The loving hand which prunes

Fifth Sunday of Easter Year B

It all began with my roaming eye catching sight of an affordable start-up kit for a mini garden which I saw on the shelf of the supermarket. I know that I should have walked away but as Fr Bonaventure rightly diagnoses my condition, I’m a sucker for cheap but low-quality stuff. Well, he redeemed himself in my eyes by helping me to set up the DIY 3D puzzle which served as a mini nursery for the seeds which came with the kit. From the photograph on the packaging, I was expecting a colourful leafy plant to emerge from what looked like melon seeds (the Chinese call them kuachi). After a few days of measured watering, green sprouts began to emerge from the compost. 

You can’t imagine the exhilaration I felt at seeing the first few saplings and I even began to name the first few ones which I saw - Frankie, Suzie etc. Days dragged into weeks, the saplings grew more numerous and in length and height, but they looked nothing like what was advertised. They continued to remain like stalks of supple grass. There came a time when I finally concluded, with much frustration and embarrassment, that I had been conned. No colourful leafy plant would emerge from this failed experiment of a garden. Weeds more like it. The day came when I decided that the solution lay beyond pruning. It was time for a “final solution” - time to cull. And that was the end of my little biology or horticultural experiment.

Today’s gospel passage, which resonates with this little truth of gardening, provides us with an important lesson for discipleship. For the branches to bear fruit, being attached to the vine is not the only essential prerequisite, but pruning is just as essential as well.

Any vine or bush left to itself will become straggly and tangled. Without pruning, it will eventually end up barren. A gardener understands that you need to prune in order to help the plant to realise its full potential. Through pruning, growth that is dead or dying is removed, the size and quality of the fruit is improved, and new fruit is encouraged to develop.

Our Lord tells us that His Father is the one who does the “pruning” so that we will bear more fruit. Our Lord then adds that His disciples are already “clean” because of the Word He has spoken to them. What’s the connexion between the two? What isn’t readily apparent is that the Greek word for “prune” is the same word that is translated as “clean.” The English word “catharsis” which is derived from this Greek word is used to refer to this process of pruning. Imagine the implication of this association - to prune something is to release its greatest potential.

This has important implications for us. Communion with our Lord and with each other, a communion that bears fruit, comes at a price. We must allow ourselves to be “pruned,” for us to be cleansed of our sins, for our intentions to be purified, for us to be liberated from our selfishness, arrogance and self-centered ways. We have to be spiritually detoxified. Only then can we reach our full potential. Only then can we experience real catharsis!

Unless we allow ourselves to be pruned, we may end up being barren or stagnant when it comes to growth. Our Lord describes four different levels of fruitfulness in this teaching: 1) “no fruit”, (2) “fruit”, (3) “more fruit”, and (4) “much fruit.” The Father wants more fruit from us, so much that He actively tends to our lives so we will keep growing - from barren to a productive branch. We were created to bear fruit, more fruit and much fruit! And the only way we can be more fruitful is that we must readily allow ourselves to be pruned.

Most of us have had some experience of pruning. Sorrow, disappointment, failure, a sense of weakness or some passing experience of life, a correction from a friend or from the priest, may have left us shocked and hurt, feeling cast off and rejected. Yet, here we are encouraged to remind ourselves that this is the work of a loving Father who does it so that we may "bear more fruit." St Paul as he transitioned from the zealous Christian hating Jew and Pharisee to the gospel preaching missionary, had to undergo such necessary pruning. We see glimpses of this in the first reading. Facing suspicion from other Christians, opposition and hostility from a non-friendly audience and even enduring a period of cold storage was all part of the process of pruning to prepare him for a far greater mission to the Gentiles, that would lead him through episodes of being shipwrecked, imprisoned, beaten and finally being executed. He was ready to bear all these trials because of the pruning he had to endure in the early years of his new Christian life.

So don’t complain about the difficulties and challenges which God allows to happen in your lives. God’s pruning, like the loving discipline of a parent, may be painful but it is never destructive. “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son he accepts” (Heb 12:6). Sometimes ‘less is more’ and through the removing of certain things in our lives or hearts, we make room for more, we make room for God. Nothing of true value is lost; in the long run, the pruning makes our lives richer. It releases our full potential - to become what we were meant to be from the very start. You may notice signs of that fruitfulness: It may have made you humbler or gentler, more patient and tolerant, more aware of your need of other people and of God. With such divine pruning, God is removing what is not essential in our lives in order for us to focus on what is essential. If God is doing the pruning, we do not have to be afraid of the painful process. We can trust that what He is doing will bear fruit, in His good time, and “bear fruit in plenty.”

He lays down His Life

Fourth Sunday of Easter Year B
Good Shepherd Sunday

What do priests talk about when we meet up with each other? Well, here’s a little secret. We talk about our sheep or to be more precise, we often end up complaining about them. I guess that when the sheep get into their own discussion circles, the performance of priests make good fodder for discussion and gossip. In paintings of Jesus the Good Shepherd, He is often depicted, cuddling cute adorable lambs. But the reality is that many members of our flocks are hardly adorable or cute, and certainly not someone you would enjoy cuddling. Perhaps, we may even be tempted at times to strangle them, especially the more incorrigible and annoying ones. Occasionally, some of us confess that there were times we doubted whether we had chosen the right profession, that we should have gotten out if we had the chance to do so.

This Sunday in our liturgical calendar, is a much needed wake up call for us priests, shepherds of souls, as well as an assurance that there is a Shepherd who would not suffer the same weaknesses as us. Here is a Shepherd who is willing to “lay down His life” for His sheep, even though His sheep sets out to murder Him. His selfless generosity exposes our depraved selfishness.

Here are some qualities of the good shepherd that stands out in today’s gospel. I’m not sure if you see your priests fitting the bill. If he doesn’t, do offer up a prayer for him. If that doesn’t work, you can always petition the bishop!

The relationship between the shepherd and his sheep is not just the result of a job; it is deeper than that. If it was a mere job, then one would be constantly seeking benefits from fulfilling one’s responsibilities. And if the benefits do not commensurate with the responsibility, we would immediately see it as a burden.

The shepherd is also a leader. With much talk about the importance of accompaniment, of walking together with others as equals, we often lose sight of the necessity for good leadership. The good shepherd leads his sheep; he does not just accompany them on whatever path they feel inspired to follow. Not only does he lead them, but he leads them “to pasture,” that is to good food. He ensures that his sheep are fed well with the complete revelation of Jesus Christ through Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition rather than survive on watered down mush passed off as truth. He ensures that they are fed with sanctifying grace through faithful celebration of the sacraments, rather than only when it is convenient and expedient to do so.

But the most distinctive quality of the Good Shepherd is that He is willing and actually does lay down His life for His sheep. If the gospel was turned into a song, this would be the resounding theme and refrain: “I lay down my life for my sheep.” Which shepherd would sacrifice and risk his own life for a single sheep? He would rather sacrifice and lose a sheep to a wolf than to lose his own life or the entire herd. But here is the greatest quality of the Good Shepherd. He is one who is willing to suffer, out of love, for those entrusted to His care. He is one who chooses the life of the sheep over His own life. At the heart of this teaching is sacrifice. The Good Shepherd is sacrificial. And being sacrificial is the truest and most accurate definition of love.

It is only through our Lord’s sacrificial death on the cross for our sins and His glorious resurrection to life eternal, that we are able to enter into the presence of God the Most High. In a relativistic world, where it is argued, that one religion is just as good as another, we Christians make this audacious but true claim - Jesus alone is Saviour. Jesus alone is the gate, the entrance point, to eternal life with God. St Peter declares this truth in the first reading taken from the Acts of the Apostles: “For of all the names in the world given to men, this is the only one by which we can be saved” (Acts 4:12). This is the reason why our Lord laid down His life for us, not just for those now counted among the fold that knows Him but also those others who have been entrusted to Him, who still do not know Him.

But His sacrifice also gives us an example of what we must do as His followers called to imitate His life. Laying down our lives shows that the nature of love is a total self-gift. Laying down your life cannot be done halfway. Either your life is laid down or not. This reveals that love, for it to be love in the truest sense, is a total commitment of 100% of your life. Love if not sacrificial is counterfeit. Laying down your life clearly shows that love requires a sort of death to self. You have to be stripped down so that all that remains is Christ who shines through you and works through you, you are a mere vessel in His service. It requires that we look to the other first, putting their needs before ours. This requires true sacrifice and selflessness.

In this year’s Chrism Mass of our Archdiocese, our shepherd Archbishop Julian Leow delivered a most stirring homily. He asked this question that seems to be on everyone’s mind as we witness the decline of vocations to the priesthood and religious life: “Are we in a crisis?” He then follows his rhetoric question with an answer: “We are not, but all signs show that we are heading in that direction if we sit back and do nothing. If there is a crisis now, it is a crisis of commitment and generosity to selflessness that is seen in all states of life.”

Yes, we are suffering from a crisis that goes beyond the plunging number of vocations. It is the crisis of a lack of generosity and commitment to selflessness. Whether it be in marriage or in a religious or priestly life, the crisis is a crisis of generosity and commitment. We demand a great deal from others but make little effort to make sacrifices, if at all. In any crisis, we can either choose to be selfish or to be selfless. To flee from danger out of self-preservation or to lay down one’s life for others out of love. That is the choice we must make! Too few are willing to “lay down” their lives for others. We are afraid to give because we are afraid to lose.

But the bottom line is that giving of ourselves until it hurts turns any small or large sacrifice we give into a blessing for others and a glorious reward for us. The truth of the matter is that by giving out of love, we have so much more to gain. Too often people have remarked in my presence that we priests have made such a great sacrifice by accepting this sacred vocation. How often was I tempted to reply, not out of some false humility but rather gratitude, that I have become so much the richer as a priest than before - spiritually richer that is! And how I am edified and inspired too by the sacrifices made by married couples to each other and parents to their children. Living a sacrificial life is fulfilling on many levels and is ultimately what we are made for. So, do not hesitate to commit yourself to this depth of love. By giving yourself completely away, you find yourself and discover Eternal Life in the presence of our Divine Lord, the Good Shepherd, who “lays down his life for his sheep.”

Illuminated by the Faith of Easter

Third Sunday of Easter Year B

Most people are familiar with the post resurrection story of how our Lord appears to the two disciples who are making their way home to the village of Emmaus. Unbeknownst to them, it is the One whom they believe had abandoned them by getting Himself killed who walks along with them; it is the Living Word who now explains the meaning of the written Word to them; it is the One who is the Way, the Truth and the Life who confronts their ignorance and despondency by showing them the Way, revealing to them the Truth that will ultimately lead to Eternal Life.

The two would have taken hours to reach their destination and when they had arrived, it was already dark. The Lord having broken bread with them - a clear allusion to the Eucharist - the scales from the eyes of these two disciples fall away and they finally recognise the One who had walked along with them and spoken to them as none other as the Lord, the One who died and is now Risen. Without waiting for dawn, they speedily returned to Jerusalem where they had come from. Imagine that … walking in the dark of night, without fear of brigands or risking a treacherous path in the dark. That was because their path was now illuminated by the new faith of Easter burning within their hearts, showing them the Way home.

This is where we find ourselves in today’s gospel. The two disciples were back with the community of disciples from whom they had abandoned, excited to share news of their amazing encounter with the Risen Lord. But our Lord’s sudden appearance would take the surprise out of their story telling. The disciples would not only have to rely on the second-hand account of these two but get a direct experience of the Risen Lord in the flesh.

And the first words of our Lord are simply these: “Peace be with you!” These words may sound consoling. But they were actually meant as a trigger, to shake the disciples out of their cocoon of despair, fear and anxiety. Our Lord was confronting their current experience. And what was their experience at that moment? It was a volatile cocktail of emotions and experiences. The days surrounding Jesus’ resurrection were anxious times for His followers. For them, His life had ended on that first Good Friday. They were afraid that because of association with Him their lives would soon end too. Further, they were dealing with the anxiety that comes with crushed dreams and uncertainty about the future. They were afraid – for their lives and their future. They were anxious – they had no idea what to expect next. Their stomachs were in knots, their hope was gone, and their blood pressure was up. Amid it all, our Lord challenges them with this common but seemingly inappropriate greeting: “peace be with you”.

This is where we find a common underlying theme which unites all three readings. Our Lord’s greeting and gift of peace is by no way just a means of “keeping the peace,” that is maintaining good relationships with His disciples at the expense of the truth. Any relationship, to be authentic and deep, has to be based on the truth rather than a lie. Falsehood, error, and sin must be confronted and resisted. The problem is that most of us often believe that it is un-Christian to confront our brother or sister when they are in error. Confrontation is often viewed as a negative action that seeks to embarrass or humiliate the other person. But this is where we get it entirely wrong.

In the first reading taken from the Acts of the Apostles, St Peter lays down a list of accusations against the Jews whom he refers to using their ancient name, “Israelites.” They are guilty of handing over, disowning, falsely accusing and killing the very One who was chosen and glorified by the “God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our ancestors.” And it is no excuse nor defence for them to plead that they were ignorant of their actions. Peter lays the blame entirely on them, even though he argues that it was just as scripture had foretold. And the only remedy is this: they “must repent and turn to God, so that (their) sins may be wiped out.” Without such confrontation, St Peter understood, his fellow Jews would remain and perhaps die in their guilt.

Likewise, in the second reading, St John explained why he had confronted his audience - it is to stop them from sinning. But confrontation would not be enough if it is not accompanied by the support offered to help them amend their ways. And so, John tells them that we have an Advocate in Jesus Christ whose sacrifice had taken away our sins. John also reminds his audience that there must be integrity with our profession of faith and the manner in which we live our lives which must be in conformity to God’s commandments. Anyone who claims that they have a relationship with God but continues sinning is living a lie. Ultimately, only the truth can set us free.

Again and again, we find ourselves in the position of facing an evil — sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle — and not quite knowing what to do about it. Of all the works of mercy, probably the most thankless and despised is admonishing the sinner, and yet it is the most needed. Nobody wants to do it, and nobody wants it done to them. But admonishing the sinner, however, is not an act of Pharisaic pride, but of true charity. If we truly love someone and wish the best for the person, we must be ready to correct their mistake and error, even at the detriment of ruining our relationship with the person. True peace can only come by fully embracing the truth about ourselves, and our relationship with God and with others. Living a life of sin would be a clear contradiction of our claims that we are Christians.

Yes, admittedly it is unpopular and difficult to admonish the sinner, to confront delusional thinking, or to correct the error. But remember - Christ did it, and it got Him nailed to a cross. For admonition means looking somebody in the eye, and speaking truth in love to him rather than tiptoe around the subject and pretend that everything is hunky dory. It means addressing a fellow human being as a person, rather than an object of derision or gossip. It means speaking about things that are awkward and uncomfortable. And in our post-truth world, it means having some unalterable values and convictions even if we risk losing friends, family, job, and reputation. Ultimately, to confront the sinner is to call him to cast off the mask of sin and to become who he really is, a child of God in the image of Christ. Admonishing the sinner is to bring light into his life, so that his path may be illuminated by the new faith of Easter burning within his heart, showing him the Way home.

Mercy and Peace

Second Sunday of Easter Year B
Divine Mercy Sunday

NATO has become a household acronym that almost everyone in Malaysia knows and understands. I’m not talking about the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation but the stinging indictment against so many, especially targeted at leaders: “no action, talk only.” It’s the Malaysian equivalent of the English expression “Be all talk (but no action).” The acronym NATO, however, sounds much catchier than BAT. When it comes to mercy, our theme for today, words alone do not make one a Christian. If we wish to talk about mercy, it cannot just remain at the level of words and good wishes. It must be translated into action. We must back our words with action.

We can be certain that there is One who has not and will never fall under this description of NATO! According to St. Paul, this is the One who, "emptied himself, taking the form of a slave … obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross" (Phil 2:8). Our Lord Jesus Christ did not merely speak about love and humility. He did not merely show us mercy as He pitied us and sympathised with our plight. He was not all talk but no action. No! Our Lord, the Divine Mercy, speaks works of mercy to us. But He does not only speak. He acts. This Word became flesh - He became man. He did not merely do His Father's will. He perfected it. His WORD took ACTION - He let us nail Him to a Cross, so that He might take upon Himself the guilt of our own sins. He has the scars to show for it, even after His resurrection.

As His blood dripped down the sides of the tree from which He hung, He thought of us in our sinfulness. And from His side, flowed water and blood as the visible sign of His mercy, a mercy that would take concrete shape and form in the sacraments of the Church, especially in the form of Baptism and the Eucharist. In the Upper Room, behind the closed doors of fear and regret, He did not speak words of condemnation to His disciples who had betrayed Him, denied Him and abandoned Him, but instead, words of forgiveness “Peace be with you!” Our Lord, the Divine Mercy walked the talk and lived His words of mercy.

Divine mercy is the reason why humans can face up to their sin and accept full responsibility. Precisely because God is merciful, we can entrust ourselves wholly to Him, faults and all. We can accept whatever discipline He deems just and we can own our mistakes with the hope of redemption. Today, however, divine mercy often occasions a kind of quest to discover all the excuses humans have for not living the moral standard and to elaborate human inculpability. Divine mercy now seems to be about how humans can’t be blamed.

Today, we do live in an age where mercy is demanded but little appreciated. It is a false sort of mercy that demands nothing from the one who feels entitled to it. In other words, today many perceive mercy as a blanket approval for all manner of action, behaviour and lifestyle. Mercy is treated like a whitewash, covering up all sin and not actually changing the situation of our lives. An understanding of mercy, which allows a person to become at peace with sin, is far from the mercy shown by Jesus, because His true concern is for our true happiness.

How is His mercy connected to the peace which He offers in today’s gospel? True mercy releases us from sin and allows us to live in friendship with God. That is how mercy leads us to be at peace with God. Such peace can only be experienced when we surrender to God’s justice, turn to Him in repentance and be reconciled with Him in spirit and in truth. This is the reason why the words of the Risen Lord as we have heard in today’s gospel connect both peace and forgiveness. There can be no authentic peace if we have not been truly forgiven of our sins.

Mercy does not make sin acceptable. No, mercy seeks to free us from sin through forgiveness. It opens up a space for us to become a better version of ourselves. A false consolation that allows someone to continue in his sin whilst ignoring the guilt of his actions is not mercy at all if the person is not freed from the sinful situation. St Pope John Paul II once wrote “According to Catholic doctrine, no mercy, neither divine nor human, entails consent to the evil or tolerance of the evil. Mercy is always connected with the moment that leads from evil to good. Where there is mercy, evil surrenders. When the evil persists, there is no mercy.” Unfortunately, many today reject God’s forgiveness because they live in denial and refuse to accept the blame or acknowledge their own faults.

Divine Mercy is God’s offer to us to come close to Him. It is a real offer which invites us to a conversion of life, a definite break with sin, and a peace, of knowing and living in communion with God. This relationship is not mere lip service but a reality. God is never NATO! What God has promised, He does. When one meets the Lord’s mercy, our lives change. Our acceptance of mercy involves us trusting our lives to Jesus and our willingness to obey Him. When we pray for true mercy, we ask the Lord to forgive us our sins and weaknesses and to give us the grace to live in communion with Him in sincerity and truth.

Jesus! We trust in You!

We leave no one behind

Easter Sunday

“We leave no one behind!” Does this expression sound familiar? It should – you’ve heard it before from the lips of the stereotypical mud encrusted, battle worn, biceps bulging, tobacco chewing sergeant or commandant, who rallies his troops to make one last almost suicidal ditch to rescue captured fellow comrades or to recover the bodies of fallen heroes. The words seem almost magical and powerful in being able to pierce, invigorate and inspire even the most faint-hearted and exhausted of troops and fill them with a new fighting spirit.

On Easter Sunday, the Sunday of all Sundays, we celebrate not just the power of rhetoric, we celebrate a reality, a truth – it is this, starting with Jesus Christ, God affirms that He leaves no one behind! God has not abandoned His only begotten Son to death. In fact, Christ is actually on a secret mission of the Father. He accomplishes the mission of God, a mission once considered vastly more difficult than the worst Mission Impossible assignment you can imagine. That mission is to vanquish the old enemy of humanity – sin, and its most powerful minion, its prison warden, death – and rescue man from its clutches. And the only way to do it, was to be thrown into the same prison.

The empty tomb is God’s smoking gun – it is the definitive sign of Jesus breaking free from the prison of Hades, Death, He tramples down the gates and the walls that have kept generations incarcerated, and He has triumphantly set us free! The significance of Easter is that Jesus is announcing not just to Christians, but to the whole world, and not just to this generation but to all generations – “We leave no one behind!”

We affirm this truth whenever we recite that ancient baptismal creed, the Apostles Creed, “He descended into hell.” The word ‘hell’ here of course did not refer to the state of final damnation but was rather a reference to the realm of the dead (the Greeks called it “Hades” and the Jews “Sheol”) or what has been traditionally called “the limbo of the fathers”. The Limbo of the Fathers is where the righteous awaited the resurrection of Jesus, after which they could enter Heaven. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "By the expression 'He descended into Hell', the Apostles' Creed confesses that Jesus did really die and through his death for us conquered death and the devil 'who has the power of death' (Hebrews 2:14). In his human soul united to his divine person, the dead Christ went down to the realm of the dead. He opened Heaven's gates for the just who had gone before him."

This descent should not be seen as just the natural result of His human death. It is more. Christ willingly died for a purpose; and his descent to the dead is part of that purpose. Christ goes to Hades on a mission. He goes, tradition has it, to the Limbo of the Fathers, where the souls of the just slept in death, waiting for the gates of heaven to be re-opened on the day of salvation. In other words, Christ goes to the realm of the dead to announce to them that their salvation has come and that heaven has been opened to them at last and leads them forth. Christ’s mission is one of liberation, from the jaws of death; and the dead heard the good news before the living. In early Christian iconography, Jesus is depicted as storming Hell, the gates of this prison lies trampled beneath His feet, and He begins the salvation or the freeing of all its inmates beginning with Adam and Eve. But Adam does not merely represent himself. He stands for all humanity. In Christ no one is overlooked or left behind.

An ancient homily for Holy Saturday, whose author is unknown, celebrates this in vivid terms. While on earth there is silence, under the earth (as it were) Christ is emptying Hades with solemnity. The new Adam goes to rescue the first Adam, his father in the flesh, with the command, “awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead”. Adam and his progeny can now rise from the dead because Christ’s human death transforms death for all the children of Adam. For just as what happened in Adam (sin) happened for us all, so too what happened in Christ’s human flesh happened for us all: “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). Or as the ancient homilist has Christ put it, “Rise, let us go hence; for you in me and I in you, together we are one undivided person”. Death had, as it were, led humanity into a walled-off, dead-end street; Christ now breaks through that barrier so that death might now launch humankind onto the highway to heaven. For it was for heaven, not for Hades, that God through Christ made us: “I have not made you to be held a prisoner in the underworld”. In Christ no one is overlooked or left behind. Alleluia! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!

This is the Night!

Easter Vigil of the Holy Night

The events of Easter takes place in the darkness of the night, hidden even from the eyes of those who were the most intimate friends of our Lord. But the reality and magnitude of the resurrection would only be felt at dawn, at the breaking of the first rays of sunlight to illuminate the new day. St Mark situates the scene of the discovery of the empty tomb by the women at this very moment: “And very early in the morning on the first day of the week they went to the tomb, just as the sun was rising.”

But our liturgy tonight does not wait for Dawn to arrive. It is too important, too urgent. Even in the darkness that surrounds this very church tonight, the light is breaking through in the candles we held as a visible sign of our faith in the Risen Lord, symbolised by the Paschal Candle, whose flames “dispels wickedness, washes faults away, restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to mourners, drives out hatred, fosters concord, and brings down the mighty.” For this reason, as the Exsultet exclaims, the entire earth which is still enveloped in the night of sin now rejoices because it is “ablaze with light from her eternal King, let all corners of the earth be glad, knowing an end to gloom and darkness.”

There is no need to cower in the darkness and wait for the night to pass with the first rays of the rising sun. This is no ordinary night. One iconic phrase recurs five times in the Exsultet: “This is the night.” In English, the difference between “night” and “light” is a single letter. The paradox rings even in the ear. This night, unlike any other, is pure light. It recalls Psalm 139:12, which considers the impossibility of hiding from God in the dark: “even darkness is not dark to you, the night shall be as bright as day, and darkness the same as the light” When Christians stare into the darkness of this night, we see light. In fact, as the Easter Proclamation declares, this “night shall be as bright as day, dazzling is the night for me, and full of gladness.” Why do we rejoice as we have never rejoiced before?

At the heart of our celebration is this simple truth that remains hidden from the eyes who have not been enlightened by light of faith: “This is the night, when Christ broke the prison-bars of death and rose victorious from the underworld”. Yes, on this night, when Christians stare at death, we see life! When our Lord gave up His spirit on the cross and died, and His lifeless body was taken down and placed in a tomb with its entrance rolled over by a heavy stone, everything was cut off from the light. In that place of darkness and decay, where order was once again plunged into chaos just like the moment before God began His work of creation, God now begins His greatest work of rescue and redemption which far supersedes His first work. If light was the first gift of God to the world, a victory over darkness of chaos; now God plunges His Son, the Light of the World, into the very heart of the darkness of this night to free us from the bondage of sin and death.

Yes, it is a truly blessed night, when heaven and earth has reconciled their long time enmity, and God has chosen to restore His image back in man. This is the long awaited night of rebirth, the night of re-creation. The Lamb once slain and laid in the tomb of waste has risen in glory. The incorruptible has conquered the corruptible, for death could not hold Him captive. Alleluia, great light is rising from the grave. The dark night of sin has been dispelled, Alleluia!

All too often we run from our darkness, we fear it, we are ashamed of it or simply live in denial of it. But today, the light of the Paschal Mystery shines brightly into the darkest abyss of our heart and soul. The Paschal Mystery, the Mystery which Good Friday and Easter reveals, demands that we learn to recognise that hidden within that darkness, in every mistake, every human error, every shortcoming, every failure and even in the greatest of falls is the seed of the resurrection – where every sin can be transformed by a single moment of grace. Indeed, rather than cast aside His fallen creation, God reaches into the failure and tragedy of human sinfulness to redeem us. This is why the Easter Proclamation declares that the sin of Adam which separated us from the life of grace and God, could be described as a “Happy Fault” because it had “earned so great, so glorious a redeemer!” If Adam had not fallen, Christ would not have risen, “and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Cor 15:14).

This is the reason for this night. Christ is risen today. We have every reason to rejoice. This message is coming at a time in history when we are living in the darkness of chaos, confusion and a future fraught with uncertainty. The message of this night is that though darkness has enjoyed the upper hand for long time but Our Light has arisen. The fasting of Lent is over! The Feasting of New Life has begun. The silence of this night has been broken by our victory song: Alleluia! Let us not hesitate to sing it. It will burst the tomb of our problems and restore our hope. Let our world rise again in its glory! Let our families rise again in splendour! Let everything in us rise, for Christ our Paschal Lamb has truly risen. Alleluia! He has risen! Indeed, He is risen! Alleluia!

Glory and Victory

Good Friday

The passion account from the four gospels provide us with four separate and distinct viewpoints of Jesus' suffering, betrayal, trial, and Crucifixion. Although the passion gospel for Palm Sunday follows the three years lectionary cycle, the passion gospel for Good Friday is always taken from St John’s Gospel, year in year out. The liturgy seems to express the Carthusian motto in choosing to stick with this one text as an immovable axis despite the revolving lectionary cycles: “Stat crux dum volvitur orbis” - “the Cross is steady while the world turns.”

Why would John’s version be chosen as the Passion for Good Friday? What do we encounter in John’s account of our Lord’s death? All the great themes of St John’s Gospel are featured here: love as sacrifice, glory as life laid down, the majesty of the suffering Christ whose crucifixion is exaltation and whose cross is a royal throne. The key to understanding John’s Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ is found in this theme: “glory”! “Glory” is St John’s most distinctive word. “We have seen His glory, full of grace and truth” John says at the beginning, in the epic prologue of his gospel; a word picked up frequently as the gospel unfolds. The paradox of this theme is that the glory of Jesus is ultimately revealed in His suffering and death on the cross. It is at the precise moment of His passion that Christ appears most kingly, most glorious! His kingship is acclaimed even in His passion. In fact, it is most apparent.

Unlike the other gospels where Simon the Cyrene helps our Lord carry His cross, here our Lord carries the cross Himself. He has no need of our help or any help. He’s quite capable of carrying the entire burden of the world and its weight of sin. Unlike Luke’s gospel where the women of Jerusalem weep out of pity for Him, here our Lady and three other women (including the Beloved Disciple) stand beneath the shadow of the cross, almost composed and in awe as they have profound confidence in our Lord’s authority even at the hour of His death. Our Lord has no need of our pity or sympathy. Unlike Matthew and Mark’s account, there is no loud exclamation of abandonment (“My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me!”). Instead, our Lord continues to issue commands from the cross as a King would and should: “Woman, this is your son” … “this is your mother.” Till the very end, our Lord is in charge.

Therefore, the Passion of St John, chronologically speaking, is not first a defeat then a victory (as might be said regarding the other gospels or in the Liturgy) but the Passion, in itself, is a victory right from the very start. At one and the same time, the Passion seems an apparent defeat and the greatest victory. This is why in the Byzantine Rite (be it Catholic or Orthodox) the “Alleluia” – a song of praise and joy – is sung when the Lord dies, because what occurred on the Cross and His holy death are seen already as a victory over evil – something not experienced in the same way in our Roman Liturgy. Our Eastern brethren can’t wait for Easter to do this!

In St Luke’s Gospel, our Lord dies as the obedient servant with a goodnight prayer on His lips: ‘into thy hands I commend my spirit’. But in John, the last word from the cross is a single word in Greek: tetelestai, or in our translation: “It is accomplished!” That word is the clue to the entire Passion and indeed to the Fourth Gospel. What does this mean?

This last word of our Lord is not the last utterance of a dying man, fading away into nothing, as if it stands for resigned acceptance of an inevitable, tragic destiny with the overtones of defeat: ‘it’s all over’? No! This is no cry of defeat but a stirring victory song. The meaning of this word is captured by the line in Bach’s musical rendition of St John’s Passion: “the hero of Judah wins with triumph and ends the fight.” His message is that while death is indeed ‘the last enemy’, this death marks the beginning of the great reversal through which life is given back to the world: not defeat but victory. If this is how the passion story ends, then Golgotha must be understood not only as a place of pain but of transfiguration.

John’s invitation is to contemplate with him what Jesus realises on the Cross. Since Adam’s Fall, we have been separated from God. The Tree of Life was no longer available to us, and all must now suffer death. The Incarnation is only one step in the journey that God makes to draw Himself closer to us. The first step. But it is on the cross that our Lord completed that work of reconciliation. It is in this context that we can understand His final words: “it is accomplished.” It is at the moment of His holy death that our Lord completes His grand work of restoring what was lost to us, but now in a more resplendent and glorious form. He gives His own divine life to us on the cross. The Cross, the tree of death, is paradoxically, the Tree of Life, our guarantee of entrance into Paradise! This is why this Friday is known as Good Friday. In fact, calling it Good Friday is an understatement. In other non-English speaking countries, today is actually called the Great Friday.

Although our world is often plunged into darkness with every crisis that we encounter, a loved one whom we have lost, a friendship or relationship that is severed, a plan that experiences setback, an endeavour which ends in failure, or a physical pain or terminal ailment that is unbearable, we can still find strength, hope and joy in knowing that our lives continue to be illuminated by the brilliant transforming power of the Cross. If we entrust to the crucified Lord our sufferings, He transforms them. The Cross, in sum, is a true transformer, that takes all our darkness, bitterness, sin, death and gives us back light, sweetness, grace and Life.

We have this beautiful assurance and reminder from Pope Benedict XVI: “A world without the Cross would be a world without hope, a world in which torture and brutality would go unchecked, the weak would be exploited and greed would have the final word. Man’s inhumanity to man would be manifested in ever more horrific ways, and there would be no end to the vicious cycle of violence. Only the Cross puts an end to it. While no earthly power can save us from the consequences of our sins, and no earthly power can defeat injustice at its source, nevertheless the saving intervention of our loving God has transformed the reality of sin and death into its opposite.” (Pope Benedict XVI, Nicosia, Cyprus, 5 June 2010)

Have a Good Friday! Nay, have a Great Friday!!!!

He Humbled Himself

Maundy Thursday

Footwashing has becoming a fad among Christians and Catholics, especially during retreats and camps where participants are encouraged to wash each other’s feet. It’s a dirty job because our feet are that part of our bodies which are most prone to getting soiled and smelly. But the aversion to this is not just on the part of the doer but also the receiver. Most of us are too embarrassed to expose our dirty smelly feet to others. The messaging of this action, however, is clear. This ritual is meant to express our willingness to emulate the Lord’s humility and heart for service. But I can’t help but think that it has become a tool of virtue signalling, declaring to the world “see how humble I am!”, the exact opposite of what the action is meant to signify.

And most recently, it has also been used as a means of propaganda in promoting a certain ideology - woke ideology, to be precise. In a recent advertisement played to millions of Americans who watched live the National Football League playoffs, it was a means of conveying a vanilla message of non-judgmentalism and universal acceptance of traditionally problematic moral issues under the guise of Jesus “gets us.” In a highly selective montage which included scenes depicting members of the LGBT community and abortion clinics, those who paid for this multi-million dollar advertisement would have wanted to showcase and proclaim the gospel of nice and tolerance while conveniently leaving out the essential call to repentance. The message was not so subtle for us to read between the lines: Jesus “gets us” translates as Jesus accepts us for who we are and despite what we’ve done. In other words, Jesus embraces both the sinner and the sin, and makes no demands of us to repent and change.

The action of our Lord in washing the feet of His disciples certainly demonstrates humble service but it is so much more than that. It points to two significant events of His life which form the basis of His work of salvation - the Incarnation on the one hand; and His passion and death on the other. When our Lord began to lovingly wash the disciples’ feet, His actions symbolised how He became a slave for us with His Incarnation. It also reminds us of the humiliating death He was about to undergo for our redemption. Why would He do this? He did this for our sake and for our salvation - He did this to save us from our sins and not leave us in our depraved condition. For if He had just tolerated our sinfulness, there would be absolutely no reason why the Word would become flesh and for Him to choose to die on the cross. He did it to redeem us from our sins, to liberate us from our sins, to save us from our sins.

Yes, we are to imitate our Lord in living out lives of love, service, forgiveness, and humility, as we reach out to help and sacrifice for one another. But more than that, we are to live with the certain hope that He has washed away our sins with His blood. We can no longer live our old lives trapped and wallowing in the murky muddy waters of sin. He has come to give us new life, to make us a new creation. He did not come just to wash our feet as an example of humble service, and then leave the filth of sin within us untouched. For that would be virtue signalling. No, He came to wash away our sins, to defeat sin not just by pouring clean water over it but by shedding His own blood on the cross.

Our Lord truly “gets us.” He truly understands our condition and our plight. He knows and He understands that left to our own devices, we are lost; left to us wallowing in our sinful lifestyle, we are heading in the direction of our own destruction; that a life without Him means that we are ultimately lost. Our Lord “gets us” by seeking the lost, healing the wounded, pardoning the sinner. If He has done this for us, so must we imitate Him in reaching out to others to offer them the forgiveness and salvation which is our Lord’s greatest gift to us.

Yes, the action of washing feet is indeed a profound expression of humility but in order that it remains a sign of humble service, instead of virtue signalling, we must never forget that this action is tied to both the Incarnation and the Paschal Mystery. This is how Pope Benedict XVI seeks to remind us:

"The greater you are, the more you humble yourself, so you will find favour in the sight of the Lord. For great is the might of the Lord" (3: 18-20) says the passage in Sirach; and in the Gospel, after the Parable of the Wedding Feast, Jesus concludes: "Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted" (Lk 14: 11). Today, this perspective mentioned in the Scriptures appears especially provocative to the culture and sensitivity of contemporary man. The humble person is perceived as someone who gives up, someone defeated, someone who has nothing to say to the world. Instead, this is the principal way, and not only because humility is a great human virtue but because, in the first place, it represents God's own way of acting. It was the way chosen by Christ, the Mediator of the New Covenant, who "being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross" (Phil 2:8).

Here, at this Mass of the Lord’s Supper, where our Lord instituted the Eucharist - the Sacrament of Love - we will witness again what our Lord did two millennia ago. He, who is Lord and Master, King of Kings, took off His Cloak of Royal Splendour and became a Servant. He washed the feet of those whom He had chosen to continue His Redemptive work. He gives Himself to us as food for the journey and went on to die on the cross. He showed us what we were chosen to do. On that night, our Lord enlisted His disciples and tonight, He enlists all of us to live lives of self-emptying Love for the world. To bear the name "Christian" is to walk humbly in this love in the midst of a broken and wounded world that is waiting to be reborn.

A Week of Decisions

Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord

Before the advent of sophisticated computer games, in a much simpler world, ordinary objects like sticks and stones, house furniture and flowers could be transformed into the most ingenious objects of play and entertainment. One simple single player game served as a kind of divination as to whether someone who is the object of our affection is willing to return the affection. As you pluck the petals of the flower, you alternately speak the following phrases with each petal representing one or the other proposition: “she loves me” or “she loves me not.”

If you had paid attention to today’s reading, you would be wondering how the crowds’ love-hate relationship with the Lord will eventually play out - will they love Him or love Him not? Today’s liturgy, especially the first gospel before our procession and the passion reading we’ve just heard, seems to give us an impression of the crowds that is bipolar. When it comes to Jesus - you will either love Him to bits or hate Him to the core. Sometimes, both at the same time and by the same folks.

The crowd described in the gospel at the start of the procession and the one that gathers before Pilate during our Lord’s trial could very well have been made up of the same cohort. The same jubilant fan club that welcomed the Lord as a homecoming hero at the start of the story adds their blood thirsty voices to the lynching mob at the end. There is no way of avoiding the discomfort that comes with the whiplash of hearing shouts of “hosanna” one minute and “crucify him” the next. This day, like the week it begins, is all about the extremes.

What could have transformed an excited jubilant welcoming committee into a bloodthirsty lynch mob? They had expected a Messianic king who will lead them in rebellion against the Roman Empire but instead Jesus proved to be a major disappointment since He refused to rally His supporters in open rebellion. For that they had turned Him over to the very authorities whom they despised. If our Lord was not willing to kill the oppressors, He will be left to die in their hands.

How the Roman authorities got involved would also require a bit of explanation. The Roman prefect of Judea, Pontius Pilate, would travel to Jerusalem from his palace on the coast at Caesarea. He was there for a specific reason. It was the feast of Passover, one of the three major pilgrimage festivals which meant that Jerusalem’s population would have swelled from its usual 50,000 to many times its normal size. He came to be where the action is and to make sure the Jews didn’t start making any trouble. Passover was significant because it commemorates the Jews’ deliverance from Egypt. The Passover Seder commemorates the bitterness of slavery under an oppressive regime and a sweet taste of freedom from a reign of terror – and you can see why that made the Romans nervous. That’s why Pontius Pilate had to come to Jerusalem in all of his imperial majesty, to remind the Jewish pilgrims that Rome was in charge.

In a city rife with trouble and rebellion, our Lord was caught in the crosshairs. He refused to bend to the crowds who demanded that He be a king of their design. Neither would He admit to Pontius Pilate that it was all a mistake. For this, He willingly accepted the second parade. This time there will not be admirers and supporters lining the path to wave Him on with expectant jubilation but a cruel angry mob mocking His passage and ushering Him to His humiliating death. Though the first parade seems to befit a king and the second a criminal, it was actually the second parade which highlights our Lord’s true glory and majesty. Here is a King who will not just inspire His subjects to die for Him. Here is a King who would willingly die for His people, even those who had rejected Him.

Just as you can’t have the resurrection on Easter without the cross on Good Friday, you can’t fully experience the Passion narrative without the rest of Holy Week. We need the story of the Palm Sunday parade that welcomed a King. But we also need to hear the parade to the place of execution, the way of the cross undertaken by a man condemned to suffer on our behalf. This is the king we are called to follow—humble, riding on a donkey, calling those who would follow Him to embrace the way of sacrifice, suffering, and servanthood. His call is not to a throne, but to a cross. Jesus isn’t waiting around for us to ask Him into our lives—He’s calling us to be in His life, to walk His way, to join His march to the cross.

When we arrive at the cross, will we be like the crowds who would readily shout “we love you” when things are going our way but immediately turn our backs on Him when He fails to meet our expectations and declare with disdain: “we love you not”?

This is a week of decisions. This is a week of extremes: of highs and lows; of joys and sorrows, love and hate but it only works if we are willing to accept it all. You need to walk in the way of our Lord's suffering and live in the tension of His judgment, so that you can properly share the joy of His resurrection.

Deep within them I will plant my Law

Fifth Sunday of Lent Year B

In the traditional calendar, today would be the first Sunday of Passiontide, a more intense period of preparation for Holy Week. It is no wonder that we would be treated to a preview of an essential theme of the holiest week of the year. On Maundy Thursday, on the night when our Lord Jesus gathered with His disciples in the upper room to celebrate the inaugural Eucharist, He declared that through His blood, shed for His disciples, there would come into existence a “New” covenant. What is this “New” covenant which He is speaking of? If this is a “New” covenant, how about the “Old”? We can find the answer in the first reading.

The prophet Jeremiah speaks of the time when God will make a “new covenant with the House of Israel (and the House of Judah)”, a covenant that would be unlike the covenants of old which had been broken due to Israel’s disobedience.

What was wrong with the old covenant that necessitated a new one? Well, the old covenant was fundamentally good - an unprecedented blessing for the people of Israel. It assured them of God’s commitment to them. It gave them an identity - they were God’s Chosen People! It provided them with laws to govern their behaviour. It promised them spiritual and material and even military blessings if they obeyed that law and remained true to the covenant. God even instituted the office of high priest so that the people would have someone to offer sacrifices on their behalf and represent them in the presence of God. But it was flawed in three ways.

First, although there was a high priest who would regularly offer an animal sacrifice for their sins, such sacrifices could never fully and finally secure their forgiveness. “For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Heb 10:4).

Second, the law of the Old Covenant that came through Moses was unable to supply the power that people needed to fulfill and obey it. The Law of Moses was very clear in stating, “You shall not” or “Do this and live” or “Be holy.” The Law of Moses told the people of Israel what they should and should not do but it was never capable of supplying them with the spiritual power to obey. It provided them the “means” but not the “grace.”

Third, the Old or Mosaic Covenant was temporary and limited. It was designed by God with a shelf life. God never intended it to last forever nor to be the final revelation of His will for mankind. It was also limited to Israel and its descendants and not meant to encompass all nations whom God had promised to bless through Abraham. In Hebrew 8:5, we are told that everything Moses did in constructing the Old Covenant tabernacle, together with its rituals and sacrifices, was only “a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.” But God always intended to establish a new covenant with every single person - “the least no less than the greatest.”

What the old covenant lacked, our Lord Jesus supplies and perfects in His “new covenant”. He seals it not with the blood of bulls and goats, but His own blood shed on the cross for our atonement. He did not only show us the way to sanctification and salvation but provided us the means to attain it by pouring out grace upon grace through the sacraments which He instituted. As we heard in the second reading, “He became for all who obey Him the source of eternal salvation.” He not only gave us a covenant that was temporary and limited but one that is eternal and universal. We see evidence of this in the gospel when the Greeks come in search of Him.

Unlike the covenants which had been written in stone, this new covenant would be written in the hearts of the people and therefore accessible to all peoples: “Deep within them I will plant my Law, writing it on their hearts. Then I will be their God and they shall be my people.” It is interesting to note that the first set of commandments were written by God Himself by His own hand, but these were physically shattered by Moses when he broke them in rage after having discovered Israel’s apostasy (the incident of the golden calf). Moses, thereafter, was commanded by God to inscribe a second set which was kept in the ark of the covenant, which eventually went missing after the sack of Jerusalem and the exile of the Judaeans to Babylon.

So, this new covenant would no longer be inscribed into something breakable and as flimsy as stone. The idea of God planting the covenant deep in the hearts of His people meant that this new covenant would no longer be an external set of laws requiring superficial observance but one which demanded true and radical repentance. We must literally die in order to live these commandments in our lives. “Unless a wheat grain falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest”. It would be anchored to the very core of our being and not just tied to the foreheads or wrapped around the hands like the external phylacteries worn by the Jews.

In the old covenant, man struggled to offer something worthy to God but in the new covenant, it is our Lord Jesus Christ, who offers Himself as the perfect sacrifice, the only worthy sacrifice, through His own death. There is no hint of agony or humiliation when our Lord speaks of His death. In fact, He tells us that this is the Hour of His glory because when He is lifted up on the cross, He will draw all men to Himself. God’s glory will be shown not in a covenant written in stone but in the living, suffering and dying of His Son. But that’s not the end of the story. God’s glory is in the raising of our Lord Jesus to new life, the final triumph of love over death.

But before that new life can be born and bear fruit, the old life, like the grain of wheat, like the old covenant, has to die. So it is, with us. We have a choice. We can cling on to our old lives and all the broken promises we’ve made to God, afraid of what might happen if we say yes to God’s invitation to new life. Or we can begin again to let our old lives go as we renew our acceptance and commitment to the new Eternal Life found in the Risen Christ. This Passiontide, let’s enter fully into the mystery of the suffering of Jesus, let us renew our commitment to the new covenant which He has established with His death, so that we can also enter fully in the joy of His resurrection. “A pure heart create in me O God” and plant your Law deeply in our hearts.

God sends a Saviour

Fourth Sunday of Lent Year B

Laetare Sunday

Before we consider the Saviour who is God’s Son in the gospel, let’s turn to a type of saviour in the Old Testament. The first reading introduces an extremely strange “saviour” in the person of a pagan ruler - Cyrus the Great! Although a relatively minor biblical character, Cyrus is one of the most famous, and significant, historical figures to appear in scripture. In his time, he was the most powerful man on earth, leading the Persian empire in its expansion across vast swathes of the eastern world, sweeping away many of the previously dominant civilisations, including, crucially, the Babylonians. He was not a member of God’s people, as the Old Testament understood it. He had probably never heard of the God of Abraham. In fact, one of the reasons he is so well known is because he conquered not through military might alone but through more subtle politics and diplomacy.

The last verse of 2 Chronicles records something similar, where Cyrus appears to acknowledge Israel’s God, and certainly allows his people to go home. Enlightened leadership? Maybe, but whether he knew it or not, there was One even greater than he, One who was truly in charge here. There are few cases in all history which better demonstrate how even when it appears otherwise, and when God’s people are few and far between, the Lord reigns.

Cyrus – the Lord’s anointed (Messiah or Christos - the Anointed One), a saviour? It seems extraordinary, there must be better qualified people around, the faithful few in Judah, the key leaders in Babylon, but no, this world leader is chosen … no-one, nor anything in the whole of the world, is beyond God’s jurisdiction. And so, it is God, rather than King Cyrus, whose real power is demonstrated and whose rewards are granted. After God used Nebuchadnezzar to punish His people, He raised Cyrus to deliver them from their captivity in Babylon and return them to their land. It is God’s plan and purpose that is being revealed. The Chronicler is actually saying to anyone who will listen, even when there is no hope, even when God’s prophets are scoffed at and His message rejected, even when the Temple which is the visible sign of God’s covenant is laid in rubble, even when there is seemingly no way forward, no remedy, there is God. When there is no-one around to help, all the heroes have gone, the prophets of old are dead and you are all alone, there is God. Wherever you are, despite appearances, in every place at every time, through all circumstances, there is God.

This provides us with a beautiful prelude to the gospel which introduces us to the true Saviour of the World - the One who is God’s Son, not by attribution or by adoption like the kings and emperors of old, but the only begotten Son of God who is sent by God Himself because of His love for the world. This is not just a messiah, not just a saviour, but THE Messiah and THE Saviour, in which all other human saviours pale in comparison.

Our Lord uses a strange illustration from the Old Testament to introduce His point in Him being the Saviour whom God has sent. The antidote to the venom of sin and rebellion would be the very thing that threatens their wellbeing - the serpent. Such an image would have made sense when our Lord’s interlocutor, Nicodemus, had received word of our Lord’s death on the cross and would have stayed with Him for the rest of His earthly life. The cross would be the ultimate demonstration of God’s love and the very benchmark by which we would be judged.

“Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life.” In Christ, we see a love so intense, so sacrificial, so incomprehensible, it makes all human expressions seem frivolous in comparison. Here was a saviour that was different from every other saviour in human history, even those seemingly anointed by God, like Cyrus. Our Lord was not motivated by expansionist ambitions nor the heart of a benevolent and wise ruler. Our Lord’s sole motivation in saving us was love! And this is how He loved us: Through His death, Christ revealed what pure, unfathomable love looks like. But He did more than that. Through the cross, God proved the depths of His love.

St Paul tells us in the second reading, “God loved us with so much love that he was generous with his mercy: when we were dead through our sins, he brought us to life with Christ – it is through grace that you have been saved – and raised us up with him and gave us a place with him in heaven, in Christ Jesus.” Such a passionate, self-sacrificing act is hard for any mind to comprehend. God reached out, expecting nothing in return, and emptied Himself completely, for the very ones who spurned Him. You and I included. Cyrus would have offered benevolence to good and loyal subjects, but our Lord showed mercy even to those who rebelled against Him.

God sent Christ for one reason only, and here’s why: “So that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” We receive God’s free gift of eternal life through faith, by believing Jesus is who He says He is—the sinless Son of God who paid for the world’s sins—and did what He said He did—died in our place to grant us entrance into eternity with Him. But to receive that precious gift, we must acknowledge that we need it. That’s hard because it pricks against our pride. We often take great satisfaction in our achievements and knowing we’ve progressed solely through our own merits. But the Holy Spirit helps us realise the futility of our efforts; we cannot earn grace, but we can accept it by the power of the Holy Spirit. To step out of the darkness and into the light, out of death and into life, all we need to do is to just accept the offer which our Lord gives us.

Despite common belief, the cruel execution by crucifixion was not invented by the Romans. It was the innovation of the Persians, and Cyrus may have also used it during his reign to punish rebels. But our Lord, unlike Cyrus, did not condemn any of us to be crucified. Rather, He chose to be crucified in our stead. And through the cross and by the cross, our Lord Jesus Christ revealed a beautiful picture of love, of grace, and the freedom of complete absolution. No more guilt. No more shame. Zero condemnation. Only freedom, light, and life, and all because God so loved this world. As St Paul reminds us in the second reading: “We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to live the good life as from the beginning he had meant us to live it.” For this reason alone, we should rejoice!

The New Temple

Third Sunday of Lent Year B

For many Catholics, fund raising can sound like a dirty word. This aversion and resistance to fund raising activities is often justified by the following assumptions:

First, religion should stay clear of money matters and should be solely concerned with the spiritual welfare of its members.

Second, the Church already possesses a fortune evidenced by the size of the church and its many facilities. Somehow, the church has stashed away in some secret corner, a magical goose that can endlessly lay golden eggs.

Third, Jesus shows us a perfect example of how we Christians should abhor the commercialising of religion by His action of turning out all the merchants and traders from the Temple precinct and then accuses them of turning His Father’s house into a market.

Our gospel story is often interpreted as testimony against materialism in religious practice. Religion is to remain radically pure in regard to the corruptions of commerce. Christianity is solely about faith. Money plays no role whatsoever. So, was our Lord’s action in today’s gospel passage a call to keep things simple and cheap, that the Church should avoid any effort to raise funds for its maintenance and activities? You will be surprised with the answer.

In case you may have noticed, the Gospel of John states that Jesus cleansed the temple early in His ministry, but the other gospels place the temple-cleansing near the end of His ministry. Only in John’s gospel do we have the Jews confront our Lord with this question: “What sign can you show us to justify what you have done?” And it is this question which opens the discussion on the significance of our Lord’s action in pointing to His own death and resurrection.

The Temple was the focal point of every aspect of Jewish life and identity. From a theological and liturgical perspective, for a first-century Jew, the Temple was at least four things: (1) the dwelling-place of God on earth; (2) a microcosm of heaven and earth; (3) the sole place of sacrificial worship; (4) and where there is ritual sacrifice, you would also need the priesthood. Therefore, sacrifices offered to God could only be made at the Temple and never elsewhere. This is also the reason why there were traders selling animals in the Temple because these animals were meant for the Temple rituals, offering and sacrifices. The moneychangers also served a similar role of exchanging the profane Roman currency, which was considered idolatrous and unclean with Temple coinage, the only currency accepted in the Temple.

But the temple was also a barometer of sorts for the health of the covenantal relationship between God and the people. Many of the prophets warned that a failure to uphold the Law and live the covenant would result in the destruction of the temple. In 587 B.C., the temple was destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, marking the start of The Exile. Following the exile, the temple was rebuilt, then damaged, and rebuilt again. But even this second temple would be destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. Was it in this context that we can understand the words of our Lord, “Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up”? St John gives us the answer: “But He was speaking of the sanctuary that was His body, and when Jesus rose from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this …”

Our Lord Jesus saw that all four aspects of the Temple were being fulfilled in Himself and in the community of His disciples. (1) His body is the dwelling place of God on earth - the meeting place between heaven and earth; (2) He is the foundation stone that would be the beginning of a new Temple and a new creation - the new heaven and earth; (3) He would offer Himself as the perfect sacrifice that will accomplish what previous animal blood sacrifices were unable to achieve - atonement for sin and communion with God; (4) and finally, Jesus is the High Priest of the new eschatological priesthood that could serve as the perfect mediator between God and man. Because of this, the old temple was destined to pass away, to be replaced by the new Temple “not made with human hands,” and the old priesthood with the new.

Was Jesus, in cleansing the temple, attacking the temple itself, and by extension, an attack on God as well? No. And did Jesus, in making His remark, say He would destroy the temple? No. But, paradoxically, the love of the Son for His Father and His Father’s house did point toward the demise of the temple. “This is a prophecy of the Cross,” wrote Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI, “He shows that the destruction of His earthly body will be at the same time the end of the Temple.”

So, the new and everlasting Temple was established by the death and resurrection of the Son of God. Through our Lord’s death and resurrection, the place for encountering God will no longer be the temple but the risen and glorified Body of Jesus in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, where all mankind is united. With His Resurrection the new Temple will begin: the living body of Jesus Christ, which will now stand in the sight of God and be the place of all worship. Into this Body He incorporates men. This is what the Catechism tells us: “Christ is the true temple of God, ‘the place where his glory dwells’; by the grace of God, Christians also become temples of the Holy Spirit, living stones out of which the Church is built” (CCC 1197). Through baptism we become joined to the one Body of Christ, and that Body, the Church, is the “one temple of the Holy Spirit” (CCC, 776).

Finally, this story of the cleansing of the Temple also points to an important aspect of our spiritual lives, an element so relevant during this season of Lent - spiritual purification. Christ has come not only to “cleanse the Temple of Jerusalem,” but the temple of our own bodies, our lives. Our Lord’s purification of the Temple reminds us today of the need to purify our faith, to once again ground our lives on the God who shows us His power and infinite love on the Cross, the source of our salvation. Only by passing through the Cross will we reach the glory and joy of the Resurrection. The Lord Jesus comes into your life expecting to find a place ordered to the worship of the one true God, but what He finds is “a marketplace,” a heart that is divided by competing values and allegiances. Instead of a heart that is solely dedicated to God, Christ finds a place where things other than God have become primary. What rivals to the one true God have you allowed to invade the sacred space of your soul? Entertainment, leisure, material wealth, obsessions and addictions? How are these things enshrined in the sanctuary of your own heart leaving no room for God? During this Lent, let us reorientate our lives, consecrate our hearts solely to God and rid the temple of our own bodies of the idols to which we have foolishly given power and pride of place.

God will provide

Second Sunday of Lent Year B

The faith of the protagonist in the first reading is legendary, so much so that his faith has been used as a model for Christians in the New Testament. Abraham’s walk with God began when God found him living in a pagan land and called him to leave his home and family to go to the place God would show him. After decades of walking with God, Abraham’s small faith grew through each high and low. He learned to trust God with his dreams and with his disappointments, with his gains and with his losses, with his successes and with his flops. In each stage, God proved faithful and Abraham’s faith took roots. And when his faith was firmly rooted in the Lord, God tested Abraham’s faith by asking him to make the greatest sacrifice of all - his son Isaac.

This is where we find ourselves in the story of Abraham. In the first reading, we have the moving account of God asking Abraham to offer his only son Isaac as a sacrifice. Abraham had waited decades for this miracle child. Right from the very start of his faith journey, God had promised to bless Abraham and to make his name great and blessed through his descendants. Now, how is this going to happen if God is going to take his only male heir? Abraham had been asking that same question for years when he and his wife Sarah remained childless until their old age. Yet, God has never disappointed in that first instance by giving him a child. So, now Abraham trusted that God will not disappoint him again.

At first glance, the story of Abraham and Isaac seems disturbing. Why would a loving God ask Abraham to sacrifice his only son in a manner similar to his pagan neighbours? Was He bringing unnecessary torment to a man who had already waited so long for a child? Upon closer inspection, it’s clear that God’s request to sacrifice Isaac was not unloving or capricious. Instead, it is a beautiful picture of Abraham’s faithfulness and God’s provision. In the past, Abraham had doubted God. He had tried to have children in his own way instead of waiting on God. By asking him to sacrifice Isaac, God was testing Abraham to see if he trusted Him. And he did: Abraham’s faith in God was so great that he was willing to give Him his only son, trusting that God could bring him back from the dead.

As God describes Isaac to Abraham, we hear Him describe His only Son, Jesus. The story of Isaac is both a picture of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son and a foreshadowing of God’s willingness to sacrifice His only Son for us. This was the Son that truly died and was brought back from the dead. The story of Abraham’s sacrifice, like no other, gives us a glimpse into what it cost the heart of God to sacrifice His only Son for us. Abraham’s story of the sacrifice of Isaac parallels Jesus in many ways. Both were well loved sons; both carried wood to the place of the sacrifice; both were promised that a lamb would be sacrificed, only for Jesus there was no ram in the thicket to take His place. He is the Lamb of God that would be sacrificed, the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world.

As we turn to the gospel, we see another set of parallels. This time, it is the disciples of the Lord who are being prepared for their greatest test - the passion and death of our Lord. The great reason for this transfiguration was to remove the scandal of the cross from the hearts of His disciples, that they will not lose faith and hope when they witness our Lord’s death. Unlike Abraham, their faith will falter. Unlike Abraham, they will flee the scene instead of accompanying our Lord to His great sacrifice. But because of the transfiguration and the resurrection, they will return.

As far back as our liturgical sources take us, we find the Church beginning Lent with the Gospels of Jesus’ Temptation in the desert and His Transfiguration on the mountain. Hence Christians’ Lenten experience replicates the God-guided experience of the people of Israel: their forty years of journeying in the desert, which tested their fidelity, and the community-founding theophany at Sinai which endowed them with the Torah of grace.

But there is also deliberate and stark parallelism between the story of the Transfiguration and our Lord’s Passion. The same three named disciples are handpicked by our Lord to be with Him and to witness both events, and on both occasions they remained confused. Our Lord was transfigured on one mountain and crucified on another. On both occasions, there is a revelation of our Lord’s identity as the Son of God. At the Transfiguration, it is God who speaks: “This is my Son.” But in the crucifixion, we find this idea finally taking hold and being repeated at last by a person. And what’s really remarkable, it’s not one of the disciples. It’s not even a Jew. He’s a Roman soldier. The enemy! The person, we least suspect. Declaring it at the point we least suspect. This Gentile centurion shows greater faith than even the disciples, because he alone witnessed the Lord’s death unlike His disciples.

If you have ever doubted God’s wisdom or questioned your faith because of some crises, do not lose faith but continue to trust in the Lord. Abraham did and he was rewarded. Beyond the scandal of the cross is the glory of the resurrection. We are assured as Abraham was, that God always provides. Like Abraham, we should have confidence in God, trusting Him with everything and being willing to sacrifice our best to Him. St Paul reassured us with the rhetorical question: “With God on our side who can be against us?” And the answer is no one and nothing! God not sparing His own Son for our sake is the pledge of His fidelity and love for us.

Though we may not fully understand His plans, God in His providence, supplies all our needs. We should never lose faith in His promises and Providence. Abraham says, “God will provide the sacrifice.” Not only did God provide a ram as a sacrifice for Abraham, but He provided a lasting sacrifice through His Son — for Abraham, and for all of us. All our Lord asks is that we have a trusting heart and be willing to “listen to Him.”

From Destruction comes New Life

First Sunday of Lent Year B

Such stark contrast! Our lectionary juxtaposes two extreme conditions, a deluge or great flood in the first reading, and an arid barren desert in the gospel. Too much water on the one hand, and too little to none on the other. Both conditions seem inhospitable and even humanly uninhabitable. What’s the connexion apart from being two extreme polarities? These two scenes draw us back to the beginning - to how it all began - to the story of creation. Most folks are familiar with the story of how God created the universe in six days and then rested on the seventh. But there are actually two and not one account of creation. Chapter One of the Book Genesis begins in a watery chaos and Chapter Two begins in a desert.

And so, we have in the first reading an account of God renewing His covenant with Noah in the aftermath of the flood. The flood itself portrays a return of the earth to the primeval state of Genesis where darkness, water, and wind covered the earth. The great flood is a testament to God’s hatred of sin and His determination to wipe it from the face of the earth. God blows a “wind” over “the deep” and “the waters” recede. When at last the flood subsides, the ground is dry and new vegetation is springing up. The barriers set in place by God at creation are restored - the dry land is once again separated from the waters. The occupants of the ark, both humans and animals, step on dry land and life begins anew. If the precreation scene in Genesis Chapter One begins in pitch darkness, this beautiful scene in the first reading is bathed in light - no stormy clouds in the sky but a bright sunny day with a rainbow crowning God’s redeemed creation. It is a picture of perfection, but not yet. That would have to wait until the Son of God becomes the Son of Man and seals a new covenant with humanity with His own blood instead of the sacrifice of animals as was done by Noah and the ancestors of old.

Let us not forget that the first flood swept away the evil from the surface of the earth, but not from the hearts of the ark’s passengers. So an even greater act of salvation was needed, one that was more radical, that penetrated to the very “root” of evil. God Himself enters into our world in the form of a man and engages in hand-to-hand combat with the father of lies. For sin to be rooted out, repentance is necessary. And so the rallying cry of God’s ultimate champion is “Repent, and believe the Good News.”

If the first reading calls us back to Chapter One of Genesis, the gospel story alludes to and reverses what takes place in Chapter Two and Three: the planting of the Garden in the midst of a barren desert, the creation of man, the first Son of God, and His subsequent temptation and fall. Here in the gospel, there is no garden - Paradise has been lost and all creation has been rendered a barren wasteland by man’s sin. But instead of succumbing to the ancient serpent, our Lord Jesus triumphs over Satan. Instead of enmity between man and the animal kingdom, we already see the beginnings of a reconciliation as wild beasts gather around the Lord. If one man wrought humanity’s downfall, another man, the perfect man, the one whom St Mark at the very beginning of the gospel identifies by His rightful title, the Son of God, will lead humanity in its ascent to the heavens.

The wrestling match is won by the Son. This, however, is not the decisive battle. By means of the cross, the sign of this New Covenant, our Lord Jesus decisively vanquished sin and its patron, letting loose from His pierced side a stream that was more powerful than the ancient waters traversed by Noah and Moses. The fathers of the Church saw in those two streams of blood and water, the birth of the Church through the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist. In Christ’s death and resurrection, creation is healed and reborn. The key for us to now participate in this recreation is repentance. Repentance begins the path to redemption and to sanctification. Repentance leads to conversion and conversion leads to baptism.

Through repentance, faith and immersion in these mighty waters of baptism, not the waters at creation or at the great flood but the waters that flowed from our Lord’s death on the cross, sin can finally be scoured not just from the skin but from the heart. In the second reading, St Peter explains that the water of the flood - “is a type of the baptism which saves you now, and which is not the washing off of physical dirt but a pledge made to God from a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ…” Baptism means burying the old man with Christ and emerging from the womb of the Church as a new creation, sharing in Christ’s resurrection. Lent is therefore the intensive preparation for those seeking baptism at Easter and an opportunity for the rest of us who are already baptised to recall our baptismal identity by renewing the promises made at our baptism.

This is what Lent is all about. It is a time when we remember the death that brings new Life. Just like Noah, his family and the animals at the moment they stepped out of the ark, would have been surprised by what they saw, this Lent too holds many surprises for us. We can either look at the destruction wrought by our sin, mourn the loss of all the things that have been taken from us or we had to give up, or we could behold a new world, a new creation before us. What was once a barren desert, watered by God’s graces, would now be teeming with life. For the great paradox at the heart of Christianity, a mystery we celebrate every Lent and Easter, is that a Death was the remedy for death. It was in losing His life that Christ brought new Life to the world. In the words of the Byzantine liturgy, “He trampled down death by death.” In the greatest paradox of all, our Lord changed death into a means of life, an ending into a new beginning. What was once our doom is now our salvation. “The time has come and the Kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the Good News!”