Losers and Winners

Solemnity of All Saints 2021

Some of you may have been fans of the characters of the Peanuts comic strip created by Charles M. Schultz. Without a doubt, we have grown up enjoying, laughing with, sympathising and even hating the various individual comic personalities. My most endearing character is definitely Charlie Brown, the main male protagonist. The reason for this attraction is because Charlie Brown reminds me so much of myself growing up and even now, as an adult.

Personality-wise, he is gentle, insecure, and lovable. Charlie Brown possesses significant determination and hope, but frequently fails because of his insecurities, outside interferences, or plain bad luck. Although liked by his friends, he is often the subject of bullying, especially at the hands of Lucy van Pelt. Charlie is the proverbial Born Loser. He is described by his creator as “the one who suffers because he’s a caricature of the average person. Most of us are much more acquainted with losing than winning. Winning is great, but it isn’t funny.” We may laugh at Charlie’s bumbling expense, but as far as Charlie is concerned, losing isn’t funny either.

To be a Christian today often feels like being a loser. This is true, both as a matter of demographics and regarding the influence and respectability of traditional Christian values. There are fewer Christians even in traditionally predominantly “Christian” countries, and our neighbours think less of us because of our strange values and ideas. We are increasingly outsiders. And how we respond to this reality may be the defining question of our time.

The good news is that Christianity has always been a religion of losers. We have been persecuted, our beliefs have been ridiculed and rejected, our values have been maligned, sometimes driving us underground to practice our faith secretly. But though we may appear to be weak, powerless, failures, and losers in the eyes of the world, in the eyes of God we are victorious and winners! In this world we will have trouble; in this world we will lose; but take heart, Christ has overcome the world. And this is what the Saints in heaven declare in song and praise: “Victory to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” These were the same figures who appeared to be defeated by anti-Christian forces, persecuted, tortured and martyred and yet, emerged victorious holding palms as trophies of their victory.

Nowhere is this truth more evident than in the Beatitudes. One could paraphrase the list of beatitudes as this: “Happy or Blessed are the losers!” This is what the paradoxical and counterintuitive values behind the Beatitudes seek to display. Our Lord and Saviour, just as the beatitudes would describe, had to experience poverty, pain, suffering, loss, persecution and death for the sake of righteousness in order to gain the victory and joyful blessedness of the resurrection and the gift of eternal life for all of us. This is the core of the Christian message - death before resurrection, loss before victory, last before first, poverty before riches. For in the Christian story, ‘success and failure’ is inverted.

Although we often describe the Saints in heaven as the Church Triumphant, those who have “run the race” and are crowned with glory in Heaven, it often doesn’t feel this way here on earth. Our earthly experiences of failure and loss make us doubt the promises of the beatitudes.

But if we take a deeper look at the promises which are proclaimed by the beatitudes, we begin to recognise the veracity of their claims even in this life without waiting for the next. The losers can discover something about themselves that winners cannot ever appreciate – that they are loved and wanted simply because of who they are, and not because of what they achieve. That despite it all, raw humanity is glorious and wonderful, entirely worthy of love. This is revealed precisely at the greatest point of dejection – our Lord’s death and resurrection. The resurrection is not just a magic trick at raising a dead body to life. That’s a neat and impressive trick. But it is so much more than that. It is a revelation that love is stronger than death, grace is stronger than sin, that human worth is not indexed to worldly success, but to one’s fidelity to the path laid out by Christ. The lives of the Saints are testimony to this. On this side of heaven, they may appear to be losers. But as the vision of St John in the first reading lifts the veil, we are given a glimpse of their true worth - they are winners and victors in the Kingdom of Heaven.

A successful Christian, if you can call him or her one, called to be a saint, ought to be hated rather than feted in this world. Yes, it does seem that the modernist forces seem to be attacking the Church from every angle, that orthodox Christian beliefs and values are aggressively under assault, yet this feast reminds us that we are not alone in our experience and that this epoch in history, is not that unique as the Church has always suffered derision, rejection, humiliation and condemnation from her inception. We often forget that until our Lord returns in glory as He brings judgment upon the earth, battles and wars will remain. So, no matter how peaceful we wish our lives could be, the truth is our lives, this side of heaven, will be tainted with conflict.

But despite the onslaught she experiences, not only from earthly enemies but also demonic forces, the vision described in the Book of the Apocalypse will be the final outcome. There, before the throne of the Lamb, we will know that we are conquerors, not losers and that failure will be redeemed by the victory won for us by the Lamb which was slain.

We are the Church, if we include Them

Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls) 2017

Many people suffer from an over exaggerated sense of self-importance, whether as individuals or collectively as a group. A dead give-away is when they begin almost every sentence with the royal ‘we’. Some feel that whenever they speak, they do so as a representative of the rest of the world or at least of its majority. They imagine themselves as the focal point of reference, the centre of the universe, the Solar system’s centrifugal axis where all other planets must find their orbit. Psychiatrists have a term for this – it’s called ‘Narcissistic Personality Disorder.’ The Church too has sometimes been subjected to this egocentric and megalomaniac worldview. Thus the declaration, “We are Church!”

When speaking of the Church, it has become quite fashionable to say – “We are Church.” The reason for its popularity and attraction is because it implies a kind of democratisation of the Church; an identification of the Church with its grassroots rather than with the hierarchical elite. For those who may not be aware, ‘We Are Church’ is also the name of an organisation of dissenters, a church “reform” group that was started in the German-speaking world some years ago and has now spread to other countries. You would find the usual trendy, politically correct dissenter on their menu: women priests (for), clerical celibacy (against), homosexual sex (for), contraceptives (against), abortion (for) etc.

What most Catholics are not aware of is that the above label or way of describing the Church is not just highly inadequate, but also distorts the vastly complicated ecclesiology of the Church. The Church is not just the sum total of its living members but also encompasses the members who are separated by the boundaries of death. Death does not sever their membership in the Church of Christ. GK Chesterton, one of the most famous converts to Christianity at the turn of the 20th century argued that if one wishes to apply the principles of democracy to the Church, especially in the area of its teachings or Sacred Tradition, then one must speak of "a democracy of the dead", a democracy that extends through time, encompassing all Christians who have come before the present generation and all Christians who will follow hereafter. So, to those who flaunt the problematic ‘We are Church’ slogan whenever they wish to dictate or pontificate to others, this is going to be news for you – ‘You are in the minority!’

But there is a proper context when we wish to use the pronoun, “we.”  When we say: “We are Church” – well, it is true: that is what we are, we are not just anybody. But the “we” is more extensive than the group that asserts those words. The “we” is the whole community of believers, today and in all times and places. Who is this ‘greater we’? The answer lies in the liturgical celebrations of these two days. Today’s Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed and yesterday’s Solemnity of All Saints, remind us that whenever we use the pronoun “we”, we must necessarily refer to those not living in present company. When discussing this greater conception of the Church under the doctrine of the Communion of Saints, the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, has been traditionally described in a threefold manner as the Church Militant, the Church Suffering and the Church Triumphant.

The saints and angels in heaven compose the Church triumphant, because they have gained the crown of victory. The souls in purgatory compose the Church suffering, because they still have to expiate for their sins before they can enter heaven. The faithful on earth, that’s us, compose the Church militant, because we have to struggle ceaselessly against the enemies of their souls, the world, the flesh and the devil. But there is only one Church, one Mystical Body of Christ, because its members are united by supernatural bonds, incapable of being severed even in death with one another and with Christ, their Head, thus resembling the parts and head of the living human body.

Today, on All Souls Day, the Church reminds us of our duty to pray for the dead. St. Augustine says: “Prayer is the key by which we open the gates of heaven to the suffering souls.” The Church teaches us that just as we love and respect our living brethren, so do we love and respect those of them who have departed this life. We express our love for our departed relatives and friends through prayer. Death and burial cannot sever the Christian love which united the living with those once living and now deceased. We pray for the faithful dead not because we believe that God's mercy can only be triggered by our intercession, but because it is our life task to hold in our minds and hearts those who are given to us through kindred and affinity, and as friends, colleagues and neighbours.  This task transcends the boundaries of life and death.

Today’s commemoration teaches us an important truth about the Church - there is interdependence among the members of the Church – no one lives for himself alone, but for the entire body. Every good a member does perfects the whole Body, of which he is a part. We need to be always in the sync with the rest of the Body, especially with its Head, and not constantly plot to overthrow it with our own plans of Church-domination. This supernatural fellowship where all three Churches commune together, praying for one another is known as the doctrine of the Communion of Saints. The Church Triumphant prays for the Church Militant, who in turn prays for the Church Suffering.  We, the faithful who comprise the Church Militant, pray to the Church Triumphant, for their intercession and they, in turn, plead with the Lord on our behalf.  The Church Suffering cannot pray for themselves; therefore, they cannot hope for the intercession of the Saints in Heaven without the Church Militant, praying on their behalf. This interplay has been described by some authors as a great philharmonic orchestra with God as its supreme maestro. It is really awesome when you think of the integral part each of us plays in God’s Symphony of Salvation.

Thus, the doctrine of the Communion of Saints, though one of the least understood or known, is one of the most consoling dogmas of the Church. The doctrine injects the necessary antidote for humility to our hubris-filled notion of Church. ‘We’ are not Church, only a part of the Mystical Body of Christ, a small minority in fact. Thus, we must defer to the wisdom of the majority, those who have reached the perfection of heaven, the Church Triumphant. 

Terrible as an army set in battle array

Solemnity of the Assumption 2016

As a teenager, my first foray into Marian Devotion was through the Junior Praesidium of the Legion of Mary. When it comes to first impressions, the Legion seems to be a strange world of discipline and regimented order – Picture this, ‘Gentle Mary meets GI Joe.’ Next to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the order of a Legion meeting is highly predictable and is the same everywhere. The Rosary is followed by a reading from the handbook. The minutes of the previous meeting are read, and then the members give reports on the work done during the week. Halfway through the business of the meeting a halt is called. All stand and then, like a flourish of trumpets, like sunlight on banners, comes the antiphon to the Catena Legionis, taken from the Song of Solomon, posed as a question and recited in unison:

 “Who is she that comes forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in battle array?” The answer is obvious – Our Blessed Lady!”

The last salutation and description may be most unsettling. Why, one may ask, do we use military terms for anything associated with our gentle Queen? In fact, there has been a long history of association of Our Lady with military campaigns. During the sea battle of Lepanto and the battle that lifted the siege of Vienna, Our Lady was invoked by the Catholic forces who witnessed outstanding victory over enemy forces under impossible circumstances. These two critical battles saved the Christian West from falling into the hands of invading Muslim forces. In recent times, the Argentine Army regards Our Blessed Mother as their spiritual Commander-in-Chief. That did not, however, help them recapture the Malvinas, better known as the Falklands, from the English. Perhaps, the strangeness comes with the collective amnesia of Catholic Tradition. Military terms, in fact, are not new in the Church. Indeed, it used to be quite common, before the advent of political correctness, to call the Church on earth “The Church Militant” to distinguish living Catholics still struggling to earn salvation from the “Church Suffering” in Purgatory and the “Church Triumphant” in Heaven.  So, when Frank Duff began his voluntary group of laymen to assist the work of the Church Militant, the term “Legion of Mary” was a natural choice.

Today, talk of Church Triumphant and even Church Militant can be embarrassing. We have decided to bury them in the closet of all things considered “pre-Vatican II”, the catch-all phrase that referred to everything which is considered to be a burden of the past which must be expunged and purged from the Church in order to save it from rot. One of the main objections hurled against the pre Vatican II milieu is that the Church was guilty of triumphalism, a sense of superiority over other religions and ideologies, which led to bloodshed and violence.

But is this true? Is the Church guilty of such triumphalism? I believe we need to avoid reducing everything to the lowest common denominator. There are different manifestations of triumphalism, but they can be largely divided into two categories. A triumphalism which is solely based on delusions of grandeur, a personal sense of superiority or “Proud to be Catholic” emblazoned on the front of our T-Shirt. This is a triumphalism that is based on arrogance and can lead to hate.

Then, there is a triumphalism which is based on the Truth. Would it be triumphalistic to award the gold medal to the one who finished the race first or confer the school’s principal honour on the best performing student? No one would accuse these exercises as triumphalistic because they merely reflect the Truth. Likewise, the Church does not boast that she has the fullness of divine revelation and that she is the ordinary means of salvation, if they were not true. If the fullness of Truth subsists in the Catholic Church, that should not make us haughty, but humble. The fact that Our Lord has chosen us as the primary and ordinary vehicle for both his message and mission of salvation should drive us to our knees, because as a Church made up of individual unworthy sinners, we can take no credit for this. Rather, this truth should propel us to commit ourselves with greater zeal to the mission that has been entrusted to us.  Christ is the greatest Victor as he announced that he has “overcome the world” (John 16:33). What’s more, the faithful share in His triumph. And let’s not forget that the Blessed Virgin is rightly called Our Lady of Victory.

But the greatest trophy which we boast of, is that Christ's Resurrection was a triumph over death. The substance of the Cross and Resurrection is the triumph of this truth, without which, belief in a Resurrection becomes a mere nebulous, ungrounded, and unsustainable hope. St. Paul argues that any denial of the resurrection would involve logical inconsistencies. If there is no such thing as bodily resurrection, then Christ has not risen. The consequences for us are grave: both forgiveness of sins and salvation are illusions. Our faith would be in vain.

Today’s feast wreaks with the sweet odour of triumphalism! This feast strengthens us through faith in the future resurrection, not just of the soul but also of the body. In looking to Our Lady, carried up amid the rejoicing of angels, human life is opened to the perspective of eternal happiness. Our own death is not the end but rather the entrance into life that knows no death. The assumption of our bodies, prefigured by Christ in his own power and also in Mary by the gift of God, will one day be our gift too. Taken up into heaven, Mary shows us the way to God, the way to heaven, the way to life. Here in the Assumption of Our Lady is living proof that our triumphalism over sin and death is not merely based on delusions of grandeur or neurotic denial of death, but firmly grounded on Truth. Our blessed Mother provides us with the necessary corrective to the idea of Triumphalism exhibited by the Church. Just like Mary, we are called to be gentle and docile proclaimers of God’s Triumph, not through our own merits or efforts, but always through providential grace of God. The Church stands with Mary, not as a belligerent bully, but as a convincing witness of faith that God will prove triumphant even in the midst of human failings and sin.

There is an oppositional quality to our faith, the recognition that in knowing what we stand for, we also know what we stand against. We have been placed in the midst of a fallen world, not merely to surrender to its failure to love, but to live in defiance to that which opposes God. Resist we must, but to do so, we attempt to imitate, not the fallen powers of this world, but Christ the Lord, who wrested power away from the powerful, not by force of arms, but in the strength of his will to love us unto death. Christ’s definitive victory over death shines out in Mary, assumed into Heaven at the end of her earthly life. For us, the event of the Assumption is a horizon, a goal, a sign of hope. In the Assumption, we see the triumph of Christ, but there still are battles left for him to fight in all the battles that rage within our own troubled souls.  In the midst of these battles, I know that Christ the Lord still fights for us, and that Our Lady of the Assumption, the Lady of Victory is at His side.

Homily for the Sixth Day of Parish Novena 2016: "Praying for the Living and the Dead"

Preacher: Fr Simon Yong SJ

We continue with the series on the Spiritual Works of Mercy: Praying for the Living and the Dead. And I thought a better theme would read like Praying for the Dead and Killing the Living. At least that is how some priests might like it because it is not the dead who gives trouble but the living! Parishioners, I mean.

Let me focus more on praying for the dead and not so much for the living. This emphasis has nothing to do with just deserts as if those living do not deserve our prayers. In fact, praying for the living and the dead are two sides of the same spiritual coin that speaking of one, you will realise that the other is also implicated. Furthermore, tomorrow when we turn our attention to bearing wrongs patiently and forgiving offences willingly, I am sure praying for the living will enter our horizon.

Do we pray for the Dead as we should? Let explore this.

Have you watched series like Falling Skies and Walking Dead or movies like Mad Max: Fury Road and the trio of Divergent, Insurgent and Allegiant? They all share a feature in common. They are set in some form of dystopian present or future. The word “dystopia” shares the same root with the word “Utopia”. Utopia, the term first coined by St Thomas More, describes a non-existent island with the most perfect legal, social and political system.[1] Dystopia is just the opposite, meaning “bad” place.

I conduct camps for young people. Repeatedly, when I try to connect one fact with another, they cannot make the connexions. In a way, the youths reflect a dystopian mind-set. What do I mean by that?

Have you noticed how convenient it is in a dystopian series or movie to discover a stockpile of reserved petrol to power up the cars? The question is how long will that supply last without upstream support. Where are the refineries? You might query where I am going with this? I observe the same disposition at work not just in the dystopian movies but in our everyday life. Do you know where your food comes from? Is the supply chain safe? Or, talk about water security and our response is to instal a water purifier in our own house. Talk about the soon to come haze and we want Indonesia to take care of her forest fires. But, do you think that the haze will respect sovereign boundaries?

What is my point in bringing this up?

The point is, we are not actors in a dystopian movie by any long shot but we are definitely dystopian in our outlook. A dystopian mind-set is restricted and definitely myopic[2] because it is incapable of grasping a bigger picture. Furthermore, there is a decidedly distinct temporal quality to this myopia meaning that this mind-set is time-sensitive or that it has a shelf-life or an expiry date to it. Put in another way, this short-sightedness is symptomatic of a crisis of faith. Is there an instant where this crisis is manifested?

Yes. Funerals.

In general priests who are trying to address this crisis may be fighting a losing battle. What am I describing here?

In general, when a person dies, nobody says bad things about the deceased. On the contrary, eulogies at funerals regularly give glowing accounts of the deceased and at times you might be left wondering if the funeral is at the same time a canonisation. It is bad taste to dishonour the deceased and it is natural for people to speak well of the dead. But, the need to eulogise might just reflect an obsession that everything that needs to be said and done must be accomplished here which makes the death not only an absolute end but also the end of our responsibility. Give the person a good send off and be done with it…

There is a duet by Mariah or Pariah Carey as I call her, with Boys II Men. Google it. One Sweet Day. It has been heard at funerals. The assumption is “a person who dies” will be in heaven. But, you ask yourself this question… if everyone who dies is guaranteed heaven, then why the need to punish rapists? After all, they will go to heaven, as One Sweet Day and our eulogies at funerals appear to indicate. But, the act of punishment has a function. It is to rehabilitate. It is to teach the person punished that there is another penalty far worse than this earthly sentence if he does not amend his life. In short, punishment on earth is a reminder of punishment in eternity—hell.

Praying for the hell reminds us that heaven is our homeland.

Contrast these two statements a priest makes with regard to marriage preparation.

1.      I am preparing a couple for marriage.

2.      I am preparing a couple for salvation.

Statement one is temporal in nature. It is time-based. And in our rat-race society, we scurry around looking for the best way to prepare a couple for the arduous duties of marriage. Commendable. And sometimes priests take the path of least resistance. Whenever couples ask for communion in a non-sacramental marriage, instead of explaining and being firm about why communion outside of Mass is only given to the sick and infirmed, some priests will take the easy way out by acceding to the request. Easy means we want to be “welcoming” and more understanding.

Statement two however, is not myopic and it takes a longer view of life which means often times some debates miss the point. Debates like whether or not eulogies be allowed. Can we give Holy Communion at Marriage services between a Catholic and Protestant?

All these best practices to prepare the couple or to ensure that the couple is welcome, sometimes, they miss the point because underlying every mission we have is salvation and the crisis of faith is the crisis of salvation. We are concerned about living well and some of us are also concerned about dying well. But, the purpose of living and dying is not just to live well and die well. The purpose of living and dying is for heaven and when we die, we die in the hope that death is not the end of existence but a doorway to our eternal life.

If this make sense, then you realise the importance of praying for the dead. There is a reality far bigger than the people here, or even larger than the sum total of all the baptised in every corner and nook of the world. That reality is the Communion of Saints and we are connected to the Saints in heaven, the Saints-in-waiting in purgatory and the faithful here on earth—Ecclesia triumphans, Ecclesia penitens and Ecclesia militans. The Catholic teaching on purgatory reflects her understanding of the Communion of Saints. We are one body with Christ the Head. Thus, for a Body to function all its parts must work together. As the names suggest, the saints pray for us and the souls in purgatory. The souls in purgatory cannot pray for themselves, they cannot do anything to hasten their entrance into heaven. They can pray for us but they depend on the saints and our prayers for them. And because our time for good ends with death, we ought to do as much good as we can whilst still alive.

In the meantime, Purgatory is necessary both as an act of mercy on God’s part as well as expression of justice on our part. How so? On the one hand, Purgatory is God’s final act of mercy towards a sinner because nothing unholy can enter His presence. A souls destined for the eternal joys of heaven needs to be purified before he can enjoy his just reward. On the other hand, praying for ALL souls in Purgatory is an expression of justice on our part. We do not know whose soul is in heaven or whose soul is still in purgatory. Unless the person is canonised a Saint, it would be presumptuous pride to assume that a loved one is in heaven and therefore an injustice to deny him or her our prayers because we think that he or she does not need it. Now you understand why a eulogy, which extols a deceased as if he or she were already a canonised saint, may just be audacious arrogance. The prohibition of eulogy has nothing to do with an unmerciful God who holds grudges and nothing to do with thinking lowly of the deceased because as mentioned earlier, purgatory is God’s final act of mercy towards the sinner.

Finally, praying for the dead is not a November event. Judging from our Mass intention books fattening around that time, one can safely conclude that many do think that the dead are remembered only in November. But, if you listen carefully, at every Mass we pray for the dead even though they may not be mentioned by name. Death separates the deceased from the living but there is a union which cannot be broken, not even by death. That is the union of the One Church of the Victorious, of the Suffering and of those still working out their Salvation—with Christ Jesus the Lord.

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[1] Utopia just means too good to be true. That is why it is imaginary. Whereas eutopia positively describes a good place, (eu + topia). But because utopia and eutopia are homophonous, a conflation has taken place and this is because utopia (used with the meaning of eutopia) is contrasted with dystopia meaning bad place. In fact, the word dystopia reinforced the shift whereby utopia now has taken the meaning of eutopia. Utopia was St Thomas More’s satirical piece directed at a King, Henry VIII, who believed that he could create a perfect Kingdom which he accomplished by robbing the Church (Dissolution of the Monasteries) and rewarding the Aristocrats (who did not protest). The truth of this perfect Kingdom is that freedom had to be sacrificed. History repeated itself when Communism tried to create eutopia/utopia and the price paid was freedom. The same may be said today of the so-called “liberal” enterprise. The quest to liberate EVERYONE will surely end up with the exclusion of those who do not buy into the project.

[2] Do you know why conspiracy theories have high currency value? Our world-view is constricted but we intuitively know that there is a larger picture to which we have no access. Nature abhors a vacuum. When we do not have a big picture, conspiracy theories will abound.