Guess how much?

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

One of my favourite comedians is Hong Kong born and now USA based Jimmy O. Yang. One of his most poignant jokes which had me rolling in laughter while nodding my head in agreement is his observation that while most people in the West brag about how much money they spend, Asians love to brag about how little they pay. This best describes my usual exchanges with Fr Bona on my latest acquisition on the Shopee app. After showing him the item I will gleefully ask, “Guess how much?” The cheaper the item, the bigger the boast. Fr Bona will then roll his eyes in disgust because of his disdain for my predilection for cheap bargains.

If what Jimmy Yang says is true about Asians, most would be rolling their eyes in disbelief after hearing the two parables of our Lord. Instead of paying below market prices, the protagonists of the two tales make the seemingly imprudent decision of paying not just “full price,” but over and above their actual value. The protagonists in both stories are willing to part with their entire wealth, possession and everything they own just to buy an item without consulting an expert assessor to determine if this is a good “buy.”

Some measure of risk is to be expected in any endeavour, but this seemingly impulsive decision and action seems altogether preposterous in the eyes of any right-minded person, more so if you happen to be Asian. But both these imaginary characters are convinced that the value of the item which they desire and seek to possess far exceeds anything else which they treasure and possess. Their decision is not governed by the common sense question, “how much am I willing to give up?” The only question which matters is “how much more do I gain?” The point which our Lord is trying to make is that the kingdom of God is so valuable that losing everything on earth, but getting the kingdom, is a happy trade-off.

The apostle Paul expresses this very idea in Philippians 3:7-8, ‘Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.”

The point here is not that you have to buy the kingdom or barter for the kingdom or negotiate for the kingdom or work hard to earn entry into the kingdom. The kingdom of heaven which is Matthew’s Jewish euphemism to express the same idea found in the other synoptic gospels - the Kingdom of God - is received without pay. The Kingdom of God is not a geographical location or domain. It primarily speaks of God’s reign or rule, not just in the universe but more importantly in your hearts, the place where man expresses his freedom. For God to reign in our hearts, it is something which we must assent to. He cannot and will not compel us and that is why it is hidden until discovered through our repentance and conversion.

And so, it is priceless in that the kingdom is not for sale. No amount of wealth or sacrifice would be enough to buy it. So the point here is that the people who wish to receive the kingdom, should treasure it more than everything else. Yes, you don’t buy it. You can’t buy salvation. You get it freely because you want it more than you want anything else. In other words, there is a condition for having the kingdom—for having God as king and sovereign ruler of your entire life —but the condition is not wealth or power or intelligence or eminence or the amount of good works and devotion you rock up. The condition is that you prize the kingdom more than you prize anything else. For God to rule in your life, you must desire it above all else! You must hand over the keys to your heart. The point of selling everything in this parable is simply to show where your heart is. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).

This is the reason why every Christian, just like Solomon in the first reading, must desire and seek out the wisdom necessary to discern between what is good and evil, what is of value and what is valueless, what is authentic and what is false. Discernment is the ability to see beneath the surface. It helps you spot the difference between a pretty lie and a hard truth. Without discernment, we would always find it impossible to discover the hidden treasure and pearl of great value which is the Kingdom of God. Instead we will be desiring for all the things that distract and lead us away from that goal.

But discernment is just the first step. This must ultimately lead to action. Knowing what is right is not enough. You must also obey and do what is right. What good is it to know the truth if we fail to act accordingly? This was the problem of Solomon. He was praised and admired for his God-given wisdom, even by unbelievers. But not putting that wisdom into practice led to his eventual downfall and his wayward life. Solomon is biblical proof that even true discernment can give way to a destructive self-delusion. Disobedience inevitably undermines discernment. The only way to guard against that is to be doers of the Word and not hearers only. Notice that the two protagonists in our Lord’s parable did not just give a correct appraisal of the value of the objects they discovered. They immediately took action by selling everything they owned to buy those prized objects. There is no use in admiring something from a distance but then hesitate to take action because the decision appears too costly.

Both discernment and acting upon it are essential. But we must do so cheerfully and not regard it as overly burdensome. Notice that the man in the first parable was not driven by cold duty. We are told by the Lord that he “goes off happy!” He happily disposes all his wealth to buy the field where the treasure is buried. He did not complain about having to give up everything to acquire that field. All that he did, he did so willingly and joyfully. That is how we welcome God’s Kingdom, His rule into our lives. The only way we can surrender to Him is to do it joyfully and willingly after having recognise that He is the greatest and most prized treasure in our lives. We do it because we want to and not because we were forced to. That’s the big difference. The loss of earthly things for the sake of the kingdom is not sad. It is not sad when we have Jesus. It is a blessed privilege. Why were the martyrs in the past willing to give up everything including life itself? Here is the answer: For the joy of it.

We live in a world that has been inundated and saturated with information, technology, science and the wonders of AI. But there is something which the world’s most advanced AI cannot do. It cannot help us discern what is of value and what is not. Only our Father in heaven can reveal such mysteries to us who are mere children. Discernment, therefore, requires docility instead of stubbornness, obedience instead of reckless disobedience, self-conquest instead of prideful self-determination. In a world of competing allures and possibilities, may we discern wisely and recognise the immense worth of the Kingdom of Heaven and joyfully take decisive action, gladly letting go of lesser things to secure it. Once our hearts are captured, we will not begrudgingly give up everything but instead do it happily because we know that it is a happy trade. Let us share the gospel of Christ while asking: “Guess how much?” And then enthusiastically tell our hearer, “It’s priceless but free!”

Think and Feel with the Church

Fourth Sunday of Easter Year C
Good Shepherd Sunday
Pilgrimage 13 - (Anticipated Mass in Lisbon)

As we come to the end of our pilgrimage, I would like to thank all of you for being good sheep that have listened attentively and obediently to the voice of your shepherd. Some would call it blind docility. Others would call it basic survival skills. Whatever may have been the reason for your exquisite cooperation, it has been a blessing and a privilege to have guided you through this entire journey of faith and discovery. We are thankful that we have lost no one on this trip.

What has been the secret of us staying safe, staying focused, staying on the right path? Our Lord provides us with the answer: “The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice.” Listening is at the heart of the Christian life. But if we wish to listen, we should start with obeying. Obedience comes from the Latin “to listen” (obedire). Obedience, according to St Augustine, is “the mother and guardian of all other virtues.” It ensures a life of goodness because it entails hearing and following God, the source of all goodness. This obedience is not for some in the Church but for all, from the child kneeling in the pew to the Pope presiding in Rome.

God alone is this obedience owed and given, but it is given to God through the Church because God gives Himself to us through the Church. Here is where many begin to engage in hypocritical casuistry. Some would claim that they are obedient to God but not to men, like the Pope or bishops, or man-made institutions like the Church. But God places us in a Church as a part of the body where Christ is the head, and we are the parts. This is why our Lord chose not to appear to Thomas in the gospel of Divine Mercy Sunday until he was prepared to return to the community of believers, the Church. As much as the Church is maligned and judged for the failures of her shepherds and members, there is no denying that our Lord instituted the Church to be the redemptive tool of the world, to continue to shepherd His flock, with Him as the Head and the body, with all its different parts working together to bring redemption to the world.

One phrase that captures this principle of listening to the voice of the Shepherd through His Church is, “to think with the Church;” or, in St Ignatius of Loyola’s formulation, sentire cum ecclesia. “Sentire”, of course, is not simply “to think,” which in English is often meant in a cold, rational way. Other words that are used to translate sentire are sense, feel, and perceive. “Feel” is a great translation that can also carry connotations of “think” except that “feel” can also imply the lack of rational thought.

What does it really mean to “think with the Church”? For one thing, thinking with the Church means giving a unique respect to our bishops and to the Pope. A filial love for our shepherds is a necessary expression of wanting to listen intimately to the voice of the Good Shepherd. We must, however, acknowledge that sometimes shepherds speak with their own voices rather than with that of Christ and the Holy Spirit. And this is the reason why confusion, heresy and even schism can break the unity of the Church and disrupt her mission.

We must, therefore, make a distinction between what is and is not meant to think and feel with the Church. First, it might be helpful to describe what the Church is not. The lay faithful are not pawns who are to take marching orders from their priests and bishops, nor bishops from the Pope. The Church is not a secret organisation where information (or revelation) is possessed in full only at the top and then is distributed selectively and imperfectly throughout. To think with the Church does not mean “to let the Church think for you.” Discernment is required.

But discernment without a guide or standard may lead us to error, that is to substitute Christ’s teachings with our own personal opinions. This, then, is precisely why the Magisterium, the teaching authority of the Church as a guardian and servant of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, is so necessary if one desires to think with the Church. Magisterial interventions serve to guarantee the Church’s unity in the truth of the Lord. They aid her to ‘abide in the truth’ in the face of the arbitrary character of changeable opinions and are an expression of obedience to the Word of God. The Magisterium exists precisely for the purpose of ensuring that the Church can authoritatively distinguish what derives from faith and what is merely an opinion. Even Popes and bishops must submit to the Magisterium as faithful servants as much as they are the very teachers whose teaching authority flows therefrom.

Episcopal and papal authority depends on obedience to what has been revealed and handed down by means of the Holy Spirit. To be a teacher of the faith is first and foremost to be a learner of it. Though bishops and the Pope have specific teaching roles, the whole Church is a listening Church, a learning Church and so the whole Church is the teaching Church. Our mission is to conform to what has been taught so that we in turn may be true teachers of the word. A person ceases to be a teacher of the faith when he ceases to let himself be instructed by universal tradition. Our teaching must be shaped by our obedience to universal tradition and never by our own ideas, by our own standing, or by our own times. This is what it means to listen to the Good Shepherd instead of talking or shouting over Him.

During his papacy, Pope Francis proposed that we follow the synodal path of becoming a listening church. That is indeed a noble idea. But to be truly listening, we must first be ready to listen to our Lord who has spoken through scripture and Tradition through the ages. If not, we will end up listening to the spirit of the world, instead of the Spirit of Christ and be misled ourselves and in turn lead others astray. We can have a listening Church only if we have an obeying Church. Obey; listen; proclaim. God has spoken; our task is to hear that Word and speak from it. We are not to speak from our times but to our times from God’s Word. Only then, can we be assured of being partakers of eternal life and not be lost.

As we depart from Lisbon for home, continue to listen carefully to the voice of the Shepherd in whatever situation you may find yourself. You came here as pilgrims. You will leave here as missionaries bringing the good news of Jesus Christ with you to the ends of the earth. But first, let us start with our neighbourhood and parish!

Console my people

Second Sunday of Advent Year B

When you are grieving, feeling lost and confused, you would most likely look to others for comfort and consolation - a word of affirmation, a reassurance of friendship and support, a warm hug or gentle touch to remind us that we are not alone. St Ignatius of Loyola also used the movements of consolation and desolation as the foundational tools for his primary spiritual exercise, which is the discernment of spirits. But Ignatius defines these terms in a very specific way, that is different to their common usage.

You may find it surprising that both consolation and its antonym, desolation, share a common root in Latin - “Sol” which means the Sun. So, consolation is literally with or towards the Sunlight, whereas desolation means away from the Sun - darkness. The latter makes more sense as we often equate our experience of desolation with darkness, the feeling where all light in our lives have been put out. So, consolation is facing or turning to the light and desolation is facing or turning away from the light. This makes so much sense with Ignatius’ definitions of these words.

Looking towards God’s light, the effect on the person’s spirit is ‘warming’, uplifting, positive. Looking away from the light, one is in one’s own shadow, the pitch-black darkness staring back at us when we attempt to look into the depths of our souls. To Ignatius, the task in desolation is not to try and find the way and chart a new course of direction, but to turn towards the light.

This is how we should consider the prophetic words of Isaiah, our Advent prophet, in the first reading. The reading begins with God’s instruction to Isaiah: “console my people, console them.” God is not just asking Isaiah to give His people some cheap form of consolation - a spiritual bear hug, nor is He asking Isaiah to provide them with some empty assurance -“don’t worry. Things will get better.” Many of us have been guilty of doing this when we are faced with people in pain who are hurting.

God, instead, is asking Isaiah to remind the people that their sentence for their sins, which is the 70 years of humiliating exile in Babylon, has come to an end. Their “prison term” is over and they will be released soon because their sins have been atoned and forgiven. This prolonged period of desolation, a period where they have been deprived of the light of God which shone on their land and the Temple, would soon be replaced by a period of consolation. The light is returning, the dark night would soon be over, they will be able to bask in the sunlight of God’s graces and mercy. The Lord is returning as a victorious King and a loving Shepherd who will hold His people tightly to His breast in a loving embrace.

The prophecy of Isaiah would only be partially fulfilled during the time of the return of the people from exile. Instead of a lush and rich land, they would encounter a barren wilderness where all traces of their glorious past civilisation had been erased by their enemies. Instead of the imposing Temple of Jerusalem, God’s seat and foothold on earth, they would only see ruins and rubble, mirroring their own lives which had to be rebuilt from scratch. Many would have wondered how the words of Isaiah’s prophecy, the promises of God, could have applied to them. Would they need to wait longer? How long?

This too is the experience of many of us. When faced with one setback or another, we often pray for and look for a break. Many lose faith when God seems slow in acting and answering their prayer. This is why the words of St Peter in the second reading, provide us with a clue as to the reason why God sometimes appears to delay in acting: “The Lord is not being slow to carry out his promises, as anybody else might be called slow; but he is being patient with you all, wanting nobody to be lost and everybody to be brought to change his ways.” What seems to be a delay is not caused by God being slow! It is because He is patient with us, waiting for us to repent and change our ways.

Israel had to wait in twilight and darkness for many centuries. And finally, the gospel announces the first hint of dawn, and it comes in the mysterious figure of this wild like character crying out in the wilderness. Just as heralds in ancient times would go before their liege to announce the imminent arrival of the king, St John the Baptist prepares the way of the Lord by announcing a message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. This is it! The true secret of attaining consolation is found in repentance. Repentance is the door that leads from darkness to light, from despondency to hope, from tragedy to opportunity, from the pit of despair to the heights of joy.

Despite knowing this to be true, many of us continue to wait and this is where Advent is a season for us who experience the darkness of desolation. What must we do? What can we do as we await for the sun to break through the clouds? Once again, we turn to St Paul for guidance. He writes: “So then, my friends, while you are waiting, do your best to live lives without spot or stain so that he will find you at peace.”

Even as God wishes to console us with the message of hope and peace, He continues to permit moments of darkness in our lives. Why would He do this? The truth is that God works deep in our lives to transform our deepest sorrow into an abiding joy. Suffering, sorrow, pain and grieving may seem like an eternity. Those who have lost their loved ones will cringe whenever they are told by well-intentioned friends and family, to “get over it” or “find closure” or just “move on.” But it only takes a moment alone, or a memory, or a memorabilia to trigger a torrent of heart-breaking tears. As much as it is difficult to believe, we are assured that this will only “last a moment.” The flip side is grace, God’s favour. This, however, will not just last a lifetime but for eternity. What are months and years of mourning and grieving in comparison to an incalculable eternity of joy. Juxtaposed, we realise that our moments of anguish and darkness are fleeting in the light of God’s eternal favour and grace.

Sometimes we need to view our lives through a mirror. In our sorrow, we learn to appreciate joy. In our loss, we discover how much we have gained. Death reflects the sacredness and fragility of life. In the night of tears, we come to long for the dawn of joy. C. S. Lewis was right. Joy often comes as a surprise. It invades the most sorrowful spaces. It reminds us that beauty and goodness and life can grow, even in the most unpromising soil. Joy does not mean the absence of pain or sorrow. Rather, joy is often begotten in the purifying fire of the crucible of love, especially the love of God which is boundless and eternal. That my friends, is our true consolation.