The Knot of Death is Undone

Solemnity of the Assumption 2014

Many of us have our favourite devotions to our Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary, under various titles, such as Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Perpetual Succour and our Lady of Good Health. Recently, our Holy Father, Pope Francis has introduced to us one of his favourite Marian devotions, one which remains obscure in many parts of the world, a devotion to Our Lady, Undoer of Knots, or her original German title, “Maria Knotenloserin.” He encountered this 17^th century painting of Our Lady Undoer Knots during his stay in Germany in the 1980s and has become a personal favourite for contemplation. Praying before this icon brought great solace to the then Fr Jorge Bergoglio as he struggled to make sense of the troubles that were taking place back home in Argentina. He brought a postcard of the painting back to Buenos Aires on his return to Argentina and has ever since promoted devotion to this visage of our Lady.  The concept of Mary untying knots is derived from a work by St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies. In this book, he presents a parallel between Eve and Mary, describing how "the knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith."

When the pilgrimage statue of Our Lady of Fatima reached Rome, Pope Francis gave a beautiful homily in honour of our Blessed Mother, based on his own devotion to Our Lady Undoer of Knots.  He used the symbolism of this icon to explain matters of faith. His homily began in his already familiar Socratic way, where he asked, “What was Mary’s faith like?”

The first aspect of her faith, according to our Holy Father, is that “Mary’s faith unties the knot of sin.” The knot of sin was precisely the knot of disobedience, the knot of unbelief. Sometimes, when our lives get entangled in sin, we get all knotted up. One can appreciate the image of a knotted ball of string, knotted wire mesh, knotted circuitry, knotted veins and arteries. They do not only pose an inconvenience. They are terminally dangerous and sometimes can be life-threatening. But Mary’s faith gives us hope and comfort. Her faith demonstrates this truth: “Nothing is impossible for God’s mercy! Even the most tangled knots are loosened by his grace. And Mary, whose “yes” opened the door for God to undo the knot of ancient disobedience, is the Mother who patiently and lovingly brings us to God, so that he can untangle the knots of our soul by His fatherly mercy.” Mary’s faith points us to the true Undoer of Knots, it is God Himself.

The second aspect of her faith is her essential role in the Incarnation – “Mary’s faith gave human flesh to Jesus.” As St Augustine taught, Mary first conceived the Word in faith (her heart), and then in the flesh. Through Mary, we too have become united to the event of the Incarnation. What took place most singularly in the Virgin Mary, also takes place within us, spiritually (broadly speaking that is). This happens whenever “we receive the word of God with a good and sincere heart and put it into practice.”

 
The third and final aspect of Mary’s faith in the Pope’s catechesis is that Mary’s faith is dynamic, it is to be regarded as a journey, a pilgrimage of faith. “How was Mary’s faith a journey?” the Pope rhetorically asked. “In the sense that her entire life was to follow her Son: he – Jesus – is the way, he is the path! To press forward in faith, to advance in the spiritual pilgrimage which is faith, is nothing other than to follow Jesus; to listen to him and be guided by his words; to see how he acts and to follow in his footsteps; to have his same sentiments. And what are these sentiments of Jesus? Humility, mercy, closeness to others, but also a firm rejection of hypocrisy, duplicity and idolatry. The way of Jesus is the way of a love which is faithful to the end, even unto sacrificing one’s life; it is the way of the cross. The journey of faith thus passes through the cross…”

I hope that by now my homily has not gotten all of you knotted up? I guess many of you would have to be pleading with Mary, Undoer of Knots to help you understand what has this image, Pope’s Francis catechesis and the Feast of Assumption have in common. Don’t worry, just pray, “Our Lady Undoer of Knots pray for us” and “Presto”, clear understanding! Well, if the fog hasn’t cleared up from your minds, it means only this – bear a little longer with the rest of this homily.

The event of the Assumption of Our Lady, Mary at the end of her earthly life, being assumed into heaven both body and soul, is the perfect illustration of the three aspects of Mary’s faith as enunciated in our Holy Father’s catechesis. If sin is ultimately the cause of death and corruption, then Mary’s Assumption proves that the grace of God is far stronger and more formidable than the gates of Hades. God had already untied the knot of Original Sin in the Virgin Mary. But the ultimate knot that needed to be undone is death, the fruit of sin, which Jesus accomplished through his death and resurrection, the effects of which Mary shared at her Assumption. Her Assumption was not merely spiritual in nature but also bodily, thus confirming the veracity of the Incarnation. When the Son took flesh in her womb, when God chose to become man, it brought about the greatest unprecedented evolutionary change in man – as the fathers of the Church were prone to preach – “God became man so that men may become gods!” Mary’s bodily flesh had now been sanctified by her conception of the Divine seed, and what happens to Mary, also becomes the promised hope for all humanity. Finally, if Mary’s faith is a pilgrimage, today, we find that final destination – it is heaven. If Mary followed her Son Jesus throughout her earthly life, it would certainly be obvious that she should follow Him after death, the path of faith’s journey finds its logical conclusion – communion with God for all eternity.

Coincidentally, there is another apocryphal story that dates from the Middle Ages. It’s the story of Mary’s Girdle, a knotted belt that she wore, and St Thomas – yes, the same Doubting Thomas figured in the post-resurrection story of Jesus appearing to his disciples. In the story of the girdle, at the Assumption of Mary, where the other apostles were present, Thomas once again missed the occasion (being on his way back from India), so the Virgin Mary, aware of Thomas' skeptical nature, appeared to him individually and dropped the girdle she was wearing down onto him, to give him a physical proof of what he had seen. In another version, only Thomas actually witnessed the Assumption, and the Virgin left the belt as a proof for his story to the other apostles (a neat inversion of the Doubting Thomas episode). So, here’s a little neat legend that ties the event of the Assumption with the little matter of knots.

The Solemnity of the Assumption gives each of us great hope as we contemplate this one facet of the beautiful woman of faith, our Blessed Mother. Mary is not only the undoer of knots for poor petitioners coming to seek her intercession. She would without hesitation point to the fact that it is indeed God, the God whom she magnified in song, in word and in deed, that truly undoes the many knots in our lives. Mary moves us by example and prayer to grow in faith in God's grace, to be receptive to His will, to convert our lives through sacrifice and penance, and seek that everlasting union in the heavenly Kingdom.

In Our Image and Likeness

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Atheists often claim that man has made God in his own image, and not vice versa. Although we may disagree with the basic premise that God is merely a figment of our imagination, there is no denial that many actually do have a tendency to project their beliefs onto God, making their view of God a picture that is indeed an image of them. Most of us would certainly deny that we fall into this category. But as one author noted, “You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out God hates all the same people you do.” We can also assume that we’ve made God in our image our likeness when He so conveniently seems to agree with whatever plans we have. I am perpetually bemused by people who know exactly what God thinks and are immensely comforted by the discovery that God thinks just exactly the way they do. We have made God into something that fits in best with our own self-reasoning - the proverbial self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Our penchant for reinventing the Invisible Deity doesn’t stop here. We are also pretty good and have the habit of reinventing the Incarnated Word, Jesus, and reinterpreting his message to suit our cause and selfish needs. The re-envisioning or royal makeover of Jesus is most obvious when it violates actual historical fact. Anti-establishment proponents would often portray Jesus as a radical revolutionary whose sole mission is to resist and overturn the status quo. Feminist theologians would see him as a woman empowering religious leader whose mission and message eventually got hijacked by a misogynist chauvinistic Church.  Those who deny the existence of sinful lifestyles would clearly want to believe in a Jesus who is a feel-good, law-breaking, permissively liberal, politically correct, non-judgmental Messiah. Not surprisingly, most of these “Jesus-es” look much like the Christians promoting them. When Jesus set forth the rules in the New Testament, one thing was certain: being a Christian is tough. He definitely raised the bar. Yet, in spite of our best efforts to domesticate God and win Him over to our cause, God still continues to surprise us by not conforming to our usual expectations of Him.

In today’s first reading, we read of Elijah’s surprising encounter with God on Mount Horeb. The text obviously wishes for us to compare Elijah with Moses, thus the experience on Horeb mirrors that on Sinai (of course, it would be good to know that Horeb and Sinai are two variant names for the same mountain). While Moses had been called by God to Sinai to receive the law and to mediate the covenant with his people, Elijah fled to Horeb to bemoan the fact that his people had shamelessly violated the Law and had broken that very same covenant. Both Moses’ and Elijah’s experiences contained a time factor of forty days, a crevice in a rock and the standard properties for a theophany – thunder, earthquake, wind and so on. But the similarities end here. Indeed, the revelation of God to Elijah assumed an entirely new mode of communication altogether. Though there was the usual accompanying cataclysmic signs of a theophany: thunder, lightning, earthquake, fire, gushing wind; Elijah would not find the Lord in any of these. Rather, only in the tiny whispering sound was the Lord truly present. No longer would the cries of nature speak for the Lord. But with Elijah and through those who would, like him, be his prophets, the Lord would speak in the small, still silence of private inspiration.

So, does God speak with a loud thundering voice or in a breath of silence? I believe people who wish to come to a clear unambiguous conclusion would be missing the point. It’s never a choice between one or the other. God often chooses to speak outside of our familiar categories, where we would least expect Him to appear. If we were to imagine God coming to us in moments of consolation, we may actually miss the opportunity to discover him in desolation. If we are only able to see God in a favourable situation where blessings are apparent, would we be able to recognise him when he decided to appear in a troubling crisis, that seems to be a curse? When we create God into our own image He becomes a predictable and an easy-to-figure-out deity in our finite and fallible imaginations. Today, we have made God into a personification of something that is very palatable and "feels good." We constantly worship a God who will not allow bad things to happen to me nor condemn my chosen lifestyle, a God who will bless me with material riches and success, a God who will accept me unconditionally and not judge me. Yes, we have reinvented God into our image and our own carnality.

Together with the gospel story of mistaken identity, that is Jesus being mistaken for a ghost, the first reading and the gospel provide important lessons for our spiritual lives:

First, we must come to God on his terms and not ours. It takes humility to recognise and admit this. Instead of demanding that God meets our expectations, instead of reinventing God to fit into our little agenda, our relationship with him demands that we are prepared to not only be surprised by Him but also to be transformed by Him. It is God who sets the rules, draws up the plans, gives the direction, and tell us what we need to do. We need to allow God to be God and resist the temptation to make him conform to our image and likeness.

Second, mystery must always characterise our relationship with God. Mystery invites us to come before Him in reverential awe. It is the absence of mystery that leads to contemptuous familiarity. Today we tend to use the word “mystery” differently than in Christian antiquity. Our modern culture tends to think of a mystery as something to be solved. And thus the failure to resolve it is considered a negative outcome. But in the ancient Christian tradition, mystery is something to be accepted and even appreciated. Mystery is that which opens up the temporal meaning of an event and gives it depth. Mystery allows us a glimpse of the invisible, though remaining invisible. It is a sort of revelation, of unveiling. Because of this, mystery should be savoured, respected, and appreciated.

Third, we are invited and challenged to not just embrace the revelation of God but to go beyond the comfortable, the familiar and tested. We are challenged to take risk with God. Often, we want to play it safe, thus relying on our personal strengths and known resources. Just as Jesus invited Peter to come to him over the water, Jesus also invites each of us to take risks when it comes to matters of faith. To trust in his abundant providence rather than on our scarce and limited resources.

That’s what makes the Incarnation both redemptive yet dangerous. On the one hand, God came near. He took on the frailty of human nature, making possible an unprecedented intimacy between Him and us. But there is also something dangerous about the Incarnation. The same humanity that enables intimacy can also become idolatry of the self. Each of us can recognise some aspect of our own humanity in Jesus Christ—and that is good news!—but we can just as easily fixate on that reflection and exalt it inordinately. When this happens, we are no longer looking at the complete person of Jesus, but only a mirror of ourselves. The beauty of the Incarnation is that Jesus resembles all of us while resembling none of us. That tension is the secret to really knowing Jesus. So the key to salvation is always to make our humanity into His, to conform our will to His and through Him be united with the Father’s will, to be so utterly transformed as to become another Christ; rather than to make His humanity into our own image.

Do you believe in Miracles?

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

One problem we face in understanding Scripture stems from our false sense of familiarity; the shock value is naturally lost on the familiar. This is what has happened to the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand. But let’s try to read the story as if we were hearing it for the first time. Better still, let’s imagine ourselves as one of Jesus’ disciples, and experience the feeling of shock and incredulity on hearing the request (or was it more of an impossible demand) made by Jesus. The simplistic solution of Jesus to feed the multitude of five thousand with only a meagre ration must have been perplexing. Do the maths! You don’t have to be a genius to know that this is humanly impossible. And so it was quite natural for the disciples to express their perplexity at the logistics of Jesus’ food division. No way will this plan work.

Perhaps, we who often style ourselves as modern sophisticated folks will be quick to deny that we actually believe in nonsense like miracles. A whole movement arose among Biblical scholars, about a century ago, to explain away the miracles of the Bible. In this case, they decided, Jesus didn’t really feed the five thousand with five loaves and two fishes. That couldn’t have actually happened.  Thus, a common approach for preachers would be to say that what probably happened was that the disciples took those bits of food out into the crowd, and the crowd was so inspired by Jesus’ words and the action of the disciples that they began to take out the food that any sensible person would have brought with them when you go into the desert, and they began to divide it up amongst themselves. And so, after everyone shared their food with each other, there was more than enough for everybody. That’s much more plausible than this pleasant fairy tale about a miraculous multiplication.

If this indeed is the proper interpretation of the above story, then the virtue that should be emulated is that of generous giving and sharing. There is nothing wrong about generosity. In fact, generosity is a much needed virtue. Most parishes, including this, could do with a little more generosity from its parishes. However, this point misses the mark by a long shot. Notice that Jesus doesn’t argue with the disciples about the scarcity of food nor does he reprimand them for their selfishness. Facts are facts. Five loaves and two fish are visibly limited resources when considering the needs of five thousand. And in a way the disciples were right. The way the real world works is much more about division and subtraction rather than multiplication. The entire field of Economics exists to address that problem: how best to divide up, allocate, and use those limited resources, and it permeates our lives in countless ways. But, here the problem isn’t about economics, nor is it about our lack of generosity, nor even the little supply of resources. The real problem is faith, or rather their little faith in what Jesus can do.

In our modern, sophisticated, and scientifically rooted world, claims of miracles are often distrusted and treated as either ravings of the mad or the primitively superstitious or just another phenomenon that has temporarily not received a logical and scientific explanation yet.  The word "miracle" comes from the Latin word for wonder and, literally means "a sight to behold." Thus its usage in common speech often signifies the wondrous, the improbable, or the newly discovered. Sometimes people tend to refer to natural events such as the sunrise, seasons, birth, and coincidence as “miracles.” Likewise, we also speak of the miracle of modern medicine, science, or technology. Many of these items are in some way wondrous. But to apply the term "miracle" to any of these, however, is to omit the most distinctive feature of a miracle: God's direct intervention in the world. God has not abandoned us!

More accurately and traditionally understood, a miracle is a supernatural or a preternatural sign or wonder, brought about by God, signifying His glory and the salvation of mankind. It is a call to faith. As a sign, a miracle is perceived by the senses and makes present the supernatural order, God's governance of nature, and His loving plan of salvation. A miracle of grace, such as a sudden conversion of a notoriously evil man, would be a supernatural miracle because, even though the act of conversion is invisible, it manifested by visible acts. All other miracles are divine interferences with the physical laws of nature. They are preternatural, which means beyond nature, and visible. Matters of faith, such as Our Lord’s presence in the Blessed Sacrament, are a mystery, not a miracle in the strict sense, because the reality is not visible to the human eye.

Miracles ultimately point to how God acts in our lives. Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, is Himself God's revelation. The most fundamental miracle is therefore the Incarnation. All of salvation is rooted in the Incarnation, and so it is with miracles. It may be said that the Incarnation is the "miracle of miracles." Through the Incarnation, the Invisible Deity is made Visible. While the Incarnation is the root miracle of salvation, the Resurrection is the definitive and ultimate sign of Christ's divine authority.  It is clear that those who consistently reject the possibility of miracles will often end up demythologising both the Incarnation and the Resurrection – that is, that God didn’t really become man, nor did Jesus really rise from the dead. For the skeptics, the Incarnation and the Paschal Mystery are all part of the Christian myth, together with miracles and a whole load of other nonsense.

Thus our belief in miracles of Christ ultimately affirms his divinity. Christ performed these miracles not just to dazzle us with the spectacular. A magician or an artist could easily do the same. Rather, miracles will always have as their primary purpose the glorification of God and the calling of people to salvation. The signs worked by Jesus attest to His divine authority and invite belief in Him. They were signs of the Kingdom of God breaking into our world. After His Ascension and Pentecost, Christ's disciples worked miracles in the name of Christ, thus giving the people signs of His divinity and proofs that He is who they said He is. In the same way later saints worked miracles to testify to a higher authority and that people are called to His kingdom.

Miracles aren’t about altering or defying reality. On the contrary, miracles point to the “heart of reality” – to the way things are supposed to be in overcoming the way things are; which is always pretty surprising when we think “the way things are” is all that there is. Where we see scarcity God sees abundance. When we see dead ends, God sees beginnings. When we see the failure of sin, God sees the victory of redemption. And so those scholars who want to rationalise miracles are missing the whole point. Miracles are done to show, not simply tell, that God’s abundance is more real than the world’s scarcity; that God’s love is more real than the world’s brokenness; that God’s reconciling, vivifying, multiplying grace is more real than the world’s division and subtraction. Miracles, in expounding the power of grace over the limitations of nature, remind us that a marriage has not failed just because we have exhausted all human efforts at reconciliation. Where there is still faith, and hope and charity, there is the power of grace that brings healing and forgiveness to even the most impossible of situations.

In an age of science, we need to reaffirm our belief in miracles. We, of course, do not go in search of them, for what is contingently good ceases to be so, when it is desired for itself without reference to the Ultimate Good, which is God. God is the author of miracles and it is He who must decide when a miracle is deigned necessary.  Miracles are never meant to distract us from God. Rather, their essential purpose is to indicate that the human person is destined and called to the kingdom of God. Instead of insatiably hunting for the miracles of God, we should refocus our attention in searching for the God who stands behind those miracles. And in our single-hearted search for God and his will, He sometimes deigned it proper to reveal a miracle to strengthen our resolve and spur us on to greater heights. Miracles therefore act as signposts pointing the way that we need to take, reassuring us of God’s presence especially in moments of doubt, and finally, breathing new excitement into our faith. These signs therefore confirm in different ages and in the most varied circumstances the truth of the Gospel, and demonstrate the saving power of Christ who does not cease to call people on the path of faith. By contemplating these special graces, it is hope that we may come to love and recognise him daily in the ordinary situations and seasons of life where God is most certainly present and alive!

Be Joyful Sowers ... but don't forget the Darnel

Feast of St Anne

It’s just been a week since we last heard the Parable of the Wheat and the Darnel, and here we go again. As you may have heard preached over last weekend masses, the parable highlights the paradox of the Kingdom. It exposes the problem of evil intermingled with good. The truth that the darnel and wheat will always be found together is inescapable logic, but it is still difficult for many of us to accept especially when it comes to the Church. In his book, The Gulag Archipelago, the Russian author, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, says, "If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being." And so, no matter how society tries to legislate or separate out the criminals from the rest of society, the seeds of sin find a place to grow.

It always seem, in spite of our best efforts, that evil would exist alongside the good, the forces of death will always accompany those of life, the counterfeit will always be mixed and confused with the genuine. We are constantly witnessing the unfolding of this cosmic drama; an interplay of shadow and light and yet the story ends on a high note. It is the good, the life-giving, the true, and the righteous that will be vindicated at the end. Christ will triumph over every kind of evil. No matter how messy this world looks right now things will get straightened out, and we shall shine like the sun in the kingdom of our “Father”.

The parable thus offers a double consolation to its hearers. First, it reminds us that the world we live in will always be messy and less than perfect and we don’t have to be obsessive about cleaning up every little mess. Second, the presence of evil will not be a perpetual state of affairs. The separation of evildoers and the righteous will take place at the close of the age and not before. Judgement thus seems to be delayed, but it is certain. But this begs the question, Why the delay? The first reason for the delay in judgment is lest the good be uprooted with the bad. It is never a question of letting the guilty go free but rather of not condemning or hurting the innocent. Notice that the farmer in this parable does not spare the darnel for the sake of the darnel, but rather spares the darnel for the sake of the wheat. The second reason points to the absolute sovereignty of God’s authority. God has his own way of judging the wicked and vindicating the righteous, and he will not be pressured into adopting some other method or timetable for either. Those who wish to mete out summary justice may end up usurping the power of God to judge and to put things right.

Thus, the virtue advocated by this parable is patience. Patience isn’t about tolerating evil and sin – one can never do so. Rather, patience recognises that all the suffering and mess we are presently witnessing or experiencing is not the final chapter of the story. As St Paul reminds us in Chapter 8 of his letter to the Romans, that the whole creation is caught in the grip of birth-pangs, the labour pains of a new creation. Though the darkness seems endless and overwhelming, we are convinced that God’s new world is on the horizon and approaching. Peace and liberation are coming and patience calls us to hope in God’s deliverance. Thus, patience is born out of a confidence in God. Neither must we mistake patience for apathy. Patience is not inaction or indifference. It is not collusion with evil. It is a cautious attitude that informs what we do and that is willing to wait, taking the long view rather than rushing to the quick-fix, and believing that God will have the final definitive say and not evil.

Today, as we celebrate the Patronal Feast of this Parish, the Parable of the Wheat and the Darnel serves as a fitting conclusion to the theme of the “Joy of the Gospel.” It is a necessary reminder that the mission of the Church is not to destroy but to sow. Thus, our Holy Father calls Christians to be missionaries of joy “fearlessly open to the working of the Holy Spirit.” The problem is that instead of being bold witnesses of the Joy of the Gospel we have gotten good at complaining, whining, arguing, demanding, and destroying. Our sowing thus has suffered. Today is the day we must acknowledge and confess our failings.

In focusing on our mission to sow, however, we should also not be naïve to dismiss and ignore the power and work of Satan. It was Venerable Pope Paul VI who rightly reminded us that we should not feel smugly secure that the power of Satan lies outside the visible Church. Rather, he prophetically saw that “from some fissure the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God”, the Church. Satan has sown the seeds of discord, of disbelief, of doubt, of dissension, of disunity within the Church, and we must be constantly on guard against this, less we be taken in by his lies. Nevertheless, the Joy of the gospel provides us with a grounded hope that the Enemy would not be able to undo the work of the Sower. The enemy is a cowardly loser who is no match for the Sower. And so, in spite of the often bleak assessment of the state of affairs of the Church, its flock and its leadership, we must place greater trust in the Sower, that He will not abandon his Bride the Church, rather than resign ourselves in despair as we sink into to the murky chaos of our troubles.

As I had mentioned, the parable and the message of the gospel are never meant to lull us into hapless apathy, a pious quetism that ignores our responsibility in the world. The gospel certainly does not intend for us to just warm the benches while the story fatefully plays to its pre-ordained conclusion. There is a crucial role that we must play. As Christians we are called to challenge the values and lifestyles of those around us and point to a better way. We must have “the courage to proclaim the newness of the Gospel with boldness in every time and place, even when it meets with opposition.” The message of the gospel must rise above the twin ideologies of relativism and political tolerance. We are called to be a dissenting voice in society but we are not set up as its judges. “In our dealings with the world,” our Pope reminds us, “we are told to give reasons for our hope, but not as an enemy who critiques and condemns.” We must cease being invisible Catholics. Our faith must be visible and tangible. We must allow its alluring Beauty to once again draw all peoples to Christ and to His Bride.

In choosing to be ‘salt of the earth’ and ‘light of the world,’ we must also avoid both isolation from the world and capitulation to its cause. Isolating oneself is akin to salt losing its taste and the light of our lamps being hidden under a basket. In isolating ourselves, we passively allow the darnel to take over the field till there’s nothing left of the wheat when harvest time comes.  On the other hand, capitulation should never be the option. Capitulation confuses the difference between the wheat and the darnel, between the good and the bad, and between the Truth and a lie. In accepting all opinions, all lifestyles, it ultimately excludes what is True, what is Good, and what is Beautiful. Of course, it goes without saying that it is much easier to swim with the current rather than to swim against it. It is always the popular thing to tell the world what it wants to hear. The challenge is to tell the world what it needs to hear. The Joy of the Gospel is thus not a gospel that makes us narcissistically feel good about ourselves. True joy can never be a cover up. Rather, it is the joy of encountering the One who died for us on the Cross, so that the good may triumph and the bad, ultimately vanquished.

Thus the joy of the gospel calls for a Church which has to open its doors to sinners who are in need of forgiveness; to the sick who are in need of a remedy. But again, we must be clear about what we are speaking of here - we should not mistake the darnel for the wheat. One must always seek to reconcile a sinner to God, but one ought to never reconcile sin to God, since the two stand in direct opposition to each other. The very act of reconciling a sinner to God is purging him or her of that sin which separates us from each other in the marriage with God we were created for. Condemning sin is an act of love, not of judgment. The open Church does not mean we have to give sinful lifestyles a stamp of approval because true joy is never the result of a free license to sin but that of freedom from sin. The sacramental economy of the Church is offered to those who are able to acknowledge their illness, their sins. It is certainly wasted on those who feel no need for a remedy. Joy is never the perpetuation of a lie but the beautiful exposition of the splendour of the Truth. The Church is indeed a field hospital, as our Holy Father beautifully reminds us, for the sick who come in search for healing, it is certainly not a place for those who claim they are hale and hearty.

Christianity gave to the world something from which it has never recovered, and that is a belief in a better world to come, a perfect world from which all evil and wrongdoing have been banished. According to Christianity, history has a goal. There is an end-point towards which we are moving – we call it the Kingdom of God, we call it Heaven. One day this old world order with all its pain and suffering will come to an end and a new kingdom of peace established. Now, what is crucial is that in the Scriptures, as in today’s gospel parable, this Kingdom of God is not something that we as human beings can bring about. We can remove the obstacles. We can and we should challenge and resist evil wherever it may be found, especially within us. But we are under no illusion that we can ever create the kingdom of God on earth – we must wait for God. No confession can make us automatically into living saints who are totally freed of the struggle of sin and temptation. No social, political or economic answer can ensure that we no longer have to face war, poverty, conflict, and suffering. For this reason, we Christians do not suffer from optimistic idealism, neither are we weighed down by the harsh and often painful facts of reality. On the contrary, we are realistic about what could be achieved in transforming the world and are thus spared the disillusionment that comes from failing. The world and universe of perfection will come, that we are certain! But for now, as Jesus wisely counsels, “let them both grow till the harvest,” as we wait for the Lord of the Harvest to come and conclude the story.