Saved by the rooster's crow

Homily for Chinese New Year 2017

For those of you who still remember my predictions gleaned from my good friend Lillian Too at the beginning of 2017, I’m going to disappoint you today. There will be no repeat performance of that cock-and-bull story of how things would simply be hunky-dory and so there’s nothing for you to worry about. The truth is, I don’t know what’s in store for this year. So, be worried, if you have to. But the good news is that I am going to speak about the cock, or to be more accurate, the rooster. Not the rooster of the Chinese Zodiac fame and how this totem would fare in your life this year, but the rooster of Christian symbolism.

Yes, a rooster is a Christian symbol, and “why?” you may venture to ask. The rooster has been a Christian symbol since God used it to show the weakness of man with Peter and the triumph of Christ in the resurrection. Remember how a rooster played a part in the story of Jesus’ own passion and death? When Peter said that he would never deny Christ,  Jesus spoke to him and said, “Assuredly, I say to you that today, even this night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny Me three times.” St. Peter, in weakness, denied Christ, and yet, by God’s grace was called to leave behind his treason and to believe in the work of Christ’s redemption. The rooster reminds us that Christ welcomes all who have doubted and denied Him. Through the cross even the man who three times denied the Saviour was forgiven, loved, restored and sent out to zealously live for the glory of God. There is hope in the Gospel for sinners everywhere, for sinners like you and me.

Simply put, the story of the rooster provides us with a picture of God’s grace to sinners. It is an image of Peter’s failure and Jesus Christ’s triumph. The Church is not just a community of ready-made saints, but a story of sinners who are work-in-progress, growing slowly and incrementally as they push back the darkness in their lives to embrace the dawn of the resurrection.

This lead us to another layer of symbolism, perhaps a symbolism that has been lost to many of us urbanites. When was the last time you were awaken by the sound of a crowing rooster? Unless, you happen to be visiting your hillbilly cousins at the farm, the correlation between dawn and the rooster’s crow has been expunged from our memory. Scripture tells us that Jesus rose from the dead, “very early in the morning.” Thus the rooster’s crow announces the resurrection. The rooster reminds us that as Christians we are not children of darkness, hiding in the shadows of death and sin. The gloom of night has been scattered by Jesus' death and resurrection. As the rooster awaits the coming of the new day, so we await our new day in Christ.

Finally, because the rooster is the first animal to call out the dawn of a new day, roosters are a reminder of vigilance. Jesus used the example of the rooster when He said, “Watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming — in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning …” Christians saw the alert rooster as an image to be emulated. As the rooster watches for the morning, so all Christians are to watch for the Lord who would one day suddenly return to judge the living and the dead.

Since we are on the topic of cocks and roosters, here’s one last trivia. If you’ve been to the Atlantic Coast of Portugal, you would see a distinctive emblem of the region etched out on every possible surface, house walls, porcelain ware, tapestries, laced dollies etc. Yes, it is the rooster. According to the local folklore, a miraculous rescue of a condemned man is attributed to a resurrected cooked Rooster. The story is about a man who was accused of theft. When he faced his accuser, he claimed that the dead bird on the table, a rooster, intended for the banquet would crow as soon as they put a noose around his neck. The judge ignored the warning and took him to hang nonetheless. True enough, the Rooster stood up and crowed, telling the judge of his terrible error. Thankfully, a poorly made knot kept the accused from dying and he was given his freedom to travel in peace. Nice story, right? I’m not sure if a rooster would help save the day, when my own head is on the chopping block.

As the rooster looks out and calls to the sky, may we be reminded to look to the sky as we see the Day approaching. Christ is returning. A new day is dawning. Let us be given, therefore, to repentance and faith. Come to think of it, the church is God’s little rooster too. As we call forth the message of repentance to a sinful world, may God bless our little rooster, our brave and relentless rooster, a rooster who will refuse to be silenced even when everyone is happy to remain asleep.

The Charioteer of Virtues

Twenty Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Today’s gospel proposes a sly and devious character as our anti-hero. There is no indication that the dishonest steward actually turned over a new leaf nor could his actions be considered altruistic. In fact, self-preservation would seem to be his primary motive. In this sense, the parable is possibly the most mysterious of all Jesus’ parables. Here we have a steward, a sort of manager, entrusted with the business of the owner but guilty of mismanagement. Believing that his services would soon be terminated, he moves to secure his position. To cushion himself with a ‘soft-landing’ in the event he gets fired, he devised a dishonest yet clever plan. The plan was to under-invoice goods that clients had bought, so that those clients would be morally indebted to him and would pay him back by dealing with him favourably when he was out of a job. Although the unscrupulous action of the steward immediately catches our attention, it is not the main lesson to be drawn from this parable.

Some interpreters, embarrassed by the scheming and underhanded methods of the steward, have proposed that the discounting of debts could have come out from the steward’s own generous commission. But even the most charitable explanation of the steward’s modus operandi would not lessen the paradox of this parable. Why is a steward commended for astuteness by reducing the debts of his master’s debtors, seemingly squandering his master’s property still further? Furthermore, should a dishonest man be even held up as an example for moral virtue? For these and other reasons, no explanation of this parable seems wholly satisfactory. But it is clear, that the Lord is not asking us to emulate his dishonest ways. The main lesson has to do with his astuteness in averting disaster and securing a future.

The word “astuteness” is a translation of the Greek adjective ‘phronimos,’ which is derived from the noun ‘phronesis,’ It refers to the art of being discerning and judicious i.e. exercising smart judgment. A person who possesses ‘phronesis’ has the ability to both figure out what to do in any given moment while also knowing what is worth doing. The same word is used to describe the action of the man who built his house on a rock (Matt. 7:24). You could say that it's something like common sense, but it is really more than that. What ‘phronesis’ means is practical wisdom whereas ‘sophia,’ the other Greek word, speaks of theoretical wisdom. Such practical wisdom was seen, by ancient Greek philosophers, as a necessary part of the life of virtue. In the mind of Socrates, for example, ‘phronesis’ equals virtue, they are the same thing. Being good, according to Socrates, is to be intelligent.

According to St Thomas Aquinas, who translated the works of Aristotle, ‘phronesis’ is translated as prudence. Just like the Greeks, prudence was considered by St Thomas Aquinas as the cause, measure and form of all virtues. It is considered to be the auriga virtutum or the charioteer of the virtues, the mother of all virtues. The function of prudence is to point out which course of action is to be taken in any concrete circumstances. It lights the way and provides the parameters where other virtues are exercised. Its office is to determine for each in practice those circumstances of time, place, manner, etc. which should be observed. For example, a prudent man might see an old lady on a crowded Light Rail Train and a young man occupying a seat reserved for the elderly and disabled. He may prod the youth to encourage him to give her a seat, even at the risk that the young punk may turn around and assault him. But this is when we are reminded that prudence is never about self-preservation, it is a moral virtue. It does not serve its own interest but always the interest of that which is True, Good and Beautiful.

Therefore, the prudent man, is one who grasps a critical situation with resolution, foresight, and possesses the determination to avoid serious loss or disaster. He then acts virtuously. If foresight is the true measure of intelligence, a Christian must be ‘super’ intelligent since his foresight extends beyond this temporal plane, it penetrates the veil of death and catches a glimpse of the eternal vision of glory.  As the dishonest steward responded decisively to the crisis of his dismissal due to his worldly foresight, so disciples are to respond decisively in the face of their own analogous crisis with heavenly foresight. The greater crisis is not economic or even relational in nature; it is the ever-present prospect of death.

Jesus is concerned here with something more critical than a financial crisis.  His concern is that we avert spiritual crisis and personal disaster through the exercise of faith, foresight and compassion.  If Christians would only expend as much foresight and energy to spiritual matters which have eternal consequences as much as they do to earthly matters which have temporal consequences, then they would be truly better off, both in this life and in the age to come. Real wisdom is acknowledging that worldly happiness and success cannot be the key indicators of a wholesome life, a self fulfilled life but rather as St Ireneaus indicates, “the glory of God is a man fully alive.” Wholesomeness is measured by the extent of how we live our lives for the glory of God, and not for ourselves or for things.

Finally, being astute means recognising that there is no contradiction between faith and reason; in fact ‘faith seeks understanding’ (fides quaerens intellectum). We should, therefore, resist the temptation of dumbing-down the message of Christ, to reduce the gospel to the level of compatibility with the values of the world. Many worldly values will always remain incompatible with that of the gospel. Catholics need to recover the courage to be deeply reflective in our theology, rooted in our catechism, and intellectual in the defence of our faith, rather than giving in to a shallow mushy version of religion and styles of preaching done in the name of that most abused concept of all, ‘pastoral reasons.’  In fact, “the greatest pastoral disaster is the dumbing down of our Catholic faith” (Fr Robert Barron).

I’m tired of hearing the excuse for pitifully shallow catecheses, because it is claimed that our lay Catholics won’t be able to grasp and understand the depth of Catholic theology and teachings, so they always need to be served bite-sized, dumb down versions of the original. I think that’s down right condescending. Often, people fail to understand not because they are obtuse but because they choose not to understand. The issue has less to do with intelligence than with sin which blinds and obscures. We therefore need to move beyond the idea that graduating from Sunday school or receiving Confirmation prepares us with everything we need to know about our faith. Personally, I went through 12 years of Catechism in a Catholic missionary school and eight more years of seminary training, and I know I still have room to grow and learn. It would be presumptuous and dangerous for me to claim that I have nothing more to learn.

As disciples of the Lord, we are constantly prodded to go the extra mile, to make the ultimate sacrifice of bearing the cross. The world would consider us fools for this. But today’s gospel reminds us that there is nothing foolish about our choice or decisions. In fact, we have to exercise prudence above all. Without prudence bravery becomes foolhardiness; mercy sinks into weakness, and temperance into fanaticism.

God's Initiative or Man's Achievements

Fifth Ordinary Sunday Year C

In one of his most provocative and insightful books, Truth and Tolerance, Pope Benedict XVI Ratzinger, or Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger as he was then known, defended the uniqueness of the Christian faith in the face of religious and cultural pluralism. At the beginning of his book, he tackles one of the most difficult questions posed by the presence of diverse religious beliefs and refutes the oft-repeated claim that all religions essentially affirm the same things. According to him, that apart from common and similar elements, there are actually fundamental, non-negotiable differences among religions.

In expounding the history of religion, he distinguishes two main forms of religion. On the one hand, there is a kind of mysticism in which one seeks to merge into or become identical with everything, in an all-embracing, impersonal unity. Many Eastern religions and the New Age movement are religions of that sort. The point of reference is the mystical experience of the mystic – the sage, the monk, the guru who attains enlightenment and perfection. On the other hand, there is a great departure from this understanding in what he calls the monotheistic revolution. This monotheistic revolution provides "a personal understanding of God," in which one is united in love with a personal God and yet remains distinct from him. But this personal understanding of God cannot happen without God taking the initiative. God must reveal himself. The point of reference is no longer man – not the prophet, nor the patriarch, the king, or even the priest. That is why our scriptures are littered with fallible and weak individuals, men who sin. The point of reference is God, the God of love who calls them to his purpose. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are examples of the latter kind of religion.

Thus we have two structures that right from the start are built up in quite different ways. In mysticism, inwardness holds the first place; spiritual experience is posited as an absolute. That includes the view God is purely passive in relation to man and that the content of religion can only consist of man plunging into God. God does not act; there is only the mystical ascent of man to union. The monotheistic way, on the other hand, starts from a conviction that is the opposite of this; here man is the passive element upon whom God acts; here it is man who can do nothing of himself, but instead we have here an activity on the part of God, a call from God, and man opens himself to salvation through obedience in response to the call. Thus we see the link between revelation and the call. We cannot come to know the inner life of God unless He reveals Himself and God reveals himself in order that he may call.

The readings for this Sunday demonstrate the truth of what our Pope has written. It is God who takes the initiative in calling the apostles; weak, frightened men, men who were sometimes filled with personal ambition, men who also failed the test of discipleship by fleeing the scene of Jesus’ arrest. It is God who calls the prophets, men with unclean lips who require purification and redemption just like everyone else, in order that they may announce his Word to kings and commoners. It is God who selects the weakest, the least fitting, the most unsuitable candidates, even those deemed enemies of the faith, and raises them up to be his messengers, his apostles, his leaders. The Bible does not make any apology for these strange and crude characters; it does not need to cover up their faults and offenses with euphemistic glossing-over. In fact, it celebrates and even holds up as heroes the weakest, the youngest, the least likely to succeed, the pauper, and the sinner in order that may give highlight to one single truth – man’s redemption comes not from man himself, unlike the mythic stories of other traditions. Man’s redemption comes only from the grace of God. Thus the Bible is filled with illustrations of the truth of God’s initiating grace.

It is God who creates and God who calls. God's initiative upends our vaunted selves, for we thought we made things happen. However, the biblical story paints this narrow view as pride, hubris, even idolatry. Then God's initiative goes further. God elevates "the least of these," declaring the weak strong. In the midst of death and exile, God asserts there is life and belonging. And when resources look scarce, God says there is enough. None of this makes sense – according to conventional wisdom. But this is God's subversive, countercultural way that we are invited to trust. God calls his people to have faith, to believe that all is possible with God, even when it seems impossible for men.

Because God is the God of all grace, He does not sit back and wait for us to find our way to Him through our own miserably inadequate means. He does not wait for evolution to produce the perfect man, the perfect hero, the perfect saviour. God takes the initiative to seek us. He enters our domain to become one of us. Indeed he has entered this world to become its Saviour, the only Saviour, indeed the unique and universal of the whole world. Christianity has always held that the revelation of God in Jesus Christ is definitive. According to our Holy Father, the divinity of Jesus is "the real dividing line in the history of religions," which makes sense of "two other fundamental concepts of the Christian faith, which have become unmentionable nowadays: conversion and mission."

Another matter which I would like to address today is the place of culture in relation to our faith. No one needs to alert you to the fact that this Sunday also coincides with the most important cultural festival for our Chinese community, the Lunar New Year. Whereas the signature red seems to adorn the rest of the world, it’s presence during this liturgy seems subdued, even absent. In fact, the servers and I have donned the liturgical green of an ordinary Sunday and the Church seems culturally naked bereft of cultural accouterments. Am I oblivious to what’s happening or does Fr Michael have another piece of catechesis up his sleeve to explain his seemingly cultural short-sightedness? I believe that by choosing to celebrate the Sunday liturgy as a Sunday liturgy instead of substituting it with an alternative Chinese New Year liturgy provides us with the proper orientation with regards to culture, customs and traditions.

We find once again in the book, Truth and Tolerance, the Pope confronting head-on the claim that Christianity has imposed European culture on other peoples. This claim is often used to support a kind of inculturation that seeks to modify the gospel and the tenets of faith through the insertion of cultural elements from the pre-Christian customs and traditions of the peoples. In a way, it is a sort of Christian post-colonial rhetoric which accuses the missionaries of not only having Christianised the peoples of mission lands but had also arbitrarily forced upon them a European culture foreign to their taste. The Pope reminds us that "Christianity … originated, not in Europe, but in the Near East, in the geographical point at which the continents of Asia, Africa, and Europe come into contact." Yes, Christianity undeniably has a European element. But above all it has a perennial message that comes from God, not from any human culture. While Christians have sometimes pushed their cultures on other peoples, as have non-Christians, Christianity itself is alien to no authentically human culture. The gospel is not the creation of men, it comes from God.

Nevertheless, the Church treats culture with great reverence and even sees it as an effective means of transmitting the gospel message. According to Gaudium et Spes n. 53 (The Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World), one of the four key documents of Vatican II, ‘the word “culture” in the general sense refers to all those things which go to the refining and developing of man’s diverse mental and physical endowments.’ In other words, culture refers to man’s greatest and most refined achievements. But in spite of the lofty place given by the Church to human customs, nothing replaces worship of God, man’s primary activity.  So we do not put aside our duty to worship God even in the face of an opportunity to show reverence to our customs and traditions.  Often by over-emphasising the cultural element to the detriment of distorting and eclipsing the spiritual, we give in to the narcissistic temptation of worshipping man above God. The liturgy is always the worship of God, not of man.

This year is dedicated to the zodiac creature that seems least favourable to Christians, the snake. For many Christians, the symbolism of a snake is obvious – it represents evil, in fact the incarnation of the devil. In common parlance, when a person is described as a snake, it means that he or she is cunning, or someone capable of harming you. But for Chinese, the zodiac snake has a more positive meaning – it symbolises intelligence and good fortune (which explains its inclusion in the zodiac horoscope). We Christians also have an alternative image of the snake. You remember the story of the bronze serpent placed on the cross by Moses? In that story, the bronze serpent is a source of healing for those who had been bitten by poisonous snakes. When the people, stricken by malady, cried to God for a solution, He provided the answer. The source of their suffering will become the source of their redemption. This story is also an appropriate reminder that unless our customs and traditions are subjected to the authority of God and transformed by the gospel, they too can be harmful and dangerous.

Culture provides people with a common identity; it provides them with a rallying point, a reason for unity. But sometimes, culture can also divide, especially when culture become more important than our faith. We fight over them and begin to exclude others who do not share the same customs. It is only when customs are brought into harmony with gospel values, that they are transformed, transfigured. Culture then expands its horizons – it no longer merely communicates human traditions from one generation to the next, it also serves to communicate the perennial message of the gospel in the language of the present. Custom no longer celebrates man’s accomplishments but more importantly God’s blessings. Tradition then becomes a source of healing and in fact a great source of blessing.