Triduum Part 2: 1st Sunday of Advent Year A

Yesterday we celebrated the First Day of the Triduum. For those who were not here yesterday, let me re-cap the gist or the general substance of what I said. First, I mentioned the experience of being surprised by “un-Christ-like” behaviour of Catholics. This experience shows that the grace of the Gospel has not yet penetrated the hearts of Catholics. This very experience is the result of a disjuncture or rupture between the head and the heart. There is a lack of connexion between the head and the heart. Advent or even Lent is the period where we make a conscious decision and also desire to attempt the re-connexion of the head and the heart as we grow in greater consistency so that what we profess will animate our actions and our actions will confirm our beliefs. If not, this lack of connexion will result in a schizophrenic existence as exemplified in a saying of the Irish: Paddy went to Mass and he never missed a Sunday. But Paddy went to hell, for what he did on Monday.
That was where I ended yesterday.

In this 2nd instalment of the Triduum, I shall begin by asking how we can heal this disjuncture or rupture between the head and the heart—between belief and action. The healing of the rupture may take place once we begin to reconcile the relationship between love and duty.

For many of us, life consists of a series of duties simply because duties are often enjoined upon us. For example, when we get married, we acquire the duties of being a spouse and later, when the children arrive, of being a parent. When our parents are aged, we have the duties of caring for them. Then there are the duties of our vocation, profession, or society or culture etc.

There are times in life when we impose upon ourselves the duties which nobody else wants to shoulder. There could be many reasons for doing so. But, the complication with being dutiful is that it can lead to resentment. How often have we become resentful because we have to care for our aged parents, stayed at home because our parents are conservative, married a person out of duty, study because our parents have indicated the course we should sign up for in college, head an unwanted project or lead a BEC because nobody else wanted to?

I mentioned about the reconciliation of the relationship between love and duty and it begins by prioritising them. The relationship between love and duty is this: Duty does not lead to love. It is love which leads to duty. Hence, the resentment when we have to be dutiful. Remember the Prodigal Son? Remember the Elder Son? “I have slaved for you”, (I have been dutiful to a fault) he complained to his father as he resented his father’s “gentle” treatment of the “prodigal brother” who came back penniless? When an altar server has lost the love of serving, he will resent the schedule being imposed onto him. The dilemma with love or being loving is that some of us may mistake love to be an emotion. But it is of the will as exemplified by the saying that “love seeks the good of the beloved”. It is more a verb (an action or a working thing) than a feeling because love has a direction [often a direction that takes us out of ourselves]. However, the direction that love takes is where many of us do not want to go.

When we love, we actually place ourselves into the hands of the other. We think less of ourselves and more of the other [love seeks the good of the beloved]. It means that the calculation is loaded on the other side and not on our side. When we do that, we expose ourselves to vulnerability. We naturally do not like to be vulnerable. For example, “What if the other person does not respond”? I have wasted my effort, I am embarrassed etc. More than ever, since we all have this kiasu mentality, (afraid to be on the losing end), we want to be in control. That’s why we are afraid to love because we don’t want to be on the losing end. Nobody likes to be a loser. Nobody likes a loser. In a sense, being dutiful is also about being in control, being calculative. Like the elder son in the same story. He can tell the Father: I have done this already as part of my duty. Don’t expect anymore… [Love allows us to deal with the more without the resentment].

Only when we dare to put ourselves on the losing end, believing that in love, there is no loss, then will we begin to look upon duty in a new light. Christ is able to put himself into our hands only because he was in love with his Father. In love duty is embraced, not imposed. Now, you begin to see why we do things in a certain way here. Remember a couple of months before when we had this promotion, "Parish in love, Parish alive".

We deliberately promoted the service of the community from the perspective of loving that leads to service or rather, loving that leads to loving service. We wanted to avoid the guilt of “duty”. In some ways, I feel that the failure of the BEC is because we had “forced” people to come. Even Sunday as a day of obligation is a sad testimony that religion has become duty rather than as a result of love. I suspect that there is a certain guilt trip that arises when we promote the BEC as a duty.

Perhaps, in trying to make the connexion between the head and the heart, we also begin to put our priorities right. It is time to learn to love, better still, to embrace vulnerability. BECs may have to die. Parish groups may have to die. Congregation may have to die… I mean be decimated in numbers…

Now, can you see now why the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is important? Constantly, we must focus on falling in love with Christ our Lord. It is when we have fallen in love with Him that everything else falls into place. It is not rules and regulations that bind a people together. It is love that allows us to embrace duties enjoined upon us. But first, we must dare to love, dare to fall in love with God so that in Him, we will begin to love all our neighbours. Only in this sense, will we be able to bear with our vulnerability. Otherwise, what we have will be position-taking!!

And for that, tomorrow is the 3rd instalment…