised nations, including the Jewish people. These taxations made daily life almost unbearable.  There was the income tax: one percent of one’s income was to be given to Rome, and then, the ground tax or property tax: one tenth of all grain and one fifth of all oil and wine were to be paid in kind or in coinage to Rome.  Finally, to further humiliate the colonised, there was the poll tax: a denarius or a day’s wage was to be paid to Rome by all men ages 14-65 and all women ages 12-65, to remind of them of their subjugated status. The method of taxation alone had the extra twist of usurping money through the agency of the Jews’ own people, who were allowed to tack on additional amounts that were over and above that due to Caesar.

Ironically, the Pharisees and the Herodians, who were traditional enemies, ‘ganged up’ to set this trap for the Lord. This was the question posed to Him, “Master … Is it permissible to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” With a slight adjustment, this very question could easily be asked by any tax paying or I may add, tax evading Malaysian. A rejection by Jesus of the poll tax would have been reported as treason to Rome. On the other hand, if Jesus had agreed to pay it, the Pharisees would have accused Him of betraying His own people. Discerning a plot of entrapment, Our Lord cuts through the hypocrisy and political differences to the very heart of the matter, “Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.”

This saying does three crucial things. First, it acknowledges that Caesar does have rights; that a difference does exist between the concerns of God and the concerns of Caesar. But second, Jesus desacralises – in effect, he demotes – Caesar by suggesting that Caesar has no rights over those things that belong to God. Only God is God, which means that Caesar is not God. And thirdly, the Lord remains silent about what exactly belongs to either God or Caesar. Figuring all that out belongs to us.  Now, this can be hard work because no detailed map exists because while human nature doesn’t change, human circumstances change all the time.

This saying provides us with a framework for how we should think about religion and the state even today. The Lord reminds us that Caesar does have rights. Scripture tells us that we owe secular leaders our respect and prayers; respect for the law; obedience to proper authority; and service to the common good. But it’s a rather modest list of duties. And we need to remember that “respect” for Caesar does not mean subservience, or silence, or inaction, or excuse-making or acquiescence to grave evil. Sometimes, Christians suffer from a phony unwillingness to offend that poses as prudence and good manners, but in truth, this is only a guise for cowardice. It is true that human beings owe each other respect and appropriate courtesy, but, we also owe each other the truth!

In fact, the more we reflect on today’s passage, the more we realise that everything important about human life belongs not to Caesar but to God: our intellect, our talents, our free will, the people we love, Truth, the beauty and goodness in the world, our soul, our moral integrity and of course, our hope for eternal life. These are the things worth struggling to ennoble and defend, and none of them came from Caesar or anyone or any government who succeeded him. We owe civil authority our respect and appropriate obedience. However, that obedience is limited by what belongs to God.  In reality, all belongs to God and nothing — at least nothing permanent and important — belongs to Caesar. Why? Because just as the coin bears the stamp of Caesar’s image, we bear the stamp of God’s image in baptism. We belong to God, and only to God. 

The Church is not a political organism and she has no interest in partisanship. Yes, our faith is never primarily about politics; but Catholic social action – including political action – is always a natural by-product of the Church’s moral teachings. The Catholic faith is always personal, but it’s never private. If our faith is real, then it will bear fruit in our public decisions and behaviours, including our political choices. Each of us has the vocation to be a missionary of Jesus Christ where we live and work and vote. Each of us is called to bring Christian truth to the public debate, to be vigorous and unembarrassed about our Catholic presence in society, and to be a leaven in our nation's public life. The “separation of Church and state” does not mean — and it can never mean — separating our Catholic faith from our public witness, our political choices and our political actions. For to do so would mean denying who we are, “salt of the earth” and “light to the nations.”

In living out and exercising our public duties and rights, each of us needs to follow his or her own properly formed conscience. But the problem is that many people mistake their own preconceived ideas, opinions and prejudices as the voice of conscience. You see, conscience is not a matter of personal opinion or preference. It takes prayer, study and work. If our conscience has the habit of telling us what we want to hear on difficult issues, then we probably have a badly formed conscience. A healthy conscience is the voice of God’s truth in our hearts, and it should usually make us uncomfortable. The way we get a healthy conscience is by opening our hearts to the counsel and guidance of the Church that Jesus Christ left for us. As Catholics, if we find ourselves disagreeing with the teaching of our Catholic faith on a serious matter, it's probably not the Church that’s wrong. The problem is much more likely with us. The more authentically Catholic we are in our lives, our choices, our actions and our convictions, then will we contribute more truly to the moral and political life of our nation.

If you had participated in the last elections and went out to vote, kudos to you for having done your Christian duty. If the elections are just around the corner or still in the pipelines, I would like to strongly encourage you to go out and vote.