Illuminating the Dark

Fourth Sunday of Lent

(Year A Gospel; With Scrutinies)

Since it is at this mass where we will be celebrating the second set of Scrutinies to prepare the Elect for the reception of the Easter Mysteries, we have used the prescribed gospel taken from the Year A set of readings, the story of the “Man Born Blind”. Perhaps, this is an excellent example of how the Church reads the bible, through the liturgical lenses and the rich symbolism of allegory. The liturgy provides us with an illuminative interpretation that would be absent to the ordinary eye of a modern exegete, who relies solely upon the material contained within the text or archaeological findings. The symbols portray a rich multi-layered spectrum of meaning that often direct explanations and words cannot adequately convey. Just like last week’s gospel reading where you heard the story of the Samaritan Woman at the well, this week’s gospel reading is rich in symbolic imagery that points to the liturgy of baptism which the Elect will receive on the night of the Easter Vigil: Light and darkness, sight and blindness, enlightenment, Baptism.

According to this allegorical interpretation, the blind man represents the human race wounded by original sin. The initial query on the cause of his blindness now makes sense. None of us can be personally faulted for the condition that has infected the whole human race. But even the fault of Adam and Eve can be an occasion of grace: the ‘happy fault’ (felix culpa) which the priest announces in the Exsultet, the Easter Proclamation. “God allowed evil to happen in order to bring greater good therefrom” (St Thomas Aquinas). By virtue of the fault of Adam, by virtue of the blindness which we suffer from original sin, God sent his only begotten Son to be our redeemer. Because of Adam’s sin we are born “blind” but in the baptismal font we are illumined by the grace of Christ.

In the story, Jesus performs a ritual much like the way we baptise: He first anoints the man’s eyes and then tells him to wash in the Pool of Siloam. Anointing, washing, enlightenment–all these are “code words” for Baptism.  John even tells us that “Siloam” means “sent.”  But baptism not only effects cleansing, incorporation, enlightenment, and regeneration of an individual; it also has cosmic significance and benefit that transcends person, place and time. Thus the use of clay recalls the moment when all creation began and foreshadows the unending moment when all creation will be transformed for, at least temporarily, the newly baptised are returned to Eden, the gates are opened, and paradise restored. Baptism joins them to Christ, the New Adam. This union promises them that they will one day share his bodily resurrection, just as he shared their physical death.

Let us consider the other characters in the story. First we have the neighbours who show surprise, scepticism and denial. They refuse even to acknowledge that a miracle has taken place. Many good people today continue to remain non-committal and refuse to believe in the existence of God and anything supernatural, by choosing to ignore the signs and ‘proofs.’ Believing would seem to demand a great paradigm shift for them and many are content to hold on fervently to the position of ignorance. Second, we have the Pharisees who at least come to accept that something phenomenal had taken place but were distracted by a hermeneutics of suspicion. They like many in our society today view the world through distorted lenses that chooses to interpret everything against its grain, to see the contemptible in the honoured, to find the bad in the good, to search out flaws in the perfect. When people are busy looking for mistakes and faults, they are blinded to the wealth of goodness that comes with God’s works. Lastly, we have the parents of the man born blind. They do believe but under the threat of excommunication, give in by compromising the truth. They allowed fear to blind them and even silence their voices to announce the wonders that God had performed in their son’s life. Although the physical sight of these three categories of persons had never been in question, their spiritual blindness is apparent. Note that when the Truth is denied, sight is denied too. They could not see nor recognise the Light which is Christ.

In the early Christian communities candidates for Baptism presented their names to the local Christian community and for forty days trained for Baptism. During that time they were joined by the local community, united in prayer and fasting. From at least the third century, candidates were introduced to three great Johannine texts: The Samaritan Woman, John. 4; The Man Born Blind, John. 9; The Raising of Lazarus, John 11. These texts hold a key to discipleship. Each is a story of faith and healing, each is an answer to the question: How do you meet Jesus? How do you respond to him? Thus the question which Jesus asks the blind man in today’s gospel is the high point of the story: “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” (Jn 9:35). The man recognises the sign worked by Jesus and he passes from the light of his eyes to the light of faith: “Lord, I believe!” (Jn 9:38). Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote that “being a Christian is the encounter with an event, a person, who gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.” Thus, the deeper significance begins and ends with Jesus himself. Jesus never performed miracles just to perform miracles as if to show off his divine power. Rather, he always performed them in the midst of some great human need with the intent of leading the one who was the recipient of the miracle as well as those who were privileged to witness it to a deep and abiding faith in him.

The Gospel confronts each one of us with the question: "Do you believe in the Son of man?" "Lord, I believe!" (Jn 9:35. 38), exclaims the man born blind, giving voice to all believers. Thus, we are invited to see with new sight and insight, allowing faith to illumine the eyes of our hearts to gaze upon him who is our redemption, our salvation, our hope and our reconciliation. As St Augustine of Hippo beautifully wrote, “that which for the eyes of the body is the sun that we see, he (Christ) is for the eyes of the heart.”  

Being witnesses of the light can be hard work. Just as the gospel story unfolds, the ‘enlightened’ followers of Christ must be prepared to face incredulity, persecution, and hardship for the sake of that faith. It is one thing to have Jesus light up our lives but it is quite another thing to live that life in the same light day to day, especially in the midst of a world consumed by the darkness of sin and unbelief.  May we ever cling to the Light that banishes the darkness which is all around us. When the world, which constantly seeks to undermine, manipulate and distort the Truth, twists the meaning of the words of the man whose sight was restored and asks us, “Do you want to become his disciple, too?”… let us shout, unafraid and in loving faithfulness, “We do and we are!” At last, when in doubt as to whether we can remain faithful to task before, we find great comfort in the following words of hope delivered by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI at his last birthday celebration, words that proved prophetic:  “I find myself on the last stretch of my journey in life, and I don’t know what is awaiting me. I know, however, that the light of God exists, that he is risen, that his light is stronger than any darkness and that God’s goodness is stronger than any evil in this world, and this helps me go forward with certainty.”

Grace is not an entitlement

Fourth Sunday of Lent Year C

Last month, I was down in a neighbouring diocese giving the monthly recollection to the clergy on the topic of interreligious dialogue. As it usually happens in all lively discussions, we got waylaid and took an unexpected detour into the region of liturgy. When it comes to interreligious dialogue, most clergy have practically no issues. For the most part, this area lies outside our competence as well as field of vision. But liturgy’s another matter all together – a potential minefield. Someone once said that if you were to put three liturgists in a room, they would most likely come up with five different liturgical interpretations. The debate in this case centred on the issue of whether the bereaving family members of the deceased could offer a eulogy at the end of the mass. Although there is no clear restriction, I proposed that it was not liturgically correct as the whole focus should be on the Eucharist, which is a re-enactment of God’s work of salvation. No amount of adulations and good words (‘eulogy’) could immortalise the deceased. It is God who saves. Thus the giving of a eulogy, praising the deeds of men, would therefore trivialise the significance of the Eucharist, which praises the works of God. In a way, eulogies are just another kind of narcissistic expression which seeks to take the limelight away from God. One priest strongly objected with the following exclamation, “But people have rights!” I couldn’t help but mischievously quip in reply, “How about God’s rights?” Another priest added, “People also have a right not to listen (to the eulogy).”

We are a society which has grown acutely sensitive of our rights and sense of entitlement. Older people feel entitled to certain benefits from the government. Middle-aged people feel entitled to generous health and retirement benefits from their employers. Younger adults feel entitled to immediately enjoy the same standard of living their parents took years to achieve. And young people feel entitled to whatever material luxuries they desire. It surely seems appropriate in our culture where we believe we are now entitled to a whole host of things in life. Some believe that they are entitled to kick-backs and bribes, thus the rampant corruption that plagues our system. Others believe that they are entitled to a responsibility-free existence, thus when something goes wrong, someone else is to blame. And still others think they are entitled to a sacrificially-free existence, so they object over having to give up for the sake of another. Church going people are no different. Many Catholics believe that they are entitled to a whole range of benefits just by being members of the parish.  Any perceived curtailment of any of these rights or the denial of entitlements and you may have a riot on your hands.

Both sons in today’s famous parable had the impression that their father’s inheritance was a sort of entitlement. The younger son's sense of entitlement is obvious: he demands his inheritance so he can live as he pleases. He is claiming his birth ‘right’ – his argument is based purely on the strength of lineage. But the older brother displays a similar sense of entitlement in his condemnation and rejection of his brother. He believes that his hard work and good behaviour had earned him the right to the economic benefits and stability of his father's love. Both felt that the father ‘owed’ it to them. Both were deeply flawed.

In the case of the younger son, he equated personal freedom with his right to do whatever he wished. He desired a life free from discipline, from the norms of God’s commandments, from his father’s orders. He wanted to be his own man without any reference to his father or even God.  He was concerned only with his own selfish interest, a heart which had no place for the other, certainly none for his father. Also note the attitude by which the older son lives his life by. His whole attitude is about what he should get from what he has done and not about ‘Who am I becoming in the process?’ He’s about ‘doing’ what a son does and forgot about ‘being’ who a son ought to be. Simply put, the older son was about the Father’s house, but completely missed the Father’s heart.

Competition, bitter rivalry, envy and destructive conflict often arises from this entitlement mentality, the mentality that believes the world or someone or something owes it to us. People often fail to recognise that whenever the discussion of any issue descends to the level of mere assertion of personal rights, we often find ourselves trapped in a selfish self-serving delusional world blind to the needs of others. It is literally saying that our needs are more important than those of others. Few people understand that when someone asserts a right to something, very often someone else’s right is infringed. For example, let’s say that you and I are neighbours. You lead a group of rock musicians who can practice only in the evenings; while I, on the other hand, enjoy nothing more than quiet evenings. Presumably, you have a right to pursue your musical career, and I have a right quietly to enjoy my property. The problem is that your right is incompatible with mine. As a priest in large parish with a multitude of parishioners with conflicting interests, I often find myself caught in endless debates about entitlement. The conversation often gets so wrapped up in the championing of rights and entitlements that we quickly lose sight of grace.

This leads us back to consider the beautiful parable of the Prodigal Son, and especially the character of the father. The father expresses the gratuitousness of grace – it is given to those who do not merit it nor earned it. It is wholly the gift of the father; he does not ‘owe’ it to his sons. The “Father” in this story is undoubtedly characteristic of our Heavenly Father who forgives and restores us back to relationship with Him. Thus the gospel helps us understand who God truly is. He is the Merciful Father who in Jesus loves us beyond all measure. To the world, the father seems like a foolish foggy old man madden with love for his two sons – one an ingrate wastrel and the other, a resentful and reluctant worker. The errors committed by his sons do not corrode the fidelity of the old man’s love for them. In this way, he provides for us the example of how to liberate ourselves from the entitlement trap. We do so whenever we begin to consider the needs of the other, apart from our own rights and entitlements. The father invites us to move from a ‘give me’ mentality to that of personal responsibility. While there's a time and place for discussing rights, what's most helpful is the reminder that we need to extend grace to others, even to those who don’t seem to deserve it.

Furthermore, this parable helps us to understand who the human being is: he is not a an isolated being who lives only for himself and must have life for himself alone. On the contrary, we live with others, we were created together with others and only in being with others, in giving ourselves to others, do we find life. This revelation throws light on the real meaning of freedom. According to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, “freedom... is a springboard from which to dive into the infinite sea of divine goodness, but it can also become a tilted plane on which to slide towards the abyss of sin and evil and thus also to lose freedom and our dignity.” He said that in modern times we have seen theories proposing that human beings should be, “free, autonomous, and nothing else.” This supposed freedom from everything, including freedom from the duty of obedience to God, is a lie because human being does not exist on its own, nor does it exist for itself. If God is not the point of reference, then man will descend to the level of hedonistic immorality or addictive servitude.

This coming week, we will be celebrating the Parish Penitential Service. The Father invites us to return home.  Let us make this inner pilgrimage freely and without reservation. Christ wishes to set us truly free from the bondage of sin, of selfishness, of material illusions and addictions. We come without pretences, acknowledging that we are undeserving, not entitled to the graces we ask from him. We come with humility recognising that only when we have returned to the Father, both inwardly and outwardly, can we experience true freedom of the soul. Let us come to him to celebrate the feast prepared for us, for the one who is lost is now found, the one who is dead is now alive once more.

Quenching Parched Souls

Third Sunday of Lent 

(With Scrutinies: Year A Readings)

Throughout our lives, we thirst and hunger for many things. We thirst and hunger for food and water, for shelter and warmth, for clothing and things that will make us happy. But I believe that the greatest thirst of all is the thirst for love. It is a longing, an ache that ebbs and flows within us along our journey depending on the season of life we find ourselves in.  At times, the ache may seem unnoticeable. Feelings of contentment, purpose, affirmation, and love consume our hearts and all in the world is well. In other moments, feelings of rejection, failure, pain, or insecurity can siphon the life right out of us leaving an emptiness that is beyond palpable. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta once said in an interview: “The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.” In today’s individualistic world, where everyone seems to be taking care of his own selfish needs and consumerist society busy manufacturing artificial substitutes to satiate our obsessive craving, we need true love more than ever.

Contrary to popular myth, loneliness is not just the exclusive domain of those who have no kith or kin. Loneliness is universal; in fact a human existential – we were each born with a cavity in our hearts. Although we may be surrounded by people all the time, by our family members and friends, we can still feel lonely. The reason for this is that 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 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.

Today, the readings use the symbol of water to represent the ever abiding and ever faithful love of God. Man can survive without food for a few days but he cannot survive for long without water. A major part of our body composition is made up of water. Without water we will die. It is thus the apt metaphor for life, or rather that which is necessary for life. But here the author of the Fourth Gospel makes an intriguing claim - Without God, we will die and our death will be eternal.

In the first reading, God allows Moses to perform the miracle of making water flow from rock to feed the physical thirst of the Israelites in the desert. But in the gospel, Jesus 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 rather to quench the thirst of the world; our thirst for God. Her 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. Her thirst for acceptance, purpose, and worth had yet to be quenched and she spent years suffering.

Throughout the conversation, Jesus’ goal was to help the woman recognise her greatest need so He could supply her with the only gift that would meet that need: a God who saves; a God who loves her unconditionally; and a God who will forgive her sins. She had spent her life trying to find love and acceptance in all the wrong places. Jesus promised the Samaritan woman and each of us that if we were to drink from this water, we will never be thirsty again. 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. Jesus promises her, a sinner and an outcast, the water of life – God’s love and forgiveness.

The story of the Samaritan woman’s thirst can be understood in the light of what St Augustine has written about the ambivalence of desire. For St Augustine, spiritual growth begins with desire. Left to ourselves, desire turns inward on our own pleasure and lust, as Augustine experienced for years. The solution, however, is not to destroy inner desire but to transform it. Created in God’s image, we were made to desire—to reach outside of ourselves toward the “other”—both God and other people. Our hearts were created for the ‘Other’ and will never be complete until we are united with the ‘Other.’ When Augustine repented of fleshy desire and focused his pursuit on the Lord, he began a life of radical commitment to Christ. Desire does not cease when we experience salvation. Rather, this is when our relationship with the Lord truly begins. Desire keeps us ever seeking the Lord, the source of Living Water.

Like the Samaritan woman, we can at times be so intent on desiring for the wrong things and on getting our immediate needs met that we fail to see God’s hand reaching out to us in love, offering what will truly satisfy. This world is filled with wells that promise to provide love, acceptance, and self-worth but never fully satisfy. Many of us turn in desperation to the fountains of the world seeking a drink; where alcohol, food, outside relationships, addictions, entertainment, money or constant busyness fill our cup. And, yet, like the Samaritan woman, we still thirst. Only Christ can fill our empty souls for eternity and provide for our essential emotional needs now. Don’t wait till your soul is empty and the well runs dry. Look for Jesus now. Thirst only for him. He alone can quench the thirst of your soul.

Today, 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.

Today, our elect will undergo the First Rite of Scrutiny, a rite that will be repeated three times over the next three Sundays. Through this rite, they will be examined and prayed over so that they may receive abundantly the graces promises by Christ during Easter.

My dear Elect, you have been waiting these past few months to receive the waters of baptism. In a way, you have been thirsting for this water. You will not have to wait long. Soon, you will be able to drink from the fountain of eternal life.

Stop Making Excuses

Third Sunday of Lent Year C

Yes, it’s true. I’ve finally gotten myself enrolled for a long overdue fitness training programme. I’ve been putting it off for a long time, often giving one or more of the following reasons: “I don’t have the time,” “I don’t have the money,” “I don’t have the stamina to endure the rigorous routine.” But at the insistence of some very good friends, I finally gave in and signed on. Having been on the programme for the last 3 weeks has taught me an important lesson: physical fitness has a lot to say about spiritual fitness. I’ve come to realise that as much as I need a personal fitness trainer to ensure that I keep on the programme (I swear that I would have quit after the first session without his help and motivation), my spiritual life equally requires someone else apart from myself to keep it on track. The reason is because we are masters of rationalisation – we are really good in making excuses, and most of the time we know they're lies. I’ve learnt from this whole experience that it is much easier negotiating with a terrorist than with your fitness trainer. I’ve exhausted my whole arsenal of excuses, ranging from bad weather to crams. At the end of the day, the fitness trainer never takes a ‘No’ for an answer. And I guess that’s my salvation.

Making excuses is nothing new. We are pretty good at it. Sometimes we make excuses to try to keep from hurting someone's feelings. Sometimes we make excuses to avoid responsibility for our actions. We make excuses for things we did wrong, times we failed, things we don't want to do, situations we don't want to be in.  You may be comforted to know that Moses was adept at this. Moses grew up as a prince in Egypt, but fled from Pharaoh after he had broken up a fight between a Hebrew and an Egyptian, and killed the Egyptian. Having been in exile in the desert for about 40 years, Moses was tending sheep near Horeb, when he saw a strange sight. Flames were rising from a bush, but the bush wasn’t burning up. As Moses approached the bush, he heard a voice calling his name. The voice revealed itself: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” God then proceeded to share His plan with Moses: He had heard the cries of His people about their oppression in Egyptian slavery. And He wanted Moses to join with Him in their deliverance. At this point, Moses began presenting a series of excuses, some of which may sound familiar to you.

First, Moses' response to his calling was to say, “Who am I”. You’ve heard it often enough. Expressed in today’s language, it’s simply stating what you believe to be a fact, “I’m not qualified.” Second, the “Who are you?” naturally follows the “Who am I”. Moses pleads lack of knowledge in that he did not even know God’s name and what to tell the Israelites. Moses’ third excuse to God was that he did not believe he had the power to fulfill the calling that God had told him to do. It’s the pessimist’s answer to every proposal, ‘Forget about it, it won’t work!’ The fourth excuse was that his speaking and leadership abilities were lacking. In other words, we lack the talent or gift to carry it out. But Moses’ final excuse to God betrayed his real intentions - he simply did not desire to fulfill his calling and lead the Israelites out of Egypt. So, there you have it, the classic list of excuses to turn down any invitation from God to serve:

“I’m a nobody.”

“I don’t know enough about God or my faith.”

“It won’t work.”

“I’m not gifted.”

And finally the classic, “Choose someone else.”

Just like Moses, many of us grew up making excuses. We make excuses when we don't want to obey or listen. We make excuses when we don't want to go where we do not wish to go. We make excuses when we don't want to do what is required of us. Over time, we even come to believe in them. I don’t go for confession because … I have no sin (yah, right!); my sins are too trivial; I don’t see the point of going for confession because I’m going to repeat the same sins again; I don’t understand why we need to confess to a priest when I can confess to God; I don’t know how to make a confession. And then there’s the classical litany of occasional or infrequent church goers: I don’t come to church, but there’s a good reason for it: I don’t have the time; I’m too tired; I pray at home; I want to spend quality time with the family over the weekends; I’ve got some important errands to run; I don’t understand what’s happening; the mass is boring; the church is too hot; I’m having a headache; my children don’t like to go to church so I have to keep them company; I angry with the priest; I don’t like the people. Bottom line is this: I don’t want to go to church because I don’t see it as something important. I have other priorities … Period.

Excuses are actually lies we tell ourselves to avoid dealing with unpleasant truths.  They are ultimately ways of avoiding responsibility, especially the responsibility for our sins. When we choose to stop making excuses, we then can begin to take steps to change. Accepting responsibility is the first step to repentance. The second reading and the gospel reminds us that we should take full responsibility for our actions and decisions. We cannot deflect the blame and push it to others, neither can we plead ignorance because there have been constant reminders and warnings in both the Scriptures as well as in our daily lives. Ignorance is just another excuse. A mature Christian is ultimately accountable for his life; he can’t blame fate, his past, his parents, his environment or even God for what he has freely chosen to become. We are not victims of our circumstances. It is true that we are not always in control of time, the information which is disseminated or even the resources available to us. But the problem is never about the lack of time; it’s more about the lack of will to make changes to our priorities. The problem is never about not knowing; it’s about choosing to be lazy or to work at learning. The problem is never about the lack of money; but rather about how we choose to spend our money. 

It appears to me that regardless of the excuses that man concocts for not doing the will of God, God always has an answer. God, just like a hardy fitness trainer, will not take ‘No’ for an answer. Here is the bottom line. If you have missed everything else, then get this: it’s not about you. It’s never about you or about your personal abilities. Moses’ excuses were based on his inadequacies and limitations. But the story isn’t about the merits of Moses but the providence of God. God matches Moses’ excuses with these answers – God will provide the strength, God will give the support, God will be present throughout each moment of our lives, God will teach and instruct us, God will make available the necessary resources. God will provide companions for the journey. When God has chosen you, he will provide you with the necessary grace and assistance to carry out his will. So, no piece of excuse will suffice to silence God. God will never give up on you. God will not take ‘No’ for an answer.

So don’t let excuses run your life because it would mean living a lie, and Satan is the Father of lies. Fr Peter once told me that we belong to the Adam’s family (not Addams, mind you). We are in the business of blaming others and making excuses for our own mistakes, just like our primordial parents. Spiritual growth means facing the truth; it means having the courage and the humility to admit our unwillingness, our laziness, our sinfulness, our lack of faith. Shoot down your excuses, face the bitter truth, and start taking the steps necessary to change in the direction you want to go. The Sacrament of Penance would be a good place to start. Stop making excuses, get with the programme!