4th Sunday of Advent Year A 2022

The transition from John to Jesus makes a stopover this Sunday with a person whose importance is often understated—St Joseph. As we slide toward Christmas, we are guided by his experience. While there may be next to nothing said about him, whatever little that is mentioned illustrates for us that his “I” is more than an “I, me and myself”. The 4th Sunday of Advent rightly belongs to St Joseph.

The biblical journey thus far has been God teasing out His purpose for humanity. In this symphony of salvation, the plan is brought to fruition through the cooperation of a maiden. In the 1st Reading, even though wicked King Ahaz feigned humility in not wanting to test God, the Lord through Isaiah gave a prophecy. The proof of God’s protection will come from a maiden with child. Considering the historical period where a woman’s status is dependent on a man, the plan cannot have come to fruition if Joseph did not collaborate. Betrothed to Mary, he discovered her with child. The first clue that God’s plan could go ahead was Joseph’s desire to spare Mary from embarrassment and to protect her unborn Child. An unwed pregnancy would have resulted in a woman being stoned to death and with that the child would have died in her womb. Even though the status of a betrothal is as good as being married, still Joseph did not react in revenge. A just or honourable man he was but more was needed. More than the protection of Mary’s dignity, more than sparing the Baby in the womb, God wanted Joseph to take Mary into his home so that the Child could be given his name.

Given that there is scant said of St Joseph, it is natural that we think of Jesus more in terms of Mary. After all, Joseph is often described of as the foster father of Jesus. But Joseph’s role is not insignificant. While Mary may have shaped Jesus in the womb, Joseph shaped Him to be the Man He is.

At the top of his qualities, apart from being a man of honour, Joseph was also a man of purity. Betrothal and subsequent marriage presume that conjugal relationship is the norm. However, the answer of Mary to the Angel’s message may be an indication that she had intended to remain a virgin. “How can it be since I know no man?” makes no sense since she was going to be married to a man. It would be better if Mary’s response be framed this way: “How can it be since I intend to remain a virgin in marriage?”. In this marriage to a woman who desires to remain a virgin, we recognise in Joseph a man whose faithfulness to God and to Mary is rooted in his virtue and manly strength of purity. In this pleasure-seeking age, Joseph’s abstinence or self-control sounds rather weak and almost unbelievable because we live in an age of pornography and wide-spread immorality. Jesus mingled with women of all kinds and the masculinity of Joseph can be seen in how He treated women with proper decorum and respect.

Secondly, Joseph must have been a man of patience. Once he embraced his mission, he played the supporting role of doing what was necessary in order that God’s plan could unfold in its time. A man who listens to and obeys God learns how to be patient especially under trial. Think of Jesus who was always patient when it came to sinners. The woman caught in adultery and waiting to be stoned to death encountered a Christ who patiently waited for the crowd to expend its energy before putting everyone in his place. He consistently sought out sinners so that they could be brought back to the fold.

Finally, Joseph was a man of prudence—a virtue in such a short supply these days. When achievement is our target, we can become actors without realising that in every circumstance, there is another actor, God. The angel who appeared to Joseph told him to quickly remove the child and His mother and to flee to Egypt. In an age of self-motivation and personal dream-pursuing, such a hasty retreat would be counter-intuitive to how we would normally act. But Joseph did not think twice. He uprooted and went. Suppose if he had stayed, Herod would have killed the Child. No Jesus to save us and God’s plan would have been stymied. Joseph, in fleeing was not a coward. The same prudence was observed in Jesus. He chose His battles with the authorities who were trying to kill Him. He wisely stayed away because the time for the realisation of His mission was not up.

These are just samples of qualities from a man deeply in touch with God and who trusted God. Trusting God’s will and putting it into action is not easy. For God’s purpose to be fulfilled, trust in Him is paramount. We have much to learn from both Mary and Joseph in the area of trusting God.

As we approach 25th December, the warm fuzzy Christmassy feelings increase. Of course, we should appreciate what the season represents. He came, we commemorate. He is here, we celebrate. He will come again, we anticipate. However, the best Christmas cheer is not found in the choice cuisine, not the celestial choir, and definitely not in the chic clothing. In fact, St Joseph reminds us that in honouring the first Christmas, the conditions that brought about the Incarnation and the birth of Christ are anything but fuzzy and warm.

For God’s plan to succeed, it requires our human cooperation and that is often entangled in sticky situations. Sometimes when a tragedy strikes, we reason it as being the wrong person, in the wrong place and at the wrong time. But if we delve into it, there are no such things as wrong person, wrong place and wrong time. Joseph was right where he should be, for without him, there would be no Jesus. Yes, Mary gave birth to Christ the Son of God. But the plan of God needed Joseph too. While Advent is a preparation for the coming of Christ, it is also a preparation to accept God’s will, like Joseph did. He collaborated with God and became a part of His plan of salvation.

In the bigger picture of redemption, Joseph’s “I” was more than an “I, me and myself relentlessly pursuing my personal happiness or self-fulfilment”. Instead, his “I” sprang from the soil of deep faith. Mary’s “fiat” gave us Jesus. But Joseph’s “yes” was equally a vital component of God’s divine purpose for humanity. In this week as we run up to Christmas, may the faith of Joseph guide us. He has shown us that in God’s magnificent plan for salvation, no one is ever the wrong person, in the wrong place and at the wrong time. As Joseph entered the world of God, he made a world of a difference for all humanity. Likewise, Advent is our preparation to enter into God’s universe and each time we say yes to Him, we also become the difference that the Son of God had come to realise and bring about.

Gaudete Sunday Year A 2022

What do you wish for your child’s future? I suppose whatever lies ahead, it would have to be coloured by success, right? So, what marks success and how is it measured? The switch in the shade of our vestment is a good opportunity to survey the landscape of what a good future should look like. Firstly, the lightening of purple to a rosy tinge is an indication that the sombre spirit of penitential preparation will soon give way to the exhilaration that salvation is upon us. The entrance antiphon clearly exhorts us to rejoice always in the Lord for He is near.

We rejoice this Sunday because we are also making a transition from John to Jesus. This last Old Testament prophet stands in stark contrast to the one to whom he is the precursor. Everything about John suggests of material misery—isolation from social contact, eating wild honey with locusts and donning hair shirts. Precisely in his nothingness, John is said to be the prophet of joy. In Elizabeth’s womb, upon hearing the voice of the Mother of the Lord, he leapt for joy, thrilled by the proximity of man’s salvation. Years later, at the sight of Jesus in the desert, he rejoices that the Bridegroom has finally arrived. He even encourages his disciples to follow Christ over him.

Yet today’s Gospel shows a different John—a man suffering a crisis of confidence. Arrested, gaoled and in solitary confinement, news of his cousin’s ministry trickled in. Who is this Jesus whose behaviour appears outside the norms of a Messiah?

In response to John’s query, Jesus points to the future as illustrated by Isaiah which John’s disciples themselves could witness. The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, the Gospel is proclaimed to the poor. Jesus may not be as fiery as Elijah was but He definitely fits the bill of the one whom the world has been waiting for. Indeed, happy the man who does not lose faith in Him. One can picture a John relieved by a realisation that the future has already begun. That is a moment of joy for John.

We may not have fully realised the ideals of Isaiah but we are on the way there. Thus, joy flows from the certainty that we are on the path to salvation. It is more than being happy. It is certainly greater than pleasure because a person under stress, persecuted, tested to the full, can still remain joyful. Sadly, our philosophy of success is geared toward a fulfilment which is at best, psychological or at most, physical. For example, one can be happy from having achieved something great. If not, success can also mean arriving at a stage in life where we can have the best of all things. Remember the rich man who decided that the best way to mark his accomplishments was to build a bigger barn so that he can enjoy his harvest. Happiness or material well-being are good but when they become the goal of life, they do not lead to greater joy.

Joy is more profound than happiness and pleasure. In fact, those who have discovered joy can forgo physical pleasure. They can withstand suffering. Is it any wonder why virginity or celibacy are so misunderstood today only because we have forgotten what joy is? We have somewhat conflated joy with both happiness and pleasure. As a result, the absence of pleasure is almost a condemnation of one’s existence which explains how euthanasia has become such a viable option. What is the point living when there is no pleasure? When healthcare applies the standard “quality of life”, it does not consider that joy can be intangible. Instead, it looks at qualities which are measurable either psychologically or physically. In a way, we are condemned to dull ourselves with “narcotics” of all kinds, from adrenalin rushes to pain-numbing drugs to food bingeing, to carnal indulgences.

It is possible to live without pleasure or even happiness but it impossible to live without joy. When pleasure becomes the goal of existence, then to live without sensible satisfaction is almost analogous to death. When gratification is the aim of our seeking, we shall never discover joy. Why? Because joy can only be discovered when there is sublimation meaning that there is purification involved. To illustrate, think of a beautiful object which we may characterise as sublime. Its beauty draws us up. Now visualise a helicopter in a mission to rescue a person trapped on the rooftop of a burning building and is in mortal danger. The helicopter hovers above, lowers the ladder and as the man climbs the ladder, he is weighed down by bags. How to be saved when the bags hinder the man’s ascent? Salvation requires letting go of the bags. In like manner, to achieve the sublime, what is required is sublimation. Another word is purification.

Pleasure is a good which we should appreciate but it must never be the goal of life. For when one has found joy, it is possible to leave behind everything in order to “enjoy”, which is, to be taken up by joy. Like the man who finds the priceless pearl, selling away everything he has in order to purchase the pearl. Sadly, awash in materialism, we continue to mistake joy with happiness or pleasure that material goods can supply. One of the challenges we face has to do with living for a future in which we deny ourselves what is good now for what will be better later. But so far, the road to fulfilment is to give in to whatever pleasures there are which can makes us “happy” even though momentarily.

John is truly a prophet of joy because he sees himself best in the shadow of the Bridegroom. Now that He has arrived, John knows that he is no longer needed. Such a sentiment can only be expressed by someone who has found true joy in being who he is, a precursor. Nothing more. Nothing less. By present standard, John would have been classified an abject failure. He has no material gains to show for his success. In fact, celibates and virgins share the same kind of lack. But they, like John, are actually pointers of joy. Success is neither heightening our pleasure nor increasing our happiness. Instead, success is deepening our joy. In the ancient tradition of the Church, two categories of people, virgins and celibates, teach us, by their very denial of the goods that life offers, direct our attention to the truth that success is wherever Christ is found.

The liturgy echoes this repeatedly throughout the weeks of Advent: “Teach us to judge wisely the things of earth and hold firm to the things of heaven”. A successful future is not automatically rosy even as the colour of the vestment suggests so. Instead, it is proposed by the collect of the 1st Sunday of Advent as the “resolve to run forth to meet His Christ” whose coming we are preparing for. Perhaps this Christmas, we can take delight that the rosy hue symbolises the joy that only Christ can give. The greatest success in life is neither wealth nor happiness but the joy of possessing Christ.

2nd Sunday of Advent Year A 2022

This Sunday belongs to John the Baptist. The precursor to the Messiah announces the coming of the Kingdom and set it within the context of repentance. The future reign will be different from what we know thus far. The King will restore fairness to a world which has not known true justice. The scenario painted by Isaiah may possibly be the inspiration for our familiar Lion King. Different animals co-exist with each other as the Psalms remind us that justice shall flourish and there will be peace till the moon fails.

In the midst of this heart-warming picture of the future, John the Baptist stands as a sobering voice. He points out that the road towards that Kingdom must begin with repentance. The context is helpful. Here in the desert, he attracts a crowd. From Jerusalem to Judaea, they converge on this voice in the desert because they are keenly mindful of their sinfulness. To the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the holy elite and the powerful intellectuals, who feel themselves above the rest, the Baptist addresses them without mincing his words. He calls them a brood of vipers. As the Kingdom is close at hand, he offers them a path to redemption through the forgiveness of sin.

Imagine the crowd gathered around the Baptist, confessing their sins as they enter the waters of the Jordan symbolically to be washed clean of their sins. Each one of us is familiar with this route. Now, you would think that this path describes our baptism but it does not. Instead, the dilemma is that we may have forgotten their confession at baptism is akin to our Sacrament of Penance.

Has Confession fallen into disuse? Given that John announced that we should repent, maybe we should take a look at our approach to the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (#1084) states that “Seated at the right hand of the Father and pouring out the Holy Spirit on His Body which is the Church, Christ now acts through the Sacraments He instituted to communicate His grace”. Briefly, this statement can be summarised as: the Sacraments are the actions of Christ done through the Church.

This means that even in the present, every Sacrament is an action of Christ. In the past He called, strengthened, fed, forgave, healed and sent. Today He continues to call (through Baptism), to strengthen (through Confirmation), to feed (through the Eucharist), to forgive (in Confession), to heal (through anointing) and to send. These 6 actions of Jesus gives us the 7 Sacraments because His mission to the world is effected through the Sacraments of Matrimony and Holy Orders.

We may need to reappraise our approach to one of the most difficult Sacraments. The usual excuse is why the need for the agency of men if one can confess directly to God. The same excuse cannot hold up when we discuss the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Just imagine a situation that the entire congregation is gathered for Mass and the priest collapses and dies just after making the sign of the Cross. The celebration would have to be suspended. No man would dare put himself forward in place of the deceased priest. Why?

Agency. And not just any agency but that the Eucharist for its validity requires the Sacrament of Holy Orders. This negates the argument against human agency when it comes to Confession. In fact, the entire Sacramental system we have is based wholly on the principle of agency, instrumentalisation or mediation. It is derived from the fundamental as well as historical event that set creation on the course of salvation. In the fullness of time God sent His Son. How? Through the event called the Incarnation. “The Word became Flesh” has the meaning that salvation is mediated through the instrumentalisation or the agency of human nature.

Without the Incarnation, there are no Sacraments to speak of. If Christ did not take flesh, He would have to save us in another manner. It is precisely through the principle of agency that Christ continues to feed us with His Body and Blood and forgive our sins in Confession. No one has ever heard of anyone, taking Holy Water and pouring over his or her own head, recite the formula, “I baptise myself in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”.

Perhaps our dilemma with regard to human agency in Confession is more psychological than spiritual? Meaning that we actually believe in God’s forgiveness but we are more fearful of the priest’s judgement? So, we stay away from Confession because we are too ashamed, not of our sins, but of facing another human person, and being vulnerable to him.

This psychological barrier is not entirely the challenge we have when it comes to the Sacrament of Confession. Perhaps it is more subtle as it exposes the inconsistency of our personal belief in the Church’s Sacramental system. On the one hand, we believe the Eucharist to be the Body of Christ truly, really and substantially. We come to daily Mass most religiously and we receive Holy Communion most reverently. But with regard to the Sacrament of Confession, we hesitate.

Call it a psychological barrier but actually to receive Holy Communion regularly and religiously but never go for Confession even once a year is to engaged in a performative contradiction. Why? To believe that the Bread and Wine becomes the Body and Blood of Christ through the agency of a priest but staying from Confession, for whatever reason, runs the danger of reducing the Eucharist to a cypher. It cannot be that one believes that this particular action of Christ (the Eucharist) gives life while at the same time refrains from another action (Confession) that also gives life.

Our problem is also compounded by a modern liturgical development. When should one go for Confession? At least once a year is the canonical response. But this is tied to the obligation of receiving Holy Communion at least once a year. We go for Confession not only when we are conscious of grave sin but also because we want to uproot venial sins from our lives. But what has happened is that Confessions have been grouped into penitential services. By doing this, we may have severed the connexion between sin and forgiveness. With this link broken, penitential services has become a matter of convenience, not a matter of repentance. This is not the problem of the laity but of the Church. By delaying confession, we may have rendered sin unimportant and repentance superfluous.

When there is no need for repentance and the forgiveness of sin, then the Sacrament of the Eucharist is nothing more than a health supplement. This is our predicament, a hint that we are living in a therapeutic society. Almost everyone receives Holy Communion habitually but so few go for confession regularly. Some may be squirming in the seats but the fact that few avail themselves of Confession here is not a proof that nobody goes for it. For all we know, everyone is diligently and regularly going for Confession in CIC, St Joseph in Plentong, St Theresa in Masai. However, if a person rarely goes for Confession but regularly receives Holy Communion, then the point made here is that there is an inconsistency in behaviour.

Should you go for Confession this Advent? The answer is obvious after all the Baptist has asked everyone to make straight the Lord’s path. But there is another response to this question. If you are not a psychopath or a pathological liar, then lying would presumably make you uncomfortable. The gap between what we profess and how we act is a form of lying or dishonesty. In general, our instinct is such that we all yearn for the authenticity of matching what we say with what we do. Provided that we are not compulsive liars, the fact is nobody wants to be a liar. Anyone who lives a lie knows how that feels.

Confession fallen into disuse merely demonstrates that our approach to the Sacraments may be a kind of dishonesty or disbelief. Why? Our belief is that He comes to us through human mediation when He gives us His Body and Blood. But where is our belief in mediation when it comes to His forgiveness? Either He does and therefore He is powerful or we have become selective. The result is that God is not as powerful as we profess Him to be. Or what is worse is that the Communion we receive, no matter what we profess, is no more than a piece of dry and bland wafer. That is the most inconvenient truth of our inconsistency. Believing in one action of Christ and not the other renders what we believe in, empty. Sometimes we do hear the lament about the loss of reverence for the Eucharist. The lack can easily arise because we do not know how to respect the Eucharist and that is ignorance. But closer to the truth, the reality of the loss of reverence for the Eucharist is that essentially we no longer believe in the power of the Sacrament of Confession.

Christ is powerful in His Sacraments because they are His personal actions mediated through the agencies of the Holy Spirit and the Church. When there is a discrepancy in our belief, the temptation is to augment His Sacraments by programmes and formation. Consistency in our belief and practice is the key to the efficacy of both the Sacraments of Confession and Communion. Christmas is around the corner. Should one go for Confession? The Baptist would say so. But more in character with who we are as decent people, we should narrow the gap between what we believe and what we do so that our reception of Him at Communion or at Christmas can be more authentic and our witnessing to Him more persuasive.

1st Sunday of Advent Year A 2022

The beginning of the liturgical calendar is called Advent for a good reason. We initiate the new year with a period of preparation, all for the coming of Christ. But His coming is more than just an event in the past. St Bernard Clairvaux described it beautifully, “We know that the coming of the Lord is threefold…The first coming was in flesh and weakness, the middle coming is in spirit and power, and the final coming will be in glory and majesty”.

Yes, Advent is linked to the first Christmas in Bethlehem. But as the popular song suggests, “Christmas isn’t Christmas till it happens in your heart”, it would also mean that Christmas is a spiritual coming because Christ has to take flesh in the heart of the believer. Our entire earthly existence is essentially an exercise in enabling Him to take flesh in our hearts so that when He comes again at the “Eschaton” in His full sovereignty and splendour, those who remain, to best of their best ability and in cooperation with His grace, will greet Him joyfully. The focus of the last few Sundays before and up to the Solemnity of Christ the King, had been to remind us that this end is real and it behoves us to be prepared for it and it brings us to the next point.

We can get lost in remembering the first Christmas if our focus were on the historical commemoration. In fact, some places would already begin their remembrance as soon as the month hits “-ber”, that is, September. This country is a little more circumspect in the sense that we need to allow Deepavali to be over first before trotting out the Christmas decorations; the respectful delay has nothing to do with religious reverence. On the other hand, with regard to the future, in general, we are having a such good time that we mostly ignore the final coming because nobody expects it to come that soon. For a short while though, as Covid raged on, the world that we were familiar with appeared as if it were coming to its end and it almost felt like we were facing the “Eschaton”. Now in this presumably post-pandemic period, the idea of the end is practically off-radar as people are rushing to break free, afflicted as it were by “travel revenge”.

Nostalgia or making up for lost time notwithstanding, we cannot escape the reality that the world is truly unwell. It is not just the disrupted global supply chain or the mental health crisis triggered by an imposed isolation. It is not even the failed “Cop27” summit in which the more advanced economies accept the need to compensate poorer countries but cannot agree on the quantum. Civilisation is unwell because evil continues to rear its ugly head in the way people and countries are still exploited. Think of the recent collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX with emerging stories of sinister lies and secrets. We are never short of scandals. That evil men continue to prosper as if there were no justice in the world is instructive.

The whole idea that Christ died to save us and yet man remains stuck in the quagmire of wrongdoings should lead us to conclude that salvation is an ongoing process. The Incarnation ushered in the salvation that the world had been waiting for since the fall of our first parents. However, the manner evil shows no sign of abating just proves that salvation is awaiting completion. The Kingdom of God has been inaugurated but it is still on the pilgrimage to its fulfilment. It makes sense that Church on earth is also called the Church militant. The war has been won by Christ’s death and resurrection but the battle continues with the effort to stamp the seal of the Kingdom on creation.

The world can definitely be a better place. Isaiah in the 1st Reading paints a picture of a time when true peace will descend upon the earth. The most engaging imagery is that “they will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks or sickles”. While the legions of social-justice warriors and the army of woke-sensitive movements have been enamoured by this possibility, what is sad is the idea that such a vision could be achieved or accomplished without God.

On the other hand, St Paul exhorted the Romans to walk into the light. It is not simply the light of some humanistic principles. Instead, live like a people illuminated by the Light of Christ. With Him, even in the midst of the darkest day, we can still live as a people of hope, believing and trusting that God will never fail us. Such an attitude fits in with the Gospel. God is not playing hide and seek only to spring a surprise on us. The truth of the matter is that life is contingent; it is unpredictable this side of time. Our life is never in our control. A wisdom of the "Eschaton" is to live as if today were to be our last day here on earth.

We are future-oriented when it comes to mundane matters but not so with spiritual security. A child who shows a little musical inclination is immediately enrolled in a school for music. Yet the same child who may express a desire to be a priest is not taken seriously. He is too young, he has not experienced life yet. These are just two excuses for ignoring a child’s possible vocation. The point is, in matters spiritual, we suffer from the sickness of procrastination believing that we still have time. There is yet time to change. Try clearing out the room of a priest and you will appreciate the meaning of “unfinished business”. The same is possibly repeated with our family members.

The preparation of Advent is not just to commemorate the birth of Christ. It includes being watchful and being attentive to the different movements of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The purple of Advent is a good reminder that a regular spring cleaning of the soul is good and necessary. How can swords be hammered into ploughshares if there were no spiritual preparation made now for the future?

That future begins today. Last week, I mentioned about regularly renewing our resolve to follow Christ the King and for that singular purpose, He has not left us unaided. He gave us His Sacraments, notably Confession and Eucharist. If we give them some thoughts, Christ is already coming to us in these two great Sacraments. He comes into our hearts most especially when we receive Holy Communion which makes every Mass a Christmas.

In conclusion, preparing for Christmas should be more than an exercise in nostalgia. We recall the first Christmas by rejoicing that He came. For He is the Light that mankind had been waiting for. We also acknowledge a future when He will come again to gather all into the fullness of eternity. In reminiscing on the past, we look to that future with a readiness that at any moment He makes His appearance, we are prepared in every sense of the word. This is the vigilance that the Lord expects of us and we are watchful because we have a soul to care for.

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C 2022

We are nearing the end of the liturgical year and as usual, the readings take on a rather apocalyptic note. Just like a famous car advertisement in the 70s, “Different Volks for different folks”, the word “apocalypse” is grasped or understood differently by people. The present picture proposed by popular cinema or TV series appears to drift dramatically towards a dreadful dystopian destiny. Generally, it evokes a world grinding to a halt, brought to its knees by a calamitous viral infection. Movies like “I am Legend” (2007, Chris Rock-slapping Will Smith), “Contagion” (2011, Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow” and series like “Walking Dead” (2010)”, “Y: The Last Man” (2021) are just some of offerings that come to mind. What is more chilling is how life appears to readily imitate art. We are still gripped in the vice of a never-receding Covid tsunami that sends us into panic despair each time a new variant surfaces.

This recurring nightmare ties in with the 1st Reading and Gospel because they are also apocalyptic. Even though both readings share similar descriptions of a devastated future, however, their foci are more salvific rather than despair at the catastrophe befalling the world. In other words, the difference between the conception of the future as reflected in popular media and the Gospel is a chasm or a gulf. For example, the gospel of climate change projects a desolate future whereas the readings emphasise the climax of history or temporality. Sadly, the proponents of climate change philosophy have outlined an existence whereby “temporary” time has been elevated to the status of eternity. The moral is, if only we do not “destroy” the environment, we should be able to live on earth forever. This logic operates comfortably within a space where God is not only helpless but rather irrelevant. It simply means that the transformation we desire has to be wrought by us.[1]

That is clearly not the picture drawn by Sacred Scripture. The apocalypse may be cataclysmic but the tone is more of an encouragement in the midst of troubles. In fact, the Gospel was written sometime after the destruction of Jerusalem (AD70). The populace was persecuted, pressed down and pessimistic. To these suffering believers, the message was that God would still be in charge. The backdrop of this cosmic upheaval is the “eschaton”, that is, the consummation of time. It points to a future when the Saviour will return to wrap up the work of salvation. Thus, the end of the world, calamitous or not, should be welcome because our salvation is at hand.[2]

However, swirling in this whirlpool of an ongoing climate crisis, it is easy to confuse the current environmental crisis with the end of the world. The conflation of the two can blind us from recognising the eschaton as an event of salvation rather than of damnation. Given that we are force-fed a daily diet of ecological degradation that will ultimately end tragically, the question is, what should our response be?

At the most basic level, in our live-a-day world, we must accept our responsibility towards the environment. Pope Francis when he met the President of Ecuador stressed that we ought to, “Take good care of creation. St. Francis (of Assisi) wanted that. People occasionally forgive, but nature never does. If we do not take care of the environment, there is no way of getting around it”. Through concerted actions we contribute to the sustenance of our common home.

But still, the scriptural end of the world, which is a reminder to render a good account of ourselves, is not and cannot be restricted to merely matters concerning environmental justice. Many of us can recall when we straddled the turn of the millennium and how gripped we were by the Y2K conundrum. It was a good thing that we were not millennials in the sense of “millenarianism”. We were just terrified at the prospect of the global computational highway grinding to a halt. While such a situation could have heralded a disastrous end, what is more relevant to us is located in the 1st Reading. There will be judgement which separates the evil-doers from those who are faithful to the Lord.

The end of time flashes before us the four last things—death, judgement, heaven and hell. To embrace a vision in which we need to “save” the world for the future may just miss the point of the “eschaton”. Without a vision of a life beyond the impermanent, beyond what is passing, we will be grasping at the straws of transience.

In conclusion, we may have imbued too much of eternity into this passing world. While climate change is crucial to the long-term impact of a world that should be habitable for future generations, we do not sufficiently give enough thoughts to the end of the world as a reckoning of our lives. Whatever the shape of the near future, each one of us will have to face the end of time via two possible paths. The remote route is really the end of world when creation will cease to exist. The more proximate passage is when we die. There is a far greater chance that we will die before the Parousia, that is, before the 2nd Coming. The distracting dilemma is when the immediate concern for the environment enters the picture. It is justifiably so for in the last decade we have been socialised to fear the end associated with a disaster of ecological proportion. That has blinded us to the need to face our “end of time” which is when we die.

Any disaster is always an invitation to self-inspection because our actions vis-à-vis nature have consequences. However, our thoughts must span the sustainability of life on earth and the salvation of our souls in heaven. Caring for ecology is also caring for the state of our souls. What Pope Francis said about nature is true. But it is to the peril of our souls if we associate the environmental destruction as the end of the world. As Jesus Himself aptly reminded us in Mk 8: 36 and as St Ignatius himself warned St Francis Xavier, we can paraphrase: “What profits mankind if he saves the environment but loses his soul?”.

Survival on earth and salvation of our souls are not mutually exclusive. Even though we are living in the last days, we should never confuse it with the end of time. Let us remember that the Incarnation has ushered us into the last days where God speaks to us through His Son (and through His Church). Even though these times may be tumultuous, just like in the 1st Reading and the Gospel, we are assured because the Incarnation is God’s eternal covenant of love and faithfulness with us. In fact, in the midst of the confusion surrounding change, at the turn of the last millennium, St John Paul II exhorted us to “Duc in altum”. Put out into the deep for despite the uncertainty of the times, we can trust that God will always be great in His love. We should always face the future with a joyful confidence that whatever comes to us or at us, God will always be there. Be not afraid.


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[1] Bio-engineering is gearing for this, egged on by the religion of youthfulness. Consider all the pills and potions available that give in to the lie that human biological does not obey the laws of nature but instead can overcome the passage of time.


[2] Do we desire heaven? Or closer to the sad truth is that we do not really care that much for heaven. Life is good here. Life is too good here.

All Souls’ Day Year C 2022

Let me start with the request for a funeral for a deceased from a Catholic family. This does not refer to someone who died a Catholic but has a family which is from other faiths. With regard to a Catholic deceased from a Catholic background, it is fascinating how the family goes through the motion. The family is barely practising. None goes to Church yet they insist on having a Catholic funeral rite. This characterisation not a criticism but an invitation to reflect on the meaning of what a funeral is supposed to be.

There is a Quaker quote that goes like this: “I shall pass this way but once; any good that I can do or any kindness I can show to any person; let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again”. Have you ever missed a chance of helping another person? Public transport is a good place to start. For fear of what the other passengers might think (loser!), one shies away from offering one’s seat but sometimes when one has worked up the courage, the moment is gone.

That is how death works.

Death closes the door to any good that one can do. In other words, regret is of no use and those who find themselves in a position too late to do anything, their only recourse is to depend on others, most especially on their prayers and sacrifices which is why we have the beauty of the Communion of Saints. Our faith binds us together. Those who have died and are in glory, those who have died and are waiting, those who are still labouring on earth are united as one Body of Christ. The Saints or the Church triumphant, known or unknown, whom we commemorated yesterday, apart from enjoying the beatific vision help us with their intercession. The Souls in purgatory, the Church suffering, are those who have died in God’s grace and friendship but have not been perfectly purified. They are unable to do anything for themselves even though they can pray for us, the Church militant, who are still working out our salvation on earth.

Purgatory is therefore a needed station or an existential state for souls on their pilgrim way to God simply because “nothing unclean will enter the presence of God in heaven” (Rev 21:27). They may not have mortal sins but they may still have impurities, especially venial sins and also, they may need to undergo justified temporal punishment even though their sins have already been forgiven.

How to explain this?

You remember the two thieves on either side of Jesus. Dismas was promised eternity because he repented and yet Jesus did not commute his punishment. He was forgiven and assured of his place in heaven and yet he still hung on the cross. The simple explanation is that sins have consequences and sometimes the effects of one’s sin drag on. A good illustration is the sin of gossip. So many believe that it is an innocuous sin. When we have smeared someone’s name, even after we have stopped and repented of our sin, the damage to the reputation continues because we cannot control the mouths of others.

Temporal punishment is the price we pay for our sins even though we have repented and are forgiven. King David, who repented of his sin of adultery was forgiven by God, but still, he suffered the death of his child as a consequence of his sin. It sounds frighteningly alien as if God were calculative, vengeful and waiting to exact His pound of flesh. Our notion of a merciful God, sadly, does not admit of justice as one of His attributes. God should be merciful but He cannot be just because we cannot take it.

Perhaps it makes more sense to recognise that underneath sin and punishment is the heavy and inconvenient truth of repercussion for our actions or lack of. Sin is not merely violating a law or command but damaging a relationship with God. When there is damage, there is bound to be consequences. What we need to do is to mend the relationship through sorrow, repentance, prayers, sacrifices, penance and acts of charity. In that way, purgatory is both a merciful gesture of God and it is also just, given by God for the possibility for repairing our relationship with Him.

This means that souls do languish or linger in purgatory because they are waiting for their purification and their turn to go heaven. What helps them is our sacrifices and prayers. In short, our assistance fulfils the basic principle of the Church’s practice of indulgences—we help those who have died to commute or shorten their temporal punishment due to sins. One of the corporal acts of mercy is to assist in the burying of the dead. One of the spiritual acts of mercy is to pray for the living and the dead.

This brings me back to the insistence of a Catholic funeral for a deceased of whom the family is not practising. A funeral is not really for the dead. They do not care for the coffin or whatever elaborate eulogy that is prepare for them. They have crossed a portal from which there is no return to right whatever wrong they may have done. And from where they are, they long for the final reconciliation with God. Our duty is to pray that their reunion can happen sooner rather than later.

If you are sure that after death, you will be in heaven, good for you. I am happy for you. Me, I am conscious that I have booked a place in purgatory, if not in hell first. We have been promised too much by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men. According to “One Sweet Day”, the passage from death to eternity seems to be automatic because we have confused forgiveness with forgetfulness. Bonhoeffer defined “cheap grace” as the “preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without Church discipline. Communion without Confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the Cross, grace without Jesus Christ”. In other words, we want Jesus to be the Saviour. We hesitate to follow Him as the Lord.

All Souls’ Day, apart from the call to pray for the dead, functions just like all funerals. It is a memento mori. A style of iconography, that is, a kind of painting of Saints, is centred on the theme of memento mori. These paintings often depict the saints near to instruments of their death or being reminded of death. That is the meaning of memento mori—a reminder of death. I saw a picture yesterday of St Francis of Assisi, kneeling, in prayer, holding on one hand, a skull. This memento mori invite us to think of our own death. On All Souls’ Day, the epitaph on the tomb that says, “Where you are, I once was. Where I am, you will be” beckons us to do the good we need to, to repent our lives before it is too late. It is a reminder to us who are living not to waste any opportunity so that our purgatory will be shorter rather than longer.

Those who are not practising but want a Catholic funeral fail to understand the role that funeral plays. It is a reminder to us that time is short. Better prepare for a holy death than not because one day we will be in a box.

All Saints’ Day Year C 2022

You know we are approaching November when the movies start turning creepy and dark. Halloween is basically the season for the scary and spooky. But the word itself points to the traditional Catholic feast of “All Hallow’s Eve” which refers to the eve of the Solemnity of All Saints. The present shape of Halloween has little to do with sanctity. Instead, it is a season of excess, that is, of children eating sweets until they are sick.

Halloween actually belongs to an essential component of the Liturgical Year and that is the Sanctoral Cycle. We are used to the movement of time through the various seasons of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Ordinary, Lent, Easter and Pentecost. What we may have neglected is that weaved into the Liturgical Year is the Sanctoral Cycle. At the uppermost, in the celebration of the annual events of Christ's mysteries, we have Mary whom the Church honours with a special love. She is joined by an inseparable bond to the saving work of Christ her Son. As the most excellent fruit of Christ’s redemption, William Wordsworth’s tribute to her, captures it most beautifully. She is “our tainted nature’s solitary boast”. Thus, the Church joyfully contemplates Mary as the faultless image which she, that is the Church, hopes and desires to be.

Apart from venerating the Holy Mother of God, the Church also includes in her annual calendar, days which are devoted to the memories of martyrs and saints. They are raised to the altar of sanctity only by the grace of God and from where they are, they sing God’s perfect praise in heaven. More than that, they offer prayers for us.

Many of us are familiar with the oft-repeated definition of what a Sacrament is and it is helpful to understand why we are celebrating Halloween. What is a Sacrament? Outward sign of inward grace. What does that mean? Firstly, the foundation of our sacramental theology is based on an event. It is the Incarnation. At its most basic, the Incarnation describes the “Word becoming Flesh”. There is a shrine in Italy where if you were there, you should visit. Imagine yourself standing in the Holy House of Loreto as the Angelus bell is rung and the prayer is recited as if for the first time: “Hic Verbum Caro Factum Est”. The scriptural quote is visibly emblazoned on the skirt of the altar. “Here the Word was made Flesh”. That is the bedrock for the Church’s sacramental structure.

In other words, it is because of the Incarnation, that is, God taking on materiality, that we have the Sacraments, meaning that, materiality has the power of conveying the divine. In this vein, a sacrament is a visible reality that hides an invisible truth. Jesus is sometimes described of as the Sacrament of the Father because He said, “to have seen me is to have seen the Father”. In Orthodox iconography, there is no depiction of God the Father because to see Him, Jesus, is to behold the Father. In like manner, the same can be said of the Saints in that “to have seen them is to see Christ”.

“By celebrating the passage of these saints from earth to heaven the Church proclaims the paschal mystery achieved in the saints who have suffered and been glorified with Christ; she proposes them to the faithful as examples drawing all to the Father through Christ, and through their merits she pleads for God's favours”. (Sacramentum concilium 104). In summary, the Church proposes the saints as “sacraments” of Christ.

But what happened?

Firstly, our experience of the saints is fundamentally functional. We barely know our saints except for the “useful” ones. Can you guess the name of the next new parish? Possibly Divine Mercy (granted the title does not belong to a saint) or the saint that is associated with the Divine Mercy. St Faustina. Why? She brings in the pilgrims and the money. It is sounds horribly cynical but our approach to the saints is quite mercenary.

Secondly, perhaps it is not as telling as it is inevitable that we have become mercenary. The onset of the Reformation also kicked in the long process of desacralisation of the Church. It began with the removal of statues of the saints. I entered a former Catholic Church about 40 years ago, now a Calvinist church in Geneva and it was totally bare. I was in York Minster in 2014, now an Anglican Cathedral in the UK. What struck me was the pantheon of saints’ statues, all decapitated. It is ironic that they lopped off the heads of the saints but retained the heads of the monarch. Somehow, they is scant realisation that the retention of the heads of the monarchs contradicts their sanction against idolatry.

Sadly, the march of desacralisation quickened after Vatican II and it matches the pace of “desacramentalisation”. We did away with a lot more of the “material” component of the sacraments and sacramentals preferring a more “spiritual” approach believing that God is more disposed to the interior rather than to the exterior. A glaring example is clothing. In the past, we dressed up appropriately for Mass. Now we hear the usual argument that God does not care what you wear. He is more interested in what is in your heart.

A good development is the recognition that they had been a process of desacralisation because they have brought back the prayer of exorcism in some of the rites. Notably the blessing of water. There was no reference to demonic presence in the post-Vatican II rite. In the restored blessing, exorcism is conducted because of a realisation that Satan’s arena of operation is not restricted to the spiritual realm. To understand this, one must ask the question: What does it mean when we proclaim Jesus as Saviour? From what is He saving us? He is Saviour because there is a possibility that we might go to hell.

Furthermore, in tandem with the desire for ecumenical rapport with our separated brothers and sisters, we tended to “downplay” our “saints” so that we do not appear to be “idolatrous”. This side-lining or emptying of the Church of saints is “disincarnational” and it has a deleterious effect on the life of the Church.

It is true, as St Jerome said, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ”. We accept that the Lord is best known through sacred scripture. However, Pope St Leo in Sermo 74,2 remarked, “What was visible in our Saviour has passed over into His mysteries” meaning that “everything that Jesus did to reconcile us to God, has passed over to the Sacraments”.[1]

We have forgotten that Jesus Christ is also scripted in the Saints. They are lived examples of His teachings. They are the flesh and blood of what it means to be Christ in the world. Perhaps it is much easier when the “outward sign” loses its material basis that our Masses can now be online. We would not have adapted that quickly to “online” Masses if we were not already steeped in a disincarnational spirituality. I am not interested in criticising the popularity of online Masses but note that long before we dove deep into online Masses, we were already swimming in the waters of a disincarnated spirituality. “Halloween” has truly become “Holloween”. When saints are driven out of “All Hallows”, you can understand why it is easy for children to dressed up as devils rather than as saints.

To go deeper into Christ and who He is, we must recover the sense of the Saints. Otherwise, in trying to be faithful to Christ, we have already “emptied” Him of His real content which is visible in the saints we venerate and love. Not just the famous ones but also the unknown ones. Ask any one of our children if they know the life of a saint intimately? St Ignatius of Loyola who recuperating from a cannon ball that shattered his legs were begging for more racy literatures. In the Castle, they only had the Lives of the Saints and the Imitatio Christi. In his recovery, he imagined, “If St Francis of Assisi did this and if St Dominic did that, I can too”. He became a saint because he was inspired by other saints.

What is All Saints’ Day? It is a supposedly a Day of Obligation. But is it still meaningful? At present we designate this day to be a celebration of all the “unknown” saints of the Church. But it may just be a hollow celebration. It makes a lot more sense if we celebrate the “saints” we know so that we can have a day which we celebrate all the saints we do not know.

________________

[1] The Greek word “mysterion” was translated into Latin as “mysterium” and “sacramentum”.

31st Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C 2022

We covered the link between the reality of sin, most essentially the truth of personal sin and the necessity of salvation. We can appreciate more of this connexion in the 1st Reading and the Gospel because it raises an important debate of who can be saved. The basic answer has to be everybody. But the sad and frightening truth is that not everybody will be saved. Such a claim sounds strange simply because we are accustomed to the current “established” and “inclusive” religion that God is irredeemably merciful.

The passage from Wisdom does suggest a helplessly benevolent God who wills the salvation of all. The fact is, He is merciful towards all that He has created and He desires to save. And that is heartening to hear. Yet, in the Gospel we clearly have someone who failed the criteria for inclusion. An innocent tax collector Zacchaeus was not. He was a treacherous traitor, a brazen blackmailer and a shameless sinner. To figure out the animosity against him, picture a Jewish Nazi-sympathiser who profits from selling out his own countrymen to the SS-Gestapo. Maybe we can resonate better with an example closer to home: scammers who prey on the vulnerable, relieving the unsuspecting victims of their hard-earned savings.

So, are there people who by virtue of who they are and what they do beyond the pale of salvation? Like Zacchaeus who because he was a tax-collector was unquestionably condemned beyond salvation. Like the hated legions of anonymous scammers who should be banished. Or could it be that we need a category more wretched than we are to feel good about ourselves? Many amongst us struggle with recurring sins and also repeated failures to repent and reform our lives so much so that we have given up hope on ourselves. In other words, the greater our resistance to change, the easier it is to spot the sins of others. Generally, a person with a judgemental attitude often finds it easier to condemn others than to work on his own conversion.

Conversion draws our attention to a feature in God’s salvific will which is succinctly captured by the author of the Wisdom. What we might miss out is compounded by a phenomenon called the “snowflake” syndrome. Firstly, the Book of Wisdom depicts a God who, little by little, corrects and admonishes those who offend or sin. The challenge for snowflakes is that they “bruise” easily. In this part of the world, such a condition is aptly labelled as the “strawberry” generation. Abusive or offensive, notwithstanding, employers can relate how the present batch of employees is easily hurt and demoralised when corrected. Overly emotional and incapable of dealing with opposing opinions will only make the path to conversion a bit more difficult. When one is easily offended, it will be difficult even to accept God’s gentle admonition or correction.

Going by the current standard, Zacchaeus would have been the perfect candidate deaf to the soft promptings of God. Given his stature and status, he should be offended even by a whisper of a criticism. Yet there seemed to be a certain humility with which he responded to the crowd. Though he sounded defensive, he stood his ground to ask for reasonable justification for their condemnation. “I may have been unjust but, pray do tell, how I have been unjust and I will make good of it”.

It may not be purely “hyper-sensitivity” or touchiness alone which makes hearing God next to impossible. In fact, this Gospel narrative is a call to conversion but the scrutiny is naturally focused on Zacchaeus because he is the “evil” one, the condemned tax-collector. What may escape our spotlight is the nameless one in the crowd murmuring against Jesus. He stands as custodian of norms accepted. He is the standard who castigates Jesus or anyone breaching the laws of propriety.

Jesus repeatedly transgressed the taboos set up to “protect” the virtues of the self-righteous. He frequently dined with sinners—adulterers, prostitutes, tax-collectors and the likes. “Who is in or out?” misses the point that God is relentless in searching for souls to save. This means we have to respond and in Zacchaeus, he recognised the need for reparation for the sins he may have committed.

When God searches, we need to reciprocate. So, when the new translation for the Roman Missal came out 2011, there were objections to the phrasing of the Consecratory Prayer over the chalice. “Pro multis” which refers to God’s salvific will was corrected from “for all” to “for many”. You remember the formula “It will be shed for you and for all men”? Compare it “Which will be poured out for you and for many”. Now, it is true that Christ died for all humanity but what the “restricted” translation affirmed is that each individual must also accept and live the grace won by Christ in order to attain eternal life. “For many,” asserts that salvation is not automatic because it cannot be forced upon a person. In the case of Zacchaeus, “Reparation” symbolised his intent on following Christ illustrating that discipleship has a price.

Without conversion, we can become a Church of Pharisees gather to congratulate ourselves. Whether or not we agree with the criteria set by the “crowd” or the single Pharisee, the point of being “in or out” has always been moral, that is, our actions have consequences. Today our dilemma being “in or out” revolves around whether or not we think like the ascendant group or subscribe to a set of approved behaviour. An observable case is how the net of homophobia is cast wider and wider to include anyone who even dares to disagree with the growing acceptance of same sex marriage, never mind whether it is a moral act or not.[1]

The morality of “in or out” in the exclusion of Zacchaeus shows that the criteria of inclusion must be tied to salvation and eternity. To be “in” is to be saved. It comes with a price which Zacchaeus was conscious of when he asked for proofs of his injustice and the assurance of the reparation he would make. It does not matter who we are or where we have been. It matters that we are changed or transformed. The case of Zacchaeus was an early version of identity politics and the failure to appreciate that it is not who we are that saves us. Rather it is the challenge of where we have been and if we are heading in the right direction of eternal life. The question is “Are we ready to pay the price for our salvation?”.

At the heart of this drama involving a midget of man is conversion. For our generation, what complicates this journey towards transformation is the dilemma posed by identity politics. In a sense, identity politics reflects our fascination with definition, statistics or better still, the delineation between “in or out” based on ideology. Identity politics can canonise us into specific behaviour[2] while failing to recognise that at the heart of being “in or out” is conversion. “In or out” can be made clearer by asking what the goal of salvation is. Let us be clear that God wills the salvation of all. The question is “For what?”. Does it mean that Christ saves us so that we can live forever on earth? No, the correct answer is “I came that you may have eternal life to the full”

The present ideology expects forgiveness from a loving God forgetting the corresponding responsibility of cooperating with His grace of conversion. Grace has never been cheaper in an entitled world that demands pleasure without accepting its purpose. There are many obstacles to discerning God’s outreach to us. In fact, Satan is doing all he can to ensure that we may never hear God. This is not blaming “poor” Satan for our failures but highlighting that the blindness of identity politics can prevent us from hearing God. “In or out” used to be a moral question. Today it is a matter of security or strength in numbers. But “quantity” or number is no indicator of rightness of our action or the guarantee of our salvation. Just because everyone bribes the police does not render corruption less immoral. Instead, “in or out” is “qualitative” in the sense that to be “in” qualifies us for heaven and inclusion is always dependent on following Christ and living His moral commands or imperatives, no matter how unpopular they may be. We pray for courage. We ask for humility.

Addendum

Earlier I mentioned about same sex marriage etc. I have never in my so many years preaching said anything about it. Why? It is not easy because you know stories can change. Stories have changed. Stories will change. Our neighbour down south has legalised homosexual acts between consenting adults. With regard to SSM, you need the PM and all the all farts of his generation to die off before the conversation changes.

In the past, when abortion was being pushed, the slogan was “My body, my choice”. Nobody, not even the Church or God can tell me what to do with my body. It is my choice to keep or abort the baby. Then came Covid and the emergence of the Vaccine. Suddenly, “My body, my choice” lost its currency because vaccination was being forced onto people. Ask Novak Djokovic. “His body, his choice” was no longer valid for him. He was banned from the Australian and the US Open. In the Church what happened? “Your body, your choice” became “No Vaccination, No Communion for you”. In short, people paid the price for upholding what was once “sacred” to the abortion industry.

With regard to sexual mores, in the beginning, the conversation of same-sex attraction centred on sexual behaviour. Why? Behaviour has a moral component to it because it deals with relationships. Even between a man and a woman. How should both behave with each other? For example, can a married man have a sexual relationship with a woman other than his wife? You know the answer.

However, “sexual behaviour” gave way to “sexual preference”. We enter the familiar territory of “my body, my choice”. Morality is not much of a consideration because my behaviour is an expression of my preference. There is greater autonomy here. Soon enough, “sexual preference” opened up the space for “sexual orientation” to flourish. Here, there is even less room for morality here because the origin of one’s behaviour is now transferred to nature. Very easily, the language shifted to one’s “sexual identity”. Think of Lady Gaga’s “I was born this way”. That is the narrative now, morality plays no part. If anything, God is to be blamed for making you this way.

I am not interested in judging people. (1) Life is short. (2) Life is tough. I empathised with people who have same sex attraction. I also empathise with a serial adulterer. A man or woman who cannot be faithful to the spouse is struggling in the area of sexual behaviour. In such a situation, what does “I was born this way” mean? If a man were to say, “I was born to have sex with every woman with or without her consent”, what is our take on this? Perhaps we should use another example because sex is a private matter that no government or religion should intrude. Say, “I was born with this murderous rage inside me that I am fulfilled only when I kill”. What is our response?

“I was born this way” becomes moral as soon as it involves another person. Here is the confusion that has taken place between what is possible and what is permissible. They are not the same. It is possible to have sex with every woman but is it permitted? When science which excels in the art of possibility (because we have technical prowess) is divorced from God, then science will confuse what is possible with what is permissible. Is it possible to manufacture a baby? Yes, it is. Buy some ova from a woman who needs money. Fertilised them and pay a woman to surrogate an embryo. Do we need to question the morality of these possibilities? People are afraid to debate simply because cancel culture uses the fear of labels to silence people. “You homophobe, you hater, you racist, you misogynist”.

Now that we exist solely (or are trapped) in the realm of the possible, the challenge for the Church is immense. When the “marker” for salvation is placed within the boundary of possible, then the “teaching” of the Church with regard to the morality of behaviour must change to accommodate what is possible. If identity and not moral behaviour becomes the central “marker” for salvation, then the Church must change her “teaching” if she is not to be labelled a “hater”. When morality is no longer guided by permitted behaviour, then heaven has to be an entitlement. If the Church alters her moral teaching, then we must ask if she is still the Church founded by Christ when He returns or if like Moses coming down the mountain, we are found worshipping the golden calf that we have fashioned ourselves, to validate our behaviour.

___________

[1]It used to be a moral matter. “Sexual behaviour” touches on morality because it involves relationships. Later the behaviour evolved into “sexual preferences”. To prefer exhibits autonomy as it is linked to one’s choice. However, preference gave was to “sexual orientation” which is even less “moral” because it expresses “who I am” rather than “what I do”. Naturally orientation has morphed into “sexual identity”. Think Lady Gaga, “I was born this way”. If identity and not moral behaviour becomes the central “marker” for salvation, then the Church must change her “teaching” if she is not to be labelled a “hater”.


[2] For instance, the destruction of masterpieces of art in order to stop the use of oil. What sort of behaviour confuses beauty of the past with the viability of the future?

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C 2022

This Sunday is Mission Sunday and fortuitously we continue with the theme of prayer. Last week, the description for prayer was that it should be sustained. But Jesus Himself did caution against “babbling” in our prayers as if God were deaf. Therefore, it might be good to clarify what our prayers should be like and how we ought to carry ourselves when we pray. Finally, what connexion does the prayers of the Pharisee and the Publican have with the mission of evangelisation?

Firstly, it is rather odd to name this weekend Mission Sunday, as if the task of evangelisation is extraneous to the Church’s own self-definition. Mission cannot be simply one amongst her diverse activities. At the Ascension, the Great Commission given by Christ to the gathered Apostles to go baptise all nations has, from the Church’s inception, clearly marked her roadmap. She has been sent by the Saviour to draw the entire world into His Kingdom under His Lordship.

Thus, evangelisation is who we should always be because every minute of our Christian existence is supposed to be missionary. If anything, “Mission Sunday” merely highlights our identity making sure that we never forget who we fundamentally are—evangelical. When Jesus asked Peter, “Who do people say I am?”, the answer was resoundingly, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God”. Therefore the Church derives her meaning from the unchanging proclamation of Jesus who stands at the centre of history and life.

In the context of this mission, the idea of prayer and its purpose fits very well into the Church’s enterprise. The prayer we make is both for the success of our endeavours as well as to remain ever faithful to the task we have before us. St Paul in the 2nd Reading gave details of the struggles he encountered along the way. Tenaciously, he held on to the faith. Using the metaphor of sports, he saw himself as faithfully running the race to its logical conclusion, to a life that culminates with Christ.

Indeed, evangelisation is a crucial race only because there is a world hungering for the grace of the Gospel. If the scope for the Church is to evangelise, then both the Pharisee and the Publican are important. We might think that the central theme of the narrative surrounding these two men is humility or the lack of it, which is, arrogance. After all, one of them walked in and immediately began virtue signalling before God. But it is not about humility and if it concerns arrogance, then it is the pride of not needing salvation.

More than humility, the postures and prayers of these two men standing before God fundamentally underscore the connexion between sin and salvation, between the truth of redemption and the necessity of justification. Desiring to be justified is desiring salvation. Whereas the Pharisee felt himself justified as he declared his self-sufficiency. In short, he had no need of God for he believed himself justified in his behaviour. God could not save the Pharisee not because he was perfect but because he had no need of the Lord.

On the other hand, the Publican stood at a distance and dumbstruck before God, conscious of his abject sinfulness and his utter need for salvation. He who has need of God was justified and saved by God Himself. We see in these two men, the Church’s missionary thrust played out, which therefore begs the question, “What is salvation for?”. Or better still, “What is there is to save if one were not a sinner?”.

What is it to be justified and saved? Is this not a conundrum of our age and generation that we MAY have forgotten that Christ came to save sinners. Why? Even if we were to accept the connexion between the reality of sin and the necessity for redemption, the problem might still arise as we struggle to see ourselves as wretched sinners. A priest told me that he often encountered people who enter the confessional without sin only to leave with four sins. (1) They lie that they are sinless which is (2) itself also a sin against the Holy Spirit (for to claim that one is sinless is to call the Holy Spirit a liar). (3) They abuse the Sacrament of Confession while (4) complaining about others. In other words, it is easier to accept that we are sinners in a generic sense rather than a sinner in one’s personal capacity. To announce a salvation without acknowledging the truth that we are miserable sinners sorely in need of redemption is to proclaim a vacuous god of therapy. To be saved is merely to feel good about ourselves.[1]

Perhaps we are lukewarm with regard to our mission only because there is no more sin. We cannot “judge” not because there are no faults but rather because we are already perfect. In that case, why would we want to proclaim salvation when no one has need of it.

In a sense, another focus of this Sunday is on two Pharisees. The one in the Gospel was unnamed and proud. The other, in the 2nd Reading, was Paul, the tyrannical persecutor of Christians. Justified by Christ, he became the chief evangelist of the Church. Saved from his sins, he ardently preached the Gospel of salvation. The example of St Paul showed the role forgiveness played in his evangelical drive. He was the great evangeliser and preacher because he was forgiven much. To “Christify” the world, we would need to acknowledge the reality of sin, not just systemic or structural out there but also personal sin within.

So, if there is a race, it is not a competition as to who would be first but rather a race to be saved by Christ. A civilisation that is deeply enamoured with the spirit of science and enchanted by the god of technical conquest is also a world deeply scarred in the effort to reorganise itself by excluding God and the necessity of His redemption. The mission of the Church is to lead humanity to an encounter with the Risen Saviour. Friendship with Christ is not only salvific but it offers the remedy and cure we need in a society that is confused and searching for its soul. Only the Church has the answer to the world’s deepest longing and He is none other than Jesus, the Saviour and the Lord.


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[1] A tell-tale sign of the therapeutic god is the facility of receiving Holy Communion and the avoidance of Confession.

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C 2022

In the last two weeks, we surveyed a faith that saves and a faith that serves. This Sunday we see how faith should persevere. Faith should express itself through a persistence in prayer as symbolised by the sustained supplications made to an aloof and rather “shameless” judge. He answers her not through the merit of her request but out of shame that he will be humiliated by this tenacious widow. His response directs our attention to God, for in contrast to the judge, the Lord is honourable as He does not operate on the basis of shame.

The truth is our encounters with God can be worse than the widow’s experience of the shameful judge. At least, the fear of disgrace moved the judge to respond. Whereas our God is often savagely silent. It begs the question: “Really? There is an honourable God who hears and answers our prayers”? Many can relate their negative rather than positive history with God.

The 1st Reading is very much an encouragement to never stop praying. Moses prayed unceasingly and in his ceaseless prayers, we catch a glimpse of what true prayer is. Clearly, the context was a war to be won but prayer represents more than a request for victory. As Pope Francis remarked, “Prayer is not a magic wand; it is a dialogue with God”.

If to pray is to enter into a conversation with God, then whenever we pray, time and space become holy. Like Moses meeting God at the burning bush. To facilitate this encounter, the Church proposes the liturgy of the hour, a rhythmic praying of the Divine Office so that our days and our lives can be sanctified and offered for the greater glory of God. In dialogue, we are also seeking God’s will. In other words, our lives should fit into this schema of sanctification. We do not just engage in holy rites. Rather, we are holy, which is why we perform the rites. But somehow, we have lost the idea that holiness should pervade or permeate our entire existence. Instead, we have reduced holiness to merely a feature of life, that is to say, we try not to let holiness get in the way of living.

Contrast the vision of sanctification proposed by the liturgy of the hour with our pragmatic notion of prayer. Having a Sunday Mass that fits our hectic schedule is practical. But it also betrays a utilitarian mentality that separates life from holiness and treat sanctification almost in a functional manner. For example, take a look at the way we pray the Angelus, never mind that it is merely a Marian prayer. In the light of the Protestant critique that Catholics overemphasise their devotion to Mary, we have downplayed the devotion to barely existent. The regularity of the recitation at 6 am, 12 noon, 6 pm belongs to the same rhythm of the liturgy of the hours because the prayer reminds us that nothing is more important that the sanctification of time and space. We stop whatever mundane activities we have so that we can raise my minds to God, albeit, using a Marian prayer.

However, more often than not, the business of life comes first and the Angelus is recited at our convenience just to get it out of the way.[1] This same diktat or tyranny of convenience flows into our Sunday Masses too. Granted that this state labours under an Islamic weekend that makes liturgical life on a larger scale challenging. This lack of convenience should actually spur us even to want to pray more, to sanctify more. Instead, to “get Sunday Mass out of the way”, we celebrate it on a Friday. The same goes for transferring our holy days of obligation to Sunday so that we can “kill two birds with one stone”.

When the tyranny convenience dictates the sanctification of our day, it might just contribute to a restriction of prayer to mostly asking from God. To be fair, God is Provident, and as such, asking is not inappropriate. The Gospel commends us to “ask, seek and knock”. The challenge is that in asking, we expect God to bend to our will, rather than we bending to His.

To infuse holiness into time and space, our praying should move beyond a transactional model of “I scratch your back, you scratch my back” meaning that “I pray and God, you answer”. The example of St Monica teaches us what it means to pray consistently. She begged God for the conversion of her son Augustine and it was only after 16 years that her prayers were answered. It might feel like a one-way street but it is certainly far from the model of God as a dispenser machine. To pray without losing hope is faith that wants to conform our minds, convert our hearts and bend our knees to God’s will. “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”.

Sadly, no matter how noble our prayers may be, sometimes God cannot answer our prayers. To illustrate. A pal calls you every day. The conversation may be rubbish. But he calls daily without fail. Sometimes even twice or three times a day. The trashy banters are premised on the fact that there exists a relationship between two friends. Whereas another chum of yours calls only when there is a problem. Which one are you keener to respond to? Everyone know how it feels that we are called upon only when our services or expertise are needed. We often treat God that way.

But God is beyond this. The analogy of the fair-weather friend can only go that far because God does not engage in the pettiness of “tit for tat”. To better understand God’s seeming silence in the face of prayer, we may have to take a look at our behaviour.

You contact a plumber to unclog your sewage pipe. He finds a lot of tissue stuffed and stuck in the drainage. This simply illustrates that our behaviour has consequences. Extend this example to the way the environment is treated. People who used to frequent Cameron Highlands can attest to the fact that temperature is rising. It is not as cold as before. When we mow down our forests, we cannot expect the environment to be unaffected.

God cannot answer our prayers like the plumber when we keep throwing rubbish into the toilet. Same too for the indiscriminate logging that changes the climate of the highlands. Rather than thinking that God does not answer our prayers, it is more likely that God is helpless. What can He do in the face of our blatant irresponsibility?

The point is even if God should never be reduced to a Mr Fixit, it does not mean that we stop praying. If anything, prayer is to change us. St John Paul II, in writing about the Rosary quoted a Satanist priest turned a Saint (Blessed Bartolo Longo) that “Just as two friends, frequently in each other’s company, tend to develop similar habits, so too, by holding conversation with Jesus and Mary, by meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary and by living the same life in Holy Communion, (that is, in friendship with them) we can become, to the extent of our openness, similar to them and can learn from these supreme models a life of humility, poverty, hiddenness, patience and perfection” (Rosarium Virginis Mariae 15). The purpose of prayer is to transform us more and more into the image of the God who created us. But if prayer does not make us grasp the necessity of changing our behaviour, then perhaps prayer can reorient our sense of salvation.

Prayer belongs to the scheme of a faith that saves and serves. However, if our vision of heaven is dim, then our prayers will often be made in the context of staving off death. Thus, we are invited to look at prayer and its relationship to eternal salvation. If faith saves, then our persistent and prolong prayers must always be for our salvation. We pray always to be saved for eternal life and it is in the context of redemption that God will answer our prayers. God might not answer your prayers for a long time. He will definitely grant your prayers if you ask for eternal life.


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[1] The whole idea of the Angelus recitation is to stop time and space so as to be conscious of the supernatural reality sacred time and space.

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C 2022

Last week, we connected personal faith with communal service. The most compelling symbol of this association is the eremitical or cloistered vocation. The monks and the nuns who live alone serve through praying for the Church and the world.[1] Today, gratitude for salvation is paired with faith. In other words, faith saves and salvation should lead to gratitude.

Sadly, just like the ability to trust in God, gratitude does not come naturally. In both the 1st Reading and the Gospel, the two characters who came back to give thanks to God were both foreigners—one of them a Syrian and the other, a Samaritan. Why did they come back? The explanation may be found in being an outcast. Only when we are not entitled that we can better appreciate the graces that we have received. When we are accustomed to blessings unasked or unsolicited, it is easy to forget that everything is grace. Take a look at a child with everything. He can be callous with or indifferent to the gifts he has. Priests too. They receive so much that they can forget to be thankful.

What function does gratitude have apart from having good manners? To understand why gratitude is important, a distinction needs to be made between the feeling and the attitude. Feeling and being grateful are not always the same. We cannot control our feelings. They are instinctive or natural reactions to situations and circumstances. When cheated, it is unreasonable to expect a person to be cheerful about it. Feelings aside, we can choose to be grateful, no matter what the circumstance may be. In Dublin, I lived with a phlegmatic Polish Jesuit who had a ready but irritating response whenever someone complained about a problem. His answer was always, “It could be worse”. That quip possibly encapsulates an attitude we can have with regard to any situation which is bad. It sounds like a false or naïve positivity, but it is not. It merely states and recognises that a bad situation can in fact be worse which means we can be thankful or we can choose to be grateful. It is a frame of mind that helps us transcend.

As an attitude, gratitude can be better cultivated if we go beyond the idea of duty. To be dutiful is a good quality but it usually belongs to the discipline of obligation and if one were to describe duty as a kind of love, then it is a lower form. As a matter of fact, one can be dutiful even without loving. The many homes which house the elderly are good examples. Children are dutiful because the parents are safe in these care facilities but are seldom visited by those who so-called care for them. Duty can burdensome once we have tasted the freedom of spontaneity. Many will chafe when whenever a duty is imposed because by nature responsibility inhibits our freedom. “You want to” is very different from “You have to”.

To illustrate, the industry providing wedding fashion has no respect for the sanctity of the ceremony in Church. Sometimes, the bride’s wedding gown leaves little in the matter of imagination. Whereas the bridesmaids’ attire is also on the flighty and revealing side. The constant battle many parishes have with wedding garments is that they are quite inappropriate for a sacred rite. When it is insisted that the bride covers herself, there will be resentment and if the person is entitled, hell will break loose. Why? Because we have been habituated to operate on the basis of obligation and duty. Imposing a dress code as an honour to God is to reduce respect for Him to the bare minimum. It means that one dresses appropriately not because it is the proper act coming before the Lord and Saviour. One does so because one has been forced to.

A good development we have during this pandemic is that the Sunday obligation has not been restored. Technically, you can miss consecutive Sunday Masses and still do not need to confess the mortal[2] sin of missing Mass on holy days of obligation before receiving Holy Communion. Your attendance is a pleasant indication that we do not require a “forced” obligation to “compel” us to devoutly assist[3] at Mass. I appreciate it that you are here even though there is no obligation to do so.

It should not be duty or obligation that draws us to the Eucharist but gratitude that we have been saved. Gratitude recognises that the goodness of salvation cannot come from ourselves. When we are grateful, nothing is ever too much for us. If you survey our saints, many were saved sinners and they never forgot that they had been redeemed.

St Ignatius of Loyola, many a times found himself in tears as he celebrated Mass that he was worried for his eyesight. When Jesus accepted the invitation of Simon the Pharisee to eat in his house, a woman of ill-repute came and weeping, wet Jesus’ feet with her tears and she proceeded to wipe them with her hair. Kissing His feet, she anointed them with ointment. In response to Simon’s patronising attitude, Jesus concluded that she who had many of her sins forgiven could love much. Whereas he who was forgiven little, loved little.

The challenge is to ascent from merely being dutiful to radiating gratitude. Generally, I do not make comments about dressing in Church and not even when a bride’s gown is scanty. For some people, Church is a fashion parade. You all can attest to this especially during Christmas. The point is that people are not as wilful as they are “inexperienced”. A person who needs to flaunt or parade is someone who has not fully experienced the salvation of God.

Why have so many of us not experienced or know God’s salvation? The clue is found in the experiences of the two cured lepers. In times gone by there was an unmistakable correlation between sickness and sin. The former was considered the result of the latter.[4] The two lepers who were healed were grateful for the forgiveness of their sins. In an era of reduced culpability, we have reversed the order in which sickness is the cause of sin. When we no longer sin or cannot be responsible for sinning, then what is the healing for?

You observe this in some post-Christian countries where churches have been converted into spas. This is emblematic of our current state in which we go to Church not because we are sinners but because God is supposed to be there to make us feel good. If we are not careful, the Lamb of God, and by extension the Church, play the reduced role of merely taking away our stress rather than our sins. Apparently we are all immaculately conceived.

Without gratitude for redemption, it is not easy to return love for the grace of forgiveness. If everyone were grateful that he or she has been redeemed by the Son of God, we would not have habitual late comers for Mass. In fact, everyone will be rushing here to be in time for the God whom they love. Grateful for salvation, there will be no tension with wedding couples over their wedding wardrobe, their flowers arrangements, the shooting of confetti cannons or the choice of hymns.

The task ahead is not more rules or restrictions. Instead it is to increase the possibilities of experiencing that we have been saved by love. A way to foster this appreciation is to present the teaching of Christ through liturgy of His Church as well as through her architecture. Behaviour and buildings are effective expressions of the beauty of Christ’s salvation. More than that, it is to be captured by and directed to the Eucharist. As Saint Teresa of Calcutta said, “Once you understand the Eucharist, you can never leave the Church. Not because the Church will not allow you but because your heart will not let you”. This is a heart overflowing with gratitude that the salvation of Christ comes through eating His Body and drinking His Blood.

Does gratitude serve a function? Yes, it does. Secure in Christ’s salvation, nothing can ever disturb our interior peace. Teresa de Avila’s “Nada te turbe”[5] springs from this space of gratitude. So too St Paul in his letter to Timothy. He is not shaken by hardship because He is rooted in the salvation of Christ.


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[1] Another is a category in the Jesuit catalogue is “Praying for the Society”. To this category belong the elderly, the infirmed and the “useless” Jesuits. They may have outlived their usefulness but they can be effective “pray-ers” for the ongoing mission of their Jesuit companions.

[2] 1. It is a grave action. 2. There is full knowledge that it was seriously wrong. 3. Committing with complete consent of the will.

[3] To assist at Mass means to be an active participant and worshipper.

[4] In reality, it cannot be this way. Why? The Son of God suffered even though He was sinless. Suffering is not necessarily the result of sin.

[5] “Nada te turbe, nada te espante, quien a Dios tiene, nada le falta, nada te turbe, nada te espante, solo Dios basta”. (Nothing disturbs you. Nothing scares you. Whoever has God, lacks nothing. Nothing disturbs you. Nothing scares you. God alone is sufficient).