Fasting and Feasting

Ash Wednesday

Yesterday was the first day of Chinese New Year, just in case you missed it on your calendar. For those who had been celebrating, it would be close to two whole days of food binging, close to a Roman food orgy. I guess with the Malaysian food culture of having ‘loh-sang’ a month before the actual day, some of you may have been gouging for an entire month. But today it ends. The feasting has ended and the fasting has begun, except for those of you who are availing of the regional bishops dispensation of the obligation to fast, which is actually a deference rather than an outright cancellation of the obligation. Your sentence is reprieved till this Friday. Enjoy it while it last!

Fasting and feasting may seem like opposites on a spectrum. And in fact, some may feel guilty that you are still feasting despite the dispensation from the bishops while others would look on their neighbours with scrutinising judgment for having given in to the temptations of the flesh or stomach. But did you know that there is a deep connexion between the two, especially within Catholic theology and culture?

In many historically Catholic countries, the period that immediately precedes the Lenten season is marked by celebrations that are collectively known as Carnival or Carnivale. The Carnival typically involves a public celebration or parade combining elements of a circus, mask and public street parties. People often dress up or masquerade during this entire week of celebrations, overturning the often mundane norms of daily life. It often seems ironic and even scandalous that the austere, penitential and holy season of Lent is preceded by this orgiastic display of frivolous and drunken debauchery. It’s as if all the rich food and drink, pleasures and luxuries, and excesses of every kind, had to be consumed and disposed of in preparation for the Lenten fast and abstinence. The word "carnival" literally means "farewell to meat."

But there is a necessary juxtaposition of Carnival and Lent. There can be no Carnival without Ash Wednesday, and the significance of Ash Wednesday and Lent will be lost upon us if life did not have its Carnival. All things have their season – there is a season for feasting, and a season for fasting. This becomes most apparent this year when Ash Wednesday, the day of fasting, follows immediately after the cultural celebration and feasting of the Lunar New Year. For some of us the feasting has ended. For others, it continues for a few more days with the blessing of the bishops. But ultimately, we must eventually begin our fasting. This is the time when the Church invites us to reexamine and reorder all aspects of our life. We can see the contrast of Carnival indulgence and Lenten fasting not just in foods, but in all areas of life. Carnival puts into perspective the things we need to give up in Lent.

Our pre-Lenten celebrations and preparations provide us with a graphic illustration of the message of Lent, that we are fools, if we who seek our final end in earthly things! The Church, during this season of Lent, will show you where true happiness may be found, Who it is that brought it, and how He merited it for us. The pre-Lenten Carnival celebrations, despite their rollicking good fun and general merriment, really had a deadly serious objective. This is what the gaudy and rancorous parades of Carnival represent - the “princes of this world,” in all their tinselly splendour, followed by a long train of personified human vices, sins and infirmities, solemnly enters the city gate and takes possession of the town.

The performers are all arrayed in their costumes with the purpose of portraying Death, the World, Vanity, Beauty, Sin of every kind, human wealth, suffering, the joys and sorrows of human life, etc. This is not a triumphant procession of a victorious army. But a ridiculous motley crew of defeated individuals that are being subjected to mockery and humiliation. It is the procession of the defeated forces of the world, of sin, of vice and the devil. It is a Walk of Shame, not a Victory Parade. It’s a parody of the triumphant procession of our true King, Christ, as He enters His City at the end of Lent and the start of Holy Week.

Thus did the merriment of the passing hour imperfectly conceal a stern seriousness. This was the means the Church took to warn her children not to be spiritual fools. Piercing through the noise and fun-making, and clearly heard by all, was the warning voice: “Be careful not to parade your good deeds before men to attract their notice.” A further warning that all we aspire to accomplish, all that we hope to acquire and possess is merely “vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Only one thing is necessary: Save your soul; give heed to what the Church will command you during the coming season of Lent. The words that accompany the imposition of holy ashes ring true, “Repent and believe in the Gospel.”

Certainly, if the world were given a choice between Carnival and Lent, Carnival is the more popular choice of the two. Let’s be honest, who doesn’t love a good party? And yet, Carnival must find its ultimate meaning in Lent. It is the austerity of Lent, the penance of Lent, the prophetic self-renunciation of Lent that truly prepares us for the apex Carnival celebration of life, which is Easter. St. Augustine can serve us as a safe guide during this period of preparation for Lent, and of course, during the season itself, too. “The pagans,” he says, “present each other with gifts of friendship, but you should give alms during these days of wickedness. They shout their songs of love and pleasure; you must learn to find joy in the hearing of the word of God. They run eagerly to the theatre; you must flock to the churches. They guzzle their drinks; you must be temperate and fast.”

Thus, the prayers and gospels of the season of Lent attempt to awaken us to a profound realisation of the fact that only through penance and through uncompromising rejection of sin, that is, through a thorough change of heart, can we partake of the redemption of Christ. Through His incarnation, His passion and death, Christ gained for us the graces of salvation without any merit on our part. But only a heart freed from sin and evil inclinations can become the field producing fruit fifty and a hundred-fold for the divine Sower. Whoever refuses to toil at purifying his sin-laden heart will of necessity remain in fatal darkness, and the light of salvation and grace will not reach him. After the feasting that ended yesterday, let us now begin our fasting. And after the long winter of fasting from the pleasures and delights of the world, we will be guaranteed a rich harvest of spiritual fruits that comes with a springtime of the Soul.

A Season of Redemption and Release

Ash Wednesday 2025

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 has done for us on the cross, penances are no longer ways of earning God’s forgiveness; nor, for that matter, is going to Confession. Christ has already won that forgiveness for us by means of His sacrifice on the cross. And that forgiveness is made present for us by the work of His Holy Spirit. But if God has already forgiven us, and if Confession makes that forgiveness present to us in concrete, visible, audible ways, what’s the penance for?

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.” Let us first look at our own experience of human relationships and the dynamics of forgiveness offered to someone who has hurt us. Even if someone forgives you, this by itself doesn’t mean you are yet, in yourself, changed. “Forgiving” is something the other person does; what do I do? Have we internalised that forgiveness? Has it changed us?

Forgiveness opens the door to a changed relationship and a new life. But it would be a mistake for me to think that the forgiveness is the final step in the process when forgiveness is the first step. The next step is for that love to change my heart and set me on a new course in life. Doing penance is about making those first few steps in a new direction. God’s transforming love doesn’t leave me in my sin; its goal is to transform me. The grace of the sacrament works by changing my heart. And if my heart is truly changed, then I need to begin to live differently as well. So, by doing penances, we shouldn’t mistakenly imagine that I’m “earning” God’s love and forgiveness. No, we love, “because God has loved us first.” (1 Jn 4) It is only by accepting God’s love and forgiveness that I can be changed. Penance completes the process of reconciliation.

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. This suffers from the sin of presumption - presuming that heaven is guaranteed and hell is only a boogie man, a myth, to scare poor Catholics into submission. 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.

The Asceticism of Love

Ash Wednesday

For many, today’s date is unmistakable and if you have a loved one, forgetting that it’s Valentine’s Day is unforgivable. But even if today doesn’t happens to be Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, our liturgical calendar actually honours two other saints, St Cyril and St Methodius, and not the eponymous St Valentine. Valentine’s Day has been largely relegated to a secular feast of mushy romantic ideals and practices.

Chocolates, flowers and candlelight dinners are things we normally associate with the secular representation of the feast of this Catholic saint who is patron of marriages and romance. The ascetic practices we practice in Lent and which we have heard in our gospel today, hardly sounds romantic at all, if anything, they seem utterly Spartan and ascetically bleak. But love is actually at the heart of these Christian ascetical practices. Love is never about seeking our own happiness but the happiness of the other even at the cost of sacrificing our own. It is this ascetical aspect of love which is missing from so many modern conceptions of relationships resulting in selfish individuals looking for love but finding none, at least none which perfectly matches this self-absorbed notion of romance.

Asceticism? “Isn’t that like wearing hair shirts and whipping and punishing yourself? Does the Church still teach that?” Simply put, asceticism means self-sacrifice. It means denying yourself physical pleasures and conveniences even when you don’t need to. What the Church requires are spiritual athletes not couch potatoes. Christians do not practice asceticism because we see physical goods as evil. On the contrary, asceticism guards against valuing the goods of Creation so much that we disdain the Creator. Like all spiritual practices, asceticism should be motivated by love. Asceticism does not spring from some form of sick masochistic self-hatred, but rather it is the sacrifice offered out of love for our Lord Jesus who showed the extent of His love for us by dying for us.

As we begin our Lenten ascetic practices of prayer, fasting and alms giving, let us be conscious of the true reasons for our actions.

First, asceticism combats habitual sin. If you struggle to control your desire for something you tend to abuse (food, drink, sex, comfort, etc), practising self-denial is like building your spiritual muscles against it. St Paul writes, “I discipline my body and make it my slave” (1 Corinthians 9:27). The word here for “discipline” carries violent overtones, literally meaning “to beat” or “to batter.” We’re called to show our body who’s boss. The purpose of fasting, for instance, is so that one can train his appetites by habitually telling them “No,” even in regard to lawful earthly goods, like food or conjugal relations. That way, when a sinful temptation stirs up the appetites, the body has been well-trained to obey its master, the sanctified rational mind.

Second, asceticism builds the virtue of temperance. Temperance is the virtue that balances our desires for physical goods. When our desires are out of balance (a condition of Original Sin called “concupiscence”), we need to reset the balance with self-denial. Our Lord Jesus teaches us: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth…but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21)

Third, asceticism protects you against the excesses of the culture. Like the culture the early Christians lived in, our modern culture has deified entertainment, luxury, and physical pleasure. While Christians can give lip service to resisting these temptations, the truth is that we’re immersed in this culture and it’s difficult not to be transformed by it. Asceticism helps us to set our hearts on the greater goods and to resist laxity of heart and open our hearts to be transformed by grace.

Fourth, asceticism moves our hearts away from selfishness. We live in air-conditioned comfort, even in our cars. We get used to having entertainment literally at our fingertips. Everything in our lives is built around convenience, entertainment, and comfort. Self-sacrifice prevents our modern lifestyle from sinking too deeply into our hearts.

Fifth, asceticism can be an act of love. If fasting and making other sacrifices are going to make you more cranky and irritable, if you continue to judge your neighbour for their lack of devotion or dedication to these ascetic practices as you have, then you have missed the point. These practices should enlarge our hearts, not shrink them. To know whether we’ve been doing it right is to examine the fruits of our practices. Have we grown in our love for God and neighbour?

Sixth, asceticism should lead us to interior conversion rather than multiply our practices as a kind of performance. Let us pay heed to the warning of our Lord Jesus Christ in the gospel, that we should not practice asceticism so that “men may see you” but rather, be content that “your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you.” Asceticism provides us with new lenses to see things unlike how the world sees. St Paul puts it this way: “We do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18)

In our consumeristic and materialistic culture, this programme of spiritual exercise is both unpopular and difficult. If these practices sound intimidating, think of the physical regiment many people keep to stay fit and healthy. If one can endure such hardships for a temporal good, a healthy life, one must then appreciate the value of spiritual exercises that will gain us, with God’s grace, eternal life. These habits of self-denial, which include prayer, fasting and almsgiving can strengthen us, by God’s grace, to aim our desires at unseen realities and reap the radiant joys of heaven, even now. When done out of love, instead of burdensome obligation or as performance, these ascetic practices will do much to help us advance spiritually. This is the path of spiritual athleticism and Lent is as good a place as any, to start our training.

Let your hearts be broken

Ash Wednesday

“Let your hearts be broken not your garments torn, turn to the Lord your God again.” These are the beautiful words of the Prophet Joel in the first reading, and indeed they are the inaugural words of Scripture for this Mass, the first words the church offers us this Lent. As such, they are the foundation for the message God wishes to communicate to us this Lent and in fact, at every Lent. Here and throughout this prophetic book, the Prophet Joel is doing what prophets do best. He is calling the people to conversion by making them aware of their sins and pointing them to ideal action, “let your hearts be broken, not your garments torn!”

Traditionally, the people of Israel would rip or rend their clothing to signify mourning. The Scriptures mention this expression of grief several times, including Jacob mourning his youngest son Joseph, when he thought he was dead, or King David rending his garments at hearing that Saul had died. Even today, some Jews specifically rip their clothes over their hearts (which is known as “keriah”) if the deceased is one of their parents. But Joel is calling the people to not just ritually acknowledge their sins, but to mourn their sins—to grieve for their broken relationship with God—in not simply through outward ways, but inwardly as well. To encourage the people’s conversion, the prophet Joel is not calling them to strengthen their resolve through rituals of penance, he’s telling them to take these penitential rituals straight to their hearts, to the very core of their beings. They are not told to demonstrate repentance on the outside, but in their hearts and souls.

In the New Testament, the rending of garment seems to be an outward expression of indignation at sacrilege and blasphemy. For example, in Acts of the Apostles, Saints Paul and Barnabas rent their garments when the people of Lystra began to worship them. But in the gospels, the High Priest, Caiaphas, rent his garments when Jesus affirmed that He was the Christ, the Son of the Living God. There is profound irony here as in the rest of the gospel; instead of Jesus committing blasphemy, it is the High Priest who expresses blasphemy against Him. Furthermore, Caiaphas had violated the Levitical prohibition against a high priest rending his garments. This is in sharp contrast to the seamless simple garment of our Lord that was left intact at the moment of His crucifixion. St Bede the Venerable would recognise the symbolism in this action. In the Old Testament priesthood was to be rent on account of the wickedness of the priests themselves. But the solid strength of the Church, which is often called the garment of her Redeemer, can never be torn asunder.

There was one more “rending” that occurred during the Passion. This was the rending of the veil in the temple that separated the holy place from the holy of holies when our Lord died on the Cross. That curtain which veiled God’s presence in the temple might be called His garment. God Himself rent His own garment, as if weeping the death of His Son. Yet that most holy death was also the sacrifice pleasing to the Father. In union with the Crucified One, we too should rend our own hearts in preparation to receive the gift of Eternal Life.

Keeping in mind the command to break our hearts instead of merely tearing our garments, let us now turn to the gospel. Our Lord here gives us pointers as to how to conduct ourselves when we do acts of piety or righteousness, namely, giving alms, fasting and praying. When we do these acts, our Lord is asking us to do them without fanfare. He places the emphasis on our motivation: “Be careful not to parade your good deeds before men to attract their notice; by doing this you will lose all reward from your Father in heaven.” Rather, our actions must be done in “secret, and your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you.” He reminds us that the intended audience is not men, but God. Our actions are meant to please God, not seek favour in the eyes of men. Such outward actions without interior conversion would be pointless. Therefore, these acts must spring from the heart and go hand in hand with our interior motivation. Pope Francis tells us in one of his homilies on this day “that conversion is not a matter reducible to outward forms or vague intentions, but engages and transforms one’s entire existence from the centre of the person, from the conscience.”

These practices are never goals in and of themselves, but instead are tools, working like ice picks to crack open our frozen icy hearts, levers to pry them open, so that we can look inside ourselves and see our deepest longings and fears for what they really are. Each Lenten ascetic practice—denying oneself meat, or luxury, or treats—helps us to put our lifestyles and desires into perspective and creates a space for God to enter. Having created a space, we must allow God to come into our lives and into our hearts: here is where Lenten practices of daily prayer and reading scripture are important. Take some time each day to pray, deny yourself of a favourite dish or a full meal; put aside your saved funds for the poor or some worthy cause; and by doing so, break open the monotony of the everyday to let God in to your life.

Finally, let this also be a season of loving. Very often, making sacrifices and performing penances can put us in a bad mood. Rather, than purifying us and helping us to grow in virtue, we end up becoming grouchy, irritable and even judgmental of others whom we believe are not as holy as we are. The way of loving requires an openness and vulnerability, a letting in of the stranger and the unknown, and a giving away parts of ourselves that we may rather keep. In short, to love as Christ loves, we must be willing to love to the extent of allowing our hearts to be broken. And becoming like Christ is not a one-time event, it is being constantly remade in Christ in our daily lives and in all aspects of our lives. The penitential season of Lent is not about slow progress to a singular moment of conversion; rather, it is a process of constant conversion, constant rending, and constant breaking. The rituals of Lent, such as giving something up or marking our foreheads with ashes, do not in and of themselves, mark our conversion moment. Instead, they are habits of ongoing conversion: allowing us to break open our hearts and give them over to God. When shall we begin? The answer is now! As St Paul reminds us in the second reading, “Now is the favourable time; this is the day of salvation!” “Let your hearts be broken not your garments torn, turn to the Lord your God again.”

Memento Mori

Third Sunday of Lent Year C

We all suffer from delusions of immortality, invincibility and impregnability, constantly assuring ourselves, “it will never happen to me!” Yes, we see our friends’ parents get divorced, we empathise with them but then we console ourselves, “Thank God, my parents are fine. What happened to his parents will not happen to mine.” We get news that the house down the road was burgled and count ourselves fortunate that we have been spared. We hear stories of our colleagues at work or at church getting tested positive for COVID-19 but then, I continue to cheat on all those annoying public health recommendations because nothing has happened to me. “It’s been two years and I’ve not gotten infected. Nothing to worry about. It will never happen to me.” And then there is death. We know we will die one day, just 'not now'. Many often think that if they don’t talk about it or think about it, they can live to see another day.

Our minds are generally not tuned to abstract risk assessment. We feel invincible, immune from tragedy, until tragedy hits too close to home and then all of sudden, our measure of risks changes, our value system takes on a radical overhaul, and we begin to see our priorities in a different light. But most of the time, tragedy doesn’t have a feel of urgency - it seems too distant, perhaps only appearing as headlines in our newspapers but hardly a tiny blip on my radar of cognisance.

Today, a group of people came to report to the Lord about a tragedy, not a natural one but a bloody slaughter by the Roman prefect, Pilate, and what makes this story more egregious is that the massacre took place while these Galileans were offering sacrifice at the Temple. For those who reported this news to our Lord, were perhaps hoping to elicit some response and statement from Him. This was news that hit close to home - the ones who died were their fellow countrymen, perhaps some were even people whom they knew - friends or relatives. They could never imagine anything like this happening to them, what more to these people who had made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices.

And our Lord did give them a response, but perhaps not the response they were expecting. When bad things happen, it is so easy to lay the blame on something or someone. So, our Lord cited once again the example of Pilate’s bloody murder but also added a natural tragedy in the form of the tower of Siloam collapsing and killing some people. It’s easy to find a culprit in the first instance, but how about the second? If no human person is to be faulted, would God be guilty of this second tragedy? Or perhaps, it would be easier to postulate that all the victims were actually guilty of sin and were therefore receiving their just punishment?

Instead of placing the blame on someone or something, the Lord immediately makes this a moment of calling His audience to a deeper introspection. The issue isn’t about the guilt of Pilate or those victims but rather, the response each of us makes when we witness tragedy and experience the fragility of human life. “unless you repent you will all perish as they did.”

The words of our Lord serve as a “memento mori.” Roughly translated, the Latin phrase means “remember death.” The Church and our ancestors were most familiar with the wisdom of this advice since death was an everyday reality that marked every aspect of life and no one was spared, young or old, rich or poor, healthy or sick. The call to remember death was surely easier for past generations to embrace than for us. They had visible reminders of death’s grip all around them, whereas many of us can avoid the subject for most of our lives if we choose to.

Yes, we live in a very different world today where life expectancy has risen and infant mortality has dropped, where deaths today occur in medical facilities cordoned off from where we live, and our undertakers have perfected the art of embalming to make the dead look so alive. And where the reality of death fades to the background of our consciousness, other joy-stealing problems are quick to rise up and fill the void. When death is pushed out of our thinking, it isn’t replaced by warmth and peace and happiness. It’s replaced by death’s many other faces. We fixate instead on the comparatively trivial symptoms of our deeper problem. We’re still anxious, still defensive, still insecure, still angry, still despairing. We may detach ourselves from death so we can spend our time and energy chasing happiness. But that detachment won’t change the fact of our mortality, and it won’t ultimately make us happier.

Therefore, the words of our Lord, “unless you repent you will all perish as they did,” still matters today, more than ever. We should remember our mortality, our fragility, our vulnerability and that all of us will die one day; we should remember for these reasons.

First, death puts things in perspective. Without an awareness of death, we may get caught up in pursuing and fearing the most trifling of things. But death changes all of that. What we often fret about will be nullified by death. At death, the only thing which matters is our salvation.

Secondly, death brings the power of God into focus. Recognising the relevance of death every day is how we recognise the relevance of God every day, too. When we are in control, when life seems peaceful and uneventful, most people would never see any need for God.

Thirdly, death can bring back sinners to the path of righteousness. The thief on the cross did it in the last minutes of his life, and our Lord assured him that he would be with Him in paradise. Meditating on death is a call to repentance.

On Ash Wednesday, as the congregation files up silently like in a death march, to receive blessed Ashes, the priest will sprinkle these on the head of the person while speaking one of several formulas, including this: “Meménto, homo, quia pulvis es, et in púlverem revertéris;” “Remember, man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.”

One day, we will die, just not now. And thus we confidently step in the plane or cross the street and for some of you, decide it’s time to return to Church after the long break of lockdowns and personal isolation during this pandemic. Watch left and right and hope there is no plane crashing into the place you are walking into or a COVID infected person coming close to you. A greater awareness of our vulnerability is positive, if it leaves cracks in our delusional bubble of impregnability. We come to realise that when we are afraid to look at death, we are a poorer people because of it. No matter how long science can prolong life, no matter how much embalming fluid is pumped into a corpse, nature will have her way. This is the hideous Truth. But for us Christians, we can rest in the knowledge that the ultimate Victor is Christ, Our Lord, who walked out of His tomb 2,000 years ago and offers resurrection to us. It is the same Christ who issues us with this warning everyday, reminding us: “unless you repent you will all perish as they did.”

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.

Worship is not Theatre

Ash Wednesday

Today, if Air Asia claims that everyone can fly, social media has made it possible for just anyone to be a celebrity. Every mundane thought, feeling, moment or action is posted somewhere on social media to make sure others know what we’ve done, seen, experienced or felt today. It’s as if we try really hard to receive validation and appreciation: we need people to see we are doing good things, we need a certain number of ‘likes’ and ‘comments’ for our actions to be of value. I often see - when I'm on Facebook - videos or photos of people giving to the poor, or helping someone out: people record themselves doing these things and then share them online for the world to see. Today, for example, we’re going to witness loads of Instagram foodie shots exhibiting that miserable slice of bread or bowl of soup that constitutes our fasting diet. If not for the recent pastoral recommendation to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we would also see many photos of ash stained foreheads.

But our Lord warns us in today’s gospel, people who do this, “they have had their reward.” In other words, when we show our good deeds to the world, and receive validation from the world in this way, the only reward we will receive for that deed is of this world - it is of no eternal value. We can have our reward, votes, acclaim, temporary esteem but we cannot use it as “credit” to get to Heaven – because we have expended our entire reward in the here and now. When we act in this way, we do it not to please God, but rather we crave the praise of men.

It is interesting how our Lord uses the word “hypocrite” in today’s passage. For in ancient times, the word was more commonly heard in the theatre than in a temple. It was a word used to describe an actor on a stage. The Greek word, in referring to the actor, means “under the mask” or “mask-wearer”.  The actor was play-acting, he was pretending. That is what hypocrites do. They pretend.

So when our Lord used this word to speak of those practising the traditional acts of piety, prayer, fasting and alms-giving, the word carried a weightier sting. What were these people pretending to be? They were pretending to be religious; holy; spiritual; they were pretending to be people who were serving God. The religious hypocrite has perfected the outward appearance, the ingratiating smile, the holier than thou accent, the long robes and so forth. With all the fanfare, pyrotechnics, and showmanship- God is totally unimpressed! They were pretending to be people who wanted to please God but God wasn’t pleased. Even today there are some people who desperately crave an audience for their spirituality. For these people if the show is not “on” then the performance is “off”. Their spirituality is wholly and solely for human consumption. Jesus says that ‘such people have had their reward’ – they crave fleeting human attention, human praise, human admiration, and that is all the reward they will ever get. They forget that if others are not able to see through their disguises, God can. He sees through every disguise and pretense. He alone knows who and what we truly are.

At first glance, this may seem opposed to our Lord’s earlier teaching, which we heard two Sundays ago, to be “salt of the earth,” “light of the world,” “a city built on a hill” and to let “your light shine before others” so that “they may see your good deeds.” There, our Lord commanded the disciples to live the beatitudes visibly in order to radiate God’s love to the world. When others see our good deeds, it is meant to give glory to God. In today’s passage, however, our Lord warns us not to do righteous deeds in order to draw attention to ourselves.

So, it must be clear that our Lord is not condemning the penitential acts of fasting, prayer and almsgiving. What is in question is the interior motivation and disposition for these acts. What must be avoided would be “hypocrisy”. These pious practices in themselves, however, are not evidence of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is the split between outward show and inner reality, where actions do not correspond to one’s interior life. So, the words of Jesus are not to be interpreted as a disavowal of external actions but an invitation to match external actions with interior disposition. Our charitable acts must flow from a heart that is truly charitable and not only because we wish to earn the praises of others. Every act of penance must have an interior aspect, an inner change of heart, as well as an exterior aspect, changing one’s life in harmony with the change of heart. The interior aspect has to do with sorrow for sin, and with a firm resolve to amend one’s life, to conform ourselves more closely to Christ; the exterior aspect has to do with the self-denial, the good works, the sacrifices, which are necessary to overcome one’s selfish tendencies that lead to sin. In all matters, our actions must give glory to God. Our pious acts are not meant to “show off” our piety, but to “show forth” God’s love in the world.

What happens when our actions are meant to show off instead of glorifying God? Two Protestant Pastors in their best-selling book had this to say, “When ministry becomes performance, then the sanctuary becomes a theater, the congregation becomes an audience, worship becomes entertainment, and man’s applause and approval become the measure of success. But when ministry is for the glory of God, His presence moves into the sanctuary. Even the unsaved visitor will fall down on his face, worship God, and confess that God is among us.” (Warren and David Wiersbe, 10 Power Principles for Christian Service)

Three times Jesus uses the phrase: “And your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you.” And twice Jesus refers to ‘your Father who is in that secret place”. We are reminded that the God who sees acts hidden from human sight will surely reward our devotions given without fanfare. By leaving the question of reward to God, one is set free from the concerns of others. God is watching us and cannot be fooled. Spiritual performance is thus completely futile, and only humility, repentance and contrition will impress the Lord. 

Prayer, fasting and almsgiving are good, and we should all continue to pray, fast and give alms but these pious actions are not performance, nor is it theatre and it is certainly not a way of winning public approval. Prayer, fasting and almsgiving are ways in which we seek to enter into a holy reverent communion with God, not theatrics, antics and showmanship. Therefore, we need to be on guard against the temptation to want to please man; or to congratulate ourselves; or to seek the wrong reward; to have the wrong motivation. The effort to lead a life of public piety should not make us self-congratulatory, self-justifying or judgmental of others. If this has happened, we know that we have fallen into the trap or the “quicksand” of hypocrisy.

For a supremely ironic twist to this central theme of the gospel that warns us of making a show of our religion, today we will be sprinkled with ashes on our crown. Perhaps, it would be good to remember what the Lord has to say about hypocrisy, so that our ashes would not just be a means of “showing off” but a means of “showing forth” Christ to the world, a reminder of our mortality and sinfulness, and a visible call to all to “repent and believe in the good news.” During this season of Lent, let us ask the Lord to deepen our prayer life, to grant us the courage and self-discipline to fast and the generosity to share with the poor. Let our Lenten practices not be mere external actions. We pray for a change of heart, a “turning to the Lord your God again”. Let our “hearts be broken not (just our) garments torn.”

Let your hearts be broken, not your garments torn

Ash Wednesday 2019

What are you giving up for Lent? I am quite certain, that this would be the question on the minds of many Catholics, a question that would be certainly posed by others. Be assured, I am not trying to give you a guilt trip. On the one hand, giving up something for Lent seems to be a fine way of spending Lent, some form of self-sacrifice in preparation for Easter. But on the other hand, any visible sacrifice on my part may be a form of self-aggrandisement, publicising my achievement and thus negating any spiritual benefit I might have gained by giving up something. As everyone is devouring their piece of steak, I smugly order a bowl of salad. So today, on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, the Church challenges us with a more important question: what is the point of penitential practices during Lent? And is there anything that I can do to make my Lent more meaningful, to bring about real change in myself?

Let’s begin with the first reading. “Now, now – it is the Lord who speaks – come back to me with all your heart, fasting, weeping, mourning. Let your hearts be broken not your garments torn, turn to the Lord your God again.” These are the beautiful words of the Prophet Joel in the first reading, and indeed they are the inaugural words of scripture for this Mass, the first words the church offers us this Lent. As such, they are the foundation for the message God wishes to communicate to us this Lent. Here and throughout this prophetic book, the Prophet Joel is doing what prophets do best. He is calling the people to conversion by making them aware of their sins and pointing them to ideal action, “let your hearts be broken, not your garments torn!”

Traditionally, the people of Israel would rip or rend their clothing to signify mourning. The Scriptures mention this expression of grief several times, including Jacob mourning his youngest son Joseph, when he thought he was dead, or King David rending his garments at hearing that Saul had died. Even today, some Jews specifically rip their clothes over their hearts (which is known as “keriah”) if the deceased is one of their parents.  But Joel is calling the people to not just ritually acknowledge their sins, but to mourn their sins—to grieve for their broken relationship with God—in not simply through outward ways, but inwardly as well. To encourage the people’s conversion, the prophet Joel is not calling them to strengthen their resolve through rituals of penance, he’s telling them to take these penitential rituals straight to their hearts, to the very core of their beings. They are not told to demonstrate repentance on the outside, but in their hearts and souls.

In the New Testament, the rending of garment seems to be an outward expression of indignation at sacrilege and blasphemy. For example, in the Acts of the Apostles, Saints Paul and Barnabas rent their garments when the people of Lystra began to worship them. But in the gospels, the High Priest, Caiaphas, rent his garments when Jesus affirmed that He was the Christ, the Son of the Living God. There is profound irony here as in the rest of the gospel; instead of Jesus committing blasphemy, it is the High Priest who expresses blasphemy against Him. Furthermore, Caiaphas had violated the Levitical prohibition against a high priest rending his garments. This is in sharp contrast to the seamless simple garment of our Lord that was left intact at the moment of His crucifixion. St Bede the Venerable would recognise the symbolism in this action. In the Old Testament priesthood was to be rent on account of the wickedness of the priests themselves. But the solid strength of the Church, which is often called the garment of her Redeemer, can never be torn asunder.

There was one more “rending” that occurred during the Passion. This was the rending of the veil in the temple that separated the holy place from the holy of holies when Our Lord died on the Cross. That curtain which veiled God’s presence in the temple might be called His garment. God Himself rent His own garment, as if weeping the death of His Son. Yet that most holy death was also the sacrifice pleasing to the Father. In union with the Crucified one, we too should rend our own hearts in preparation to receive the gift of eternal life.

Keeping in mind the command to break our hearts instead of merely tearing our garments, let us now turn to the gospel. Our Lord here gives us pointers as to how to conduct ourselves when we do acts of piety or righteousness, namely, giving alms, fasting and praying. When we do these acts, our Lord is asking us to do them without fanfare. He places the emphasis on our motivation: “Be careful not to parade your good deeds before men to attract their notice; by doing this you will lose all reward from your Father in heaven.” Rather, our actions must be done in “secret, and your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you.” He reminds us that the intended audience is not men, but God. Our actions are meant to please God, not seek favour in the eyes of men. Such outward actions without interior conversion would be pointless. Therefore, these acts must spring from the heart and go hand in hand. Giving to the needy without prayer and fasting lacks a spiritual dimension. Prayer without fasting and giving to the needy is an exercise in self-expression and wishful thinking. Fasting without charity and prayer becomes self-centered physical conditioning. Pope Francis tells us in one of his homilies on this day “that conversion is not a matter reducible to outward forms or vague intentions, but engages and transforms one’s entire existence from the centre of the person, from the conscience.”

These practices are never goals in and of themselves, but instead are tools, working like ice picks to crack open our frozen icy hearts, levers to pry them open, so that we can look inside ourselves and see our deepest longings and fears for what they really are. Each Lenten ascetic practice—denying oneself meat, or luxury, or treats—helps us to put our lifestyles and desires into perspective and creates a space for God to enter. Having created a space, we must allow God to come into our lives and into our hearts: here is where Lenten practices of daily prayer and reading scripture are important. Take some time each day to pray, breaking open the monotony of the everyday to let God in to your life.

Finally, let this also be a season of loving. Very often, making sacrifices and performing penances can put us in a bad mood. Rather, than purifying us and helping us to grow in virtue, we end up becoming grouchy, irritable and even judgmental of others whom we believe are not as holy as we are. The way of loving requires an openness and vulnerability, a letting in of the stranger and the unknown, and a giving away parts of ourselves that we may rather keep. In short, to love as Christ loves, we must be willing to love to the extent of allowing our hearts to be broken. And becoming like Christ is not a one-time event, it is being constantly remade in Christ in our daily lives and in all aspects of our lives. The penitential season of Lent is not about slow progress to a singular moment of conversion; rather, it is a process of constant conversion, constant rending, and constant breaking. The rituals of Lent, such as giving something up or marking our foreheads with ashes, do not in and of themselves, mark our conversion moment. Instead, they are habits of ongoing conversion: allowing us to break open our hearts and give them over to God. When shall we begin? The answer is now! As St Paul reminds us in the second reading, “Now is the favourable time; this is the day of salvation!”