Money Matters

Twenty Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Let’s not ignore the elephant in the room and go straight to the very question many of you may be asking: Is having money bad? Now, to be honest, most of us would have a positive to ambivalent view of money - money is good, it is even necessary, especially when it gets you the things you want in life. Despite what people claim, money can buy us some level of happiness. It’s not perfect nor lasting happiness, but money can contribute to an injection of dopamine in your system. When is money considered a bad thing? I guess it’s when we have to part with our money. When we believe that an item we want is prized too high, or the amount of taxes we have to pay to the government is just outrageous or when the Church asks us to give more in the collection. So, when others are perceived to be out for our money, our hard-earned savings, then we will accuse them of being greedy, materialistic and money minded. Over the years, these labels have been the most common ones I’ve heard, especially, when I’m making a fund raising pitch.

Anyway, back to our first question: “Is having money bad?” Obviously, we see in some cases, like the Israelites in the first reading, love for money can lead to corruption and exploitation, especially of the poor and the weak, and ultimately this led to their destruction. Nevertheless, this moral tale of Israel’s undoing of God’s promises and blessings through its leaders’ greed and injustice should not be taken as a blanket approbation of money and wealth. While the love of riches poses temptations, money in itself is not intrinsically evil or unworthy of our use.

Our Lord did not inaugurate a new economic system that did away with the need for fair trade or some form of currency. The Kingdom of God did not entail a Utopian socialist or communist welfare state where there was a free supply of goods and services. Because of the miracle of the Incarnation, God became man as the Word became Flesh and dwelt among us. Because Christ was both truly God and truly human, He had a body, lived in a family, recognised humanity's need for food, health, and material necessities, and acknowledged the importance of money as a measure of reality and as a practical necessity. Although Christ warned against worshiping money and serving Mammon, and although He taught His followers not to be anxious about food, clothing, and all the things that money affords, He did not regard money as a trivial matter beneath Him or His followers. Christ of course enjoined man not to "lay up treasures on earth" and not to be ruled by avarice in the form of greed or miserliness, like the rich man who gave Lazarus the scraps from his table while he feasted at a banquet. Yet Christ did not scorn money, for in His humanity He always paid His debts and was mindful of humanity's need to use material resources throughout our daily lives.

In the gospels, Christ teaches the importance of common sense and the virtue of prudence in all transactional relationships. A builder constructing a tower looks foolish if he does not first calculate the cost before he builds the foundation and later discovers a lack of funds to complete the project. Likewise, a king who wages war takes account of the number of his forces in comparison to the enemy's army to determine his chances of victory. Common sense always counts the cost and avoids wasting money and resources. Our faith is not blind, and it is certainly not foolish. You do not rush into something, throwing all caution to the wind, whilst banking on God to extricate you out of the mess you are making. Common sense not only considers consequences and weighs costs but also acknowledges the uncertainty of the future with all its unpredictability and variability. Foolish planning, excessive spending, and imaginary scheming are all based on the presumption that our future is within our control. It isn’t.

Our Lord goes further in today’s parable of the dishonest but astute steward. The fact that our Lord praises a dishonest man may come as a shock to many of us. Christ does not praise the steward for his dishonesty or for having cunningly extracted himself from impending disaster. Sinful behaviour can never be condoned, and the end can never justify the means. What is laudable is that the steward is able to make changes and take creative steps to avoid a personal disaster that would have ruined him. When ordered to give an account of his management after accusations about wasteful spending, the steward seeks the master's debtors and bargains with them to give a portion of the money owed. In a way, he fulfills our Lord’s command to forgive debts (or sins), so that his own may be forgiven. The dishonest steward makes restitution of his past mistakes and restores his master's fortune.

At the end of the day, money and wealth are morally ambivalent. They are tainted when we choose them to advance our own selfish agenda to the detriment of others. And yet, though risking being tainted, such money can be used for the furtherance and advancement of others and a good cause. At the end of the day, money is “good” in that God did not create anything inherently evil, but it would be so much “better” if used for others, especially for the poor and for the mission of the Church.

The wise Christian who understands this truth does not waste money and does not hoard it. He does not worship gold or make an idol of Mammon, but recognises other treasure in heaven, the divine rewards that are a hundredfold. He calculates costs, predicts consequences, and demonstrates foresight, but does not live in an imaginary future. He counts pennies, but he does not hesitate to give without measure when the occasion inspires generosity. He honours the truth that the labourer is worthy of his hire, but the love of justice does not impair his spirit for forgiveness, mercy, and charity, which transcend the letter of the law. He uses his assets of money, land, or animals to produce an abundant harvest, remembering that good husbandry, gardening, or economy strives for fruitfulness, increase, and profit both in the economic life and moral life.

The moral life of a Christian, then, can be likened to a business venture in which God gives his stewards the opportunity, the raw materials, the resources, and the talents to be fruitful and multiply. The workers cannot be selfish, lazy, dishonest, avaricious or useless. God takes stock and demands accountability. God expects increase from the talents that He invests and awaits interest from the capital He lends. A bountiful harvest in the form of the fruitfulness of love and the benefits of profits earns the praise, "Well done, good and faithful servant," and "Enter into the joy of your master,” (Mt 25:21; 26). This multiplication of good works in matters great and small wins not only the earnings of one's labour and the praise of the master but also eternal life: "Come, O blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Mt 25:34). Both the economic art of managing temporal goods and the moral life of the Christian rejoice in making a profit, creating a surplus, and beholding a fruitful harvest.

When Little becomes Abundant

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

There is this wonderful line which could only emerge from the inspired genius mind of St Augustine: “The New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New.” This is what we see in our lectionary’s juxtaposition of the first reading and the gospel. Both readings provide us with two incidences of miraculous multiplication of bread, the first implicit, while the latter clearly more explicit by virtue of its scale. Elisha multiplied 20 barley loaves so as to feed 100, with some even left over. But in the Gospel, our Lord multiplies 5 barley loaves and feeds 5,000, leaving 12 baskets left over. We’re talking serious one-upmanship here!

What does the multiplication story of Elisha in the first reading and our Lord Jesus have in common is their seven-part movement in the narrative: a crisis arises due to shortage of food, a chanced character volunteers to make an offering of meagre means, the protagonists issue a command to feed the crowds with these limited resources, followed by incredulity, a second command is given, the feeding takes place and finally, there is food left over. Both narratives fit nicely into this 7-part template. But there is no equivalence. What our Lord does, out matches what is done by Elisha and in fact by Moses who fed the Israelites with manna from heaven. This is no mere coincidence.

Christ brings to complete perfection what had already been prefigured in the Old Testament. That is why we should not easily dismiss the Old Testament as historically obsolete or mythical stories. To know Christ in the fullest sense (sensus plenior), then, we must read not only the New Testament, but also the Old. Our Lord Jesus is not just another great prophet in a long line of prophets but He is of an entirely different category which surpasses all that has preceded Him. If the prophets of old had only communicated the Word of God as mediums of transmission, Jesus is the Word of God in the flesh.

Both stories begin in a context of hunger. Few understand the depths of hunger. Becoming hungry for most of us is a matter of choice. Fasting and dieting are deliberate choices. But one must also consider the hunger of millions of people in the world: “the siege of the poor”. They have no choice but to be hungry.

But it is the hunger of such as these that reminds us that life begins with hunger and to be alive is to be hungry. The dead do not experience hunger pangs any longer. Some people are so hungry that for them God cannot but have the form of a loaf of bread. It is no wonder that in both stories of multiplication, we are reminded that the paradigm which God shows us and which we must imitate is giving and not hoarding. That is why the Lord commands His disciples to count the cost of what is to be given and to make an inventory of what they possess.

The miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and the fish, therefore, shows us that the Lord is not concerned with the quantity of the bread; what He desires is that the bread be shared. The hunger of others has rights over me. It never ceases to amaze me at how much energy we put into making excuses that we don’t have enough to share with others. According to a mysterious divine rule: when “my” bread becomes “our” bread, then little becomes enough. Hunger begins when I keep my bread to myself, when I choose to hold on to my bread, my fish, my assets. In contrast to our penchant to be calculative, our Lord shows us another way of being wholly generous because we have received so much from Him. The fact that there were twelve baskets of leftover food is a reminder to us that His grace is aplenty and that it is free.

Because of this last point and for this reason, the seemingly logical explanation of this miracle being the result of the crowds sharing their personal stash of food is untenable. This is not just a story of sharing but one of revelation. Only God could complete such a feat. As God rained down manna in the desert, Elisha increased his meagre supply of bread to feed the hundreds and now our Lord multiplies the bread and fish to feed the multitude of thousands, none of these events could have happened without God’s intervention. It is simply not possible for the disciples or the people to feed themselves or each other. They could not heal themselves or each other. But God can and God does.

So, the grain of truth that confronts us in today’s readings is that we are subject to limitations. We are not able to do everything, we are not able to help everyone, we are not able to save everyone. But that does not absolve us from doing something or helping someone. When we entrust the little that we have to God, He will ensure that our efforts would not be impeded by our limitations. On the other hand, these stories remind us that for a miracle to happen, it is not about God creating something out of nothing. God takes what we offer Him and ensures that it is always enough for us to share it with others, with much more to spare.

Our financial resources, talents, and holiness are clearly inadequate to meet the needs of a hungry and confused world. But what else is new? This gospel commands us to offer these resources anyway, trusting that God will multiply them. Don’t just take my word for it. See it happen at every Mass. In the Eucharist we bring the very ordinary work of our hands, bread and wine, and join to this the offering of our very ordinary lives. Through the invocation of the Spirit and the Word of God, this offering is changed into the Body and Blood of Christ, the Bread of Life and the Cup of eternal salvation. Likewise, we offer Him the work of our hands and our broken humanity, and He transforms these things into perfect humanity and life-giving divinity. And with this He not only feeds us but empowers us to feed the whole world. When “His” bread becomes “our bread”, then little becomes abundant!

Love is stronger than Death

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

In the collective imagination of the Anglosphere, Robin Hood is second only to King Arthur in the hold he has on the public mind. The idea of the Merry Men living in self-constructed freedom “all under the merry greenwood tree” in Sherwood Forest – robbing the rich and helping the poor and staying loyal to King Richard the Lionheart during the regency of his brother – has been embraced by countless generations.

Robin Hood and his merry band of thieves have often been portrayed in a heroic light, as those who sided with the poor and stood against the despotic tyranny of the rich and powerful, symbolised in the person of the Sheriff of Nottingham, ironically, a medieval representation of the “blue”, the law enforcement agencies. Robin’s actions were not only regarded as justified but lauded as virtuous because he “stole from the rich to give to the poor!” There seems to be a resurgence of this spirit in many of the liberal ruled cities in America, where criminals are often vindicated as deserving of the spoils of theft and looting due to their disadvantaged social economic status. In fact, stealing is now regarded as a kind of reparation for what many would claim had been stolen from them. Ironically, the law enforcement officers, men who wear the “blue”, are regarded as the “bad guys”, very much like the wicked and conniving Sheriff of Nottingham.

In the second reading, we see St Paul writing to the wealthy church in Corinth and requesting them to send aid to the impoverished mother church in Jerusalem. He begins his appeal by first commending them on their spiritual wealth - “You always have the most of everything – of faith, of eloquence, of understanding, of keenness for any cause, and the biggest share of our affection – so we expect you to put the most into this work of mercy too.” Paul is trying to explain that this act of charity is not merely an act of generosity but also a work of mercy - another spiritual good. In other words, the more they give, the wealthier they become spiritually. Then he sets out the standard and model of such generosity - it is none other than Christ Himself: “Remember how generous the Lord Jesus was: he was rich, but he became poor for your sake, to make you rich out of his poverty.”

Of course, St Paul was not himself resorting to a Robin Hood mentality by taking from the rich to give to the poor. He was making it clear that any such giving should be done from a cheerful and willing heart, rather than grudgingly. Furthermore, he was not insisting that the Corinthians should impoverish themselves by enriching the folks in Jerusalem. He proposes a pragmatic rule to giving: “This does not mean that to give relief to others you ought to make things difficult for yourselves: it is a question of balancing what happens to be your surplus now against their present need, and one day they may have something to spare that will supply your own need. That is how we strike a balance …”

This is the reason why the vow of poverty which is taken by a religious is not meant to be pure renunciation of material goods, but rather a commitment to share everything in common. An interior spiritual poverty is required for communal living. A lack of it rings a death knell to the community, especially when every member is only looking out for his own interest and security, whilst failing to be concerned with the welfare of his brothers and sisters.

We see in the gospel the true hero worthy of our praise and emulation - it is not the fictional Robin Hood but the very real Jesus of Nazareth. Our Lord shows us how God’s generosity and providence can be given and is given to all, without depriving one whilst blessing the other. In the longer version of the gospel, we see both the adult and the child being recipients of our Lord’s mercy and healing powers - the woman who had suffered from internal bleeding for many years and the young girl whom our Lord brought back from the brink of death. It is arguable as to who was in the more dire situation. The focus seems to be on defeating death in the girl. Our Lord returning life to the dead girl confirms what is written in the Book of Wisdom that “death was not God’s doing,” and that God had made “man imperishable, He made him in the image of His own nature; it was the devil’s envy that brought death into the world …”

So, it is death and devil that seem to have robbed us of our immortality and they have done so without enriching anyone but impoverishing all of us. But our Lord comes to the rescue. He robs the devil and death of their booty and final victory. Death may be strong, in fact, it may be the strongest thing that anyone of us knows of - no medicine, no elixir, no insurance or guarantee, no fortress or bunker, no “Iron Dome” can keep us safe from its clutches. But there is one who is stronger, so strong that nothing can stand in His way - not the cross which took His life, not the stone rolled over the mouth of the tomb, not the gates of Hades could keep Him imprisoned. It is Christ our Lord and Saviour. He has plundered the fortress of death and the devil and restored our inheritance to us - life, eternal life.

And this is what St Baldwin of Canterbury declared in the 12th century, a truth that has not grown old nor will ever be obsolete:

“Death is strong: it has the power to deprive us of the gift of life. Love is strong: it has the power to restore us to the exercise of a better life.

Death is strong, strong enough to despoil us of this body of ours. Love is strong, strong enough to rob death of its spoils and restore them to us.

Death is strong; for no man can resist it. Love is strong; for it can triumph over death, can blunt its sting, counter its onslaught and overturn its victory. A time will come when death will be trampled underfoot; when it will be said: ‘Death, where is your sting? Death, where is your attack?’

‘Love is strong as death,’ since Christ’s love is the death of death. For this reason he says: ‘Death, I shall be your death; hell, I shall grip you fast.’ The love, too, with which Christ is loved by us is itself strong as death, since it is a kind of death, being the extinction of our old life, the abolition of vice, and the putting aside of dead works.”

The Myth of Pastoral Charity

Solemnity of Christ the King Year A

There has been heated discussion of late as to whether one could depart from settled doctrine and revealed truth in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition by citing the all-encompassing tag phrase of modern times - pastoral charity. In other words, some would argue that the controversial moral issues of our times, including blessing same sex marriages and admitting women into holy orders, would be non-issues if we shift away from focusing on orthodoxy - right teaching - and start focusing more on orthopraxis - right practice based on pastoral charity. So, what exactly is pastoral charity? Can it be so powerful that it can justify the setting aside of truth in the name of kindness and solicitude? It is interesting that we can find our answer in today’s reading.

Let’s first examine the word “pastoral,” which comes from the Latin “pastor,” which means shepherd. The first reading gives us an excellent exposition of the work of the Shepherd King who is God. The Old Testament prophecy of Ezekiel that God will judge “between sheep and sheep, between rams and he-goats” is fulfilled in our Lord’s parable in the gospel. Although the element of judgment is found in both readings, Ezekiel’s prophecy broadens the scope of the shepherd king’s job:
He will keep all, and not just some, of his sheep in view;
He will rescue them whenever they have been scattered in mist and darkness;
He will pasture them and show them where to rest;
He will “look for the lost one, bring back the stray, bandage the wounded and make the weak strong;
He shall watch over the fat and healthy (I guess in our day and age, these two categories point to different categories at both ends of a spectrum);
Then the Lord makes this promise: “I shall be a true shepherd to them.”

When we examine the roles of the shepherd, we notice that it does not include making his sheep happy or contented in their delusion. In fact, the work of the shepherd is to challenge that very delusion and falsehood of their choices which will lead them astray in the first place. The Shepherd does not leave them to their own devices. He goes in search of them. He restores them to their home. He heals those who are wounded instead of allowing the wounds caused by sin to fester and threaten the life of the sheep. This is what it means to be “pastoral.” The shepherd is not just contented in making his sheep feel good. He challenges them so that they strive to be good, in fact, to be the best version of themselves.

How about the second word in this popular expression commonly used by many in these times - charity? For that, we must turn to the gospel. The parable of judgment in the gospel moves away from these images of the shepherd king and now seems to draw us into the narrative by ascribing to us the very responsibilities which the Shepherd King has promised to undertake. The Shepherd King is not abdicating His responsibility and authority but expecting us to act in imitation of Him. We must imitate Him in charity.

The description of the Last Judgment in the twenty-fifth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel would shock many people if they were to read it. The principles in accordance with which Christ will pronounce sentence are inescapably clear. Did you feed and clothe the poor for My sake, He will ask, because you recognised Me in them? If you have done so, you will certainly be saved. If you have neglected to do so, you will be condemned for all eternity. Christ does not ask about anything else, because everything else is subordinate to the precept of charity. Where there is charity, everything else follows. Where charity is lacking there is nothing else because Christianity is synonymous with charity. Charity, says St. Paul, “is the bond of perfection.” (Col. 3:14)

Our eternal salvation depends on our charity. But it must be charity in action, not merely in words. “He who has the goods of this world,” says St. John, “and sees his brother in need and closes his heart to him, how does the love of God abide in him?” (1st Epistle of St. John, 3:17) Charity must be expressed in almsgiving and good works, for otherwise it would be a matter of idle talk which would be powerless to save us.

Secondly, pastoral charity which ignores or, worse, contradicts God’s revealed truth is not charity, but pseudo-charity. Such abuse of one’s pastoral role would be the greatest affront to the queen of virtues. Kindness or tenderness have their place, but when they degenerate into confirming the faithful in the commission of mortally sinful acts become a cruel caricature of the love a pastor of the Church owes to sinners when they come to him.

Thirdly, our almsgiving should not be dictated simply by natural feelings of compassion, however, nor by mere philanthropy. It should be pre-eminently a religious act, springing from supernatural motives. Because we see the person of Christ in the poor man, we should love and help him as we should our Divine Redeemer, of Whose Mystical Body he is a suffering member. This is real Christian charity.

There is one act of charity which we can all perform, even if we are poor. We can pray for those who never pray, for hardened sinners, for heretics, for those who persecute the Church, for the Missions, for the sick and dying, and for the souls in Purgatory. And for the laity, it is of utmost importance to pray for your leaders – the Pope, our bishops and priests – that they may be “true shepherds” and not false ones who lead their flock astray.

On this feast, when we remember our youth, let us also be mindful of the Church which we wish to bequeath to them on behalf of Christ the King. In wanting the best for them and future generations of Catholics, let us not delude ourselves into thinking that we can “rebuild” the Church, because we may end up, in our hubris, remaking her in our image and likeness, a false bride, instead of the “spotless bride of the spotless Lamb” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 796). Let us never forget that it is Christ who makes the Church, who renews the Church and reforms the Church. We are in Christ grafted as a branch onto the vine, and Christ is in us, feeding, making, and renewing us. Our battle cry isn’t “Yes, we can. Yes, we can!” but “Christus vincit! Christus regnat! Christus imperat!” “Christ conquers, Christ reigns, Christ commands.” He alone shall be the true Shepherd to us all!

The Economics of the Cross

Twenty Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

One of the most common vices which has taken a firm grip on us is our penchant to whine and complain. Who hasn’t complained, grumbled and ranted about others or a situation? We constantly complain about our parents, our children, our spouses, our leaders, our bosses, our subordinates, our fellow church members, our priests, and of course, God - no one has been spared from our list of complaints. What underlies our disgruntled feelings, unbeknownst to most of us, is our sense of entitlement. But here’s the irony. We feel entitled to respect from others, often without giving respect in return. And worse-yet? We feel that God owes us everything because we feel that we’ve either earned it or deserved it.

The sense of entitlement rears its ugly head in today’s gospel parable. It is what transforms the initial sense of gratitude into a gnawing sense of resentment. The story is told by the Lord in response to Peter’s question. A modern rephrasing of Peter’s question would sound like this, “What’s in it for us?” Peter wanted to know what reward would be given to those who give up everything to follow Jesus. In a sense, Peter wanted to know what his entitlement is.

Yet there is something in Peter’s comparative attitude and his need for the assurance of reward that does not fit well with labouring in the Lord’s vineyard. If Peter is worrying about a poor payoff which does not match the sacrifice he is called to make, the Lord overwhelms him with vision of gratuitous abundance. To Peter’s self-serving motivations, our Lord proposes another paradigm, that of generosity – a generous heart is one filled with gratitude and sees everything as grace. A generous heart considers the struggles, difficulties, the welfare of others, instead of just focusing on the injustices that life has dished out to us.

The story starts out with a conventional plot, hiring day workers, which already suggests that they were unemployed till that moment. But it has an unconventional ending - people who worked the least got equal pay, and got paid first. The owner of the vineyard orders that all be equally paid a denarius, whether you had worked the entire 12 hours or less than an hour. Something immediately strikes us as wrong. Conventional social dealings would dictate that those who only worked one hour would receive a twelfth of what the first group agreed to. But there is a greater surprise. To add injury to the already incensed members of the first group of workers, the latecomers get paid first. The master’s generosity, which is a pleasant surprise to the latecomers, becomes a cruel disappointment to the early birds.

The dissatisfaction of the first group of workers is understandable. They had endured the unrelenting heat of the sun, the hot scorching desert winds throughout the whole day, while the others worked for far less during the cool of the evening. Economic justice would demand that “to every man (be given) what he deserves.” Weren’t these workers entitled to a larger pay-out and extra benefits for the time and effort which they had put in? Therefore, thinking in terms of standard social and economic conventions, they expected more. But was their complaint justified? Didn’t they get what they deserved, what they had agreed upon at the beginning, and even more than the prevailing market standards? The landowner’s offer of one denarius for a day’s work is indeed generous. They had accepted it happily at the beginning. Furthermore, where vineyard day workers were victims of an exploitive socio-economic system, the graciousness of the landowner to provide work opportunities to them at a wage that was unequal to their job, was not a sign of meagerness but rather generosity.

We, therefore, come to realise that the root of their indignation came not from an exploitive wage scale but from seeing the good fortune of others whom they felt were not deserving of the same. The landowner had not been unjust, he has every right to do what he wants with his money. The real problem is that the grumblers harbour envy. The master’s generosity is an expression of gracious freedom, not callous arbitrariness, while workers’ complaints are an expression of their loveleness, not of their unfair treatment.

It is here that we see the radical difference between their sense of justice and that of the landowner, who symbolises God. The parable thus shows that God’s justice is not according to man’s calculations. God’s justice bestows mercy on the hapless and rebuffs the proud claims of merit. In contrast to human justice which rewards “every man what he deserves,” the divine principle of justice accords “to every man what he needs.” This is the economics of the cross. Our Lord Jesus died on the cross for us not because we deserved it. He died for us because we needed His perfect sacrifice of love. Thus, the bestowal of grace is not correlated to the work done – the sacrifice made, the amount of prayers offered, the expanse of one’s missionary efforts. It flows from the nature of God who is good, loving and gracious. Grace operates on the basis of the free choice of God, who dispenses his gifts with generosity.

Our society has truly been infected by an epidemic of envy and complaints. Rather than blaming God for the injustices in the world, the parable calls for honest self-examination – have we truly allowed our obsession with self-interest to dampen our joy and blind us to the needs of our neighbours? Pope Francis rightly states the problem in the second paragraph of Evangelii Gaudium, “The great danger in today’s world, pervaded as it is by consumerism, is the desolation and anguish born of a complacent yet covetous heart, the feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures, and a blunted conscience. Whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interests and concerns, there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor. God’s voice is no longer heard, the quiet joy of his love is no longer felt, and the desire to do good fades. This is a very real danger for believers too. Many fall prey to it, and end up resentful, angry and listless.” (EG 2)

The generosity of God should always awaken us to greater mercy, compassion and generosity, rather than be a cause for complaint and grumbling. At the end of the day, for Christ’s disciples, all rewards are really “gifts” or expressions of divine favour and not earned “wages” or “mercy”. Don’t ask “what’s in it for me?” but rather, “What’s in it for the other guy?” That is a hard lesson to learn, because oftentimes when we go to God in prayer we think we deserve something from Him. We believe He owes us something. The same goes with service offered to the community of the Church. This parable is a painful but necessary reminder that what we receive from God is an undeserved gift. The Church owes us nothing. God owes us nothing. In fact, we owe the Church and God who works through the Church, everything.

A wise priest once gave me this potent piece of advice, “in God’s business, rule number one is that no one works for himself. Everybody takes care of somebody; in that way, all our backs are covered. If you doubt this kingdom paradigm, you will never be happy… so instead of looking at your neighbour as a nuisance and a burden, pray that he be your opportunity and strength.”

Forgiveness and Generosity

Twenty Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Giving till it hurts

Thirty Second Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Today we are given two examples of remarkable generosity - the sort that really hurts. We have one story in the first reading where God commanded a widow to give her last bit of food to a prophet, and another story in the gospel, where Our Lord after having rebuked the teachers of the law for devouring widows’ houses, points to a widow’s giving at the Temple as exemplary. In both cases, these two women risked starvation and losing their entire livelihood in giving and sharing - one for a stranger whom she treated as an intimate neighbour and another to God.

In a way, both these women epitomise the two-fold commandment of love which we heard last Sunday. In fact, some ancient commentators have seen the two mites offered by the widow in the gospel as a symbol of the two-fold Great Commandment of love.

But both these stories are not just amazing stories meant to inspire us to be more generous and to give more, and I can assure you that I have absolutely no issue with this message. Instead, both stories are pointing to something greater and beyond themselves. They both point to God’s magnanimous giving, ultimately seen in the willing sacrifice of His Son’s life on the cross. The stories of these two widows serve as actual living witnesses to the Lord’s death and resurrection, which is more apparent in the first story, where we see the generous widow’s dead son being miraculously raised to life.

The story of the widow’s mite in the gospel could be considered from three different angles.

First, from the angle of the Temple. The meagre contribution of this woman would have little value since those two small coins would have made little difference to the financial upkeep of the religious establishment. It’s the kind of loose change that one will have little hesitation to drop in the coin box set aside for tips. The unloading of a few extra coins would outweigh the inconvenience of keeping them. The Temple authorities would not have missed their absence.

The second perspective would be to compare the woman’s contribution with the other donors. St Mark tells us that other rich people are also making offerings at this time. As their substantial contributions are dropped into the metallic trumpet-like receptacles, it would have been both a sight to behold, as well as produce a sound that would have warmed the cockles of the hearts of those in charge of the Temples. They would be thanking God for these generous donations! What would the tiny chink of the widow’s two miserable coins matter in comparison with these generous donations.

But the last and most important perspective of considering this story, is from the angle of Christ and God. Those two metal flakes would have little value from the perspective of the Temple authorities or in comparison to the other large donations, but to our Lord, it mattered most. Because the true value of a gift depends on its cost to the giver. Her gift may be small, but to her, it could possibly cost her her life. That is why our Lord was quick to say, “I tell you solemnly, this poor widow has put more in than all who have contributed to the treasury; for they have all put in money they had over, but she from the little she had has put in everything she possessed, all she had to live on.”

We begin to see how the generosity of this widow in the gospel matches the generosity of the widow of Zarapeth. Both had given up what little they “had to live on.” Their giving would have not just have cost them their livelihood but more radically, their lives.

If this story merely focuses on the generosity of our giving, the demands made on this poor woman would certainly be scandalous and unjust. Aren’t we suppose to help the poor instead of demanding such sacrifices from the poor? So, merely focusing on generous giving cannot be the sole purpose of these stories. Our Lord is not justifying nor is He giving approval to an exploitive system which robs the poor, the widows and orphans. This would be the main criticism of many, who view any efforts by the Church to do fund-raising, as a violation of the principles of social justice and reduces the Church to a money-making enterprise. We must remember that when the widow gives, her giving is ultimately to God Himself, who has given everything to her. She never once complained about her gift giving but rather, it is the rich who often use the excuse of the poor to complain about giving. Remember Judas Iscariot, who complained about how Mary of Bethany wasted expensive oil on the Lord.

These women never counted nor begrudged the amount they gave because they were truly grateful for what they had received from God. Their generous giving was merely a reflexion of their gratitude. In this way, the widow in the gospel (just as the widow in the first reading) is a type, who points to the extravagant giving of our Lord, He gave up everything, including His own life, and held nothing back. Was His sacrifice and death unjust? Most certainly by any standards. But when done willingly and lovingly, it restored justice to our world.

The offering to the Temple will soon cease with its destruction. But the Lord will build a new temple in His body, that will minister to the broken, the neglected, the sinners and the poor. He will lay down His life for this widow (and for all of us) in a way that far exceeds her or anyone else’s faithful giving. In doing so, this widow will have a new husband—Christ Himself—and her humble gift of two miserable coins will be reciprocated with the greatest gift of all - the eternal life of her Divine Spouse, who will not allow her to be exploited by those who would wish to swallow her property because He is the One who will never leave her nor forsake her, nor will death ever separate them.