I
do not practise what I preach. I do not know about you.
I
do not like “I”. But, I do not like “I” is not the same as I do not like “me” of
the poor self-esteem kind even if that may be true that I do not like “me”.
But, I do not like “I” because it is not a good starting point for homilies for
the reasons of hypocrisy or the reason of not practising what one preaches.[1]
However,
this much is what each one here should know. “I” should not be the starting
point of our morality because the “I” may not be the best barometer of what or
how we ought to behave. For example, many of us may say, “I am a hypocrite and
therefore who am I to judge?” What this statement means is that our morality
will be based on the lowest common denominator. Just because I am not “up to
the mark” does not mean I cannot say something.
So,
there is a reason for not liking this “I” which might become clear to you
later. For now, with this little preamble, I will proceed to speak to you in
the person of “I”.
Today,
we celebrate St Edmond Campion. Let me say a few things about him and then get
to the point where he is important to why I choose to speak as an “I”.
Firstly,
who was he? He was a Jesuit priest, born in the England of social upheaval and
religious persecution. What was he famous for? He was the most famous of the
English martyrs who gave up a promising career at Oxford and also an invitation
to enter the service of Queen Elizabeth I of England in order to become a
Catholic priest. Why did he do that? He was ordained a deacon in the Church of
England and the more he studied, the more he became convinced that the Catholic
Church had the true faith. Thus, in conscience, he had to leave England and in
his sojourn in Continental Europe, he joined the Society of Jesus. When the new
mission to England opened up, he and two others were the first few to be sent.
In London where he arrived, he wrote a manifesto of the mission which became known
as the "Campion's Brag."
The
mission was religious and not political. Let me read a snippet towards the end
of the Brag which was directed to the Privy Council of the Queen. “And touching our Society, be it known to
you that we have made a league—all the Jesuits in the world, whose succession
and multitude must overreach all the practice of England—cheerfully to carry
the cross you shall lay upon us, and never to despair your recovery, while we
have a man left to enjoy your Tyburn, or to be racked with your torments, or
consumed with your prisons. The expense is reckoned, the enterprise is begun;
it is of God; it cannot be withstood. So the faith was planted: So it must be
restored.”
Never
mind the pride detected therein or even the naïveté of a brash Jesuit. The “expense is reckoned, the enterprise is
begun; it is of God; it cannot be withstood”.
Tonight,
I would like to speak of the expense and the enterprise that has begun. But,
humbly, I cannot promise that it is of God therefore there is no guarantee that
it will last.
The
Jubilee draws to close a journey that we have begun not just two and half years
ago but ten years ago to be precise. I must say with gratitude to God our Lord
that He has deign to retain me that long in this parish because it was only in
the last few years that the shape of the enterprise has become clearer and more
focused.
How
can I describe this focus?
Firstly,
the “I” I mentioned earlier. It is an entrapped “I”. We are unable to speak
because we do not possess enough credibility and the result is a kind of
Pelagianism. When we speak only because we are perfect or have credibility, it
is another way of saying that I, on my own, possess the strength and grace to
make God worthy of me.[2]
But, that is not even our “sin”. It is the walls that we have built up in such
a way that we are not able to speak to one another anymore. Perhaps you
understand why “Self-Help” is so popular because it is symptomatic of a world
of entrapped “I”s. Furthermore, this “I” is actually more “me” than anything
else and this “me” cannot be the foundation of what we intend to build: “these
remain faithful to the teaching of the apostles, to the brotherhood, to the
breaking of bread and to the prayers”. The “I” of Acts 2:42, is a communitarian
“I”. And when we are unable to breach the walls of the entrapped “I”, we are
reduced to looking for things to do, in order to unite us. Just observe the
stalemate in the field of ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue. We dare not
dream that truth can be arrived at and therefore we are content to try to
“work” together. No wonder we have to speak of tolerance or acceptance.
Secondly,
to allow a “communitarian I” to emerge is to describe an ontological journey. What
do I mean by that? Ontology is the study of being. What is so great about that?
Nothing! If you consider that it is probably a dead science. For example, some
priests no longer believe in “ontological change” when it comes to the
description of ordination to the priesthood.[3]
According to them, such a phrase has no meaning. So, who cares what a thing may
be except that it works. If you think about it, a part of the difficulty that
we encounter in building community is because we have focused on the
functionality of community. We are concerned with the structures that make
community work. So, we set out to build the BECs thinking that by giving the
BECs structures they will work. How far have we gone? Is it not true that we
constantly have to reinvent ourselves? Is it not true that we often find it
hard to convince people of the need to be part of the BEC. Does a husband need
to re-invent himself? Or a wife? OK, maybe wives need to lah because of the
availability of plastic surgery. But, we instinctively know that there are
couples, for all intents and purposes, are not “in fashion” but their love last
seems to last longer than fads come and go. You see, structures help but they
do not define us.
Maybe
this has not escaped you. The current batch of altar servers is not allowed to
receive Holy Communion on the hand. All of them just follow the “ruling”
because Father has decreed it so. But, do you know why? The reason is
ontological. Either it is or it is not the Body of Christ. Perhaps, for many of
us, it is symbolic more than it is really the Body of Christ. What we receive
is the True Presence, not false. What we receive is really Jesus, not a symbol.
What we receive is substantially the same Jesus who walked 2000 years ago. I
mean, I sometimes see how an elderly person comes up tottering and unstable and
receives Holy Communion on the hand. He is afraid that the HC might fall out of
his hand and so he grabs it. There is desecration that takes place because in
grabbing the Consecrated Host, they will be particles of sacred species that
drop of the hand. Now, unless the teaching of the Church has changed, our
behaviour must comport with what Holy Communion really is. I go through the
motion of cleaning the sacred vessels because I behave according to what Holy
Communion really is. Ontology, that is, being determines the manner of our
acting.
I
want to be clear about this. My telling you this is not asking you to change
your mode of receiving Holy Communion. Instead, it gives you an example of how
the journey you have been making in the last ten years is like, fortunately or
unfortunately, with me at the helm. It is a journey, which I would describe, in
the reclamation of ontology. Is it important? It is.
My
“conversation” with the altar servers over 10 years has been based on this.
They are the best if you consider that they have somehow perfected the ritual
to a “T”. How did they do this? Fear and punishment were the tools to achieve
perfection. When fear and punishment were removed, their true character came
out. Little interiorisation was taking place and conversion was negligible. The
conversation has not been easy because their mode of engagement and by and
large ours too, is markedly functional. Do what is required in order to meet
the “definition” of what a server is supposed to be.
This
conversation I have been having with the serves is mirrored at large with the
parish. We are best when we are functional. It is efficient. But, when we are
functional, whatever we do is merely a job and we return to what we have always
been when there is nothing to do. Imagine relationships built on functionality.
Can you imagine this of a wife or of a mother? Furthermore, when we operate
according to the principle of function, what happens when we do not feel like
functioning? What happens when we do not feel up to serving or working or being
a husband? We know how painful that is when utility is the currency we use to
purchase friendship. Utility alone demeans our dignity as human beings.
The
reclamation of ontology is an expression of this desire to learn the truth and
to live by the truth, no matter how difficult and unpleasant it may be. It is a
process, a journey and a conversion. We must make the transition to living who
we are rather than be defined by what we do. And without fail, I have
impressed, Sunday after Sunday, homily after homily that it is from knowing
what a thing is, for example, Holy Communion or knowing who we are, for
example, Catholics, that all our actions follow. Yes, we will fail but that is
the matter for confession.
Once,
I had a conversation with a young man. He was not a practising Catholic and he
wanted to have a Catholic wedding. He had been living in with his fiancé and
they both got civilly married on a particular date which sort of rhymed. You
know the obsession people can have with numbers. The problem was that between
the date of the civil marriage and the date of the Church wedding would be a
year exactly. I told him that his status remained that of unmarried in the eyes
of the Church and that if he lived with his so-called “wife”, he would have to
contracept. His response was simply, “Catholics are doing it nowadays, anyway”.
That conversation had every mark of civility but nowhere near enlightment, not
my enlightment, but rather of the enlightment of the Church and of Christ our
Lord.
As
you can detect, our conversations are markedly “functional” instead of ontological.
Therefore, the jubilee is not ending. Instead, our jubilee merely denotes a
long haul if ever we want to be the parish that is supposedly shaped according
to Acts 2:42. The quotation is not a prescription of what the early Church
community did but rather it is a description of what the early Church was. It
was the Church Christ founded upon the Apostles and that was why it behaved in
that manner. Today, we pray for the grace to return to the being of truth so
that we may live the truth of being.
[1]Sometimes, the reticence
in using “I” could be a fear that one has to live up to what one preaches and
that may be too troublesome. Why strive when you can cruise?
[2]Relook
the 1st Sunday of Advent’s Collect. “All powerful God, increase our strength of will for doing good that
Christ may find an eager welcome at His coming and call us to His side in the
kingdom of heaven”. The phrasing of the old translation seemed to assume
that we already have the strength of will and God merely adds a little more to
what we already possess. The truth is we have none.
[3]Consider this: A priest
has left the ministry and has been laicised. He can no longer function as a
priest. But, if this ex-priest were to encounter a Catholic, lying on the road
and dying due to an accident, or a Catholic, whose death is imminent from a
terminal disease, he can still absolve the penitent of his sins. Read Can 976: Any priest, even though he lacks the
faculty to hear confessions, can validly absolve any penitents who are in
danger of death, from any censures and sins, even if an approved priest is
present.
