Change of Heart

Third Sunday of Easter Year A

Metanoia is a Greek word which we priests like to brandish to show off our grasp (or lack of it) of this scriptural language. It sounds like a good name for a medical condition or a punk band. It is Greek for “change of mind,” meaning a change in one’s life direction resulting from a spiritual conversion. The word is formed by combining two smaller Greek words: meta (beyond); and nous (mind or spirit). Together, they form the verb (metanoeō), which means something like “go beyond the mind that you have.” But a change of mind seems too tame. I would think that Metanoia involves a radical change that goes much deeper - a change of heart, a change of the core of our being, forcing one to dig deeply.

St Luke, in the last chapter of his gospel, beautifully illustrates this concept by painting this life-changing, conversion inducing encounter of two disciples with the Risen Lord. Without missing a beat, he incisively describes how the disciples had completely lost their bearings and sense of direction (both spiritual and geographical) in the overwhelming aftermath of Jesus’ death: “They stopped short, their faces downcast”. So caught up in their own pain, they were unable to recognise the One who stood before them, the One who bore our pain and who suffered on the cross so that we may not have to bear them for eternity.

The Road to Emmaus, which originally started as a walk of shame and a retreat after a massive defeat, was transformed into a march of restoration and growth. On that road, there was a re-learning on the part of the disciples. They had most likely heard these scriptures many times before. The stories were familiar but now they needed to be told once again. This was necessary for them to really grasp the significance of the Cross. Who better to teach them these things than the very One who sent the prophets and gave them those inspired words?

What brought about these two men’s conversion – their change of heart? In fact, this is what St Luke wishes to emphasise by using the term “kardia” which translates as “heart” three times in the road to Emmaus story (the term kardia is used more frequently by Luke than by any of the other evangelists). First Jesus upbraids the two disciples for being “so slow (of heart) to believe the full message of the prophets!” (24:35). When he vanishes from their sight, they say to each other that their hearts burned within them while he spoke to them on the road (cf. 24:32). Finally, after they have told their story to the eleven and the other disciples, and Jesus appears in the midst of them all, he rebukes them all for the questioning which has arisen in their hearts, their failure, even upon seeing him, to believe in him (cf. 24:36–38). For Luke, the heart is the place of repentance and conversion or the lack thereof, and his use of the term expresses his abiding concern for conversion, in the complete sense.

But this dialogue would not be the high point of the story. All this merely leads to the climax which takes place at the end of the story - the breaking of bread. The Word of God leads to the Sacrament of God. We say that the Scriptures are light for our path, and that path leads to the Eucharist.

Some commentators have suggested that the disciples finally recognised Jesus simply because of a familiar gesture on His part. But this understates how Luke purposefully uses words which he had used in his account of the Last Supper (Lk 22:19-20). Yes, the disciples certainly recognised that gesture, but the recognition was a gift of grace - it was the very celebration of the Eucharist that helped them recognise the Lord.

The Church recognises that Christ is present in the congregation, the priest and the Word of God. But there is something unique about His presence in the Eucharist. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1374) teaches that this Eucharistic presence “is called 'real' - by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be 'real' too, but because, it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present."

Each time our Lord celebrates the Eucharist for us, He invites us to recognise Him. As in an old Hymn, the Lord is inviting us to “open the eyes of our hearts.” Each time we celebrate the Eucharist we meet the Risen Lord, not just symbolically or as a memorial, but in person, in the flesh, although He hides under the guise of bread and wine. He does not compel us to do so, through spectacular miracles. Instead, He gently invites us. It is because He comes so quietly, so respectful of our freedom to respond in faith, that we can miss Him in the Eucharist. Too often we yearn for the spectacular religious experience, and miss the lifegiving encounter so repeatedly offered in the Mass. And yet in this quiet celebration, we find life, abundant life.

The effect of recognising Him "in the breaking of the Bread" is action. The disciples did not linger at Emmaus. They hurried back to Jerusalem to proclaim that they had seen the Lord. This is what true conversion of the heart entails. Likewise, the Christian is not expected to linger at the Eucharist. It is an encounter with Jesus, in Word and Sacrament, which sends the Christian out to witness. We come to Mass so that we may go back into the life of discipleship, renewed by the encounter with our risen Saviour, and made ready for action in His service.

Just like the two disciples who dragged their feet in shame and grief back to Emmaus, our faith can sometimes become stale just like our experience of the Eucharist. Routine can deaden our spiritual senses. The flame of faith that had been instilled in us can become dimmed to the point of being extinguished. That is why conversion, repentance, a change of heart, must be the daily constant in our lives. This is because our faith needs constant refreshing by the experience of an encounter with the Risen Lord.

Repentance, conversion—metanoia—stands at the heart of the Christian journey. This is why the story of the Road to Emmaus does not only remind us of the importance of one sacrament but two – Penance and the Eucharist. The sacrament of Penance, confession, must precede the Eucharist. So, let us ask the Lord this day—and each day after—where, when, and how He is calling us to go beyond ourselves to experience the conversion, the change of heart and mind, that He longs to perform in us. In every encounter, there is always an opportunity for our hearts, our “kardia”, to burn once again with new fervour and excitement, and opportunity to look back at all the pitfalls, difficulties and losses we’ve experienced, and recognise that He was not far away, even though sometimes we may choose to walk away from Him.

Fasting and Feasting

Ash Wednesday

Yesterday was the first day of Chinese New Year, just in case you missed it on your calendar. For those who had been celebrating, it would be close to two whole days of food binging, close to a Roman food orgy. I guess with the Malaysian food culture of having ‘loh-sang’ a month before the actual day, some of you may have been gouging for an entire month. But today it ends. The feasting has ended and the fasting has begun, except for those of you who are availing of the regional bishops dispensation of the obligation to fast, which is actually a deference rather than an outright cancellation of the obligation. Your sentence is reprieved till this Friday. Enjoy it while it last!

Fasting and feasting may seem like opposites on a spectrum. And in fact, some may feel guilty that you are still feasting despite the dispensation from the bishops while others would look on their neighbours with scrutinising judgment for having given in to the temptations of the flesh or stomach. But did you know that there is a deep connexion between the two, especially within Catholic theology and culture?

In many historically Catholic countries, the period that immediately precedes the Lenten season is marked by celebrations that are collectively known as Carnival or Carnivale. The Carnival typically involves a public celebration or parade combining elements of a circus, mask and public street parties. People often dress up or masquerade during this entire week of celebrations, overturning the often mundane norms of daily life. It often seems ironic and even scandalous that the austere, penitential and holy season of Lent is preceded by this orgiastic display of frivolous and drunken debauchery. It’s as if all the rich food and drink, pleasures and luxuries, and excesses of every kind, had to be consumed and disposed of in preparation for the Lenten fast and abstinence. The word "carnival" literally means "farewell to meat."

But there is a necessary juxtaposition of Carnival and Lent. There can be no Carnival without Ash Wednesday, and the significance of Ash Wednesday and Lent will be lost upon us if life did not have its Carnival. All things have their season – there is a season for feasting, and a season for fasting. This becomes most apparent this year when Ash Wednesday, the day of fasting, follows immediately after the cultural celebration and feasting of the Lunar New Year. For some of us the feasting has ended. For others, it continues for a few more days with the blessing of the bishops. But ultimately, we must eventually begin our fasting. This is the time when the Church invites us to reexamine and reorder all aspects of our life. We can see the contrast of Carnival indulgence and Lenten fasting not just in foods, but in all areas of life. Carnival puts into perspective the things we need to give up in Lent.

Our pre-Lenten celebrations and preparations provide us with a graphic illustration of the message of Lent, that we are fools, if we who seek our final end in earthly things! The Church, during this season of Lent, will show you where true happiness may be found, Who it is that brought it, and how He merited it for us. The pre-Lenten Carnival celebrations, despite their rollicking good fun and general merriment, really had a deadly serious objective. This is what the gaudy and rancorous parades of Carnival represent - the “princes of this world,” in all their tinselly splendour, followed by a long train of personified human vices, sins and infirmities, solemnly enters the city gate and takes possession of the town.

The performers are all arrayed in their costumes with the purpose of portraying Death, the World, Vanity, Beauty, Sin of every kind, human wealth, suffering, the joys and sorrows of human life, etc. This is not a triumphant procession of a victorious army. But a ridiculous motley crew of defeated individuals that are being subjected to mockery and humiliation. It is the procession of the defeated forces of the world, of sin, of vice and the devil. It is a Walk of Shame, not a Victory Parade. It’s a parody of the triumphant procession of our true King, Christ, as He enters His City at the end of Lent and the start of Holy Week.

Thus did the merriment of the passing hour imperfectly conceal a stern seriousness. This was the means the Church took to warn her children not to be spiritual fools. Piercing through the noise and fun-making, and clearly heard by all, was the warning voice: “Be careful not to parade your good deeds before men to attract their notice.” A further warning that all we aspire to accomplish, all that we hope to acquire and possess is merely “vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Only one thing is necessary: Save your soul; give heed to what the Church will command you during the coming season of Lent. The words that accompany the imposition of holy ashes ring true, “Repent and believe in the Gospel.”

Certainly, if the world were given a choice between Carnival and Lent, Carnival is the more popular choice of the two. Let’s be honest, who doesn’t love a good party? And yet, Carnival must find its ultimate meaning in Lent. It is the austerity of Lent, the penance of Lent, the prophetic self-renunciation of Lent that truly prepares us for the apex Carnival celebration of life, which is Easter. St. Augustine can serve us as a safe guide during this period of preparation for Lent, and of course, during the season itself, too. “The pagans,” he says, “present each other with gifts of friendship, but you should give alms during these days of wickedness. They shout their songs of love and pleasure; you must learn to find joy in the hearing of the word of God. They run eagerly to the theatre; you must flock to the churches. They guzzle their drinks; you must be temperate and fast.”

Thus, the prayers and gospels of the season of Lent attempt to awaken us to a profound realisation of the fact that only through penance and through uncompromising rejection of sin, that is, through a thorough change of heart, can we partake of the redemption of Christ. Through His incarnation, His passion and death, Christ gained for us the graces of salvation without any merit on our part. But only a heart freed from sin and evil inclinations can become the field producing fruit fifty and a hundred-fold for the divine Sower. Whoever refuses to toil at purifying his sin-laden heart will of necessity remain in fatal darkness, and the light of salvation and grace will not reach him. After the feasting that ended yesterday, let us now begin our fasting. And after the long winter of fasting from the pleasures and delights of the world, we will be guaranteed a rich harvest of spiritual fruits that comes with a springtime of the Soul.

The Price for Lasting Peace

Second Sunday of Advent Year A

Recently, New Yorkers elected a man as their new mayor, which many hail as their Saviour whilst others accuse as being a communist. Some see him as a future hope for the city while others view him as one of the four apocalyptic horsemen that would bring about its destruction. What endeared him to most of his supporters was his primary campaign promise to dish out “free stuff.” Free bus. Free housing. Free groceries. Now, who wouldn’t like “free stuff”?

Have you ever longed for a place where everything was “free”? A place where people worked together, shared together and genuinely cared for one another? A place where poverty, conflict, rivalry, violence is absent or abolished entirely? Despite best intentions and best efforts, the lesson we learn from the neo-socialists, communists, democratic governments is that mankind is unable to engineer the perfect society. Why have countless experiments failed or have been unsuccessful? The answer can be found in the very name given to these ventures. It’s the word “utopia.” Utopia, a Greek word, literally means “no place.” The reality is that there never has been a place on earth where human beings created a perfect peaceful community. And often it has been the very people who claim to create an earthly paradise that have caused the most devastating brokenness. The good news is that scripture shows us how peace and perfection will arrive on earth.

In the first reading, the Prophet Isaiah, our principal prophet for this season of Advent, shares with us a prophetic dream of a future society, a perfect paradise. All hatreds and hostilities have disappeared, those who hated and killed their victims are now sitting side by side, the lion and the leopard lie down with the lamb and the gazelle, the child plays with the poisonous snake. Nobody is doing any harm, the poor and the weak are no longer oppressed by injustice, all seems lovey-dovey. It is paradise restored. Sounds like Utopia, right? Problem is that this ‘paradise’, this ‘utopia,’ exists in no place. But will this ever take place? Well, the Prophet Isaiah provides the clue – he points to the shoot that will spring from the stock of Jesse.

The stock or the stump of Jesse actually refers to another failed project, the broken line of the dynasty of David. The dynasty of King David had been cut down like a tree by the Babylonians in 587 B.C. when the city of Jerusalem and the Kingdom of Judah was devastated and the ruling class led into exile. The people were shocked to realise that the dynasty was not really eternal. But had not God assured David: “your house and your kingdom shall endure forever before me; your throne shall stand firm forever” (2 Sam 7:16). Isaiah knew that God must always be true to His word; hence the dynasty in some way will revive. The spirit of the Lord will rest upon the stump and the roots of Jesse, and the people of God will bloom again. New life can emerge from what is perceived as a dead tree. But the solution would not be a human one. It is through God’s direct intervention that the dead tree stump would spring to life again. We need a Saviour, not just a charismatic political leader. Christ would be the answer.

The second reading also presents us with a similarly utopian vision, now of the Church. But the realities that plagued the Church during the time of St Paul’s writings were in fact dystopian. There was building tension between two group of Christians within the community. The smaller group, described as the “weak,” liked very much a traditional form of religion, prayed a lot and mortified themselves, and observed a lot of prescriptions. The other group, named the “strong,” did not pay attention to such “small” things, which they considered trivial, and held that one did not have to follow the old law; the only necessary thing was to be faithful to Christ. The two groups abused each other: the weak “passed judgment” on the strong ones, calling them unfaithful and these, in their turn “had contempt” for the weak ones, classifying them as traditionalists and without understanding. Sounds familiar?

St Paul recommends to all to be charitable, to show love and reciprocal respect. He did not need to reinvent the wheel and come up with a new blueprint for this community. Christ is THE BLUEPRINT! Our Lord, who did not seek to please Himself but placed Himself at the service of others, is the model par excellence for the qualities needed for community living. What He gives to us is “free”, salvation is a free gift because it is not something we can ever earn. But it comes at the greatest cost to Himself – He paid the cost through His own life. Harmony in the community could only be assured by the member’s commitment to Christ. St Paul challenged the “strong” as well as the “weak” to “treat each other in the same friendly way as Christ treated” them. Rather than engage in mutual criticism that would only engender hostility, they should learn “to be tolerant with each other, following the example of Christ Jesus, so that united in mind and voice (they) may give glory to God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Finally, we come to the gospel and discover the key to Peace. It is to be found in the keynote message of the gospel and that of Advent - repentance. In today’s gospel, we hear the story of how St John the Baptist preached this message, “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is close at hand.” What does the word Repentance mean? In Hebrew, the word for conversion (shubh) indicates that one has taken a wrong path, and once he has become aware of his detour, the individual returns to the right path in order to return to God. So too the Greek word, metanoia involves not just a static remorse but a dynamic and determined about-face, a positive commitment to a new way of life. Significantly, conversion is not a purely human decision or endeavour. Rather, conversion is a human response to the prior initiative of God.

Repentance means turning to Christ. Repentance means putting on Christ and becoming Christ. The word “Christian” means “of Christ” or a “little Christ.” It means putting God in the first place in our lives and making sure that everything else finds its rightful places in our lives under God. Repentance means letting go of our own will, in order to follow the things that God wills for us. It means turning away from sin and all rebellion against God, in order to be obedient to God and to follow Him in all that He wants from us. Repentance means owning up to our sin, our human frailties, our fears, our inner hurts and entrusting all these to God’s mercy and compassion. Repentance means knowing our need of God. In turning our lives around, we come to recognise that our self-sufficiency is inadequate and that we need to cooperate with God in our own salvation. Repentance therefore is not a one-time thing. It is a process that goes on for a lifetime. Little by little we orientate ourselves ever more perfectly in God’s love.

So as we continue our journey to Christmas, we need to repent of our comfortableness with sin. This is the only way our society and the Church can be transformed. Various utopian experiments that have sought to improve mankind and create a peaceable environment have failed. Lasting peace would not be found in any peace treaty or socio-political or economic reform. This is because, if God is not part of the equation, Utopia would remain a dream. But God’s effort to bring peace will not fail. It will succeed—through Jesus Christ and the establishment of God’s Kingdom. The Kingdom is both “free” and costly. Free because our Lord offers it to us freely. Costly because He has already paid the price for this gift. So, prepare the Way of the Lord!

There can be no peace without Christ

First Sunday of Advent Year A

One of President Trump’s biggest boasts, and he has good reason to trumpet this (pardon the pun), is that he is the “Peace President,” since he has brokered numerous peace treaties throughout the world within the first year of his presidency. One last trophy that he aspires would be to end the bloody conflict between Ukraine and Russia, a peace deal which has eluded him thus far. Well, we still have until Christmas, and that would be a wondrous Christmas gift for all stakeholders. Global peace is not just a universal aspiration in modern times but something desired throughout mankind’s turbulent history. The prophet Isaiah in the first reading sums this up in his vision: “Nation will not lift sword against nation, there will be no more training for war.”

Even as breaches against ceasefire treaties take place in various hotspots, threatening to throw warring parties back into war, the question remains: how long would this last? How can we ever get from a bloodthirsty crowd to become peaceniks? The readings on this First Sunday of Advent provide us with the answer. There can be no peace, if such peace does not exist within our hearts. And for that peace to reign in our hearts, God must rule it. And the reason why lasting peace eludes us is that we haven’t yet allowed God to truly rule our hearts.

Yes, lasting peace cannot be merely achieved through human brokered peace treaties. Threats of nuclear annihilation and oppressive trade sanctions may serve as a temporary deterrent, but violence cannot be defeated by more violence or threats of it. There may be superficial and temporary ceasefire but hatred festers unseen within the heart. Martin Luther King Jr. prophetically said: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” This profound sentiment embraces the spirit of Advent and the hope that is rooted in Christ— He is the Light that has penetrated our darkness in order to dispel it, the Prince of Peace who has come to “wield authority over the nations and adjudicate between the many peoples; these will hammer their swords into ploughshares, their spears into sickles.”

In the first reading, the Prophet Isaiah provides us with an astounding spoiler alert of how things would end, how darkness would be conquered by the light and how hatred would be defeated by love. You would imagine that Isaiah or God who revealed this to him would have kept this surprise to the very end, but God does not waste time in playing games with us nor wishes to keep us in suspense. The glorious ending has already been written. The peoples of Isaiah’s days see a besieged city on the brink of destruction sitting on a modest hill but God wishes to present them with an entirely new POV. The hill on which Jerusalem lies is not a particularly high one, but when Christ comes it will be a towering mountain, dominating the whole world. All nations will realise its importance and come to Jerusalem not to conquer it or to destroy it but to draw salvation from it, the source of all salvation. God will teach the people His ways, wield authority over nations, and adjudicate among the peoples. When people listen to the voice of God and abide by His will, all striving and conflict will end.

St Paul in the second reading makes a similar call when he tells us to “wake up” because “our salvation is even nearer than it was when we were converted. The night is almost over, it will be daylight soon – let us give up all the things we prefer to do under cover of the dark; let us arm ourselves and appear in the light. Let us live decently as people do in the daytime: no drunken orgies, no promiscuity or licentiousness, and no wrangling or jealousy. Let your armour be the Lord Jesus Christ.” St Paul’s diagnosis of the malaise of his time is equally applicable today. People continue to deliberately choose to live in sin and darkness rather than to walk in the light of Christ. That is why every Advent becomes an urgent call to “wake up” from this stupor, to repent of our sins but also to prophetically and challenge the world to do the same.

Our Lord in our Gospel today speaks to His disciples and us: “So stay awake, because you do not know the day when your master is coming,” and then adds at the very end: “Therefore, you too must stand ready because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” This season of preparation for the Birth of Christ should cause us to pause to have perspective on our relationship with the Lord and make space in our hearts and lives to bring His light where there may be shadows of sin and selfishness. God’s love wants to break through the darkness so that we may be redeemed and be made new in His promises—this is our great hope. Let us be clear - only He alone can bring peace to your troubled hearts, your broken homes, and this conflicted world of ours.

In the year following the horrendous attack on the World Trade Centre in New York on September 11, Pope St John Paul II wrote these prophetic words in his message for World Day of Prayer for Peace: “No peace without justice, no justice without forgiveness: I shall not tire of repeating this warning to those who, for one reason or another, nourish feelings of hatred, a desire for revenge or the will to destroy. But only Christ can bring perfect justice and offer perfect forgiveness, for this reason, my dear brothers and sisters, there can be no peace without Christ.”

May we take in, the grace of this season—quieting ourselves so that we may watch and listen for the Lord who is already present in our midst. Make Him the centre of your lives. Let Him rule your hearts. Let His light penetrate your homes and workplace. He is coming, let us be awake, vigilant, and ready to welcome Him. Indeed, let us heed the words of the Psalmist: “Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord” and never forget that “there can be no peace without Christ.”

The impartial God has favourites

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Most people look forward to Christmas or their birthdays, as they would expect a pleasant surprise in the form of a present. I knew what to expect each year - another book, the next volume of “Tell me why?” or some other informative work of non-fiction. It wouldn’t have been so painful except I enviously saw my brother getting the latest toys and games. I’ve since concluded that life isn’t fair and sometimes it does feel that parents have their favourites.

As far as underlings are concerned, whether it be an employee, a subordinate, a subject, a student or a child, the greatest sin of a superior is favouritism and partiality. Partiality means to show preference for one over another. For most people, partiality is equated with injustice. But here’s the irony, and I would dare say, the hypocrisy of the matter. Though we would expect impartiality of our superiors, we would also expect that they side with us, which means that they should be partial to us.

If there is anyone who suffers this tension more than any living person, it is God. God, of all persons, is expected to be perfectly impartial and yet He is often accused of not taking our side. In other words, we expect both impartiality and partiality of God. We hope and pray that He favours us while not siding with our enemies and rivals. So, is God impartial or partial? Does He have favourites or does He not have favourites? Our simple minds would not be able to reconcile this contradiction and yet we can practically live with both.

God may appear to be partial while He is really levelling the playing field. When He sides with the poor, the oppressed and even with sinners, He is actually correcting the injustice which they are suffering at the hands of others or due to sin. The values of the Kingdom of God may appear to be upside down when compared to our earthly experience, but it is actually the right side up of how things should be. God loves this beautiful but broken creation of His, and He is going to heal it and remake it according to His original plan. This is what we are witnessing in today’s readings.

In the first reading, after hearing this declaration that God is impartial, that He “is a judge who is no respecter of personages”, it becomes clear that God is partial to the voiceless poor man who has no wealth to buy influence or justice. In fact, we are told that God “listens to the plea of the injured party …., does not ignore the orphan’s supplication, nor the widow’s as she pours out her story.” He has a special ear for the “man who with his whole heart” and “the humble man’s prayer.” The Psalmist goes further by declaring that “the Lord is close to the broken-hearted; those whose spirit is crushed he will save.” The reason for this is not because God is partial and has favourites. It is because He wishes to correct the injustice that has sought to silence the voice of the weak, the oppressed and the poor and denied them justice.

In the gospel, our Lord tells the familiar parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector and contrasts the type of prayer and outcome of both, with God seeming to favour the latter instead of the former. In our simple sense of justice, shouldn’t sinners be punished and the righteous be rewarded? The interesting point to note here is that God’s partiality seems to depart from the Old Testament model of God bending to the cries of the poor, the weak or even the righteous and instead chooses to lean in the direction of a sinner. There is no indication that this tax collector was poor. In fact, he would have accumulated great wealth, some at the expense of others through exploitation and unjust means, and yet God justifies him at the end of the story. How do we make sense of this?

This is where we need to relook at what it means to be poor. Poverty is not confined to material poverty. In fact, our Lord in the Beatitudes (Matthew’s version), speaks of spiritual poverty which goes beyond a lack of money or possessions. Few of us nowadays would be so crass as to show outwardly any disdain for a poor man because he is poor, but we all have our poor: poor in knowledge, poor in skill, poor in good looks, poor in taste, poor in social skills, poor in reputation, spiritually and morally poor. The Lutheran martyr and theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer argues that the greatest evil is stupidity, a poverty of intellectual depth. Suffering such people is more vexing than having to suffer the materially poor.

So, although this tax collector may be considered richer than the Pharisee, he possesses a spiritual poverty that turns the heart of God towards him. Spiritual poverty is a deep awareness that one is spiritually destitute and powerless without God's grace, wisdom, and strength. The tax collector knows that he is a sinner and acknowledges it, more than we can say about the Pharisee. It is humility that finds favour with God. “God opposes the proud but shows favour to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5). The beauty that radiates when true humility is demonstrated carries a supernatural power that can turn tides, turn hearts, and attract favour with God and man that simply cannot be achieved by natural means. The Blessed Virgin Mary found favour with God as announced by the Angel because she had humbly submitted to His will.

The Pharisee, by contrast, arrogantly boasts of his merits and achievements before God. His perception of his spiritual wealth is delusional. He too is a sinner, “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23), but he refuses to admit it. He so believes in his own righteousness and self-sufficiency that he sees no need for God.

It is widely acceptable to claim that God sides with the poor, that He has a preferential option for the poor, but it is hard to wrap our head around the claim that He favours the sinner, for wouldn’t that mean that He favours sin too? Remember that when God appears to show partiality, it is so that He wishes to correct the injustice and wrongdoing caused by impartiality and sin. And this is the same with how He treats sinners. He draws near to them in order that they may turn away from their sins in genuine repentance in order to turn towards Him in humble submission. He is the divine physician who has come to heal the spiritually sick and who are in need of forgiveness. God stands by the sinner not to defend his offences, some of which is morally indefensible, but to defend him against the destruction caused by these evil deeds. The Lord stands by us not to confirm and support us in our sinfulness but to save us from it!

Back to the story of my annual birthday and Christmas presents. One day, I had an opportunity to exchange notes with my brother on growing up experiences and pangs and I shared how I often felt cheated at the presents I got while he seemed to get the better deal. He then told me that our parents most likely saw the potential in me because I was the “clever one”, thus hoping that I would get a head start with the books which will develop into a love for knowledge. It dawned on me that this is how God works too. He doesn’t give us what we want or what we deserve. He gives us what we “need,” and that’s always the best gift. God is impartial but He also loves each of us dearly and uniquely, so, don’t compare your lot with others but rather be grateful for what you’ve received. I can assure you that this is always the best!

Without God, all is vanity

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Vanity seems to be a vice that is not only confined to women but also equally plagues men. Coiffed hair, manicured nails, shiny smooth complexions that scream of repeated facials, and a wardrobe that could put Imelda Marcos’ shoe collection to shame. Vanity in this context means pride but vanity could also mean futility or the pointlessness of our actions and decisions or even life itself. The readings for today address the latter.

People often struggle with these questions, ‘What is life all about?’ ‘What is man’s purpose in this life?’ This is what the Book of Ecclesiastes seeks to address. The book is a philosophical essay attributed to Solomon, the proverbial philosopher king. The author wrote this book from the mistakes he made. He shares his own life’s search. The man had wisdom, riches, horses, armies, and women (that’s an understatement, he had lots of women). Yet, in the end Solomon declared everything to be vanity; in other word, pointless, worthless, meaningless, and purposeless. To pursue vanity is to chase after the wind. Starting with the well-known words, "Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity," and repeating them in the last chapter after having taken us through all the vanities of life, the book contains the important lesson he learns from God, in a sort of ‘roundabout’ way. The Book ends by giving us the antidote of vanity: fear of the Lord and the observance of the moral law. The secret to a purposeful life is: Without God, ‘all is vanity’. But with God, nothing is in vain.

In the gospel, we are given two examples of such earthly vanity - the greedy brother and the rich man in a parable told by the Lord. A man in the crowd puts this request to the Lord, “Master, tell my brother to give me a share of our inheritance.” The question sounds oddly familiar. I’ve seen how family battles over inheritance have set kith against kin. The law of primogeniture says (Num 27:1-11 Deut 21:15) that the first born gets a double portion. If you had two brothers, you divided the estate three ways and the oldest got two parts. So, guess which son this is. His request suggests that he’s the youngest son. Greed, envy and a sense of entitlement have blinded him to place money above kinship.

Understanding the context of the disgruntled brother sets the stage for the parable. There is a comparison and contrast going on between the two characters in the parable and two characters outside the parable. The rich man in the parable is compared to the unhappy younger brother in real life. Christ in real life acts as judge and arbiter, a role taken by God in the parable. Why is the Lord telling this parable about the rich man who had no greed to a greedy man? The Lord builds up the rich man as a good guy, a content man, someone you can easily identify with and would aspire to become. This guy is just the opposite of the disgruntled and unhappy brother. What do we learn? Both men thought that life consisted in ‘things’, that the end and purpose of their lives were the acquisition of such ‘things.’ Selfishness and self-satisfaction have blinded them to the bonds of fraternity and life’s ultimate purpose.

Both the disgruntled younger brother and the contented rich man, in their pursuit for wealth without realising that they risk losing everything in a single moment, proves the point that ‘all is vanity.’ There is a major reversal in the parable – the man who thinks himself clever is proven foolish; the rich man ends up being poor to God. Notice the poetic justice. The rich man, like the entitled brother and like so many of us, so obsessed in storing up treasures for ourselves in this place, acquiring knowledge, wealth, possessions and a list of achievements, had lost sight of the fact that our ultimate goal is our own salvation – making ourselves ‘rich in the sight of God.’ The rich man is not condemned for his wealth or even his greed. He is condemned for forgetting that the ultimate ‘end’ or purpose of his life is salvation. He had made no preparations for this. He was too busy investing in this world and that is the ultimate vanity.

This parable speaks loudly to our generation; it speaks of the purpose of life and what defines it? Have you been defining life in your career, your house, your stock portfolio, in terms of your achievements, the knowledge you possess, the popularity you’ve gained, or the assumption that you will live much longer? What is going to happen when you lose one or more of those things? What happens when you get laid off? What happens when the stock market crashes? What happens when you get some disease which takes away your physical ability? What happens when your friends leave you? What happens if another pandemic hits again? If you define life according to these things, you will be devastated. If these things have become the ‘end’ and purpose of your lives, the goals you are ultimately pursuing, the treasures you are seeking for, then the diagnosis is terminal – vanity of vanities, all is vanity!

St Thomas Aquinas teaches that the real end for which man is made is to be reunited with the goodness of God through virtuous behaviour as well as the use of reason in order to know and love God above all. In the words of St Augustine, “that is our final good, which is loved for its own sake, and all other things for the sake of it.” St Ignatius Loyola in setting out the First Principle and Foundation in his Spiritual Exercises writes, “The human person is created to praise, reverence, and serve God Our Lord, and by doing so, to save his or her soul. All other things on the face of the earth are created for human beings in order to help them pursue the end for which they are created. It follows from this that one must use other created things, in so far as they help towards one's end, and free oneself from them, in so far as they are obstacles to one's end.” Thus, the riches of this life are only potentially good. Their goodness is actualised when they serve the greater good – the glory of God and love of neighbour.

The irony we face is that many people would prefer to love the means rather than the end. Man need not just love bad things in order to be condemned to hell. As the old adage teaches us, “The road to hell is lined with good intentions.” Man can pervert his ultimate end by loving seemingly good things, which seem to bring happiness, and mistake these things for the actual, infinite source of happiness - God. Whenever we choose the lesser goods over the greater Good, whenever we convert the means into the end, whenever our vision is obscured to see beyond what lies immediately before us, then we are in trouble. Everything comes down to the choice: do we choose these things as a means to the end, or do we choose them as a substitute for the end?

Today, the readings challenge us to seek the Source of all Goodness, and not just the goods He dispenses. Desire the God of Miracles, not just hunger for the miracles of God. Long for the giver and not just the gifts. Our thoughts should be on the ultimate prize: Heaven. Things of this earth either lead us to that prize, or they may distract us from that and therefore should be placed in their proper place. When we trudge the road of happy destiny, we must remember that the road is just a means to an end and not the destination itself. Anything else is VANITY!

Call to Conversion

Third Sunday of Easter Year C
Pilgrimage Day 7 - Basilica of St Ignatius (Chapel of Conversion)

The theme of conversion rings within these walls. An attic was converted into a hospital room, a tormented fallen soldier is converted into a saint, or at least the beginning of one. Dreams of valour were converted into a new zeal for Christ. A mercenary soldier was converted into a missionary and charismatic reformer of the Church.

In this room, with its dark wooden beams and leaden windows, Ignatius of Loyola recovered from his grisly wounds received at the battle of Pamplona. Spirit beaten, body shattered, leg broken and mended horribly, leaving him crippled for the rest of his life, Ignatius of Loyola hovered near death for months, crying out against the cruel fate that saw his dreams of glory and honour at court all-but-extinguished. Sitting in the musty silence, the occasional creak of the centuries-old floor the only accompaniment, you can almost hear his anguished screams of pain and despair, the hushed footsteps of doctors and attendants rushing about to save his life, a life that he no longer recognised. His life would have been quite different if his body and pride had not been broken. Perhaps strength doesn't reside in having never been broken, but in the courage required to grow strong in the broken places. As surgeons would tell you, that where a bone is broken and heals, it becomes the strongest part of the bone.

Our gospel for this Sunday, also provides us with another living testimony of this truth - that we do grow stronger in grace in places where we have been broken by sin. The gospel provides us with the post end-credits of the Gospel of John, where we see a disillusioned Peter, who has abandoned his mission and vocation to return to his earlier profession, being brought to life once again by the Risen Lord. Our Lord could have gone in search of fresh candidates to continue His mission of building and tending His Church but instead chooses to return to the one who had denied Him, abandoned Him and who even now leads others astray by guiding them to return to the work of being fishers of fish rather than of men.

Both stories, that of Peter’s and Ignatius’, provide us with some important insights into the process and anatomy of conversion.

Firstly, conversion is an invitation given by our Lord to all. It’s much easier for us to think that conversion is for some, but not us. The sinner, the unbeliever, the lapsed Catholic, the one who has betrayed and hurt us - they need conversion. But not us. Heaven forbid. But conversion is a constant ever-developing process of us growing closer to the Lord. It is a call to repentance, because everyone of us are sinners. It is a call to sanctification because none of us are finished products, just work in progress. In this chapel, Ignatius experienced a conversion but it wasn’t his last experience, just the first. Likewise, though Peter seemed to have been “resurrected” and restored to his mission and vocation, scripture and tradition tells us of other instances where he would falter again, needing a wake-up call to return to his original vocation.

Secondly, the reason why the Lord calls us to conversion is because He loves us. So often we have bought into the lie that to call someone to conversion is being judgmental and unloving. In the West, conversion therapy, that is helping someone deal with delusions as regard to their sexuality, is considered a form of hate crime. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. It is precisely God’s terrific love for us that leads to the call to change, to conversion, to metanoia. God does not love us because we are already so good. Instead, He loves us in order to make us good, to bring us back to the goodness that was originally meant for us but that we have lost.

Thirdly, there is no conversion without a crisis. The Chinese term for crisis is made up of two characters – one character means danger or risk and the other, opportunity. Every crisis, therefore, is an opportunity for good, for transformative change, for strengthening of our resolve and character. So, rather than regard a crisis as a cruel curse imposed on us by a capricious God, we should view every crisis as a signpost sent by God to help us make the proper correction before it is too late. It could be as dramatic as a crisis which ends a career or a dream as in the case of Ignatius, or death of a mentor as in the case of Peter. When crisis hits, we have a choice. We can choose the path of resentment or we can choose the path of renewal.

We have passed the midway point of our pilgrimage but have we seen the change, transformation and conversion needed to complete the rest of the journey and beyond? Just like Peter, many of us may have lost sight of our calling, our initial fervour. Peter had lost sight of what Christ had originally spoken over him; that on him, the Rock, the Lord would build His church. We have lost sight of what happened at our baptism, we became living stones which are to be built into a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Failure, disillusionment and forgetfulness comes to us all. But our Lord shows us that in the resurrection, and because of the resurrection, restoration is possible. The resurrection reminds us that faith can emerge from the ashes of doubt, as life breaks forth from the prison of death. This is the foundation of our Christian hope.

The problem with many of us is that we seem to express greater faith in the severity of our brokenness than in the grace of God to restore us to wholeness. Many are afraid to look into the piercing eyes of our Lord, for fear that they may see judgment. Others believe that there is no getting up from the royal tumble down the ladder of perfection and the only option would be to stay down, stay safe, instead of getting up and risk being hit by the bullets of criticism and ridicule. But the story of Ignatius’ conversion and Peter’s restoration remind us that failure need not be the ending written for life’s script. Perhaps, if we have the courage, the hope and the faith to peer into those tender eyes of our Merciful Lord, we would catch sight of something quite different, something that would surprise us – an invitation to surrender all to Him, our heavy baggage, our burdened conscience and our broken and wounded past.

Above the altar, on one of the great beams is an inscription, both in Basque and Spanish, which translates as: “Here, Ignatius of Loyola surrendered to God”. Truly, it is surrender that this room demands. As we enter this room we too are asked - just as was Ignatius - to be prepared to surrender: to be converted, to let expectations fall away and see not just ourselves and our own needs, but the needs of the Church. Centuries ago, this room was the place where a broken, despondent St Ignatius answered God’s call to set the world on fire. And centuries before that on the shores of the lake of Galilee, our first Pope gazed into the charcoal fire and received a challenge from the Lord to rekindle the fire of mission in his heart. Their conversion led to the conversion of many in the world. Today, from this room let us go forth to keep that fire burning so that the Church and the world may be set ablaze with God’s love.

Every Saint has a past; every sinner a future

Fifth Sunday of Lent Year C

There is a clever quote that is often attributed to the Buddha, “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment." If you do not have a pedantic nature like me, you will most likely take this as gospel truth. The problem is, it’s a fake quote. The Buddha didn’t say this. He said something similar but yet fundamentally different from what the above quote claims. In fact, the Buddha had also asked us to let go of the present - no past, no future, no present.

The Christian version of this quote may sound like this, “don’t dwell on the past, but move forward.” Unlike the above quote, this is founded on scripture, especially the readings we have just heard today.

Most of us would take the above saying as referring to not holding on to painful memories, failures, and past hurts. That is clear. Some people are trapped in the past, in a cycle of regret, resentment, un-forgiveness and despair. Past painful memories keep on re-playing in their minds like a broken record, re-igniting the sense of pain and loss as if the incident had just happened a moment ago. Any counsellor or psychologist or a good friend or relative will tell you, “Best to keep the past in the past. Move on. Learn from it. If you dwell in the past, you will get left behind.”

But our readings bring up additional lessons on why we should not dwell on the past but seek to move forward.

In the first reading, Isaiah writes to a people who are now languishing in exile, regretting their past misdeeds and wallowing in self-pity and despair. Isaiah’s message does not entirely erase the past. He reminds his people of how God had also liberated their ancestors from Egypt during the Exodus and even performed this impossible miracle of leading them through the Red Sea whilst destroying the army of a superpower in pursuit. It was important to remember this less the Jews in exile were to doubt Isaiah’s prophecy that God was going to bring them home and rebuild their nation. But it was also important that the Jews did not feel trapped in the past of their failures and miss out on what God is going to reveal and do in their lives. And so, Isaiah tells them: “No need to recall the past, no need to think about what was done before. See, I am doing a new deed, even now it comes to light; can you not see it? Yes, I am making a road in the wilderness, paths in the wilds.”

In the second reading, St Paul also expresses his gratitude of having come to know Christ and to believe in Him. This comes after years of persecuting Christians and after his conversion, years of proclaiming the gospel to faraway cities and nations. He looks back at his legacy and instead of seeing a trophy to be shown off to his audience, he regards his past exploits and achievements as “rubbish” in comparison to the treasure which he had discovered. He now writes of “the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For him I have accepted the loss of everything, and I look on everything as so much rubbish if only I can have Christ and be given a place in him.” And then he confidently declares: “All I can say is that I forget the past and I strain ahead for what is still to come; I am racing for the finish, for the prize to which God calls us upwards to receive in Christ Jesus.”

As we move to the gospel, we hear of this moving tale of how our Lord liberates this woman from her accusers but more importantly, He liberates her from her past life of sin. She epitomises this famous quote from Oscar Wilde’s play, “A Woman of No Importance.” The hedonistic character Lord Illingworth (perhaps an echo of Oscar Wilde’s own wild life of debauchery) says, “every Saint has a past and every sinner a future.” The meaning is simple and edifying: No one is so good that he hasn’t failed at some point, and no one is so bad that he cannot be saved. All have sinned, and all can be saved by God’s grace. The only distinction is between those who have already received it and those to whom it is still available. God’s grace is readily available for the taking. We just have to embrace it.

Not dwelling on the past and moving forward does not mean turning a new leaf, or a new page in your life. We can’t pretend that the past did not happen or subject ourselves to some form of selective amnesia, refusing to acknowledge what has gone before. That would be a mistake. Repentance requires that we do confront the truth of our past, not sugar coat it or attempt to erase or rewrite it. But we do not remain in the past. We must not allow our guilt ridden past to obstruct the freedom of what the Lord has promised us for our future. Sometimes, penitents walk out of the confessional having their sins forgiven and absolved and yet continue to carry the heavy burden of their sins. They are unable to let go of their past and by doing so, reject the gift of grace which our Lord has promised us through the Sacrament of Penance.

What the Lord says to this woman caught in adultery is what He says to each of us: “go away, and do not sin any more;” in other words, go away from your past and enjoy the freedom He offers you. “If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” (John 8:36) Our Lord opens up a path ahead of us, where sin had closed the door. His grace and mercy convert our slavery to guilt into freedom from sin. Just as what God had promised to do for His people through the prophet Isaiah in the first reading, when He forgives us, He is making something new, a new path in the desert will open up, where the Lord our God will put springs of living waters for His people to drink.

All of us have sinned, some worse than others. There are many of us who labour under the crushing weight of guilt in the belief that our sins are so grave and egregious that not even God would be able to forgive us. But that is Satan’s greatest lie. Pope Francis is fond of reminding us that God never tires of forgiving us, but it is we who often grow tired of asking Him for forgiveness. So, let us not tire of asking God for forgiveness, let us learn to let go of the guilt and lift up our eyes to the Lord and see a better future, a better life ahead of us, as we journey together toward Easter and one day to Eternal Life. Remember that every saint has a past, and every sinner a future.

Repentance, the path to Joy

Fourth Sunday of Lent Year C
Laetare Sunday

I’m going to start by stating an obvious but essential truth - albeit an uncomfortable one - most of us are afraid of seeing change in our lives. From routine behaviour, to lifestyle patterns to business-as-usual way of doing things at the workplace or home or even church, change is uncomfortable to say the least. Sometimes, when we are constantly grumbling over the status quo, we still deliberately choose to maintain it for fear that change may exact a greater price from us. “Better the devil that you know than the devil you don’t.” So, we continue to plod on, weighed down by the burden of despair and hardship, rather than choose to cast off the shackles and be set free. We end up always choosing status quo over change.

As the witty Ronald Reagan once stated, “Status quo, you know, that is Latin for the mess we’re in.” Yes, today’s readings would affirm this important truth. If the Israelites had chosen the status quo, they would not have arrived at their destination which is the Promised Land. If the followers of Christ had not chosen to renounce their ego and personal agendas, they would not become the “new creation” which is what the Lord had chosen them to become. If the Israelites were contented with the hard but stable life of servitude in Egypt, they would not have made the journey to freedom. If they were contented with just consuming manna in the desert, they would not be able to savour the rich produce of the lands which awaited them at the end of their meanderings. If the early Christians had chosen to remain attached to their old sinful lifestyles of corruption and debauchery, they would never have been able to experience the joy of being reconciled with God.

So, clinging on to the status quo means relishing in mediocrity whilst rejecting the heights of glory and perfection which the Lord has called us to. The status quo discourages risk taking and encourages us to deny or circumvent the cross, which is the only means in which we hope to follow and imitate the Lord. The status quo sells us the lie that we have already arrived at our destination and that there is nothing better beyond what we are experiencing here and now. It gets us into a rut and we are stuck, making no progress but often regressing in any spiritual growth that we have attained thus far. Change and repentance are the only way we can get out of this vicious cycle. Repentance is the key that can get us out of the gaol of sin and mediocrity. The problem is that we are always expecting others to change but never subject ourselves to the same demands.

But not all change is good or positive. Change which leads us away from God ultimately leads us to our doom, to the pit of despair. This was the change desired by the younger son in our familiar parable of the Prodigal Son. He desired freedom to set his own course in life. He desired financial freedom to feed his insatiable appetite for entertainment. But ultimately, he sought freedom from the only man who truly cared for him and loved him, his father. All the other friends whom he bought with his wealth proved to be fair-weathered. They stuck with him only as long as he could finance their lifestyle of debauchery. They too were subjects or slaves of change, but a change that ate into the root of fidelity demanded by lasting friendships. Their feelings towards this son changed as quickly as his fortune took a turn for the worse.

But the younger son, after having squandered his inheritance and exhausted all his material resources, also expressed a change that is needed by all of us, a change that would lead to his repentance and eventually his redemption. We Christians call this change repentance. This is a kind of change that does not take place on the surface - one which is superficial - but a change that takes place in the depths. Repentance involves a turning away from and a turning towards - we turn away from sin, from our ego, from our old self - and we turn to God who alone remains the constant axis, the anchor of our lives, the Only One who is unchanging because He has no need to change, He cannot change, He is perfection itself. The Greek word translated as repentance is metanoia, which literally means a change of mind and heart. Before he could change his direction, to run towards his father after a lifetime of running away from him, the son had to experience a change of mind and heart. It suddenly dawned on him that his father was the true source of joy in his life and not the bane of it.

And so, we witness in the beautiful tale of the Prodigal son, a humbled younger son, a pale shadow of his impetuous younger self, not fully converted nor perfectly repented, but now committed to a path of conversion and repentance, a gradual process of inner change that would lead him back to his father. The father unlike his son, has not changed because he has no need to change. He remains loving and compassionate to his son despite being rejected by the latter. He receives his son with open arms, an unmatched joy that has not been lessened by his son’s betrayal. There is no doubt to the hearer of the parable that this father is a symbol of none other than our Heavenly Father.

Rather than to see contrition for one’s sins which leads to repentance as a dampening of our mood, a wet blanket thrown over an unhindered life where we can choose to do as we wish, such conversion is the real elixir which grants us lasting joy. If there is any reason to be joyful today on Laetare Sunday, it is this - repentance brings the ultimate change by challenging the status quo of sin: a change from fruitlessness to fruitfulness, blindness to sight, lost to found, darkness to light, sick to healed, and being born again and becoming a new creation.

And so, during these holy days of a new springtime, for that is what Lent is all about, we learn that change can be hard because coming out of slavery can be a long, daunting process. It requires that we see beyond the immediate, beyond the earthly things which we stubbornly cling to, and keep our gaze firmly fixed upon the end result: total union with God. If we do, we can endure any trial, knowing that there is a loving Father who never tires in waiting for our return to Him. Unlike all the things of this earth, our Father’s love for us has not changed, it cannot change, it will endure forever. Likewise, we too must endure. To endure to the end means we must have our minds set to never surrender, to never desire to return to the slavery from which we’ve been liberated, to always allow God to change our hearts and minds so that we can become the best version of ourselves which He has intended us to become.

A Season of Redemption and Release

Ash Wednesday 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Take out the trash

Second Sunday of Advent Year C

In most households, this would be the time of the year to get some major heavy-lifting stuff done. As the adults attempt to clear up their remaining leave for the year and the children get time off from their studies, and everyone’s preparing to put up the Christmas decorations, they would take this opportunity to do some Christmas shopping for gifts and new clothes, bake cookies for the upcoming festivities and do some needed spring cleaning. Although these may seem like secular or practical customs bereft of theological meaning, they may have some basis in scripture and the underlying theme for Advent, especially for this Sunday.

Take for example what the prophet Baruch tells the people of Jerusalem in the first reading: “Jerusalem, take off your dress of sorrow and distress, put on the beauty of the glory of God for ever, wrap the cloak of the integrity of God around you, put the diadem of the glory of the Eternal on your head: since God means to show your splendour to every nation under heaven.” Our custom of buying new clothes and having a cosmetic make-over may seem trivial but may actually be a reflexion of this joyful and hopeful spirit expecting God’s definitive and imminent intervention. These words of the prophet are surprising for two reasons. Baruch, who is often associated with his doomsday prophecies and mournful lamentations, departs from that tone to give us an upbeat forecast of what is to come. Secondly, the people of Jerusalem and Judah are in no mood for celebration. Their country has been invaded, the population decimated, their infrastructures destroyed and the ruling class humiliated and taking off into exile to a foreign land. Yet, the prophet sees beyond this to a future that is bright, to say the least - a future that can only be realised in the gospel.

But Baruch moves beyond the imagery of a new set of attire and accoutrements to that of physical construction work that is required to build a highway. Nothing, no obstacle, no hindrance, absolutely nothing should stand in the way of what God is about to do for His people. The massive terrain engineering work envisaged by Baruch will be taken up by St John the Baptist in his proclamation that the high mountains will be flattened and the valleys filled in to make a smooth road for the Messiah to cross the desert to Jerusalem.

St Paul in the second reading adds to the list of things to be done before the Day of the Lord arrives, the Day of His return. So, in the light of the Lord’s coming Paul prays that, “your love for each other may increase more and more and never stop improving your knowledge and deepening your perception so that you can always recognise what is best. This will help you to become pure and blameless, and prepare you for the Day of Christ, when you will reach the perfect goodness.” Our lives’ project as we look to the day of the Lord’s return is to grow in faith, hope and charity and we should never take our foot off the peddle.

And finally, we come to the gospel where John the Baptist breaks into the scene, here in what we call the holiday season, and he impudently demands that we start cleaning as though our lives depended on it. But more than just our lives, the eternal salvation of our souls depend on it. He comes among us with an inconvenient message, a challenging message, a robustly difficult message - a call to repentance, a call for a thorough, radical house cleaning, but the house is that of our souls.

Probably in all of our spiritual residences, our lives, there are rooms that are dominated by clutter. There are corners where dust, and dirt, and trash have accumulated. There are signs of ill repair, where the paint is peeling, the carpet is frayed, and the drapes have faded. Windows are grimy; they barely let in the light of the sun. Such are the conditions on the inside. The outside is no better, though it is more public. Rubbish strewn in the garden, weeds flourishing where flowers used to grow, the driveway that begs to be repaved, walls that wait for scraping and fresh paint. St John the Baptist comes along and points to all of these defects, drags his fingers through the dust, kicks the dirty soiled clothes strewn on the floor and holds his nose as he beholds the unwashed plates and utensils in the kitchen sink.

John shakes the foundations of our comfort zones by uttering a single word, passing on a message that comes from God: Repent! It’s time to clean house, he tells us. Time to sweep the floors, wash the walls, air the rooms, repair what is broken, replace what is no longer useful. It’s time to paint the house, pull up weeds in the garden and trim the hedge. John demands that we make a lot of changes, expend a great deal of energy, get down on our hands and knees to clean the corners. He insists on all this because somebody is coming. He calls us to repent because heaven’s kingdom is very near. He wants us to sweat and struggle, do thorough spring-cleaning even in December, because he knows the results will be worth it.

You may ask yourself, where do I start? That’s a good question. We start by looking at these three basic questions, which we would usually ask ourselves if we want to get rid of all the clutter in our homes:
What needs to go?
What can I give away?
What needs some love and attention?

In the case of our spiritual lives, making an inventory of what needs to go and what needs to stay is just the first step. This should lead us to make a good examination of conscience and then go for sacramental confession before a priest. Ask yourself: What can you throw away? What needs to go? Put into that waste container of the confessional, then, every odious instance of pride, hypocrisy, and impatience from your life. Put into it every instance when you have exploited others. Put into it unholy anger and sick green envy. Put into it lust for people and for things, dishonesty in everyday relationships, negligence in prayer and worship, every failure to live your faith, every refusal to take a good and holy risk. We don’t need that stuff anyway. It takes up our space. It poisons our lives. Fill the dumpster high and let our Lord Jesus through the ministry of the priest haul it away.

Advent is not a feast and yet many forget this inconvenient fact and turn it into a time of premature merry-making. Advent, rather, is the preparation for the coming Feast. This, however, is what Advent is about. This is the time for spring-cleaning. Before we get to the barn in Bethlehem, all of us have to wake up to how our own spiritual house, our own lives, are worse than any self-respecting barn, and they plead for us to clean them. So, clean the house. Not just your residences, but the house of your soul. Let us remove the clutter of sin to make room for the Lord and let us turn away from everything that separates us from Him.

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!

Illuminated by the Faith of Easter

Third Sunday of Easter Year B

Most people are familiar with the post resurrection story of how our Lord appears to the two disciples who are making their way home to the village of Emmaus. Unbeknownst to them, it is the One whom they believe had abandoned them by getting Himself killed who walks along with them; it is the Living Word who now explains the meaning of the written Word to them; it is the One who is the Way, the Truth and the Life who confronts their ignorance and despondency by showing them the Way, revealing to them the Truth that will ultimately lead to Eternal Life.

The two would have taken hours to reach their destination and when they had arrived, it was already dark. The Lord having broken bread with them - a clear allusion to the Eucharist - the scales from the eyes of these two disciples fall away and they finally recognise the One who had walked along with them and spoken to them as none other as the Lord, the One who died and is now Risen. Without waiting for dawn, they speedily returned to Jerusalem where they had come from. Imagine that … walking in the dark of night, without fear of brigands or risking a treacherous path in the dark. That was because their path was now illuminated by the new faith of Easter burning within their hearts, showing them the Way home.

This is where we find ourselves in today’s gospel. The two disciples were back with the community of disciples from whom they had abandoned, excited to share news of their amazing encounter with the Risen Lord. But our Lord’s sudden appearance would take the surprise out of their story telling. The disciples would not only have to rely on the second-hand account of these two but get a direct experience of the Risen Lord in the flesh.

And the first words of our Lord are simply these: “Peace be with you!” These words may sound consoling. But they were actually meant as a trigger, to shake the disciples out of their cocoon of despair, fear and anxiety. Our Lord was confronting their current experience. And what was their experience at that moment? It was a volatile cocktail of emotions and experiences. The days surrounding Jesus’ resurrection were anxious times for His followers. For them, His life had ended on that first Good Friday. They were afraid that because of association with Him their lives would soon end too. Further, they were dealing with the anxiety that comes with crushed dreams and uncertainty about the future. They were afraid – for their lives and their future. They were anxious – they had no idea what to expect next. Their stomachs were in knots, their hope was gone, and their blood pressure was up. Amid it all, our Lord challenges them with this common but seemingly inappropriate greeting: “peace be with you”.

This is where we find a common underlying theme which unites all three readings. Our Lord’s greeting and gift of peace is by no way just a means of “keeping the peace,” that is maintaining good relationships with His disciples at the expense of the truth. Any relationship, to be authentic and deep, has to be based on the truth rather than a lie. Falsehood, error, and sin must be confronted and resisted. The problem is that most of us often believe that it is un-Christian to confront our brother or sister when they are in error. Confrontation is often viewed as a negative action that seeks to embarrass or humiliate the other person. But this is where we get it entirely wrong.

In the first reading taken from the Acts of the Apostles, St Peter lays down a list of accusations against the Jews whom he refers to using their ancient name, “Israelites.” They are guilty of handing over, disowning, falsely accusing and killing the very One who was chosen and glorified by the “God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our ancestors.” And it is no excuse nor defence for them to plead that they were ignorant of their actions. Peter lays the blame entirely on them, even though he argues that it was just as scripture had foretold. And the only remedy is this: they “must repent and turn to God, so that (their) sins may be wiped out.” Without such confrontation, St Peter understood, his fellow Jews would remain and perhaps die in their guilt.

Likewise, in the second reading, St John explained why he had confronted his audience - it is to stop them from sinning. But confrontation would not be enough if it is not accompanied by the support offered to help them amend their ways. And so, John tells them that we have an Advocate in Jesus Christ whose sacrifice had taken away our sins. John also reminds his audience that there must be integrity with our profession of faith and the manner in which we live our lives which must be in conformity to God’s commandments. Anyone who claims that they have a relationship with God but continues sinning is living a lie. Ultimately, only the truth can set us free.

Again and again, we find ourselves in the position of facing an evil — sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle — and not quite knowing what to do about it. Of all the works of mercy, probably the most thankless and despised is admonishing the sinner, and yet it is the most needed. Nobody wants to do it, and nobody wants it done to them. But admonishing the sinner, however, is not an act of Pharisaic pride, but of true charity. If we truly love someone and wish the best for the person, we must be ready to correct their mistake and error, even at the detriment of ruining our relationship with the person. True peace can only come by fully embracing the truth about ourselves, and our relationship with God and with others. Living a life of sin would be a clear contradiction of our claims that we are Christians.

Yes, admittedly it is unpopular and difficult to admonish the sinner, to confront delusional thinking, or to correct the error. But remember - Christ did it, and it got Him nailed to a cross. For admonition means looking somebody in the eye, and speaking truth in love to him rather than tiptoe around the subject and pretend that everything is hunky dory. It means addressing a fellow human being as a person, rather than an object of derision or gossip. It means speaking about things that are awkward and uncomfortable. And in our post-truth world, it means having some unalterable values and convictions even if we risk losing friends, family, job, and reputation. Ultimately, to confront the sinner is to call him to cast off the mask of sin and to become who he really is, a child of God in the image of Christ. Admonishing the sinner is to bring light into his life, so that his path may be illuminated by the new faith of Easter burning within his heart, showing him the Way home.