The Extra Jar of Oil

Thirty Second Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

As many of you know, I just returned last month from a nineteen days long pilgrimage to Western Europe. As usual, I was bombarded by the same question countless of times, “How was it?” Without hesitation and unrehearsed, I replied, “It was very good, but challenging.” I then began to explain myself. Lost luggage right at the very start, pilgrims having to cut short the journey due to a family emergency and last, but not the least dramatic of all, lost passports on the eve of our return. It seemed that what could possibly go wrong, went wrong with this trip. And yet, despite all the unplanned emergencies and heart-stopping mishaps, most of us, including the ‘victims,’ emerged strengthened by the whole experience; in fact, doubly certain of God’s Providence and protection. In a way, the surprises were the value-added elements of our pilgrimage – a reminder to be constantly vigilant and be ready for the moment when the Lord decides to change our life’s itinerary. 

But in hindsight, no amount of careful preplanning or caution could have prevented the twist and turns in our itinerary. What then was needed to weather the unannounced storms and detours of life? This is where today’s parable becomes illuminating. Many have focused on the element of wakefulness in today’s parable. But it is important to take note that the passage records that “all became drowsy and fell asleep.” The wise slept as well as the foolish! But there is no hint of rebuke or disapproval from the Lord. It seemed perfectly natural, under the circumstances. This indicates that Christian vigilance does not mean continually peering up into the heavens like an air-raid sentry on duty. Reminders, like the Church’s annual season of Advent, are helpful and needed, but what our Lord is indicating is that watching also allows time for normal activities. Money must be earned, food must be cooked, laundry washed, school lessons learnt, weddings and funerals held, time for rest and leisure - life must go on.

So, the crucial difference between the wise and the foolish has to do not with staying awake but with having sufficient oil. In unraveling the mystery and the symbolism of the oil, we can perhaps begin to understand the depth and meaning of being prepared in the Christian context. Oil, in the Old Testament, is frequently used as a symbol of the Holy Spirit. Kings and priests were anointed with oil as a sign of their consecration (and, supposedly, Spirit-filled). Likewise, in the life of Christians, nothing good happens without the inspiration, the guidance and the strength afforded by the Holy Spirit. We are anointed with the oil of Sacred Chrism at baptism and Confirmation, signifying the gift of the Holy Spirit poured into our lives.

Notice that both the wise and foolish bridesmaids had oil to start with. The difference lay with the extra jar of oil. The vital point in the foolish bridesmaid’s ‘foolishness’ was not that they ‘slumbered and slept’ but that they had no oil in their vessels. They had oil in their ‘lamps’ to start with, a testimony of the sanctifying grace a person receives at baptism. But they failed to bring along an extra supply of oil – indicating the many souls who fail to grow in sanctity, making use of the channels of grace like Holy Communion and frequent confessions, failing to apply themselves to grow spiritually through study, devotion and prayer.

The great danger is that so many have become contented with the mere fact that we are baptised and have done little more to grow in our personal faith life. This is the problem with the foolish bridesmaids. They had forgotten an important lesson in life, it’s not just how you begin the story but how you choose to end it. Our salvation depends on so much more than just being baptised. Our faith must go beyond the rudimentary catechism that was given to us when we were young. It demands that we live out the call to holiness that comes with being a Child of God.  That’s what’s so wrong about the fundamentalist evangelical idea of “once saved, always saved,” that you only have to believe and accept Christ as your Saviour once in your life to be automatically “saved” regardless of what you do the rest of your life. That is certainly not true. St Paul tells us that “he who endures to the end will be saved.” And if our light is to endure to the end, we need an extra reservoir of oil which continually feeds the flame of life, never letting it falter or gutter out in darkness, undergirding them in every hour of stress, of pressure or disaster, keeping them firm and steady in the midst of the buffeting pressures of life.

Holiness is that extra reservoir of oil. We begin on our path to holiness at Baptism. Through it, we become holy, sharers in the divine life. But that is only the start. In the Eucharist, our holiness is deepened, as we become one with the source of holiness, our Lord Jesus Christ. Confirmation strengthens us, and Reconciliation offers us forgiveness if we have strayed from the path of holiness. The Sacrament of the Sick consoles us in our weakness. Holy Orders and Matrimony give us the grace to sustain ourselves as we serve others in the states of ordained ministry and marriage. All the sacraments assist us on our way as we strive to live a holy life. We must never feel complacent that we have sufficient ‘oil’ of holiness. We must be constantly working at ensuring that we have an extra supply.

That is why the wise bridesmaids could not share their extra oil with the foolish ones. This is because the oil which the wise bridesmaids possess is not something external- like food or clothes or money. The oil which is used in this parable is a symbol of inner spirituality, virtue, and the faith life of a person that has been nurtured carefully with prayer, the sacraments, spiritual practices, devotions and a commitment to living the Word of God. It is product of personal sacrifice, devotion and discipline. Holiness is simply not transferable.

We may be secretly sympathetic of the plight of the five foolish bridesmaids. We too wish to step forward and hand them our oil and perhaps find ways to lighten their burdens. But the truth is, this is not possible. One of the important lessons that my last pilgrimage taught me and which coincides with the message of today’s parable is this: Holiness or even readiness cannot be shared or transferred to another. It is most personal for it is our lives that we are preparing. Some other pilgrims later shared with me how they would have been willing to exchange places with the couple who had lost their passports. God could not have chosen a more vulnerable pair. The thought that others were willing to take their place was inspiring. Unfortunately, this was not possible. No one could take their place when it came to lost passports. Likewise, no one would be able to make up for the insufficient oil that each of us needs to keep our lamps lit and burning.

As we continue to wait for the Divine Bridegroom, with many, if not all of us, feeling drowsy or perhaps even falling asleep, let us pay heed to the words of the gospel and the advice of that Great Doctor of the Church, St Augustine: “Watch with the heart, watch with faith, watch with love, watch with charity, watch with good works …; make ready the lamps, make sure they do not go out …, renew them with the inner oil of an upright conscience; then shall the Bridegroom enfold you in the embrace of His love and bring you into His banquet room, where your lamp can never be extinguished.”

Are you a Pharisee?

Thirty First Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

It’s always hard for us priests to preach today’s gospel. Firstly, it sounds too much like us. Aren’t we the modern day usual suspects of the accusations laid against the Pharisees? Aren’t we guilty of holding court at every mass whilst sitting on the presidential chair? Aren’t we constantly pushing church rules down people’s throat while not lifting a finger to alleviate the laity’s burdens? Aren’t we reveling in being called “Father” and given seats of honour at dinner tables? Aren’t we all dressed up and dolled up in our colourful flashy vestments, with someone once telling me that the colours remind him of the Power Rangers? Secondly, even if I were to tell you that the Lord was not speaking about priests specifically but about the possibility of anyone who demonstrated those same vices as the Pharisees did, many of you sitting in the congregation would not be so easily convinced  and thus conclude that I am just being defensive, and that’s sufficient proof of my guilt. Case closed. That’s a Catch 22 for you.

Talk about name calling, Jesus holds nothing back! Who were the Pharisees? They were a sect of Jews who were very strict in their observance of the rituals, rules and regulations of their religion. The problem with the Pharisees was not their strict observance of religion nor even what they taught. It is their use of religion, the very thing that is meant to take us out of ourselves, as a means of aggrandising the ego. Therefore, the Law, custom, practice, religious dress, titles, all become ways of trumpeting the self. Rather than leading the people to God, these were used to draw greater attention to themselves. On the outside, the Pharisees seemed to fulfil the Law, but on the inside they were far from the love of God and the fulfilment of the Law. The Lord saw through the layer upon layer of self-deception, self-serving agenda, trickery and self-righteous posturing. Looks good on the outside but what about the inside?

And so the Lord began to unmask the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. The word hypocrisy comes from the Greek word HUPOKRITES which means an actor on a stage. It means saying one thing but really living another. It is looking like an angel in church on Sunday but living like the devil the rest of the week. If a person does not pretend to be perfect, then he is not a hypocrite. It is when we put on a righteous act for others to see in public but then do the opposite in secret. This leads us to the point of this passage. Rather than trying to unmask the hypocritical Pharisees in today’s modern context, it would be much more logical and honest to admit that anyone of us could easily fall into the same trap.

Thus, the stern warning of Christ is for us today. The Church needs witnesses more than it needs teachers, but certainly not actors. It’s easy to remind others how things should be done; it is much harder to give witness of an authentic Christian life. One thing is content, and the other is a personal example. In his epistle to the Romans, St. Ignatius of Antioch stated the importance of truly being Christian, not just being called one: “Only request in my behalf both inward and outward strength, that I may not only speak but truly will; and that I may not merely be called a Christian, but actually found to be one. For if I am truly found a Christian, I may also be called one, and be deemed faithful.”

This is what happens at the Rite of Ordination of a priest; he is called, he is challenged to live authentically with these words in the ritual: “Agnoscite quod agitis; imitamini quod tractatis,” which in the present English translation reads as “Know what you are doing, imitate the mystery you celebrate.” That’s ultimately the challenge: It is not enough to simply know and preach the truth, you must live it as well. We must practice what we preach

This lack of authenticity and integrity is what marks out our modern day Pharisee. It’s not their obsession with rules, but rather, their penchant to be selective in the application of the rules that betrays their self-serving true form. I’ve often given this definition to a modern day Pharisee. “A Pharisee sees a rule when there is none and breaks the rule where there is one.” In our libertine society, many use the excuse that they do not follow rules because they do not wish to be like the rigid Pharisees. As appealing as this argument may sound, it is actually flawed as well as dishonest. We do not and cannot live in a vacuum of lawlessness. When we choose not to obey a rule, we start making our own rules and eventually end up becoming the rule. We are always under some rule or law. If it is not God’s or the Church’s, then most likely it’s ours! But this is only the beginning of the problem. People who flaunt rules often begin imposing their personal standards of discipline and practice onto others.  Proper rules and laws actually place limits on this form of arbitrariness and self-legislating. Rules and laws actually protect us from the whims and fancies of authoritarian modern ‘Pharisees.’

The problem is not rules or traditions themselves. After all, the Lord Himself said, “I have come not to abolish [the law and the prophets] but to fulfil them” (Matthew 5:17). In addition, He told His followers, “Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:19). Although it is common in today’s antinomian world to condemn anyone who supports a tradition or rule as “Pharisaical,” this clearly was not the point of Christ’s warning. Instead, He condemned only those who support traditions that lead people away from a relationship with God. In fact, the new Pharisees of today downplay Catholic doctrine, minimise the importance of the Sacraments, ridicule traditional Catholic devotions, scoff at Catholic moral teachings, and blatantly break laws that are meant to keep their ego in check.

When we actually turn to the authentic Tradition of the Church and rely on the wisdom of her teachings and discipline, it is not because we are attempting to be holier-than-thou. In fact, quite the opposite. Being obedient to liturgical rubrics, Church teachings and discipline, are acts of humility. It is acknowledgement that the collective wisdom of the Church is so much wiser than our puny wisdom. It is only arrogance that seeks to discard these things and presume that we are entitled and even mandated by Christ to alter and change things to fit with our notion of what is correct or in line with the spirit of this age.

It’s good to note that if the words of the Lord were spoken today, any one of us could easily be lumped into the same category. Whenever we choose not to practice what we preach, “we are the Pharisees;” whenever we insist that others should follow the rules that we set and yet seem to be exempt from those same rules, “we are the Pharisees;” whenever we choose to point the finger at others and call them Pharisees, “we are the Pharisees;” whenever we feel smug over our own spiritual superiority and look at others with contempt, “we are the Pharisees;”  whenever we aspire to positions of honour or seek to be praised by others, “we are the Pharisees.” Ultimately, we must deal with our own inner Pharisee. When we do, the whole world begins to look different. Realising that, we may not stand on the outside like spectators, looking in at the gospel. Rather, we must find ourselves within it and let the living Word speak to us, judge us, purify us, strengthen and impel us as it did centuries ago, as it does today and as it will for all eternity.

We are the Church, if we include Them

Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls) 2017

Many people suffer from an over exaggerated sense of self-importance, whether as individuals or collectively as a group. A dead give-away is when they begin almost every sentence with the royal ‘we’. Some feel that whenever they speak, they do so as a representative of the rest of the world or at least of its majority. They imagine themselves as the focal point of reference, the centre of the universe, the Solar system’s centrifugal axis where all other planets must find their orbit. Psychiatrists have a term for this – it’s called ‘Narcissistic Personality Disorder.’ The Church too has sometimes been subjected to this egocentric and megalomaniac worldview. Thus the declaration, “We are Church!”

When speaking of the Church, it has become quite fashionable to say – “We are Church.” The reason for its popularity and attraction is because it implies a kind of democratisation of the Church; an identification of the Church with its grassroots rather than with the hierarchical elite. For those who may not be aware, ‘We Are Church’ is also the name of an organisation of dissenters, a church “reform” group that was started in the German-speaking world some years ago and has now spread to other countries. You would find the usual trendy, politically correct dissenter on their menu: women priests (for), clerical celibacy (against), homosexual sex (for), contraceptives (against), abortion (for) etc.

What most Catholics are not aware of is that the above label or way of describing the Church is not just highly inadequate, but also distorts the vastly complicated ecclesiology of the Church. The Church is not just the sum total of its living members but also encompasses the members who are separated by the boundaries of death. Death does not sever their membership in the Church of Christ. GK Chesterton, one of the most famous converts to Christianity at the turn of the 20th century argued that if one wishes to apply the principles of democracy to the Church, especially in the area of its teachings or Sacred Tradition, then one must speak of "a democracy of the dead", a democracy that extends through time, encompassing all Christians who have come before the present generation and all Christians who will follow hereafter. So, to those who flaunt the problematic ‘We are Church’ slogan whenever they wish to dictate or pontificate to others, this is going to be news for you – ‘You are in the minority!’

But there is a proper context when we wish to use the pronoun, “we.”  When we say: “We are Church” – well, it is true: that is what we are, we are not just anybody. But the “we” is more extensive than the group that asserts those words. The “we” is the whole community of believers, today and in all times and places. Who is this ‘greater we’? The answer lies in the liturgical celebrations of these two days. Today’s Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed and yesterday’s Solemnity of All Saints, remind us that whenever we use the pronoun “we”, we must necessarily refer to those not living in present company. When discussing this greater conception of the Church under the doctrine of the Communion of Saints, the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, has been traditionally described in a threefold manner as the Church Militant, the Church Suffering and the Church Triumphant.

The saints and angels in heaven compose the Church triumphant, because they have gained the crown of victory. The souls in purgatory compose the Church suffering, because they still have to expiate for their sins before they can enter heaven. The faithful on earth, that’s us, compose the Church militant, because we have to struggle ceaselessly against the enemies of their souls, the world, the flesh and the devil. But there is only one Church, one Mystical Body of Christ, because its members are united by supernatural bonds, incapable of being severed even in death with one another and with Christ, their Head, thus resembling the parts and head of the living human body.

Today, on All Souls Day, the Church reminds us of our duty to pray for the dead. St. Augustine says: “Prayer is the key by which we open the gates of heaven to the suffering souls.” The Church teaches us that just as we love and respect our living brethren, so do we love and respect those of them who have departed this life. We express our love for our departed relatives and friends through prayer. Death and burial cannot sever the Christian love which united the living with those once living and now deceased. We pray for the faithful dead not because we believe that God's mercy can only be triggered by our intercession, but because it is our life task to hold in our minds and hearts those who are given to us through kindred and affinity, and as friends, colleagues and neighbours.  This task transcends the boundaries of life and death.

Today’s commemoration teaches us an important truth about the Church - there is interdependence among the members of the Church – no one lives for himself alone, but for the entire body. Every good a member does perfects the whole Body, of which he is a part. We need to be always in the sync with the rest of the Body, especially with its Head, and not constantly plot to overthrow it with our own plans of Church-domination. This supernatural fellowship where all three Churches commune together, praying for one another is known as the doctrine of the Communion of Saints. The Church Triumphant prays for the Church Militant, who in turn prays for the Church Suffering.  We, the faithful who comprise the Church Militant, pray to the Church Triumphant, for their intercession and they, in turn, plead with the Lord on our behalf.  The Church Suffering cannot pray for themselves; therefore, they cannot hope for the intercession of the Saints in Heaven without the Church Militant, praying on their behalf. This interplay has been described by some authors as a great philharmonic orchestra with God as its supreme maestro. It is really awesome when you think of the integral part each of us plays in God’s Symphony of Salvation.

Thus, the doctrine of the Communion of Saints, though one of the least understood or known, is one of the most consoling dogmas of the Church. The doctrine injects the necessary antidote for humility to our hubris-filled notion of Church. ‘We’ are not Church, only a part of the Mystical Body of Christ, a small minority in fact. Thus, we must defer to the wisdom of the majority, those who have reached the perfection of heaven, the Church Triumphant.