Twin Pillars

Solemnity of Saint Peter and Saint Paul

Today’s feast is an important one in our Church’s calendar but is not one which gets the attention it deserves because it’s not always that the twenty ninth of June falls on a Sunday. So, don’t be surprised and think this is a new celebration in view of the fact that we have a newly minted Pope. It is a feast of not only one but two Apostles of the Lord, in fact, described in Tradition and in our liturgy as the Princes of the Apostles. St Peter, whose birth name was Simon, is one of the Twelve. St Paul, though not one of the Twelve and not one of the followers of the Lord while He was still on this earth, is also regarded an apostle of the Lord by his own designation in his letters. Some mistakenly believe that Paul also underwent a name change after his conversion, but he actually had two names - Saul was his Jewish name and Paul was his Latin name, since he was a Roman citizen.

Though Saints Peter and Paul were not martyred on the same day, they lived and died as twin giants for one Church and share a feast day, befitting their friendship and their leadership. There is something wonderful in these two holy heavyweights sharing a feast, forever shouldering each other like brothers in their zeal for the Father and acting as twin pillars of the Church. One of the reasons, among many, why they were paired from the earliest centuries of the Church, is not because of their association and encounters recorded in the Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s letters, but because they served as a new paradigm for the refounding of the city of Rome, contrasted with another set of siblings - the legendary twin founders of the Eternal City who were said to have been raised by a she-wolf.

According to legend, Romulus and Remus, the former after whom the city of Rome was named, were abandoned at birth and cast into the Tiber River where they were discovered by a she-wolf who nursed them. When they grew up, the twins embarked on a quest to found their own city. Romulus and Remus disagreed about which hill to build their city on. Eventually, Romulus just started digging a ditch around the Palatine Hill and built a wall to mark the boundaries. Remus mocked his brother’s work, and in a fit of anger Romulus killed him and then buried him under the wall which Romulus erected around the city. The story is reminiscent of the first account of fratricide in the Bible; Cain killed his brother Abel. It is also ironic that Rome and her empire were founded on fratricide.

Now contrast this with the re-founding of Rome through the spread of Christianity by Saints Peter and Paul. Although both were unrelated and came from vastly different backgrounds and places of origin, they would find a common home in the city of Rome where both will be martyred. It is more than coincidence that their places of martyrdom and burial would be separated by the ancient wall which had separated the two ancient founders of Rome. St Peter would be martyred and buried within the walls while St Paul would be entombed outside the walls. Two eponymous major basilicas sit above their respective tombs.

Like Romulus and Remus, Peter and Paul too had their disagreements. If anyone had a cause for strife and division, it was these two. They had little in common. Paul was the chief persecutor of the early Christians led by Peter. Even after Paul’s conversion, there were also heightened moments of tension and disagreement between the two, especially on how Gentile converts to Christianity should be treated. In fact, Paul speaks of confronting Peter to his face for backtracking on an earlier decision to welcome these Gentile converts without condition. It took divine action to make these enemies into brothers. Peter and Paul were ultimately bound together in a bond stronger than blood: the love of Christ.

It is in this love that Peter and Paul had the foundation of their relationship. Through Christ, these two men were closer than twins in the womb. Peter and Paul are often depicted together in iconography in a circle, embracing one another in a brotherly hug with expressions of affection, like a pair of twins in the womb of their mother. This orientation is also reflected in the two Roman basilicas built over their tombs. Instead of just facing East, the direction of the rising sun from which the Lord is said to return, the two basilicas face each other across the Tiber - as if perennially yearning to be united in an eternal embrace. In contrast, images of Romulus and Remus, the mythological twins, are usually facing away from each other, as one ended up killing the other.

Peter and Paul remind us that brothers can be born from unlikely sources and that the spiritual bonds of fraternity can be stronger than blood ties. What is stronger than the blood which runs through our veins is the blood shed for us on the cross, a blood which has inspired so many Christians to give up their own life’s blood in knowing that eternal glory awaits them on the other side of the threshold of death. Peter and Paul were united in such a death as this. Early Christian tradition tells us they were imprisoned together for nine months before their martyrdoms on the same day. If the Old Rome was built on fratricide, brother killing brother, the New Rome and her Kingdom were founded on fraternal love, brothers dying for each other.

Today, the effigies of these two great Apostles stand as guardians to the entrances of the major Basilica of St Peter, as stone lions would in front of Chinese temples in the East. If the stone lions were meant to keep evil and inauspicious forces out, our two saints beckon to welcome pilgrims of the world to enter. A pillar must always have a partner, and so Peter and Paul are the twin pillars that hold up the doorway of the Church. So staunch are they that the rest of the faithful must celebrate their feast days together as one. They shared their life for the Faith, and so, to this day, they share it also in the observation of their glorious entrance into life eternal. As we celebrate the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, let us look to their model of fraternal correction and mutual love as we work to spread the gospel message in our own lives.

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.

Born Loser Raised Victorious

Solemnity of All Saints

If there is one cartoon character which I most identify with, it is Charlie Brown, the main male protagonist of the Peanuts comic strip created by Charles M. Schultz. Charlie Brown reminds me so much of myself growing up and even now, as an adult.

Personality-wise, he is gentle, insecure, and lovable. Charlie Brown possesses significant determination and hope, but frequently fails because of his insecurities, outside interferences, or plain bad luck. Although liked by his friends, he is often the subject of bullying, especially at the hands of Lucy van Pelt. He’s (what I often describe myself as) “bully-able.” Charlie is the perennial victim of bullying by the stronger, the proverbial Born Loser. He is described by his creator as “the one who suffers because he’s a caricature of the average person. Most of us are much more acquainted with losing than winning. Winning is great, but it isn’t funny.”

To be a Christian today often feels like being a loser, being an easy target for bullying, which isn’t a laughing matter. Christians, especially those who choose to live and practice their faith publicly, will end up being mocked, cancelled, side-lined and even persecuted. This explains why there are fewer and even fewer practising Christians even in traditionally predominantly “Christian” countries, and our neighbours think less of us because of our strange values and ideas. We are increasingly outsiders. And how we respond to this reality may be the defining question of our time.

The good news is that Christianity has always been a religion of losers. It is not a recent phenomenon in a highly secularised world. We have been persecuted, our beliefs have been ridiculed and rejected, our values have been maligned, sometimes driving us underground to practice our faith secretly. But though we may appear to be weak, powerless, failures, and losers in the eyes of the world, in the eyes of God we are victorious and winners! In this world we will have trouble; in this world we will be bullied and even appear to lose; but take heart, Christ has overcome the world. And this is what the Saints in heaven declare in song and praise: “Victory to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” These were the same figures who appeared to be defeated by anti-Christian forces, persecuted, tortured and martyred and yet, emerged victorious holding palms as trophies of their victory.

Nowhere is this truth more evident than in the Beatitudes. One could paraphrase the list of beatitudes as this: “Happy or Blessed are the losers!” “Happy are the ‘bully-ables’.” This is what the paradoxical and counterintuitive values behind the Beatitudes seek to display. Our Lord and Saviour, just as the Beatitudes would describe, had to experience poverty, pain, suffering, loss, persecution and death for the sake of righteousness in order to gain the victory and joyful blessedness of the resurrection and the gift of eternal life for all of us. This is the core of the Christian message - death before resurrection, loss before victory, last before first, poverty before riches. For in the Christian story, ‘success and failure’ is inverted.

Although we often describe the Saints in heaven as the Church Triumphant, those who have “run the race” and are crowned with glory in Heaven, the proverbial “winners,” it often doesn’t feel this way here on earth. The biography of every saint often reads like an episode of Charlie Brown. Our earthly experiences of failure and loss make us doubt the promises of the beatitudes.

But if we take a deeper look at the promises which are proclaimed by the Beatitudes, we begin to recognise the veracity of their claims even in this life without waiting for the next. The losers can discover something about themselves that winners cannot ever appreciate – that they are loved and wanted simply because of who they are, and not because of what they achieve. Love is never earned but freely given by the Lord to all, to even those who are undeserving, especially to them. That despite it all, raw humanity is glorious and wonderful, entirely worthy of love. This is revealed precisely at the greatest point of dejection – our Lord’s death and resurrection.

The resurrection is not just a magic trick at raising a dead body to life. That’s a neat and impressive trick. But it is so much more than that. It is a revelation that love is stronger than death, grace is stronger than sin, that human worth is not indexed to worldly success, but to one’s fidelity to the path laid out by Christ. The lives of the Saints are testimony to this. On this side of heaven, they may appear to be losers. But as the vision of St John in the first reading lifts the veil, we are given a glimpse of their true worth - they are winners and victors in the Kingdom of Heaven.

A successful Christian, if you can call him or her one, called to be a saint, ought to be hated rather than feted in this world. Yes, it does seem that the modernist forces seem to be attacking the Church from every angle, that orthodox Christian beliefs and values are aggressively under assault, yet this feast reminds us that we are not alone in our experience and that this epoch in history, is not that unique as the Church has always suffered derision, rejection, humiliation, and bullying from her inception. We often forget that until our Lord returns in glory as He brings judgment upon the earth, battles and wars will remain. So, no matter how peaceful we wish our lives could be, the truth is our lives, this side of heaven, will be tainted with conflict.

But despite the onslaught she experiences, not only from earthly enemies but also demonic forces, the vision described in the Book of the Apocalypse will be the final outcome. As we stand before the throne of the Lamb, we will know that we are conquerors, not losers, in this life we may be bullied but at the Last Judgment, we will be vindicated and that failure will be redeemed by the victory won for us by the Lamb which was slain.

Does God have favourites

Sixth Sunday of Easter
Lithuania-Poland Pilgrimage

Church of St Casimir, Swinice Warckie

We are in the spiritual hometown of St Faustina. It is technically not her hometown of birth as she was born and lived in the nearby village of Głogowiec. If you think this place is small, you should see Głogowiec. This is the very church in which she was baptised and where she received her first holy communion. If it were not for her, this little town would have been ignored by many world travellers and even by most people in Poland. It’s not Paris or New York, it has no fancy restaurants or buzzing night life, or must-see tourist attractions. But it has this singular honour of being the place where little Helena Kowalska was reborn, entered the church and became an adopted daughter of God. This alone would be the envy of many. Who said that God has no favourites?

Today’s readings force us to reconsider this burning question which would have troubled many: how come some people seem more privileged than others? The question actually avoids a more fundamental question which would appear to sound blasphemous if we were brave enough to ask it: Does God have favourites? Does He love some more than others.

We are assured by our Lord in His own Words, that He loves us to the same degree and manner as the Father loves Him. This is the extent of His love that He would send “His Son to be the sacrifice that takes our sins away.” Could we ask for more? But what is the true nature of this love? Does God’s love demand nothing from us? When we speak of God’s love as unconditional, we must understand that His love is not something which can be bought. It is not given to us as a quid pro quo, a reward for good behaviour, or payment for some devotion or sacrifice which we have made to earn that love. St John asserts that God loved us while we were still sinners. His love for us is not dependent on us being righteous or worthy. No sacrifice or price we are willing to pay would be sufficient to purchase it.

But it is not true to say that God’s love makes no demands on us. In fact, a great deal is demanded of us. And here we have it in both the second reading and the gospel that God’s love challenges us to a new way of life that makes certain demands of us.

Firstly, we are required to obey and keep His commandments. His commandments are an expression of His will and our refusal to obey those commandments (and we know that God’s commandments are always good and just) is rebellion against His will. To claim that we love God and yet oppose His will would be a lie.

Secondly, principal among God’s commandments is the commandment to love others: “love one another, as I have loved you.” This is the benchmark by which all love is to be measured. We do not just love those who have been good to us, who have treated us well, whom we are indebted to. Love extends even to those who have done nothing to deserve it, those outside our circle of friends and family, and even those whom we consider enemies. Of course, we are not commanded to “like” as “liking” or “not liking” someone is purely subjective. True love is never subjective. To love, instead, is to intend the wellbeing of the other person. And this is something which can be accomplished and measured objectively. This is why St John can argue that “Anyone who fails to love can never have known God, because God is love.”

So, back to our question: does God have favourites? In the first reading, St Peter says: “God does not have favourites, but that anybody of any nationality who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to him.” On the one hand, God does not have favourites. But like any good Catholic answer, there is always a “but,” which means the second part is quite the opposite of the first proposition. God does seem to favour “anybody of any nationality who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to him.” How do we understand this seeming paradox?

We know that God loves every single one of us, but does He love some more than others? If that were the case, it would mean that God has a limited amount of love, so to speak, which He has to portion out in chunks according to His preferences. 10% for you, 20% for Susan and Bob, and 50% for His favourite, Faustina! But God is infinite, and His love is infinite – no limits, no portions, no measuring sticks. God is love (1 John 4:8); His very nature is love. God loves everyone 100% which means that His love is total, absolute, unlimited for each of us.

So, God doesn’t dish out His love in different portions according to who He likes better. And yet, there is a difference involved. The difference isn’t with God, but with us. Each one of us is a unique creation, a unique person. My relationship with God will never be the same as yours, and yours will never be the same as anyone else’s. This is because we are spiritual beings, and each spiritual being is truly individual. Just as you and I can be very close friends with the same person, my friendship with that person will necessarily be different than yours, because you and I are different. God respects our individuality, and He rejoices in it (after all, that’s how He made us – unique!). And so, every person’s relationship with God will be unique. In heaven, we will all be saints, but no two saints will be just alike.

God calls each of us to follow Him, but in different ways, with different natural talents, with different gifts. As our Lord assured us of this in the gospel: “I chose you; and I commissioned you to go out and to bear fruit, fruit that will last.” Notice, He chose you, all of you and not just some of you! And each of us will respond with different degrees of generosity and faithfulness, so that His grace will bear more fruit, or less fruit in our lives.

So, should we be jealous if someone seems to have greater gifts than us? Should we be envious of St Faustina for her special relationship with the Lord and her mystical visions? It is not a sin to desire complete communion with God, but it is a foolish distraction to become discouraged or envious of someone else’s progress in holiness! When we run into other people or read about saints who experience a deep, intimate relationship with God, we are faced with a choice. We can either envy them this intimacy – becoming angry and vindictive towards them because they have achieved a degree of holiness that we have not achieved. Or we can emulate them – we can acknowledge the beauty of the holiness they have achieved and use their experience as a spur to our own efforts pursuing spiritual maturity. As we travel and visit the homes of the saints in this country whose landscape is rich with saints, may we choose to imitate the saints even as we admire and honour them. Let your discouragement be driven out by hope; let your frustration be banished by faith; and, let your frown be erased by love.

We Lepers

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Leprosy? Most of us have never seen anyone with this debilitating disease. Leprosy seems to have been stamped out in our country and any trace of the colonies, where lepers were hold up, to isolate them from the rest of us healthy folks have been lost to development. But both scripture and the Church’s history refuse to let us forget. The story of St Damien of Molokai, Apostle to the Lepers, must certainly be one of the most inspired hagiographies ever written and one which reminds us of the “lepers” that continue to live among us, though often out of sight.

In 1866, to curb the spread of this virulent disease of leprosy, the Hawaiian authorities decided to consign lepers to an isolated community on the island of Molokai. Once the lepers were out of sight and no longer a threat to the general population, the government turned a blind eye to their basic needs. Where even other missionaries kept away, St Damien, a missionary priest, pleaded with the bishop of the territory to allow him to minister to the needs of these lepers. The bishop kindly accompanied Damien to the colony and introduced him to the 816 community members as “one who will be a father to you and who loves you so much that he does not hesitate to become one of you, to live and die with you”. Little did the bishop realise that his words would prove prophetic.

Damien’s superiors had given him strict advice: “Do not touch them. Do not allow them to touch you. Do not eat with them.” But Damien made the decision to transcend his fear of contagion and enter into solidarity with the Molokai lepers. Other missionaries and doctors shrank from the lepers. What surprised the lepers most was that Damien touched them. But Damien not only touched the lepers, he also embraced them, he dined with them, he put his thumb on their forehead to anoint them, and he placed the Eucharist on their tongues.

One day, while soaking his feet in extremely hot water, Damien experienced no sensation of heat or pain—a tell-tale sign that he had contracted leprosy. The disease quickly developed, causing Damien to write to his bishop with the news. Damian who had not hesitated to become one of the lepers, chose also to live and die with them.

If you find that story amazingly moving, then you should feel the same if not more for what the Lord has done for us. Our Lord approaches a leper in today’s gospel and touches him.

To truly understand the significance of our Lord’s action, we need to understand two important concepts in the mind of a Jew– leprosy and the laws of ritual purity. The idea of leprosy was more than a virulent disease to be avoided. For the Jews, it was a sacrament in reverse - outward sign of inward curse. It was a sign of separation from God. For this reason, both the diagnosis as well as the final assessment that it had been cured, was not left to any ordinary doctor. Since, leprosy was seen as the ultimate punishment from God, only a priest, a minister of God could confirm that this sin was absolved, and the punishment lifted.

How about the laws of ritual purity? Since God is considered holy, anything which is unholy is not permitted to enter into His presence. The rules of ritual purity were designed for this. In the Old Testament law, there were five main ways people became unclean (even if it’s just temporary): eating “unclean animals”; (e.g., carrion-eaters); giving birth; contracting skin diseases; genital discharges; contact with corpse. Leprosy fell under the third category. Coming into contact with an unclean person would also render one unclean. So strict rules like those given to St Damien (“Do not touch them. Do not allow them to touch you. Do not eat with them”) had to be observed to avoid contamination. Instead of doing this, our Lord “stretched out his hand and touched” the leper. In the eyes of the crowd, our Lord had been contaminated.

But instead of being contaminated Himself, He heals the leper. We are reminded that we do not only get infection through close proximity, we can also get saved by it. C.S. Lewis explains this beautifully: “Good things as well as bad, you know, are caught by a kind of infection, if you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prize which God could, if He chose, just hand out to anyone. They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very centre of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not, you will remain dry. Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever? Once a man is separated from God, what can he do but wither and die?”

The story of Jesus healing the leper ends happily for him but unfortunately for Jesus. At that touch, they were equals. Ironically, this man was now able to enter any town he wanted because he had been healed, but Jesus could no longer enter towns because of the news of this miracle had spread. He had become a social leper.

The healing of the leper was just a warm-up for what the Lord had prepared to do for all of us, a model of what was to come at the cross. When He died for our sins, for as many of us who have been washed in the blood, our sins died as well and Jesus was then able to be reconciled with the Father, from whom we have been separated because of our sins, our spiritual leprosy. By communion with Him, by participation in His cross, we could receive eternal life. He shared His divinity with us as we shared our humanity with Him but without Him taking away our humanity. Our humanity is thus sanctified by His divinity.

In the case of St Damien, although he entered into the most profound solidarity with the lepers by becoming one of them, he was never able to remove this disease from their bodies or the social stigma from their existence, what more his own. But in the case of our Lord Jesus, He has taken us into Himself. In exchange for our flawed and broken humanity, He has exchanged with us His sublime divinity. The Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen describes the sublime transaction of the In­carnation in which Christ said to man: "You give me your hu­manity, I will give you my divinity. You give me your time, I will give you my eternity. You give me your bonds, I will give you my omnipotence. You give me your slavery, I will give you my free­dom. You give me your death, I will give you my life. You give me your nothingness, I will give you my all.” So, let us turn to the Lord in confidence, humility and much love and ask: “Lord, if you want. You can cure me.”

How have you loved?

Thirty Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

The three readings we’ve just heard today seem to make strange bed-fellows. The first reading provides us with the criteria of a perfect wife, the second is St Paul’s exhortation to be ready for the Lord’s Second Coming because it would be as surprising as a thief who pays a visit in the night and finally, we have the gospel parable that many often take as a wise piece of advice to invest well and use our talents productively. What seems to be the underlying theme in all three readings? We already have a taste of it last week. It is wisdom. As wisdom distinguishes the perfect wife from other women, so should wisdom distinguish the disciple of Christ from others as he awaits the return of the Lord.

The Book of Proverbs gives us this earthy advise - “Charm is deceitful, and beauty empty; the woman who is wise is the one to praise.” Charm, personality and appearances may win you many friends and ensure that you ascend the ladder of success, but none of these traits can ensure that you would be ready to face the Lord’s judgment at the end of this age. Only acting wisely and preparing prudently can ensure that we can “stay wide awake and sober.”

Let us now turn to the famous parable of the talents in the gospel. Unlike what most people think, this is not a parable about how we should use our gifts, skills or talents for the betterment of the church. This is a common mistake among modern readers unfamiliar with the meaning of a talent. We think that the word “talent” in this passage means a person’s skill and ability. Only in St Matthew’s version of the parable, is the parable correctly named because only here in this gospel do we have mention of the monetary currency as talents.

A talent in this context is a measurement of weight, and the value of any talent depended on whether it was gold, silver or copper. Nevertheless, a single talent was a significant amount of wealth by any measure. A talent of gold was equal to the annual tribute of a medium sized province to the Roman Empire. So, the monetary trust given to each servant - five talents to the first, two to the second and one to the third - would have been staggering - an extremely great endowment, even for the last guy who just got one talent.

We must remember that this is an eschatological parable, which means it is about the end times. The message is simple but demanding: readiness for the Lord’s coming requires both foresight and an investment of effort on the part of His disciples. A disciple of the Lord does not just idly wait for the Master’s return, wasting his time without paying attention to his own spiritual growth and hoping that he can just make up for lost time at the end or defend his actions or inactions with some lame excuse. In all these parables concerning the end times, just like what we heard last week, there is a distinction made between wise and foolish behaviour and a stern reminder that there will be an accounting - the wise who were prepared are rewarded and the foolish would be punished.

So, the parable goes beyond the purpose of encouraging a prudent use and nurturing of one’s personal endowments. Like the other parables preceding it, we have here once again a cautionary tale, an ominous warning, our actions, our attitudes, our behaviour in relation to the Lord have dire consequences. In a world where many deny the existence of hell and have projected their own prejudices unto God, making Him out to be some Teddy Bear, who only gives hugs and never reprimands, these parables are potent reminders that we should never take God’s mercy for granted, and that we should never postpone and delay what changes that need to be done today. His coming will take all of us by surprise “like a thief in the night.”

Our Lord has entrusted the treasures of the Kingdom to us by calling us to be His servants. Whatever has been given to us, we will have to render an account for the way we have lived our lives on the graces and blessings we have received. Though a charming personality and a beautiful appearance may get us what we want in this life, it would not be enough for what is to come. Only by wisely investing our gifts and turning a profit of spiritual growth over to the Lord at the end of our earthly life, will we enter into the joy of His Kingdom and hear these infinitely consoling words, “Well done, good and faithful servant; you have shown you can be faithful in small things, I will trust you with greater; come and join in your master’s happiness.”

First Holy Communion Postscript

Here’s a little story for our children who will be receiving First Holy Communion today. This is a story about St Tarcisius, the patron of altar servers, but I would like to add that he would be a good patron for those receiving their holy communion for the first time.

Tarcisius was a young boy who lived during a time when it was dangerous for Christians to be seen practising their faith and worship publicly. Masses were celebrated secretly in the catacombs, the tombs where dead people were buried. If you were caught practising your faith as a Catholic, you would not only be thrown into prison, but you would also be executed in a most horrific way, being burned alive or thrown to the animals to be eaten.

One day, a group of these Christians who were awaiting their execution made an appeal to the Pope that they wanted to receive holy communion, the Body and Blood of Jesus before they died. The Church calls communion viaticum, which actually means food for the journey – the journey to death and through death. It is indeed a great privilege and blessing to receive Jesus before one dies. But it was dangerous for any adult priest to be seen bringing communion to these Christian prisoners because it would raise a lot of suspicion. So, they decided to send a young boy and Tarcisius volunteered to bring holy communion to the condemned.

But on the way, he met with some of the youth from his neighbourhood who demanded to see what he was carrying. The Holy Communion was safely wrapped in a cloth. But Tarcisius refused to let them see it because he knew that Jesus in the Holy Communion was the greatest treasure that he had to keep safe. So, the boys began to beat him. He was beaten up so badly that he would die from his wounds. But Tarcisius kept the Holy Communion in the firm grip of his hands and refused to relent. A soldier, who happened to be a secret Christian, passed by and found Tarcisius dying. Tarcisius gave the communion to the soldier and disclosed his mission. He told the soldier to carry Jesus to the prison on his behalf, and then he died.

The life and death of Tarcisius shows us that Jesus, especially in the Eucharist, is our greatest treasure, more precious and valuable than all the riches of the world. God entrusted the Body of His own Son to this young boy as He entrusts it to you today. Tarcisius’ life and death shows us that the most important question that Jesus will ask us when He returns is not, “How much money have you made?” but “How have you loved? How have you cared for and served others?” This is what we must do whenever we receive Jesus in Holy Communion. We are called to become more like Jesus, to love like Jesus, and to be ready to sacrifice everything like Jesus. Jesus tells us: “Greater love than this no man has, than that a man lay down his life for his friend.”

Blessed are the Unfortunate

Solemnity of All Saints

The gospel which is read every year on the occasion of this feast seeks to underline the paradox of being a saint. One could paraphrase the Beatitudes in this way, “Blessed or Happy are those who are unfortunate.” One who mourns, for example, would never imagine himself as being happy. But our Lord declares this to him, “Happy are those who are not happy.”

But what strange kind of good fortune is it that is suggested by the words “blessed” or “happy”? The word has two temporal dimensions: it embraces both the present and the future, and each in a different way. The present aspect consists of the fact that those who seem to be in an unfortunate situation are told that they enjoy a special closeness to God and His Kingdom. God has favourites. He favours those mentioned in the Beatitudes. It is precisely in the sphere of suffering that God with His Kingdom is particularly present to them. When someone suffers and complains, God’s heart is moved to act and draws near to the person to offer deliverance.

But the present dimension of each of the Beatitudes also includes a future: God’s ultimate victory that is still hidden will one day manifest. Hence what each beatitude is saying is this: “Do not be afraid in your distress; God is close to you here and now, and He will be your great comfort and consolation in the time to come.” Because of this future dimension, the Beatitudes provide us with the core of Christian hope. The paradox of the Beatitudes are captured so beautifully and succinctly in the words of St Paul, “We are treated as impostors and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything” (2 Cor 6:8-10). This paradox has now become the model of Christian life and existence, the roadmap to sainthood.

Pope Francis reminds us, “The Beatitudes are like a Christian’s identity card. So, if anyone asks: “What must one do to be a good Christian?”, the answer is clear. We have to do, each in our own way, what Jesus told us in the Sermon on the Mount. In the Beatitudes, we find a portrait of the Master, which we are called to reflect in our daily lives”

In order to grasp the true profundity of the Beatitudes, and thereby the core of Christian hope, it is important to remember that they are essentially Christological. The real subject, of the beatitudes and in fact the entire Sermon on the Mount, is Jesus. It is only on this basis that we can discover the entire meaning of Christian faith life. Pope Benedict puts it this way, “The Beatitudes are the transposition of the Cross and Resurrection into discipleship". But they apply to the disciple because they were first paradigmatically lived by Christ himself … (they) present a “sort of veiled interior biography of Jesus.”

One needs to remember that in order to study the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount, it is not enough that we study the text of the gospel. The Sermon on the Mount is not meant to be some exaggerated, abstract and unreal moral lecture that has no correlation to daily life. The best commentary of the sermon and the beatitudes is the life of Christ, and by extension the lives of the Saints. Christ stands in the middle of the text and unites it with the lives of the saints who sought to imitate Him, in life and in death. The saints saw themselves in the text of the Beatitudes because they saw Christ in the middle of it. Christ is the one who is poor in spirit. He is the one who mourns, who is meek, who hungers and thirsts for righteousness, who is merciful, who is pure in heart, who is a peacemaker and who is persecuted for righteousness’ sake. Each of the Beatitudes is flesh and blood in Him. Can there ever be a better example?

For us too, the Beatitudes are a summon to follow Jesus Christ in discipleship. He alone is “perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect.” On our own, we can never hope to be “perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect.” The saints understood this truth. They recognised the path to sainthood is simply this – to die to oneself so that more of Christ would come alive in them. The saints provide us with a kaleidoscope to view Christ. That is why when the saints are honoured, it is Christ who is honoured above all. In loving the saints, Christ is not loved any less. On the contrary, Christ is rightly loved and glorified and His commandments are observed in the veneration of the saints.

The journey from this life to the next can be long, with many twists and turns, ups and downs, and it is imperative to stay on the right road. Don’t despair when life throws you lemons, just make lemonade! How can we be certain that we will not get lost on the way? Our Lord provides us with the Beatitudes as a roadmap and the Church provides us with the saints as guides. Happy are you because you have Christ and the saints as models of how to make it on this Way! What more can we ask for?

Never settle for less

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Today, many well intentioned Catholics and even leaders would opined that the traditional path to sanctity, to become a saint, is too demanding and may even be toxic by today’s standards. We often hear this complaint that the Church and her teachings are demanding the humanly impossible from her flock; that she shouldn’t “push so hard” or people will break and leave. And so instead of demanding excellence, we settle for mediocrity. Instead of pushing up the standards with the sky (or heaven) being the limit, we demand that the Church lowers the bar to accommodate all and sundry, even those who do not make the most basic and fundamental mark - for example observing the five precepts of the Church. When communion is guaranteed despite whether one is properly disposed or not or living in sin, when sacraments are dispensed like freebies at the supermarket, thrown in as consumer’s bait, when moral and liturgical laws are flagrantly violated in the name of pastoral inclusivity, you know you’ve hit rock bottom, or perhaps worst - we’ve bottomed out.

Today, we see the rise of mediocrity in every sphere. In fact, many celebrate their mediocrity by announcing, “this is who I am, take it or leave it!” When mediocrity has become the norm, when our imperfections and limitations are applauded or even hung up like trophies, when the status quo is accepted without question, there is no longer any impetus to improve ourselves, to grow or advance in sanctity. Mediocrity today poses as democratisation, inclusiveness, populism, condescension, tolerance, broad-mindedness, optimism and even charity. Mediocrity provides the anaesthesia our society needs to shield it from the sting of suffering and sacrifice.

In other words, mediocrity presents the promise of salvation without a cross, charity without needing to sacrifice. We try to make religion easier and more accessible in order to stem the steady decline in followers. But mediocrity is settling for cheap; it is selling a lie, and eventually most people will catch on to a lie, which explains why we continue to haemorrhage numbers. Easy come easy go!

The call to holiness, ultimately, is a call to perfection. Being average or just good when it comes to holiness just doesn’t make it! As Christians, we hear Christ’s rallying cry to walk the extra mile, to go out into the deep end, to make the greater sacrifice for faith. We are all called to be saints! You will hear Jesus constantly prodding you, “Why do less when you can do more?” He came to raise the bar, not lower it. “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.”

The truth that we must embrace is that religion is supposed to be hard, like anything else worth doing particularly since it concerns eternal life. The way forward is up, not downwards. We should reach for the stars instead of being contented with mere pebbles of star dust. To a secular mind, saints are shockingly unreasonable. But can one love God too much? Can one be too humble or too charitable or too holy? Scriptures tells us that this can never be. Even our Lord Himself would demand nothing less than perfection: “You must therefore be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” And no good Christian can ever accuse our Lord of being too extreme or unreasonable.

What our Lord is proposing to us today is that we Christians should never just settle for being good or be contented with just being average. The call to perfection is the challenge that Christ throws to everyone who would follow Him, that is to reach the unreachable; to leap beyond the practical, the ordinary and the routine; to fulfil the basic and minimum requirements and then to look eagerly for more ways to give, care, and love. That is why devotion to the saints is such a necessary antidote to the poison of mediocrity in modern times. The saints remind us that perfection in terms of holiness is possible and attainable, even though it may take a lifetime of surrendering to God’s grace as we progress in discipleship. We are made to be saints, being “half-baked” just doesn’t cut it. To quote one of Pope Francis’ favourite theologians, León Bloy, when all is said and done, “the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint.”

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, you are meant to live a heroic faith, not a mediocre forgettable one. You are meant to shine like stars in the heavens, not just appear to be a shiny bling on some counterfeit Versace outfit. If you feel that this is overwhelming and you don’t have what it takes to be a saint, know this: It doesn’t take your strength but your surrender. It will cost you everything but gain you so much more. There is a life you’re meant to live, and Christ can help you get there. Make it your aim to live higher in your faith each day, instead of dragging your feet in the mud of mediocrity. In whatever you’re going through, it is meant to take you higher. The Apostle James assured us that “when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing” (James 1:2-4)

Sainthood is within our reach

Solemnity of All Saints

One of the most common complaints I get from well-meaning Catholics who wish to see the Catholic Church become more inclusive and tolerant, a “big tent” organisation that takes in all and welcomes all, is that the Church seems to be too overly demanding and the bar which she sets is so exceedingly high, only perfect saints would make the mark. Robert Hugh Benson, the Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism, sets out this dichotomy: “one-half the world considers the Church too holy for human life, and the other half, not holy enough. We may name these critics, respectively, the Pagan and the Puritan.”

Against the pagan who accuses the Catholic Church of being over excessively demanding and against the puritan who claims that we will never be good enough for God, the Church actually teaches that though all have received the universal call to holiness at baptism, all have the potential and the means to become saints through sacramental graces, we continue to acknowledge that we are sinners, striving and struggling with temptation and the entrapments of sin, and therefore, constantly in need of redemption.

A saint is not someone who has never sinned but someone who refuses to be defeated by sin, refuses to allow sin to have the last word or plays hapless victim, because he or she believes in the power of redemption by the One who died on the cross to atone for our sins and who even now leads us on the path heavenward. A Saint understands and accepts the power of grace that “love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8) and where “sin abounds grace abounds much more” (Romans 5:20).

Saints are made, not born. Although one’s discipleship must deepen during the course of a Christian’s life through a slow process of conversion and growth in sanctity, he or she must be a thoroughly converted Christian disciple before he or she can become a saint. Acknowledging that we are “works in progress” is never in contradiction of the fact that we are called to “perfection.” The error of our modern times is that so many seek to give excuses for our mediocrity by canonising it, by making mediocrity the new benchmark of all aspects of life. We forget that we are made to be saints, being “half-baked” just doesn’t cut it. The saints remind us that perfection in terms of holiness is possible and attainable, even though it may take a life time of surrendering to God’s grace as we progress in discipleship.

In life, we often look up to certain celebrities as our heroes, idols, hoping and aspiring to become more like them. For us as well as for the saints, there is one model par excellence – it is Christ. By honouring the saints and by desiring to become more like them, we are aspiring to imitate what they hold up to us for our emulation – Christ Himself. This is what the beatitudes present to us - an image of Christ who chose to be poor, to be meek, to share our sorrow, to be a peacemaker and to suffer persecution for the sake of righteousness. And if we wish to become more Christ-like, we must then imitate Him by living out the beatitudes.

For the one who protests that holiness is beyond his reach, that holiness is for losers who seek to deny their humanity, who thinks that sanctity means virtue signalling, who believes that he is an incorrigible sinner beyond repair or redemption, he is making one of these declarations:

That redemption is a fantasy, which also means that our Lord died in vain and His mission was a failure;

That one doesn’t wish to follow Christ, for this is what becoming a saint means - becoming more Christ-like.

That this life is all there is to it, that there is no destiny prepared by God beyond a life of sin and strife; a destiny beyond our imagining - eternal life within the light and love of the Most Holy Trinity.

Acknowledging our vocation to become saints is not living in denial of our fallen nature and propensity to sin. We all fail, sometimes grievously. But, that is no reason to lower the bar of expectation. We seek forgiveness and reconciliation, and try again. Lowering the bar of spiritual and moral expectation demeans the faith and demeans us. Catholics today are capable of spiritual and moral grandeur, and indeed want to be called to that greatness. That is what Vatican II meant by the "universal call to holiness," and that is what is available to all of us in the Church, who dispenses graces through the sacraments.

Sanctity is available. And sanctity is what will transform a loser into a winner, a victim into a conqueror, a sinner into a saint. As Leon Bloy, the French Catholic novelist, so famously wrote: "The only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint."

The Paradox of Happiness

Solemnity of All Saints 2020

When her name first emerged over the internet, everyone thought it was a sick joke, a satire meant to poke fun at Catholic sensibilities. This already obscure saint had almost entirely been forgotten only to have her fame restored during a time when the world had to contend with a virus that shared the same name – St Corona. That’s irony for you.

Today’s feast is all-embracing and all-encompassing. It’s a feast that celebrates the memory of great saints like Augustine, Francis and Teresa, and also the obscure and forgotten saints like Corona. It is hardly ironic but certainly logical to think that the saints are often remembered and invoked during times of crises, especially now.

The gospel which is read every year on the occasion of this feast seeks to underline the paradox of being a saint. One could paraphrase the Beatitudes in this way, “Blessed or Happy are those who are unfortunate.” One who mourns, for example, would never imagine himself as being happy. But our Lord declares this to him, “Happy are those who are not happy.”

But what strange kind of good fortune is it that is suggested by the words “blessed” or “happy”? The word has two temporal dimensions: it embraces both the present and the future, and each in a different way. The present aspect consists of the fact that those who seem to be in an unfortunate situation are told that they enjoy a special closeness to God and His Kingdom. God has favourites. He favours those mentioned in the Beatitudes. It is precisely in the sphere of suffering that God with His Kingdom is particularly present to them. When someone suffers and complains, God’s heart is moved to act and draw near to the person to offer deliverance.

But the present dimension of each of the Beatitudes also includes a future: God’s ultimate victory that is still hidden will one day manifest. Hence what each beatitude is saying is this: “Do not be afraid in your distress; God is close to you here and now, and He will be your great comfort and consolation in the time to come.” Because of this future dimension, the beatitudes provide us with the core of Christian hope. The paradox of the beatitudes are captured so beautifully and succinctly in the words of St Paul, “We are treated as impostors and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything” (2 Cor 6:8-10). This paradox has now become the model of Christian life and existence, the roadmap to sainthood.

Pope Francis reminds us, “The Beatitudes are like a Christian’s identity card. So, if anyone asks: “What must one do to be a good Christian?”, the answer is clear. We have to do, each in our own way, what Jesus told us in the Sermon on the Mount. In the Beatitudes, we find a portrait of the Master, which we are called to reflect in our daily lives”

In order to grasp the true profundity of the Beatitudes, and thereby the core of Christian hope, it is important to remember that they are essentially Christological. The real subject, of the beatitudes and in fact the entire Sermon on the Mount, is Jesus. It is only on this basis that we can discover the entire meaning of Christian faith life. Pope Benedict puts it this way, “The Beatitudes are the transposition of the Cross and Resurrection into discipleship. But they apply to the disciple because they were first paradigmatically lived by Christ himself … (they) present a “sort of veiled interior biography of Jesus.”

One needs to remember that in order to study the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount, it is not enough that we study the text of the gospel. The Sermon on the Mount is not meant to be some exaggerated, abstract and unreal moral lecture that has no correlation to daily life. The best commentary of the sermon and the beatitudes is the life of Christ and by extension the lives of the Saints. Christ stands in the middle of the text and unites it with the lives of the saints who sought to imitate Him, in life and in death. The saints saw themselves in the text of the Beatitudes because they saw Christ in the middle of it. Christ is the one who is poor in spirit. He is the one who mourns, who is meek, who hungers and thirsts for righteousness, who is merciful, who is pure in heart, who is a peacemaker and who is persecuted for righteousness’ sake. Each of the Beatitudes is flesh and blood in Him. Can there ever be a better example?

For us too, the Beatitudes are a summon to follow Jesus Christ in discipleship. He alone is “perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect.” On our own, we can never hope to be “perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect.” The saints understood this truth. They recognised the path to sainthood is simply this – to die to oneself so that more of Christ would come alive in them. The saints provide us with a kaleidoscope to view Christ. That is why when the saints are honoured, it is Christ who is honoured above all. In loving the saints, Christ is not loved any less. On the contrary, Christ is rightly loved and glorified and His commandments are observed in the veneration of the saints.

The journey from this life to the next can be long, with many twists and turns, ups and downs, and it is imperative to stay on the right road.  How can we be certain that we will not get lost? Our Lord provides us with the Beatitudes as a roadmap and the Church provides us with the saints as guides. What more can we ask for?

Back to our little forgotten saint. Over the centuries, St. Corona was often prayed to by people seeking her help in times of trouble, be it heavy storms or livestock diseases. In these difficult times, may St Corona and all the saints of heaven, continue to give us courage and hope as we seek their intercession, that though we may still suffer poverty, experience grieving, hardship, suffering, illness and persecution in this life, Christ continues to assure those who are faithful to Him: “yours is the kingdom of heaven.”

Every Saint has a past, Every Sinner a future

Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A 

Remember when we were young, many of us played the silly game of ‘police-and-robbers' (another variation of this game would be ‘cowboys-and-Indians’, before it got cancelled by political correctness). Everyone knew that the police were the good guys and the robbers were the bad guys. Police were meant to catch robbers and put them in gaol and everyone would applaud their deeds – with criminals behind bars, our homes and streets are safe again. 

Well, this seems to be the prevalent view until recently. The Defund-the-Police movement in America has reversed our evaluation of their roles. The police are now considered the bad guys and the criminals who loot, who rape, who push drugs, who commit acts of violence are now hailed as the heroes; in fact, they are canonised in some sick parody of the religion of the “woke.” But this is just another facet of popular culture, who for decades had tried to rewrite history in schools, literature, movies and even religion by canonising the villains and vilifying its heroes and saints. 

Is that what we are seeing in today’s readings? On the contrary, the readings actually challenge this increasingly popular skewed world-view. Jesus is not congratulating and applauding the sinners because of their sin. He’s applauding their readiness to heed His life-changing message, and in response to that message, repent and change, to turn away from their sin, and correct the mistakes of the past. He is not applauding the “bad guys” for being “bad guys.” He’s applauding them for choosing to turn their lives around and become the “good guys.” 

In one of the celebrated homosexual playwright 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. 

This is what happened in the parable of the two sons - the first son was initially unwilling but later changed his mind and did his father’s bidding; the second son who promised that he would do it without hesitation, turned out to be a disappointment. He did not keep his promise, and his words proved to be empty. Remember that talk is cheap but actions speak louder than words. As Benjamin Franklin noted “well done is better than well said.” 

Although this parable seeks to make a contrast between the two sons, just like the parable of the Prodigal Son in St Luke’s gospel, we should also pay attention to the father’s words and actions. The father’s instruction to his sons is an imperative command, “go”, with some translations saying, “go down.” “Go down” is a cue word for the Incarnation. In obedience to the Father’s command to “go down” and for us and for our salvation, the Word leapt down from heaven. Indeed, our Lord Jesus Christ is the Son who dutifully obeyed His Father’s command to “go down” to the vineyard of humanity, as St Paul tells us in the second reading - He is the one who “emptied Himself (of his divinity) ... and accepting death, death on a cross.” Unlike the first son in the parable who initially refused to “go” or the second son who said “yes, I will go” but did not keep his promise, our Lord did not refuse the Father’s commission, neither did He renege on His promise. 

It is true that none of us may be able to come close to the impeccable example of Christ. It is more likely that our answer to God’s call is “no”, rather than “yes, I will go.” But there is hope. Remember: every Saint has a past and every sinner can have a future. We may say “no” today or maybe even tomorrow. But one day, we may finally come round to acknowledge our mistakes, amend our ways, and say “yes.” As the prophet Ezekiel in the first reading assures us, “when the sinner renounces sin to become law-abiding and honest, he deserves to live. He has chosen to renounce all his previous sins; he shall certainly live; he shall not die.’ For every person is not disqualified nor is he disadvantaged by his past, no matter how sordid or ugly it may be. But a man’s fate can and will be defined by how he chooses to end the story of his life. 

On his death bed, Wilde was baptised into the Roman Catholic Church and received Last Rites. Is it possible that a sinner with a horribly sordid past ends up in the company of the Blessed Virgin Mary, angels and saints in heaven? We are reassured today that it is possible. It is possible that the sinner with a dark past can become a saint and gain eternal life. Just like the game of police-and-robbers, the roles can be reversed. Today, you may be in the role of the “bad guy,” but tomorrow you have the opportunity to play the “good guy.” It would also be important to remember that we should not remain complacent, just because we see ourselves today as the “good guy.” Tomorrow, we may end up as the “bad guy.” For those who have chosen to do the will of the Father, let us remain faithful to our commitment. For those who had rejected the will of the Father, He gives us the opportunity to repent. For anyone who chooses to renounce all his previous sins; he shall certainly live, he shall not die. That is our hope for every person, for every sinner and for everyone struggling to do the will of the Father.

To Tolerate or Not?

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

There is a wonderful legend of how Abraham offered hospitality to a visitor, as was his custom each day. But on that day, it was a fire worshipper, presumably a Zoroastrian (who if you were to fact-check, does not actually worship fire). Of course, his guest’s identity had remained a secret until the moment when Abraham asked him to offer prayers of thanksgiving for the meal. The ‘cat was out of the bag’ when the guest began to pray in his own fashion. Abraham flew into a rage and threw him out of his tent. When Abraham had composed himself and began to pray, God spoke to him: “I had tolerated this man who does not worship me for all the years of his life and showed him hospitality. Could you not tolerate him for one night?”

Tolerance is not such a difficult word to understand. Tolerance is allowing something or someone to just be. Yes, we all believe that there must be some level of tolerance to get along in a society of people with disparate viewpoints, ideas, religions and cultures. But it is alarming to note that we are living in an increasingly intolerant society.

The irony is that this growing intolerance is often not brought about by our stereotypical bigoted close-minded conservatives. Surely there are many intolerant people to be found among conservatives. But today, intolerance largely comes from progressive people who wish to create a utopian ideal of a world where everything and everyone should be tolerated, except those who disagree with their vision or methods. They have to be “cancelled.”

Let’s be clear, as Christians, some things should always be tolerated and other things should never be tolerated. Persistent unrepentant sin should never be tolerated. Why should we be so intolerant to sin? Sin is like a cancer that, if left untreated, leads to death. It is never merciful or charitable to tolerate sin. In fact, it is a lack of mercy and love, if we choose to allow sin to fester and grow without challenging it. As St Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome, “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (Romans 6:1, 2).

If sin is never to be tolerated, how about sinners? Here’s the amazing thing - sinners should always be tolerated. Why? Well, people can, and they do change. They may have done many bad things in their lives but they need not be defined by these bad things for the rest of their lives. Their condition is not irredeemable. That’s the power of grace and repentance. Every saint has a past and every sinner can have a different future.

All sinners have the potential of becoming saints. We must believe that people can change. This is an important truth that we must hold on to and even defend because we should never forget that we are all sinners who have sinned and would most likely continue to sin. When we look at how Jesus interacted with sinners who were in need of salvation, we learn that tolerance toward sinners was the key to how He reached out to them. Until a sinner dies, there is always hope for repentance, there is always hope for conversion, there is always hope for salvation.

This is the message of hope that we find in today’s parable. The parable of the wheat and the darnel reminds us that our families, our communities, our society and even our Church will always be a mixture of good and bad. On this side of heaven, nothing is perfect. The more astonishing truth is that the good and the bad that we see around us also resides within each of us. Before we try to rid society and the world completely of the evil we see, we should begin with ourselves. Let me assure you that this is a life-long project. I should know. I’m still working on my issues with the grace of God.

Throughout our lives we must strive against the evil that not only surrounds us but that which lurks within our hearts. We must never resign ourselves to sin or retreat from the battle. Although we must constantly strive against evil, let us not be deluded to think that we will be able to rid ourselves completely of all sin and our propensity to sin, or that we can create a perfect Utopian society. We need to remember that Utopia does not exist because, save for Jesus Christ and His mother Mary, the world is made up of imperfect individuals. In fact, the word Utopia comes from two Greek words which means, no place.

God tolerates sinners, God tolerates us and all our nonsense while we are alive, not because He tolerates or even approves of sin. He tolerates us because in His wisdom, love and mercy, He knows that there is always hope for us to turn from our wicked ways and turn to Him in love and repentance. That’s the gift of human freedom. In the Second Reading, we are told that the Holy Spirit “comes to help us in our weakness.”

The Psalmist tells us that the Lord is “good and forgiving,” but make no mistake, He is also a God of Justice. There will be a day of reckoning, a day of judgment. God may tolerate our countless mistakes while we are alive, but He will not tolerate sin a day longer after death. Let us, therefore, not go to our graves stubbornly clinging on to sin, because at the appointed harvest time, God will say to the reapers: “First collect the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burnt, then gather the wheat into my barn.” May we find ourselves among the wheat at that appointed day, instead of being bundled with the darnel.

Choose God and not His works

Fourth Sunday of Easter Year A

Good Shepherd Sunday

This year, I had found it exceptionally hard to preach on Good Shepherd Sunday, the day we pray for more vocations to the priestly ministry. It’s difficult because I feel profoundly ashamed. A priest is supposed to be a shepherd (Latin - pastor). But we find ourselves in a situation where we have been physically cut off from our sheep and our sheep have been separated from their shepherds.

Of course, we remain connected in the virtual world. But virtual is just not the same as reality. Our congregation now watches us celebrate the masses on their screens, perhaps sometimes drawn by the very same thing which draws people to certain celebrities and performances. As for the priests, we are often measured by the quality of our preaching because when it comes to the celebration of the mass, one streamed mass looks quite like the next, unless the celebrant chooses to imbue it with his personal showmanship and pizzazz.

But the reality is this: the mass is not a performance and we priests are not celebrities. Priests are meant to be shepherds and shepherds are meant to be with their sheep. I told Fr Dominic the other day (in jest), “in this world of virtual reality and streamed masses, people don’t need more priestly vocations. One or two will do. They, however, need more talented priests with stage presence.”

As I struggled to make sense of this time of physical social distancing and the digitalising of our ministry, I recalled the ministry of another pastor who was separated from his flock for 13 years. Who would have imagined that we would find ourselves in a similar situation, cut off from our flock, albeit for two months (or perhaps even longer). Today I would like to share his story, a story of immense hope and inspiration not just for us priests but also for all of you, as you continue to struggle with the spiritual hunger of being cut off from the sacraments and your shepherds.

The shepherd I’m speaking of is the late Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuân. Shortly after he was made coadjutor archbishop of Saigon in 1975, he was arrested and imprisoned by the Communist because of his Catholic faith. He never got to exercise his ministry as archbishop. After 13 years of imprisonment, nine of which were spent in solitary confinement, he was finally released on the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lady in the year 1988 and sent into exile.

During his time in prison, he used his limited resources creatively in order to fulfill his duties as shepherd to the faithful. As he could not physically be present to his people, he had to find a way to reach out to them, so he solicited the help of a young boy to bring him old calendars. I am thankful that I have the internet, social media, and online video conferencing applications. I cannot imagine myself writing on the reverse side of our unused bulletins (which Fr Dom does) and replicating these for public consumption.

The Cardinal wrote simple, sincere messages of hope on the calendars and had the young boy copy and distribute them among the faithful. He was practically a human xerox machine. The Church should canonise him just for this. The Cardinal’s profound letters to the Catholic community strengthened them in their faith and helped them to persevere. These short-written messages reminded the people that their beloved archbishop, though not physically present, was present with them through prayer and in spirit.

The Cardinal, manifesting innovative fidelity, also used his scanty means to celebrate Mass in prison. He knew that celebrating Mass was his most important duty, but he had no church, no altar, and no tabernacle. How, then, could he fulfill his duty as bishop? He turned the concentration camp into a cathedral and the palm of his hand into an altar. He turned his shirt pocket into a tabernacle and turned the darkness of the sleeping quarters into a dwelling place for Light Himself.  Fr Dominic and I are grateful that we still have our little chapel.

Because of his ingenuity, many prisoners regained the fervour of their faith. The prisoners were reminded to embrace suffering and to use their current circumstances to grow in faith. His example and teachings remind us that Christian faith entails an active surrender to the Lord. It means seeking the best way to proclaim Christ’s love in every moment, every circumstance, and every action, even when all the odds seem stacked against us.

What was the secret of his resilience? He shared this in his memoirs:

“Alone in my prison cell, I continued to be tormented by the fact that I was forty-eight years old, in the prime of my life, that I had worked for eight years as a bishop and gained so much pastoral experience and there I was, isolated, inactive and far from my people.”

One night, from the depths of my heart, I could hear a voice advising me: "Why torment yourself? You must discern between God and the works of God - everything you have done and desire to continue to do, pastoral visits, training seminarians, sisters and members of religious orders, building schools, evangelising non-Christians. All of that is excellent work, the work of God but it is not God! If God wants you to give it all up and put the work into his hands, do it and trust him. God will do the work infinitely better than you; he will entrust the work to others who are more able than you. You have only to choose God and not the works of God!"

As I reread the story of this saintly bishop, I decided that I should stop whining and stop feeling sorry for myself. Neither should I be overly anxious for my flock because they are in good hands. My congregation is not without a shepherd, they have the Good Shepherd, who can do a far greater job than I.  “Michael, if God wants you to give it all up and put the work into His hands, do it and trust Him. God will do the work infinitely better than you.” Those words of Cardinal Van Thuân will be my guide as I entrust my ministry and the care of my people to the Good Shepherd, who will never desert His flock and will always protect them against “thieves and brigands”. He is the One who laid down His life for me and for you so that we may have life and have it to the full. You only have to choose Him, always.