Obedience frees us to love

Sixth Sunday of Easter Year C

When I was a lay person gradually re-discovering my faith beyond the pages of catechism text books, experimenting with new ideas which I gleaned from the writings of Protestants and progressive theologians, I used to question what I thought was an unjust monopoly by the hierarchy over doctrines of faith and its more practical applications in canon law and the liturgy. I used to wonder why I had no say in the matter. In my hubris, I would imagine myself revising and outright reversing some of the doctrines, disciplines and rubrics if given the chance. The Church had to listen to me, not me listening to the Church.

As I look back at those years and the theological framework (more like ideological framework) which drove my moral compass and directed my actions, I never for once thought that I was being “disobedient” to the Church when I chose to depart from what I knew was normative. It was just that I didn’t take my obedience as some sort of blind docility. I finally found a name in my peculiar position when my close Jesuit friend told me that in his society, it’s called “creative fidelity,” and he cheekily explained that it is “being obedient without really being obedient.” That’s kind of an oxymoron. Such fidelity is creative, because it calls on the individual's freedom and resourcefulness. But in all honesty, the only person we are obedient to is ourselves, our ideals, our agenda, even though we claim and protest that we are still being obedient to God and His Church, it’s just that God and the Church haven’t “got it” yet like us. We can only hope that one day they will finally come around to realise that “I” was right.

Our Lord makes it clear in today’s gospel that if we truly love Him then we will show it by obeying His commands. To obey God is to love Him. Obedience is His love language and that is how He receives love. We may think of “obey” as a cold, dutiful verb, preferring “love” which feels more liberating and authentic. Recently, there had been many celebrities who proudly and publicly declared that they were finally free to love themselves and to break free of social norms. We can even hear the resounding finale of the musical “Wicked,” above their protests: “And nobody … is ever gonna bring me down!” One commentator exposes the hypocrisy of the statement: “this is not love, it’s called selfishness.” The world seems to believe that if we wish to be happy and to authentically love oneself, it means choosing not to love others or be accountable to them.

In contrast to this mantra of unfettered autonomy and disobedience, our Lord tells us, “If anyone loves me he will keep my word.” In fact, in an earlier verse He declares, “If you love me, keep my commands” (John 14:15). This simply sets the record straight - there is no contradiction between love and obedience. To love God is to obey Him. To obey Him is to love Him. To honour Him, serve Him, and please Him is the deepest cry of our hearts. That is what it means to be authentically “me.”

We are mistaken that obedience compromises our freedom to love God because it seems to compel. On the contrary, obedience is what makes us truly free to love. St Thomas Aquinas explains that by obedience we slay our own will by humbly giving way to another’s voice. He means it in that our wrong desires are done away with and that we only desire God’s will for us whatever it entails. It is a freeing of our own wills to desire what is good and to acknowledge that we do not always know what is best. As long as we are not obedient to God’s will, our true motivation, whether we are willing to admit it or not, is selfishness. Our supposed “love” would only be a disguise, a cover for our self-serving attitude.

But obedience does not only free us to love; love makes it possible for us to obey without compulsion. Love and obedience possess a symbiotic relationship. It will be easy to keep and obey God’s commands if I love Him. Now, it must be clear that the depth of my love isn’t dependent upon my obedience. My obedience however, is rooted in my love. The more I love God with all that I am, the more I want to obey Him, serve Him, and honour Him. It is the desire to love that drives me to obey.

It should be clear by now that obedience doesn’t always lead to love and desire for God, but love and desire for God always lead to obedience. Sometimes, we obey out of fear of being punished by God. Sometimes we express obedience as a kind of virtue signalling - it is performative, thinking that we can earn God’s love and other people’s admiration. But the truth is that God loved us while we were still sinners, undeserving of His love, and yet He shows His unconditional love by offering us the life of His Son. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God’s love for us is transformative if we are willing to accept it. True love reshapes our inner being, reorientates our lives away from self to the other. Obedience is the outward result of an inwardly transformed heart. In a way, it is sacramental. When we obey God out of love, His commands are not burdensome, “For His yoke is easy and His burden is light.”

Obedience is a virtue that we are all called to have as Christians. Disobedience to God was part of the first sin of the human race; obedience, therefore, is its antidote. God wants us to obey Him and His commandments but also obey Him through other people who have authority over us. It is easy to say that we obey God, but the proof of such obedience is to be seen in our obedience to those who exercise legitimate authority as long as that authority is not in violation of God’s express will. We cannot choose to be obedient only when it is convenient to do so, when the decision of the one in authority aligns with my own personal ideas.

The reason obedience is so important is because obedience is the proof of love. Many people say they love God, but their lives don’t reflect it. It is hard for our human eye to measure just how much someone’s heart loves God, but we can measure it by their actions. God cannot be deceived. To say you love God and no one can judge your relationship with Him based on your actions is a deception. Just like you can tell when a young man is madly in love with a maiden by the way he swoons over her, he talks about her, and his grand romantic gestures towards her, so it is with a heart in love with God. Likewise, if you truly love God, your life will reflect it.

So, let us pray that the Lord will refine us from the inside out. May we only have one desire: To love the Lord with all that is in us. And that means, submitting our will to His. That my friends would be truly “defying gravity”, the gravity of my selfishness and self-centredness dragging me down, so that I may soar and reach the heavens.

God is the Author, man isn't

Twenty Second Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Being a priest, I must admit that it’s not hard to know what I must do. If I want to know what I must do, I am simply guided by sacred scripture and sacred tradition, the teachings and disciplines of the Church found in canon law, the liturgical rubrics and pastoral directories governing church discipline, structures and practices. The hard part is doing it anyway despite it being unpopular. It’s funny that whenever I do what is required of me, I’m always accused of being “rigid”! Yes, the Church’s laws, rules and rubrics provide clear unambiguous guidance and direction, but they also make room for discernment and exception-making whenever necessary. The hard part is always trying to reinvent the wheel based on personal preferences and feelings, mine as well as others. This is when the point of reference is no longer Christ or the Church, but me. If I should “follow my heart” or that of others, without any reference to Christ or the Church, I would simply be guilty of what the Lord is accusing the Pharisees in today’s gospel: “You put aside the commandment of God to cling to human traditions.”

Too many these days, including many well-intentioned pastors, feel that the teachings of the Church fall into the category of “grey area” and “ambiguity,” thus the teachings of faith and morals are relative to individuals and their respective unique situations. They have problems with doctrinal teachings on contraception, purgatory, and indulgences (just to name a few), all of which are covered and explained clearly in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. And if we should decide to defend these teachings and the laws which flow from them, we are immediately labelled as “rigid” and “seeing everything in black and white,” refusing to acknowledge that people change over the years and so the Church must learn to adapt accordingly. The final argument and last insult would be to insist that Church laws are mere “human regulations” which justifies departing from them. And since they are supposedly “man-made rules,” you can and should dispense with them as how Christ dispensed with the man-made rules and traditions of the scribes and Pharisees in today’s gospel passage. Interesting argument but seriously flawed.

Yes, it is correct to state that many of these rules are man-made, Christ made them and Christ was fully human. It was Christ Himself who instituted the Eucharist: “Do this in memory of Me”, He said at the Last Supper. “Go therefore and baptise”, He said, and it was He who included the Trinitarian baptismal formula in the rite. It was He who taught if someone should divorce his or her spouse and marry another, it would be adultery. Our Lord was the master of creating traditions! But let us not forget this little, often ignored, seldom stressed point – Christ was also fully divine – He was fully God. So, no, though there are man-made rules in the Church just like any human organisation and society, and these rules can technically be changed and have changed over the centuries, there are fundamentally certain rules set in stone, on an unbreakable and indissoluble “stone”, which is to say that they are “immutable,” they remain binding in every age and place and under any circumstances, precisely because God is the author, and man isn’t.

Alright, given the fact that divine laws can’t be changed except by God, how about all the disciplines, canon law, rules and liturgical rubrics of the Church? Aren’t these man-made? Well, just because they are “man-made” doesn’t necessarily empty them of value. Traffic laws, statutory laws, municipal by-laws, school regulations, association rules would equally fall under the same category of being “man-made.” Can you imagine a society or a world that totally departs from any law or regulation and everyone is allowed to make decisions, behave, and act upon their own whims and fancies? If you’ve ever watched one of those apocalyptic movies of a dystopian world in the not-too-distant future, you will have your answer. We will soon descend into a society of anarchy, lawlessness, violence, where justice is merely an illusion and “might is right.” The reason for this is because none of us are as sinless as the Son of God or His immaculately conceived Mother. Laws are not meant to curtail and restrict our freedom. They are meant to ensure that our rights as well as the rights of others are protected so that true freedom may be enjoyed. The Law of Christ as expounded by the Church frees us - it frees from our selfish, self-referential, sin-encrusted egos.

A more careful examination of Christ’s words in today’s passage indicate that He was not condemning human tradition, but those who place human traditions, laws, or demands before true worship of God and His will expressed in the commandments. The problem wasn’t “human traditions” but specifically “human traditions” that obscure the priority of worship and God. Man was made to worship God; it's in our very nature to do so. Every other human activity should either flow from this or should rank second to this. This is what liturgical rubrics hope to achieve. Detailed instructions for both the priest and the congregation are intended to ensure that God is ultimately worshipped and glorified in the liturgy, and not man who is to be entertained. In other words, all these “man-made” rules of the Church which, to some of us, doesn’t seem to be what Christ taught, actually flow from the heart of Christ's teaching. Christ gave us the Church to teach and to guide us; she does so, in part, by teaching us to know God, to love Him and serve Him and through all these, be united with Him in Paradise forever. But when we substitute our own will for this most basic aspect of our humanity, we don't simply fail to do what we ought; we take a step backward and obscure the image of God.

It is often very convenient to denounce Catholic tradition as “man-made” or “human tradition” just because we don’t like it. The hypocrisy of such an accusation is often lost on those who supplant the Church’s tradition, rules and rubrics, with their own interpretation and version. Clericalism, real clericalism and not just the dressed-up version of it (those who wear black cassocks or lacy albs), is the result of choosing to depart from those rules, disciplines and teachings. When we ignore or reject the rules of the Church, we are merely replacing them with our own rules, our so-called “human traditions.” In fact, we are putting “aside the commandment of God to cling to human traditions.” It is not those who keep the rules but those who flagrantly break the rules that are the modern-day Pharisees.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that Sacred Tradition, rather than a set of “man-made rules” or “human traditions” is “the living memorial of God’s Word.” Pope Benedict XVI explains that Sacred Tradition “is not the transmission of things or words, an assortment of lifeless objects; (but) it is the living stream that links us to the origins, the living stream in which those origins are ever present.” Therefore, we should be putting aside our own arrogant personal preferences and opinions, rather than God’s commandments, and come to acknowledge that it is not stupidity but humility to listen to the voice of the Church because as St Ambrose reminds us, “the Church shines not with her own light, but with the light of Christ. Her light is drawn from the Sun of Justice, so that she can exclaim: ‘It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me’ (Gal 2:20)”.

Never settle for less

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Today, many well intentioned Catholics and even leaders would opined that the traditional path to sanctity, to become a saint, is too demanding and may even be toxic by today’s standards. We often hear this complaint that the Church and her teachings are demanding the humanly impossible from her flock; that she shouldn’t “push so hard” or people will break and leave. And so instead of demanding excellence, we settle for mediocrity. Instead of pushing up the standards with the sky (or heaven) being the limit, we demand that the Church lowers the bar to accommodate all and sundry, even those who do not make the most basic and fundamental mark - for example observing the five precepts of the Church. When communion is guaranteed despite whether one is properly disposed or not or living in sin, when sacraments are dispensed like freebies at the supermarket, thrown in as consumer’s bait, when moral and liturgical laws are flagrantly violated in the name of pastoral inclusivity, you know you’ve hit rock bottom, or perhaps worst - we’ve bottomed out.

Today, we see the rise of mediocrity in every sphere. In fact, many celebrate their mediocrity by announcing, “this is who I am, take it or leave it!” When mediocrity has become the norm, when our imperfections and limitations are applauded or even hung up like trophies, when the status quo is accepted without question, there is no longer any impetus to improve ourselves, to grow or advance in sanctity. Mediocrity today poses as democratisation, inclusiveness, populism, condescension, tolerance, broad-mindedness, optimism and even charity. Mediocrity provides the anaesthesia our society needs to shield it from the sting of suffering and sacrifice.

In other words, mediocrity presents the promise of salvation without a cross, charity without needing to sacrifice. We try to make religion easier and more accessible in order to stem the steady decline in followers. But mediocrity is settling for cheap; it is selling a lie, and eventually most people will catch on to a lie, which explains why we continue to haemorrhage numbers. Easy come easy go!

The call to holiness, ultimately, is a call to perfection. Being average or just good when it comes to holiness just doesn’t make it! As Christians, we hear Christ’s rallying cry to walk the extra mile, to go out into the deep end, to make the greater sacrifice for faith. We are all called to be saints! You will hear Jesus constantly prodding you, “Why do less when you can do more?” He came to raise the bar, not lower it. “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.”

The truth that we must embrace is that religion is supposed to be hard, like anything else worth doing particularly since it concerns eternal life. The way forward is up, not downwards. We should reach for the stars instead of being contented with mere pebbles of star dust. To a secular mind, saints are shockingly unreasonable. But can one love God too much? Can one be too humble or too charitable or too holy? Scriptures tells us that this can never be. Even our Lord Himself would demand nothing less than perfection: “You must therefore be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” And no good Christian can ever accuse our Lord of being too extreme or unreasonable.

What our Lord is proposing to us today is that we Christians should never just settle for being good or be contented with just being average. The call to perfection is the challenge that Christ throws to everyone who would follow Him, that is to reach the unreachable; to leap beyond the practical, the ordinary and the routine; to fulfil the basic and minimum requirements and then to look eagerly for more ways to give, care, and love. That is why devotion to the saints is such a necessary antidote to the poison of mediocrity in modern times. The saints remind us that perfection in terms of holiness is possible and attainable, even though it may take a lifetime of surrendering to God’s grace as we progress in discipleship. We are made to be saints, being “half-baked” just doesn’t cut it. To quote one of Pope Francis’ favourite theologians, León Bloy, when all is said and done, “the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint.”

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, you are meant to live a heroic faith, not a mediocre forgettable one. You are meant to shine like stars in the heavens, not just appear to be a shiny bling on some counterfeit Versace outfit. If you feel that this is overwhelming and you don’t have what it takes to be a saint, know this: It doesn’t take your strength but your surrender. It will cost you everything but gain you so much more. There is a life you’re meant to live, and Christ can help you get there. Make it your aim to live higher in your faith each day, instead of dragging your feet in the mud of mediocrity. In whatever you’re going through, it is meant to take you higher. The Apostle James assured us that “when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing” (James 1:2-4)

Love is Demanding

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Recently, I was just reflecting over two broad categories which we priests are often lumped into. Some priests are labelled as “strict”, while others are known as “humble.” You may find this dichotomy strange because the opposite of strictness is not humility, they are not antonyms by any measure, but it would appear that these are the only two categories we priests are associated with - it’s either one or the other. As I tried to wrap my head around these concepts, it occurred to me that both strictness and humility have been redefined beyond their traditional and conventional meanings. A strict priest is one who follows the rules and is slavishly consistent with regards to his policies, whereas the humble priest is radically flexible, and is ever willing to bend or break the rules when it is convenient to do so.

More than 1700 years ago St. Anthony the Great, whose feast we celebrated last month, envisioned a day “when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him saying, ‘You are mad, you are not like us.’” That day has arrived. There has been a tectonic shift that has upended how we view reality. It may have started with tiny indiscernible tremors but with hardly any resistance, this has morphed into full blown inversion of values. First you are made to tolerate the abnormal or the immoral, then you are asked to celebrate, and finally, you are forced to participate. Refusal to do so would result in the modern equivalent of excommunication - “cancellation.” In this almost alternate multi-verse-like reality, those who break the laws are canonised while those who keep the laws are vilified.

The Catholic Church, unfortunately, has not been spared. In The First Apology, Justin Martyr taught, “Let those who are not found living as He taught, be understood to be no Christians, even though they profess with the lip the precepts of Christ.” This has been the consistent teaching of the Church for centuries. Yet, today, the “view” of St Justin Martyr would be considered “strict,” “rigid”, overly restrictive and even un-Christian, where cohabitation, sodomy and abortion have become normalised. All of this suggests that the Church has been influenced more by the culture than has the culture by the Church.

If this is how modern folks, including many Catholics, view “reality” then we can begin to understand how our Lord’s teachings today will not sit well with many. A most frequent complaint against the Church these days is that we seem to be more a Church of Laws rather than a Church of Love. The statement suggests that there is an opposition between laws and love. But the reality is that the nominal rejection of legalism often reveals a new form of legalism – when you break a law, you end up making another. Man cannot live in a vacuum devoid of rules and norms. We either have to live under a law which applies to everyone without exception or favour, the Rule of Law, or we make up laws as and when it is convenient to do so, often favouring ourselves or our friends, which is called Rule by Law.

Today, we have a passage from the gospel that puts things in their proper perspective. St Matthew the Evangelist records Jesus as saying this, “Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish them but to complete them. I tell you solemnly, till heaven and earth disappear, not one dot, one little stroke, shall disappear from the Law until its purpose is achieved.” But Jesus does not stop here. He proceeds to issue this warning, “Therefore, the man who infringes even one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be considered the least in the kingdom of heaven; but the man who keeps them and teaches them will be considered great in the kingdom of heaven.” Doesn’t this make Jesus sound overly “strict,” legalistically rigid?

Most critics of the Church’s penchant for laws and rubrics would rather portray Jesus as an exemplary and “humble” rebel, an anti-establishment instigator, a prophetic witness of libertinism, who came to undo the law, condemn the legalism of the Pharisees and set up a new relationship with God that was solely based on grace and freedom. For them, Jesus must always be a Jesus of Love, the fount of mercy, the anti-thesis of the strict laws. It’s not hard to see how this ideological framework fits into today’s society with its suspicion of law and authority. Yes, it is an attractive image but a false one as our gospel demonstrates today.

What these critics fail to realise is that there is no inconsistency between the Jesus of Love and the Jesus of the Law. Our Lord is both the Incarnation of Love and the perfection of the Law. He came to show us what it means to love and this comes with not just keeping the bare minimum of the Law but perfecting it through Love. With love, keeping the Law is no longer done grudgingly as if it were a burden but willingly and wholeheartedly as an expression of true freedom. Breaking the law doesn’t make you more loving, nor does keeping the Law make you any less. The Church’s law merely follows the theological reality of things. For example, it isn’t canon law that forbids divorce, Jesus does. Canon law merely translates what the Lord has revealed to us into juridical language. So, what happens when you take away the law or choose to ignore it? You would most likely find anarchy rather than love!

If the modern Church is to effectively deal with the social and moral issues of the day, it must do so NOT by lowering the moral bar nor by making things easier and lighter. The problem with Christians today is not rigidity but laxity. For unless the Church, by its living witness, takes seriously the teachings of Jesus, the world won’t either. G.K. Chesterton was right when he said, “I don’t need a church to tell me I’m wrong where I already know that I’m wrong; I need a Church to tell me I’m wrong where I think I’m right.” For whenever the Church fails to address how Church teaching applies to a moral issue in the culture or ignores the conduct of a member unbecoming of a follower of Christ, it is a signal that the church: is uncertain about her teachings, doesn’t take her own teachings seriously, or is satisfied with the “good enough” Christians, and whose moral failings remain, for the most part, private.

The mission of the Church is not to make things easier, but to form solid and committed disciples of the Lord who can meet the challenge of the day. This requires strict discipline done out of love. It is the lack of love which seeks to make things easier, because the desire for popular appeal is not the product of love but of cowardly self-preservation. To those who complain that the teachings of the Lord are too demanding, the Church must meet these demands with steadfastness and clarity of her teachings. She must remember that it is never a loving thing when she bends to the pressures of culture by allowing false teaching, weak teaching, and the lack of church discipline to endanger the spiritual health of her flock.

Is there more?

 Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Remain in His Love

Sixth Sunday of Easter Year B

What links last week’s gospel passage and this week’s is the word “remain”. In this week’s gospel, we find the word ten times. To some, this appears unnecessarily repetitive. Whereas for others, the oft used word is capable of leading us into a more profound reflexion on the topic of ‘love. Just as the branches must remain a part of the vine in order to bear fruit, remaining with the Lord is the fundamental first theme of this week’s gospel. But to remain where? In love, in the love of Christ, in being loved and in loving the Lord.

To understand the meaning of the word ‘remain’ and its context, one needs to return to last week’s gospel, where Jesus presented the parable of the vine. The vine is an Old Testament image which has a double meaning: it refers both to God as well as to His People. But here emerges the second meaning: the vine is a symbol of spousal love, an expression of the joy of love that springs from fidelity.  “Steadfast love” and “faithfulness” are two qualities that are often found together in the Old Testament to describe God. God enters into a covenant, a relationship of no meager proportions, and an unprecedented union with His People. What we have here is not just some flitting superficial relationship, but one which will survive the test of time and tribulations, one which will endure across the centuries, one that will not be rescinded even in the face of infidelity.

But then, we all know the story of the Bible. As much as it is a tale that eulogises the fidelity of God, the Bible is equally a story that indicts the people of their infidelity. Man chooses and attempts to break the bond which is unbreakable. He wants a life that is autonomous and independent of God. And due to sin, the vineyard is devastated, the wild boar and enemies invade and violates its parameters.

But God does not give up: God finds a new way to arrive at a free and irrevocable love, to the fruit of this love: God becomes man, and thus, he Himself becomes the root of the vine, he Himself becomes the foundation of the vine which is indestructible. The people of God cannot be destroyed because God Himself has entered into their experience and existence.  He implanted Himself on this earth. Thus, we come to understand that fidelity in any relationship, whether it be friendship or marriage, is not a personal moral choice but derives its efficacy from its true source, the God who is ever faithful. In order that one remains faithful in loving, one must remain in love, in Jesus who is God’s Love Incarnate.

To “remain” is not the only imperative we find in this passage. ‘Remaining’ leads to the second imperative - to “observe.” It must be noted that "observe" is only found at the second level - the first is still "remain," the ontological level. It is not we who must produce this great fruit called love. We do not create love through our observance of the commandments. On the contrary, the ability to observe the commandments flows from our fundamental relationship of ‘remaining’ with God. God’s act of loving us precedes our action of loving Him. In the second reading, St John eloquently speaks of this divine initiative of love – “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.” Love is not defined by our feeble attempts but by the fundamental act of God towards us. He loved us first, unconditionally, even when our love for Him was weak, tenuous and conditional.

The second imperative to “observe” all the commandments seems oddly out of sync with the first one, which calls us to “remain” in Christ’s love. We often associate the observance of commandments or the law, as restrictions unnecessarily and unjustly placed upon a person, and thus appears to be the ante-thesis of love, which we associate with freedom. How often have I heard this mantra: “We should be a Church of love not a Church of laws.” And if one were concerned about keeping those laws, one may risk being labelled a small-minded Pharisee. And yet here, Jesus, by juxtaposing these two imperatives, reminds us that observance of the law is a natural consequence of remaining in love. One flows from the other. One demonstrates the other. Failure to observe laws does not demonstrate that one is more loving. On the contrary, it may actually expose our lack of love.  Just have a look at all the people who flaunt traffic laws – speeding, beating traffic lights, double-parking; no one would dare claim that such behaviour displays exceptional love. Rather, it may be easy to conclude that such behaviour reveals a callous and insensitive attitude to the welfare of others.

Thus, morality is not just a set of obligations and rules that derives its authority from outside of us. We do not have to obey a law laid down before us, a law that is external to us, but we only need to act in accordance with our identity. As beings rooted in the love of God, it is in our very nature and purpose to obey His commandments. Thus, it is no longer obedience, an external thing, but a realisation of the gift of our new being. To truly love, one finds no contradiction in observing commandments. Disobedience, on the other hand, denies this identity. St John confronts the real contradiction in our lives when we profess to love God but refuse to obey His commandments; we love God but hate our neighbor. It is tantamount to claiming that one can bear fruit whilst living apart from the vine. For Christ, loving God is synonymous with observing and obeying His commandments.

Finally, Christ now presents the Commandment which summarises the themes of “remaining” and “observing” and all others – the new Commandment of love - "Love one another as I love you.”  Christ presents His catechesis on love not by outlining a structure of actions, obligations and duties. If it was so, it would be pure moralism. He presents His catechesis in the form of personal testimony. What is so radically new about this new Commandment is not the level of heroic action that a Christian must do, but what Christ Himself has done. It is Christ who has given us Himself, took on our human nature, and finally given His life on the cross for us. As the gospel tells us, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends." The novelty or newness of the Commandment transfers the standard and point of reference from the individual Christian to that of Christ Himself.

Let us thank God for the greatness of His love, let us pray that He may help us to grow in His love, and truly remain in His love. For this is love – not our gift to Him but His gift to us. This is love, not just some passionately feverish moment of altruism but one that is characterised by fidelity and obedience; one that prepares us to lay down our lives for our friends, one that readily submits to authority and not live in dereliction of it. We can do so only because Christ has first done this for us.

Monkey See Monkey Don't

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

People are often surprised when I tell them that we priests go through eight years of seminary studies (some of us even longer). The initial impression is that we are walking encyclopedias who have an answer to every question and that we “know it all.”  But the myth is soon exploded when they begin to discover how little we actually do know. There are so many things they don’t teach you in the seminary, ranging from organisational skills, and human resource management to how to celebrate the mass. Now, most people would think that we should all be experts in this last area. But here’s the problem, a great number of things are learnt just through observation and imitation, ‘monkey see, monkey do.’ The problem is that when it comes to finding a model, which monkey should we follow?

During the years of my priestly formation, both in the seminary and in my early years as a priest, I received valuable advice from more seasoned priests. These values continue to be guiding beacons in my own pastoral ministry. However, I’ve also received other forms of advice, which seemed reasonable at the material time, but now after deeper reflexion, I have discovered the somewhat fallacious character of some of these advices.

One such piece of advice is that we can dispense with the rigours of the law on the grounds of ‘pastoral reasons.’  No one, however, actually explained what it meant to be ‘pastoral.’ It obviously implied that we had the people’s best interest and welfare in mind. Now, there is nothing wrong with acting pastorally. That’s simply part of our ministry as priests. We are ‘pastors’ or ‘shepherds’ of souls. Therefore it would be incumbent on us to act pastorally with deep concern for the welfare of our flock.

However, over the years I have gradually discovered that the so called ‘pastoral approach’ has less to do with the pastoral needs of the people and more to do with my own self preservation. ‘Pastoral reasons’ became the catch-all principle that absolved me from all responsibility and culpability when it came to bending or even breaking the rules. Eating meat on Friday because we were presented with a more delicious meat selection on the menu became permissible on the grounds of pastoral reasons. Cutting down the rigours of liturgical rubrics in terms of gestures, use of shorter Eucharistic text on Sundays, introducing innovations that fit in with personal preferences became justifiable on the grounds of pastoral reasons. Deception and disobedience were legitimised by pastoral reasons. As to what were these ‘pastoral reasons’ about, there was often little depth in identifying the real grounds. At the end of the day, the pastoral fallacy had finally become my excuse for justifying laziness, sloppiness and personal convenience. Ultimately, the argument in favour of the people’s need is just a thin veil for protecting one’s own need – a need to be popular, a need for a comfortable life, a need to be recognised for one’s own individuality.

Our Lord resisted and exposed the pastoral fallacy in today’s gospel. Many people sought Him out because He was healing the sick and delivering many from the power of the devil. Our Lord was doing wonderful work and helping so many people. He would have certainly been tempted to continue doing this good work with the excuse that he was doing it out of compassion for these people. But was this the will of God? Was this his mission? We often think that temptation comes in the form of being attracted to do something which is bad. This is not always the case. According to St Ignatius of Loyola, the devil tempts bad people with bad things but he also tempts good people with good things. Jesus could have been tempted to continue his works of healing and attending to the needs of the crowd, but this would only be an excuse to meet his own need for recognition and love. But he understood that his mission lay elsewhere, even though this may proof to be unpopular. Today, the readings provide us with three important criteria for making a decision.

The first criterion is that the will of God must always be our point of reference. It is not enough to do what is good, even if it is for the good of the other. The starting point cannot just be the needs of the other; it cannot just be our assessment of what is convenient or expedient; it cannot just be based on the opinions of the masses, even if it may be that of the majority. Ultimately, we must always choose to do what God wants of us. Sometimes, doing what God wants of us can be unpopular and may even go against our personal preferences. 

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

The last criterion is the salvation of souls. Today, very little is often said about salvation, what more salvation of souls. Too often, the Christian message has been reduced to some ‘feel good’ gospel which provides a mixture of pop psychology and spirituality for our earthly lives. Heaven seems to be a foregone conclusion whereas hell has been relegated to a myth. But, if one were to recall the answer to the second question contained in the old Penny Catechism, one will be reminded that salvation is man’s ultimate purpose – we are created by God “to know Him, love Him and serve Him and be with Him in Paradise forever.”

The last canon of the Code of Canon Law, canon 1752 has often been cited as the ‘pastoral canon’ which allows dispensing any of the requirements, rules, restrictions, prohibitions and responsibilities laid out in the Code. Any simple reading of canon 1752 will tell you that it is not so. If fact, the word ‘pastoral’ or ‘pastoral reasons’ does not appear at all. But the canon does say this: that “the salvation of souls, which must always be the supreme law in the Church, is to be kept before one’s eyes.” It is not enough to choose to help people who are in need. We may just be providing a temporary solution. It is not enough that we are able to provide some solution to poverty, because we will always have the poor when society remains unconverted. Ultimately, salvation must be the ultimate criteria for us offering to help those in need, the sick, the poor, the despondent and the lost. No form of human altruism can be an adequate substitute for salvation.

Very often we are tempted to forget this important mission of ours – to preach the gospel of salvation and give glory to God in all matters. We are more concerned with what others think of us as we seek their approval. We are more concerned with our own personal convenience and what makes us happy and we think we can find it in riches, popularity and power. If our life’s purpose is based on these factors rather than the will of God, we will soon find ourselves disillusioned and tired. We are certainly more than simians not just because we have far greater intelligence. We are created with purpose for a purpose – to do the will of God, to discover him in prayer and work for our salvation and the salvation of others. That’s certainly more than ‘monkey see, monkey do.’