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Pentecost Sunday
Any discussion of the Second Vatican Council often exposes a bi-polarity within the Church. We are still living today in the aftermath of the Council - debate and discussion continues about the nature of the council, its inner workings, and the interpretation of the documents it produced. Spend enough time in the online Catholic world and you know this to be true. For some, it is the best thing since sliced bread was invented, an impetus for growth and change in the Church that had been far too long fossilised by its Traditions and man-made rules. On the other end of the spectrum, some view this Council as the most pernicious weapon of the Enemy, the portal by which the smoke of Satan had infiltrated Holy Mother Church, resulting in her decline and eventual destruction by promoting endless heresies and schisms.
It’s good to return to the intention of Pope St John XXIII who opened the Second Vatican Council with a prayer to the Holy Spirit to “renew your wonders in our day as by a new Pentecost.” What did he mean and how does this idea of a new Pentecost help explain some of the motivation behind the council? To understand the Council, one would need to revisit the story of Pentecost and what it means for us, the Church.
We see in both the story of Pentecost in the first reading and that of the first Easter in the gospel, the disciples in a somewhat similar situation, at least on the surface. In the gospel, the disciples were hiding in the upper room behind closed doors “for fear of the Jews.” This could be the best allegory to describe the position of many leaders within the Church during the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, the Catholic Church had been on the defensive. In the battle against liberalism, socialism and communism it was anti-modernism that dominated its image. When you are in a defensive mode, you secure your defences, board up your windows, barricade your gates and surround yourself with a moat that prevents entry as well as anyone choosing to exit. But our Risen Lord can break through any defences as He did on that first Easter evening. And the first words He uttered are the very words we need to hear when we are trapped in fear: “Peace be with you!”
In the story of the first Pentecost which we heard in the first reading, the disciples are gathered once again in the upper room behind closed doors, but they do so not out of fear but obedience to the Lord that they should remain vigilant in prayer while waiting for the descent of the Holy Spirit. Their default impulse would be to flee but now they chose to remain in obedience. Things have changed. And things would undergo a greater change with the coming of the Holy Spirit. Not only would the door and windows of their room be thrown open but also their hearts would be reinvigorated to go out to the whole world to proclaim the good news.
The Pentecost event is a decidedly evangelical one: instead of being huddled away from fear of what lay outside, when the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles it gave them precisely what Jesus promised it would give them: power to become witnesses to Jesus ‘throughout Judaea and Samaria, and indeed to the ends of the earth’ (Acts 1:8). Such was their fervour and excitement that people thought they were drunk (2:13). Peter was boldly able to stand before the crowd and preach the good news that Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, had been raised from the dead, and now the forgiveness of sins and life in the Holy Spirit was possible (2:38). The recovery of this evangelical spirit is one of the intentions of the Second Vatican Council, as well as to speak in a language that was intelligible to people.
As Bishop Robert Barron is fond of saying, the Second Vatican Council was intended to be a “missionary council,” that is the council aimed at transforming the world, rather than just settling technical doctrinal disputes like earlier councils. The progressives, as much as they believe that they are forward looking, are actually quite inward looking, in that they seem to be obsessed with what they believe to be “not working” in the Church. Such a hyper critical attitude is not evidence of humility but rather narcissism, intending to make the Church in our image and likeness rather than to rediscover and reinvigorate her core mission to preach the gospel to the ends of the earth. The imagery of opened doors and windows is not meant to suggest that one should throw out all that is old and stuffy by letting the fresh air of the world enter. What you get may not be fresh air but “the smoke of Satan” as mentioned by Pope St Paul VI. Rather the opened windows and doors of the Church serve as a challenge to all of us to go into the world to transform it with the values of the gospel. This is the “new Pentecost.”
Pentecost is a permanent invitation to the Church and to every Christian to renew their commitment to the evangelising mission. The Holy Spirit gives His charisms, or spiritual gifts, to each believer to build up the community and carry out the mission of evangelisation. Pentecost reminds us that every Christian, thanks to the presence of the Holy Spirit, has the power and responsibility to be a witness to the faith and to contribute to the spread of the Gospel.
Many Catholics are only comfortable to huddle together and talk only privately about the Lord behind closed doors but are afraid to go out of the doors of the Church and speak a word about the Lord. Perhaps they will be laughed at, scorned or asked questions they cannot answer. The general Catholic approach in terms of evangelisation does not seem to be to open the doors and go out but, rather to open the doors and hope people come in. But Christ said “GO.” And still we huddle together fearfully and with an inward focus. We spend most of our time talking about inward things like what colour to paint the church walls or the repair works that need to be done in the women’s restroom, who will be the new president of this ministry or that, or when will Father take notice of me. All perhaps important issues to resolve but the main mission of evangelisation is neglected and we focus on inward things too much.
Outside the church doors is a world that needs to hear from us, but still we huddle together, timid and fearful of opening the doors and going out. The Holy Spirit is present here in this church but He also wants to be out there for others. So, let us not keep the Holy Spirit locked up behind the closed doors of our fears but it is time to unleash Him in a new Pentecost. Pentecost is not just about personal renewal—it’s about mission. The Spirit empowers us to share the Gospel, to speak truth, and to witness to Christ in word and action. Sharing the Gospel doesn’t have to be complicated. A simple conversation, a word of encouragement, or a testimony of what God has done in your life can become a channel for the Holy Spirit to work through you. Pentecost isn’t just an event to remember—it’s a reality to live. The same Spirit who filled the apostles is available to us today. As you celebrate Pentecost, receive a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and share the Gospel with boldness and joy.
Pentecost Vigil
This Millenium church whose dedication we celebrate today is certainly a source of pride for parishioners of Holy Family. If there is a Book of Guinness Records for the Catholic Church, we could boast of making the list not just in one category but several. First, we were the first fully air-conditioned church in the archdiocese, the envy of other parishes as their congregants continued to sweat in the sweltering tropical heat of Malaysia. Second, we are the largest church building with the biggest capacity in the Archdiocese of Kuala Lumpur, perhaps even in the whole of Peninsular Malaysia, an accolade that has yet remained unchallenged till this day. This has allowed us to host many Archdiocesan and even national Catholic events, and this church has often been referred to as the unofficial “co-cathedral” of the Archdiocese of Kuala Lumpur. Third, no other new church has come anywhere close to the cost of construction for this church. We cannot boast of being the most expensive but I guess we will not be unseated as the cheapest newest church in the region, certainly a tribute to the designers and project building managers and the fiscal genius of Fr Leo Chang and his team.
But today, the first reading of our Vigil Mass comes as a strong caution even as we celebrate the anniversary of the dedication of this church, the “work of human hands.” The technological and civilisational advancement of the people who built the Tower of Babel had no contemporary equivalent or rival. The Tower of Babel was a monument to human ingenuity, to their great civilisation which were united by a single language and skills that could build skyscrapers instead of the stone masonry of their contemporaries. But what was their ultimate goal? What was their motivation? The text explains: “Let us make a name for ourselves.” Pride was their motivation and pride would be their downfall.
The story of the fall of Babel is a reminder to us that when we use our skill and unity to thumb our noses at God, steal His glory and attempt to make a name for ourselves, we will wrought our own downfall. We have swapped the worship of the Creator for the worship of our own handiwork. That is why God’s judgement to break their unity and scatter them into different languages and cultures, is not done out of spite, or to punish us, but to save us.
On the eve of Pentecost, which some have incorrectly labelled as the birthday of the Church (the Church was born from the open wound of our Lord on Good Friday but manifested herself on Pentecost), it is good for us to remember what the Church symbolises for us. We have often been reminded ad nauseum that “the Church is not a building.” But to totally devalue the church building as a sacred place, a House of God, a primary sacramental of our Catholic faith, is to reject our very identity as members of the Mystical Body of Christ.
A church building is meant to be understood as a place for expressing the character of God. The building itself, like all of creation, was meant to help human beings know their Creator. Influenced by Protestants and post-modern thought, however, many Catholics — have forsaken or neglected this notion and purpose. Church buildings have become less about the character of their Creator and more about the social interactions of the creatures. Instead of a house that speaks and sings praises of the glory of the Almighty God, our churches have become temples to human ingenuity, mere auditoriums for human performances where we get to “make a name for ourselves.” Instead of proclaiming the greatness of God, we have often stressed the utility, functionality, and practicality of a church building.
But let us not forget the incisive opening words of Psalm 127 where we are reminded, “If the Lord does not build the house, in vain do its builders labour" (v. 1). Indeed, a strong community is born from the commitment of all its members, but it needs the blessing and support of that God who, unfortunately, is too often excluded or ignored. Without God, we can do nothing which is lasting: without the Lord, in vain do we labour. But with the Lord, instead, we will be a Church that is constantly renewed in faith, spirit, communal life and fervour for mission.
Without the Holy Spirit, the parish is just an empty shell, a lifeless conglomerate of persons, and not a community. But with the Holy Spirit, a community made up of different cultures, languages and ages can become a life-giving, faith inspiring and mission-oriented Church. The Venerable Bishop Fulton J. Sheen once said about the church that even though we are God's chosen people, we often behave more like God's frozen people. God's frozen people indeed: frozen in our prayer life, frozen in the way we relate with one another, frozen in the way we celebrate our faith. We don't seem to be happy to be in God's house; we are always in a hurry to get it over and done with as soon as possible. Today is a great day to ask the Holy Spirit to rekindle in us the spirit of new life and enthusiasm, the fire of God's love, so that our faith, our spiritual life, our community and our zeal for mission may be renewed!
Seventh Sunday of Easter Year A
In the first reading, we have the account from Acts of how the disciples returned to the city of Jerusalem where they were instructed by the angels to do so after having witnessed our Lord ascend to the heavens. The distance from the Mount of Olives where our Lord departed to the city was described as a short distance, “no more than a Sabbath walk.” This was the maximum distance that one could walk on a Sabbath to ensure that one would not violate the Sabbath prohibition against “working”. To technically bypass this restriction, Jewish law allows for an eruv, a boundary marked with wire that extends the area considered "home," allowing for a greater, or more flexible, walking distance. If you’ve been to the Hasidic Jewish neighbourhood in New York City, you will see this wire hanging around the area. Don’t be mistaken, it’s not the electric or telephone lines. It’s the “eruv”.
This mention of the Sabbath walking restriction seems unnecessary especially when the Ascension most likely happened on a Thursday. Interestingly, it was also on a Thursday, Holy Thursday to be specific, that Jesus marched out to the Mount of Olives, to the Garden of Gethsemane which lay at the foot of this hill, after He had celebrated the Last Supper with His disciples. Now after His Ascension, they return to the very room where the Last Supper was celebrated to continue their vigil, their nine days novena awaiting the descent of the Holy Spirit. Coincidence or Déjà vu or Providence? I would prefer to think of it as the last.
This may explain why the Lectionary takes us back to the scene of the Last Supper. We can imagine that as the disciples and Mary return to the Upper Room, they would have recalled memories of our Lord and His teachings. One of those that would have come to mind would be what we have heard a while ago. Our Lord, who has yet to meet His passion and experience the resurrection, speaks from eternity, from beyond the grave. In Jesus’ sacred, saving hour, a great liturgy of love emerges from the poetry of this prayer. Through His word and in the sacred bread of His body, all are drawn toward the Father to receive life and glory. A major biblical motif, “glory” (kabod) was used in the Old Testament to illustrate God’s goodness in providing for His people in the wilderness; for example God’s presence in the pillar of fire and cloud was called “glory”; God’s saving intervention was described in terms of manifesting His “glory,” and God’s presence as He alighted on the Tent of Meeting, also referred to His “glory.”
Interestingly, the Sabbath walk we had discussed earlier was also related to the Tent of Meeting where the Ark of the covenant was kept and the glory of God had descended. The Israelites were meant to keep close to it because God was their shield, their Rock, and their Shepherd. They were meant to keep within the “eruv” boundaries surrounding the Tabernacle. To wander off would mean disaster – they would be lost or even worst, fall prey to wild animals or their enemies who wanted nothing more than to destroy them. And so, whenever the glory of God lifted from the Tent, the Israelites would break camp and follow – not any sooner or later.
But the glory of God had already departed from the Temple as the prophet Ezekiel had prophesied and the Ark of the covenant was lost after the raid of the Babylonians. The great Temple of Jerusalem was now just an ostentatious husk, beautiful on the outside but empty within. So, the Temple could no longer serve as the heart of the “eruv”, the sacred perimeter. The core had shifted. Jesus, the New Temple, the true abode of the “glory” of God. Where ever our Lord is, so is this sacred perimeter marked and demarcated.
So, what did Jesus mean when He spoke of the hour of entering into His “glory”? Such “glory” is certainly not equivalent to what man often desires - popularity, public acceptance, praises and a good name. Here lies the divine paradox of the gospel - when Jesus spoke of His own glory He was speaking about the cross. Throughout the gospel of John, Jesus and His ministry was portrayed as a progressive process of glorification, a process of preparation for the ultimate “sign” – the crucifixion, the climax of salvation history.
St Peter must have finally understood the connection between glory and the cross after several failed attempts. At the time of his first letter, the early Christian communities were already experiencing persecution and suffering for their faith. The cross was no longer theoretical or symbolic, it was very real. And yet in today’s second reading, St Peter writes with great confidence and as a means of encouraging his fellow Christians: “If you can have some share in the sufferings of Christ, be glad, because you will enjoy a much greater gladness when his glory is revealed. It is a blessing for you when they insult you for bearing the name of Christ, because it means that you have the Spirit of glory, the Spirit of God resting on you.”
The other radical twist introduced in today’s passage is that Jesus speaks of eternal life not as some future or eschatological reality, something which you experience only after death. On the contrary, one can experience eternal life in the here and now. According to Jesus, eternal life is “to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent”. To know connotes the intimacy of an immediate experience rather than cognitive knowledge. Such as, my family knows the real me! Therefore, “to know” God, means to be called into an intimate relationship with the Father, like the one that Jesus the Son already enjoyed. This provides another beautiful layer to our understanding of Jesus’ hour of glory. In other words, knowledge of and intimate participation with Jesus in His hour, in His glory, or in the words of St Peter, sharing in the sufferings of Christ, one can already taste eternal life here and now.
Christian faith continues to present a different picture of glory, one which requires us to see the world, its trials and tribulations, through the lenses of eternity. It calls the world to transcendence, to appreciate once again the need for beauty, goodness, and truth. It challenges us to stay near to Christ and His cross, and we should not walk too far away from it or risk losing His protection and be lost. But if this message is to be heard, there must be Christians who are disciples that are willing to live out the message of today’s gospel. This means living a life rooted in Christ and yet in the world that already goes beyond it and resists being reduced to its conventions. And it is intrinsic to this way of life that it be lived not merely by isolated individuals, but by a community. Thus, the essential need for our BECs, our Basic Ecclesial Communities, to bear witness to the gospel message. The community is our “eruv” where we ensure that we remain rooted in Christ, remain connected to Him. Where we reject community living, we in fact reject the gospel, and we become anti-witnesses of its message. To walk beyond the boundaries of the Church is to walk away from our Lord, to turn our backs on Him, to turn our backs on salvation.
Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord Year A
It’s Ascension Thursday and we would expect to hear the account of the Ascension in the gospel. But this account is missing from St Matthew’s gospel which ends with our Lord summoning His disciples to an unnamed mountain in Galilee where He commissions them to “make disciples of all the nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands” He had given them. Both content and location defer sharply from Luke’s account of the Ascension which takes place on the Mount of Olives, just outside Jerusalem. This seeming discrepancy has less to do with a contradiction or an error than it must possibly do with two different events. The Great Commission, as many would call the episode described in today’s passage, would have taken place on a hill (or borrowing scriptural language of embellishment, a “mountain”) in Galilee, whereas the Ascension as described in the gospel of St Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, took place outside Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives.
Scholars and theologians suggest several reasons why Matthew chose to end his gospel this way instead of referring to the Ascension as do St Luke and the longer ending of St Mark’s gospel.
Firstly, in Matthew’s Gospel, the evangelist begins with Jesus being called "Emmanuel" (God with us) and the gospel then ends with the Lord’s promise "I am with you always" which form a pair of literary bookends (an inclusio and conclusio), emphasising that the Lord remains spiritually present with His Church despite His physical departure. The Ascension marks the completion of the Lord’s earthly mission. He came to teach, to heal, to suffer, die and rise again. After His resurrection, His final act was to return to the Father. This signals that His saving work was done. Mission accomplished! Yes and no. Although His work of salvation is complete and He is no longer present with us physically until His return in glory at the end of the ages, He continues to remain with us sacramentally through the Eucharist and continues to act in and through His Church, His Mystical Body on earth - teaching us, guiding us, and sanctifying us.
A second reason for St Matthew’s omission of the account of the Ascension is that his gospel is primarily written for a Jewish audience and so Matthew emphasises Jesus as the prophesied and long-awaited Messiah and Davidic King. So, the titles of “Messiah,” “the Christ Anointed) of God” and “Son of David” are recurring leitmotifs in the storyline as a gradual revelation of His identity. The ending establishes His universal authority over all nations rather than focusing on the mechanics of His departure. We are invited to not only look upwards in the direction which He has ascended but to look around to the full expanse of His earthly domain where He has made us His stewards and emissaries with a specific duty of making disciples and Christians: “Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you.” The Feast of the Ascension, therefore, speaks of two missions, the completion of our Lord’s earthly mission and ministry but now also the beginning of the Church, our own mission to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth.
In Eastern iconography, we witness this twofold dynamics. The icon of the Ascension is divided into three sections. In the upper part, we have the ascending or ascended Lord in all His divine glory and below we have the disciples with Mary in their midst. The apostles are shown below in various states of confusion, motion, and conversation, indicating their transition from spectators to missionaries, only Mary remains peacefully calm and poised in a position of prayer. But between these two obvious focal points, we have two angels. The gestures of their hands tell a grand story. The angels point toward Christ while also addressing the disciples, “Why are you men from Galilee standing here looking into the sky?” (Acts 1:11). This gesture acts as a call to action—directing the disciples to stop simply gawking and to start walking, to cease from gazing into an empty sky because the Lord has already departed and to begin the mission to spread His gospel to the ends of the earth as He had instructed.
So, the Ascension by no means concludes the story of salvation as how the curtain falls or the end credits to a movie marks its end. When the story ends, the audience departs in silence or whispers their reviews of what they had witnessed. Not so in the case of the Ascension. In fact, today reminds us that we have been swept into the storyline of our Lord, a story that does not end until He returns in glory. There’s work to be done. Hearts to be touched. Wounds to be bandaged. Souls to be saved. We are our Lord’s proxies. We are His ambassadors. We are His hands and His feet. When people see us, they should see the Risen Lord, despite all our foibles and limitations. We are what we claim to be - “Christians” - a little Christ. That is why even though He is ascended, He is not absent. In fact, His presence has become all the more pervading through us, the Church and the Sacraments.
Finally, today’s feast is not just about a recollection of the story of how the Lord ascended to heaven, which is a nice thing to know, nor that we have been entrusted with a mission, which is something challenging if we truly grasped it. Today’s feast also provides us with the ultimate reason for our hope. Through our Lord’s Ascension, we know for certain that the gates of heaven are opened and He awaits to welcome us to stand before His seat of glory, where He is seated at the right hand of the Father. But His exaltation is also “our exaltation” (collect for the Vigil Mass). As the Preface for the Feast tells us, His Ascension “is not to distance Himself from our lowly state but, that we, His members, might be confident of following where He, our Head and Founder, has gone before.”
Sixth Sunday of Easter Year A
Recently, there was a very public disagreement between Pope Leo and the President of the most powerful nation on earth over the latter’s actions in prosecuting war in Iran. You may think that the word “disagreement” is an understatement. Although Trump was not named in the earlier statements by the Holy Father, the reference to the immorality of war and call for cease fire by the Pope was obviously interpreted by the media as referring to him. Who else could it be meant for? Well, Trump did not hesitate to name the Pope in a blazing rebuttal. The supporters and defenders of Trump’s policy, however, did clearly question the authority of the Pope to speak on matters beyond his expertise accompanied by a cautionary note that the Pope should stay within his lane. Was the Pope speaking out of turn? This criticism would not be the first nor would Pope Leo be the first pope to be accused of meddling in the affairs of the state.
But it is interesting that many of those who have come to the defence of the Pope had been the Church’s greatest critics on her position on other moral issues. Were they now reneging from their earlier position that the Church had no authority to dictate on matters concerning gender ideology and reproductive rights? Why the sudden switch in allegiance? In the words of St Augustine, we love the truth when it enlightens us but hate it when it rebukes us.
One of the most controversial points surrounding the Catholic Church today, as it has been from the very beginning, would be the Church’s claim that she is able to teach and govern authoritatively; in fact she claims to teach, govern and sanctify with the authority of Christ Himself. This is more than just a claim to offer an opinion among many but a claim that the Church speaks Truth, teaches Truth and defends Truth. While most experts can claim some form of authority from training and experience, only the Catholic Church, or the Magisterium, which is the teaching authority of the Church, can claim authority from the Holy Spirit. The Magisterium speaks with the authority of Christ, guided and empowered by the Spirit. But why would He do that?
If Christ wanted to ensure that His teachings would have the efficacy of leading humanity to salvation, He would have taken the necessary measures to ensure the same teaching would have this purpose, rather than become a cause for confusion and destruction. This is why Christ promised to protect the teachings of the Church by conferring this very authority of interpretation on to the Church’s Magisterium: "He who hears you, hears me; he who rejects you rejects me, he who rejects me, rejects Him who sent me" (Luke 10. 16).
Pope Benedict XVI of happy memory noted in a homily that “this power of teaching frightens many people in and outside the Church. They wonder whether freedom of conscience is threatened or whether it is a presumption opposed to freedom of thought.” But then the erudite pontiff noted, “The power of Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors is, in an absolute sense, a mandate to serve. The power of teaching in the Church involves a commitment to the service of obedience to the faith.” This authority of the Church, as the Lord has reminded all His disciples, is not one which seeks ‘to lord it over others’ but ultimately one of service. The Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God. Instead, the Magisterium is clearly under its authority–it is the servant of the Word. Its role is not to add to God’s revelation or to subtract from it. Only to faithfully interpret and apply it (CCC 85-86).
We see an excellent example of the exercise of the Church’s Magisterium in today’s first reading. The issue of whether pagan converts to Christianity would have to submit to circumcision and other Jewish observances had become a major issue that threatened to split the leaders of the Church and the Church itself. During the Council, St Peter strongly defended the position that the Gentiles, who were not circumcised, were accepted by God. The apostle James then delivered his judgment that the Gentile converts would not need to be circumcised but laid down certain guidelines that would allow Jewish and Gentile converts to live in harmony. So, finally the apostles and elders adopted the position proposed by James and chose men from among them to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. In the letter, they wrote, “It has been decided by the Holy Spirit and by ourselves ...” The apostles and elders who had gathered at the Council of Jerusalem were conscious that their decision was no mere human decision. They believed that it was the Holy Spirit who guided their decision, and so, ultimately it is God who has decided on the matter.
Unlike what many dissenters often claim, the Holy Spirit is not the source or muse for innovation. “We have to let the Spirit lead”. Unfortunately, this is often a euphemism for excusing oneself from following the Church’s teachings and disciplines. The Spirit does not provoke us to disobedience. In fact the Lord Himself tells us in today’s gospel, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word.” Likewise, the Holy Spirit is not a spirit of confusion. Our Lord sent the Holy Spirit to guide His Church into ALL Truth. He promised His disciples and us that the Advocate, the Holy Spirit “will teach (the Church) everything and remind (her) of all.” Despite the cultural winds that have blown through the ages, the faithful have always had a visible, easily identifiable magisterial “rock” on which they could safely stand on in all seasons.
Throughout the centuries, the Church has also experienced many crises that threatened to shake its very foundation and unity. In the early centuries, many Church leaders were divided as to the issue of Christ’s divinity. In later centuries, there were also disagreement about many church teachings and practices. In modern times, the most contentious issues revolve around sexual mores. Throughout its histories, the Church had to contend with schisms (splits) and heresies (erroneous teachings) but remain steadfast on its course, the course set by her Lord and Master. And yet despite these many centuries of crises and trials, the Church has continued to survive and grow, only because of the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit’s guidance ensures that despite all our personal opinions and ways of thinking, and despite the wickedness and failings of her shepherds, we can be sure of a certain authoritative position that reflects the will of God. In other words, the Holy Spirit is the guarantee of unity within the Church.
Today, we are facing a crisis that has made many Catholics to no longer know what to believe or what kind of conduct God expects of us. What is needed as a remedy for this is a firm standard, a reliable guide or teacher who can tell us both what we must believe and what we must do. We need a Church who can ensure that the light of Christ’s saving gospel will shine on every generation. We need a Church that does not only provide us with good ideas and opinions but who teaches authoritatively, who is able to give us great light & clarity in a world that seems often enveloped in the darkness of sin; in a world enamoured and confused by the fallacious philosophy of relativism which provides so many competing false lights. We need a Church and successors of the Apostles who will “discharge their exalted office for the salvation of all, and so that the whole flock of Christ might be kept away by them from the poisonous food of error and be nourished with the sustenance of heavenly doctrine” (Vatican I, Constitution on the Church of Christ). And as G.K. Chesterton once said, “I don’t need a church to tell me I’m wrong where I already know that I’m wrong; I need a Church to tell me I’m wrong where I think I’m right.”
Fifth Sunday of Easter Year A
You may have heard this glib cliched line: “Jesus is the answer.” Some cheekily retort, “but the answer to what? What exactly is the question?” But what I’m going to say today is going to ruffle some feathers, if not shock and scandalise many of you. Before we say that Jesus is the answer, we must recognise that Jesus is also the problem.
Jesus is the reason that the Christian faith is a problem. See what He claims in today’s gospel. “…No one can come to the Father except through Me” is the bone of contention. There is no way of getting around this declaration, unless you choose to ignore it or expunge it from the Bible for being too fundamentally exclusive. He tells us in no uncertain terms: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” Not just any way, or one among many truths or merely a path of life among other valid paths. He is The Way, The Truth, and The Life.
That Jesus is the only necessary Saviour of all is a truth that for over twenty centuries – beginning with Peter’s discourse after Pentecost – it was never felt necessity to restate. This truth is, so to speak, the minimum threshold of the faith; it is the primordial certitude, it is among believers the simple and most essential fact. In two thousand years this has never been brought into doubt, not even during the crisis of Arianism, and not even during the upheaval of the Protestant Reformation. The fact of needing to issue a reminder of this in our time tells us the extent of the gravity of the current situation.
When people claim that all religions are principally the same, with merely insignificant and superficial differences, as open-minded as they may sound, it actually betrays a certain ideological superiority and ignorance. No one could ever possibly make this claim unless he is abysmally ignorant of what the different religions of the world actually teach. Certainly, there are similarities and analogous parallels, but there are also many differences and even contradictions between truth claims. It doesn’t take a genius to tell you that there’s a world of a difference when one religion that states that there is no God and another one that asserts it, and one could obviously not sweep this inconsistency under the carpet and term it as ‘insignificant’ or ‘non-essential.’ To ignore or to collapse every single difference and contradiction into a single voluminous salad bowl of beliefs is like thinking the earth is flat.
Christianity is not a system of man's search for God but a story of God's search for man. Throughout the Bible, man-made religion fails but God continues to reach down, in spite of our failure. There is no human way up the mountain, only a divine way down. Of course, if these roads to salvation were indeed man made, it would indeed be stupid and arrogant to absolutise any one of them. But if God made the road and the path, He must indeed be a fickle and schizophrenic deity who enjoys confusing his creation by creating contradictory alternatives. But if He made only one path – One Way, One Truth and One source of Life, His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ and the Church which He has left behind as that one certain path for all humanity – then it is humility and not arrogance to accept this one road from God, and it is arrogance, not humility, to insist that all our man made roads are as good as God’s God-made one.
To the common argument that this fundamental understanding of salvation radically changed as a result of the Second Vatican Council, it is good to have a look at what the Council Fathers actually taught and not what we assume they taught. The Council taught that on the one hand there is much deep wisdom and value, or “rays of truth” in other religions and that the Christian should respect them and learn from them. But, on the other hand, the claims of Christ and His Church can never be lessened, compromised, or relativised. The Church continues to proclaim that God intends the salvation of all, and He does so through the mediation of His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, and the Church, which is His Body. And yet those who through no fault of their own do not know Christ or His Church, but who follow the dictates of their conscience as prompted by the Spirit, may also be saved. But their salvation too comes from Christ and never apart from Him. That is why the Church continues to proclaim that God intends the salvation of all, and He does so through the mediation of His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, and the Church, which is His Body.
Has this position changed in 2026 with a new pope. Without skipping a beat, Pope Leo recently reiterated this truth to a group of altar servers who had come from France: “Who will come to save us? Not only from our sufferings, from our limits and our mistakes, but even from death itself? The answer is perfectly clear and resounds in the History of 2000 years: only Jesus comes to save us, no-one else: because only he has the power to do so – He is God Almighty in person – and because he loves us. Saint Peter said it emphatically: ‘There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved’ (Acts 4:12). Never forget these words, dear friend: imprint them on your heart, and place Jesus at the centre of your lives.”
Though the world may appear to be a free marketplace of ideas, opinions, theologies and ideologies, where we are constantly tempted to come up with a recipe or salad of ideas, we Christians have already made our choice. There may be many rivers which may ultimately lead to the sea, but there is only one Way, one Truth and one Life that leads to Heaven, it is Christ, for He is both the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the Source of Life itself and its destined End.
Fourth Sunday of Easter Year AGood Shepherd Sunday
I am going to do a “show and tell” for today’s homily. The perfect illustration for the threefold office or ministry of a priest as Priest, Prophet and King, is to be found in the principal liturgical furnishings in the sanctuary. The altar and the ambo are obvious candidates but that’s only two. How about the third since the office of Christ and the priest is threefold? Let me give you a clue. It serves as the most functional furnishing if you do not expect the priest to stand throughout the Mass. Yes, it’s the presider’s chair!
Together with the altar and ambo, the celebrant’s chair is considered one of the three principal liturgical furnishings in the sanctuary of every Catholic church. The altar stands as an image of Christ exercising His priestly office and gives a foretaste of the heavenly banqueting table. The ambo signifies the dignity of the Word of God proclaimed and magnifies its importance. The chair, too, has its own mystagogical role to play: the cathedra, or bishop’s chair, signifies the teaching, governing and sanctifying role of the bishop in his diocese as successor of the apostles. By extension, every priest celebrant’s chair in a parish church signifies the priest’s headship during the sacred liturgy and his mission to sanctify and govern those in his care.
If you think that the above explanation is insufficient, try Bishop Robert Barron’s take on it. He writes: “A classic characterisation of Jesus is that He is priest, prophet, and king. As priest, He sanctifies, that is to say, He reestablishes the lost link between divinity and humanity; as prophet, He speaks and embodies the divine truth; and as king, He leads us on the right path, giving guidance to the human project. You might say that, as priest, He is the life; as prophet, He is the truth; and as king He is the way.”
The readings chosen for this Sunday also provides us with further insight on these three offices. Let’s start with the order of the offices rather than the sequencing of the readings.
For the office of priest, let us look at the second reading. The idea of Jesus as High Priest is most apparent in the letter to the Hebrews, whereas the evangelists often depict Him as a prophet and king. But here in this pastoral letter by the first of the apostles, our first Pope, St Peter shows us Christ in His priestly role of sacrificing Himself in atonement for our sins, in healing our wounds by allowing Himself to be wounded, in laying down His life so that we may live. In this passage St Peter encourages Christians to follow the sacrificial example of Jesus Christ in the face of persecution. Persecution is, in fact, the assumed “default state” of the Church, with times of peace and tranquility being exceptional rather than normative. And so Peter reminds us that, “Christ suffered for you and left an example for you to follow the way he took.” That is why a priest is called to die so that others may live.
The first reading speaks clearly of the need for prophets, those who speak the truth of God. Peter is once again featured here. Without courageous preaching of St Peter at that first Pentecost, putting himself at risk of arrest and even death, the three thousand men who were in attendance would not have come to the faith. Just like prophets of old, Peter, the apostles, and all who call ourselves followers of Christ, in fact Christians which mean “a little Christ,” we must issue the very first call of our Lord to everyone to repent and believe in the gospel. We think that it is sufficient to just be a good neighbour, be kind to everyone we meet and choose not to rock the boat by declaring our faith and our deepest convictions. All that is needed but it is insufficient. The prophetic role calls us to disturb the comfortable as well as comfort the disturbed.
Pope Benedict XVI in speaking of the prophetic role of the priest tells us that “the priest does not teach his own ideas, a philosophy that he himself has invented, that he has discovered or likes; the priest does not speak of himself, he does not speak for himself, to attract admirers, perhaps, or create a party of his own; he does not say his own thing, his own inventions but, in the medley of all the philosophies, the priest teaches in the name of Christ present, he proposes the truth that is Christ himself, his word and his way of living and of moving ahead.”
Finally, we turn to the gospel as our Lord’s illustration of what it means to be a king. This is part of the Good Shepherd discourse of our Lord found only in St John’s Gospel. The alignment of king and shepherd may not be so apparent in modern times but the image of kings as the shepherd of the people of Israel goes back to the ancient Near Eastern concept of the king as shepherd of his nation. Think of the shepherd’s crook as one of the sceptres, symbols of authority, of the Egyptian Pharaoh.
But here in this section of the discourse two other images are used by the Lord, images connected to the shepherd. Our Lord tells us that He is the gatekeeper as well as the gate. It is interesting to note how Bishop Barron rightly associates the third office of King with being the Way. Gatekeeping seems to have taken on a negative connotation these days, implying elitism, which seems to be associated with Pharisaical behaviour: “Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering” (Luke 11:52). But as our Lord suggests in today’s parable, the role of the gatekeeper is twofold - the first is to grant safe passage to both shepherd and his flock and the second, is to prevent those who seek to bring destruction, “the thieves and brigands,” from entering. The second part of this pastoral ministry may cause discomfort to many moderns as inclusivism and relativism have become integral parts of modernist theologies. In seeking to create an inclusive borderless Church, many make the mistake of ignoring our Lord’s caution in today’s gospel passage: “anyone who does not enter the sheepfold through the gate, but gets in some other way is a thief and a brigand.” The only way we are going to get in is through the gate, through Christ who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and on His terms, and not on ours.
The threefold office is not just attributed to Christ and ascribed to ordained ministers by virtue of their sacramental identity as in persona Christi Capitis. All of us by virtue of our baptism, also share in this three fold ministry. The baptised serve as priests through their sacrificial efforts to bring people to God. They serve as prophets through their witness to the truth in word and deed. And they serve as kings in their efforts to lead others—again through word and deed—to use their talents to advance the Kingdom of God (see CCC 1241).
The final part of the Mass could arguably provide a call to any of the three offices depending on the language used that day. One of the options is this “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord!” This speaks to the prophetic office most clearly as we are called to “announce” by our words and actions what has been shared with us. Another option of the dismissal is “glorifying the Lord by our lives.” This implies the priestly office as our holiness incarnates the blessing we have received from God in the world. Finally, for us to “Go forth in peace,” would be the result of establishing justice and order, which are the roles of the kingly office. So, my dear brothers and sisters, “go and announce the gospel of the Lord,” “glorify the Lord by your lives,” and “go forth in peace”!
