The Pinnacle of All Sacrifices

 Second Sunday of Lent Year B

The theme of sacrifice lies at the very heart of salvation history. One could, of course, summarise salvation history as the greatest love story ever told. But there can be no true love without sacrifice. There can be no true sacrifice if we cannot part with what we most love in life. From the start of this amazing story, we see God sacrificing His absolute sovereignty by granting to man the divine spark - his free will - the ability to reject God’s will and offer of love. Man lost everything (or almost everything) that had been given to him because he refused to sacrifice the one thing which God had given to him - his will in humble obedience. He had the freedom to submit to God and the freedom to disobey Him, and man chose the latter.

In a primordial age of innocence, when the taking of life whether by humans or animals (who were both vegans) was prohibited, God sacrificed the life of an animal to clothe both Adam and Eve. One could say that in this act, we do not just see a concern for the modesty of the first couple, but a sacrifice, albeit imperfect one, to redress the loss of innocence and immortality due to man’s sin. In this act, we can hear the distant rumblings of the perfect storm that will come when God sacrifices His only begotten Son to redress man’s sin. Subsequently, the tragedy of life taking, not as sacrifice, but done out of selfishness and envy continues in the killing of Abel by Cain. The sacrifice of Cain was rejected by God whereas Abel’s gift was accepted because Cain was unable to sacrifice his best to God whereas Abel could.

In the first reading, we see Abraham being told to sacrifice his first born son which was a gift from God. Isaac was Abraham’s last hope of ensuring that his legacy would not be forgotten. There is absolutely nothing more precious to Abraham than his son. Indeed, to give up his son would be to give up himself. And yet, this is what God had required of him and Abraham, though heartbroken, had willingly offered to sacrifice his son. But at the very last moment, God provides a substitute for his child. Isaac’s life is spared and the ram takes his place.

This is the true nature of a sacrifice to God. God deserves everything because He has given us everything. So ancient peoples instinctively knew that authentic sacrifice could never be just a casual nod to God. The sacrifice owed to the Creator had to be big and precious enough to represent our entire lives. And it is here that we find the true meaning of sacrifice. It is not what we can offer to God that can constitute the perfect sacrifice pleasing to Him because whatever we possess is already God’s gift to us. The truth is that we can offer nothing to God of ourselves that would be “big” enough. But the pinnacle of all sacrifices is what God had offered to us. He offered to us His only begotten Son.

That is why St Paul writes in the second reading, “Since God did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up to benefit us all, we may be certain, after such a gift, that He will not refuse anything He can give.”

The compelling image of Isaac carrying the wood of the sacrifice up the slope of Mt. Moriah in the first reading should tip us off that this story points beyond itself to a future sacrifice beyond all comprehension. The ram caught in the thicket is not the true substitute, and the true sacrifice does not take place upon Moriah. It is the Lamb, not the ram, God’s Son, not Abraham’s son, who will be the ultimate offering. Like Isaac, Jesus carried the wood of the sacrifice up the slope of Mt. Calvary. But unlike Isaac, Jesus did so freely, knowing what that sacrifice would cost Him. And His sacrifice accomplishes what no animal sacrifice possibly could – the eternal salvation of all willing to accept this free gift of love.

Actually, this is what the whole story is about. From Genesis to Revelation, the theme is the astonishing love of God. The love of the Father for His Incarnate Word: “This is my Son, my Beloved” (Mark 9:7). The love of the Father who sacrifices that beloved Son for us (John 3:16). The love of the Son who leaves behind the glory of heaven and the brilliant cloud of Mt. Tabor for the agony of Calvary. Though it is we who owe everything to God, it is He who sacrifices everything for us. Our love for Him can only be a faint echo of His generous and unstoppable love for us.

This, therefore, is the true meaning of Lenten sacrifice. We renew and deepen our dedication to Him, and express that by sacrificing something meaningful to us. We should give Him not just our spare change, our left overs, our discarded possessions or our half-hearted commitments. He deserves so much more for what He has given us. He deserves our all. We can give Him our all by heeding the Father’s call in today’s gospel. Notice that God did not just demand from us something so trivial as giving up chocolates or Netflix or our favourite computer game. But, after identifying Jesus as His beloved Son, He did give us a very clear command. He said “listen to Him!” This is where Adam and Eve failed. They failed to listen to God’s command, to not eat of the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They listened, instead, to their own pride and to the serpent’s lies, and the rest is history.

It is so simple and yet perhaps one of the most difficult things to do: to listen to Him, to the One who is the Beloved Son of God. And this is what we must do. This is what we hear at every Mass because the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the bloody sacrifice on the cross at Calvary transfigured.

Pope Francis in one of his Wednesday audience catechesis speaks of the sacrifice of the Mass in this fashion: “This is the Mass: entering into this passion, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus; when we go to Mass it is as if we were to go to Calvary, the same. But think: if we at the moment of Mass go to Calvary – let us think, using our imagination – we know that the man there is Jesus. But, do we permit ourselves to chatter, to take photographs, to treat it a little like a show? No! Because there is Jesus! We would certainly stay in silence, in tears and in the joy of being saved. When we enter in Church to celebrate Mass, let us think this: I enter Calvary, where Jesus gave His life for me. And in this way the spectacle disappears, the chatter disappears, the comments and these things which distance us from that beautiful thing that is the Mass, the triumph of Jesus.” At every Mass, we witness the greatest sacrifice of all - Jesus sacrifices His life on the cross and we hear the words of the Father at the transfiguration once again: “This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to Him.”

Season of death and rebirth

First Sunday of Lent Year B

Climate change proponents are painting a scenario that is not too different from the Deluge that destroyed (or almost destroyed) the world and all its inhabitants during the time of Noah. Global warming, according to the “science,” will result in accelerated melting of polar caps and which in turn would lead to coastal towns (where half the world’s population lives) and islands in the middle of the oceans being swallowed up by sea water in another decade. Remember the apocalyptic movie 2012. Now, I know that what I am going to say next may result in me being labelled as a looney climate change denier that ought to be locked up for the good of humanity, but I’m going to say it anyway. Didn’t God just promise Noah in the first reading that “the waters shall never again be a flood to destroy all things of flesh”? Now, if you refuse to take God at His word, would that make you a bible denier?

Well, on this First Sunday of Lent, I do not intend to lead you down a rabbit hole of deciding whether to believe in scientific truths or biblical truths. We have far greater concerns. We would need to reconcile the first and second reading which speaks of the flood waters encountered by Noah with the bone-dry wilderness described in the gospel, the scene of our Lord’s temptation. What more, Saint Mark’s version of the temptation story lacks the depth and content of the other two versions found in the gospels of Saint Matthew and Saint Luke. What the other two accounts spell out in 11-13 verses is succinctly summarised in two verses in today’s gospel. “The Spirit drove Jesus out into the wilderness and he remained there for forty days, and was tempted by Satan. He was with the wild beasts, and the angels looked after him.”

There doesn’t seem to be any correlation between these two themes - flood and desert - except for the period of the ordeal which both Noah and our Lord had to endure - forty days (and forty nights). Who could forget that Israel had to endure forty years in the wilderness after her escape from Egypt and before she was allowed to enter the Promised Land. But the Old Testament is punctuated with numerous stories which mention 40 days including the following:

1.     It rained 40 days and nights before the water covered the earth during Noah’s time;

2.     Moses was on the mountain with God for 40 days and nights;

3.     The scouts of Israel explored the Promised Land for 40 days;

4.     Goliath challenged the Israelites to a fight each day for 40 days;

5.     The meal delivered by an angel sustained Elijah for 40 days in the desert;

6.     Ezekiel bears the punishment of Israel for 40 days;

7.     God postpones the destruction of Nineveh by 40 days, giving the city time to repent.

Each of the above certainly marks a new era in salvation history. It is the bridge between an old way of life which is passing, and a new one which is dawning. So, forty is a number of punishment and repentance, testing and resting, and, above all else, absolute dependence on God. Whenever God wants to do something significant, He does it in 40 days (or years). Forty is associated with almost each new development in the history of God’s mighty acts, especially of salvation.

The biblical symbolism of 40 has an intriguing analogy in the natural world. Forty weeks is the traditional number of weeks for a pregnancy. I know that if you do the math - 9 times 30 divided by 7 is 38.57142 weeks. But putting aside medical science and precision of mathematical calculations, pregnancy is indeed an apt model for the biblical periods above. It begins with the intensity of the moment of conception, is followed by a time marked by both pain and joyful anticipation, and then, only after this period of postponement, is there the birth of someone new. It is most fitting then that the new era of salvation began with a pregnancy: Mary’s The Church also uses the image of pregnancy and the birth of a baby to describe the first sacrament, the doorway to salvation - baptism. Interestingly and incidentally, the 40-day Genesis flood also prefigures baptism.

And then, we have the 40 days of Lent. The connexions among faithful endurance, spiritual renewal, and baptism in particular are driven home for us each Lent, at the end of which we are called to renew our baptismal vows. In this way, we participate in Christ’s own desert experience, which ended with His own baptism.

This season of Lent beckons us to embark on our own 40-day exodus. It’s not going to get easier as temptations often appear sweeter when it is denied. But as much as the tempter seems to have his way with us, as he did with our Lord, know that the One who truly has power over us and can guide us is the Holy Spirit. For as the Holy Spirit led our Lord into the wilderness for forty days, it is the same spirit who will lead us into the Spirit-filled wilderness of Lent. As you can see, scripture equips us with many models for this spiritual sojourn. Whether it’s to weather our own floods, patiently wait for God’s answer to our prayers, survive the desert of our human experience, slay our own Goliaths, undergo repentance and transformation, Lent is the time for spiritual action and passion—knowing ultimately that it is the Holy Spirit who leads us and our Lord who journeys with us, who acts within us, and suffers for us and with us. Don’t just take my word for it. Trust the “science,” the theological science of the Bible.

Penance and Redemption

 Ash Wednesday

Everything about today’s liturgy screams of “penance,” from the ashes which you would be imposing on each other, to the readings which speak of the penitential practices of fasting, almsgiving and prayer. The entire liturgy is so penitential that the Church omits the penitential rite at the beginning of today’s Mass. I guess to a non-Catholic observer, our Catholic “obsession” with penance seems morbidly strange. Why would anyone relish the thought of denying yourself something pleasurable and make a celebration of it?   

Penance comes from a Latin word, ‘paenitentia’ which derives from a Latin noun, meaning repentance, and ultimately derives from the Greek noun ποινή (poine). The original Greek word seems more austere than the Latin and English. It’s practically “blood money” – the price you pay as compensation for taking the life of another. For the uninitiated, mortification and penances in the Catholic context do not involve any form of blood-letting. Thank God for that. You do not have to cut your wrist or mutilate yourself or even pay an exorbitant price as compensation for the harm that you have done to another. But someone had to pay the price and someone did. Someone was mutilated for our crime. Someone had to exchange His life for ours, He took the punishment which was our due, He died so that we might live. You know who it is – it’s Jesus Christ. Because of what the Lord did for us, the word “penance” now takes on a broader meaning – it now involves “recompense, reward, redemption, or release.”

Penances have varied extraordinarily over time.  In the early Church, a ‘penitent’ would have to go through several years of public penance before absolution, and it was usual for this to be a once in a life-time event.   Gradually, by way of Irish monastic practices and the invention of the confessional box, this evolved into the modern way of celebrating the sacrament where absolution is given (usually) before the penance is performed, and where penances have been reduced to the perfunctory ‘say one Our Father and one Hail Mary.’

But today, Holy Mother Church in her wisdom demands very little in the ministry of the sacrament of penance:   contrition, confession, and satisfaction – we are to be sorry for our sins, truly to confess them, and to make satisfaction for them.  It is in the third element, making satisfaction, that the whole notion of penance is seen in a concrete way.   

So, what is penance about?  I think that we are called to one way of penance and tempted to do another.  There is a dangerous tendency, like the Greeks, to see penance as the paying off of sin by suffering in the face of an angry God.  But this is contrary to our Christian faith.  God is not so petulant that He would sulk like a little child until we succeed in appeasing Him with our penances.  Another dangerous view of penances is to imagine that penance is an outmoded concept, that we are not expected to make any effort to put things right, since our Lord Jesus has already done it all for us.  But both these views of penance are both inaccurate and dangerous. They reduce penances to performative acts – either playing to the crowd or to God.

Today’s readings recover the correct view of penances. Penances are the means by which we right our relations both individually and collectively with God, our neighbour and ourselves.  It is seen as the antidote or cure to the three-fold wreck of sin. This three-fold movement is a theme that is revisited again and again in the scripture.  We see a disintegration of man’s personal integrity, his relationship with others and with God, at the Fall. This same movement appears again in our Lord’s three-fold temptation – to worship Satan instead of God, to seek approval instead of basing one’s relationship on truth, to prefer material comfort to one’s spiritual good. In our Lord’s public ministry, the temptations come again and again – He hungers and thirsts, though He is able to make food out of nothing; the people wish to make Him King, and He evades them; the demons proclaim Him as the Holy One of God, and He silences them. This three-fold patterning continues in the Passion: in the agony in the Garden, in the trial before His accusers, in the three-fold denial of Saint Peter, in falling three times according to tradition, and from the cross He rejects the sedation of the wine (material comfort), the physical comfort of passers-by and finally, even experiences the desolation of being forsaken by God.

What does this mean for us?  It means that the temptations that assail us on a daily basis are also the means by which God uses to strengthen us. Therefore, the penitential practices which we undertake are not to appease a God who has distanced Himself from our trials and sufferings. We can never accuse God of this because of what our Lord Jesus had to endure. Rather, our penitential practices are meant to unite us with our Lord who redeemed our pains and sufferings through His own. Fasting, Almsgiving and prayer are the three means by which we conform ourselves to this three-fold patterning – By fasting we reject bodily comfort, by almsgiving we turn away from temporal power and the need to please the crowds, and by prayer we acknowledge the primacy of God.  But in order to do this we should first earnestly seek the assistance of the sacrament of penance, confession, lest our spiritual exercise be subverted by pride. Penitential acts, when done without true humility and repentance, will ultimately become performative. And when our acts become performative, God is not honoured, only man.

The goal of Christian penitence is not to pay the ransom, our Lord has already done that. The purpose of our penitence is to participate in the joy of the redeemed, as returning prodigal sons and daughters to receive the cloak and ring and banquet from the One by Whose stripes we have been healed. Through our penances, done with humility and love, we regain what we have lost, we receive healing for what is wounded, we restore what has been damaged by sin. As we begin this Holy Season of Penance, let us be assured of the abundant graces of mercy which our Lord has poured out and continues to pour on us from the cross.

He stretched and touched us

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

These are strange times. I would occasionally venture out of the church compound to do my grocery shopping and would notice this frequent phenomenon - people actively moving away from me as I passed. I see people wearing masks and wiping off surfaces that other people may have touched. Apart from certain stores, everything else is closed. No one wants to be closer than one metre from anyone else. I try to keep it at two metres just to be on the safe side. You can even be fined or arrested for getting too close to another.

COVID-19 has spread throughout the entire world, and everyone is viewing those around them as a potential carrier and therefore a potential threat. Even my close friends don’t want me in their house (though to be fair, I don’t really want them in mine either). We are living in a moment in history where we are all viewed as a great danger to one another. This is, of course, all necessary and understandable during this pandemic. However, it is still a strange time of being isolated and feeling, in a way, unwanted by those around me.

Sanitary practises and social distancing may seem to be part of the new normal but they are as old as the Bible. We see in the first reading, biblical prescriptions set out to prevent an infectious disease from spreading in the community. To avoid contact and contamination, the leper, the person infected with this virulent skin disease, is to observe a strict regime of social distancing. He is to be quarantined and kept apart from the community, and he is to be dressed in a manner easily identifiable and to shout out warnings to others to ensure that the social distancing measures are not violated.

But we see something entirely different in the gospel. Our Lord bridges the gap and closes the distance. He, in fact, breaks with the SOP on social distancing in His encounter with the leper. Our Lord did not just speak to the leper and draw close to him, but he did the most outrageous thing - our Lord “stretched out his hand and touched him.” Some of you may immediately declare - “how gross!” Upon reading this, my hands automatically reached out for the nearest hand sanitiser as if the touch of Jesus would also render my flesh contaminated too.

But this story is not just about infectious diseases and the public health precautious we must observe. It is a story about humanity, sin and salvation. An infectious disease is the most apt analogy for sin. Consider this - we are that leper, covered not with the sores of that horrible disease, but covered in the shame of our sins. Our sins have rendered us untouchable. Our sins have kept us separated from God, the community and others. Sin is equally infectious. It is interesting how sin begets sin. Unless one’s spiritual immunity is high, many of us could easily succumb to the pandemic of sin that is so prevalent in our culture and society.

But contemplating the story of how Christ approached, spoke to, touched and healed the leper, has made me all the more grateful for what He has done to me. Regardless of how gross our past or present is, the lesson from the leper tells us that our Lord still wants to reach out and touch us. Christ did not shy away from us in our guilt and shame. Instead, He willingly stepped into the pandemic of our sin and the havoc that it has brought on this world. And it was a dangerous thing to do. It led Him to the cross. But He loves us that much to risk the terminal effects of sin, for He knew that the only way He would find a cure to sin was to consume it and transform it within His body, like how venom is transformed into anti-venom and immunity is produced from the mutation of the original virus.

As much as this pandemic has wreaked havoc in our world in a way that has not been seen in more than a century, the coronavirus is a small problem in comparison to the problem of sin. Governments have taken such drastic measures to quell the spread of COVID-19, but seem unconcerned with the pandemic of sin. We’ve had this coronavirus pandemic for more than a year and sometimes, it feels like eternity. But we’ve had sin plague us since the beginning of human history. COVID-19 may take the lives of some and threaten the livelihood of others, but sin can deprive us of something far more important – eternal life. Yes, we’ve battled sin, many have succumbed to it, but we live in hope and not in defeat because we have already found the cure - it is Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. Christ has entered into this sinful world, He has come near to us, and He offers redemption.

And though at times, we may feel too ashamed of our condition to approach the Lord or go and see a priest for confession for fear that we would be harshly judged, the example of the leper teaches us how when one approaches the Lord in humility and faith, not as someone entitled, but as someone recognising that grace is always a gift given to the undeserving, telling Him, “if you want to, you can cure me”, we can be certain that Our Lord would never turn us away or refuse that request. This is what He will say to us every time we turn to Him in sincere repentance, “Of course I want to! Be cured!”

Is there more?

 Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

The words of Job in the first reading, spoken after he had lost everything - his children, his home, his wealth and his friends - and as he sits on a dung heap ruminating in self-pity, can resonate with so many of us as we are similarly weighed down by the drudgery of our daily routine. A bitter irony of modern life is just when computers and robots should give people more time for creativity and relaxation, the opposite is often the case for many, a continued life of drudgery.

To paraphrase Job’s rhetorical question, “is there more to life than this?” What is the purpose of life? If drudgery stems from finding no purpose in our work, in our relationships or even in our existence, finding purpose in life would be its antidote. This is the reason why people experience listlessness and boredom in life. When they no longer see a purpose for what they are doing - whether it is in the form of better remuneration, or reciprocated love, or positive appraisal from others, or greater power and influence - they lose interest.

Today, both St Paul and our Lord in the gospel we’ve just read, spell out the purpose for our Christian life - it is to preach the gospel and work for the salvation of souls. And unlike other kinds of work, the work of evangelisation, as St Paul reminds us “is a duty which has been laid on” us; “it is a responsibility which has been put into (our) hands.”

In the gospel reading, we find our Lord being pressed by His own disciples to resume the work of performing miracles, healing the sick and delivering the possessed from demonic affliction. It is a tiring job, to say the least. But this is not the reason why our Lord refuses to accede to His disciples’ request and meet people’s expectations. He is ultimately guided by a higher purpose: “Let us go elsewhere, to the neighbouring country towns, so that I can preach there too, because that is why I came.”

Our Lord could have been tempted to continue His works of healing and attending to the needs of the crowd, but this would only be an excuse to become more popular. Staying to meet the needs of the people would only be an excuse for meeting His own need for recognition and love. But He understood that His mission laid elsewhere, even though this may prove to be unpopular with His disciples and the crowds.

As Christians, how do we stay motivated? Our Lord provides us with three essential coordinates to stay focused on our goal and remain steadfast in our resolve.

The first coordinate is that the will of God must always be our starting point and our point of reference. All other things are constantly in flux - health, relationships, work, emotions - but only one thing remains constant - it is God. As St Teresa of Avila wisely puts it: “all things passes, only God remains.” Since God is the eternal constant, the anchor and safe harbour we possess in this tumultuous sea of life, He must be the measure of everything we do and say.

In this light, we must remember that it is never enough to do good, even if it is good done to and for others. The starting point cannot just be the needs of the other; the starting point cannot just be our assessment of what is convenient or expedient; the starting point cannot just be based on the opinions of the masses, even if it may be that of the majority. Ultimately, we must always choose to do what God wants of us. This criterion points to God’s mission and vocation for us. Sometimes, doing what God wants of us can be unpopular and may even go against our personal likes and interests.

The second coordinate is that of prayer. Note that our Lord went off into the hills to pray. How can we possibly know the will of God unless we are also persons rooted in prayer? Prayer is the life-giving link between God and His people. Prayer provides us with a moral compass and direction in life. Prayer ensures that we are not lost in the mess of activism nor allow ourselves to be distracted and tempted by the competing voices of the world and self. Prayer helps us to purify our motives and intentions so that we may not deceive ourselves into believing that we are acting in the interests of others, whereas it is our own interests which are being advanced.

The last point is that all our activities must ultimately be orientated to work for the salvation of souls. Today, very little is often said about salvation, what more salvation of souls. Too often, the Christian message has been reduced to some ‘feel good’ gospel which provides a mixture of pop psychology and spirituality for our earthly lives. And during a pandemic, safety seems to have replaced salvation. But, if one were to recall the answer to the second question contained in the old Penny Catechism, one will be reminded that salvation is man’s ultimate purpose – we are created by God “to know Him, love Him and serve Him and be with Him in Paradise forever.”

The last canon of the Code of Canon Law, canon 1752 has often been erroneously cited as the ‘pastoral canon’, a perfect excuse to dispense with every rule, restriction, prohibition and responsibility laid out in the Code. Any simple reading of canon 1752 will tell you that this canon has no intention of doing this. If one were to study this canon, one may be surprised to see that the word ‘pastoral’ or ‘pastoral reasons’ does not appear at all. Fr Dominic is fond of saying that when we priests cite this canon or “pastoral reasons” to break the law, the real motive is not “pastoral reasons,” but “Pastor’s reasons.” This is what the canon actually says: that “the salvation of souls, which must always be the supreme law in the Church, is to be kept before one’s eyes.’ St. Paul in today’s second reading affirms this truth by telling his readers that he deliberately chose to be “all things to all men” so that “some may be saved.”

It is not enough to choose to help people who are in need. We may just be providing temporary relief. It is not enough that we are able to provide some human solution to poverty, because we will always have the poor in a society which remains indifferent to injustice. Ultimately, the objective of salvation must come to play in every important decision that we make. Salvation must be the ultimate criteria for us offering to help those in need, the sick, the poor, the despondent and the lost. No form of human altruism can be an adequate substitute for salvation.

Very often we are tempted to forget this important mission of ours – to preach the gospel of salvation and give glory to God in all matters. We are more concerned with what others think of us – we want to be crowd-pleasers. We are more concerned with what makes us happy – even if that happiness is only temporary – whether it is in the form of riches, popularity, power or convenience. If our life purpose is based on these factors rather than on the will of God, we will soon find ourselves disillusioned and tired. Only by living and doing things according to God’s will can we truly escape from drudgery.