Worship is not Theatre

Ash Wednesday

Today, if Air Asia claims that everyone can fly, social media has made it possible for just anyone to be a celebrity. Every mundane thought, feeling, moment or action is posted somewhere on social media to make sure others know what we’ve done, seen, experienced or felt today. It’s as if we try really hard to receive validation and appreciation: we need people to see we are doing good things, we need a certain number of ‘likes’ and ‘comments’ for our actions to be of value. I often see - when I'm on Facebook - videos or photos of people giving to the poor, or helping someone out: people record themselves doing these things and then share them online for the world to see. Today, for example, we’re going to witness loads of Instagram foodie shots exhibiting that miserable slice of bread or bowl of soup that constitutes our fasting diet. If not for the recent pastoral recommendation to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we would also see many photos of ash stained foreheads.

But our Lord warns us in today’s gospel, people who do this, “they have had their reward.” In other words, when we show our good deeds to the world, and receive validation from the world in this way, the only reward we will receive for that deed is of this world - it is of no eternal value. We can have our reward, votes, acclaim, temporary esteem but we cannot use it as “credit” to get to Heaven – because we have expended our entire reward in the here and now. When we act in this way, we do it not to please God, but rather we crave the praise of men.

It is interesting how our Lord uses the word “hypocrite” in today’s passage. For in ancient times, the word was more commonly heard in the theatre than in a temple. It was a word used to describe an actor on a stage. The Greek word, in referring to the actor, means “under the mask” or “mask-wearer”.  The actor was play-acting, he was pretending. That is what hypocrites do. They pretend.

So when our Lord used this word to speak of those practising the traditional acts of piety, prayer, fasting and alms-giving, the word carried a weightier sting. What were these people pretending to be? They were pretending to be religious; holy; spiritual; they were pretending to be people who were serving God. The religious hypocrite has perfected the outward appearance, the ingratiating smile, the holier than thou accent, the long robes and so forth. With all the fanfare, pyrotechnics, and showmanship- God is totally unimpressed! They were pretending to be people who wanted to please God but God wasn’t pleased. Even today there are some people who desperately crave an audience for their spirituality. For these people if the show is not “on” then the performance is “off”. Their spirituality is wholly and solely for human consumption. Jesus says that ‘such people have had their reward’ – they crave fleeting human attention, human praise, human admiration, and that is all the reward they will ever get. They forget that if others are not able to see through their disguises, God can. He sees through every disguise and pretense. He alone knows who and what we truly are.

At first glance, this may seem opposed to our Lord’s earlier teaching, which we heard two Sundays ago, to be “salt of the earth,” “light of the world,” “a city built on a hill” and to let “your light shine before others” so that “they may see your good deeds.” There, our Lord commanded the disciples to live the beatitudes visibly in order to radiate God’s love to the world. When others see our good deeds, it is meant to give glory to God. In today’s passage, however, our Lord warns us not to do righteous deeds in order to draw attention to ourselves.

So, it must be clear that our Lord is not condemning the penitential acts of fasting, prayer and almsgiving. What is in question is the interior motivation and disposition for these acts. What must be avoided would be “hypocrisy”. These pious practices in themselves, however, are not evidence of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is the split between outward show and inner reality, where actions do not correspond to one’s interior life. So, the words of Jesus are not to be interpreted as a disavowal of external actions but an invitation to match external actions with interior disposition. Our charitable acts must flow from a heart that is truly charitable and not only because we wish to earn the praises of others. Every act of penance must have an interior aspect, an inner change of heart, as well as an exterior aspect, changing one’s life in harmony with the change of heart. The interior aspect has to do with sorrow for sin, and with a firm resolve to amend one’s life, to conform ourselves more closely to Christ; the exterior aspect has to do with the self-denial, the good works, the sacrifices, which are necessary to overcome one’s selfish tendencies that lead to sin. In all matters, our actions must give glory to God. Our pious acts are not meant to “show off” our piety, but to “show forth” God’s love in the world.

What happens when our actions are meant to show off instead of glorifying God? Two Protestant Pastors in their best-selling book had this to say, “When ministry becomes performance, then the sanctuary becomes a theater, the congregation becomes an audience, worship becomes entertainment, and man’s applause and approval become the measure of success. But when ministry is for the glory of God, His presence moves into the sanctuary. Even the unsaved visitor will fall down on his face, worship God, and confess that God is among us.” (Warren and David Wiersbe, 10 Power Principles for Christian Service)

Three times Jesus uses the phrase: “And your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you.” And twice Jesus refers to ‘your Father who is in that secret place”. We are reminded that the God who sees acts hidden from human sight will surely reward our devotions given without fanfare. By leaving the question of reward to God, one is set free from the concerns of others. God is watching us and cannot be fooled. Spiritual performance is thus completely futile, and only humility, repentance and contrition will impress the Lord. 

Prayer, fasting and almsgiving are good, and we should all continue to pray, fast and give alms but these pious actions are not performance, nor is it theatre and it is certainly not a way of winning public approval. Prayer, fasting and almsgiving are ways in which we seek to enter into a holy reverent communion with God, not theatrics, antics and showmanship. Therefore, we need to be on guard against the temptation to want to please man; or to congratulate ourselves; or to seek the wrong reward; to have the wrong motivation. The effort to lead a life of public piety should not make us self-congratulatory, self-justifying or judgmental of others. If this has happened, we know that we have fallen into the trap or the “quicksand” of hypocrisy.

For a supremely ironic twist to this central theme of the gospel that warns us of making a show of our religion, today we will be sprinkled with ashes on our crown. Perhaps, it would be good to remember what the Lord has to say about hypocrisy, so that our ashes would not just be a means of “showing off” but a means of “showing forth” Christ to the world, a reminder of our mortality and sinfulness, and a visible call to all to “repent and believe in the good news.” During this season of Lent, let us ask the Lord to deepen our prayer life, to grant us the courage and self-discipline to fast and the generosity to share with the poor. Let our Lenten practices not be mere external actions. We pray for a change of heart, a “turning to the Lord your God again”. Let our “hearts be broken not (just our) garments torn.”

Let your hearts be broken, not your garments torn

Ash Wednesday 2019

What are you giving up for Lent? I am quite certain, that this would be the question on the minds of many Catholics, a question that would be certainly posed by others. Be assured, I am not trying to give you a guilt trip. On the one hand, giving up something for Lent seems to be a fine way of spending Lent, some form of self-sacrifice in preparation for Easter. But on the other hand, any visible sacrifice on my part may be a form of self-aggrandisement, publicising my achievement and thus negating any spiritual benefit I might have gained by giving up something. As everyone is devouring their piece of steak, I smugly order a bowl of salad. So today, on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, the Church challenges us with a more important question: what is the point of penitential practices during Lent? And is there anything that I can do to make my Lent more meaningful, to bring about real change in myself?

Let’s begin with the first reading. “Now, now – it is the Lord who speaks – come back to me with all your heart, fasting, weeping, mourning. Let your hearts be broken not your garments torn, turn to the Lord your God again.” These are the beautiful words of the Prophet Joel in the first reading, and indeed they are the inaugural words of scripture for this Mass, the first words the church offers us this Lent. As such, they are the foundation for the message God wishes to communicate to us this Lent. Here and throughout this prophetic book, the Prophet Joel is doing what prophets do best. He is calling the people to conversion by making them aware of their sins and pointing them to ideal action, “let your hearts be broken, not your garments torn!”

Traditionally, the people of Israel would rip or rend their clothing to signify mourning. The Scriptures mention this expression of grief several times, including Jacob mourning his youngest son Joseph, when he thought he was dead, or King David rending his garments at hearing that Saul had died. Even today, some Jews specifically rip their clothes over their hearts (which is known as “keriah”) if the deceased is one of their parents.  But Joel is calling the people to not just ritually acknowledge their sins, but to mourn their sins—to grieve for their broken relationship with God—in not simply through outward ways, but inwardly as well. To encourage the people’s conversion, the prophet Joel is not calling them to strengthen their resolve through rituals of penance, he’s telling them to take these penitential rituals straight to their hearts, to the very core of their beings. They are not told to demonstrate repentance on the outside, but in their hearts and souls.

In the New Testament, the rending of garment seems to be an outward expression of indignation at sacrilege and blasphemy. For example, in the Acts of the Apostles, Saints Paul and Barnabas rent their garments when the people of Lystra began to worship them. But in the gospels, the High Priest, Caiaphas, rent his garments when Jesus affirmed that He was the Christ, the Son of the Living God. There is profound irony here as in the rest of the gospel; instead of Jesus committing blasphemy, it is the High Priest who expresses blasphemy against Him. Furthermore, Caiaphas had violated the Levitical prohibition against a high priest rending his garments. This is in sharp contrast to the seamless simple garment of our Lord that was left intact at the moment of His crucifixion. St Bede the Venerable would recognise the symbolism in this action. In the Old Testament priesthood was to be rent on account of the wickedness of the priests themselves. But the solid strength of the Church, which is often called the garment of her Redeemer, can never be torn asunder.

There was one more “rending” that occurred during the Passion. This was the rending of the veil in the temple that separated the holy place from the holy of holies when Our Lord died on the Cross. That curtain which veiled God’s presence in the temple might be called His garment. God Himself rent His own garment, as if weeping the death of His Son. Yet that most holy death was also the sacrifice pleasing to the Father. In union with the Crucified one, we too should rend our own hearts in preparation to receive the gift of eternal life.

Keeping in mind the command to break our hearts instead of merely tearing our garments, let us now turn to the gospel. Our Lord here gives us pointers as to how to conduct ourselves when we do acts of piety or righteousness, namely, giving alms, fasting and praying. When we do these acts, our Lord is asking us to do them without fanfare. He places the emphasis on our motivation: “Be careful not to parade your good deeds before men to attract their notice; by doing this you will lose all reward from your Father in heaven.” Rather, our actions must be done in “secret, and your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you.” He reminds us that the intended audience is not men, but God. Our actions are meant to please God, not seek favour in the eyes of men. Such outward actions without interior conversion would be pointless. Therefore, these acts must spring from the heart and go hand in hand. Giving to the needy without prayer and fasting lacks a spiritual dimension. Prayer without fasting and giving to the needy is an exercise in self-expression and wishful thinking. Fasting without charity and prayer becomes self-centered physical conditioning. Pope Francis tells us in one of his homilies on this day “that conversion is not a matter reducible to outward forms or vague intentions, but engages and transforms one’s entire existence from the centre of the person, from the conscience.”

These practices are never goals in and of themselves, but instead are tools, working like ice picks to crack open our frozen icy hearts, levers to pry them open, so that we can look inside ourselves and see our deepest longings and fears for what they really are. Each Lenten ascetic practice—denying oneself meat, or luxury, or treats—helps us to put our lifestyles and desires into perspective and creates a space for God to enter. Having created a space, we must allow God to come into our lives and into our hearts: here is where Lenten practices of daily prayer and reading scripture are important. Take some time each day to pray, breaking open the monotony of the everyday to let God in to your life.

Finally, let this also be a season of loving. Very often, making sacrifices and performing penances can put us in a bad mood. Rather, than purifying us and helping us to grow in virtue, we end up becoming grouchy, irritable and even judgmental of others whom we believe are not as holy as we are. The way of loving requires an openness and vulnerability, a letting in of the stranger and the unknown, and a giving away parts of ourselves that we may rather keep. In short, to love as Christ loves, we must be willing to love to the extent of allowing our hearts to be broken. And becoming like Christ is not a one-time event, it is being constantly remade in Christ in our daily lives and in all aspects of our lives. The penitential season of Lent is not about slow progress to a singular moment of conversion; rather, it is a process of constant conversion, constant rending, and constant breaking. The rituals of Lent, such as giving something up or marking our foreheads with ashes, do not in and of themselves, mark our conversion moment. Instead, they are habits of ongoing conversion: allowing us to break open our hearts and give them over to God. When shall we begin? The answer is now! As St Paul reminds us in the second reading, “Now is the favourable time; this is the day of salvation!”

Persistence is the language of love

Thursday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

“Is that your final answer?” is a question that has become familiar to all of us who have watched the television show, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” The host gives the contestants one last shot at changing their answers in order to win the cash prize. The story from Mark talks about a woman who in essence asks Jesus that very same question, challenging him on his original answer to her request.

In this scene, Our Lord is trying to move through this foreign territory unnoticed. However, his reputation had spread to the point where it was difficult to go anywhere without attention being drawn to him. As he was trying to leave, this pagan foreign woman who had heard about him, literally threw herself at his feet and blocked his exit. She had a daughter who was possessed by a demon. She intuitively knew that this man was the answer to her problem and she was not about to let him go. Jesus first response to her was a bit “off-putting” with the response that his role in essence was to Israel and that there would be “leftovers” for the Gentiles. Without missing a beat, she with wit and faith, let Jesus know that even the “dogs under the table could eat the crumbs.” She was not asking for a full feast because she knew that even the crumbs would be enough for her. That did the trick - her persistence, her assertiveness, her faith got the attention of Jesus and her child was healed. As St Chrysostom puts it, she presses Christ prudently, convincingly, and yet modestly by His own words; and by her humble faith and reasoning conquers Him willing to be conquered by her prayer.

Often enough, when preaching on this Gospel, preachers will say something incredibly foolish like, “This Gentile woman taught Jesus that he wasn’t sent only to the house of Israel, but to all people.” In other words, it would take a foreigner, a woman at that, to open up the narrow minded conservative world view of Jesus. What more, when Jesus sounds like an ancient version of Donald Trump in today’s passage. To paraphrase him, “One has to keep Israel for Israelites in order to make Israel great.” But it is really quite absurd to think that Jesus was taught anything by anyone, with the exception the Blessed Mother and St Joseph in the “Holy Family” school of Nazareth.  How much more absurd it is to think that our Lord would not know his own mission, that he is the universal mediator of salvation for all peoples! This all-too-common spin on the Gospel passage (according to which Jesus is taught by the woman) is that it misses the essential thrust of the event: It is not that our Lord is learning from the woman, rather the good Saviour is teaching her (and us) how to pray.

One of the seminal lessons in the passage from St. Mark is the indomitable persistence of this mother. Her daughter’s soul is at stake. The power of evil has made her captive. Imagine this frantic mother – faced with the impending and painful loss of her child. Nothing can stop her in her quest to snatch her offspring from the destructive power of the prince of darkness. It was that single-mindedness, that exclusive focus that drove her to seek out the Jewish rabbi. He, perhaps, was her last and only chance. What does this mean for us? Most likely we don’t always get it right when we pray; thus Jesus’ instruction to be persistent in praying—keep asking, don’t stop searching, continue with your knocking. In fact, ultimately what is most important for us is not necessarily that we receive what we ask for or find what we search for or walk through the door we’re knocking on. No. Rather, what is ultimately most important is that we, like the frantic mother, discover an intimacy with the Lord by persisting in our prayer.

At the heart of prayer is persistence. And persistence is the characteristic mark of devotion. Our pilgrimage has allowed us to encounter the devotional faith of the Filipinos, a faith that may often appear unsophisticated to the Western world and may even be described as superstitious. There may be some truth in the over-exaggerated expressions of devotion. But these aberrations are exceptions rather than the rule. True devotion, on the other hand, leads us to a greater love and reverence for God, rather than act as a distraction or some form of idolatry. While the liturgy is “the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed” and “the font from which all her power flows,” it is not possible for us to fill up all of our day with participation in the liturgy. The spiritual life is not limited solely to participation in the liturgy, and yet St Paul reminds us that the Christian must pray without ceasing. The Benedictines, we heard yesterday from Bro Camillo, express this through the maxim of ‘ora et labor’ – prayer is work and work is prayer. But popular devotional practices also play a crucial role in helping to foster this ceaseless prayer. Devotional prayer is a means of permeating everyday life with prayer to God.

Thus, devotion and any other form of prayer can never to be dissected and analysed under a microscope using the tools of mathematical or scientific logic. Rather, it proceeds by way of a very different form of logic – the logic of love. If theology, as St Anselm would argue, is faith seeking understanding, then prayer must be love seeking understanding. This is why the Syro-Phoenician woman of our story did not take offence to the “insult” of Jesus. If she had just considered the matter through the lenses of rational logic, she would and she should. But she perceived the whole exchange through the lenses of faith and love, she would have just protested by walking away. No reasonable person would tolerate such insult and stay around to beg for more verbal abuse. But using the lenses of love, what seemed to be a rebuke to others becomes an invitation to a deeper faith and a more profound love. Likewise, popular devotion is not the product of an unhinged mind but the expression of love that moves beyond seemingly logical limitations. This leads us to the heart of the matter. Prayer is being known by and knowing that one is loved by a God who is the embodiment of Love itself. 

The story of this woman teaches us to pray with great humility. She accepts the stereotype that Jews would give to her kind. She is willing to be a “dog” if that is what it takes to get her prayers answered. Presumptuous familiarity and an inflated sense of entitlement were absent in the heart of this woman. She understood that she was undeserving of any crumbs which the Lord was willing to throw her way. But she had great confidence in the Lord. This was enough for the Lord. It was an implicit act of faith – a faith that promised to be salvific for her and her daughter.

So as we draw to the close of our pilgrimage here in Manila, with our own multitude of prayerful requests, some acute, others less important, we learn this simple but important lesson – we must persist. God is never deaf. God does not ignore his children. God would not be intimidated by our challenge, “Is that your final answer?” God answers us in His wisdom and gives us what we need, not always what we want. It is God who throws us the greater challenge, “Will you persevere in praying? Will you persevere in believing and hoping?” The important thing is that we should never give up or become discouraged. Remember the parable of the Syro-Phoenician woman – her persistence brought her into intimate union with the Christ of God. We too would be rewarded for our perseverance and persistence.