He has spoken to us

Christmas Mass During the Day

If there is any passage that could rival or at least mirror the beauty and profundity of the Prologue of St John’s gospel, it must be the prologue to the Letter to the Hebrews which we heard in the second reading: “At various times in the past and in various different ways, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets; but in our own time, the last days, he has spoken to us through his Son, the Son that he has appointed to inherit everything and through whom he made everything there is. He is the radiant light of God’s glory and the perfect copy of his nature …” In this prologue, just as in John’s, we find the theological reason for our celebration - the reason for the season.

Perhaps, the significance of both texts is lost on us because we often take communication for granted. But imagine arriving in a foreign country with absolutely no knowledge of the local language nor are you equipped with any phrase book or translator application or device, you would simply be lost. You can attempt to second guess what the other person is trying to convey to you with hand gestures and other forms of non-verbal communication, but there is no way of verifying your suspicions and speculations. This is why both the author of Hebrews and the evangelist St John uses the analogy of the spoken word to illustrate who God is and how He wishes to relate with us.

We are here on earth, busy living our lives, pursuing our own agendas, but deaf to God's voice. We don't hear what God is trying to say to us. God has been trying to communicate His message to us, we aren't getting it. But rather than give up in frustration, God loves us so much that He desperately wants to reveal Himself to us in ways that we can understand. So, He sends His very own Son to communicate His message in a way that we can understand. God has finally broken through the communication barrier that has separated us from knowing His will. That is the miracle of Christmas. That is the miracle of the message.

There are three points which the prologue of the letter to the Hebrews wishes to communicate to us.

The first point is that God speaks through history to reveal Himself to us. He wants us to know Him, to love Him, to worship Him. For those who complain that God often remains silent when we demand a response or an answer, are obviously ignorant of how God has chosen to reveal Himself to us. God is always speaking but were we listening?

God reveals Himself through His creation, through the sunrise and sunset, through the sun, moon and stars. God spoke to Moses in the burning bush, He spoke to the Israelites from the smoke and fire on the mountain, He spoke to Elijah in a still, small voice, to Isaiah in a vision in the temple. God has been speaking His message through visions and dreams, through angels. There is no lack of variety for God's revelation is not a monotonous activity that must always occur in the same place or in the same way. God has been speaking throughout history in a variety of places through a variety of means in order to make Himself and His will known. But God's revelations in the Old Testament were fragmentary, occasional, and progressive, because no single one of them contained the whole truth. They could not adequately capture the full picture of God's nature.

And so it was necessary to take it up another level, in fact, beyond any level which we would normally expect. God speaks through Christ. At last, God sent His Son to bring His message to us! In the Lord Jesus Christ, God revealed Himself directly to us. Jesus Christ, the living divine Son of God, did more than just proclaim God's message - He is God's message. As St John confidently declares in his prologue: “In the beginning was the Word: and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” But this Word did not just remain invisible like a concept or an idea. Something happened which is at the very heart of Christmas: “The Word was made flesh, he lived among us, and we saw his glory.” The invisible Deity, whom we can never behold, became visible. Jesus came to reveal God, to make Him known to us in ways that we can understand. If you want to know what God is like, look to Jesus!

But why did this happen? Why did the Word choose to become flesh? Why did the Son of God choose to be born in Bethlehem? Why did He choose to speak to us in person? Well, the answer is found in my third point - God speaks to transform. The miracle of the message is not just in the fact that God speaks to us today through His Son, but that the message has the power to transform our lives. Christmas is the celebration of the greatest message ever proclaimed. Emmanuel - God is with us. God came near so that we could draw near to Him. Or as the Fathers of the Church were fond of claiming: God became man so that men may become gods. The miracle of the message is that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, so that we can be set free from sin's hold on our lives.

Why would He do that? Because He wanted us to know how very much He loves us. He wanted us to know that He created us for a reason - that we might know and love Him. He came to proclaim the message that we have been set free. We don't have to live as prisoners to guilt and regret.

In our time, I think, we need to recognise that this is the fundamental message of Christmas. We either recognise our need for a Saviour or we do not. We either yearn for the fulfilment of God’s will or we do not. We either accept the gift of Christ wholeheartedly or we do not. If we really don’t care about our Catholic faith, having exiled it to the periphery of our lives, storing it in a drawer somewhere only to be taken out when needed, then we have rejected this faith. Yet its acceptance—indeed, its very life within us—is the key, amid all the fluctuations and catastrophes of this world.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour King born in Bethlehem, the Son of Mary and the Son of God, the Word made flesh, “the radiant light of God’s glory and the perfect copy of His nature,” let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. Should not all our festivities and carols be in thanksgiving for the wonder of Christmas? Was it not at Christ’s birth that the silence of the heavens were shattered, that Invisible Deity became visible, that our salvation was first made manifest? So, as we celebrate Christmas, we and all our families ought to know what we are doing, and we ought to know why, and we ought to know all that is at stake. Christmas has changed everything. We should rejoice in it only if we find that it has also changed us—or that it can change us now and continues to change us until we are able to see His glory face to face.

God is the Author, man isn't

Twenty Second Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Being a priest, I must admit that it’s not hard to know what I must do. If I want to know what I must do, I am simply guided by sacred scripture and sacred tradition, the teachings and disciplines of the Church found in canon law, the liturgical rubrics and pastoral directories governing church discipline, structures and practices. The hard part is doing it anyway despite it being unpopular. It’s funny that whenever I do what is required of me, I’m always accused of being “rigid”! Yes, the Church’s laws, rules and rubrics provide clear unambiguous guidance and direction, but they also make room for discernment and exception-making whenever necessary. The hard part is always trying to reinvent the wheel based on personal preferences and feelings, mine as well as others. This is when the point of reference is no longer Christ or the Church, but me. If I should “follow my heart” or that of others, without any reference to Christ or the Church, I would simply be guilty of what the Lord is accusing the Pharisees in today’s gospel: “You put aside the commandment of God to cling to human traditions.”

Too many these days, including many well-intentioned pastors, feel that the teachings of the Church fall into the category of “grey area” and “ambiguity,” thus the teachings of faith and morals are relative to individuals and their respective unique situations. They have problems with doctrinal teachings on contraception, purgatory, and indulgences (just to name a few), all of which are covered and explained clearly in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. And if we should decide to defend these teachings and the laws which flow from them, we are immediately labelled as “rigid” and “seeing everything in black and white,” refusing to acknowledge that people change over the years and so the Church must learn to adapt accordingly. The final argument and last insult would be to insist that Church laws are mere “human regulations” which justifies departing from them. And since they are supposedly “man-made rules,” you can and should dispense with them as how Christ dispensed with the man-made rules and traditions of the scribes and Pharisees in today’s gospel passage. Interesting argument but seriously flawed.

Yes, it is correct to state that many of these rules are man-made, Christ made them and Christ was fully human. It was Christ Himself who instituted the Eucharist: “Do this in memory of Me”, He said at the Last Supper. “Go therefore and baptise”, He said, and it was He who included the Trinitarian baptismal formula in the rite. It was He who taught if someone should divorce his or her spouse and marry another, it would be adultery. Our Lord was the master of creating traditions! But let us not forget this little, often ignored, seldom stressed point – Christ was also fully divine – He was fully God. So, no, though there are man-made rules in the Church just like any human organisation and society, and these rules can technically be changed and have changed over the centuries, there are fundamentally certain rules set in stone, on an unbreakable and indissoluble “stone”, which is to say that they are “immutable,” they remain binding in every age and place and under any circumstances, precisely because God is the author, and man isn’t.

Alright, given the fact that divine laws can’t be changed except by God, how about all the disciplines, canon law, rules and liturgical rubrics of the Church? Aren’t these man-made? Well, just because they are “man-made” doesn’t necessarily empty them of value. Traffic laws, statutory laws, municipal by-laws, school regulations, association rules would equally fall under the same category of being “man-made.” Can you imagine a society or a world that totally departs from any law or regulation and everyone is allowed to make decisions, behave, and act upon their own whims and fancies? If you’ve ever watched one of those apocalyptic movies of a dystopian world in the not-too-distant future, you will have your answer. We will soon descend into a society of anarchy, lawlessness, violence, where justice is merely an illusion and “might is right.” The reason for this is because none of us are as sinless as the Son of God or His immaculately conceived Mother. Laws are not meant to curtail and restrict our freedom. They are meant to ensure that our rights as well as the rights of others are protected so that true freedom may be enjoyed. The Law of Christ as expounded by the Church frees us - it frees from our selfish, self-referential, sin-encrusted egos.

A more careful examination of Christ’s words in today’s passage indicate that He was not condemning human tradition, but those who place human traditions, laws, or demands before true worship of God and His will expressed in the commandments. The problem wasn’t “human traditions” but specifically “human traditions” that obscure the priority of worship and God. Man was made to worship God; it's in our very nature to do so. Every other human activity should either flow from this or should rank second to this. This is what liturgical rubrics hope to achieve. Detailed instructions for both the priest and the congregation are intended to ensure that God is ultimately worshipped and glorified in the liturgy, and not man who is to be entertained. In other words, all these “man-made” rules of the Church which, to some of us, doesn’t seem to be what Christ taught, actually flow from the heart of Christ's teaching. Christ gave us the Church to teach and to guide us; she does so, in part, by teaching us to know God, to love Him and serve Him and through all these, be united with Him in Paradise forever. But when we substitute our own will for this most basic aspect of our humanity, we don't simply fail to do what we ought; we take a step backward and obscure the image of God.

It is often very convenient to denounce Catholic tradition as “man-made” or “human tradition” just because we don’t like it. The hypocrisy of such an accusation is often lost on those who supplant the Church’s tradition, rules and rubrics, with their own interpretation and version. Clericalism, real clericalism and not just the dressed-up version of it (those who wear black cassocks or lacy albs), is the result of choosing to depart from those rules, disciplines and teachings. When we ignore or reject the rules of the Church, we are merely replacing them with our own rules, our so-called “human traditions.” In fact, we are putting “aside the commandment of God to cling to human traditions.” It is not those who keep the rules but those who flagrantly break the rules that are the modern-day Pharisees.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that Sacred Tradition, rather than a set of “man-made rules” or “human traditions” is “the living memorial of God’s Word.” Pope Benedict XVI explains that Sacred Tradition “is not the transmission of things or words, an assortment of lifeless objects; (but) it is the living stream that links us to the origins, the living stream in which those origins are ever present.” Therefore, we should be putting aside our own arrogant personal preferences and opinions, rather than God’s commandments, and come to acknowledge that it is not stupidity but humility to listen to the voice of the Church because as St Ambrose reminds us, “the Church shines not with her own light, but with the light of Christ. Her light is drawn from the Sun of Justice, so that she can exclaim: ‘It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me’ (Gal 2:20)”.

When Little becomes Abundant

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

There is this wonderful line which could only emerge from the inspired genius mind of St Augustine: “The New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New.” This is what we see in our lectionary’s juxtaposition of the first reading and the gospel. Both readings provide us with two incidences of miraculous multiplication of bread, the first implicit, while the latter clearly more explicit by virtue of its scale. Elisha multiplied 20 barley loaves so as to feed 100, with some even left over. But in the Gospel, our Lord multiplies 5 barley loaves and feeds 5,000, leaving 12 baskets left over. We’re talking serious one-upmanship here!

What does the multiplication story of Elisha in the first reading and our Lord Jesus have in common is their seven-part movement in the narrative: a crisis arises due to shortage of food, a chanced character volunteers to make an offering of meagre means, the protagonists issue a command to feed the crowds with these limited resources, followed by incredulity, a second command is given, the feeding takes place and finally, there is food left over. Both narratives fit nicely into this 7-part template. But there is no equivalence. What our Lord does, out matches what is done by Elisha and in fact by Moses who fed the Israelites with manna from heaven. This is no mere coincidence.

Christ brings to complete perfection what had already been prefigured in the Old Testament. That is why we should not easily dismiss the Old Testament as historically obsolete or mythical stories. To know Christ in the fullest sense (sensus plenior), then, we must read not only the New Testament, but also the Old. Our Lord Jesus is not just another great prophet in a long line of prophets but He is of an entirely different category which surpasses all that has preceded Him. If the prophets of old had only communicated the Word of God as mediums of transmission, Jesus is the Word of God in the flesh.

Both stories begin in a context of hunger. Few understand the depths of hunger. Becoming hungry for most of us is a matter of choice. Fasting and dieting are deliberate choices. But one must also consider the hunger of millions of people in the world: “the siege of the poor”. They have no choice but to be hungry.

But it is the hunger of such as these that reminds us that life begins with hunger and to be alive is to be hungry. The dead do not experience hunger pangs any longer. Some people are so hungry that for them God cannot but have the form of a loaf of bread. It is no wonder that in both stories of multiplication, we are reminded that the paradigm which God shows us and which we must imitate is giving and not hoarding. That is why the Lord commands His disciples to count the cost of what is to be given and to make an inventory of what they possess.

The miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and the fish, therefore, shows us that the Lord is not concerned with the quantity of the bread; what He desires is that the bread be shared. The hunger of others has rights over me. It never ceases to amaze me at how much energy we put into making excuses that we don’t have enough to share with others. According to a mysterious divine rule: when “my” bread becomes “our” bread, then little becomes enough. Hunger begins when I keep my bread to myself, when I choose to hold on to my bread, my fish, my assets. In contrast to our penchant to be calculative, our Lord shows us another way of being wholly generous because we have received so much from Him. The fact that there were twelve baskets of leftover food is a reminder to us that His grace is aplenty and that it is free.

Because of this last point and for this reason, the seemingly logical explanation of this miracle being the result of the crowds sharing their personal stash of food is untenable. This is not just a story of sharing but one of revelation. Only God could complete such a feat. As God rained down manna in the desert, Elisha increased his meagre supply of bread to feed the hundreds and now our Lord multiplies the bread and fish to feed the multitude of thousands, none of these events could have happened without God’s intervention. It is simply not possible for the disciples or the people to feed themselves or each other. They could not heal themselves or each other. But God can and God does.

So, the grain of truth that confronts us in today’s readings is that we are subject to limitations. We are not able to do everything, we are not able to help everyone, we are not able to save everyone. But that does not absolve us from doing something or helping someone. When we entrust the little that we have to God, He will ensure that our efforts would not be impeded by our limitations. On the other hand, these stories remind us that for a miracle to happen, it is not about God creating something out of nothing. God takes what we offer Him and ensures that it is always enough for us to share it with others, with much more to spare.

Our financial resources, talents, and holiness are clearly inadequate to meet the needs of a hungry and confused world. But what else is new? This gospel commands us to offer these resources anyway, trusting that God will multiply them. Don’t just take my word for it. See it happen at every Mass. In the Eucharist we bring the very ordinary work of our hands, bread and wine, and join to this the offering of our very ordinary lives. Through the invocation of the Spirit and the Word of God, this offering is changed into the Body and Blood of Christ, the Bread of Life and the Cup of eternal salvation. Likewise, we offer Him the work of our hands and our broken humanity, and He transforms these things into perfect humanity and life-giving divinity. And with this He not only feeds us but empowers us to feed the whole world. When “His” bread becomes “our bread”, then little becomes abundant!

Central Mystery of Faith

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity Year B

Today we celebrate Trinity Sunday. On other days in our liturgical calendar, we primarily celebrate the mystery of the life of Christ, His Incarnation, His ministry, His passion, death and resurrection and the impact this has on the Church and her members, in particular Mary and the saints. But today, we celebrate the mystery of who God is — the Most Holy Trinity. It is one of only two dogmas that actually have a feast day in the liturgical calendar. The term “mystery” is appropriate for the celebration.

I hate to do it but whenever I’m asked a question of clarification about the Most Holy Trinity, transubstantiation or the Incarnation, I would start with my standard curt reply: “it’s a mystery.” Though, this may appear to be a brilliant deflection and avoidance of answering the question directly, I can presume that it must sound awfully frustrating and condescending to the enquirer. But it is not my intention to deflect or avoid and I’m hardly trying to be condescending. I would proceed to explain what a mystery means in its theological context. It’s hardly Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew or Agatha Christie stuff which I am talking about. A mystery of faith is of a different category entirely.

When the Church refers to a teaching, a dogma, as mystery, she is not referring to something which is hidden from our knowledge - it is not some esoteric secret. In fact, mysteries of faith are part of divine revelation - their secrets have been revealed to us. But when the Church describes something as mystery, she is making the point that this truth cannot be known to us independently of such revelation from God. Our natural faculties including our intellect would not be able to arrive at this conclusion without God Himself having revealed or shown it to us.

And so it is with the dogma of the Most Holy Trinity. God is so far above us that we can never fully understand Him. We mortals would be incapable of knowing that God exists as One but in three distinct persons if this has not been revealed to us through Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. In fact, the dogma of the Most Holy Trinity is not just one example of a mystery among many. The Catechism of the Catholic Church declares: “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in Himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them” (CCC 234). It would be ironic if we wish to delve into the meaning of other mysteries of faith and yet deliberately choose to ignore the central mystery of our faith just because it is the most inexplicable and most likely to give us a major headache.

There could be two major mistakes we are prone to make when considering the Most Holy Trinity as a mystery, even though it is uniquely described as the “central mystery of Christian faith and life.”

The first is to treat the dogma as a fascinating but abstract concept, a cosmic Rubik’s Cube that challenges us to fit all the pieces into their place through elaborate, brain-twisting moves. What might begin as a sincere desire to understand better the mystery of One God in three persons can be a dry academic exercise. If we’re not careful, the Trinity can become a sort of theological artifact that is interesting to examine on occasion, but which doesn’t affect how we think, speak, and live.

The second mistake is to simply avoid thoughtful consideration of the nature and meaning of the Trinity. The end result of this flawed perspective is similar to the first, minus all the study: to throw up one’s hands in frustrated impatience, “Well, it doesn’t make any sense. I don’t see what it has to do with me and my life!” While many Christians might not consciously come to that conclusion, the way they think and live suggests that is, unfortunately, their attitude.

Far from being a distant concept remotely removed from our everyday lives, it is fundamental to our identity as Christians. In a sermon given in the early 1970s, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) wrote of how “the Church makes a man a Christian by pronouncing the name of the triune God.” This is what our Lord wishes to communicate in today’s passage as He commissions His disciples with this mission: “Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you.” The baptism that takes place is to be done in the name of the Most Holy Trinity.

Although the word “mystery” implies a certain distance, it involves an intimate encounter. A relationship would remain shallow if the parties are not willing to open themselves to the other. As some people would argue, there should be no secrets between lovers. The reason why God would unlock and reveal a mystery to us is because He loves us and wishes to engage us and wants us to enter into a relationship with Him. Through this relationship we come to know Him and by knowing Him more and more, we get to deepen our relationship with Him. This knowledge, admittedly, is not exhaustive but engaging. It draws us closer to the One who can never be fully known. It is a relationship of love. Just like the more you get to know someone you love, the more the person is revealed to be a mystery.

Now that we know His motivation is love, but why would God bother to reveal Himself to us? That we might have Eternal Life. And what is eternal life? It is actually sharing in the supernatural life of the Blessed Trinity. How can we share in a life which we have no knowledge of? Impossible. That is why, the more we come to know God, the more we wish to enter into a deeper communion with Him.

Far from being abstract or of little earthly value, the Most Holy Trinity is the source of reality and the reason our earthly lives have meaning and purpose. Because God is, we have a reason to be. Because God is love, we are able to truly love. Because God is unity, we are able to be united to Him. Because God is three Persons, we are able to have communion with Him. This is the reason why this dogma is the central mystery of faith.

St. Gregory of Nazianzus once wrote, “Above all guard for me this great deposit of faith for which I live and fight, which I want to take with me as a companion, and which makes me bear all evils and despise all pleasures: I mean the profession of faith in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” (CCC 256). We may not completely grasp the height and the depth of this great mystery but what St Paul wrote to the Corinthians helps us to embrace this mystery and relationship: “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 13:12-13). May we guard our belief in the Triune God with our lives. And may we better know the Most Holy Trinity, so that “we may love Him, serve Him and be with Him in paradise forever”.

The Birth of the New Israel

Pentecost Vigil Mass

Many of you may be disappointed with the readings for this Vigil Mass. You were expecting to hear the story from the Acts of the Apostles of how the Holy Spirit descended upon them in the form of tongues of fire and how they burst out in glossolalia, speech which miraculously could be understood by pilgrims from various nations in their own mother tongue. But none of that in today’s readings. In fact, the first reading gives us an account of the theophany at Mount Sinai, which surprisingly sounds similar to our familiar story of the Pentecost.

But these two events are not entirely unconnected. To understand their close connexion, one needs to understand that Pentecost was first and foremost a Jewish Feast before it entered into the Christian calendar. Initially, Pentecost was the feast of seven weeks. Pentecost, or Shavuot in Hebrew, means fifty and is basically the sum total of seven weeks of seven days with an additional day added to the multiple of seven as how one would calculate a jubilee year. The Israelites left Egypt on the fifteenth day of the first month, the morning after the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb. They arrived at the foot of Mt. Sinai on the first day of the third month, which would have been approximately forty days. Moses then went up Mt Sinai and stayed there for several days and then brought back down the two tablets written on stone by the finger of God. This total timeline closely approximated the fifty days after Passover that the Feast of Shavuot was supposed to be held on.

Shavuot was, like the other two pilgrimage festivals of Pesach (Passover) and Sukkoth (Tabernacles or Booths), a harvest feast (cf. Ex 23:16), when the new grain was offered to God (cf. Nm 28:26; Dt 16:9). Later on, the feast acquired a new meaning: it became the feast of the Covenant God had made with His people on Sinai, when He gave Israel His law. The event which is narrated in today’s first reading. We still have one last piece of the puzzle. How is this feast significant for us Christians and why would God choose to pour out the Holy Spirit on the apostles on this day? The same day that the Jews were celebrating God’s giving of His Torah on tablets of stone, the Holy Spirit came and wrote His Torah on people’s hearts!

St Luke describes the Pentecost event as a theophany, a manifestation of God similar to the one on Mt Sinai: a roaring sound, a mighty wind, tongues of fire. But there is more. Both events occurred on a mountain (Mt. Sinai and Mt. Zion). Both events happened to a newly redeemed people. The Exodus marked the birth of the Israelite nation while the Pentecost event marked the birth of the Church.

The message is clear: Pentecost is the new Sinai; the Holy Spirit is the New Covenant; and once again there is the gift of the new Law to the Church, the New Israel. But the parallels are not just meant to be equivalent. The Christian Pentecost is meant to be the fulfilment of what was merely foreshadowed in the Old Testament - a definite upgrade. At Sinai the people were kept away from the fire on the mountain because they had not purified themselves. But at Pentecost, the fire comes into their midst through the Apostles. At Sinai, God gave the Law written by His finger on tablets of stone. At Pentecost, He gave the Law written on Tablets of the Heart. The Torah attempted to change people from the outside. The Holy Spirit changes from within.

The promise made to the prophets is thus fulfilled. We read in the prophet Jeremiah: “This is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts” (Jer 31:33). And in the prophet Ezekiel: “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances” (Ez 36:26-27).

The law of Moses pointed out obligations but could not change the human heart. A new heart was needed, and that is precisely what God offers us by virtue of the redemption accomplished by Jesus. The Father removes our heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh like Christ’s, enlivened by the Holy Spirit who enables us to act out of love (cf. Rom 5:5). On the basis of this gift, a new Covenant is established between God and humanity. St Thomas Aquinas says with keen insight that the Holy Spirit Himself is the New Covenant, producing love in us, the fullness of the law.

This is the last and perhaps the most important of the parallels. At Sinai, after the people receive the law of the Lord, they swear a covenant with God. A covenant is how families are created. That’s the purpose of a covenant. When God swears His covenant with us, it’s to make us His family. The whole story of the Bible is a story of covenants as God is reuniting us with His family, which Adam got kicked out of. So God makes covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and David. The Old Covenant sealed at Sinai is now replaced by the New at Pentecost. These Old Testament covenants are finally fulfilled in the New Covenant of Jesus Christ where finally the family of God isn’t only dictated by natural bloodlines, but through the blood of Jesus Christ.

The covenant of Sinai was broken by the people’s apostasy and rebellion when they demanded that Aaron make a golden calf as an object of worship, Moses ordered the Levites to slaughter the idolaters. It was said that 3,000 were killed. If you recall from the account of Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles, how many were baptised and added to the Church on that day? 3,000. In other words, the 3,000 lost through the broken covenant at the foot of Sinai in the old Israel is restored to the New Israel – the Church - because of the New Covenant of Jesus Christ. This is the birth of the new people of God. What was dead has been brought back to life through the power of the Holy Spirit – through the sacraments.

So, there you have it. The backstory of Pentecost in the book of Acts is the scene at Sinai way back at the birth of Israel as the people of God. We are the new people of God. We are the New Israel, the restored and transformed kingdom of God in the New Covenant of Jesus Christ! Thanks be to God for the Holy Spirit! He brings us life. He manifests God in our presence. He continues the power of the resurrected and ascended Christ in our lives. It is the Spirit that gives life. The Holy Spirit brings Christ to us through the sacraments. He guides in the life of prayer. He draws us closer to our Lord so that we can fulfill our destiny as children of God. Don’t ever stop asking for the Holy Spirit.

Handing down the faith

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

A good story or message deserves more than a single telling. St Luke recognises that others have beaten him to write “accounts of the events that have taken place,” specifically accounts surrounding the life and ministry of the Lord and that of the Church and her early mission. But these other accounts have not deterred him from writing a fresh account, not a fictional make-believe story, but one based on real events and real persons, stories and sayings handed down “by those who from the outset were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word.” He specifically addresses this account to Theophilus for an expressed reason, so that Theophilus “may learn how well founded the teaching is that [he has] received.” Some people may find it strange and even offensive that we are reading a private message from one person to another. But Theophilus, which means “lover of God,” could be a pseudonym addressed to every Christian. For is not every Christian meant to be a “lover of God”?

It is interesting that St Luke uses the Greek word “paredosan,” which comes from the root “paradosis” which is translated here as “handed down.” This is essentially what “tradition” is about - the handing down of the sayings and deeds of the Lord through the witness of the Apostles. Though hand-me-downs are often considered a humiliating badge of poverty, for Catholics the Sacred Tradition that has been faithfully handed down from the Apostles to our present age, are anything but a sign of our impoverishment. In fact, Sacred Tradition together with Sacred Scripture are the greatest treasures of our Church, treasures to be valued, flaunted and displayed for the world to see.

Again, another Greek word that is lost in translation when rendered in English is a word familiar to many of us - “Katechetes” - translated here simply as “teaching.” Sounds familiar? It should – we have the English word “catechesis.” And immediately the gospel takes a leap from the first chapter to the fourth chapter and presents our Lord as the Teacher par excellence. And what is interesting is that the example cited by St Luke is not some innovative new teaching, but our Lord reading from the scroll of the Book of Isaiah. Many would find it ironic that the Eternal Logos, the Word made Flesh, could have chosen to speak on any topic, and teaching something fresh, but instead He delves into the depths of the Old Testament and shows us that His revelation is in continuation to what has already been revealed to, and through the prophets. At the end of the reading, the Lord tells His audience that the text is being fulfilled even as they are listening to Him because He is the One whom the prophecy is pointing to.

For this reason, the first and most important thing that we must remember about handing on the faith is this: everything begins and ends with Jesus Christ. He is the source, the fulfilment and the ultimate climax of revelation, and by extension, of all catecheses. For us Catholics, the Word of God is not just a book to be kept on the shelf nor a text to be merely studied. The Word of God is first and foremost a person - Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. Pope Francis said, “Christian doctrine is . . . living, is able to unsettle, is able to enliven. It has a face that is supple, a body that moves and develops, flesh that is tender: Christian doctrine is called Jesus Christ.”

For this reason, we cannot and we should not claim to be People of the Book but People of the Living Word of God. We do not worship a book. We worship the One who is the source of divine revelation, the record of which is found in a book we call the Bible but also preserved in the oral tradition of the Church. No one can really claim that they understand the nature of catechesis without realising that its form, its content, and its ultimate goal is Jesus Christ.

The word catechesis, in Greek—katékhéo—comes from the two words kata-ekheo. But kata-ekheo means to “echo down” or, you might say, to “echo precisely.” St. Paul and St. Luke used this word (see, e.g., Lk 1:4 and 1 Cor 14:19) to explain what we are doing when we teach the Christian faith. They are telling us that a catechist and his teaching are supposed to be an echo, a precise echo, of what has been given for instruction. If we are only an echo, then the original voice is someone else’s. The voice of the Master is supposed to resound in our teaching.

This is so humbling for a teacher of the faith. I constantly have to tell myself, “I’m not the real teacher here. Jesus is,” and I have to let the words of John the Baptist be a mantra on my lips: “He must increase. I must decrease” (Jn 3:30). Some of the great thinkers of the patristic era, like Augustine, took this so seriously that they claimed we could not learn anything, except through the illumination of our minds by the light of Christ. But what we can say for sure is that, in catechesis, we are attempting to communicate something that surpasses what the human mind could know by its own efforts. And, if that is the case, then we should take Jesus seriously when He says, “You have One Teacher,” (Mt 23:8), and we should make His words our own when He claims, “My teaching is not mine but his who sent me” (Jn 7:16).

In the 4th century, St John Chrysostom, reflected upon this echoing nature of teaching the faith, wrote that this teaching is not just an echo of the Master, but this teaching is supposed to resound within the heart of our hearers, so much so, that you can see it bear fruit in their lives. St. John Paul II, puts it like this: “Catechesis takes the seed of faith sown by evangelisation and nourishes it so that the “whole of a person’s humanity is impregnated by that word”; it continues to nourish that seed until Christ is born again in that person’s flesh, that he or she might learn to “think like Him, to judge like Him, to act in conformity with His commandments”.” So, my dear parents, catechists and RCIA facilitators, always remember that your job is to echo our Lord. Our Catholic faith is one of imitation, not of innovation - we are called to imitate the Lord in word and deed, not to replace Him with our own ideas, words or deeds. Let Him be the Teacher, the content, and the end of your labours. Catechesis will always begin and end with Him, and He will be the entire way through.

Finally, catechesis is impossible without the Church, without the community. The second reading tells us that though there may be a variety of gifts and ministries, there is only one Body. That is why in today’s Mass we celebrate the commissioning of our catechists - parents, Sunday School teachers and RCIA facilitators - within the context of the Church - the Church carrying on the mission of Christ, sends out disciples who seek to make disciples of others.

Think of this: the task of a catechist is an impossible one, when left to our own powers. We are powerless to convert hearts, and to make the Word of God grow inside of people. We can only plant and water, but He must give the increase (1 Cor 3:6). Conversion is the work of the Holy Spirit. Unless we are anointed and commissioned by the Lord through His Church, our work will be in vain. This should drive us to constantly come back to the only place where we can find refuge and solace for such an arduous task: Holy Mother Church and her bridegroom, the Blessed Lord Jesus Christ.

The Word Leapt down in Silence

Christmas Mass During the Day

Some would naively argue that the concept of the “Logos,” translated as “the Word” in St John’s lyrical prologue, was something radically new, an appropriation of a Greek philosophical concept. But in the Book of Wisdom in the Old Testament, we find not just a subtle and distant hint but a blaring proclamation of the movement of the Eternal Word:

“For while all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her course, Thy almighty Word leapt down from Heaven from Thy royal throne, as a fierce conqueror into the midst of the land of destruction” (Wisdom 18:15).

As with most holidays, Christmas generally tends to be a noisy feast filled with strong, joyful carols proclaiming: “For Unto Us A Child Is Born,” “Joy to the World,” “Angels We Have Heard On High,” “Go Tell It On The Mountain,” etc. And this is all true, and very good, and very beautiful. But there is also a silence to be contemplated, a silence that is often missed and dismissed. The great things that God works within His creatures naturally happen in silence, in a divine movement that suppressed all speech. For what could we say? Thus, God’s heavenly secret is kept under the seal of silence unless He Himself opens the lips and makes the words come forth. And this is what happened as the Book of Wisdom said it would happen: “For while all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her course, Thy almighty Word leapt down from Heaven from Thy royal throne.”

The Word Himself, God, the desire of all nations, “leapt down from heaven” in “quiet silence,” physically took on silence, becoming a new born human, an infant. And in the wonderful silence in the stable, Mary and Joseph looked at Jesus for the first time and contemplated the mystery of His birth in silence. Today, in the midst of our revelry and celebration, we are called to adopt an atmosphere of silence if we wish to grasp the mystery of His Incarnation and hear His gentle whispering.

When the Book of Wisdom tells us that the “… almighty Word leapt down from Heaven from (His) royal throne, as a fierce conqueror into the midst of the land of destruction,” the author was reflecting on the death of the Egyptian first-born at the time of the Exodus. The Almighty God reached down from heaven as He had promised to Moses and slew the first-born of the Egyptians so that all might know that the Hebrew people were His chosen.  God proved victorious and in so doing, through death gave life to His People. Now the Church takes that profound and inspired meditation on the victory of life over death and offers it to us as a reflexion on what Christ will do.  Once Christ is born, a life like no other has entered the world.  In this child, the Almighty Word that leapt down from Heaven, we encounter an unconquerable life, a life that is reminiscent of what went on before but surpasses it in power and fullness.  He came “so that they might have life and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).

Although the Incarnation took place in silence and the divine movement often takes place in silence, there is also silence which is imposed by force and violence – a silence which seeks to silence God’s Word. St John tells us that “He (the Word made flesh) came to his own domain and his own people did not accept him.” It should come as no surprise, therefore, that Christmas, a reminder of the birth of the Son of God, must be removed from the public square and its message silence because the message of Christmas, one of life, threatens the prevalent culture of death.

The human race has always known violence to innocence, evidenced by the actions of Pharaoh and Herod and in the last century, Hitler and Stalin. While adults can make their voices heard in protest, the unborn, the sick and the elderly, are easy targets because of their natural silence, if no one speaks for them and on behalf of them. Today, that struggle manifests itself in new and frightening ways - with the proliferation of abortion mills and passing of legislation which legalises the murder of innocents, the sick and the elderly and which seeks to silence dissenting voices.  The violence has become customary, normalised, more imaginative and terrifying. 

But our Lord shows us that life is ultimately victorious. Life conquers through its ability to empty itself out.  The power of the Christian faith manifests itself most especially in being what the world is not.  To arrogance it counters with humility.  To cynicism it reacts with innocence.  To deception it responds with truth.  To glamour it demonstrates with simplicity.  To death it responds with life.  To a cacophony of noise, it offers silence. Christian faith is simply the opposite of everything that the world would expect and want.  It offers “mud,” when the world would want “gold and silver.”  This is what Christmas is all about. Christmas bears a dangerous message which threatens our world and yet, it carries with it the only message which can save the world.

But there is great irony in the liturgy of the Church.  In celebrating a humble birth, we offer our best - we offer our “gold and silver”.  To the silent entry of the Word into our world, we offer our voices in songs of praise and wonderment. We enrich the liturgy with the best that we have to offer because the accoutrements of the rituals manifest the beauty of a world that is not ours and thrusts us forward and upward into an unimaginable beauty, a sign of a world to come. 

Today, we come to the manger offering our best only because we have acknowledged the worst in us: the noise we make in competition with God’s sublime Word; the “mud” we have covered ourselves in - our sins, our weaknesses and shortcomings.  We take courage also in knowing that the Word broke His silence and entered into the noisy madness of our world as He stepped into the “mud” of our fallen existence. Yes, the Eternal Word which leapt down from heaven from His royal throne, has stepped into the filthy “mud” in which we are mired. We were once formed from dust, but now our Lord gives us new life by remoulding the “mud” of our being into a new creation. There is every reason for us to break our silence today and announce: “Indeed, from His fullness we have, all of us, received – yes, grace in return for grace.”

Lead us to the Light, Lead us to the Truth

Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord

Although we Christians have been taught and we know that Easter is our greatest and most important feast in the Church’s liturgical calendar year, most of us, if not all of us, have a soft and sentimental spot for Christmas. One can safely say, Christmas is everyone’s favourite feast (for believers and non-believers alike). But I must say that what I love about Christmas by far, is the last day of this shortest season, the Feast of the Epiphany, because of its sacramental richness displayed in the many customs that have been passed from one generation to the next. In every way, the Church, through these sacramentals and customs, is giving life to, and making visible the very meaning of the word “Epiphany.”

In common and secular parlance, epiphany refers to insights, realisations and awakenings, “aha moments” and even major, life-changing revelations that have had the greatest impact on our lives. The word takes its name from the Greek “epiphania,” which denotes the visit of a god to earth. To us Catholics, the Epiphany is more than just a beautiful word; it signifies the feast in which we celebrate the manifestation of Jesus Christ. The feast actually unites three events in the life of Christ when His divinity, as it were, shines through His humanity: the adoration of the Magi; the baptism of Christ in the Jordan; and the first miracle at the wedding feast of Cana. Moreover, at Epiphany the Church looks forward to the majestic second coming of Christ when His manifestation as God will be complete.

The story of the Magi and the brightness of the star also speaks to the minds and hearts of the men and women of our time, men and women who continually search for truth. Saint Augustine wrote, that our hearts are restless until they rest in God. Pope Emeritus Benedict in his homily on this feast describes these wise men in this fashion: “These men who set out towards the unknown were, in any event, men with a restless heart; driven by a restless quest for God and the salvation of the world.  They were filled with expectation, not satisfied with their secure income and their respectable place in society. They were looking for something greater. They were no doubt learned men, quite knowledgeable about the heavens and probably possessed of a fine philosophical formation. But they desired more than simply knowledge about things. They wanted above all else to know what is essential. They wanted to know how we succeed in being human. And therefore they wanted to know if God exists, and where and how he exists. Whether he is concerned about us and how we can encounter him. Nor did they want just to know. They wanted to understand the truth about ourselves and about God and the world. Their outward pilgrimage was an expression of their inward journey, the inner pilgrimage of their hearts. They were men who sought God and were ultimately on the way towards him.”

In this splendid exposition of the condition of the Magi, Pope Benedict helps us to see the deep correlation between the quest of the Magi and that of our largely secularised non-Christian society. These wise men were Gentiles, not Jews. The term magoi in Greek refers to a wide variety of people, including fortune-tellers, priestly augurs, magicians and astrologers. Because of their connexion with the star in this story, it is safe to conclude that St Matthew identified them mostly with the last group. Instead of searching the scriptures, they looked to the skies, to the stars and constellations.  But in reward for their ardent though perhaps misguided search for truth, God in His great mercy, led them to Christ anyhow.

The universal message of Epiphany is also reflected in the other readings. The first reading speaks of non-Jews bringing gifts in homage to the God of Israel. Here the Prophet Isaiah, consoling the people in exile, speaks of the restoration of the New Jerusalem from which the glory of the Lord becomes visible even to the pagan nations. Thus, the prophet in this passage celebrates the Divine Light emanating from Jerusalem and foresees all the nations acknowledging and enjoying that Light and walking by it. Again in today’s Psalm, we are told that all the kings of the earth will pay homage to and serve the God of Israel and His Messiah. Thus, the readings express hope for a time when “the people of God” will embrace all nations.

As a privileged recipient of a Divine “epiphany”, Saint Paul in the second reading reveals God’s “secret plan,” that the Gentiles also have a part with the Jews in Divine blessings. Hence, St. Paul explains that the plan of God includes both Jews and Gentiles. Jesus implemented this Divine plan by extending membership in His Church, making it available to all peoples. Thus, the Jews and the Gentiles “now share the same inheritance, that they are parts of the same body, and that the same promise has been made to them, in Christ Jesus, through the gospel.” Hence, there are no second-class members in the Church among the faithful. If you’ve ever wondered what the word “Catholic” means, here we have it.  Derived from the Greek word meaning “according to the whole,” it means that Christ did not come to establish some local religious sect for a select few, one “cult” among many.  No, the Church He founded is “catholic” or universal, spread over the whole world, welcoming the whole human race into one nation, one family, under one King.

God has shown us that pagans can be mysteriously drawn to him and used by him, at times even through their own imperfect traditions of wisdom.  Michelangelo depicts this beautifully in the mural paintings of the Sistine Chapel. Lining the top of one wall of the chapel are famous paintings of Old Testament prophets. Opposite them are not New Testament apostles as one may expect. But rather, a row of the Sybils, the pagan prophetesses of the ancient world, in whose oracles there were discovered shadowy allusions to a future Saviour.  Illustrating the insightful humour of Michelangelo, one of the Sibyls has her mouth agape with astonishment, her eyes fixed on the fresco of the risen Christ at the altar wall of the chapel.  Indeed, the deepest desires of all peoples, the elements of truth found in all their religions and philosophies, are fulfilled in Christ. From the very beginning of the Christian story, then, Jesus is clearly not just the Jewish messiah who has come to deliver the people of Israel from foreign oppression.  No, He is the universal king, the ruler of all, who has come to tear down the hostile wall dividing Jew from Gentile, nation from nation. This is the magnificent message of the Epiphany.

Does this mean that all religions are equal and that we should not impose our ideas upon others?  Not at all. St. Justin Martyr said that there are “seeds of the Word” scattered throughout the world.  But seeds are meant to sprout, grow, and bear fruit. These seeds are merely meant to be preparation for the full and complete proclamation of the good news in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the light who illumines our personal existence and who guides us toward the fullness of life in heaven. He is the light who guides us on our journey of faith. All peoples of the world have a right to this “Catholic” fullness.  And it is our obligation to share it.

When we think about the condition of the world today, we see a lot of darkness or, at least, a lot of fog. Many are longing for truth and meaning, hope and joy, whether they are actively searching or not. The task of the new evangelisation calls us to bring the light of Christ into this darkness, to help people to see through the fog of confusion in a culture of increasing secularism and relativism, to sieve through the many ideologies, opinions and subjective truths, and to identify and recognise the Truth. For us Christians, the Truth is a person, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. The Church has the mandate from Christ to offer the light of the Gospel to all people. Christ is the light of the nations who came to offer salvation to all people. We are all called to be stars to lead others along the path toward Christ, to show God’s light by the way we live, speak, and act.