Mercy and the Sacramental Life

Second Sunday of Easter Year A (Divine Mercy Sunday)

The beautiful prayer which closes each decade of the Chaplet of Mercy goes like this:
“Eternal Father, I offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of your dearly beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.”

These words are a reminder that this devotional prayer, the Chaplet, is an offering of the Slain-Risen Lord to the Father—by His priestly people—asking the Father to be who He has shown Himself to be in Christ: Mercy. As such, the Chaplet is an extension of the liturgical offering of the same Slain-Risen Lord that is the holy sacrifice of the Mass. A reminder that today’s feast of the Divine Mercy, just like that of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and Corpus Christi, is essentially Eucharistic.

We often equate mercy with compassion, sympathy and forgiveness. But mercy is all that and so much more than a sentiment. It has a face - it is the face of the Lord who gave up His life on the cross and from His side, that side which has been opened in loving sacrifice, comes a spring of water and blood that brings to fruition the whole of history. From the ultimate self-sacrifice of Jesus springs forth blood and water, the Eucharist and baptism, as the source of a new community. The two rays emanating from the heart of the image of the Divine Mercy represents these two sacraments: the pale white light is baptism whereas the red ray represents the Eucharist. But the face of mercy is also that of the Risen Lord - it is His love, the God of Love, the God who is Love, encountering evil and death and overcoming it, healing it, redeeming it, and raising out of its ruins, surpassing goods that could never have been apart from these evils. This is best illustrated in the image of the Risen Lord who appears to His disciples behind closed doors, gifting them with the Holy Spirit, peace and forgiveness, instead of unleashing His wrath against their cowardice, failure and betrayal.

In the first reading, St Luke paints a somewhat ideal picture of the post-resurrection, post Pentecost Christian community - the Church of the early believers. It is a community to which anyone would wish to belong, a community where love prevails, where each member is attentive to the needs of others, where mercy rather than judgment and bickering is paramount. It is not surprising that their number was constantly on the increase. We may view this picture with envy as we contemplate our own broken and imperfect communities. We ask ourselves: what is the secret of their success? The passage shows us that the pillar of this community is the “breaking of bread,” the Eucharist, which bookends the passage. The source of their joy and spirit of generous sharing was the Eucharist. The highlight and focal point of their communal living was also the Eucharist. In other words, the Eucharist is indeed (borrowing the words of the Second Vatican Council) the “source and summit of Christian life,” of community life, and of ecclesial life.

In the second reading, St Peter tells us that in baptism, the Lord in “His great mercy has given us a new birth as his sons, by raising Jesus Christ from the dead, so that we have a sure hope and the promise of an inheritance that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away, because it is being kept for you in the heavens.” Baptism is the gateway to life in the Spirit and the door which gives access to the other sacraments. It is the wellspring of life and holiness, the drowning of sin and resurrection into new life. But baptism does not only make us coheirs with Christ but also incorporates us into the Body of Christ, the Church, washes away original sin, places us within the flow of God's mercy. In baptism, the Father adopts us, the sacrificial love of the Son conforms us to His Body, and the Spirit transfigures us into witnesses of the Good News.

If baptism initiates the life of grace and mercy, the Eucharist sustains it. Yet, our Lord adds another element, in fact another sacrament, to this winning formula of salvation. It is forgiveness and reconciliation. That is the reason why when our Lord rose from the dead, the first thing He did when He returned to His apostles was to confer on them the power and faculty to forgive and absolve sins. He had already given the Church the gift of the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist from the cross, but now He needed to ensure that the life of grace which He poured forth from His sacrificial death would continue to be renewed, healed, revived and sustained through the sacrament of penance. The extent of His mercy did not stop with the cross, it continues in Him forgiving us and reconciling us, continuously healing the wounds inflicted by our sins on His Body, the Church. Baptismal grace without the Eucharist would be unsustainable but the Eucharist without confession would be fruitless and untenable.

That is why on this Sunday of the Divine Mercy, we need to remember that God’s mercy is not just nice platitudes, excusing sinners without genuine repentance, approving immorality for the sake of appearing merciful, acceptance of all forms of lifestyles and behaviours without discernment and righteous judgment. Such mercy is false. God’s mercy is real, infinite, and tender—but it is not automatic. It requires sincere repentance, a firm purpose to change, and a willingness to avoid the near occasion of sin.

Sadly, in today’s world, many Catholics—both priests and penitents—treat the Sacrament of Penance like a burden to be avoided or a routine instead of a spiritual battle. They confuse God’s mercy with leniency, forgetting that true mercy always leads to conversion. God’s mercy is not a license to continue in sin—it is the bridge that leads to holiness. But to cross that bridge, we must walk with repentance, not sit down with indifference. To love a soul is to help it reach heaven, not to comfort it on the road to hell. As St John Chrysostom rightly taught: “Many souls are lost for lack of correction.” Or as the apostle James tells us: “Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, and this will cure you: the heartfelt prayer of a good man works very powerfully. My brothers, if one of you strays away from the truth, and another brings him back to it, he may be sure that anyone who can bring back a sinner from the wrong way that he has taken will be saving a soul from death and covering up a great number of sins.” (James 5:16,​19-20)

Today, the Church invites us to gaze on the holy image of the Divine Mercy. It is both the Crucified Lord who allowed His heart to be pierced and laid bare so that it can become the fount of mercy and the wellspring of sacramental graces. But the image also shows us the Risen Lord, the One who descended into hell and defeated our ancient enemies - sin, death and Satan - and now appears to us with His wounds as a victor’s trophy promising peace and reconciliation. This should be a description of the inner direction of our Christian life. We should look upon Him, keep the eyes of our heart turned upon Him, and thereby to grow more humble; to recognise our sins. As we look upon Him, let us take hope because He whom we have wounded is He who loves us. Jesus, I love you! Jesus, I trust in you!

No Accusation, Blaming or Complaining

Third Sunday of Lent Year A

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My favour rests on Him

Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

Several months ago, I attempted to provide a simple but lucid explanation of how God has favourites without having favourites. I’m not going to revisit that topic today for fear that I will be accused of being a broken record. Thank God for that! But I’m going to argue today that God does have one unique favourite person whom He loves above all else and I believe that none of you are going to protest and cry “not fair” because that person is none other than Jesus Himself, God’s Only Begotten Son, whom the Heavenly Father declares: “This is my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on him.”

We can understand why God would favour our Lord Jesus Christ. Though we are all His children by adoption through baptism, Jesus alone is the unique only begotten Son of the Father, who has been with the Father from the very beginning and as we profess in the Creed: “God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God”. If we are to compare ourselves with Him, the analogy of comparing an apple to an orange doesn’t even come close.

But with such special favour, there also arises a great mission and responsibility. Remember the Peter Parker principle from Spider-Man? “With great power comes great responsibility!” And this is why we hear in the first reading, what it means to be a favourite of God? The Spirit of the Lord is given to Him as we witness in the scene of the Baptism in order that He “may bring true justice to the nations.” He has been appointed “as covenant of the people and light of the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to free captives from prison, and those who live in darkness from the dungeon.” But there is a dark side to this mission. As the archetype for all fictional heroes, He must suffer, often in silence, in meekness, refusing to break or retaliate even when He is treated with humiliation and violence by His enemies. The Hero, the Anointed One, will be vilified and hated even though He saves the day. This is what the Beloved of God, the Favourite of God must endure. So, do you still want to be His favourite?

But we are indeed called to be God’s Beloved, called to be His favourites, all of us and not just some of us. Herein lies what I find to be the deepest mystery at the heart of baptism, and indeed at the heart of the whole sacramental order: there are certain actions Christ performed that, when performed by us within the context of His Body the Church, allow us to share in His very nature and mission in the world. In other words, Jesus did not come into the world merely to do things for us, but rather He came to open up through His humanity a way to participate in Him, to graft ourselves into His very life, to serve as He serves and to give our lives as He did. This is the mystery of the Incarnation - God became man so that men may become gods.

It is significant that this feast should take place on the first Sunday in Ordinary Time (even though there is no first Sunday in Ordinary Time). The reason being is that lectionary of Ordinary Time presents us with a scriptural catechesis of the very life and mission of Christ. And so this feast serves as an introduction to the entire life and mission of Christ. And should anyone have any doubt as to why we should even look to Christ as a model or imitate Him, the Church or God Himself gives the answer: “This is my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on him.” If there should be anyone in this world that we should look up to and seek to emulate, there can be no better model than Jesus, God’s Beloved Son and Favourite.

For many of us, our most common and seemingly very human response to knowing that God has favourites, would be to view this person with envy. But is that the correct response? In fact, the Church is in the business of holding up human examples of those who seem to have found favour with God. We call them saints. The Church does this not because she wishes to see us seething with envy but because she wants us to be saints too. To be a saint, in fact to be a Christian, is to be more Christ-like. A Christian is a “little Christ.”

So, it is a foolish distraction to become discouraged or envious of someone else’s progress in holiness! When we run into other people or read about saints who experience a deep, intimate relationship with God, we are faced with a choice. We can either envy them this intimacy – becoming angry and vindictive towards them because they have achieved a degree of holiness that we have not achieved. Or we can emulate them – we can acknowledge the beauty of the holiness they have achieved and use their experience as a spur to our own efforts pursuing spiritual maturity. The second option is the better one: when we encounter people holier than ourselves, they should inspire us to continue following the “narrow road” (Matthew 7:14) that leads to the life we long for. So, my dear friends, as we begin this New Year, as we begin a new cycle of Ordinary Time, let your discouragement be driven out by hope; let your frustration be banished by faith; and let your frown be erased by love. Let Hebrews 12:1 be your baptismal and life’s motto: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us.”

The Church is your Mother

Solemnity of the Dedication of St John Lateran

Why would the Church choose to celebrate the day a church (a major basilica no less) is dedicated to the worship of God and designate it as a feast? In fact, if this feast falls on a Sunday, it will take the place of the Sunday liturgy.

This is no ordinary building. This is the cathedral of the diocese of Rome, the first Christian church dedicated after the end of the persecution of Christians, the only church described as “the mother and head of all the churches of the City of Rome) and of the world.” In a way, this Church does not only represent the Diocese of Rome but the entire universal Catholic Church. It is not only the mother of all churches but a reminder that the Catholic Church is our mother as St Cyprian beautifully puts it, “you cannot have God as your father if you do not have the Church as your mother.”

The word “basilica” in its application to Christian churches originated here. When Constantine ended the persecution of Christians with the Edict of Milan, Christians were permitted to worship publicly for the first time. Various options from the pagan world were given as possible models for the first church. The problem, however, was that most pagan temples were small, not intended for large public gatherings and communal worship. People generally did not participate in worship which was considered to be the exclusive domain of the priestly class.

So you can imagine Constantine’s surprise when he asked Pope Silvester, “how big of a temple do you want” and Pope Silvester replied, “How big can you build it?” The idea that people would actually participate in worship was revolutionary. St. John Lateran was the first place built for public Christian worship in the City of Rome and as such it set the standard for all others. It taught them, and it teaches us, that the Mass is never something we watch like spectators but always something in which we participate.

This is why our Lord drove the money changers out of the temple. The money changers were thrown out not because they had reduced worship to a financial enterprise, but they represented a system where the common people were excluded from the main worship and they acted as a go-between for the priestly caste and the people. Our Lord came to establish a new Temple out of His own body, a temple in which the presence of God dwells and those assembled are members of His body raised up to be a priestly nation and royal priesthood.

My favourite part of the basilica is the Baptistry, which is reputed to be the oldest part of the basilica which has seen centuries of renovations and reconstruction. It is a squat octagonal building with its interior walls beautifully decorated with murals depicting the story of Constantine coming to the faith. The eight sides represent the Eighth Day, Sunday, the Day of our Lord’s resurrection, and thus an apt symbol of the rebirth Christians experience in the waters of baptism. It is said that this building was not built from raw fresh materials but parts of other imperial monuments. They could have used new construction material but instead they used existing material from much older buildings.

It is done so for a purpose, to teach a truth of faith. As grace builds upon nature, the sacred is taken from the profane and profoundly incorporated into the body of Christ. The ancient monuments of Old pagan Rome which tried to destroy Christianity are now subverted for the glory of God and for His Church. Sin is subverted for the greater good. That is the power of baptism – It changes all people and makes them new in Christ. The Church always has been a community of sinners seeking God’s grace. The Baptistery of St. John Lateran reminds us that no sin is greater than God’s mercy, and that the waters of Baptism and the grace of Reconciliation continue to take what is profane and make it sacred.

St. John Lateran teaches us that the Church is where we trust and celebrate God’s all-powerful, unbounded, transforming mercy. Christianity is no longer only a private, personal experience of faith or a mere spectator of human history and politics. It is now a public witness that courageously forms society and transforms cultures and no longer hides in fear of persecution or rejection and the Church has a necessary voice in world affairs. Today, we do not just celebrate the dedication of a building – we celebrate the mission of the Church which continues to teach, sanctify and provide guidance in the name of her Lord and Saviour.

The Ultimate Reboot

Easter Vigil of the Holy Night

Some of you may know that I had just completed a cataract operation on both eyes. When the new multi-focal lens was inserted, I had issues adjusting to the darkened environment. I jokingly informed Fr Bonaventure that I’ve seen my last Easter Vigil Mass which begins in the dark and he happily quipped, “Yeah! I now have a chance to do the English Masses!” He was kidding as you can tell. The most unnerving part of the operation was to be told that a machine used for the procedure had to be rebooted. In fact, as my right eye was kept opened by a speculum whilst glaring into a blinding bright light above me, the only thing I could hear was my doctor telling the nurse and the technician to reboot the machine, not just once but several times until it finally restarted again. I’ve rebooted many devices in my life, my desktop computer, my laptop, my tablet and even my phone. Nothing comes close to this experience.

But after the agony of waiting for the machine to reboot, all the anxiety and discomfort and fears simply dissipated. With my cataracts removed, I now see with new eyes! That’s what Easter feels like - after a hard reset, the whole system gets rebooted, the whole fallen creation gets rebooted, the story of humanity which ends in failure gets rebooted. You need to end the cycle of sin and destruction before you can begin a new cycle of redemption and reconciliation.

Today we conclude this shortest and yet most intense and sacred time in our Church’s liturgical calendar - the Paschal Triduum. And though it may seem to be an ending, it is actually a beginning of many things. The Paschal Triduum is that hard reset and reboot which history and creation most needed. This should not surprise us as we had affirmed at the start of tonight’s liturgy, that Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and end of all things. Beginnings and endings are not two realities but one in Christ. As T. S. Eliot poignantly writes: “And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time” (The Four Quartets, “Little Gidding”).

Everything about this vigil’s liturgy, “the mother of all vigils,” speaks of beginnings and endings, which takes us on a journey from birth to rebirth, from creation to re-creation, from darkness to light, from death to life. From the blessing and procession of the Paschal Candle, the singing of the Easter proclamation to our marathon set of readings, we are pulled into this journey of transformation, not as mere spectators but as participants. Our Gospel begins with these words: “on the first day of the week, at the first sign of dawn…” This is an extraordinary text – so subtle and sophisticated. But it begs the question: what does it mean? The answer is found at the beginning, in the first reading.

The first day of the week mentioned in the Gospel, corresponds to the first day of creation in Genesis; and the lighting of the Paschal Candle in the midst of darkness matches the first act of creation, where God created light out of darkness. St Luke’s recapitulation of the creation narrative goes on. In Genesis, God creates the first human being, the first man, but at Easter, our Lord Jesus emerges from the womb of the tomb to be the firstborn of the new creation. God created all things, including man, and when He was finished, He looked at all He had made, and declared that it was “very good.” His original creation, however, was sullied and damaged. Once Adam chose to go against God’s Will, sin entered God’s created world, and sickness, decay, and death were introduced to humanity. God’s creation has suffered sin’s effects ever since.

Fast-forward to the time of Jesus’ life on earth. God the Son, the Word of God, entered humanity as a child born of Mary. He was fully God and fully man. His mission was to defeat the sin and death which had entered humanity through Adam. This second Adam lived a sinless life, was condemned and executed as a criminal, and was buried in a tomb. Three days later, He rose from the dead! He was resurrected! His resurrection was the first phase of God’s new creation, God’s cosmic reboot! God created a new kind of human existence—a human body which was raised from the dead and transformed by the power of God into a body that is no longer affected by death, decay, and corruption. Pope Emeritus Benedict described the resurrection of Christ as “something akin to a radical evolutionary leap, in which a new dimension of life emerges, a new dimension of human existence. Indeed, matter itself is remoulded into a new type of reality. The man Jesus, complete with His body, now belongs totally to the sphere of the divine and eternal.”

But then, there is the second phase in God’s plan of recreation. As Christians and as part of God’s new creation through our baptism, we can look forward to the time when, upon Christ’s return, He will raise our bodies from the dead! We will receive resurrected bodies like His. In these resurrected bodies, we will clearly see humanity as God intended it to be.

God’s new creation will not end with the resurrection of our bodies but goes beyond that. The third phase will involve all of creation being renewed as well. When Adam sinned, God cursed the ground. The world was no longer the sublime place God made it to be. Sin changed that. But because of Christ’s death and resurrection, His victory over sin and death, God will renew the entire world - He will remake it into “a new heaven and a new earth.”

The new creation which we speak of, is not just some static and unchanging reality. As part of the new creation, God’s Spirit is regularly renewing us, changing us, helping us to put on the mind of Christ. Dear Catechumens, today is not the end of your journey. It is not graduation day. It is an ending of a period of preparation, but this is only a beginning. Today is the day you will experience a hard reboot of your lives. What is fallen, will be redeemed. What is disfigured by sin would be beautified by grace. Vision clouded by the spiritual cataract of sin, can be renewed. As you allow the Holy Spirit to guide you, you will continually grow and mature in your spiritual lives in order that you may be renewed and become more Christlike.

Each year, we recapitulate this Easter story and each year it recreates us. It returns us to the ground of our being. We are asked to die to ourselves so that we may be reborn in Christ. We are given the chance to start over. Every Easter, we are reminded that we can bring all that befalls us to be reintegrated, redeemed, and recreated as we bring it back to our living source: Christ yesterday and today, the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega; All time belongs to Him and all the ages, to Him be glory and power, through every age and for ever. Amen.

Inwards to Outwards, Downwards to Upwards

First Sunday of Lent Year C

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The New Temple

Third Sunday of Lent Year B

For many Catholics, fund raising can sound like a dirty word. This aversion and resistance to fund raising activities is often justified by the following assumptions:

First, religion should stay clear of money matters and should be solely concerned with the spiritual welfare of its members.

Second, the Church already possesses a fortune evidenced by the size of the church and its many facilities. Somehow, the church has stashed away in some secret corner, a magical goose that can endlessly lay golden eggs.

Third, Jesus shows us a perfect example of how we Christians should abhor the commercialising of religion by His action of turning out all the merchants and traders from the Temple precinct and then accuses them of turning His Father’s house into a market.

Our gospel story is often interpreted as testimony against materialism in religious practice. Religion is to remain radically pure in regard to the corruptions of commerce. Christianity is solely about faith. Money plays no role whatsoever. So, was our Lord’s action in today’s gospel passage a call to keep things simple and cheap, that the Church should avoid any effort to raise funds for its maintenance and activities? You will be surprised with the answer.

In case you may have noticed, the Gospel of John states that Jesus cleansed the temple early in His ministry, but the other gospels place the temple-cleansing near the end of His ministry. Only in John’s gospel do we have the Jews confront our Lord with this question: “What sign can you show us to justify what you have done?” And it is this question which opens the discussion on the significance of our Lord’s action in pointing to His own death and resurrection.

The Temple was the focal point of every aspect of Jewish life and identity. From a theological and liturgical perspective, for a first-century Jew, the Temple was at least four things: (1) the dwelling-place of God on earth; (2) a microcosm of heaven and earth; (3) the sole place of sacrificial worship; (4) and where there is ritual sacrifice, you would also need the priesthood. Therefore, sacrifices offered to God could only be made at the Temple and never elsewhere. This is also the reason why there were traders selling animals in the Temple because these animals were meant for the Temple rituals, offering and sacrifices. The moneychangers also served a similar role of exchanging the profane Roman currency, which was considered idolatrous and unclean with Temple coinage, the only currency accepted in the Temple.

But the temple was also a barometer of sorts for the health of the covenantal relationship between God and the people. Many of the prophets warned that a failure to uphold the Law and live the covenant would result in the destruction of the temple. In 587 B.C., the temple was destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, marking the start of The Exile. Following the exile, the temple was rebuilt, then damaged, and rebuilt again. But even this second temple would be destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. Was it in this context that we can understand the words of our Lord, “Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up”? St John gives us the answer: “But He was speaking of the sanctuary that was His body, and when Jesus rose from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this …”

Our Lord Jesus saw that all four aspects of the Temple were being fulfilled in Himself and in the community of His disciples. (1) His body is the dwelling place of God on earth - the meeting place between heaven and earth; (2) He is the foundation stone that would be the beginning of a new Temple and a new creation - the new heaven and earth; (3) He would offer Himself as the perfect sacrifice that will accomplish what previous animal blood sacrifices were unable to achieve - atonement for sin and communion with God; (4) and finally, Jesus is the High Priest of the new eschatological priesthood that could serve as the perfect mediator between God and man. Because of this, the old temple was destined to pass away, to be replaced by the new Temple “not made with human hands,” and the old priesthood with the new.

Was Jesus, in cleansing the temple, attacking the temple itself, and by extension, an attack on God as well? No. And did Jesus, in making His remark, say He would destroy the temple? No. But, paradoxically, the love of the Son for His Father and His Father’s house did point toward the demise of the temple. “This is a prophecy of the Cross,” wrote Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI, “He shows that the destruction of His earthly body will be at the same time the end of the Temple.”

So, the new and everlasting Temple was established by the death and resurrection of the Son of God. Through our Lord’s death and resurrection, the place for encountering God will no longer be the temple but the risen and glorified Body of Jesus in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, where all mankind is united. With His Resurrection the new Temple will begin: the living body of Jesus Christ, which will now stand in the sight of God and be the place of all worship. Into this Body He incorporates men. This is what the Catechism tells us: “Christ is the true temple of God, ‘the place where his glory dwells’; by the grace of God, Christians also become temples of the Holy Spirit, living stones out of which the Church is built” (CCC 1197). Through baptism we become joined to the one Body of Christ, and that Body, the Church, is the “one temple of the Holy Spirit” (CCC, 776).

Finally, this story of the cleansing of the Temple also points to an important aspect of our spiritual lives, an element so relevant during this season of Lent - spiritual purification. Christ has come not only to “cleanse the Temple of Jerusalem,” but the temple of our own bodies, our lives. Our Lord’s purification of the Temple reminds us today of the need to purify our faith, to once again ground our lives on the God who shows us His power and infinite love on the Cross, the source of our salvation. Only by passing through the Cross will we reach the glory and joy of the Resurrection. The Lord Jesus comes into your life expecting to find a place ordered to the worship of the one true God, but what He finds is “a marketplace,” a heart that is divided by competing values and allegiances. Instead of a heart that is solely dedicated to God, Christ finds a place where things other than God have become primary. What rivals to the one true God have you allowed to invade the sacred space of your soul? Entertainment, leisure, material wealth, obsessions and addictions? How are these things enshrined in the sanctuary of your own heart leaving no room for God? During this Lent, let us reorientate our lives, consecrate our hearts solely to God and rid the temple of our own bodies of the idols to which we have foolishly given power and pride of place.

From Destruction comes New Life

First Sunday of Lent Year B

Such stark contrast! Our lectionary juxtaposes two extreme conditions, a deluge or great flood in the first reading, and an arid barren desert in the gospel. Too much water on the one hand, and too little to none on the other. Both conditions seem inhospitable and even humanly uninhabitable. What’s the connexion apart from being two extreme polarities? These two scenes draw us back to the beginning - to how it all began - to the story of creation. Most folks are familiar with the story of how God created the universe in six days and then rested on the seventh. But there are actually two and not one account of creation. Chapter One of the Book Genesis begins in a watery chaos and Chapter Two begins in a desert.

And so, we have in the first reading an account of God renewing His covenant with Noah in the aftermath of the flood. The flood itself portrays a return of the earth to the primeval state of Genesis where darkness, water, and wind covered the earth. The great flood is a testament to God’s hatred of sin and His determination to wipe it from the face of the earth. God blows a “wind” over “the deep” and “the waters” recede. When at last the flood subsides, the ground is dry and new vegetation is springing up. The barriers set in place by God at creation are restored - the dry land is once again separated from the waters. The occupants of the ark, both humans and animals, step on dry land and life begins anew. If the precreation scene in Genesis Chapter One begins in pitch darkness, this beautiful scene in the first reading is bathed in light - no stormy clouds in the sky but a bright sunny day with a rainbow crowning God’s redeemed creation. It is a picture of perfection, but not yet. That would have to wait until the Son of God becomes the Son of Man and seals a new covenant with humanity with His own blood instead of the sacrifice of animals as was done by Noah and the ancestors of old.

Let us not forget that the first flood swept away the evil from the surface of the earth, but not from the hearts of the ark’s passengers. So an even greater act of salvation was needed, one that was more radical, that penetrated to the very “root” of evil. God Himself enters into our world in the form of a man and engages in hand-to-hand combat with the father of lies. For sin to be rooted out, repentance is necessary. And so the rallying cry of God’s ultimate champion is “Repent, and believe the Good News.”

If the first reading calls us back to Chapter One of Genesis, the gospel story alludes to and reverses what takes place in Chapter Two and Three: the planting of the Garden in the midst of a barren desert, the creation of man, the first Son of God, and His subsequent temptation and fall. Here in the gospel, there is no garden - Paradise has been lost and all creation has been rendered a barren wasteland by man’s sin. But instead of succumbing to the ancient serpent, our Lord Jesus triumphs over Satan. Instead of enmity between man and the animal kingdom, we already see the beginnings of a reconciliation as wild beasts gather around the Lord. If one man wrought humanity’s downfall, another man, the perfect man, the one whom St Mark at the very beginning of the gospel identifies by His rightful title, the Son of God, will lead humanity in its ascent to the heavens.

The wrestling match is won by the Son. This, however, is not the decisive battle. By means of the cross, the sign of this New Covenant, our Lord Jesus decisively vanquished sin and its patron, letting loose from His pierced side a stream that was more powerful than the ancient waters traversed by Noah and Moses. The fathers of the Church saw in those two streams of blood and water, the birth of the Church through the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist. In Christ’s death and resurrection, creation is healed and reborn. The key for us to now participate in this recreation is repentance. Repentance begins the path to redemption and to sanctification. Repentance leads to conversion and conversion leads to baptism.

Through repentance, faith and immersion in these mighty waters of baptism, not the waters at creation or at the great flood but the waters that flowed from our Lord’s death on the cross, sin can finally be scoured not just from the skin but from the heart. In the second reading, St Peter explains that the water of the flood - “is a type of the baptism which saves you now, and which is not the washing off of physical dirt but a pledge made to God from a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ…” Baptism means burying the old man with Christ and emerging from the womb of the Church as a new creation, sharing in Christ’s resurrection. Lent is therefore the intensive preparation for those seeking baptism at Easter and an opportunity for the rest of us who are already baptised to recall our baptismal identity by renewing the promises made at our baptism.

This is what Lent is all about. It is a time when we remember the death that brings new Life. Just like Noah, his family and the animals at the moment they stepped out of the ark, would have been surprised by what they saw, this Lent too holds many surprises for us. We can either look at the destruction wrought by our sin, mourn the loss of all the things that have been taken from us or we had to give up, or we could behold a new world, a new creation before us. What was once a barren desert, watered by God’s graces, would now be teeming with life. For the great paradox at the heart of Christianity, a mystery we celebrate every Lent and Easter, is that a Death was the remedy for death. It was in losing His life that Christ brought new Life to the world. In the words of the Byzantine liturgy, “He trampled down death by death.” In the greatest paradox of all, our Lord changed death into a means of life, an ending into a new beginning. What was once our doom is now our salvation. “The time has come and the Kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the Good News!”

Give me a drink

Third Sunday of Lent Year A

Conversation starters come in various forms, shapes and sizes. From mundane topics like the weather to more animated divisive issues like politics, conversation starters have always played an important role in setting the tone for social interaction - its success and failure has always depended on saying the right things at the right time and in the right company. Who could have guessed that a topic on water and thirst could lead to such profound theological depth in this exchange between the Samaritan woman and the Lord. The hot and dry desert climate must have given the word ‘thirst’ an intensified meaning and made this a “hot” topic.

Our Lord appears on the scene, apparently thirsty, asking for a drink. Pause for a moment to take that in - Jesus thirsts – also one of the last words He utters from the cross. It is consoling to note that God thirsts for us, for our liberation and our salvation. But the story soon ironically evolves into a tale that focuses on the unquenchable thirst of the woman, a thirst that cannot be sated by her unending search for love, acceptance, spirituality, and faith. This would only be possible with Christ.

At one juncture of this long conversation, the Lord would ask the woman: "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water'. The Samaritan woman’s response to Jesus is filled with sarcasm and incredulity, 'Sir, you have no bucket and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?' Our Lord is unperturbed and replies. 'Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty.' Who could refuse a promise like this, especially the prospect of not having to lug home a heavy bucket of water from the village well? It is no surprise that she then softens and finally concedes, 'Sir, give me this water.” Did she really understand what she was asking?

The depth of the well is a good starting point to speak of the gravity of the spiritual thirst of the Samaritan woman and that of every soul. In the ensuing debate of which is the greater shrine, the Samaritan one built close to the site of the historical well or the Jerusalem Temple - the Samaritan woman argues the pre-eminence of the Samaritan site by praising the greatness of Jacob, the giver of the well. As far as the Samaritans were concerned that well contained holy water, because historically identified with the ancestor of her race – their national hero. But irony is apparent once again. If we would run a contest for the most passionate and thirsty individual of the Old Testament, Jacob will make the top three. Who else cheats his brother and father for his inheritance, works fourteen years for the woman he loves, wins a wrestle match with the Angel of the Lord and sires the nation that delivers the Messiah?

But then Jacob’s well is unable to solve the ‘unquenchable thirst’ of the Samaritan woman, indeed of every soul. Jacob’s well is a picture of the waters of this world. It speaks of every natural pleasure and ‘painkiller’ for the soul ever invented. Be it the best of technology, most advanced device, latest political ideology, entertainment, immorality, intoxicant or pornography. The waters of this world cannot quench the profound thirst of the human heart. Quoting Jesus ‘whoever drinks of this water will thirst again.’

In 2011, Pope Benedict addressed a crowd of a half million young people in Sydney, Australia, on the occasion of the World Youth Day. He was keenly aware of the spiritual thirst of the many souls gathered there, some who had travelled long distance to catch a glimpse of the Pope, many fuelled by curiosity and the perennial thirst for an answer to life’s mysteries. Pope Benedict told them that "in so many of our societies, side by side with material prosperity, a spiritual desert is spreading: an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair. How many of our contemporaries have built broken and empty cisterns (cf. Jer 2:13) in a desperate search for meaning?" No doubt about it, our wells are indeed deep! The great catechist then identified the things we are thirsting for: love that endures, opportunity to share gifts, unity based on truth, communion that respects the freedom of the other person. These can be summed up as thirst or longing for three things: goodness, beauty and truth, the three transcendentals. But, said the Holy Father, instead of goodness, beauty and truth, what our society offers is choice, novelty and subjective experience. Those things are not bad in themselves, but to stop there is like substituting the authentic goldmine for a poor imitation, to settle for a depleting source of water rather than for an endless supply of living water from the Source itself.

God created man with the capacity to worship Him and the need to be in fellowship with Him. Science fiction writer, H. G. Wells, writes that every person has a “God-shaped vacuum in his heart - a void that only God can fill.” St Augustine puts it this way, “My soul is restless ‘till it rests in Thee.” As you all know, the life of Augustine is a replay of the life of our gospel’s protagonist, the Samaritan Woman. Behind Augustine is a succession of desperate searches for fulfillment: excessive pleasures, false religions, philosophies, dissipation and distractions—futilities that left him so weary of himself. At the very moment when his yearning led him to desperation, circumstances led his eyes to a passage in Scripture – to the one thing, no, to the one person who could heal his weariness and satisfy his longing thirst, Christ.

The depth of the well proves a challenge to anyone who has no recourse to a rope and a bucket. The well becomes a most suitable symbol of the human soul. But the good news is that you do not need a rope or a bucket to reach the living water which our Lord promises. The well from which this living water flows is the unfathomable depths of God’s love. And so buried deep within us is this spiritual aquifer – it is the place of deep communion between God’s spirit and ours. It lies hidden beneath layers of superficiality, our preoccupations with all things material and tangible, our dalliance with world delights and pursuits, our ambition for power and mastery. Though too deep for us, our wells are never too deep for Him. We only have to ask, “Master, give me this water,” we are assured of a drink from the well of God’s immense riches which promises life and immortality. Thereafter, we shall never be thirsty again.

Sainthood is within our reach

Solemnity of All Saints

One of the most common complaints I get from well-meaning Catholics who wish to see the Catholic Church become more inclusive and tolerant, a “big tent” organisation that takes in all and welcomes all, is that the Church seems to be too overly demanding and the bar which she sets is so exceedingly high, only perfect saints would make the mark. Robert Hugh Benson, the Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism, sets out this dichotomy: “one-half the world considers the Church too holy for human life, and the other half, not holy enough. We may name these critics, respectively, the Pagan and the Puritan.”

Against the pagan who accuses the Catholic Church of being over excessively demanding and against the puritan who claims that we will never be good enough for God, the Church actually teaches that though all have received the universal call to holiness at baptism, all have the potential and the means to become saints through sacramental graces, we continue to acknowledge that we are sinners, striving and struggling with temptation and the entrapments of sin, and therefore, constantly in need of redemption.

A saint is not someone who has never sinned but someone who refuses to be defeated by sin, refuses to allow sin to have the last word or plays hapless victim, because he or she believes in the power of redemption by the One who died on the cross to atone for our sins and who even now leads us on the path heavenward. A Saint understands and accepts the power of grace that “love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8) and where “sin abounds grace abounds much more” (Romans 5:20).

Saints are made, not born. Although one’s discipleship must deepen during the course of a Christian’s life through a slow process of conversion and growth in sanctity, he or she must be a thoroughly converted Christian disciple before he or she can become a saint. Acknowledging that we are “works in progress” is never in contradiction of the fact that we are called to “perfection.” The error of our modern times is that so many seek to give excuses for our mediocrity by canonising it, by making mediocrity the new benchmark of all aspects of life. We forget that we are made to be saints, being “half-baked” just doesn’t cut it. The saints remind us that perfection in terms of holiness is possible and attainable, even though it may take a life time of surrendering to God’s grace as we progress in discipleship.

In life, we often look up to certain celebrities as our heroes, idols, hoping and aspiring to become more like them. For us as well as for the saints, there is one model par excellence – it is Christ. By honouring the saints and by desiring to become more like them, we are aspiring to imitate what they hold up to us for our emulation – Christ Himself. This is what the beatitudes present to us - an image of Christ who chose to be poor, to be meek, to share our sorrow, to be a peacemaker and to suffer persecution for the sake of righteousness. And if we wish to become more Christ-like, we must then imitate Him by living out the beatitudes.

For the one who protests that holiness is beyond his reach, that holiness is for losers who seek to deny their humanity, who thinks that sanctity means virtue signalling, who believes that he is an incorrigible sinner beyond repair or redemption, he is making one of these declarations:

That redemption is a fantasy, which also means that our Lord died in vain and His mission was a failure;

That one doesn’t wish to follow Christ, for this is what becoming a saint means - becoming more Christ-like.

That this life is all there is to it, that there is no destiny prepared by God beyond a life of sin and strife; a destiny beyond our imagining - eternal life within the light and love of the Most Holy Trinity.

Acknowledging our vocation to become saints is not living in denial of our fallen nature and propensity to sin. We all fail, sometimes grievously. But, that is no reason to lower the bar of expectation. We seek forgiveness and reconciliation, and try again. Lowering the bar of spiritual and moral expectation demeans the faith and demeans us. Catholics today are capable of spiritual and moral grandeur, and indeed want to be called to that greatness. That is what Vatican II meant by the "universal call to holiness," and that is what is available to all of us in the Church, who dispenses graces through the sacraments.

Sanctity is available. And sanctity is what will transform a loser into a winner, a victim into a conqueror, a sinner into a saint. As Leon Bloy, the French Catholic novelist, so famously wrote: "The only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint."

Earth Wind Fire Water

Pentecost Sunday

The Holy Spirit, the Third person of the Most Holy Trinity, being pure spirit, would be the hardest member to picture in our mind’s eye since He, unlike the Second Person, was never incarnated in human form, or like the First Person, the Heavenly Father, has no equivalence in our human experience. Cardinal Ratzinger, who later became Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, would, therefore, write, that we “cannot reveal the Spirit directly, so all we can do is try, by means of images, to lead toward what is meant.”

The most common symbolic depiction of the Holy Spirit would be that of a dove, since it has a strong scriptural basis in the event of the Lord’s Baptism. But the first reading, which gives us the sole account of the event of the Pentecost, provides us with four elemental symbols: earth, wind, fire and water. Fans of the eponymous soul funk band of the 70s would be thrilled to know this. If you are from a different era, ignore my digression.

Earth. Wind. Fire. Water. The four classical elements of the universe were originally conceived by the ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles, five hundred years before Christ, and popularised by Aristotle. Of course, we are not going to dispute the error and the naïveté of the ancients in postulating this simplistic explanation that the entire universe is made up of these basic building blocks. We are not going to split hairs, or to be more precise, split atoms to refute this ancient science. On this feast of Pentecost, we are invited to consider them as entry points into the story of divine love and presence, that encompasses all creation.

The association of these four material elementals with the ephemeral Spirit, points to something foundational to our Catholic perception of the universe - we speak of the Sacraments as outward signs of inward grace; the invisible spiritual realm hidden within and being expressed through the visible and material realm.

The first element is earth. At first appearance, this seems to be the furthest idea from the Spirit since earth is the most solid of the four elementals. But earth is the first element the Creator used as He conjoined Himself with His creation to produce His greatest masterpiece - man. The word “human” comes from the Latin word “humus,” and is a direct reference of how God formed man from the earth, and breathed life and His Spirit into this lifeless clay, to create man. Each of us, members of the human race, earthy beings and yet privileged creatures because we are endowed with an immortal soul, are indeed fitting temples of the Holy Spirit. Just as God breathed life into earth to make man; at Pentecost, God breathes His Spirit into the earthen hearts of the disciples, infusing them with new life and making them into His new creation.

The element of earth also reminds us that the Jewish festival of Pentecost or Weeks (since it is made up of seven weeks, a sabbath of a sabbath) predates our Christian celebration. The three great pilgrimage festivals were all harvest festivals and Pentecost was the thanksgiving for the grain harvest. The feast also commemorated the giving of the Law or Ten Commandments to Moses at Sinai. But now, instead of the gift of Law, God has given us a far greater gift, that of the Holy Spirit who writes His law, not on tablets of stone (earth) but in our fleshy hearts. Instead of thanksgiving for a harvest of grains, today is a day of thanksgiving for a harvest of souls incorporated into the Body of Christ, the Church.

The next element is wind. There is nothing subtler than the wind, which manages to penetrate everywhere, even to reach inanimate bodies and give them a life of their own, as we see in the vision of the valley of dry bones (Ezekiel 37). In Hebrew, the word for Spirit, Ruach, could also be translated as breath and wind. The first mention of Ruach in the Bible is in the very first chapter of Genesis (1:2): “And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit (Ruach) of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.” In the theophanies of God, reference is often made to wind - either as in the form of a storm, a strong gale or even a gentle breeze. Our Lord in speaking to Nicodemus about the Spirit tells him: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). And then “when Pentecost day came round, they had all met in one room, when suddenly they heard what sounded like a powerful wind from heaven …”

After the wind, came the fire, produced by the confluence of matter and energy: “something appeared to them that seemed like tongues of fire; these separated and came to rest on the head of each of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak foreign languages as the Spirit gave them the gift of speech.” The liturgical colour for Pentecost is red, the colour of fire and blood and the symbol of love. This is also reflected in the traditional prayer to the Holy Spirit, “Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of thy Faithful; and enkindle in them the fire of Thy love…” It is a dangerous prayer, if we stop to think of it, because the Spirit’s fire is pure energy that melts the alloyed heart and purifies it for love.

The final element is water. Water holds such rich symbolic meaning and purpose for us. It strikes the balance in life like nothing else—too little is parched desolation, too much is drowned destruction, but in its fullness, water offers a life-force. In the Gospel for today’s Vigil Mass, our Lord says “Rivers of Living Water shall flow from within him” who believes in me. After they were filled with the Holy Spirit, the disciples left the Upper Room and began to proclaim the Gospel. And on hearing their words, 3000 were baptised that day. From the very day of Pentecost, the Church has celebrated and administered holy Baptism. Indeed St. Peter declares to the crowd astounded by his preaching: “Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” With every baptism comes the reminder of the first Pentecost.

The Spirit comes to us today as wind, fire, and water, seeking to shape the earth that we are, into a new creation which we became at our baptism. But our earthen hearts are dry due to sin, resistant to God’s re-shaping, and need a little erosion through the water of the Spirit. Too often, we are consumed by a life that is not of the Spirit. We are fleshly creatures possessing a fleshly mind, meditating on the things of this world while attempting to justify our disordered love for them. Rather than hardening ourselves, trying to become what we want to be, we must remain pliable, open, and responsive to the creative activity of God: we must learn to ‘relax in the hands of God, to let God be the creator. For as we yield to God and allow the Spirit to wash over our muddied self with His divine wind, fire, and water, we will be shocked to find that the deeper He works to erode us, the stronger the rivers of living water will flow through us.

Earth, wind, fire, water. Four elements to ground and inspire and transform and mediate the grace of God for the people of God. For the gift of new life on this feast of Pentecost, for the gift of creation and our participation in it, for the gift of connexion as with one another, and with God who suffuses the whole of creation and community with the divine spirit of Love, for these gifts, may God’s holy name be praised. Come Holy Spirit, Come!

Firstborn of the New Creation

Easter Vigil in the Holy Night 2022

Today we conclude this shortest and yet most intense and sacred time in our Church’s liturgical calendar - the Paschal Triduum. And though it may seem to be an ending, it is actually a beginning of many things. This should not surprise us as we had affirmed at the start of tonight’s liturgy, that Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and end of all things. Beginnings and endings are not two realities but one in Christ. As T. S. Eliot poignantly writes: “And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time” (The Four Quartets, “Little Gidding”).

Everything about this vigil’s liturgy, “the mother of all vigils,” speaks of beginnings and endings, which takes us on a journey from birth to rebirth, from creation to re-creation, from darkness to light, from death to life. From the blessing and procession of the Paschal candle, the singing of the Easter proclamation to our marathon set of readings, we are pulled into this journey of transformation, not as mere spectators but as participants. Our Gospel begins with these words: “on the first day of the week, at the first sign of dawn…” This is an extraordinary text – so subtle and sophisticated. But it begs the question: what does it mean? The answer is found at the beginning, in the first reading. We are, therefore, asked to contrast the first line of our Gospel passage with the first line of our first reading from Genesis, the very beginning of our story of salvation: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

The first day of the week mentioned in the Gospel, corresponds to the first day of creation in Genesis; and the rays of the dawning sun matches the first act of creation, where God created light out of darkness. Tonight’s liturgy, which began in darkness is also shattered by the light of the Paschal candle.

John’s recapitulation of the creation narrative goes on. In Genesis, God creates the first human being, the first man, but at Easter, our Lord Jesus emerges from the womb of the tomb to be the firstborn of the new creation.

God created all things, including man, and when He was finished, He looked at all He had made, and declared that it was “very good.” His original creation, however, was sullied and damaged. Once Adam chose to go against God’s Will, sin entered God’s created world, and sickness, decay, and death were introduced to humanity. God’s creation has suffered sin’s effects ever since.

Fast-forward to the time of Jesus’ life on earth. God the Son, the Word of God, entered humanity as a child born of Mary, without a human father. He was fully God and fully man. His mission was to defeat the sin and death which had entered humanity through Adam. This second Adam lived a sinless life, was condemned and executed as a criminal, and was buried in a tomb. Three days later, He rose from the dead! He was resurrected! His resurrection was the first phase of God’s new creation. God created a new kind of human existence—a human body which was raised from the dead and transformed by the power of God into a body that is no longer affected by death, decay, and corruption. Pope Emeritus Benedict described the resurrection of Christ as “something akin to a radical evolutionary leap, in which a new dimension of life emerges, a new dimension of human existence. Indeed, matter itself is remoulded into a new type of reality. The man Jesus, complete with His body, now belongs totally to the sphere of the divine and eternal.”

But then, there is the second phase in God’s plan of recreation. As Christians and as part of God’s new creation through our baptism, we can look forward to the time when, upon Christ’s return, He will raise our bodies from the dead! We will receive resurrected bodies like His. Our bodies will not have the weaknesses they have now but will have the full power the human body was meant to have. In these resurrected bodies, we will clearly see humanity as God intended it to be.

God’s new creation will not end with the resurrection of our bodies but goes beyond that. The third phase will involve all of creation being renewed as well. When Adam sinned, God cursed the ground. The world was no longer the sublime place God made it to be. Sin changed that. But because of Christ’s death and resurrection, His victory over sin and death, God will renew the entire world - He will remake it into “a new heaven and a new earth.”

The new creation which we speak of, is not just some static and unchanging reality. As part of the new creation, God’s Spirit is regularly renewing us, changing us, helping us to put on the mind of Christ. Dear Catechumens, today is not the end of your journey. It is not graduation day. It is an ending of a period of preparation, but this is only a beginning. As you allow the Holy Spirit to guide you, you will continually grow and mature in your spiritual lives in order that you may be renewed and become more Christlike.

Each year, we recapitulate this Easter story and each year it recreates us. It returns us to the ground of our being. We are asked to die to ourselves so that we may be reborn in Christ. And though we may sometimes feel as if we are caught up in a maelstrom with our world spinning out of control, remember this: the forces of chaos and death did not triumph over Jesus and His community. On the contrary, it is Christ who emerged the clear victor. And because of this, we are given the chance to start over. Every Easter, we are reminded that we can bring all that befalls us to be reintegrated, redeemed, and recreated as we bring it back to our living source: Christ yesterday and today, the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega; All time belongs to Him and all the ages, to Him be glory and power, through every age and for ever. Amen.

Liquid Tomb and Font of Life

Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

The muddy yet calm waters of the river Jordan would have posed little threat to the crowds which gathered there to listen to this prophetic figure, with some acceding to be baptised by him after listening to his message of repentance. The contrast of this rustic scene dominated by water, with what many experienced a few weeks ago is stark. A week before Christmas, torrential downpours resulted in unprecedented floods leaving a massive trail of destruction, over 70 thousand persons displaced and casualties. The floods did not just destroy the personal belongings of the victims and deprived them of their homes and livelihood, but also cut them off from basic necessities like food and electricity, and ironically, a clean supply of water.

Water is arguably the most important natural resource in the entire world. All life depends on it. On the other hand, water may be a terrifying life changing force when it comes in the form of hurricanes, floods or tsunamis. Because of its universal nature, it is not surprising that water plays a central role in the Bible as well.

The story of creation in the Book of Genesis is preceded by an editorial note on how the pre-creation cosmos was covered by a watery chaos. One of God’s primary works in creation was to set boundaries and limit the destructive power of water. It is not surprising that man’s rebellion against God’s authority by sinning would be reflected in the great deluge that would destroy the entire world. The floods are just a natural outcome of man seeking to go beyond the limits and boundaries set by God. In contrast to this chaotic and destructive side of water, the Book of Exodus gives us that foundational story of the liberation of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt, when they crossed the Red Sea. The waters, although proving destructive to the Egyptians, also served to be the instrument of salvation for those favoured by God as they embarked on their journey to freedom and a new-found covenantal identity with God.

The juxtaposition of these two experiences of water, reminds us that water can be both life-giving and destructive. And there is no better place to find these two elements together than in the Sacrament of Baptism. This was excellently expounded by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in the first volume of his monumental work, Jesus of Nazareth: 

“On the one hand, immersion into the waters is a symbol of death, which recalls the death symbolism of the annihilating, destructive power of the ocean flood. The ancient mind perceived the ocean as a permanent threat to the cosmos, to the earth; it was the primeval flood that might submerge all life . . . But the flowing waters of the river are above all a symbol of life.” 

Just like water can be both life-giving and death-dealing, baptism has a similar effect on us - it kills original sin and it gives us new life – life of being adopted sons and daughters of God.

But here also lies the problem with Christ seeking baptism. If Christ is the truly sinless One, if He is the Son of God, He is in no need of baptism because He has no need for repentance nor adoption. But the Lord chose to submit Himself to John’s baptism as an expression of His fundamental submission to the Will of the Father and His complete identification with sinners. By submersion in the waters of the Jordan, our Lord publicly associates Himself with those who need repentance and forgiveness, although He has no need of it in actuality. He is already embracing the enormous weight of humanity’s sinfulness, just as He will do again in a definitive and final way on the cross. The mysterious events at the Jordan River already foreshadow the saving acts of Christ’s death and resurrection. The submersion of Jesus in the baptismal waters of the Jordan River prefigures His death on the Cross.

Pope Benedict notes that the icons of the Eastern Church visualise this intrinsic connexion between the Baptism of the Lord and the Paschal Mystery by depicting the waters of the Jordan “as a liquid tomb having the form of a dark cavern, which is in turn the iconographic sign of Hades, the underworld, or hell.” Just as the Lord descends into the swirling waters of death at His baptism, He goes down to the netherworld after His crucifixion to rescue the souls of lost humanity.

In this downward descent, this complete identification with sinners, we grasp the radical humility of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the One who empties Himself, not clinging to His equality with God but becoming a slave for the sake of our salvation. God could have saved us in any manner that He chose, but He seems to embrace the most difficult and arduous way — the path of Incarnation and accompaniment.

Christianity is the only world religion that believes the omnipotent and mysterious God humbled Himself to become one of His own creatures, embracing the fullness of our humanity in order to redeem us from inside our own nature and condition. The Church has never gotten over the wonder of this divine condescension. We celebrate the Word made flesh, not only in the glory of Christmas, but in the fullness of the liturgy, prayer and moral life of the Christian tradition.

Drawing profound parallels between the Lord’s baptism and our own, we can see that, just as the Lord Jesus is revealed as the Beloved Son at the Jordan, so, too, we receive a new identity in baptism, as adopted children of the Father. Jesus Christ freely shares His very nature with us through the transforming waters of baptism. At the moment of our spiritual rebirth in the font, the Father beholds us with delight, exclaiming, “You are my Son, You are my daughter, the Beloved; my favour rests on you.” Christianity first and foremost, is about whom we have become in Christ, before it is about what we do or how we act.

Just as our common baptism draws us into the very life of being sons and daughters of God, our ordination as priests draws us into the Paschal experience of Christ. We too are called to experience death and new life each day. And this is what Fr Dominic and I must do tomorrow. We are called to die to our attachments to the parish we’ve called home these past few years, so that we may experience a rebirth in the new parishes where we will be posted this coming Monday. As you await your new pastors, I can’t help but see the parallel with today’s Gospel passage which began with this observation by the evangelist: “a feeling of expectancy had grown among the people.” As John the Baptist’s ministry ends with his arrest and Christ is thrust to the fore, both of us too must also take our leave, as your new pastors take up responsibilities of shepherding, sanctifying and teaching the flock that has been entrusted to them. Never forget this - the priest, the figurehead who stands in persona Christi (in the person of Christ), may change but it is the same Christ who remains, for He is the same, yesterday, today and forever. He should be your real focus because He is the One whom the Heavenly Father speaks these words: “You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you.” Turn to Him in prayer, in hope and in trust, and you will not go astray!