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.

Mercy and Peace

Second Sunday of Easter Year B
Divine Mercy Sunday

NATO has become a household acronym that almost everyone in Malaysia knows and understands. I’m not talking about the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation but the stinging indictment against so many, especially targeted at leaders: “no action, talk only.” It’s the Malaysian equivalent of the English expression “Be all talk (but no action).” The acronym NATO, however, sounds much catchier than BAT. When it comes to mercy, our theme for today, words alone do not make one a Christian. If we wish to talk about mercy, it cannot just remain at the level of words and good wishes. It must be translated into action. We must back our words with action.

We can be certain that there is One who has not and will never fall under this description of NATO! According to St. Paul, this is the One who, "emptied himself, taking the form of a slave … obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross" (Phil 2:8). Our Lord Jesus Christ did not merely speak about love and humility. He did not merely show us mercy as He pitied us and sympathised with our plight. He was not all talk but no action. No! Our Lord, the Divine Mercy, speaks works of mercy to us. But He does not only speak. He acts. This Word became flesh - He became man. He did not merely do His Father's will. He perfected it. His WORD took ACTION - He let us nail Him to a Cross, so that He might take upon Himself the guilt of our own sins. He has the scars to show for it, even after His resurrection.

As His blood dripped down the sides of the tree from which He hung, He thought of us in our sinfulness. And from His side, flowed water and blood as the visible sign of His mercy, a mercy that would take concrete shape and form in the sacraments of the Church, especially in the form of Baptism and the Eucharist. In the Upper Room, behind the closed doors of fear and regret, He did not speak words of condemnation to His disciples who had betrayed Him, denied Him and abandoned Him, but instead, words of forgiveness “Peace be with you!” Our Lord, the Divine Mercy walked the talk and lived His words of mercy.

Divine mercy is the reason why humans can face up to their sin and accept full responsibility. Precisely because God is merciful, we can entrust ourselves wholly to Him, faults and all. We can accept whatever discipline He deems just and we can own our mistakes with the hope of redemption. Today, however, divine mercy often occasions a kind of quest to discover all the excuses humans have for not living the moral standard and to elaborate human inculpability. Divine mercy now seems to be about how humans can’t be blamed.

Today, we do live in an age where mercy is demanded but little appreciated. It is a false sort of mercy that demands nothing from the one who feels entitled to it. In other words, today many perceive mercy as a blanket approval for all manner of action, behaviour and lifestyle. Mercy is treated like a whitewash, covering up all sin and not actually changing the situation of our lives. An understanding of mercy, which allows a person to become at peace with sin, is far from the mercy shown by Jesus, because His true concern is for our true happiness.

How is His mercy connected to the peace which He offers in today’s gospel? True mercy releases us from sin and allows us to live in friendship with God. That is how mercy leads us to be at peace with God. Such peace can only be experienced when we surrender to God’s justice, turn to Him in repentance and be reconciled with Him in spirit and in truth. This is the reason why the words of the Risen Lord as we have heard in today’s gospel connect both peace and forgiveness. There can be no authentic peace if we have not been truly forgiven of our sins.

Mercy does not make sin acceptable. No, mercy seeks to free us from sin through forgiveness. It opens up a space for us to become a better version of ourselves. A false consolation that allows someone to continue in his sin whilst ignoring the guilt of his actions is not mercy at all if the person is not freed from the sinful situation. St Pope John Paul II once wrote “According to Catholic doctrine, no mercy, neither divine nor human, entails consent to the evil or tolerance of the evil. Mercy is always connected with the moment that leads from evil to good. Where there is mercy, evil surrenders. When the evil persists, there is no mercy.” Unfortunately, many today reject God’s forgiveness because they live in denial and refuse to accept the blame or acknowledge their own faults.

Divine Mercy is God’s offer to us to come close to Him. It is a real offer which invites us to a conversion of life, a definite break with sin, and a peace, of knowing and living in communion with God. This relationship is not mere lip service but a reality. God is never NATO! What God has promised, He does. When one meets the Lord’s mercy, our lives change. Our acceptance of mercy involves us trusting our lives to Jesus and our willingness to obey Him. When we pray for true mercy, we ask the Lord to forgive us our sins and weaknesses and to give us the grace to live in communion with Him in sincerity and truth.

Jesus! We trust in You!

Deep within them I will plant my Law

Fifth Sunday of Lent Year B

In the traditional calendar, today would be the first Sunday of Passiontide, a more intense period of preparation for Holy Week. It is no wonder that we would be treated to a preview of an essential theme of the holiest week of the year. On Maundy Thursday, on the night when our Lord Jesus gathered with His disciples in the upper room to celebrate the inaugural Eucharist, He declared that through His blood, shed for His disciples, there would come into existence a “New” covenant. What is this “New” covenant which He is speaking of? If this is a “New” covenant, how about the “Old”? We can find the answer in the first reading.

The prophet Jeremiah speaks of the time when God will make a “new covenant with the House of Israel (and the House of Judah)”, a covenant that would be unlike the covenants of old which had been broken due to Israel’s disobedience.

What was wrong with the old covenant that necessitated a new one? Well, the old covenant was fundamentally good - an unprecedented blessing for the people of Israel. It assured them of God’s commitment to them. It gave them an identity - they were God’s Chosen People! It provided them with laws to govern their behaviour. It promised them spiritual and material and even military blessings if they obeyed that law and remained true to the covenant. God even instituted the office of high priest so that the people would have someone to offer sacrifices on their behalf and represent them in the presence of God. But it was flawed in three ways.

First, although there was a high priest who would regularly offer an animal sacrifice for their sins, such sacrifices could never fully and finally secure their forgiveness. “For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Heb 10:4).

Second, the law of the Old Covenant that came through Moses was unable to supply the power that people needed to fulfill and obey it. The Law of Moses was very clear in stating, “You shall not” or “Do this and live” or “Be holy.” The Law of Moses told the people of Israel what they should and should not do but it was never capable of supplying them with the spiritual power to obey. It provided them the “means” but not the “grace.”

Third, the Old or Mosaic Covenant was temporary and limited. It was designed by God with a shelf life. God never intended it to last forever nor to be the final revelation of His will for mankind. It was also limited to Israel and its descendants and not meant to encompass all nations whom God had promised to bless through Abraham. In Hebrew 8:5, we are told that everything Moses did in constructing the Old Covenant tabernacle, together with its rituals and sacrifices, was only “a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.” But God always intended to establish a new covenant with every single person - “the least no less than the greatest.”

What the old covenant lacked, our Lord Jesus supplies and perfects in His “new covenant”. He seals it not with the blood of bulls and goats, but His own blood shed on the cross for our atonement. He did not only show us the way to sanctification and salvation but provided us the means to attain it by pouring out grace upon grace through the sacraments which He instituted. As we heard in the second reading, “He became for all who obey Him the source of eternal salvation.” He not only gave us a covenant that was temporary and limited but one that is eternal and universal. We see evidence of this in the gospel when the Greeks come in search of Him.

Unlike the covenants which had been written in stone, this new covenant would be written in the hearts of the people and therefore accessible to all peoples: “Deep within them I will plant my Law, writing it on their hearts. Then I will be their God and they shall be my people.” It is interesting to note that the first set of commandments were written by God Himself by His own hand, but these were physically shattered by Moses when he broke them in rage after having discovered Israel’s apostasy (the incident of the golden calf). Moses, thereafter, was commanded by God to inscribe a second set which was kept in the ark of the covenant, which eventually went missing after the sack of Jerusalem and the exile of the Judaeans to Babylon.

So, this new covenant would no longer be inscribed into something breakable and as flimsy as stone. The idea of God planting the covenant deep in the hearts of His people meant that this new covenant would no longer be an external set of laws requiring superficial observance but one which demanded true and radical repentance. We must literally die in order to live these commandments in our lives. “Unless a wheat grain falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest”. It would be anchored to the very core of our being and not just tied to the foreheads or wrapped around the hands like the external phylacteries worn by the Jews.

In the old covenant, man struggled to offer something worthy to God but in the new covenant, it is our Lord Jesus Christ, who offers Himself as the perfect sacrifice, the only worthy sacrifice, through His own death. There is no hint of agony or humiliation when our Lord speaks of His death. In fact, He tells us that this is the Hour of His glory because when He is lifted up on the cross, He will draw all men to Himself. God’s glory will be shown not in a covenant written in stone but in the living, suffering and dying of His Son. But that’s not the end of the story. God’s glory is in the raising of our Lord Jesus to new life, the final triumph of love over death.

But before that new life can be born and bear fruit, the old life, like the grain of wheat, like the old covenant, has to die. So it is, with us. We have a choice. We can cling on to our old lives and all the broken promises we’ve made to God, afraid of what might happen if we say yes to God’s invitation to new life. Or we can begin again to let our old lives go as we renew our acceptance and commitment to the new Eternal Life found in the Risen Christ. This Passiontide, let’s enter fully into the mystery of the suffering of Jesus, let us renew our commitment to the new covenant which He has established with His death, so that we can also enter fully in the joy of His resurrection. “A pure heart create in me O God” and plant your Law deeply in our hearts.

The Asceticism of Love

Ash Wednesday

For many, today’s date is unmistakable and if you have a loved one, forgetting that it’s Valentine’s Day is unforgivable. But even if today doesn’t happens to be Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, our liturgical calendar actually honours two other saints, St Cyril and St Methodius, and not the eponymous St Valentine. Valentine’s Day has been largely relegated to a secular feast of mushy romantic ideals and practices.

Chocolates, flowers and candlelight dinners are things we normally associate with the secular representation of the feast of this Catholic saint who is patron of marriages and romance. The ascetic practices we practice in Lent and which we have heard in our gospel today, hardly sounds romantic at all, if anything, they seem utterly Spartan and ascetically bleak. But love is actually at the heart of these Christian ascetical practices. Love is never about seeking our own happiness but the happiness of the other even at the cost of sacrificing our own. It is this ascetical aspect of love which is missing from so many modern conceptions of relationships resulting in selfish individuals looking for love but finding none, at least none which perfectly matches this self-absorbed notion of romance.

Asceticism? “Isn’t that like wearing hair shirts and whipping and punishing yourself? Does the Church still teach that?” Simply put, asceticism means self-sacrifice. It means denying yourself physical pleasures and conveniences even when you don’t need to. What the Church requires are spiritual athletes not couch potatoes. Christians do not practice asceticism because we see physical goods as evil. On the contrary, asceticism guards against valuing the goods of Creation so much that we disdain the Creator. Like all spiritual practices, asceticism should be motivated by love. Asceticism does not spring from some form of sick masochistic self-hatred, but rather it is the sacrifice offered out of love for our Lord Jesus who showed the extent of His love for us by dying for us.

As we begin our Lenten ascetic practices of prayer, fasting and alms giving, let us be conscious of the true reasons for our actions.

First, asceticism combats habitual sin. If you struggle to control your desire for something you tend to abuse (food, drink, sex, comfort, etc), practising self-denial is like building your spiritual muscles against it. St Paul writes, “I discipline my body and make it my slave” (1 Corinthians 9:27). The word here for “discipline” carries violent overtones, literally meaning “to beat” or “to batter.” We’re called to show our body who’s boss. The purpose of fasting, for instance, is so that one can train his appetites by habitually telling them “No,” even in regard to lawful earthly goods, like food or conjugal relations. That way, when a sinful temptation stirs up the appetites, the body has been well-trained to obey its master, the sanctified rational mind.

Second, asceticism builds the virtue of temperance. Temperance is the virtue that balances our desires for physical goods. When our desires are out of balance (a condition of Original Sin called “concupiscence”), we need to reset the balance with self-denial. Our Lord Jesus teaches us: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth…but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21)

Third, asceticism protects you against the excesses of the culture. Like the culture the early Christians lived in, our modern culture has deified entertainment, luxury, and physical pleasure. While Christians can give lip service to resisting these temptations, the truth is that we’re immersed in this culture and it’s difficult not to be transformed by it. Asceticism helps us to set our hearts on the greater goods and to resist laxity of heart and open our hearts to be transformed by grace.

Fourth, asceticism moves our hearts away from selfishness. We live in air-conditioned comfort, even in our cars. We get used to having entertainment literally at our fingertips. Everything in our lives is built around convenience, entertainment, and comfort. Self-sacrifice prevents our modern lifestyle from sinking too deeply into our hearts.

Fifth, asceticism can be an act of love. If fasting and making other sacrifices are going to make you more cranky and irritable, if you continue to judge your neighbour for their lack of devotion or dedication to these ascetic practices as you have, then you have missed the point. These practices should enlarge our hearts, not shrink them. To know whether we’ve been doing it right is to examine the fruits of our practices. Have we grown in our love for God and neighbour?

Sixth, asceticism should lead us to interior conversion rather than multiply our practices as a kind of performance. Let us pay heed to the warning of our Lord Jesus Christ in the gospel, that we should not practice asceticism so that “men may see you” but rather, be content that “your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you.” Asceticism provides us with new lenses to see things unlike how the world sees. St Paul puts it this way: “We do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18)

In our consumeristic and materialistic culture, this programme of spiritual exercise is both unpopular and difficult. If these practices sound intimidating, think of the physical regiment many people keep to stay fit and healthy. If one can endure such hardships for a temporal good, a healthy life, one must then appreciate the value of spiritual exercises that will gain us, with God’s grace, eternal life. These habits of self-denial, which include prayer, fasting and almsgiving can strengthen us, by God’s grace, to aim our desires at unseen realities and reap the radiant joys of heaven, even now. When done out of love, instead of burdensome obligation or as performance, these ascetic practices will do much to help us advance spiritually. This is the path of spiritual athleticism and Lent is as good a place as any, to start our training.

Change your mind and turn around

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Without skipping a beat, the evangelist St Mark notes the immediate transition from the ministry of the Baptist to that of the Lord’s after the former’s imprisonment - the latter takes over where the former left off - calling people to repentance: “The time has come … and the kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the Good News.” The work of repentance did not end with John the Baptist. In fact, the Lord not only assumes John’s primary work of calling people to repentance but takes it to another level.

The noun “repentance” comes from the Greek word “metanoia,” and the verb “to repent” comes from the Greek verb “metanoeō,” both of which connote a change of mind. In Greek, the word sheds its baggage of merely turning away from and renouncing sin. It calls for a radical change of our noetic faculties, of how we see things, how we think about things, of how we remember things. It addresses the issue of what occupies our attention and that which we give priority to. Seen in this light, metanoia addresses a society of narcissistic people who are obsessed with themselves and who have forgotten God. We are often preoccupied with earthly affairs rather than contemplate heavenly things. This is what sin entails - a forgetting of God. It is hard to sin, when we are thinking about God. The occasion of sin translates into the sin the moment we push God out of our consciousness.

Similarly, the moment of repentance takes place when we begin to think about God. Consider the story of the Prodigal Son, who squandered his inheritance in a wasteful and hedonistic lifestyle, thinking only of himself. But the turning point, the point where he “changes his mind” or experiences metanoia, is when he remembers his father and his father’s goodness and kindness. That reorientation of his thinking sets him on the path home. Consider also the story of the disciples in the gospel. There is no indication that they lived lives of depravity or abject sinfulness. They were just too occupied with their work, making a living, tending to their family affairs. But the encounter with our Lord changed everything. They experienced a metanoia too, a change of mind which led to a change of values and priorities. From now on, Christ will be their principal priority and everything else will take second place.

To explore further the deeper nuances of repentance, we need to turn to the Old Testament. In the Old Testament there are two words which expresses the idea of repentance, shuv (or its verb teshuvah) and naham. Shuv can be translated “to turn,” “to turn back,” “to turn around.” It does at times denote the kind of a complete heart change we will come to see in the New Testament idea of metanoia. Naham, on the other hand, has a number of meanings: “to sigh, to be sorry, to pity, to console, or (reflexively) to rue; to avenge, to comfort, to repent.” We will find both words used in the first reading if we happen to have the opportunity of reading the text in its original Hebrew.

In the first reading, we have a short excerpt from the familiar story of the prophet Jonah. Too often the prophets are thought of mainly as predictors of the future. But the truth is that they were mainly forthtellers or truth-sayers, for they spoke forth the truth of the Word of God over against the rising tide of idolatry, apostasy, and sin of the nation.

Whether it was deliberate or not, the excerpt in the first reading provides us with an extremely sanitised picture of the mission of Jonah without the full context, that is minus the hitches or glitches or drama and the multiple twists and turns in the entire narrative. The reading begins with Jonah carrying out his mission by being obedient to the Lord’s word. But the truth is that Jonah was not always “obedient” to the Lord’s word. In fact, Jonah did everything to run away from God and evade the mission that was entrusted to him. Instead of “going up”, literally heading north, Jonah fled south. Instead of going east in the direction of the great city of Nineveh of the Assyrians, Jonah sailed off westward into the uncharted waters of the Great Sea (the Mediterranean). It was after several adventures or misadventures, including being swallowed up by a whale, did Jonah relent. He “teshuvah,” he turned to the Lord and turned in the direction of Nineveh to fulfil his mission. And because his preaching was so effective (or the prospect of divine punishment so horrifying), the inhabitants of Nineveh also “teshuvah”, they repented.

But this is not the most amazing part of the story. The passage ends with this mysterious line describing what God did next: “God saw their efforts to renounce (shuv) their evil behaviour, and God relented (naham): he did not inflict on them the disaster which he had threatened.” Jonah turned. The Ninevites turned. But according to the text, God also turned! On the one hand, it is consoling to note that God turns His countenance on the sinner when he repents. It is important to note that God’s repentance is not like man’s. God is not taken off guard by unexpected turns of events like we are. He knows all the future. God did not regret creating man after the Fall because He knew that the Fall would bring about a greater good - man’s redemption through His Son’s death on the cross. Nor does God repent from sin since God never sins. So, His repentance is not owing to lack of foresight nor to folly. God neither turns away from committing sin nor does God “change his mind” about sin.

In the case of God, relenting or “naham” is a sign of His infinite mercy. God respects our freedom to walk away from Him, He even warns us of the consequences of our actions to discourage us from pursuing this path of destruction, but God is always ready to welcome us back. As much as He waits for us to turn around, God’s gaze is always upon us even while we were sinners. It does seem at least from our perspective that God’s judgmental eyes are boring into the back of our heads when we walk away from Him in sin. But the truth is that He has always been looking at us with His loving gaze and we will only come to realise this when we finally decide to turn around.

We just celebrated the New Year three weeks ago and many of you have made strong resolutions to turn your life around and become a better version of yourselves, resolutions which we often fail to keep. But why wait for this annual event to change. The Catholic Church provides us with an all year round opportunity to do better because she understands that we slip, we fall, and she affords us the opportunity to get up and start all over again. She knows us in and out, and how much we need to change, and how much help we need in changing. In fact, as our Eastern brethren would remind us, repentance is a permanent mode of Christianity, for to grow in holiness, one is constantly called to turn to God.

For this reason, the Church is never “stingy” in dispensing mercy. Repentance is not something which should be limited to once or twice a year when the penitential service comes round to the parish. The Church offers us the sacrament of confession anytime we need it and God knows how much we are in need of it. In offering confession, the Church offers us a much better version of the human desire to change. When we go before the priest in confession, we are renewing our commitment to “change our minds and our hearts”, to turn away from all worldly distractions and the allures of sin, to run back into the arms of a Loving God who has never taken His gaze off us. In confession, through the ministry of the priest, we turn to God and He turns to us in a loving embrace. So my dear brothers and sisters, wait no longer but “Repent, and believe the Good News!”

A Banquet for all peoples

Twenty Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

The significance of a meal can never be overstated. It is clear that food is more than just essential for our species’ survival. For survival needs, people everywhere could eat the same food, to be measured only in calories, fats, carbohydrates, proteins, and vitamins. But a meal is also an important social event. We celebrate weddings, anniversaries and birthdays with a meal. We honour and remember our dead at wakes and funerals with a meal. We conclude business discussions and seal contracts over a meal. We deepen bonds of friendship over a meal. There is something magical, even mystical about meals. It is no wonder that a priest who was an avid promoter of basic ecclesial communities (BEC) often joked that the acronym BEC should stand for Best Eating Club, alluding to the food potlucks being the most popular reason why Catholics decide to gather in small groups, if for no other reason.

The first reading provides us with a description of a sumptuous feast of “rich food” on an unnamed mountain which marks the end of a period of mourning. Most scholars agree that the prophet Isaiah was painting a picture of restoration for those of the House of Judah who had been taken into exile after the fall of Jerusalem to the invading Babylonians. The exiles were returning home and God was going to enter into a new relationship with them. The scene recalls another banquet that took place on another mountain. In Exodus (24:1-11), Moses and the seventy elders whom he has chosen, go up to Sinai, the mountain of the Lord, where they feasted. It was not just a social celebration but a covenant meal, sealing their relationship with God who had brought them out of Egypt and had blessed them with the Law, food and water.

But the time of the restoration of Israel in Isaiah’s prophetic vision would not only be a time of a New Exodus but also a time of Conquest. The banquet celebrates God’s ultimate victory over suffering and death, where He “will destroy Death for ever” and “wipe away the tears from every cheek” and “take away His people’s shame everywhere on earth.” It will be a banquet which is not only confined to the leaders of Israel as during the Exodus, nor even confined to the Jews. It would be a banquet which the Lord prepares “for all peoples.” And this meal would be held in plain sight and not hidden behind the walls of the Temple where the Jewish performed their rites in secrecy, nor behind the veil which concealed the Holy of Holies.

What the Old Testament promises, the gospel fulfils and we see this in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord Jesus often finds Himself in the middle of a feast. He also seemed to enjoy a hearty meal and did not refuse any opportunity to dine with His hosts and guests. Table fellowship among the Jews was a big deal. Pharisees did not dine with people whom they regarded were below their stature because they saw each meal as “eating with God.” This is where our Lord was subject to their ire because He frequently feasted with disreputable folks like tax collectors and sinners. He concluded His public ministry and inaugurated His passion with a meal. The communal meal did not only provide our Lord with an opportunity to provide teaching to those who were in attendance but was also the subject of His teaching parables. Today’s parable of the wedding feast is one such example.

Notice that Isaiah’s covenant meal has now morphed into a wedding banquet in our Lord’s parable. We already see the typology of a wedding and marriage in the Old Testament writing of Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah and the Psalms. The covenant between God and Israel is often described as a marriage and Israel’s apostasy is seen as infidelity of the bride towards her spouse. Our Lord now strings together these related themes of an eschatological or end times banquet, a covenant meal and a wedding feast in this compelling parable of judgment.

Our Lord describes the Kingdom of Heaven as a wedding banquet thrown by the king for his son to which the king’s subjects are invited. Two groups emerge - those who actually attend the feast and those who do not. Perhaps the most important feature of this parable is the invitation. Though this is a wedding banquet, the bride is significantly missing from the narrative and the bridegroom, the son of the king, is not an important character in the storyline even though the banquet is held in his honour. This would suggest that the focus is not on the wedding between the bride and the bridegroom but on the king’s invitation.

The focus of the parable seems to be on the response made to this invitation, rather than on the feast itself. A rejection of a king’s invitation to such an important event was unimaginable because it would be political suicide and yet we find the invited guests turning down the invitation not just once but twice and on the second instance, even abusing and killing the king’s emissaries that had been sent to them to persuade them to reconsider the invitation. The first time could be seen as a grievous insult, but the second rejection was an outright act of rebellion. One can then understand the king’s violent response in putting down this rebellion.

When the first group of invited guests were “found to be unworthy”, that is they failed to respond to the invitation, the king sends a second set of servants to gather “everyone.” The Greek word translated into “everyone” suggests “outsiders”, those at the fringes of society. But even though the king seems to have lowered the bar in terms of who gets to attend his son’s wedding banquet, it does not mean that all and sundry would get to enjoy the “sumptuous banquet” of “rich food” and “rich wine.” One man was expelled because he was not wearing the proper attire. Could we be excluded from salvation for one such petty reason as improper dressing? Perhaps, we can find a clue to this symbolism when we heed the words of St Paul that we too must, “clothe ourselves with heartfelt mercy, with kindness, humility, meekness and patience. Bear with one another and forgive whatever grievances you have against one another.” (Colossians 3:12-13)

We finally come to the final saying of our Lord in this passage: “For many are called, but few are chosen.” To describe it as cryptic would be an understatement. It is definitely not suggesting that salvation is for an elite few. Personally, I am comforted by such passages as 1 Timothy 2:4, where Paul says that God “wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of truth.” So, what does this sentence mean? Saint Jerome says that, “The chosen are those who accept the call and do not reject the invitation, like the first guests, or who do not accept it fully, like the man who comes to the dinner but does not dress in the proper manner.”

Our God came to earth and became one of us in the person of Jesus Christ to prove His love for us and to extend a personal invitation to each and every one of His sons and daughters, to come and join Him at the banquet table that He has prepared for us in His heavenly Kingdom. It is an open invitation. Salvation is not something we earn. It is an invitation that we are free to either accept or reject. Merely claiming that we have received the invitation is no guarantee that one is able to partake in the wedding feast of the kingdom. That invitation must be accepted, not just on our own terms but on God’s terms. So, it is crucial to remember that salvation won by Jesus for the sake of all is not applied automatically; it requires that to attain Eternal Life each individual must, to the extent of his or her understanding, accept and live in the grace won by Christ. We must take care to “clothe ourselves with heartfelt mercy, with kindness, humility, meekness and patience.”