Even stones will rise again

Fifth Sunday of Lent Year A

Buried dead men and even ruined stones cannot rise again. That’s the firm conviction and belief of the materialist communists, who reject any belief in God and dismiss anything religious and spiritual as pure superstition. In the year 1966, a platoon of Red Guards was ordered to destroy all remnants of the past including Christian cemeteries and tombs on the grounds of the Zhalan Catholic cemetery in Beijing. Most significant was the tomb of the famous Jesuit missionary, known by locals as the erudite Mr Li. He was Father Matteo Ricci SJ, the first Catholic priest permitted entry into the Forbidden City, where he spent the last nine years of his tireless and fruitful life and was honoured by the emperor himself with a tomb fit for a Mandarin.

Other memorials had been reduced to rubble, and the stones given to peasants to build with. The remains of the dead were simply scattered. Priests and nuns were forcefully conscripted for this laborious work of desecration, and they had to destroy the tombs with their own hands. But there was a shrewd lover of history at the Institute which trained communist officials. He didn’t want the relics to be ruined, not because he believed but was motivated by sentimental reasons. He came up with a brilliant proposal which was a subterfuge to save these stones. “Why don’t you just bury the stones,” he suggested, “and then order them not to rise again?”

After some time, when the horrible Cultural Revolution had passed and most people had forgotten the history of those buried stones, it was decided that they dig up these stones with little ceremony and fanfare to avoid unnecessary attention. So they did, and that’s why we still have Ricci’s tomb, dug out of the ground later on when the Communists changed their minds. Despite the order that they should remain buried, the stones of this tomb and that of two other Jesuits did “rise again”.

If dead stones can rise again from the rubble of destruction, so can men too. This is what we witness in today’s gospel. Martha and Mary had sent a message to the Lord by coming immediately to save their brother who was terminally ill. The Grim Reaper would not wait another day, but our Lord did. He waited another two days. In a seemingly nonchalant manner, our Lord declared that this illness is not unto death, but for the glory of God and His Son. Perhaps, these words would have been misunderstood by the sisters that Lazarus would recover from his illness and be saved from the brink of death. Can you imagine their disappointment with the Lord and His prophecy when Lazarus did succumb to his illness and die?

When our Lord finally arrived after deliberately delaying His departure by two days, He found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. One could argue that if the Lord had departed immediately upon receiving the news, it would have made little difference to the outcome. He would still have come too late. Martha, true to form, ran out to meet Jesus, while Mary, true to form, remained in the house.

Martha declares that if the Lord had been present, her brother would not have died, but that whatever Jesus asks of God, God will give it. The Lord, in response, declares to Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life. If anyone believes in me, even though he dies he will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (Jn 11:25-26) Here’s Martha’s moment of glory. John’s Gospel does not narrate Peter’s proclamation of faith: Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Martha now has the honour of echoing Peter’s declaration: “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God.”

If Martha displayed such brazen faith in the Lord despite her personal tragedy, Mary’s response seems more human and therefore, would resonate with most of us. She appears to question the Lord for His lateness. If only He had been there, this tragedy could have been evaded: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” It is a human thing to grieve. It is quite natural of us to ask God or rather demand an answer from Him in the face of tragedy. Rather than being annoyed or angry at her seeming lack of faith in comparison to her sister’s, our Lord is moved by her response - her tears of grief and perhaps even anger.

Our Lord knew that in the end, life would reign, joy would outweigh the sorrow, and yet He grieved before performing that great miracle of miracles. He grieved for His beloved friend decaying in the tomb. And He grieved for us, I'd like to think, for all of humanity who must endure great trials, loss, abuse, injustice, as a result of our free will and fallenness - for us who, while on this earth, must fight hard and ceaselessly to believe in what cannot be seen, in a divine compassion we cannot fathom. He is grieving for the destruction that has been wrought by sin, death itself, which is not part of God’s original plan. Save for sin, death has no place in our universe. The wages of sin is death as St Paul points out.

Some people console us by trying to make us accept death as a natural part of human life. Others argue that death is merely a portal to eternity. But our Lord saw death as the enemy. His Father had never intended for us to experience it. In fact, He forbade Adam and Eve only one thing – a fruit that would make them subject to it. Death came into the world through the envy of the devil and the disobedience of man, not through the plan of God. So, in the presence of those wounded by death’s sting, our Lord weeps.

I guess it is always so irresistibly easier to surrender to the power of despair and thus be authors of our own spiritual and psychological death. Despair is the most lethal weapon at the hands of the enemies of Christianity. The Communists who ordered the destruction of the Christian graves and commandeered the religious leaders to undertake this heinous task with their own hands thought that they could bury the faith of the people as they did with the stones from the tombs of their heroes. But just as the stones did not remain buried, the faith of the Catholics continues to endure and indeed have grown despite years of persecution, oppression and governmental control.

When you're exhausted, from day after day battling doubts, struggling against the current, resisting the urge to lie down and allow the fear, resentment, selfishness, hatred to bury you alive, it is good to remember the story of Lazarus and the tomb of Matteo Ricci. The story of Lazarus reinforces our hope – a hope which does not lie in finding an answer to the mystery of our suffering, a hope that is not grounded in a final solution to life’s troubles, but a shining hope in the life of the resurrection – a rebirth – of how even the dead, the seemingly lost can be called forth, they can be liberated from the bindings of sin, desperation and grief, and be finally set free to live not just a dream, but the reality of immortality, never to suffer pain or death again. If the communists could not keep the tomb stones and the faith of the Chinese Catholics buried, if tombs could not keep Lazarus and Jesus dead, we too profess with firm conviction “in the resurrection of the body,” that God will ensure that not only our immortal souls will live on after death, but that even our "mortal body" will “rise again”.

Light a Candle

Fourth Sunday of Lent Year A

The popular adage “it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness” may seem to be a cliched expression, a naive suggestion to put on rose-coloured glasses and pretend that all the messiness in this world do not exist. But like all other cliches, there is always a certain modicum of truth in this. All Malaysians should understand this - that we have a cultural tendency to complain and gripe about all and sundry. From politics to economics, from school to work, from food to accommodations, from church to family. Even though there may be a basis in reality to all our grievances, we seem to be blind to anything which is good. And though we may at times admit the good, we choose to minimise its value, “good just isn’t good enough”, and then proceed to exaggerate the negative side of things.

In our lengthy gospel for today, we encounter various characters who have a blinkered vision of life. From our Lord’s disciples who see the blindness of the man born blind as punishment from God, to the neighbours of the man who cannot accept the reality that things have changed for the better, to the Pharisees who only see the healing as a violation of the Sabbath prohibition, to his own parents who are more worried about public opinion than to rejoice that their son’s vision has now been restored. None of them are able to see anything positive about this astounding miracle of our Lord. Only the blind man could have a valid excuse. It is obvious that he couldn’t see because he’s physically blind and yet at the end of the story, he is able to initially recognise Christ as a prophet and then as the mysterious messianic figure of “the Son of Man”. In fact, it is this blind man who makes this profound confession of faith long before Thomas does at the end of the gospel: “Lord, I believe”, and then proceeds to “worship” the Lord.

Perhaps, what is needed is the ability to see as God does. As God had to remind Samuel when he seemed to have overlooked David, the youngest son of Jesse, because he was considered to be the most unlikely candidate due to his youthful age and physical weakness, “God does not see as man sees: man looks at appearances but the Lord looks at the heart.” This statement has less to do with the irrelevance of appearances than it has to do with the reminder that our judgments on any matter should go much deeper than superficial appearances. Samuel saw the runt of the lot, but God saw in David a hero who will slay giants. Samuel saw his physical weakness, God saw his spiritual potential for greatness.

That too is a choice set before us. Just as the way of seeing is a choice we must make, joy too is a conscious, chosen response to God's grace and hope, despite the surrounding, often difficult, circumstances. We can rejoice in the face of our struggle with sins and sufferings because these painful realities are not the final word. We can rejoice because though we were born with original sin, just like the man in the gospel was born blind, there is One who can and has removed the scales from the eyes of all those who believe in Him. We can rejoice though we may be considered weak, others see us as weak, but in Christ we are strong, in Him we can overcome the greatest obstacle before us. We rejoice because we were blinded by sin, but now our Lord has given new sight through faith. So it is not naive to believe in this: “it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” We rejoice because as St Paul reminds us in the second reading, we were once in darkness, but now we are children of the light.

No Accusation, Blaming or Complaining

Third Sunday of Lent Year A

As humans, we are naturally wired to blame other people or external circumstances when things don't quite go according to plan. Malaysians are particularly adept at this. In fact, the blame culture can be best summarised by using the mnemonic ABC - that is, A for accusing, B for blaming and C for complaining. But where do they spring from? All three find their genesis in a feeling that we suffer from - a deficit of love. An old priest mentor once told me, “Michael, there are no troublemakers, only people wanting to be loved!” When we do not feel sufficiently loved, affirmed or receive constant approval from others, a gaping hole opens up within us, a hole that sucks in all the light and then regurgitates the darkness by accusing, blaming and complaining about others whom we believe have left us in this state.

Today, the first reading provides us with an example of what happens when our lives are not marked by gratitude, it is immediately replaced with complaining and grumbling. Following their exodus from Egypt, the Israelites frequently grumbled against God and Moses due to lack of water and food, often blaming Moses for bringing them out of Egypt to die. That’s quite rich because they were crying out to God for assistance and liberation while they were languishing in slavery. And now that God had liberated them, they continued to turn their fury and discontent at Moses and indirectly at God. Ultimately, they were questioning God’s Providence and promise that He will lead them safely to the Promised Land.

We read this and are appalled and shocked at their sudden amnesia and lack of gratitude. But how often do we act the same way? As long as things are going well, we are grateful. But the second our situation changes (for the worse), we doubt, we fret, we grow anxious, we complain, we blame God for our predicament and then we accuse Him of not being caring enough for us. Sure, He has helped in the past, we think (if we even remember). But where is He now? “Is the Lord with us, or not?” the Israelites asked, as they quarreled among themselves.

Should we have any doubt that God loves us, St Paul reassures us of God’s undying love for us even though we had not merited it: “what proves that God loves us is that Christ died for us while we were still sinners.” So, in truth, we do not really suffer from a deficit of love. We cannot complain that no one loves us. Even if the whole world turns their back on us, which is a little over dramatic if I must say, God has never abandoned us. There is no doubt – God loves us and He has proven that love by sending us His Son who died on the cross for us!

Yes, deep down inside of us is this yearning to be loved, understood and accepted by someone. We try our best to please the people around us in order to gain their love and acceptance. We try to fill that emptiness that constantly gnaws at our soul. Over the years we will come to realise that no amount of possessions, friends or power will be able to satisfy this thirst and hunger of ours. There is only one thing that can satisfy that thirst – it is God’s love. In the timeless words of St Augustine, “Thou hast made us for thyself, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” Therefore this thirst, this yearning, this desire, this longing is not a mere human reality. It is put there by God as a reminder of His desire to share His own life with us and to symbolise the Christian’s longing to be with God forever.

If in the Old Testament God showed His care for His people by giving them water in the arid desert, our Lord in today’s Gospel promises a far greater source of water – living water that surges up from the depths of our being, water that can be accessed without the use of a bucket, i.e. human ingenuity and machination.

The story tells of two thirsty persons who meet at a well. Jesus, sweaty, weary, thirsty, comes to the well with a parched throat. The Samaritan woman, on the other hand, came to the well with a parched soul. Unlike the woman, Jesus has no bucket and the well is deep. The reason for this was not just an oversight on His part, a passing traveller. The reason for this was that He had not come to quench His thirst, but hers. He is the fountain of living water that has come to quench the thirst of the world; our thirst for God. The Samaritan woman’s thirst for love and for salvation was more profound than His physical thirst for water. That is why she had been married five times and now lives with someone who is not her husband. She sought fulfillment and meaning in the arms of a mate. She drank from the well of relationships – a well that continued to run dry because void of Christ and self-worth, these relationships could not meet her inner longing. She came at noon to draw water because she would have wanted to avoid the gossip of the other women in town. She was both the subject and object of accusations, blame and complaints.

Christ offered her the living water of the Holy Spirit—the only thing that would quench her spiritual and emotional thirst. Only God can satisfy our every hunger and thirst. Only God’s love can reassure us that we are precious and worthy of love. In the eyes of her fellow townspeople, she was a sinner beyond redemption. But not so in God’s eyes. Our Lord promises her, a sinner and an outcast, the water of life – God’s love and forgiveness.

Many of us continue to live like the Samaritan woman, gazing into the dark depths of the well of our hearts, wondering if we could find happiness therein or just emptiness. Many believe that it is just a dry well which serves only as an echo chamber of our ABCs, our accusations, our blames and our complaints - it’s always someone else’s fault, there is always someone else to be blamed, there is always something unsatisfactory which justifies our complaint. Or we could look up from our navel for once and look at the One who looks back at us with love and compassion. If we can recognise His love for us, then our accusations would be transformed into praise, our blaming would be turned into repentance and our complaints would be replaced with gratitude.

Just like the Elect who are gathered here today, you have been thirsting for the life giving water that can blunt the blade of every accusation, deflect the blows of every blame hurled at you and satisfy every complaint that you may ever had in your life. Jesus promises each and every one of you the water of life. If you drink of this water, you will never be thirsty again. If you have experienced the unconditional love of God, you will no longer crave for other lesser substitutes. Cease your search for other wells; they will all run dry. You have found the source of Living Water, where you will thirst no more.

Uppers and Downers

Second Sunday of Lent Year A

My good friend and I often used to take digs at each other, especially when our eccentric idiosyncrasies start showing up in public. In jest, we express great concern for each other and take turns asking, “Have you taken your pills today?” The imaginary pink pills are the uppers and the blue ones are the downers. It seems logical to take a pink one or perhaps a bottle for it, when you’re racing downhill into the dumps.

This must be the experience of the three disciples, Peter, James and John. Above all the foreshadowing of dark things predicted by the Lord Himself, above all the dark things that will soon follow, today’s mountain story rises above a brooding plain. It was a ‘pink pill’ experience. The Lord takes Peter, John and James up to a mountain and there, His glory shines through in some inscrutable way. The Greek word that describes this mystery is “metemorphothe”- the verb form of “metamorphosis,” the scientific word which describes the wondrous unfolding of a butterfly as she spreads her glorious wings upon emerging from the dark and colourless cocoon. And, as an icing on this picture-perfect moment, two Old Testament luminaries photobomb the scene and delightfully adds flavour to it.

For Peter, this experience, however you imagine it, is a wonderful “upper” coming just after the “downers” of the last day where the Lord had reiterated His prediction concerning His own passion and just before the abysmal pit of sorrow that awaits during Holy Week. It’s a glory moment and Peter, caught up in a spiritual high, says in effect, “Let’s just stay up on this nice mountain. Let us hold onto this wonderful postcard perfect moment.” Peter wanted to make the memory last. He wants to hang on to the moment by building a physical Monument or Museum, so that they can all stay up on the mountain and be happy forever after. Perhaps, by staying secure up on the mountain, Peter could prevent the Lord from carrying out His threat to be killed. Peter had failed once to convince the Lord to abandon His course of action. Now, a wiser Peter has learnt the art of subtlety. No point arguing. Just distract.

It’s hardly fair to make Peter a foil. His reaction is so natural. There are at least two things that you and I are wont to do with fond memories. One choice is Peter’s first reaction. Let’s just retreat into a memory. Let’s live there. It really is alluring to hunker down with the sweet memory and just settle in it. When the future veritably swarms with uncertainty, how wonderfully secure it is just to hide away in the past. The other choice is to take those fond memories, those glory moments, and find in them nourishment for an even more glorious future. Memory can be an escape, or memory can light the way when the present is unclear and the future is dark.

The Lord, therefore, challenges Peter and all of us to take the second option. This is the reason why He refuses Peter’s request to stay on the mountain. A sentence later, they are on the path back down into the real world. Just when Peter suggests that they pitch a tent and stay there forever, our Lord bursts his bubble and leads him back down the mountain. He invites them—and us—to journey with Him back into life’s valleys. But Peter's memory of that mountaintop was something he would carry with him throughout the week of confusion in Jerusalem. And I would guess that it gave him hope in that valley of the shadows. After the life-changing experience of beholding Christ's divinity, the apostles must come down from the mountain and return to their daily lives. They are surely changed, yet they must continue their “ordinary” work of following the Lord and spreading His Good News in the midst of setbacks, failures and confusion.

Placed here at the beginning of the season of Lent with a few good weeks to go, I guess the story of the Transfiguration is a good reminder to all of us that though the Lord can bring us up to the mountaintop to have a glimpse of God’s glory and a taste of heaven, and to experience His love so tangibly, we can’t stay up there. Life is lived in the low places, in the valleys, and sometimes what feels like bottomless pits. God has work for us to do. We should not forget about the mission of the cross that we are to pick up as servants of Christ. To gain our life we must lose it, to follow Christ is to take upon us the cross. To answer His call, to go and make disciples of all nations.

Yes, the gospel does not end with the Transfiguration. The ordinary continues, the habitual and the routine continues. Sometimes, life can feel like a chore. But do remember, when your life passes through some pain or loss, remember your Transfiguration moment. After having encountered God, just like the three disciples, our lives are never the same again. The revelation of God’s glory has forever widened the horizons of our lives and that is both wonderful and terrifying. Terrifying because it sometimes feels safer to go through life blinkered, as it gives you an excuse for not doing anything. Something is at risk; we risk facing possible hostility, ridicule, shame and uncomfortableness, but these are all part of the call.

And this is the mysterious nature of our faith. Faith is always drawing us onwards, drawing us further, and drawing us upwards. Just when we thought we knew the answers, we have to set those answers down and move on empty-handed. Just when the disciples thought they had reached the mountain of glory, they had to go down and start all over again - they did not ever grasp that they would have to lose all, to gain all. This is the God who calls us to let go again-and-again as we move forward in trust. Our faith, our experiences of God must be lived out, not only on the tops of mountains, but in the cold reality of the valley among people who are sceptics, people who are hostile and the spiritually ‘unwashed’.

Ultimately, the transfiguration is not just about reaching the tops of mountains. You see, it’s about the transfiguration of all of our lives and that includes the concealed rubbish too. This is not just a project for Lent but for the rest of our lives. Not only will Christ be revealed in glory on the mountain but He will also be revealed in glory in the loneliness, forsakenness and agony on a cross. And He will transfigure that cross too - from a sign of death into a sign of life and hope. Yes, He will be present at the top of mountains and also in the darkest valleys. And, wherever we are, we must “listen to Him”. For an encounter with the living Christ is no less profound as we go down the mountain and go about our day-to-day work.

Fasting and Feasting

Ash Wednesday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reversing the Outcome

First Sunday of Lent Year A

One of the characteristics of being human is the ability to feel regret for the mistakes we’ve done. If we could only turn back the clock and do it all over again, which is simply wishful thinking. Most of us would have to simply live with our past mistakes and it would be almost impossible to correct them. We end up having to pay for our misdeeds for the rest of our lives.

But the good news is that what is impossible for Man, is possible for God. And so the gospel passage which tells us how our Lord faces off the devil and successfully refuses to succumb to temptation is not just a motivational story that if Jesus can do it, so can we, but a story of how the Lord has rewritten the ending of the story of the Fall of Adam and Eve, which we heard in the first reading. Our Lord Jesus didn’t have to travel back in time to do this, although He could, He simply reversed the outcome of the story of the first temptation and shows us how things could and can turn out differently.

The lectionary, by choosing to juxtapose the two events, the temptation of our first parents and the temptation of Jesus, wishes us to see the stark contrast of conditions, decisions and outcomes. The first story begins in a situation that can only be described as abundance. Adam and Eve were in a lush garden, they were not bereft of food or even choices, they had everything including the friendship and company of God, nothing was lacking, yet they doubted God’s goodness and authority. Despite all that God had given them which would have lasted any mortal being countless of lifetimes, it was just not enough. That famous song from the Great Showman, “Never Enough,” should be humankind’s theme song. Greed and jealousy do not come from a place of scarcity. They emerge from a vacuous heart which is originally made for God but now turned inwards.

On the other hand, the story of our Lord begins in the wilderness, the desert, a place of scarcity. Yet despite that scarcity, our Lord did not hunger for the allures of this world - food, money, power, popularity. The reason being is that His heart was already full, it was filled with the love of God. God was enough, He needed nothing more. Our Lord was in a desolate wilderness, physically weak, yet He trusted the Father enough to resist the lies of the devil. He refused to take an "easy way out" through sin, choosing to fulfill His mission through suffering. For that is what the three temptations He faced entailed - they were easy and convenient ways of getting the job done, “saving” the world, without having to make any sacrifices, lose any friends, or spill any blood. Likewise, Adam and Eve were tempted with an easy path to divinity. They were promised that if they ate the forbidden fruit, they “will be like gods.” They had forgotten that they were already like gods, children of God, living in a home with God.

The threefold temptation of Jesus mirrors that of Adam and Eve in the garden. They follow the threefold nature of the worldly things spelt out by St John in his epistle. In an exhortation to his flock, John warns them: “Do not love the world or what is in the world. If anyone does love the world, the love of the Father finds no place in him, because everything there is in the world - disordered bodily desires, disordered desires of the eyes, pride in possession - is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world, with all its disordered desires, is passing away. But whoever does the will of God remains for ever” (1 John 2:15-17). Doesn’t this passage wonderfully lay out the choice that is before us? We either choose the world that is passing or God who remains for ever. This is the battle we must undergo during Lent.

So, let us have a closer look at the three areas described in 1 John 2:16.

First, we have “bodily desires” or “lust of the flesh.” Eve was tempted with fruit that was "good to eat". In fact, God had pronounced that all fruits of the trees in the garden were “good to eat”, save for the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil which was forbidden. Eve acknowledges to the serpent that God had given clear instructions: “You must not eat it, nor touch it, under pain of death.” And just like how we today can’t resist food that are good to eat but not good for our bodies and health, Adam and Eve also gave in to the temptation of the flesh. On the other hand, our Lord was tempted to turn stones into bread after 40 days of fasting. He reminds us that obeying God’s Word, that is His commands, is far more important and life-giving than giving in to the urges of the flesh. This is why the Church encourages us to fast and perform penances during this holy season to strengthen our resolve, strengthen our self-discipline in order to put a rein on unbridled passions of the flesh.

Next, John tells us to beware of “disordered desires of the eyes” or “lust of the eyes.” Eve saw that the fruit was "enticing to look at". What is denied is often more desirable and pleasurable. This second lust has been compounded in the modern age by the proliferation of pornographic material on the internet, the sexualisation that you see in advertisements and movies. In the past, there were more stringent censorship and you had limited access to printed pornography. But today, this is easily available with little effort with the click of a mouse or the scroll on your phone. Our Lord Jesus, however, did not succumb to this temptation when shown all the kingdoms of the world in a moment. Lent is a good time to bring back the ancient ascetic practice of “custody of the eyes,” which entails intentionally controlling one's gaze to avoid sinful, immodest, or distracting sights, thereby protecting the soul's purity. It involves moderating digital media consumption, avoiding "near occasions of sin," and fostering interior recollection. Instead of looking at the world and all its allures, train your eyes to gaze interiorly to make constant examination of conscience and upwardly to God in prayer.

Finally, John warns us that the world offers “pride in possession,” the mother and queen of vices. The serpent promised Eve she would "be like God". Most people often think that pride is merely a narcissistic character flaw, that is undue estimation with oneself and one’s achievements. But it is so much more. At the heart of this sin, the very sin that made angels into devils and which led our first parents to fall, is a rebellion against God. Every proud man eventually turns his back on God. A god will not tolerate the authority of another god. Power cannot be shared by the proud man. On the other hand, our Lord was tempted to throw Himself from the temple to force God's hand, proving His divinity. Instead, He reminded the devil that we should not test God’s authority. God will be God and not just a pawn to be manipulated by our every whim and fancy. The truth is that we cannot be gods through our own efforts but only by God’s doing. God had to become man, and He did in Jesus, in order for men to become gods.

So, back to our first question? Could things have turned out differently if Adam had obeyed when tempted in the garden? Of course! The Church declares at the Mass of the Easter Vigil, that Adam’s mistake, this fault, was indeed a “Felix culpa,” literally a “happy fault”. The reason being that it is happy and even “necessary” is because it resulted in a greater good: the incarnation and redemption of humanity by Jesus Christ. God can bring a greater good out of evil, He can bring victory out of defeat. Jesus, the New Adam, is proof of this.

And so, we too can reverse the outcome of sin through repentance and obedience to God and His commandments. We are not indefinitely trapped in our past mistakes but can chart a new course forward by following the example of our Lord. We may be victims of the Old Adam, but we can now be victors under the New One, Jesus. Happy Lent!

The Drama of our Salvation

Good Friday

Why are many folks, who do not understand a single word of Korean, glued to every episode of a Korean drama and would even skip meals, family time and church, so as not to miss the next intriguing episode? The short and simple answer is the drama - the drama that sucks the viewer into the very scene, the emotions of the characters, the perplexity, twist and turn of the plot playing out on the screen.

Today’s passion reading is like that. We are sucked into the drama of the narrative as we even assume the role and the voices of the blood thirsty crowd in a kind of liturgical flash mob. Perhaps, with greater intensity because it is based on “true events” and the protagonist is not some actor playing a role but the Son of God Himself, in the flesh. Like every well-written drama, within the Passion account, we find every kind of human emotion expressed. There is jealousy, betrayal, anger, fear, hypocrisy, falsification of truth, perjury, failure or denial of justice, abandonment, torture, death – and within this, a Love of an impossible kind, a love that binds and unites.

But unlike the actors who are merely acting on the silver screen for our entertainment, all the characters of the Passion story are real. Every word, every action, every accusation, every spit, every slap, every nail, every scourge, every drop of blood or opened wound was real - no one was play acting and none of these were mere props. Our Lord was not acting. He truly suffered the violence inflicted on Him by His enemies, the betrayal directed against Him by His own disciples, and the death which was imposed on Him by the Roman authorities at the behest of the Jewish religious leadership. If it was all just acting, we would just have sighed with relief and praised the actors for a starling performance. But because it was all real, we have reason to be thankful for our sins have really been forgiven, the guilt we have incurred has really been lifted and Death which pursues every man and woman has really been defeated.

The passion narrative of Good Friday is full of movement and action - sitting, fleeing, sleeping, standing. But it is the standing which takes the cake. Many of you may have felt the pressure on your legs building up as you stood throughout the passion gospel reading. In my younger days as a priest, I used to issue a preliminary instruction that doesn’t appear in the rubrics to ask everyone who couldn’t stand that long, to remain seated. I used to think it was plain mindless superstition that no one took that instruction seriously and kept standing, both old and young. It was my hubris disguised as compassion that saw them in this light. Today, a bit wiser and humbled by a tad bit more experience, I have come to realise that it is not stubborn foolishness but loving devotion that kept people standing as they heard and participated in the drama of the passion narrative. Unlike the disciples who fled in fear, you have decided to stand with Jesus, and to stand for Him, as did a few women and St John, the Beloved Disciple.

We hear in the text, and only here in the Gospel of St John, “Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala … and the disciple he loved standing near her.” Not standing at a distance like in St Mark’s account, but here beside the cross, up close and personal. So close that they were within hearing range of the last words of Christ and that John could later write that he was an eyewitness of the events and did not come to this knowledge through hearsay. They were so close that they were within range of the insults, ridicule and rage hurled at our Lord and perhaps subjecting themselves too to the risk of being arrested and similarly sentenced. It took courage. But more importantly, it took love. Perfect love casts out all fear!

I take this position of standing, as the highlight and climax of our participation in the drama of Good Friday. It is no wonder that the primary devotion for Lent is the Way of the Cross, where we pause (or at least done by the priest and servers) and stand before each Station of the Cross. The word “station” comes from the Latin “statio.” And the word statio derives from the Latin verb sto, “to stand” and signified how early Christians gathered and “stood with” the local clergy, bishop, patriarch or the pope himself in prayer. Statio also was a Roman military term meaning “military post.” Like soldiers we stand. Wasn’t it Moses who instructed the Israelites with these words when they were pursued by the Egyptian army: “Stand firm, and you will see what the Lord will do to save you today …The Lord will do the fighting for you: you have only to keep still’? Statio, therefore, also means a vigilant commitment to conversion and to prayer.

So, on this day as we commemorate the Passion and Death of our Lord, as we reenact the whole drama of salvation, let us imitate Mary, the Beloved Disciple and the other women as they stood by the cross. Though the story of our Lord’s passion is filled with betrayal, jealousy and false accusations, patterns we recognise in our own lives, behaviours which destroy and rip apart relationships, the last act of our Lord on the cross is to bring reconciliation and union. Despite the barbs that had been hurled at Him, wounds which would have hardened the hearts of the strongest men to become resentful and loveless, He pours out His last act of love on these two individuals representing His Church and brought them together in an inseparable bond of fraternity and maternity. “Woman, this is your son.” “This is your mother.”

Today we DON’T celebrate death, we celebrate the life we receive through the cross. We celebrate that Jesus waits high on His cross to take away our death, whether it be physical, moral, or mental. The Church has endured much drama. Each of us who are members of the Body of Christ have endured much drama - betrayal, envy, false accusations and loss. And yet, the story does not end in failure, defeat and resentment. If we choose to stand with our Lord to the very end because we have not decided to flee out of fear or self-preservation, or walked away out of boredom, or decided to leave early because we think the story is over, we will see the amazing ending of the story. The story ends with reconciliation, not disintegration. But even that is not the real ending.

If you do not return tomorrow and the day after, you would have missed the most important post-credits that really define the whole story and unravel the mystery of what you’ve witnessed today. While you may be currently struggling with some crisis or other, in your prayerfulness, in your life, turn over everything to the Lord. Your pain, your hurts, your loss, your addiction, your crisis - turn all that “drama,” turn everything over to the Lord. In these uncertain times: Remember, Death is defeated. Only Jesus has the power. Only His love is stronger than death. Don’t take my word for it. Come back tomorrow night or on Sunday and see for yourself.

The Towel and the Cross

Maundy Thursday

Some people are so good at talking big but fall short in delivery. When push comes to shove, they will easily bend and break. This is what we witness in the gospel. Our first Pope whom the Lord Himself declares as a rock-hard foundation to His church, changes his position not because of some profound enlightenment but melts under pressure. One can’t help but laugh at the 180 degrees turn of St Peter, from refusing to accept the Lord’s offer to wash his feet, to clamouring for a full-body bath!

First, he starts with this: “You shall never wash my feet.” We may even suspect that his refusal was just fake shocked indignation at best, or false humility at worst. And as for the turnaround, doesn’t it seem to be some form of histrionic over-exaggeration on his part? “Not only my feet, but my hands and my head as well!” In both instances, St Peter had misunderstood our Lord’s intention and the significance of His action. And in both instances, his incomprehension and misstep had given our Lord an opportunity to make a teaching point.

Let us look at the first response given by our Lord to Peter when he refused to allow his feet to be washed: “If I do not wash you, you can have nothing in common with me.” A superficial reading of this statement may lead us to conclude that our Lord was just asking Peter and all of us to imitate His humility in serving others. This may be the message at the end of the passage, where our Lord says: “If I, then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you should wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you.” But the words of our Lord in His response to Peter’s refusal to have his feet washed, goes further than that.

What is this thing which makes us “in common” with our Lord? In other words, what does it mean to have “fellowship” with Him? It is clear that it cannot just mean menial service, but rather the sacrifice of our Lord on the cross. This statement actually highlights the relationship between the foot-washing and the cross. The foot-washing signifies our Lord’s loving action and sacrifice on the cross. If foot-washing merely cleans the feet of the guest who has come in from the dusty streets, our Lord’s sacrifice on the cross will accomplish the cleansing of our sins which we have accumulated from our sojourn in this sin-infested world. Peter must yield to our Lord’s loving action in order to share in His life, which the cross makes possible.

The foot-washing may also be a deliberate echo of the ritual of ablutions, washing of hands and feet, done by the priests of the Old Covenant, before they performed worship and offered sacrifices in the Temple. This may explain Peter’s further request to have both his feet and head washed by the Lord. Without him knowing it, he may have inadvertently referred to his own ordination as a priest of the New Covenant. It is fitting that the washing of feet occurs while the Apostles are entrusted with the Eucharist. No priesthood, no Eucharist - it’s as simple as that.

“No one who has taken a bath needs washing, he is clean all over.” Our Lord was not just making a common-sense statement that those who are clean have no need for further cleansing, but an allusion to the Sacraments which leave an indelible mark on their recipients, two in particular - baptism (confirmation) and Holy Orders. Our Lord’s words resonate with two popular Catholic axioms: “Once a Catholic, always a Catholic” and “once a priest, always a priest.” There is no need for re-baptism or re-ordination even if the person had lapsed. What is needed is confession.

This second set of words also points to the efficacy and sufficiency of what our Lord did on the cross. Christ’s bloody sacrifice on Calvary took place once and for all, and it will never be repeated, it need not be repeated because it cannot be repeated. To repeat His sacrifice would be to imply that the original offering was defective or insufficient, like the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament that could never take away sins. Jesus’ offering was perfect, efficacious, and eternal.

The Holy Mass is a participation in this one perfect offering of Christ on the cross. It is the re-presentation of the sacrifice on the cross; here “re-presentation” does not mean a mere commemoration or a fresh new sacrifice each time the Mass is celebrated, but making “present” the one sacrifice at Calvary. The Risen Christ becomes present on the altar and offers Himself to God as a living sacrifice. Like the Mass, Christ words at the Last Supper are words of sacrifice, “This is my body . . . this is my blood . . . given up for you.” So, the Mass is not repeating the murder of Jesus, but is taking part in what never ends: the offering of Christ to the Father for our sake (Heb 7:25, 9:24). After all, if Calvary didn’t get the job done, then the Mass won’t help. It is precisely because the death of Christ was sufficient that the Mass is celebrated. It does not add to or take away, from the work of Christ—it IS the work of Christ.

When the Lord tells us: “I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you,” it is not just the ritual of foot-washing that He is asking us to imitate. Our Lord is most certainly pointing to His work of salvation on the cross which He offers to us as a gift through the Sacraments. Some people continue to resist Christ because they do not consider themselves sinful enough to require Him to wash them in Baptism or the Sacrament of Penance. Others have the opposite problem: they stay away because they are too ashamed of their lives or secret sins. To both, our Lord and Master gently but firmly speaks these words as He did to Peter: “If I do not wash you, you can have nothing in common with me.”

Every Saint has a past; every sinner a future

Fifth Sunday of Lent Year C

There is a clever quote that is often attributed to the Buddha, “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment." If you do not have a pedantic nature like me, you will most likely take this as gospel truth. The problem is, it’s a fake quote. The Buddha didn’t say this. He said something similar but yet fundamentally different from what the above quote claims. In fact, the Buddha had also asked us to let go of the present - no past, no future, no present.

The Christian version of this quote may sound like this, “don’t dwell on the past, but move forward.” Unlike the above quote, this is founded on scripture, especially the readings we have just heard today.

Most of us would take the above saying as referring to not holding on to painful memories, failures, and past hurts. That is clear. Some people are trapped in the past, in a cycle of regret, resentment, un-forgiveness and despair. Past painful memories keep on re-playing in their minds like a broken record, re-igniting the sense of pain and loss as if the incident had just happened a moment ago. Any counsellor or psychologist or a good friend or relative will tell you, “Best to keep the past in the past. Move on. Learn from it. If you dwell in the past, you will get left behind.”

But our readings bring up additional lessons on why we should not dwell on the past but seek to move forward.

In the first reading, Isaiah writes to a people who are now languishing in exile, regretting their past misdeeds and wallowing in self-pity and despair. Isaiah’s message does not entirely erase the past. He reminds his people of how God had also liberated their ancestors from Egypt during the Exodus and even performed this impossible miracle of leading them through the Red Sea whilst destroying the army of a superpower in pursuit. It was important to remember this less the Jews in exile were to doubt Isaiah’s prophecy that God was going to bring them home and rebuild their nation. But it was also important that the Jews did not feel trapped in the past of their failures and miss out on what God is going to reveal and do in their lives. And so, Isaiah tells them: “No need to recall the past, no need to think about what was done before. See, I am doing a new deed, even now it comes to light; can you not see it? Yes, I am making a road in the wilderness, paths in the wilds.”

In the second reading, St Paul also expresses his gratitude of having come to know Christ and to believe in Him. This comes after years of persecuting Christians and after his conversion, years of proclaiming the gospel to faraway cities and nations. He looks back at his legacy and instead of seeing a trophy to be shown off to his audience, he regards his past exploits and achievements as “rubbish” in comparison to the treasure which he had discovered. He now writes of “the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For him I have accepted the loss of everything, and I look on everything as so much rubbish if only I can have Christ and be given a place in him.” And then he confidently declares: “All I can say is that I forget the past and I strain ahead for what is still to come; I am racing for the finish, for the prize to which God calls us upwards to receive in Christ Jesus.”

As we move to the gospel, we hear of this moving tale of how our Lord liberates this woman from her accusers but more importantly, He liberates her from her past life of sin. She epitomises this famous quote from Oscar Wilde’s play, “A Woman of No Importance.” The hedonistic character Lord Illingworth (perhaps an echo of Oscar Wilde’s own wild life of debauchery) says, “every Saint has a past and every sinner a future.” The meaning is simple and edifying: No one is so good that he hasn’t failed at some point, and no one is so bad that he cannot be saved. All have sinned, and all can be saved by God’s grace. The only distinction is between those who have already received it and those to whom it is still available. God’s grace is readily available for the taking. We just have to embrace it.

Not dwelling on the past and moving forward does not mean turning a new leaf, or a new page in your life. We can’t pretend that the past did not happen or subject ourselves to some form of selective amnesia, refusing to acknowledge what has gone before. That would be a mistake. Repentance requires that we do confront the truth of our past, not sugar coat it or attempt to erase or rewrite it. But we do not remain in the past. We must not allow our guilt ridden past to obstruct the freedom of what the Lord has promised us for our future. Sometimes, penitents walk out of the confessional having their sins forgiven and absolved and yet continue to carry the heavy burden of their sins. They are unable to let go of their past and by doing so, reject the gift of grace which our Lord has promised us through the Sacrament of Penance.

What the Lord says to this woman caught in adultery is what He says to each of us: “go away, and do not sin any more;” in other words, go away from your past and enjoy the freedom He offers you. “If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” (John 8:36) Our Lord opens up a path ahead of us, where sin had closed the door. His grace and mercy convert our slavery to guilt into freedom from sin. Just as what God had promised to do for His people through the prophet Isaiah in the first reading, when He forgives us, He is making something new, a new path in the desert will open up, where the Lord our God will put springs of living waters for His people to drink.

All of us have sinned, some worse than others. There are many of us who labour under the crushing weight of guilt in the belief that our sins are so grave and egregious that not even God would be able to forgive us. But that is Satan’s greatest lie. Pope Francis is fond of reminding us that God never tires of forgiving us, but it is we who often grow tired of asking Him for forgiveness. So, let us not tire of asking God for forgiveness, let us learn to let go of the guilt and lift up our eyes to the Lord and see a better future, a better life ahead of us, as we journey together toward Easter and one day to Eternal Life. Remember that every saint has a past, and every sinner a future.

Repentance, the path to Joy

Fourth Sunday of Lent Year C
Laetare Sunday

I’m going to start by stating an obvious but essential truth - albeit an uncomfortable one - most of us are afraid of seeing change in our lives. From routine behaviour, to lifestyle patterns to business-as-usual way of doing things at the workplace or home or even church, change is uncomfortable to say the least. Sometimes, when we are constantly grumbling over the status quo, we still deliberately choose to maintain it for fear that change may exact a greater price from us. “Better the devil that you know than the devil you don’t.” So, we continue to plod on, weighed down by the burden of despair and hardship, rather than choose to cast off the shackles and be set free. We end up always choosing status quo over change.

As the witty Ronald Reagan once stated, “Status quo, you know, that is Latin for the mess we’re in.” Yes, today’s readings would affirm this important truth. If the Israelites had chosen the status quo, they would not have arrived at their destination which is the Promised Land. If the followers of Christ had not chosen to renounce their ego and personal agendas, they would not become the “new creation” which is what the Lord had chosen them to become. If the Israelites were contented with the hard but stable life of servitude in Egypt, they would not have made the journey to freedom. If they were contented with just consuming manna in the desert, they would not be able to savour the rich produce of the lands which awaited them at the end of their meanderings. If the early Christians had chosen to remain attached to their old sinful lifestyles of corruption and debauchery, they would never have been able to experience the joy of being reconciled with God.

So, clinging on to the status quo means relishing in mediocrity whilst rejecting the heights of glory and perfection which the Lord has called us to. The status quo discourages risk taking and encourages us to deny or circumvent the cross, which is the only means in which we hope to follow and imitate the Lord. The status quo sells us the lie that we have already arrived at our destination and that there is nothing better beyond what we are experiencing here and now. It gets us into a rut and we are stuck, making no progress but often regressing in any spiritual growth that we have attained thus far. Change and repentance are the only way we can get out of this vicious cycle. Repentance is the key that can get us out of the gaol of sin and mediocrity. The problem is that we are always expecting others to change but never subject ourselves to the same demands.

But not all change is good or positive. Change which leads us away from God ultimately leads us to our doom, to the pit of despair. This was the change desired by the younger son in our familiar parable of the Prodigal Son. He desired freedom to set his own course in life. He desired financial freedom to feed his insatiable appetite for entertainment. But ultimately, he sought freedom from the only man who truly cared for him and loved him, his father. All the other friends whom he bought with his wealth proved to be fair-weathered. They stuck with him only as long as he could finance their lifestyle of debauchery. They too were subjects or slaves of change, but a change that ate into the root of fidelity demanded by lasting friendships. Their feelings towards this son changed as quickly as his fortune took a turn for the worse.

But the younger son, after having squandered his inheritance and exhausted all his material resources, also expressed a change that is needed by all of us, a change that would lead to his repentance and eventually his redemption. We Christians call this change repentance. This is a kind of change that does not take place on the surface - one which is superficial - but a change that takes place in the depths. Repentance involves a turning away from and a turning towards - we turn away from sin, from our ego, from our old self - and we turn to God who alone remains the constant axis, the anchor of our lives, the Only One who is unchanging because He has no need to change, He cannot change, He is perfection itself. The Greek word translated as repentance is metanoia, which literally means a change of mind and heart. Before he could change his direction, to run towards his father after a lifetime of running away from him, the son had to experience a change of mind and heart. It suddenly dawned on him that his father was the true source of joy in his life and not the bane of it.

And so, we witness in the beautiful tale of the Prodigal son, a humbled younger son, a pale shadow of his impetuous younger self, not fully converted nor perfectly repented, but now committed to a path of conversion and repentance, a gradual process of inner change that would lead him back to his father. The father unlike his son, has not changed because he has no need to change. He remains loving and compassionate to his son despite being rejected by the latter. He receives his son with open arms, an unmatched joy that has not been lessened by his son’s betrayal. There is no doubt to the hearer of the parable that this father is a symbol of none other than our Heavenly Father.

Rather than to see contrition for one’s sins which leads to repentance as a dampening of our mood, a wet blanket thrown over an unhindered life where we can choose to do as we wish, such conversion is the real elixir which grants us lasting joy. If there is any reason to be joyful today on Laetare Sunday, it is this - repentance brings the ultimate change by challenging the status quo of sin: a change from fruitlessness to fruitfulness, blindness to sight, lost to found, darkness to light, sick to healed, and being born again and becoming a new creation.

And so, during these holy days of a new springtime, for that is what Lent is all about, we learn that change can be hard because coming out of slavery can be a long, daunting process. It requires that we see beyond the immediate, beyond the earthly things which we stubbornly cling to, and keep our gaze firmly fixed upon the end result: total union with God. If we do, we can endure any trial, knowing that there is a loving Father who never tires in waiting for our return to Him. Unlike all the things of this earth, our Father’s love for us has not changed, it cannot change, it will endure forever. Likewise, we too must endure. To endure to the end means we must have our minds set to never surrender, to never desire to return to the slavery from which we’ve been liberated, to always allow God to change our hearts and minds so that we can become the best version of ourselves which He has intended us to become.

Memento Mori

Third Sunday of Lent Year C

As much as you believe that the government is out to get your money by using any pretext whatsoever, they do sincerely go out of their way to issue ample warnings to discourage you from engaging in any activity that could get you taxed or penalised. Take for example, the repeated large signs displayed on highways and major thoroughfares reminding you of speed limits and of the impeding speed cameras just up ahead. If the first sign doesn’t get your attention, there’s always two more to follow. I’ve been advised (poorly advised I must say), that you can still get to “speed” until you see the third sign. This is certainly not a piece of advice that any one of you should follow. But should you decide to press down on your accelerator despite three consecutive warnings, be ready for a hefty fine. You deserve it. You’ve been warned. You can’t use ignorance as an excuse to wrangle your way out of this.

Disasters and tragedies are meant to do that. Serve as signposts, warnings, that we must take evasive action before it is too late. Unfortunately, a good tragedy is wasted on so many. Some attempt to benefit from the tragedy suffered by others. Many look at these as fodder for news, rumour-mongering and endless speculations. Still others look at tragedies as evidence of a pernicious and malicious God, or a God who is indifferent to our concerns and suffering or even as proof of the non-existence of God. But what about us Christians. Our Lord provides us with the answer in today’s gospel.

When tragedy strikes, don’t look back and try to discern the reason. Sometimes a postmortem may be necessary to determine the truth and avoid further recurrences but often people are trapped in the past, in a cycle of regret and resentment and not prepared to move forward. Neither should we look around us for someone to blame. Again, assigning responsibility may be needed to hold persons accountable but this may be a futile exercise that only leads to a frustrating dead-end, leaving us with more questions than answers. Our Lord challenges us, however, to look inwards, to make an honest introspection of ourselves, to make an assessment of where we are going and where are we heading if we continue to stay on this course.

Three possible lessons could be derived from this self-examination.

Tragedies and unexpected events serve as “memento mori” - they remind us of our mortality and the brevity of life. Tempus Fugit, Memento Mori – time flies, remember death!

Rather than shaking the foundation of our faith in God, such events should lead us to trust more in God rather than in ourselves and our devices. Only God alone can stave off an impending disaster or provide us with the strength and grace to push through and come out stronger.

Finally, such tragedies serve as a call to repent. In today’s gospel, our Lord refutes all speculations that the people who suffered tragedy deserved it by redirecting the attention of His audience to themselves: “unless you repent you will all perish as they did.” If we were to examine the concept of repentance in their original biblical languages, we would realise that repentance is more than just turning away from our sin but actually a turning to God, a radical reorientation of our lives to God. This is what happened to Moses in the first reading.

The story of Moses juxtaposes two possible paths which we can take when faced with tragedy or a crisis. The first path seems to be the easier and more logical choice because it arises from our basic instinct for survival. Moses fled Egypt after having killed someone and sought refuge in a life of anonymity far from civilisation. But God did not abandon him to his devices. He comes in search of the one who will not shepherd animals but His people and lead them out of slavery to freedom.

Thus, God intervenes in the life of Moses, disrupts his relative peace and creates a crisis in order to shake Moses out of his preferred retirement. For a man who sought to escape a crisis, God now introduces a crisis to redirect Moses in the path which God has chosen for him. We see the obvious tension between Moses’ preferred path and that of God’s in the series of questions and answers we hear in the first reading. Moses attempts to give excuses to evade the call but God would have none of it. Moses cannot plead ignorance. God answers every single objection he raises.

Just in case, that we too may attempt at deflecting whatever barbs the Lord may throw at us by arguing that the experience of Moses has nothing to do with our current modern experiences, St Paul in the second reading brings us up to speed by reminding us that what happened to the Israelites in the Old Testament should also be an important warning given to present day Christians. Less, modern day Christians should imagine themselves insulated from the judgment which God had issued upon their ancestors, St Paul tells us, “All this happened to them as a warning, and it was written down to be a lesson for us who are living at the end of the age. The man who thinks he is safe must be careful that he does not fall.”

When God gives us warnings it’s meant to help us take remedial action and evade our own personal disaster. They are not meant to be threats to scare us into docile submission, but opportunities accorded to us to avert danger because He loves us and doesn’t want us to come into harm’s way, especially when the harm may result in our eternal separation from Him.

That is why our Lord concludes His teachings with the parable of the fig tree in the vineyard. It would seem strange to find a fig tree in the middle of a vineyard instead of a fig tree orchard. What more the vinedresser’s main task is to care for the vines rather than a fig tree, and yet he is tasked to go beyond his job description and entrusted to nurture this tree, a work which seems pointless since the fig tree is barren. But at the behest of the vinedresser who pleads on behalf of the fig tree, the tree is given a respite of another year before it is cut down. Notice that we are not told what happens after that one year. Did it finally bear fruit? We are not sure. This parable is deliberately open-ended – the listener supplies the conclusion in his own life. We have been shown mercy by God, a mercy which we do not deserve. We have been warned but have we heeded the warning or persisted in stubborn old ways?

So, my dear friends, do not be sighing in relief that disaster came to others and you were spared. Neither should you be busy speculating as to who is to be blamed for the tragedy and mishap. Watch out for the “signs,” for God issues many warnings ahead of the danger. Only one thing matters: That disaster – that accident – that unexpected event – it could be you next time – why take a chance . . . no more waiting . . . settle with God today.

Hope will not disappoint

Second Sunday of Lent Year C

The word “hope” is thrown around a lot. “I hope I win the lottery!” “I hope that I do well in my exams!” “I hope that I get a raise.” “I hope Father’s homily will be short!” As you know from experience, most of the time you don’t get what you “hope” for. So, keep hoping!

For most people, optimism and hope are interchangeable, but are they really? The objects of both concepts are worlds apart. Optimism focuses on making this life and this world a better place. Nothing wrong with that, unfortunately the future and the outcomes of our actions are never truly within our control. We want things to be better. We want our problems to be resolved. We want crises to end. We want the best possible future for ourselves and our loved ones. But the best we can accomplish is to have strong aspirations. We can never guarantee their final outcome. The truth is that life is not a genie released from a bottle who can guarantee the fulfilment of all or any of our wishes.

On the other hand, Christian hope is different. It’s not wishing for good things with this life as our goal. The ultimate object of Hope like the other theological virtues of faith and charity, is God. As St Paul assures us in his letter to the Romans, “Hope will not disappoint” (Rom 5:5), precisely because God will not disappoint. Hope does not spring from a person’s mind; it is not snatched out of mid-air. It results from the promises of God. It is grounded in God, the God who does not break His promises, the God who remains faithful to His covenants, the God who surprises us with something greater than we can ever conceive or perceive, the God who will certainly and irrefutably never disappoint. This is what we see in the readings we have heard this week.

In the first reading, we have God promising to give Abram something which seemed humanly impossible to this old and childless man. God uses the stars to birth faith in Abram. Throughout Abram (who was later renamed Abraham) and his wife Sarah’s lives, God brought them into situations that stretched their faith and required the continued exercise of hope and trust in God. Abram had left everything he knew—his extended family, an assurance of wealth and stability in a well-established homeland —to follow a voice that called him by name into the unknown. Like a blindfolded trust-walk, Abram took step by step in the wilderness, moving forward in God’s plan for his life. When he started to question the journey, he simply needed to glance up to the stars to remember the One who showed him the expanse of the heavens and all the stars therein and then promised to make Abram’s descendants into a great nation as numerous as those incalculable stars. St Paul reflecting on this act of faith and hope wrote: “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations” (Rom 4:18).

Abraham’s faith and hope did not require a denial of reality, nor would such a denial have been healthy. False optimism, on the other hand, does that. How many of us have been miserably disappointed because we have held on to some false optimism that eventually turned out to be a lie or a delusion? But here Abraham acknowledged his own personal and natural limitations (old age and barrenness) without weakening in faith. In some circles, the power of positive thinking and speech receives such an emphasis that people feel they cannot speak honestly about their circumstances. Positive thinking merely denies reality, it cannot reshape it nor create it. That isn’t walking in hope. Hope acknowledges the facts and then looks beyond them to the truth of what Scripture reveals about God, His power, and His ability to fulfill His word.

In the second reading, St Paul reminds us that our true homeland is heaven. Many have forgotten this. Too often today when people talk about “heaven” they mean a purely spiritual destination where spirits float around with God in the clouds. That’s a non-Christian hope. That “heaven” is not what we look forward to. In place of a heaven which means perfect communion with God, man has tried to replace it with surrogates, always looking for the elusive utopia, the earthly paradise of our own making. But any “earthly paradise” which excludes God from its definition, is a false paradise, and eventually would turn out to be a living hell. We need only look towards the “paradise” which both the Nazis and communist regimes attempted to create on earth. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit” (CCC 1817).

Finally, we have the gospel passage which is St Luke’s account of the Transfiguration. This story appears in all the synoptic gospels and each version is always read on the Second Sunday of Lent. This event takes place as our Lord is proceeding to Jerusalem with His disciples to meet His fate - His atoning death on the cross which will lead to His saving resurrection. The Lord was transfigured so that “the scandal of the Cross might be removed from the hearts of his disciples” (Roman Missal, Preface for the Feast of the Transfiguration), to help them bear the dark moments of His Passion. The Cross and glory are closely united.

The transfiguration was meant to instil hope and strengthen their faith in the face of the Lord’s impending suffering and death. Even witnessing Jesus' tragic death, they were not to lose faith, knowing that suffering and death do not have the final say. That is why the message of the Lord’s transfiguration is so important. It offers us a glimpse into a different world - eternal life, the life of the resurrection, heaven itself. In the presence of suffering, we see our Lord’s glory, we see Moses and Elijah who were deemed dead or at least removed from our human existence, alive in God and we hope that one day we will be with them. This vision offers us hope as we journey through life, knowing that something beautiful awaits us after the trials of this world.

As the ups and downs of life continue, hope remains an important virtue for all of us. Hope can sustain us amidst the difficulties of life. There are times when the enormity of our pains and trials leads us to despair, questioning whether God sees our suffering and what His purpose is in it. But imagine someone showing you a glimpse of your future life beyond this world – a life in the presence of God, reunited with loved ones, free from suffering. Such a vision, however fleeting, can make a profound difference in how you view your earthly life and the manner in which you choose to live it. When our eyes are fixed on the light at the end of the long dark tunnel, even though that light may seem faint and tiny at times, the going gets easier and our strength to press on is renewed. As the Catechism says, hope keeps us from discouragement, sustains us when abandoned, and opens our hearts in expectation of heaven (CCC 1818).

Inwards to Outwards, Downwards to Upwards

First Sunday of Lent Year C

People have often noted that our society has become increasingly Godless or more atheistic. Is this true? There are countless of studies done in the West that seems to support this proposition. When surveyed, the majority of individuals state that they don’t identify with any religion. As Chesterton said, “He who does not believe in God will believe in anything.” Just recently, Lady Gaga when receiving her Grammy award, proudly declared: “music is love,” perhaps a deliberate spin on St John’s declaration that “God is love.”

We may be tempted (forgive the obvious pun) to focus merely on the temptations of Christ on this First Sunday of Lent, but the readings actually take us along another path of reflexion - what do we really believe in - the faith which we profess. You will notice that during the season of Lent and Easter, it is strongly recommended that the longer Nicene Creed is substituted with the shorter Apostles’ Creed. The reason for this substitution is not due to the brevity of the latter since our liturgies of Lent are typically lengthened by the Rites associated with the RCIA. The real reason is that the Apostles’ Creed is the creed used at baptism and the focus of both Lent and Easter is the Sacrament of Initiation, which begins with Baptism.

That is the reason why we have two ancient examples of professions of faith in today’s readings, the first predating Christianity, while the second is one of the earliest Christian creeds.

In the first reading, we have the ancient profession of faith which focuses on what God has done for the Israelites during the Exodus. Moses instructs the people that this creed is to be said by the priests when making an offering on behalf of the people, reminding them of the reason why the sacrifice is made. They should never forget that God is the very reason for their existence, their survival, and their freedom.

In the second reading, St Paul explains that the Christian profession of faith should focus on our belief in Jesus as Lord and what God has done by raising Him from the dead: “If your lips confess that Jesus is Lord and if you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you will be saved. By believing from the heart you are made righteous; by confessing with your lips you are saved.”

Finally, in the gospel we come to realise that creeds are not just meant to be propositional (mere statements of belief) but are meant to be practical (to be lived out). Here we have the three temptations posed by Satan to the Lord. St Luke’s ordering of the temptations is slightly different from Matthew’s version (the second temptation is switched with the third). On the face of it, these three temptations appear to have nothing to do with our profession of faith but are in fact an inversion, a parody of our fundamental faith. Satan, the adversary of God and man, is attempting to lure our Lord into making a mockery of faith by professing a faith which places trust in His own resources and even in the devil, as opposed to placing our trust and faith in God. Before we affirm our faith in God, we must renounce our dependence on Satan.

This is the reason why during the rite of Baptism and the renewal of baptismal promises made at Easter and before one receives the Sacrament of Confirmation, the renunciation of sin is a necessary prelude to the profession of faith and both precedes the administering of the sacrament of baptism and confirmation. Because of the renunciation of sin and profession of faith, which forms one rite, the elect would not be baptised merely passively but will receive this great sacrament with the active resolve to renounce error and hold fast to God.

As I had mentioned earlier, St Luke’s ordering of the temptations differ from that of St Matthew’s. Unlike St Matthew, Luke concludes the list of temptations with the temptation that takes place within the Temple precinct and not on a mountaintop. Here, we witness the audacity of the devil to challenge God’s sovereignty, the ultimate basis of all temptations. These temptations are not merely luring Christ or each of us to place our trust in the cravings of the flesh or the material things of the world. Sin ultimately turns us away from God. The devil is actually selling us this lie - trust in your own desires, trust in your own power, trust in your own strength - because trusting in God is wholly insufficient! It is never enough!

The gospels in setting out these three temptations are trying to juxtapose to the experience of the Israelites in the wilderness with our Lord Jesus’ own experience. The three temptations of Jesus recall the three failures of the Israelites in the desert. Where the devil tempts the Lord to turn stones into bread, we see how the Israelites complained about the lack of food in the desert. Where the devil places our Lord on a mountain and promises Him lordship over the world if only He would bow and worship him, the Israelites questioned the lordship of God and instead worshipped an idol, a bronze calf. Where the devil tempts our Lord to test God, the devil had succeeded in getting the Israelites to test God while they were in the desert.

Satan was tempting Jesus to recapitulate the Israelites' lack of trust in God. Jesus would have nothing of it. In one of the most beautiful lines in Sacred Scripture, the letter to the Hebrews tells us, "We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet never sinned" (Heb 4:15). The story ends with our Lord’s victory. Temptation does not necessarily lead to sin. If we hold fast to the Lord, and rely on His grace and strength, we will be victorious. Lent is the season when we are called to recapitulate our Lord’s victory over sin rather than the Israelites’ failure. The Church aids us in the battle by recommending the three practices of Lent – fasting, almsgiving and prayer. The practices of Lent are the remedy to the temptations of the Evil One.

At the end of this Lenten season, we will celebrate and profess the mystery of faith - the death and the resurrection of the Lord. At Easter, the priest will invite you to renew your baptismal promises with these words: “Dear brethren, through the Paschal Mystery we have been buried with Christ in Baptism, that we may walk with him in newness of life. And so, let us renew the promises of Holy Baptism, which we once renounced Satan and his works and promised to serve God in the holy Catholic Church.” We turn away from being ‘inwards and downwards’ to being ‘outwards and upwards.’ Having rejected Satan and all his works and empty promises, let us with firm conviction profess our faith publicly in God the Father and His works, in God the Son, Jesus Christ, and His works, and in God the Holy Spirit and His works. Those works, which the Lord has begun in us, will continue in us throughout this season of Lent and beyond until the Lord completes it when we go forth to meet Him as He returns in glory.