Requiescat in Pace

Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed

As macabre as it sounds, those consoling words of our Lord that we had just heard in the gospel is visualised in our cemeteries. On tombstones throughout the Christian world, carved in stone or etched in metal, we so often find those three solemn words: Requiescat in Pace — “May he (or she) rest in peace.” We see them in Latin, or in their familiar abbreviation, R.I.P. They are spoken softly at the graveside, whispered in the quiet of our hearts, and prayed at every funeral vigil and Requiem Mass. Yet how easily we can reduce them to a polite formula, a conventional closing to a life that has ended.

The abbreviation has been commonly and badly translated into English as “Rest in Peace.” As a statement of fact, it may sound quite presumptuous, underlying a popular belief that our departed loved ones are already in heaven, fully resting in peace. But note that the more accurate translation of the Latin is in the form of an invocation, a prayer: “MAY they rest in peace.” We can only pray and hope that our loved ones have found rest. It is not something which we can presume automatically as if our live decisions have no bearing to what happens to us after death. That is why at every funeral we should pray that the Lord shows His mercy to the deceased by pouring out His forgiveness on a sinner, which may sound insensitive to the modern ear, rather than canonise him or her with a moving eulogy that elevates them to the status of a saint. The Feast of All Saints is what we celebrated yesterday. But today we remember the dead, especially those among us who may have died without fully experiencing the perfection and freedom from sin that is required of divine beatitude and yet remain beneficiaries of our Lord’s mercy shown through the process we call purgatory.

Today the Church invites us to look deeper into these words. Requiescat in Pace is not merely a wish for the body to lie undisturbed in the earth. It is a prayer for the soul’s journey — that long, purifying pilgrimage from the incompleteness of this life into the fullness of eternal rest in God. Let’s be honest, deadly honest - We live, most of the time, with a myopic view of reality. We see only the small picture: the grief of separation, the silence of the grave, the ache of absence. We forget the larger truth proclaimed so beautifully in the Preface of the Masses for the Dead: “In him the hope of blessed resurrection has dawned, that those saddened by the certainty of dying might be consoled by the promise of immortality to come. Indeed for your faithful, Lord, life is changed, not ended.”

“Life is changed, not ended”. How many of us have missed this piece of simple but profound truth? Perhaps, we are too blinded by our grief to pay attention to what Mother Church speaks to us at this very hour of our need. The soul does not cease its journey when the body returns to dust. For the great majority of the faithful departed — those who have died in God’s grace and friendship, yet still imperfectly purified — there remains a final stage of the pilgrimage. The Church calls it Purgatory. It is not a midway point between heaven and hell, nor a temporary hell. It is the place, or rather the process, where souls already destined for heaven are prepared for the Beatific Vision. It is where the work of God, begun in their earthly lives, is brought to completion. It is the hospital where the last infections of self-love are burned away by the fire of divine love, so that the soul may love as God loves.

This is why we pray for the dead. If our loved ones were already in the full glory of heaven, they would have no need of our prayers. If they were lost forever, no prayer of ours could reach them. But because they are still on the way — still being purified, still journeying toward the eternal rest for which they were made — our prayers, our Masses, our sacrifices, our acts of charity offered on their behalf truly help them. As the Second Book of Maccabees reminds us, “It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they might be loosed from their sins.”

Requiescat in Pace, then, is not a passive hope. It is an active intercession. When we speak those words, we are joining our voices to the prayer of the whole Church — the Church Militant on earth, the Church Suffering in purification, and the Church Triumphant in glory — all bound together in the Communion of Saints. We are asking that the soul may complete its journey, that every remaining attachment to sin and self may be purified, that the last obstacles to perfect union with God may be removed, and that the soul may at last enter into the Sabbath rest of heaven.

And what of us who still walk this earth? The same journey awaits us. We too are pilgrims. We too carry the unfinished business of our lives — the habits of sin not yet fully uprooted, the loves still disordered, the hearts still only partially converted. We too are looking for rest. God knows how weary and tired we are and how much we desire relief. He hears us and He answers us: “Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest.” Every Mass we offer for the dead, every prayer we say, every sacrifice we make on their behalf is also a preparation for our own journey. In helping them toward their eternal rest, we ourselves are being drawn more deeply into the same mercy. Our Lord is teaching us that the path to truly finding rest for our souls is when we diligently shoulder His yoke, learn from Him, imitate Him and finally follow Him on the path to salvation. We won’t find rest when we turn our backs on Him. If Christ is absent from our lives and our hearts, we would only find “unrest.” Only in Him, can we truly find rest as St Augustine once prayed: “Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.”

So today, let us not merely remember. Let us pray. Let us offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for those who have no one to pray for them, for our parents and grandparents, for spouses and children, for friends and benefactors, for the forgotten and the abandoned. Let us visit their graves not only to place flowers, but to place our hearts in intercession. And as we do so, may we hear again those ancient words, not as a farewell, but as a prayer of hope:

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon them.
May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed,
through the mercy of God,
rest in peace.

Amen.

Dies Natalis

Solemnity of All Saints

Today the Church’s calendar does something rather beautiful and rare. All Saints falls on a Sunday. The Lord’s Day and the feast of all the holy ones of God coincide. All Saints and every Sunday ranks as a solemnity, a first class feast in rank. When both days converge, we could call it a double solemnity! A First First! This is no mere coincidence of dates. It is a quiet homily from the liturgy itself.

Sunday is the Day of the Lord—the day of His death and, more decisively, of His Resurrection. Every Sunday we stand again at the empty tomb and proclaim that death does not have the final word. The early Christians called the day of a martyr’s death his or her dies natalis— his day of birth - his birthday into eternal life. What the world saw as an ending, the Church recognised as a beginning: the day a Christian is reborn into heaven. So, when All Saints falls on a Sunday, the liturgy holds two birthdays together: the Resurrection of the Lord and the heavenly birthday of every saint, known and unknown. Our own death, if we die in the Lord, will one day be our dies natalis too.

Most of us can only imagine the day of our death, the exact moment of our expiration. Would we go out with a big bang, or with our loved ones surrounding our deathbed, or would we die an ignoble or lonely death on a hospital bed or home for the aged? No crystal ball or horoscope or Tarot card reading will be able to give us an exact account of how it would all end. But scripture does assure us that it would not be as frightening as we would imagine. St John in his epistle which we heard in the second reading tells us: “what we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed; all we know is, that when it is revealed we shall be like him because we shall see him as he really is.”

The readings today lift the veil. In the vision of John in the Book of the Apocalypse, which we heard in the first reading, we see the great multitude that no one can count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, washed in His blood, holding palm branches of victory. These are the ones who have already celebrated their dies natalis. They have passed through the great tribulation and now live in the unending Sunday of heaven.

How did they get there? The mystery of or the secret to their sainthood is found in them living out the gospel values which we had just heard. The Gospel places before us the Beatitudes—the very template of that sanctity.

“Happy are the poor in spirit… the gentle… those who mourn… those who hunger and thirst for righteousness… the merciful… the pure in heart… the peacemakers… those who are persecuted…”

These are not simply nice spiritual attitudes. They are the shape of a life that has already begun to die with Christ so that it may rise with Him. Sainthood is not a sudden overnight success story. It is gain incrementally, a little step at a time, a little dying to our ourselves here and there, and finally bearing fruit in a life of fidelity following Christ. The Beatitudes are the very programme of the dies natalis. They describe people who have learned to lose in the world’s eyes so that they may win in God’s. For example, poverty of spirit is the death of self-sufficiency. Meekness is the death of the need to dominate. Mourning is the death of false consolations. Hunger for righteousness is the death of indifference. Mercy is the death of the score-keeping heart. Purity of heart is the death of divided loves. Peacemaking is the death of the ego that thrives on conflict. Persecution is the final, public death of the self that still seeks worldly approval. Each beatitude promises an aspect of eternal life but demands a willingness to die to some inordinate attachment.

Contrary to popular opinion, the saints are not those who never stumbled. In fact, some have taken a mighty deep tumble in their lives. They, however, are those who allowed the grace of the Cross to turn every fall into a deeper surrender. A saint is simply a Christian who has taken the Sunday mystery—death and resurrection of Christ—and lived it daily until the final Sunday of his or her dies natalis. The Beatitudes are the ordinary path by which that daily dying and rising happens. They are not reserved for the extraordinary. They are the template for every baptised person who wants heaven to be more than a pious hope.

Today we celebrate the unnamed as much as the named. The grandmothers who prayed the rosary through decades of quiet fidelity. The fathers who carried the Cross of family responsibility without applause. The young people who chose purity when the world offered everything else. The worker who chooses integrity over politics or corruption. The sick who offered their suffering in union with Christ. The martyrs whose blood still cries out. All of them have already kept their dies natalis. And they cheer us on from the other side of the veil, because they know the secret: the same Lord who rose on the first day of the week is the One who will raise us on the last.

So, when this Sunday of All Saints comes round, let us hear the double invitation. Live the Lord’s Day every day, the Easter joy that never ends —die a little more to self, rise a little more into the life of grace. Let the Beatitudes shape your ordinary choices. Then, when your own dies natalis arrives, it will not be a strange or fearful day. It will simply be the final Sunday, the Easter that never ends, the definitive birthday into the kingdom where every tear is wiped away and the Lamb is the light forever. May the great cloud of witnesses who already celebrate their heavenly birthday intercede for us, so that one day this feast will be our feast too. Amen.

Love God above all else

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

The Pharisees come to the Lord with a question that sounds pious but is really a test: “Master, which is the greatest commandment of the Law?” This was not a genuine question born out of sincere curiosity. In fact, it is quite likely they know the answer. The truth is that they wanted to catch Him in a debate about priorities—which duty ranks highest, which love comes first. Our Lord answers without hesitation, and His answer holds the whole Law and the Prophets together in two sentences that can never be separated and which every Christian should know by heart: “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second resembles it: You must love your neighbour as yourself.”

Notice the order. Notice the force of that word “resemble” (Greek - omoia, from the root “homo”), or in some translations, “like.” The second is not an optional add-on, nor is it a softer version of the first. It resembles the first, it is like the first—because it draws its very life from the first. Any love for neighbour that is not rooted in love for God is no longer the love Jesus commands. It may look generous, it may feel warm, it may even do a great deal of good on the surface—but it is not Gospel love. But one thing is clear - the two parts of the commandment are inseparable, although they sometime seem to pull us in opposite directions.

There is a real tension here, and we must not pretend otherwise. On the one hand, we can become so absorbed in “loving God” or think that we are doing so, that we grow cold toward the people He places in our path—the stranger, the widow, the orphan, the one who inconveniences us. In fact, our Lord tells us that “if we have done this to the least of the brethren, we have done this to Him.” But there is more. The first reading from Exodus is blunt about the consequence of our indifference: the Lord hears the cry of the oppressed, and His anger flares against those who claim to belong to Him while crushing the vulnerable. You cannot love God and treat your neighbour as disposable. Remember what St John tells us: “Anyone who says they love God but hates their brother or sister is a liar” (1 John 4:20).

On the other hand—and this is the subtler danger in our time—we can become so absorbed in “loving neighbour” that God quietly drops out of the picture. We start to think that being a decent person, a helpful person, a socially conscious person is enough. We reduce the second commandment to a programme of social justice or altruism: do good, be kind, make the world better. And we call it Christian love. Loving others becomes purely our effort and ours alone. That is why love can often feel burdensome when it is not reciprocated. This is the problem we see in so many marriages, including those among Catholics. They view the love that they have for each other is purely a commitment they made during the wedding ceremony, not realising that there is a necessary third party to the marriage, One who cements the indissoluble bond between them - it is God. God’s love completes the marriage and brings it to fulfilment.

The second part of the commandment resembles the first precisely because it is an overflow of the first. When the heart is fixed on God—when we love Him with everything we are—then the neighbour is no longer a project or a cause or a way of feeling virtuous about ourselves. The neighbour becomes someone who belongs to the God we love. We see them with His eyes. We serve them with His heart. The love is no longer our own achievement; it is participation in the love that God Himself is.

That is the difference between Gospel love and the altruistic “love” of the do-gooder. The do-gooder acts from a sense of duty, or sympathy, or ideology, or the quiet satisfaction of being useful. All of that can produce real benefits. But it remains horizontal. It does not rise to God, and therefore it does not finally transform the one who gives or the one who receives. It can even become a subtle form of self-worship: I am the one who helps; I am the solution.

Gospel love is different. It begins on its knees. It begins with the confession that we ourselves are the ones who have been loved first—loved when we were strangers, when we were orphans of grace, when we had nothing to offer. Only from that place of having been claimed by God does our love for others become pure. It is no longer about proving our goodness; it is about allowing the goodness of God to pass through us. St Therese spoke of this love which “drove the members of the Church to action, that if this love were extinguished, the apostles would have proclaimed the Gospel no longer, the martyrs would have shed their blood no more”. Without such love, we would be an empty shell.

Saint Paul, writing to the Thessalonians in today’s second reading, shows us what this love looks like in practice. The believers there had received the Gospel “in spite of the great opposition,” and their joy in the Holy Spirit became a living witness. Their love was not a social programme; it was the fruit of having turned from idols to the living God and of waiting for His Son. Their neighbour-love was rooted in God-love, and therefore it had power.

So the tension remains, and it is healthy. If our love of God does not press us outward toward the neighbour, it is incomplete. If our love of neighbour is not continually drawn back into the love of God, it will eventually wither into activism or sentimentality. The two commandments stand together, the second resembles the first, because only when the heart is given wholly to God can it be given freely to others.

Today, then, let us ask for the grace to hold them in the right order. Let us love the Lord our God with everything we are—heart, soul, mind—and from that love, and never apart from it, let us love the neighbour He places before us. That is the whole Law. That is the Gospel. That is the only love that lasts or in the words of St Therese who found her true vocation in love: “that love is everything, that this same love embraces every time and every place. In one word, that love is everlasting.”

We belong to God

Twenty Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Most people these days seem obsessed with image, that is, how they appear to others and are perceived by the public. Politicians craft carefully curated images. Social media is a gallery of self-portraits, filtered and perfected. We let people see facets of our lives but only those parts which are favourable to us or serve our purpose. Church leaders wish to be perceived as holy and upright. Currency itself bears the face of power. And yet today’s readings confront us with a far more profound question of image and belonging: Whose image do we bear, and to whom do we ultimately belong?

In the first reading, the prophet Isaiah presents us with a startling figure: Cyrus, the pagan emperor of Persia. God addresses him as His “chosen,” literally His “anointed,” His messiah. “It is for the sake of my servant Jacob, of Israel my chosen one, that I have called you by your name, conferring a title though you do not know me.” Cyrus is chosen, not because of his faith, not because he worshipped the God of Israel, in fact, as the prophet noted, Cyrus did not even know the God of Israel. He was chosen purely for the sake of God’s people. He is an instrument in the divine hand, used for a purpose far greater than his own ambitions. He conquers, he opens doors, he restores the exiles—yet he remains largely unaware of the One who grasps his right hand. He seems to be the most powerful figure in the ancient world and yet there is another power far greater than his who is pulling the strings. This is what it means to be chosen by God. We take no credit in us being called and chosen. We did not earn it, we are not deserving of it, we have no achievements to show. And yet, God chooses us, just because He can!

Contrast this with Caesar in the Gospel. The Pharisees and Herodians approach our Lord with flattery and a trap: “Master, we know that you are an honest man and teach the way of God in an honest way, and that you are not afraid of anyone, because a man’s rank means nothing to you. Tell us your opinion, then. Is it permissible to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” Our Lord was not distracted by the seeming flattery and was not naive enough to fall into their trap. Instead, He asks for the coin. “Whose head is this? Whose name?” “Caesar’s,” they reply. Then comes the masterful answer: “Very well, give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar – and to God what belongs to God.” In some translations it is seen as a debt “repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar …”

Caesar’s image is stamped on the coin. His claim is political, economic, and, in the imperial cult, quasi-divine. Where local deities used to adorn the coinage of ancient civilisation, Caesar had the audacity to put his own image on the coin. That’s really making a loud statement - Caesar is claiming to be God. He not only demands tribute as a sign of allegiance but also a state-imposed cult that worships him. Yet our Lord quietly demotes him. Our Lord’s actions are clearly treasonous which is one of the objectives of His enemies, to either set Him up for the high crime of treason or place Him with the pagans as an idolater. The words of our Lord are not meant to be construed as a political reasoning that justifies the separation between the power of the State and that of religion or the Church. Rather it is placing Caesar’s authority under that of God’s, the fount of all power and authority. Caesar may have rights over the things that bear his image, but those rights are limited. There is a higher claim, a more fundamental belonging, and even Caesar and all rulers must be subject to that.

Here’s the irony behind these historical figures. Cyrus is the unwitting instrument who does not know the God who chooses him. Caesar is the pretender who claims what does not ultimately belong to him. One is used by God without knowing Him; the other is reminded that even imperial power is subordinate to the God who alone is Lord.

And here the readings turn toward us. St Paul writes to the Thessalonians: “We always mention you in our prayers and thank God for you all … (because) God loves you and that you have been chosen.” We too are the chosen. Not by accident of birth or political fortune, but by the free and loving election of God. And the deepest reason for that choosing is written into our very being: we are made in the image and likeness of God, as we read in the Book of Genesis. This is the clue to unpacking the teaching of our Lord in the gospel. The coin bears Caesar’s image; therefore it belongs to Caesar. We bear God’s image; therefore we belong to God. Everything we are—our intellect, our freedom, our capacity to love, our very existence—is stamped with the divine likeness. To “give to God what belongs to God” is not merely to offer a portion of our time or resources. It is to surrender the entire self - mind, heart, soul and being.

Being chosen is not a privilege that excuses us from responsibility. It is a vocation that calls us to live differently. The chosen are summoned to a life of gratitude and joy. This life of gratitude and joy is sustained and expressed through the three theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity. This is what St Paul tells us in the second reading.

In our current political climate where so many Malaysians have grown disillusioned and disheartened with our political leaders, with our Caesars, it is good to know that we have these three virtues that will provide us with the correct lens to view our future.

Faith is the recognition that God is God, and there is no other. Faith allows us to see beyond the surface of political power and to trust the hidden hand of Providence that can use even unlikely instruments for His purposes.

Hope keeps us from despair when the world seems dominated by Caesars of every kind. Hope remembers that history is not finally in the hands of the powerful, but in the hands of the God who once grasped the right hand of a pagan king for the sake of His people. Hope looks toward the definitive reign of Christ, when every image that competes with God’s will be revealed as temporary.

And finally, Charity—love—completes the triad. Because we bear God’s image, we are called to love as God loves: freely, generously, without calculation. It is the joyful response of those who know they have first been loved and chosen. Cyrus was chosen without knowing the Chooser. Caesar claimed what was not his. We, by contrast, have been given the grace to know the One who has chosen us. We know whose image we bear. And imitating our Creator, we must love as He does.

Therefore we can give to Caesar what is due—respect for legitimate authority, civic responsibility, the ordinary duties of citizenship—without ever surrendering what belongs exclusively to God: our hearts, our conscience, our ultimate allegiance, our very selves. Never forget that when you were created in your mother’s womb, you received the indelible image of the living God. At baptism, you received the indelible mark of Christ, the One who shows us what God’s image looks like. You are chosen. Live, then, in gratitude. Live in joy. Live by faith, hope, and charity. Give to God what belongs to God—and discover that in so doing, you lose nothing but instead, you receive everything.

Eat and Live

Twenty Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

There is an old proverb that still cuts close to the bone: “Eat to live, not live to eat.” It used to be the signature response of the late Fr Anthony Chan whenever asked the reason for his choice of a bowl of plain porridge when a sumptuous array of delectable food choices was placed before him. In his signature Kwangtung accent, he will readily chirp: “Eat to live, not live to eat.”

Although most Malaysians would scoff at the wisdom of the saying, many would secretly nod in agreement when we hear it. We may not like it, but you don’t need to like something for it to be true. We know the difference between taking food so that the body can keep going and turning every meal into the purpose of existence. Yet how easily we reverse the order. We live for the next satisfaction, the next comfort, the next distraction, as though the banquet of this world were the final destination rather than a provisional provision for the journey.

Today’s readings refuse to let us settle for mere survival. Our vision should not be so myopic. Our goals should be set higher. The first reading in particular open before us a vision of a feast that is not about filling the stomach but about filling the soul with life that death cannot touch. Isaiah paints the scene with almost embarrassing abundance: on this mountain the Lord of hosts will prepare for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines—juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines. He will destroy the veil that covers all peoples, the web woven over all nations; he will destroy death forever. The Lord God will wipe away the tears from every face. This is not a meal to keep us alive for another day. This is the meal that ends death itself. Salvation here is not the clever management of scarcity or the clever avoidance of suffering. It is the definitive overthrow of everything that reduces us to survivors.

The psalmist sings the same truth in quieter tones: “You have prepared a banquet for me in the sight of my foes… In the Lord’s own house shall I dwell for ever and ever.” Just imagine that: even in the dark valley of death, the table is set. The point is not that we never go hungry or never walk through shadow. The psalmist has actually experienced the depths of walking in that valley of the shadow of death. The point he is making is that the Shepherd’s provision is greater than the threat. We do not merely survive the valley; we are led through it to the house where we are meant to dwell forever.

Saint Paul, writing from a place of real deprivation and real abundance, has learned the secret: “I know how to be poor and I know how to be rich too. I have been through my initiation and now I am ready for anything anywhere: full stomach or empty stomach, poverty or plenty. There is nothing I cannot master with the help of the One who gives me strength.” Notice what he does not say. He does not claim that God will always keep the larder full or the bank account healthy. He claims that the One who strengthens him is enough, whether the plate is full or empty. Survival is not the goal. Communion with Christ is. And that communion supplies whatever is truly needed because “my God will fulfil all your needs, in Christ Jesus, as lavishly as only God can.”

Then comes the parable which our Lord tells in the gospel. A king prepares a wedding feast for his son. The original guests treat the invitation as optional, almost trivial. One goes to his farm, another to his business. It is clear where their priorities lie. Survival is far more important than bearing the risk of offending the king. Call it being presumptuous. This is where they make the greatest mistakes of their lives. In wanting survival above all else, they write their own death warrant and script for destruction. The king’s response is severe, yet the feast is not cancelled. The invitation is thrown wide open: go out into the streets and invite everyone you find, bad and good alike. The hall fills. But one man is found without a wedding garment and is cast out into the darkness. How do we make sense of this strange ending?

The answer is found in understanding the very purpose of the telling of this parable. The parable is not primarily about etiquette. It is about the difference between showing up and belonging. Many are invited; few are chosen. The wedding garment is not a fashion statement. It is the disposition of a heart that has accepted the invitation on the King’s terms, not its own. It is the recognition that this feast is not one more social obligation or one more opportunity for self-indulgence. It is the banquet of the Son, the feast of salvation where we “eat to live,” the place where death is destroyed and tears are wiped away.

Here the proverb “eat to live and not live to eat” finds its Christian depth. We are invited to eat so that we may live—not the thin life of biological survival, nor to feed our hedonistic urge for binging, not even the slightly thicker life of moral respectability, but the life that is communion with the Bridegroom. The Eucharist is the weekly rehearsal of that final banquet. Here we put into practice what we profess with mere words: “we eat to live!” The food we receive is not calories for another week of striving. It is the Body of the One who has already conquered death. To approach the altar merely to “get something out of Mass,” or to treat the invitation as one more item on a crowded schedule, is to live to eat. To come hungry for the life that only Christ can give, willing to put on the garment of conversion, is to eat in order to live—and to live forever.

The tragedy of the first guests was not that they were busy. It was that they judged the feast less important than their farms and businesses. The tragedy of the man without the garment was not that he was imperfect, but that he presumed the invitation required nothing of him - it exacted no cost, made no demands, and so “easy come easy go.” Both attitudes reduce the banquet to something manageable, something that fits around our survival strategies. Both of these scenarios serve as warnings to those of us who give excuses when we choose to skip Mass or come spiritually and physically unprepared, just waiting for Mass to end. Some don’t even wait. They are out the door once communion has been received.

So, the question returns to us with quiet force: do we eat to live, or do we live to eat? Do we treat the Lord’s invitation as one more demand on our limited energy, or as the one necessary thing that makes every other effort possible? The table is already set. Not calves and fattened cattle, but the Son of God Himself who has been immolated for our sake on the altar of the cross. Everything is ready. The only question left is whether we will come—and whether we will come clothed in the readiness that the King himself provides. Come to the feast. Not to keep sane or healthy for another day, not doing so grudgingly, but willingly and happily, because you know you are about to receive the life that death cannot touch. Eat, and live.

Take down those walls

Twenty Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Before we take a look at the parable of the vineyard in the first reading and our Lord’s version in gospel, we are going to take a little detour into the literary world. Some of you may be familiar with Oscar Wilde’s parable of the Selfish Giant who had this exceptionally beautiful garden. While the Giant was away visiting a Cornish ogre for seven long years, the local children slipped in and played among the peach trees and the soft green grass. The birds sang, the flowers bloomed, and the children sang with delight. Then the Giant returned and the was incensed by what he saw. He roared in rage and drove these little intruders out. He built a high wall around the garden to secure his property. The garden was his, and his alone.

The children were not the only ones whom the wall kept out. From that moment, Spring forgot the Giant’s garden. The trees refused to blossom. The birds would not sing. Snow, Frost, North Wind and Hail made themselves at home. The Giant sat at his window and wondered why the Spring was so late in coming. He did not understand that it was his own selfishness that had locked the seasons out. Only when he finally tore down the wall, helped a little child into a tree, and opened the garden once more did Spring return—and with it, something far greater.

Wilde’s fairy tale is more than a children’s story. It is a mirror held up to the human heart, and it prepares us perfectly for the parable our Lord tells today.

A landowner plants a vineyard. Unlike the selfish giant, this landowner is generous beyond any measure. He digs a winepress, builds a tower, and leases it to tenants. Notice that it is not the tenants but the landlord who did all the hard work. He does not begrudge them the credit which is obviously due to him and him alone. When the time of harvest comes, he sends his servants to collect the produce. The tenants beat one, kill another, stone a third. He sends more servants. Same treatment. The patience of the landowner is staggering. Finally, he sends his son, thinking, “They will respect my son.” But the tenants, who clearly recognises that this last emissary is the landlord’s own heir and not any ordinary servant, and despite this knowledge, proceed intentionally to commit murder, a crime which no court would exonerate.

What were the crimes of these tenants beyond the final most egregious act of murder? They were not just simply selfishly guarding their property like Wilde’s eponymous giant. They had in fact taken the landlord’s generosity for granted and abused his hospitality and patience: The tenants did not simply refuse to pay the rent. They decided that the vineyard belonged to them. They looked at the fruit and said, “This is mine.” They looked at the son and said, “If we remove him, everything is ours.” Their selfishness was not mere greed; it was a declaration of independence from the one who had planted, protected and provided for the vineyard in the first place. They had committed the first sin of Adam and Eve who envied God and wanted to be like him which is the reason why they believed the lie of the serpent and ate the forbidden fruit. In that tale too, God had planted the Garden of Eden and handed it to our first parents without expecting any payment and they too abuse His hospitality and graciousness by wishing to usurp His power and authority. The greatest act of betrayal.

Isaiah sings the same song centuries earlier. The Lord planted a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He cleared the stones, built a watchtower, hewed out a winepress. He expected grapes—justice and righteousness—but it yielded only wild grapes, sour grapes: bloodshed and the cry of the oppressed. So the hedge is removed, the wall broken down, and the vineyard is trampled. The problem was never the soil or the climate. The problem was the heart that refused to acknowledge the Owner.

We are those tenants. We are that Giant. How easily we build walls around the gifts God has given us—our time, our talents, our relationships, our parish, even our faith—and put up the notice-board: Trespassers will be prosecuted. We treat the vineyard of the world or our little corner of it or our parish or ministry or BEC as private property. We resent the Owner’s claim. We grow envious when others seem to receive more of His attention or favour. And slowly, almost without noticing, we exclude God from the very garden He planted.

The tragedy of the Selfish Giant is not merely that the children were locked out. It is that Spring itself was locked out. The Giant’s selfishness created a permanent winter in the very place that was meant to be a paradise. So too with us. When we exclude God—when we reject others, when we silence the inconvenient word of Scripture, when we push the Son out of the centre of our lives—our hearts grow cold. The fruit of the Spirit withers. Justice becomes injustice. Love becomes self-interest. Peace becomes anxiety.

And yet the parable does not end in pure destruction. Our Lord says the vineyard will be given to other tenants who will produce its fruit. There is always the possibility of a new beginning. The wall can still come down. Ironically, it is the stone that is rejected which will become the corner stone, the foundation of a new beginning for us. If we are ready to welcome Christ into our hearts, like how the selfish Giant welcomed the little child into his garden, we will see the garden of our hearts bloom once again and the cold winter of sin, selfishness, ambition and envy will be cast out. St Paul, writing to the Philippians, shows us the way out of that winter. Prayer opens the gate. Gratitude dismantles the wall. Focusing on what is true and good invites the Spring back in.

The Christian imagery in Oscar Wilde’s parable is not just subtle. It becomes obvious at the pivotal point of the story. The little child whom the Giant lifted into the tree bore the marks of nails in his hands and feet. Seeing these wounds, the Giant flies into a rage threatening to destroy whoever did this to a little child. But what were these wounds? Or rather whose were they. “These are the wounds of Love,” the child said. It becomes clear to the Christian, this child is Christ. And it is He who invites the Giant into His own garden—Paradise – at the end of the story. That too, we pray, will be the ending of our story. If we recognise the One who was wounded for our sake and open the gardens of our hearts to Him, we will have a share of rich treasures of the Heavenly Garden which He has prepared for us for eternity.

Brothers and sisters, the wall does not have to stay up. The notice-board, with the warning “Do Not Trespass!,” can be taken down. The garden can bloom again. All it takes is the decision to stop being the Selfish Giant— and to let the Owner back in. Our possessions, our talents, our families, and all the opportunities we have received ultimately do not belong to us. They belong to the Divine Landlord, the Divine Gardener, who lovingly and gratuitously shares them with us. Let us render to Him what belongs to Him and we will witness a hundredfold harvest of blessings in our lives.

How you choose to finish

Twenty Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Many of you will probably know the comic book character Hellboy. Now, if ever there was a walking contradiction, it would be him. He's a demon, but one of the good guys. According to the story, he was summoned by the Nazis during the final days of the Second World War in the hope that he would help them conquer the world. But things did not go according to plan. The ritual was interrupted, the infant demon was rescued, and he was adopted by Professor Trevor Bruttenholm, who raised him as his own son. The story strongly hints that Hellboy was brought up within the Catholic faith. The Christian symbolism throughout the story is difficult to miss.

Near the climax of the film, Hellboy stands at a crossroads. He is tempted to embrace his dark origins and fulfil the destiny for which he was supposedly created. At that critical moment, someone throws him the rosary that belonged to his adoptive father. As he catches it, the crucifix burns into his hand. The image is powerful. It is a reminder of who he is, whom he belongs to, and what he has chosen to become. The symbolism is unmistakably Christian - sacramentally Catholic. The Cross marks him. The Cross saves him. The Cross enables him to reject evil and choose the good. The one who was sent to destroy the world ends up saving it.

Now that may sound absurd. But that is precisely what redemption is all about. The central question raised in the movie is this: What makes a man a man? Is it his origins? Is it his past? Is it the circumstances of his birth? The answer comes only at the end of the story: "It’s the choices he makes; not how he starts things but how he decides to end."

That is also the lesson of today's Gospel. Repentance is the key to redemption. In the parable, the first son is shockingly disrespectful. When his father asks him to work in the vineyard, he bluntly replies, "I will not go." Sounds familiar. Many of you may recall your own bouts of youthful rebelliousness. To Our Lord's audience, it would have been scandalous. A son simply did not speak to his father that way. Yet something extraordinary happens. The son changes his mind. He thinks better of it. He goes. That change is what repentance looks like.

In the New Testament there are different words associated with repentance. One is metanoia, a conversion of heart and mind, a turning away from sin and toward God. Another word, reflected in this parable, describes deep remorse, a painful recognition that one has been wrong. It is not merely feeling sorry. It is a change so profound that it alters the direction of one’s life. True repentance produces action. The son does not merely regret his refusal. He goes to the vineyard.

Both the first son and the character of Hellboy illustrate a profoundly Christian truth: no one is beyond redemption. No one. And therefore, no one can be ultimately written off before their story ends. The Gospel, which literally means the good news, is not a story about people who never failed. It is a story about sinners who allowed God's grace to change them. I’m most fond of this saying and often repeat it: “Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future.”

Many people carry heavy baggage. Regrets. Failures. Broken relationships. Poor choices. Embarrassing chapters they would rather forget. The world often tells us that we are prisoners of our past. The Gospel tells us otherwise. We are not trapped by our beginnings. We are not defined by our worst mistakes. We don’t have to live in the shadow of our parents or teachers, no matter how flawed they have proven to be. God's mercy can rewrite the ending.

Let us not forget that parable is not only about the first son. There is also the second son. When his father asks him to work in the vineyard, he gives all the right answers. He sounds obedient. He sounds respectful. He sounds willing. But the truth is that he never goes. This son represents the danger of empty promises.

The contrast is striking. The first son says "No" but eventually does the Father's will. The second son says "Yes" but never follows through. And that should make us uncomfortable. How many young people stood before the bishop at Confirmation and said "Yes" to Christ, yet no longer practise the faith? How many parents promised at their child's baptism to raise them in the faith, yet never brought them back to church? How many couples vowed lifelong fidelity before God and His Church, only to abandon those promises when difficulties arose? Good intentions are not enough. Fine words are not enough. It’s not how you start things but you decide to end.

The parable therefore offers both hope and warning. Hope for sinners. Warning for the self-righteous. Those burdened by sin should never despair. As long as there is repentance, there is hope. But those who consider themselves upright should never become complacent. A good beginning is no guarantee of a good ending. Heaven is not guaranteed. That is the sin of presumption. That is precisely the message of the prophet Ezekiel in today's First Reading. The sinner who turns away from sin will live. The righteous person who abandons righteousness places himself in danger.

So, the Church cautions us and teaches us to avoid both despair and presumption, both being sins against the virtue of hope. Instead, she invites us to persevere. If you don’t get it right at the start, don’t despair, give up and walk away. The ending can turn out differently if we accept the opportunity granted by God to repent.

And finally, there is a Third Son hidden within the story. Unlike the two sons in the parable, this Son always says "Yes" to the Father and always does the Father's will. This Son is Jesus Christ. He is the eternal Son who never rebelled. He is the obedient Son who said “Yes” to the Father and entered our history through the Incarnation, took upon Himself our burdens. He did not merely speak about obedience. He lived it. He did not merely promise salvation. He accomplished it through His Cross. He said "Yes" to the Father in Gethsemane. He said "Yes" to the Father on Calvary. He said "Yes" all the way to the empty tomb. Through His death and resurrection, He has made all things new. And because of Him, our failures do not have the final word.

We fail. We fall. We stumble. We sin. Yet never forget that our Heavenly Father never ceases to call us back. Whenever we repent, whenever we turn once more toward Him, He gives us another chance. Repentance moves us beyond good intentions. Repentance liberates us from the tyranny of our past. Repentance opens us to the transforming power of God's grace. With God, even the most broken story can have a beautiful ending. For in the end, what matters most is not how we started. It is how, by the grace of God, we choose to finish.