The Price for Lasting Peace

Second Sunday of Advent Year A

Recently, New Yorkers elected a man as their new mayor, which many hail as their Saviour whilst others accuse as being a communist. Some see him as a future hope for the city while others view him as one of the four apocalyptic horsemen that would bring about its destruction. What endeared him to most of his supporters was his primary campaign promise to dish out “free stuff.” Free bus. Free housing. Free groceries. Now, who wouldn’t like “free stuff”?

Have you ever longed for a place where everything was “free”? A place where people worked together, shared together and genuinely cared for one another? A place where poverty, conflict, rivalry, violence is absent or abolished entirely? Despite best intentions and best efforts, the lesson we learn from the neo-socialists, communists, democratic governments is that mankind is unable to engineer the perfect society. Why have countless experiments failed or have been unsuccessful? The answer can be found in the very name given to these ventures. It’s the word “utopia.” Utopia, a Greek word, literally means “no place.” The reality is that there never has been a place on earth where human beings created a perfect peaceful community. And often it has been the very people who claim to create an earthly paradise that have caused the most devastating brokenness. The good news is that scripture shows us how peace and perfection will arrive on earth.

In the first reading, the Prophet Isaiah, our principal prophet for this season of Advent, shares with us a prophetic dream of a future society, a perfect paradise. All hatreds and hostilities have disappeared, those who hated and killed their victims are now sitting side by side, the lion and the leopard lie down with the lamb and the gazelle, the child plays with the poisonous snake. Nobody is doing any harm, the poor and the weak are no longer oppressed by injustice, all seems lovey-dovey. It is paradise restored. Sounds like Utopia, right? Problem is that this ‘paradise’, this ‘utopia,’ exists in no place. But will this ever take place? Well, the Prophet Isaiah provides the clue – he points to the shoot that will spring from the stock of Jesse.

The stock or the stump of Jesse actually refers to another failed project, the broken line of the dynasty of David. The dynasty of King David had been cut down like a tree by the Babylonians in 587 B.C. when the city of Jerusalem and the Kingdom of Judah was devastated and the ruling class led into exile. The people were shocked to realise that the dynasty was not really eternal. But had not God assured David: “your house and your kingdom shall endure forever before me; your throne shall stand firm forever” (2 Sam 7:16). Isaiah knew that God must always be true to His word; hence the dynasty in some way will revive. The spirit of the Lord will rest upon the stump and the roots of Jesse, and the people of God will bloom again. New life can emerge from what is perceived as a dead tree. But the solution would not be a human one. It is through God’s direct intervention that the dead tree stump would spring to life again. We need a Saviour, not just a charismatic political leader. Christ would be the answer.

The second reading also presents us with a similarly utopian vision, now of the Church. But the realities that plagued the Church during the time of St Paul’s writings were in fact dystopian. There was building tension between two group of Christians within the community. The smaller group, described as the “weak,” liked very much a traditional form of religion, prayed a lot and mortified themselves, and observed a lot of prescriptions. The other group, named the “strong,” did not pay attention to such “small” things, which they considered trivial, and held that one did not have to follow the old law; the only necessary thing was to be faithful to Christ. The two groups abused each other: the weak “passed judgment” on the strong ones, calling them unfaithful and these, in their turn “had contempt” for the weak ones, classifying them as traditionalists and without understanding. Sounds familiar?

St Paul recommends to all to be charitable, to show love and reciprocal respect. He did not need to reinvent the wheel and come up with a new blueprint for this community. Christ is THE BLUEPRINT! Our Lord, who did not seek to please Himself but placed Himself at the service of others, is the model par excellence for the qualities needed for community living. What He gives to us is “free”, salvation is a free gift because it is not something we can ever earn. But it comes at the greatest cost to Himself – He paid the cost through His own life. Harmony in the community could only be assured by the member’s commitment to Christ. St Paul challenged the “strong” as well as the “weak” to “treat each other in the same friendly way as Christ treated” them. Rather than engage in mutual criticism that would only engender hostility, they should learn “to be tolerant with each other, following the example of Christ Jesus, so that united in mind and voice (they) may give glory to God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Finally, we come to the gospel and discover the key to Peace. It is to be found in the keynote message of the gospel and that of Advent - repentance. In today’s gospel, we hear the story of how St John the Baptist preached this message, “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is close at hand.” What does the word Repentance mean? In Hebrew, the word for conversion (shubh) indicates that one has taken a wrong path, and once he has become aware of his detour, the individual returns to the right path in order to return to God. So too the Greek word, metanoia involves not just a static remorse but a dynamic and determined about-face, a positive commitment to a new way of life. Significantly, conversion is not a purely human decision or endeavour. Rather, conversion is a human response to the prior initiative of God.

Repentance means turning to Christ. Repentance means putting on Christ and becoming Christ. The word “Christian” means “of Christ” or a “little Christ.” It means putting God in the first place in our lives and making sure that everything else finds its rightful places in our lives under God. Repentance means letting go of our own will, in order to follow the things that God wills for us. It means turning away from sin and all rebellion against God, in order to be obedient to God and to follow Him in all that He wants from us. Repentance means owning up to our sin, our human frailties, our fears, our inner hurts and entrusting all these to God’s mercy and compassion. Repentance means knowing our need of God. In turning our lives around, we come to recognise that our self-sufficiency is inadequate and that we need to cooperate with God in our own salvation. Repentance therefore is not a one-time thing. It is a process that goes on for a lifetime. Little by little we orientate ourselves ever more perfectly in God’s love.

So as we continue our journey to Christmas, we need to repent of our comfortableness with sin. This is the only way our society and the Church can be transformed. Various utopian experiments that have sought to improve mankind and create a peaceable environment have failed. Lasting peace would not be found in any peace treaty or socio-political or economic reform. This is because, if God is not part of the equation, Utopia would remain a dream. But God’s effort to bring peace will not fail. It will succeed—through Jesus Christ and the establishment of God’s Kingdom. The Kingdom is both “free” and costly. Free because our Lord offers it to us freely. Costly because He has already paid the price for this gift. So, prepare the Way of the Lord!

As Newborn Babes

Second Sunday of Easter
Divine Mercy Sunday

It can be a real challenge to wrap your head around the fact that this Sunday goes by many names. Some would argue – way too many. Today is the Second Sunday of Easter but it is also known as the Sunday within the Octave of Easter. In the extraordinary form and in the pre-1969 calendar, it was also called Low Sunday (in relation to last Sunday, Easter). And since the pontificate of St John Paul II, it has received this eponymous title - Divine Mercy Sunday. As we continue to pray for Pope Francis of happy memory, we too remember how mercy had been one of the major lietmotifs of his pontificate. 

But my favourite name for this Sunday is derived from the incipit of the entrance antiphon for this Sunday. Quasimodo Sunday. It is taken from 1 Peter 2:2 and in Latin, it begins with these words: “quasi modo geniti infantes” or in English, “like newborn infants.” This is the full text of the antiphon: “As newborn babes, desire the rational milk without guile, that thereby you may grow unto salvation: If so, be you have tasted that the Lord is sweet.”

The name Quasimodo Sunday may not be familiar to many of you, but the name is not unfamiliar. Sounds like an oxymoron, right? Well, if you recall Victor Hugo’s novel, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” (or the Disney animated version) you will remember that the main protagonist’s name is Quasimodo, the eponymous Hunchback of the story. For those not familiar with the storyline, this tale of love, chivalry and strange beauty is about this unlikely hero, the severely deformed hunchback, with a pristinely beautiful and innocent heart and soul, who lived in the rafters of Paris’ famous Cathedral of Notre Dame.

In Hugo’s novel, Quasimodo, rejected by his parents for his deformities, is abandoned inside Notre Dame Cathedral, at a place where orphans and unwanted children were dropped off. Monseigneur Claude Frollo, the Archdeacon, finds the child on “Quasimodo Sunday” and “called him Quasimodo; whether it was that he chose thereby to commemorate the day when he had found him, or that he meant to mark by that name how incomplete and imperfectly moulded the poor little creature was,” Hugo wrote.

In a strange way, the character Quasimodo, who risked his own life to save another whom he loves, is a type of Christ. And like Quasimodo, Christ also appears before His disciples today, arrayed not in gold and resplendent garments, but carrying the trophies of His victory on the cross - His wounds, His deformities. But unlike Quasimodo, our Lord was not born with these deformities, for He is the unblemished Paschal Lamb. These are the scars of the torture He endured for our sake. Instead of an unscarred and unblemished appearance, He chooses to retain His ugly wounds as a sign, not of His failure, but of His victory over sin and death. His wounds are supremely beautiful because they are visible marks of His love for us, the receipt for the price He had paid for us, the booty of a cosmic battle which He had fought and won for us.

Yes, in a way, all of us are incomplete and imperfectly moulded. We desire and hunger for the sacramental milk which only our Mother, the Church, can give. We have been deformed by sin, poor orphans abandoned and languishing in this Valley of Tears, waiting to be picked up by our Heavenly Father and to be adopted by Him. In His mercy, He has given us His only begotten Son, the Divine Mercy, not only to be our companion but to exchange places with us. Our Lord Jesus, the sinless and perfect Son of God, Beauty ever ancient ever new, chose to take our ugliness upon Himself in order to confer upon us the beauty of sanctifying grace. He took our sentence of death, in order to grant us the repeal of life. He has done this through the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, symbolised by the water and blood which flowed out through His wounded side, the source being His Most Sacred Heart beating in love for us.

But St Faustina also saw in that gushing spring of water and blood something else - grace and mercy. This is what she wrote: “All grace flows from mercy, and the last hour abounds with mercy for us. Let no one doubt concerning the goodness of God; even if a person’s sins were as dark as night, God’s mercy is stronger than our misery.” (Diary of St. Faustina, number 1507) Even the ugliest Quasimodos in this world can be potentially the most beautiful beings seen through the lenses of grace and mercy because “God’s mercy is stronger than misery!”

In Victor Hugo’s novel, as a group of old women hunkered over to examine the little monstrosity that had been left near the vestibule of the Cathedral, one of them remarked, “I'm not learned in the matter of children ...but it must be a sin to look at this one." Could this remark be referring to us too? This is who we were, inheritors of Original Sin, prisoners and victims of our own sinful misdeeds, deformed by our iniquities, that it would be a sin for anyone to look at us. But then, God looked upon us, not with vile disgust or hatred but with love and mercy, and His “mercy is stronger than misery.” God offered us atonement and pardon for our sins. God offered us His incalculable mercy by offering us His son to take our place on the cross. As Saint Paul assures us, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21). We have seen this God, we have tasted Him, we have been redeemed and saved through His grace and mercy, and we can proudly acclaim that we have tasted the Lord and can testify that He is sweet!

Redemptive Suffering

Twenty Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

One of the most fundamental mysteries that most religions seek to grapple with is that of suffering - what is its cause and what is its antidote? The Buddhists make existential suffering as the first of their four foundational Noble Truths. The second Noble Truth is its prognosis – desires is the cause of all suffering. Others would argue that suffering is punishment from God for one’s sinfulness and waywardness. Bad people suffer while good people are blessed and rewarded. However, our experience would often throw a wrench into this simplistic association. We all know of bad people who seem to prosper while good and innocent folks seem to suffer for no obvious reason. The unfairness of the situation often leads us to question the existence of God or perhaps view Him as a capricious and sadistic deity who loves to watch us suffer while observing our plight from the sidelines.

Our modern world tells us to avoid suffering at all cost and instead seek comfort by any means necessary, such as taking a pill to alleviate pain, or seeking divorce when marriage becomes unbearable, or giving up a project when satisfaction or results do not seem immediate. The world sees instant gratification as a right and suffering as a senseless evil to be avoided at all cost. But Christianity actually proposes that suffering can have immense value for ourselves and others. Rather than focusing on identifying the root causes of suffering which are many or attempting to run away from them, Christianity invites us to view and embrace suffering as something redemptive and salvific.

We need to be clear that suffering, in and of itself, is not naturally redemptive. It is up to us to respond in a way that gives it a redemptive value in imitation of the love with which Christ suffered for our sake. Our suffering was not originally what God had intended for us. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “As long as he [Adam] remained in the divine intimacy, man would not have to suffer or die” (376). But Adam forfeited this gift through his disobedience. Human suffering entered the world due to the effects of original sin. God does not cause the suffering. He simply permits it to happen in our lives so that it can be used for good and not wasted.

The foundation of redemptive suffering is found in the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ which He willingly embraced. He is the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy of the Suffering Servant which we heard in the first reading. Our Lord is the “servant” which God has pleased to crush with suffering because “by His sufferings shall my servant justify many, taking their faults on Himself.” He is the supreme High Priest described in Hebrews who had offered a sacrifice of His own flesh, a flesh united completely with our humanity. He is “one who has been tempted in every way that we are, though He is without sin.” He suffered for you and for me out of perfect divine love and catapulted the meaning of love from a warm and fuzzy feeling to an act of sacrifice, a total gift of self.

Our Lord today asked His disciples, He is asking us if we are ready to share in His redemptive suffering: “Can you drink the cup that I must drink, or be baptised with the baptism with which I must be baptised?”

So, how do we choose to make our suffering a means of redemption by uniting it with Christ. Here are some practical steps:

First, we are called to bear our suffering patiently without complaining. We can choose to be cheerful rather than be cranky, especially to those who care for us and are companions to us. The moment we grumble and complain and grow resentful, our suffering loses its redemptive value and becomes a curse.

Second, we can choose to forgive and pray for those who cause us pain instead of cursing them, or rant about them or hold a grudge against them. You can quietly offer your pain as an act of compassion for these persons, just as our Lord forgave His enemies from the cross.

Third, you can embrace the suffering and pray for endurance and perseverance. The harder it gets, the more redemptive it becomes. This was the conviction of little St Therese de Lisieux when she joined the Carmelite monastery at the young age of 15. She would later explain that her vocation was motivated by her desire to offer her suffering for others. And she did suffer grievously both physically and mentally, while offering up her suffering for the salvation of souls.

Lastly, choose the path of humility and even that which brings humiliation as our Lord exhorts in today’s gospel - to be the last instead of being first, to be the least instead of being the greatest, to be a servant instead of being a master for “the Son of Man himself did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Choose and offer these acts of sacrificial suffering for other people’s salvation as an act of love and a desire of their ultimate good, which is heaven. By uniting our suffering to Christ and offering it to God in self-sacrificial love we become like Christ, who offered His suffering in self-sacrificial love so that we might receive the reward of eternal life. In this ultimate gift, we see that suffering not only can play a role in our own salvation but also in helping others obtain salvation.

Let me end with this beautiful catechesis from the great Cure D’Ars, St Jean Marie Vianney:

“There are two ways of suffering – to suffer with love, and to suffer without love. The saints suffered everything with joy, patience, and perseverance, because they loved. As for us, we suffer with anger, vexation, and weariness, because we do not love. If we loved God, we should love crosses, we should wish for them, we should take pleasure in them… We should be happy to be able to suffer for the love of Him who lovingly suffered for us.”

Mercy and Peace

Second Sunday of Easter Year B
Divine Mercy Sunday

NATO has become a household acronym that almost everyone in Malaysia knows and understands. I’m not talking about the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation but the stinging indictment against so many, especially targeted at leaders: “no action, talk only.” It’s the Malaysian equivalent of the English expression “Be all talk (but no action).” The acronym NATO, however, sounds much catchier than BAT. When it comes to mercy, our theme for today, words alone do not make one a Christian. If we wish to talk about mercy, it cannot just remain at the level of words and good wishes. It must be translated into action. We must back our words with action.

We can be certain that there is One who has not and will never fall under this description of NATO! According to St. Paul, this is the One who, "emptied himself, taking the form of a slave … obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross" (Phil 2:8). Our Lord Jesus Christ did not merely speak about love and humility. He did not merely show us mercy as He pitied us and sympathised with our plight. He was not all talk but no action. No! Our Lord, the Divine Mercy, speaks works of mercy to us. But He does not only speak. He acts. This Word became flesh - He became man. He did not merely do His Father's will. He perfected it. His WORD took ACTION - He let us nail Him to a Cross, so that He might take upon Himself the guilt of our own sins. He has the scars to show for it, even after His resurrection.

As His blood dripped down the sides of the tree from which He hung, He thought of us in our sinfulness. And from His side, flowed water and blood as the visible sign of His mercy, a mercy that would take concrete shape and form in the sacraments of the Church, especially in the form of Baptism and the Eucharist. In the Upper Room, behind the closed doors of fear and regret, He did not speak words of condemnation to His disciples who had betrayed Him, denied Him and abandoned Him, but instead, words of forgiveness “Peace be with you!” Our Lord, the Divine Mercy walked the talk and lived His words of mercy.

Divine mercy is the reason why humans can face up to their sin and accept full responsibility. Precisely because God is merciful, we can entrust ourselves wholly to Him, faults and all. We can accept whatever discipline He deems just and we can own our mistakes with the hope of redemption. Today, however, divine mercy often occasions a kind of quest to discover all the excuses humans have for not living the moral standard and to elaborate human inculpability. Divine mercy now seems to be about how humans can’t be blamed.

Today, we do live in an age where mercy is demanded but little appreciated. It is a false sort of mercy that demands nothing from the one who feels entitled to it. In other words, today many perceive mercy as a blanket approval for all manner of action, behaviour and lifestyle. Mercy is treated like a whitewash, covering up all sin and not actually changing the situation of our lives. An understanding of mercy, which allows a person to become at peace with sin, is far from the mercy shown by Jesus, because His true concern is for our true happiness.

How is His mercy connected to the peace which He offers in today’s gospel? True mercy releases us from sin and allows us to live in friendship with God. That is how mercy leads us to be at peace with God. Such peace can only be experienced when we surrender to God’s justice, turn to Him in repentance and be reconciled with Him in spirit and in truth. This is the reason why the words of the Risen Lord as we have heard in today’s gospel connect both peace and forgiveness. There can be no authentic peace if we have not been truly forgiven of our sins.

Mercy does not make sin acceptable. No, mercy seeks to free us from sin through forgiveness. It opens up a space for us to become a better version of ourselves. A false consolation that allows someone to continue in his sin whilst ignoring the guilt of his actions is not mercy at all if the person is not freed from the sinful situation. St Pope John Paul II once wrote “According to Catholic doctrine, no mercy, neither divine nor human, entails consent to the evil or tolerance of the evil. Mercy is always connected with the moment that leads from evil to good. Where there is mercy, evil surrenders. When the evil persists, there is no mercy.” Unfortunately, many today reject God’s forgiveness because they live in denial and refuse to accept the blame or acknowledge their own faults.

Divine Mercy is God’s offer to us to come close to Him. It is a real offer which invites us to a conversion of life, a definite break with sin, and a peace, of knowing and living in communion with God. This relationship is not mere lip service but a reality. God is never NATO! What God has promised, He does. When one meets the Lord’s mercy, our lives change. Our acceptance of mercy involves us trusting our lives to Jesus and our willingness to obey Him. When we pray for true mercy, we ask the Lord to forgive us our sins and weaknesses and to give us the grace to live in communion with Him in sincerity and truth.

Jesus! We trust in You!

Change your mind and turn around

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Without skipping a beat, the evangelist St Mark notes the immediate transition from the ministry of the Baptist to that of the Lord’s after the former’s imprisonment - the latter takes over where the former left off - calling people to repentance: “The time has come … and the kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the Good News.” The work of repentance did not end with John the Baptist. In fact, the Lord not only assumes John’s primary work of calling people to repentance but takes it to another level.

The noun “repentance” comes from the Greek word “metanoia,” and the verb “to repent” comes from the Greek verb “metanoeō,” both of which connote a change of mind. In Greek, the word sheds its baggage of merely turning away from and renouncing sin. It calls for a radical change of our noetic faculties, of how we see things, how we think about things, of how we remember things. It addresses the issue of what occupies our attention and that which we give priority to. Seen in this light, metanoia addresses a society of narcissistic people who are obsessed with themselves and who have forgotten God. We are often preoccupied with earthly affairs rather than contemplate heavenly things. This is what sin entails - a forgetting of God. It is hard to sin, when we are thinking about God. The occasion of sin translates into the sin the moment we push God out of our consciousness.

Similarly, the moment of repentance takes place when we begin to think about God. Consider the story of the Prodigal Son, who squandered his inheritance in a wasteful and hedonistic lifestyle, thinking only of himself. But the turning point, the point where he “changes his mind” or experiences metanoia, is when he remembers his father and his father’s goodness and kindness. That reorientation of his thinking sets him on the path home. Consider also the story of the disciples in the gospel. There is no indication that they lived lives of depravity or abject sinfulness. They were just too occupied with their work, making a living, tending to their family affairs. But the encounter with our Lord changed everything. They experienced a metanoia too, a change of mind which led to a change of values and priorities. From now on, Christ will be their principal priority and everything else will take second place.

To explore further the deeper nuances of repentance, we need to turn to the Old Testament. In the Old Testament there are two words which expresses the idea of repentance, shuv (or its verb teshuvah) and naham. Shuv can be translated “to turn,” “to turn back,” “to turn around.” It does at times denote the kind of a complete heart change we will come to see in the New Testament idea of metanoia. Naham, on the other hand, has a number of meanings: “to sigh, to be sorry, to pity, to console, or (reflexively) to rue; to avenge, to comfort, to repent.” We will find both words used in the first reading if we happen to have the opportunity of reading the text in its original Hebrew.

In the first reading, we have a short excerpt from the familiar story of the prophet Jonah. Too often the prophets are thought of mainly as predictors of the future. But the truth is that they were mainly forthtellers or truth-sayers, for they spoke forth the truth of the Word of God over against the rising tide of idolatry, apostasy, and sin of the nation.

Whether it was deliberate or not, the excerpt in the first reading provides us with an extremely sanitised picture of the mission of Jonah without the full context, that is minus the hitches or glitches or drama and the multiple twists and turns in the entire narrative. The reading begins with Jonah carrying out his mission by being obedient to the Lord’s word. But the truth is that Jonah was not always “obedient” to the Lord’s word. In fact, Jonah did everything to run away from God and evade the mission that was entrusted to him. Instead of “going up”, literally heading north, Jonah fled south. Instead of going east in the direction of the great city of Nineveh of the Assyrians, Jonah sailed off westward into the uncharted waters of the Great Sea (the Mediterranean). It was after several adventures or misadventures, including being swallowed up by a whale, did Jonah relent. He “teshuvah,” he turned to the Lord and turned in the direction of Nineveh to fulfil his mission. And because his preaching was so effective (or the prospect of divine punishment so horrifying), the inhabitants of Nineveh also “teshuvah”, they repented.

But this is not the most amazing part of the story. The passage ends with this mysterious line describing what God did next: “God saw their efforts to renounce (shuv) their evil behaviour, and God relented (naham): he did not inflict on them the disaster which he had threatened.” Jonah turned. The Ninevites turned. But according to the text, God also turned! On the one hand, it is consoling to note that God turns His countenance on the sinner when he repents. It is important to note that God’s repentance is not like man’s. God is not taken off guard by unexpected turns of events like we are. He knows all the future. God did not regret creating man after the Fall because He knew that the Fall would bring about a greater good - man’s redemption through His Son’s death on the cross. Nor does God repent from sin since God never sins. So, His repentance is not owing to lack of foresight nor to folly. God neither turns away from committing sin nor does God “change his mind” about sin.

In the case of God, relenting or “naham” is a sign of His infinite mercy. God respects our freedom to walk away from Him, He even warns us of the consequences of our actions to discourage us from pursuing this path of destruction, but God is always ready to welcome us back. As much as He waits for us to turn around, God’s gaze is always upon us even while we were sinners. It does seem at least from our perspective that God’s judgmental eyes are boring into the back of our heads when we walk away from Him in sin. But the truth is that He has always been looking at us with His loving gaze and we will only come to realise this when we finally decide to turn around.

We just celebrated the New Year three weeks ago and many of you have made strong resolutions to turn your life around and become a better version of yourselves, resolutions which we often fail to keep. But why wait for this annual event to change. The Catholic Church provides us with an all year round opportunity to do better because she understands that we slip, we fall, and she affords us the opportunity to get up and start all over again. She knows us in and out, and how much we need to change, and how much help we need in changing. In fact, as our Eastern brethren would remind us, repentance is a permanent mode of Christianity, for to grow in holiness, one is constantly called to turn to God.

For this reason, the Church is never “stingy” in dispensing mercy. Repentance is not something which should be limited to once or twice a year when the penitential service comes round to the parish. The Church offers us the sacrament of confession anytime we need it and God knows how much we are in need of it. In offering confession, the Church offers us a much better version of the human desire to change. When we go before the priest in confession, we are renewing our commitment to “change our minds and our hearts”, to turn away from all worldly distractions and the allures of sin, to run back into the arms of a Loving God who has never taken His gaze off us. In confession, through the ministry of the priest, we turn to God and He turns to us in a loving embrace. So my dear brothers and sisters, wait no longer but “Repent, and believe the Good News!”

The Second Plank after the Shipwreck

Twenty Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Most folks would be familiar with the other parable involving two sons, though the focus in the Gospel of St Luke seems to be on the younger son who is a wastrel, but ironically called the Prodigal Son. The two sons in that famous parable are morally ambivalent - they are neither purely good nor purely bad. This is understandable since the focus is on the character of the father.

But here, in Matthew’s parable of two sons, the moral lines are clearly drawn between good and bad, light and darkness. And yet, Matthew acknowledges how someone good may end up bad and someone bad, may eventually turn good. Those in the light can fall into darkness as easily as those who are in the darkness can be redeemed and brought into the light.

The parable draws a contrast between the early response of the two sons to the father’s request to “go and work in the vineyard today” and their actual response at the end of the story. Don’t be too quick to judge either son. We need to stay around till the end to see the actual outcome and we will be surprised by the ending. The son who refused at the beginning, relents and then does the job. The other son acquiesces without any protest when first asked but then chooses to do nothing. Our Lord poses this question to His disciples, “Which of the two did the father’s will?” And just like the disciples, our answer would be “the first.”

The lesson in this parable is restated by our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount, ‘It is not anyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord” who will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but the person who does the will of my Father in Heaven’. It is no use simply saying that Christ is our ‘Lord’, we have to express it in our behaviour.

What is the difference between the first son and the second? The actions of both sons show that no position is written in stone and that they are subject to change - sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. The change that we are looking at as instrumental to our salvation is repentance. If sin is clearly demonstrated as disobedience, the first son, after open refusal, repents of his sin—better late than never—and goes to work for his father. He overcomes and changes from bad to good. After experiencing the negative results of sin, he yields to his father’s instruction, changing direction and does as his father commanded him—the fruit of his repentance.

Repentance can change the outcome of the story of every man or woman, even the greatest sinner. What is repentance? The Greek word we translate as “repentance” is metanoia (the verb “to repent” is metanoeo), and it means “to change your mind.” Metanoia’s Hebrew counterpart is tshuva, which means “to return.” So when the Lord says, “Repent and believe in the gospel,” He is basically saying: change your mind about sin and return to God by believing the good news! In order to be saved, we must repent. Repentance means not just running back to God, but running away from anything that would keep us from God. Our call to repentance is really our call to conversion. It is our call not just to change, but to become our most authentic selves as children of God.

For us Catholics, repentance is not just a private act of contrition where we confess our sins to God directly and hope for His forgiveness. Many often wonder whether God has truly forgiven their sins or continues to hold it against them. There seems to be no way of verifying except to rely on our gut feelings. But the good news is that we do not have to speculate as to whether our sins have really been forgiven or we remain entrapped. One of the most important sacraments, the sacrament of penance or popularly known as confession, provides a penitent with an objective confirmation. Through the ministry of the priest, the penitent will get a definitive answer when the words of absolution are pronounced over the person: “God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, + and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” It is a shame when this sacrament is so underappreciated and so underutilised for our growth in holiness. It is important to remember that long lines for holy communion is not the barometer for a spiritually vibrant church unless it is matched by long lines to the confessional.

I like the image found in the description of the early fathers of the Church when they call this sacrament “the second plank [of salvation] after the shipwreck which is the loss of grace.” (CCC 1446). Imagine that: God throws us a plank after the shipwreck of sin which has caused us to lose saving grace. This sacrament is visible assurance that God has not abandoned us. He has not written us off as incorrigible. He has not dismissed us as irredeemable. Just like the first son, we too may have said “no” to His invitation to go into the vineyard and work, but He always keeps a door and window open for us to return and make up for lost time and opportunity. God throws us a plank after our lives and the lives of others have been shipwrecked by sin!

Most of us know what it means to live with regret. Lost opportunities may never be recovered. But not in the area of grace. God offers us countless opportunities before our death to repent, to amend our lives, to change our decision and remake our path before it is too late. But let us not live with the presumption that we will have more time which gives us cause to delay our repentance and return to do His will. Let us not think that we are secure just because we have got it right at the start. The challenge is to keep on the right path faithfully to the very end and to immediately repent, should we stray. As the prophet Ezekiel warns us in the first reading: “When the upright man renounces his integrity to commit sin and dies because of this, he dies because of the evil that he himself has committed. When the sinner renounces sin to become law-abiding and honest, he deserves to live. He has chosen to renounce all his previous sins; he shall certainly live; he shall not die.”

Forgiveness and Generosity

Twenty Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

One of the hardest things for a priest to do is to ask his congregation for money. You may somewhat understand this if you acknowledge that it is extremely hard to beg and grovel. It is demeaning. It always seems that there are so many strings attached to any act of giving. I have to be prepared to return the favour in some way or another because when people give, they always expect something in return. Even when the favour is not called in immediately, it emerges whenever special requests are declined. Accepting a gift from someone ends up like owing the person a lifetime of favours which can never be satisfactorily repaid.

Why would I raise the issue of generosity when our readings speak of forgiveness? This is because generosity is necessary for forgiveness. “Giving” is the root word of “forgiving.” It’s almost safe to say they come from the same “root.” A popular Arab saying suggests that a forgiving person is “karim”, generous. Generosity and forgiveness come from one source: “compassion.” Forgiveness is a sign of largesse, an act of generosity. Unforgiveness, on the other hand, rises from a calculative attitude that is unable to let go of what is due or what we believe to be due to us. True forgiveness is basically an act of bestowing and receiving generosity from another. Lack of forgiveness is one manifestation of self-absorbed non-Christian living and the reading from Romans reminds us that we should not live for ourselves.

If you can’t see the connexion, our Lord’s parable in today’s Gospel passage perfectly illustrates this point. In the parable, we see two instances where a debt is owed. In the first case, the servant brought before the king owed a huge amount of money. In the second circumstance, the servant wanted to collect a paltry sum from a fellow servant. Looking simply at the amounts owed, one sum is gargantuan and the other is miniscule. If one were to find a suitable analogy, it’s like comparing a national debt with what you owe on a month’s unpaid utility bill.

When we hear this story, we have a reaction equal to the other servants concerning the injustice of the situation. The king acted generously while the wicked servant exacted what was his due even when he could and should have forgiven the small debt owed to him by a fellow servant. A sense of right and wrong cries out against the calculative attitude of the unjust servant. The issue is not so much about the incomparability of the money owed as it is the lack of generosity on the part of the first servant. He was forgiven so much, why did he forgive so little?

If the wicked servant had really understood this generosity he would have been willing to forgive the debt of his fellow servant. The Lord presents the two cases as if they were parallel. That is, the issue is not really about money but our willingness to forgive in the same manner in which we have been forgiven. What is our attitude when we have accepted forgiveness from another? Are we willing to do likewise when we need to forgive? One thing that is evident in the parable is that genuine forgiveness entails generosity on the part of the forgiver and the forgiven.

If we are able to understand the connexion between mercy and generosity, giving and forgiving, we will then understand that Peter’s question at the start of today’s passage is actually the wrong question: “Lord, how often must I forgive my brother if he wrongs me?” Peter thought that forgiving seven times was being sufficiently generous. Our Lord counters with His own number, “seventy-seven times”, or in some translations, “seventy times seven.” The number isn’t important. We are not witnessing a back-and-forth haggling between Master and disciple. Our Lord is merely reminding Peter and all of us that mercy is never a matter of accounting. Don’t look at our calculator, rather look at the blessing we’ve received from God and which we are now called to share with others. God’s blessings and mercy outpaces any calculator. Our forgiveness should be given in abundance – it’s one thing that’s truly free. It costs us nothing to give it away. And the supply is endless. In fact, the more you give, the more you receive. Perhaps nothing can better describe the faithfulness and mercy of God, and the depths of His love to send His only Son to sacrifice once and for all for the forgiveness of our sins.

Perhaps it is hard to forgive because we have been expecting in the human that which is found only in the divine. Admittedly, it is hard to forgive when the faults of our enemies are so clear to us and the pain of the injury we have suffered at their hands run deep. The parable tells us to focus elsewhere - not on the failings and limitations of man but on the immense mercy of God - the ocean of God’s mercy. The Lord made this promise through St Faustina “whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the Fount of My mercy.” The image of God’s mercy as big as an ocean is actually scriptural.

The prophet Micah cries out to God and implores His mercy on the people: “You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19). On Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, Jews according to their custom would cast breadcrumbs or empty whatever valuables they have in their pockets into a body of water, as a symbol of casting their sins into the ocean of God’s mercy. No matter what rubbish or emotional baggage or hurts or resentment we choose to cast into that sea, we know that we will never be able to plunge its depths or displace its waters. God’s mercy will always be bigger than my sins, than my emotional baggage, than my pains and hurts. If God can show such great incalculable mercy to me, though unworthy, could I not afford some level of mercy to my neighbour whose debt comes nowhere close to what I owe God?

It’s by the grace and providential hand of God our sins are cast into the depths of the sea. A sea of forgetfulness is akin to God’s memory of our wrongs. The world continues to live under the curse of sin. We continue to hurt each other and be hurt by others. We will never fully escape it, nor its effect on our ability to shake sin completely this side of heaven. One step, one confession, one day at a time, we will become more like the person God created us to be. It’s a change God makes in us because long before we breathed our first breath of earthly air, He chose us. In Him will we always find not only an ocean of mercy but an ocean of love.

Patience is Divine

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

After having listened to complaints from parishioners for the past nineteen years, I’ve come to realise that one of the most common requests is that I should summarily reprimand and dismiss all the ‘troublemakers’ in the parish. However, my usual reply is that if I were to act on every complaint, including the complains I get about the complainers; then I would end up sacking over 90% of the people in the parish! I guess this phenomenon goes beyond the parish. We seem to have a natural human desire to root out and destroy all that troubles us. We want to look for the final solution to all our problems. But in attempting to get others cancelled, we end up cancelling ourselves. Or in wanting to destroy evil, we end up wreaking more destruction. Perhaps, the best example is found in Hitler’s Final Solution – millions of Jews and others had to die in this mad search for perfection. The very defenders of peace eventually turned into the greatest perpetrators of violence.

Strangely, it is not the Hitlers, the Pol Pots, the Maos or the Lenins of this world that are solely guilty of such horrendous crimes. The trait is also present with many well-intentioned activists, visionaries who believe that it is incumbent upon them to fix the problem wherever and whenever they see fit, whether it be in society, the Church or the world. Some people just can’t stop themselves from meddling. We have to fix it; get rid of the undesirables. Do it our way. The problem with 'people with a cause', is that they often do more harm for their cause than if they did nothing at all. Trying to bend the world or reform the Church or shape others according to the way they see it. So they spend a great deal of effort and time trying to control what can’t be controlled. Even though their original motive may have been noble, they actually make things worse, whilst trying to make them better. Instead of building God’s Kingdom, they end up building their own. We mess things up when we choose to get in God’s way.

Today’s parable is bent on frustrating these would-be Saviours of the world. The message goes against the grain because it seems to be soft on evil. In response to the servants’ desire to root out the darnel, to fix the problem, the Master orders, “Let them both grow till the harvest.” This is a stunning proposal: Just leave the weeds alone? You mean, “Let them have their way?” On the surface, the parable seems to be calling for passivity in the face of evil or worse, the tolerance of evil. Why would the master say what he said to his servants?

The counsel of our Lord is prudent. It is a reminder that life can be messy and we need not and should not, play God or vigilantes. Since this is God’s Kingdom, He should be in charge. He sets the agenda, He lays out the path, and He determines the deadline. The problem is that the difference between the wheat and darnel is not always going to be obvious, and that there is potential danger of mistaking the good for the bad, the will of man for that of the will of God.

Whether we would be willing to admit it or not, both wheat and darnel may be mixed up within every person. Goodness and evil, love and hate, prosperity and adversity, joy and sorrow all are so intimately intertwined. We may risk getting rid of the good in our zealous desire to root out the bad. Destroy the possibility of evil and you also destroy the possibility of goodness. What may seem to be a mess may actually be God’s way of providing a solution. The perceived curse is actually a blessing.

The patience of the farmer in letting the darnel grow on until harvest time, exemplifies the infinite mercy and wisdom of God toward sinners. The parable reminds us that sinners are to be dealt with patiently, it offers us assurance that in the end God’s way will be victorious. That one day “the virtuous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father”. The darnel could not change its nature, but the sinner can change his ways and God gives him every chance and every help to do this, up to his last moment of life. But in the end, there will be Judgment. God is never soft with evil or sin, but He is ever patient in providing opportunities to the sinner to repent. The sinner who chooses not to repent, however, will have to face judgment because the God of Mercy is also the God of Justice. Without Justice, His mercy would be vacuous.

We must learn a double lesson of patience from this parable. First, to be patient with those who make our spiritual progress more difficult for us—they are actually helping us to be better Christians if we bear with patience the injuries they inflict on us. Second, we must try to imitate the patience God shows in His dealings with sinners. Such patience, however, can never be interpreted as mere passivity. I don’t think God wants us to wait ‘patiently,’ twiddle our thumbs and do nothing. We should never tire of striving against evil. While we must not approve of evil deeds or sins of others, we must still look on them as our brothers and sisters and do all in our power to put them back on the right road to heaven. We can do this by our good example, and by fervent prayer for their conversion. Always remember that it is an act of mercy to admonish a sinner and correct error.

When you take a closer look at what is happening in the world, in society, in your family or even in the Church, do not panic when you only perceive chaos. God remains in charge. Everything may seem to be getting completely out of control. But God remains in control. God does not only tolerate the messiness but in fact subverts the messiness and uses it as the raw material of His Kingdom. He often chooses and uses the defective, the rejects, the marginalised, the sinners to be His instruments of grace.

We long for the time when the Kingdom will be complete, but that perfection would not be found in any earthly or human constructed Utopia. For now, we have to recognise that this is the way that God creates and works, and brings good life. God allows the mess. He demonstrates the value of the mess through the death of His Son on the cross. At the moment of the crucifixion, it becomes clear that evil is utterly subverted for good. The Kingdom is built on the blood of martyrs, rather than on success stories. Let us never forget that persecution cannot destroy the Church, it can only make her stronger.

The Hospitality of God

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

What seems to be the most common comparison made between Catholic parishes and Protestant churches is that the former lack the warmth and hospitality which you can readily experience in the latter. This too has often been cited as the main reason why these Protestant churches appear to be more attractive than their Catholic counterparts. So, is offering better hospitality the solution to getting our Catholics to stay put and to attract more new members?

Hospitality in the ancient world was much more than politeness or friendliness. In an age when inns were few and far between, travelers had to rely upon the hospitality of strangers to aid them in their journeys. Hospitality was also a way to survive in a culture where political boundaries were in constant flux.

Before dismissing this as pure superficiality, let us consider what the readings have to say about hospitality? It is clear that hospitality is more than just a five-star personal butler service by your team of wardens, or getting a Louis Vuitton door gift bag when you are identified as a first timer, or you are feted with a standing ovation by the whole congregation or a cheerful welcoming ditty led by the choir. Hospitality means more than welcoming people and making them feel at home. It means more than being friendly and generous, especially toward strangers. The theme of hospitality in the readings is more nuanced.

In the first reading, we have the story of how a pagan, a Shunammite woman, shows remarkable hospitality to the prophet Elisha and is rewarded with “a prophet’s reward,” the gift of life to one who was barren, the epitome of God’s graciousness. Though not part of the biblical account, a Jewish midrash narrates how Elisha performs a second miracle which resurrects this woman’s son at her behest when he died prematurely due to an accident. In another midrashic account, the son of the Shunammite woman comes back to life twice, once when he dies in the field and Elisha revives him, as is related above; and a second time, after the death of Elisha when his corpse comes into contact with the prophet’s bones. So, the story is not just an illustration of the promise of our Lord in the gospel, that “anyone who welcomes a prophet will have a prophet’s reward; and anyone who welcomes a holy man will have a holy man’s reward” but also a prefiguration of the greater “reward” which the Lord promises to all who welcome Him and His disciples, which is the gift of the resurrection.

This is what St Paul wishes to convey to the Romans in the second reading: “When we were baptised in Christ Jesus we were baptised in his death; in other words, when we were baptised we went into the tomb with him and joined him in death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s glory, we too might live a new life.” By our baptism into Christ’s death, His death becomes ours. Christ’s story becomes our story. Christ’s strength becomes our strength. Christ’s body becomes our body. Christ’s risen life becomes our risen life. This is the greatest gift of hospitality - salvation. And for this reason, those who welcome us also welcomes the One who sent us because they will be welcoming Christ. We, by virtue of our baptism, are that other Christ!

And finally, we come to the gospel. Christ is the ultimate paradigmatic model of a virtuous life. Christ is not just one priority among many. He is the priority which supersedes all other priorities - in fact, He is the absolute priority over the closest family ties, over life and finally over possession of one’s own self. But this priority comes with a unique privilege and reward - the servant or envoy is placed on par with the principal. How the servant or delegate is treated is equivalent to how the principal is treated. There are not two different standards, one for the subordinate and one for the superior, but one single standard for both. This is at the heart of the mystery of Incarnation - that God became man - and this too is the very essence of the mystery of redemption - Christ took our place on the cross, and by His resurrection, we who die in Him will also rise with Him. The glory which He reaped on the cross and by His death is for us to enjoy too.

So, one can see that hospitality goes even deeper than good manners and kindness shown to a stranger or a visitor. It is, in effect, what God has done in the person and work of Jesus Christ for the salvation of His bride. In fact, the whole of the bible and salvation history can be understood in terms of divine hospitality. From the moment God placed Adam in a garden which the latter had not planted, to how He showed hospitality and offered protection to Abraham and his family, to how God gave the Israelites the Promised Land to call home, to finally preparing the heavenly city of God that welcomes and provides eternal sanctuary to the righteous, we see scriptures revealing to us the primordial hospitality of God, in contrast to the inhospitality brought about by man’s sin.

We see a similar pattern in the life of Christ. The inhospitality that Jesus encounters from the time of His birth, when there was no room for Him in the inn (Lk 2:7), and when Herod tried to do away with Him (Mt 2:13), He continues to encounter throughout His entire lifetime. He came to His own, and His own people did not accept Him (Jn 1:11). Our Lord counters the inhospitality of the human heart with the hospitality of His heavenly Father. In the light of the crucified and risen Christ, the community of Christian faith proclaims that God, the Host of the world, has given us His Son and Spirit, to transform an inhospitable humankind into His own hospitable image and likeness.

So, in a world of deep and divisive hostility like ours today, we truly believe a recapturing of the understanding and practice of biblical hospitality to be a key component of renewal of our parishes. Hospitality is not optional to the Christian life. Our souls are measured by, among other things, how faithfully we provide hospitality to others. According to Christ, it is one of the conditions for salvation: “I was a stranger and you made me welcome” (Mt. 25:35). We might tend to think of hospitality as the sole realm of the minister of hospitality or front desk parish secretary. But the warmest greeting by a warden can be immediately undone by a parishioner’s harsh word or dirty look. The only way parishes become beacons of hospitality is for all of us to make hospitality our responsibility. When everyone in a parish is welcoming, serving, blessing and being blessed, offering others the greatest gift which is the gift of salvation, then we can be sure that when we meet Jesus, He will show us the greatest hospitality by saying, “Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Mat 25:34).

Touch these wounds

Second Sunday of Easter Year A

Our story provides us with a paradoxical contrast - closed doors but open wounds. How we wish it was the other way around? The idea of closed doors suggests that it is a done deal, there is no longer any room for negotiation, that time has run out. In the synoptic gospels, we have the parable of the ten bridesmaids, five wise and the remaining foolish, with the latter being turned out of the party because of their folly and lack of preparation. When they returned from their shopping trip, they were confronted with the painful reality of closed doors - they were too late and judgment has already been delivered.

We can imagine a similar scenario in today’s passage. The disciples of the Lord could only live with regret - the regret of following a man who could have been the Messianic King, the regret of not following Him to the very end, the regret of turning their backs on Him, with one denying Him and the other betraying Him. The closed doors symbolised their predicament. They had closed the doors of their hearts to their master and now they deserved to have God closed His doors of mercy on them, or at least this is what they thought. Despite the doors of the Upper Room and their hearts were shut and locked, the Lord Jesus came in anyway. The stone which blocked the tomb could not keep Him in. Neither could these flimsy wooden doors keep Him out. That is the power of Divine Mercy.

Several things happened on this day. Our Lord breathed the Holy Spirit on to His disciples and offered them the gift of peace which the world cannot give. Our Lord offered them pardon and mercy for their betrayal, courage in place of their fear, peace to their troubled hearts, and the Holy Spirit, the advocate to be their “forever” companion. But there was one more thing He offered them on this day. He offered them the gift of His wounds, the one thing which would have shamed them to their core, because these were the most condemning evidence of their lack of commitment and cowardly betrayal.

Christ came to these disciples with His opened wounds. He could have concealed them under layers of clothing, He could have cauterised and healed them without leaving any trace of a scar. But He left them visible and opened. The Glorified Lord carried the marks of His passion. His resurrection did not obliterate these signs of His great act of self-sacrifice. This is because the wounds of His crucifixion are the means by which we are saved. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, “whereas he was being wounded for our rebellions, crushed because of our guilt; the punishment reconciling us fell on him, and we have been healed by his bruises” (Isaiah 53:5). We cannot know who Jesus is without seeing His wounds. We cannot understand Jesus without understanding the significance of His wounds. His identity is tied to His passion and death. His wounds are the marks by which humanity is reconciled to God. His wounds are a testimony to the mercy of God towards humanity, a mercy beyond our comprehension. You have to see it to believe it.

Those wounds on the Body of the Glorified and Risen Lord teach us several things. First, they show that this Jesus is not a ghost but a real flesh-and-blood Person. Second, they serve as powerful reminders of the great love of God for us, a love so great that in Christ God died, so that our sins might be forgiven. Third, those wounds illustrate the continuity between the earthly life and ministry of Jesus and His eternal high priesthood, by which He lives to make continual intercession for us before His Heavenly Father (cf. Heb 7:25).

It is not by accident that St Thomas comes to faith, not by simply seeing an apparition of Jesus, but only after being instructed to pay heed to those sacred wounds, which are not scars of defeat and ignominy but, as the medieval mystic Julian of Norwich puts it, noble “tokens of victory and love.” This is why medieval art will show Christ at the Last Judgment showing us once again those sacred wounds. What purpose do they serve? When we meet Christ face to face on Judgment Day, He will look just as He did during that first Easter season: We will behold Him in glory, but a glory that still teaches us the price of sin. Seeing His wounds on that day will bring us to the full awareness of what our sins have done and this will either move us to loving gratitude as expressed by all the saints in heaven or to utter shame and unrepentant guilt in the fires of hell. No one can stay neutral in the face of these wounds. We will either experience mercy and forgiveness or be condemned to despair by our shame and guilt.

But our Lord’s wounds are not confined to the visible parts of His body, His hands and feet and His side which would have necessitated the lifting of His tunic. The biggest wound is the wound to His heart. In his account of the crucifixion, St John alone among the evangelists tells us: “One of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.” (Jn. 19:34) This was a pivotal moment of revelation for St John. The wound at His side was not a superficial flesh wound. The spear penetrated deep into the very core of our Lord - His heart.

What we can only imagine with our mind’s eye is now made visible in the iconic image of the Divine Mercy. The image opens a mystical door into the inner core of His being, allowing us a peek into what remains a mystery. It shows the pierced heart of the Lord from which the streams of red and white light flow, representing the blood and water which the evangelist saw. This is the grace of salvation flowing upon humanity. The piercing of the heart was the means by which the floodgates of mercy were opened upon a sinful, broken and suffering humanity. The piercing of our Lord’s heart gave us the two foundational sacraments which made the Church and makes us members of the Church - Baptism and the Eucharist.

Devotion to the holy image of the Divine Mercy as our Lord communicated to St Faustina is not just confined to His handsome and beautiful visage. It is also an invitation to gaze upon His wounds, both visible and hidden. Contemplating the wounds of Jesus can move cold and obstinate hearts. It can bring about conversion. It can open doors that are sealed shut by our obstinacy. It can heal wounds that have been opened by our sins and the sins of others.

As the Lord said to Thomas, He says to us, “Put your hands into the holes that the nails have made.” These holes are the wounds by which we are saved. These holes are the wounds by which we are healed. These holes are the means by which My Divine Mercy will be poured forth upon humanity. Don’t be afraid to touch these wounds and believe. Touch these wounds and be moved. Touch these wounds and hear our Lord’s accompanying words: “Peace be with you”, “your sins are forgiven” and “I am sending you.” Touch these wounds and like Thomas, bow in adoration while professing: “My Lord and my God... I trust in you!"

He sees you

Thirty First Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

As I grow older and as my vision grows dimmer, more things seem to fall off my field of vision. I’ve learnt to excuse myself for this for the sake of preserving my sanity and assuring myself that this is part of the natural process of aging. It does seem frustrating, especially to others because my lack of cognisance may suggest that I really don’t care.

Many of us suspect God is like that too - that He doesn’t see us because we are just too insignificant, which is to say that He doesn’t care. But I think today’s readings tell us who God really is. He’s not a God who loves from afar. He’s a God who cares about the details of our lives. Nothing is too small to present to Him. Nothing escapes His attention, His care, and His love. God is never too busy, He is never too big and important, He is never too foggy for being more ancient than the universe, to miss out on anything. The author of the Book of Wisdom acknowledges this: “In your sight, Lord, the whole world is like a grain of dust that tips the scales, like a drop of morning dew falling on the ground. Yet you are merciful to all, because you can do all things and overlook men’s sins so that they can repent.”

In comparison to its creator, the entire universe is a mere “grain of dust” or “a drop of morning dew,” yet nothing happens without the Lord’s knowledge. The reason for God’s vigilance is not brought on by His intention to police us and catch us at our weakest moment but because He loves us. The author of Wisdom confidently professes this: “since if you had hated something you would not have made it.” And yet the God who misses nothing, overlooks nothing, forgets nothing, is willing to overlook our sins in His mercy, should we repent.

This is what we see in the gospel. We have the familiar story of Zacchaeus and his conversion. In this, the final turning point in Luke's Gospel, we discover exactly what Jesus' mission on earth is - to seek and to save the lost. And we see it demonstrated beautifully in the life of a very extreme candidate, a hated chief tax collector. On account of his occupation and his collaboration with the Roman imperial forces, he was “a sinner” in the people’s estimation. What made Zacchaeus’s conversion more incredible was that he was also rich, given our Lord’s warning about the rich and how it would be almost impossible for the wealthy to enter the Kingdom of heaven by their own effort.

Most people fail to recognise that the story of Zacchaeus has a parallel in the story of the blind man of Jericho, which precedes today’s passage. As with the blind man by the roadside, Zacchaeus is also disadvantaged by his physical short stature and therefore must first overcome this disability to get to see the Lord. Zacchaeus must suffer the humiliation of climbing a sycamore tree to catch a glimpse of the Lord above the towering heads of the crowd. In both instances, the crowds posed an obstacle by keeping them from getting to the Lord. But in this case, the crowds posed no obstacle for the Lord. He misses nothing and sees everything. For the Lord, no one is lost in the crowd, nor is anyone reduced to a mere statistic.

Just like how our Lord ordered the crowd to bring the blind man to see Him, in today’s episode, the Lord commands Zacchaeus in this fashion: “Zacchaeus, come down. Hurry, because I must stay at your house today.” For the first time in the gospel our Lord demands hospitality. Our Lord’s request for hospitality is matched by His description of Zacchaeus: “this too is a son of Abraham.” This description would make sense if we remember that Abraham was renowned for his warm hospitality, a hospitality that was extended even to divine visitors.

The interplay between Zacchaeus, Jesus, and the crowd revolved around one issue: the worth of the sinner. The crowd rejected the sinner. In fact, rejection would be an overstatement because one has to be consciously aware of something before you can choose to reject it. Zacchaeus’ fell below the crowds’ radar but it never disappeared from our Lord’s. No one, no matter how small, no matter how insignificant in the eyes of the world, would disappear from God’s radar. He sees everyone, He knows everyone and He personally loves everyone.

The crowds had no place for Zacchaeus in their society. He might as well be the Invisible Man. But the Lord saw beyond the reticence of the crowd and the bravado of the tax man. The shepherd was willing to leave the 99 in order to seek out the lost. He had come for the sick and the sinner, not the healthy or righteous. Zacchaeus had been denied hospitality by his own brethren. He had little value in the eyes of his fellowmen, but he was of great worth in the eyes of the Lord. The Lord seeks to include the excluded in His Kingdom.

Here is the irony of the Divine Comedy, an irony of cosmic proportions: Zacchaeus had gone up a tree seeking Jesus, but it was Jesus who came down from heaven to the level of sinners and the marginalised, to seek Zacchaeus. As Jesus declared at the very end of today’s passage, “for the Son of Man has come to seek out and save what was lost.”

Today, let us heed the call of St Augustine who tells us, “Climb the tree on which Jesus hung for you, and you will see Jesus.” Today, we are invited to ascend the ‘Tree’, not the sycamore tree that Zacchaeus climbed. The sycamore tree reminds us of the Tree of Life, once denied to Adam and Eve when they fell into sin; the very Tree which now awaits us in the gardens of Paradise. It is the Tree on which our Saviour hung, the Cross, once barren and wintry but now burgeoning with new life, announcing a new springtime of the Resurrection. Our Lord climbed this tree, to open to us the way to return to the Father. The cross invites us to look at Jesus who looks back at us with those loving but piercing eyes, who sees our beauty despite the ugliness of sin, and who now invites us to see all things in Him, with Him and through Him. He is the light of the world, and in His light, we see light.

Even if we can’t face ourselves because of the shame we feel for our brokenness and sinfulness, even if we feel that no one sees us because of our unworthiness, we can be certain of this truth - God sees us, He knows us and He loves us. We name Him as did Hagar, the maidservant of Sarah, wife of Abraham: “El Roi” - “the God who sees me.” Nothing escapes the vision of God, not even when we have descended into the very depths of the abyss.

When God’s eyes gaze upon you, He sees the unique and precious child He created. He is right beside you in every step you take. God knows you right down to the number of hairs on your head. When God sees you, He sees Jesus who died for your sin. He sees you in the hard places. He sees you in the dark places. We are never left alone! God is faithful and is waiting to welcome you home and will accompany you even during hard and dark times, even when you can’t see what’s down the road or around the next bend.

Recovering the Sense of Sin

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

In a 1946 Radio Address, Pope Pius XII said this: "The greatest sin today is that men have lost the sense of sin.” Note that this claim was made 76 years ago, during a more innocent and religious time of our grandparents and great-grandparents. The Pope must have been prophetic. If that was true then, then how more so is this statement true today.

There has been no great moral awakening since the good pope uttered those words so that what was begun has found its completion in our age. The widespread loss of a sense of sin has led to a great spiritual malaise in which any semblance of shame has been lost and sins are demanded as rights. Abortion, the killing of innocent and defenceless babies in the womb, is today regarded as a fundamental right and its denial as a major sin. Sodomy and paedophilia, or the sexual attraction to children, are being normalised as different facets along a wide spectrum of sexual orientations which should be socially acceptable. Even members of the Catholic Church seem to have lost their way as well as their sense of sin. Communion lines grow longer, while Confession lines grow shorter and even public sinners are given Communion as a right.

The pride which blinds us to our own sins is represented by the Pharisee in today’s gospel and the solution to Pharisaism is the humility of the publican. The publican had no doubt he was a sinner. He saw the gravity of his sins and they overwhelmed him. There was no self-sufficiency in him. “A humble and contrite heart, thou, O God, will not despise” (Psalm 51:17).

This humility, this acknowledgement of our utter neediness, is the heart of true repentance. In God’s order of justice, only those who accuse themselves of their sins and confess like common criminals can find forgiveness, just as the one with leprosy can only find healing when he runs to the nearest physician. It is only when we are condemned in our own eyes that we find pardon. The truth is, we are all desperately in need of God’s healing and forgiveness.

Notice that it was the Pharisee who denied sin in himself and left unredeemed, while it was the publican who acknowledged personal culpability in sin who left vindicated. But in today’s world with its upside-down perspective of values and skewed assessment of what is right and wrong, the admission or the reminder of sin is often labelled as being Pharisaical.

On this Sunday, which is World Mission Sunday, we are reminded that mission is the primary activity of the Church. We often hear that the mission of the Church is to preach the good news of salvation but let us not forget that one of her essential tasks is also to preach the bad news of sin. In fact, the Church has no mission if there is no sin, or at least if there is no sin to be forgiven. Salvation would be meaningless if there is nothing we are to be saved from. Just as the Father sent the Son into the world for the forgiveness of sins, so the Son sends the Apostles and their successors. To omit the reality of sin from the Gospel renders the Good News utterly senseless and salvation an empty concept.

This is the reason why we need to recover a sense of sin, not because the Church is busy in giving guilt trips to her followers but because she understands that the path to salvation can only happen when one humbly and honestly acknowledges one’s sinfulness and chooses to repent. That we can develop a healthy sense of sin is itself Good News because it frees us from not only rationalisation but also scrupulosity. Both of these ensnare us because they leave us closed to the reality of God’s mercy. They render His mercy toothless and mere platitude. What then would a healthy sense of sin consist in?

The first step would be to call a spade a spade, or in this context, to call sin - sin. We live in a politically correct world where words no longer hold their original meaning and are subject to slick reimagining to escape culpability and guilt. Sin is an offence against God, disobedience against His Holy sovereign will. Refusing to recognise this is as bad as a person who denies he is suffering from some terminal illness and thus refusing to take the remedy. This was the problem of the Pharisee. It was not just hubris which made him congratulate himself for his outstanding righteousness but also his refusal to acknowledge that he too was a sinner, like the publican and the rest of humanity, in need of redemption.

Only by recognising sin can we then take the next step - taking responsibility. The publican humbly confessed that he was a sinner because he understood that his sin was his own doing. There is no blaming of others, excusing oneself with rationalising, but simple and humble acknowledgment that we deserve just punishment for our sins. But the amazing surprise is that the moment we confess our guilt and take responsibility for our actions, we will be rewarded with God’s mercy rather than His wrath.

Lastly, a healthy sense of sin or a healthy conscience can only be cultivated through prayer, regular examination of conscience and frequenting the sacrament of penance. Failure to observe and cultivate these spiritual exercises will certainly lead to a lax conscience which is desensitised to sin. You wouldn’t even know what hit you even if sin looked like a 20-ton trailer on a head-on direct collision course with you. Making regular sacramental confession enables us to stay focus on doing what is pleasing to God and avoiding what displeases Him.

Unlike what many modern age pop psychologists would advocate, we don’t have to pretend to be good to make ourselves feel good. Ironically, it is when we acknowledge that we are bad but still loved by a wondrously good God, that we have the potential of becoming good, in fact sanctified and saintly. Servant of God John Bradburn, a candidate for canonisation who had worked among the lepers of Rhodesia, often proudly declared: “I am so useless, and clueless and un-illustrious … That makes me more truly confident in the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit.” Saints were never individuals whose lives were impeccable, or were immune to sin and temptation, but they were certainly sinners who had humbly thrown themselves at the feet of God pleading His mercy, only to be rewarded with a clean slate and a new start in life. Sainthood is within reach because redemption is real and within the reach of every person, even the most hardened of sinners. As the old adage goes: every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

Let’s embrace the spirit of the publican, and in our weakness and sinfulness, let us cry out to our Lord, “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” For He did not come to heal the healthy, but the sick, and if we do not acknowledge our sin, we have no part with Him. As the Lord Himself said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Coming to our senses

Twenty Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Our lengthy passage provides us with three parables of lost-and-found scenarios. All three paint an unforgettable picture of the overflowing love and forgiveness of God. It opens with the one lost sheep, for which the owner scales hills and valleys, ravines and outcrops, until he reconnects it to the other ninety-nine. The passage continues with one lost coin for which the woman of the house does a thorough cleaning to find it. And our trilogy concludes with the story of the Prodigal Son. Perhaps our familiarity with the Parable of the Prodigal Son dulls our perception of just how radical this father’s love is.

Today, I would like to pay attention to the third and longest of the three parables. Its most common name is the Prodigal Son, but I would prefer to give it a title which follows the pattern of the earlier two stories. If the first two stories speak of a lost sheep and a lost coin, what we have here is a lost son. But the younger son wasn’t the only one lost. The ending of the story shows that his elder brother, who seems to have fulfilled his filial duties to their father, is equally lost, but with a big difference. There is no turning point in the elder son’s story.

I’m going to spare you another paraphrasing of an already lengthy but vividly told story with its many twists and turns. I would just wish to turn to the turning point in the story of the younger son, the wastrel who abandoned his duties at home, cursed his father to an early death, and lived a life of hedonistic excesses and debauchery. St Luke tells us that after having experienced a radical reversal in his fortunes and at the critical point when he had lost everything - his friends, his wealth and his dignity - “he came to his senses.” This is the moment of awareness, the long-awaited regret, the needed sorrow for his mistakes. It is matched by an overwhelming realisation of what he had lost - his father’s immeasurable benevolence shown even to lowly servants. He begins the long track home.

It is this point in the third parable which makes it unique among the set of three. I don’t think that the lost sheep in the first parable nor the inanimate and non-sentient coin in the second, could ever come to their senses. Only man is capable of doing this because only man possesses the freedom of intellect and will need to repent of his ways.

But let’s not be under the impression that “coming to his senses” meant that he had fully acknowledged his culpability and was now truly repentant. His reasoning was still quite self-serving: “How many of my father’s paid servants have more food than they want, and here am I dying of hunger!” Yes, there was an acknowledgment that he had made a miscalculated move. He thought he would be better off on his own without his father but now realises that even his father’s servants have it better than him. But this was short of a contrition for his past faults. Hidden within this selfish and self-centred logic, is also the uneasy acknowledgment of his father’s generosity - that the servants under his father enjoy a lifestyle better than they could ever deserve and would ever need. But such acknowledgment was the first step to his repentance.

We are then presented with another amazing fact that the father in this story, whom every reader now understands, refers to God the Heavenly Father. “Nowhere else,” remarked the theologian Hans von Balthasar, “does Jesus portray the Father in heaven more vitally, more plainly.” This father, or God whom he represents, has never given up hope on his wayward and ungrateful son. The son may have turned his back on his father, he may have wished his father dead, he may have squandered his inheritance which the father had given him, but now returns to a father who has never given up or written off or turned his back on his son.

In Rublev’s icon of the Hospitality of Abraham, or more commonly known as the Icon of the Most Holy Trinity, the symbol in the backdrop which identifies one of the three nondescript angelic figures as a representation of God the Father (most often identified as the figure on the left), is a house with a tower and a large window. From this tower, it is said, the father of the Lost Son would keep vigil, look out throughout the day and survey the horizon so as to catch the first sign of his son’s return. As much as we are reminded to keep vigilant and stay awake for the Lord’s return, know this to be true: God never lets His guard down, God is always watching for our return.

And so, we have this poignantly beautiful description of how the reconciliation of the father and the son takes place: “While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with pity. He ran to the boy, clasped him in his arms and kissed him tenderly.” The father meets the son more than halfway, embraces him in love, even before the son was given an opportunity to utter his first words of apology. God’s “I love you” always precedes our pitiful and often half-hearted “I’m sorry.” “When you are still far away, he sees you and runs to you,” wrote St. Ambrose, “He sees in your heart. He runs, perhaps someone may hinder, and He embraces you. His foreknowledge is in the running, His mercy in the embrace and the disposition of fatherly love.” God offers life and love to every wayward soul; He runs to embrace the returning sinner.

How is the reconciliation sealed? One would imagine that the son is expected to pay back what he owed his father (with interests thrown in) or, work to pay off the debt and to prove his trustworthiness after this massive loss in confidence. But the father’s love goes beyond what we could ever imagine. Instead of demanding for recompense, the father lavishly pours out more gifts on this son: “Bring out the best robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the calf we have been fattening, and kill it; we are going to have a feast, a celebration…”

What do we see in these 5 gifts? All these point to the Son. Who is this son? Definitely not the lost son who had sinned against the father and now returns in shame. Neither do these belong to the older son, who at the end of the parable has yet to “come to his senses,” which makes his younger brother better than him. You can’t earn these gifts. No, these gifts are the birthright of neither of these two sons but they belong to the One who is telling this story. It is Jesus Christ, whose garments are stripped from His body, who now confer the garment of righteousness upon those who have been baptised in His name and who now share in His death and resurrection. It is Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom, who now places the ring upon the finger of His Bride, the Church, whom He has washed clean with His blood shed on the cross. It is Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life, who now invites us to walk in His shoes, His sandals. And it is Jesus Christ, the unblemished Paschal Lamb, the fatted calf, who offers His life as a sacrifice on the cross and now feeds us with His Body and Blood in the endless feast of the Eucharist.

Yes, we all need to come to our senses. We all need to recognise that life can never be good apart from God. We all need to acknowledge that God owes us nothing, whether by virtue of our birthright, as in the case of the younger son, or by earning it like the older son. God’s riches and our inheritance of Eternal Life can never be earned nor is it something we are entitled to. Because He loves us, God has lavishly poured out upon us His most precious treasure of all. As St John so beautifully puts it: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)