1st Sunday of Advent Year C 2024

Even though we proclaim Christ as sovereign Ruler of a Kingdom, the truth is that He conquers one heart at a time. This Sunday we are invited to remain attentive as we begin the new liturgical year. Appropriately, in the line up to the drama of Christ’s birth, we are urged to be vigilant. To be watchful is not a stage to arrive at or a level to advance to. Instead it is a state of being, that is, we must continually be on the look-out.

As part of vigilance, we prepare. The 1st Reading speaks of God’s promise. He will fulfil His vow to Israel and Judah. On the side of God, it is certain that He will keep His promise. On our side, it is to be prepared for when that moment arrives. While St Paul highlights the preparation and diligence in terms of holiness and pleasing God, the Responsorial Psalm chimes in by letting us know the God will teach us His path which leads to holiness and pleasing Him.

When it comes to vigilance and preparation, why do we suffer from lapses?

A friend of mine used to tell me this—my memory is perfect but short. Basically, it was his get-out-of-gaol card that he uses every time he forgets to do what he had promised. It is true that our collective memory is short and for that reason, we frequently fail to learn from our past mistakes. History is condemned to repeat itself.

Man easily forgets and the history of Israel is a litany of her amnesia.

A way to forgetfulness is when we view vigilance as a feather in our cap, so much so that when we have become aware, we tend to let our guard down. There is an aspect within the Parable of the Sower that we may overlook. According to the narrative, some seed fall on the wayside. However we are too distracted by the productivity of the other seed that we overlook the fate of the seed that fall by the wayside. These wayside seed symbolise a form of inertia that is spiritually fatal. Those who are content to remain passive make it easy for the devil to pick them off.

Now imagine that everything you do in the Lord seems to be working for you. You attend Mass on Sundays and you dutifully send the children to Sunday catechism, donate to charity, are participative in Church-organised activities. You seem to have arrived and it is easy to think that nothing can touch you. Take it easy because everything appears good but is that enough.

The answer might surprise you but it comes from realm of prayer. We can be praying regularly and yet our prayers are dry. If we do not pray, dryness is at least understandable but why when we are praying and are serious about it, there does not seem to be any palpable affectivity, meaning that we feel nothing at all. Instead there is a deep sense that God is far away. God seems uncaring.

A spiritual director once remarked that such dryness is not a sign of God’s absence but could be an invitation to “duc in altum”, that is, put out into the deep. God is inviting the soul into a deeper relationship with Him. It is an invitation to leave behind the feelings of God, good as they are, in order to embrace the God of feelings. It is a challenge to trust in God for He wants us to progress further into our relationship with Him.

Vigilance is an attentiveness to the promptings of God to enter His space. But the Devil would prefer for us to remain superficial in our relationship with God—to be the seed that fall by the wayside. It benefits him because it makes his work of damnation much easier. The more passive we are, the better for the Devil.

Securing our relationship with God is mirrored in our experience of friendship. We progress from mere acquaintance to friendship. To get there, we exchange our life stories with our new-found friend. There is a natural progression in the path of friendship to enter further into surrender and trust. But how many of us are afraid? We fear losing because the other party cannot be trusted. Since we are fearful, we tend towards superficiality.

Christ invites us to a vigilance that is not superficial. However, in this invitation, He will not and He cannot remove us from trials or tribulations especially as our friendship with Him develops. This is an inconvenient truth because we tend to harbour a notion that relationship with the Lord will shield us from troubles and pain. If anything, relationship with Christ always entails an uphill climb to Calvary. St Teresa of Avila’s gentle retort to Christ is spot on for us. It may be a tongue-in-check reply but it reveals the truth. She was nearly swept away while crossing a river but Christ sustained her and she in her typical manner asked Him when He would stop messing about. His reply that He treats His friends as such only drew a quick retort that maybe it explains His lack of friends.

This anecdote teaches us that despite troubles Christ is never far away even though He would allow us to be tested terribly. Thus, it is part of vigilance to pray for strength and believe that He will keep his promise to us. Vigilance is always keeping our eyes fixed and our hearts focused on Him in good times or in bad.

Christ the King Year B 2024

Have you heard of Klaus Schwab? Maybe we are more familiar with George Soros whom Mahathir accused of damaging the country’s economy because he speculated on the Ringgit prior to the 1997 financial crisis. Anyway, the former, meaning Klaus Schwab, founded the advocacy think-tank called the World Economic Forum in 1971 and annually they meet in Davos, Switzerland. The latter, George Soros, is basically one of the billionaire participants.

Anyway, if you do not know these personalities or their plans, it is not the end of the world. More importantly, does this slogan sounds just about right for you? Building a greener, a fairer and a smarter world. These words describe the Great Reset.

The movement initiated by Klaus Schwab aims to transform the world into a better place that is fair for all. What made this dream closer to reality was the devastation brought about by the Coronavirus pandemic. It presented the perfect platform to jumpstart the world aright.

Perhaps it has escaped the notice of these great thinkers and leaders that the Great Reset is not humanity’s first attempt at “reshaping and unifying” the world. Very early in history, this very alluring idea was hatched when mankind tried to construct the Tower of Babel. The early 1900s saw Marx attempting to forge a fairer system where everyone will have access to what they need. Babel brought disarray into humanity whereas Communism destroyed lives.

Yet somehow mankind cannot help itself when it comes to attempts at setting the world aright. Given our fascination with performance indices, we are inclined to define ourselves through the metrics of achievement. There is an obsession with numbers and as a consequence, the temptation to push for a systemic reset is great. Coupled with this temptation is the hubris, the arrogance that every emerging generation seems to think that it holds the panacea to the ills of the world.

While it is noble to envision a better world, the reality is that systems can only do so much. Take for example, fines. Monetary penalty works to keep behaviour in check. The heftier the fine, the more subservient the citizens. But what if there were no enforcements? Like in this country. We have notices of fines for smoking but never enforced. In general, people tend to revert to their default position. In other words, you can take a monkey out of a jungle but you cannot take the jungle out of a monkey. Fear may be a great motivator but it is basically just that, fear and no more.

The Great Reset does not begin with grand systems. The Great Reset that we yearn for so badly actually belongs to Christ alone. The programme was already put into place two thousand years ago. He died in order to justify and to restore man to God’s favour. The price for that redemption, the Great Reset, was paid with His blood. It is an ongoing programme that continues with His Church through Apostolic Succession. Sadly, we find it hard to believe that there is already a reset or a restoration initiated by the Lord. If “system” is what fascinates us perhaps we should consider embracing His programme and it is His Sacramental system. Unfortunately, our fixation with novelty drives us to search for the better solution as if the Lord’s reset had been deficient.

Nature has been weakened by sin. Christ’s passion, death and resurrection is aimed at restoring our weakened state. To support this goal, His great reset, He left us His Church and His Sacraments. This is the part which is rather mundane and not in any way exciting. Imagine coming for Mass every day. It is a ritual which can be boring but it is there that Christ’s life-giving Sacrament allows me to be part of the Reset. Every Sacrament is Christ Himself making us a part of His programme of restoring the world to the Father.

Thus, the Great Restoration begins with me. It is an intensely personal journey. Becoming a better-quality Catholic is, by far, the most graceful answer to the Great Reset. The two great Sacraments of Reset of the Church are Confession and the Eucharist. One tends to the wounds caused by sin. One provides strength for the journey. Both the Sacraments belong to the life-long process of reorienting our compass in the direction of Christ.

Today we celebrate Christ the King. Discipleship is a daily reality. Like coming back from work and looking after a family—elderly parent who is losing her mind, young children who cannot afford housing. It is mundane and precisely the point. Christ did not conquer the world with the wave of a finger. He conquered the world one heart at a time. He did not conquered classes or races or societies but individual consciences. Temptation is always there to “reinvent” ourselves, as the Great Reset is one example. But as the Psalmist reminds us, “If the Lord does not build, then the labourer shall toil in vain”. Today we turn to the great Architect of the only reset for humanity, Christ the King and from Him we ask for the conversion of heart and the strength to follow Him closely and daily.

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 2024

Ordinary Time is drawing to a close but unlike Year A’s focus on the end time, the spotlight of Year B shines on faith in the midst of tribulation. From trusting in God’s generosity, we continue with the theme of faith in the Lord.

From the perspective of the Readings, discipleship has a cost which can only be paid by faith in the Lord. Without faith in Him, nobody can ever bear the price of discipleship.

Following Christ through trials and tribulations only makes sense if there is an end to our time on earth. The “Eschaton” invites us to think about the afterlife. However, it is a rather uncomfortable issue for some because nobody wants to be reminded of death. Two years ago, a priest from a parish not too distant from here was found dead in the bathroom of the Diocesan Retreat House. His death was most unexpected. It was unnerving. Unwittingly, we tend to run like clockwork. We wake up in the morning to slog or to slave during day and back to sleep at night. We eat from one meal to another. Sometimes even before we have finished eating we are already planning for the next meal. There is a rhythm or cadence to life which we take for granted. All we need is a spanner in the works. We assume that life will run smoothly but a death just throws us off kilter. It was in the aftermath of a death close to the presbyterium that we began to have workshops about our health etc.

But it does not take long for us to revert to our old ways. Until the next untimely death. Whether we like it or not, we need to think about the afterlife. We can go on accumulating but when we are at death’s door, nothing of what we possess materially can pass through that portal. What counts are the good deeds which we have done, the merits we have gathered, not as a guarantee of our entrance into eternal life but as gifts which, by God’s grace, we present to Him. In other words, all the merits we have are His gifts in the first place.

To reach that place, we need to calculate the cost for the journey. Much like going on an extended trip. The destination determines the amount of petrol to pump and also the toll to pay in order to get there. Last Sunday, the two widows gave their all. What are we prepared to sacrifice so that we may enter the gates of eternal life?

In the matter of paying the price of discipleship, we may have “romanticised” it by glamorising it with “blood”. While it is true that martyrdom is bloody yet the best description for it is actually bloodless. What is required is patience that comes from daily living out the call of Christ as in the Shema and the love of neighbour. It is not glamorous at all. It is daily and it is grinding. That is the cost of discipleship.

To give an example. Before marriage, the man and woman have great dreams of their shared life together. Just after their marriage, the couple remains barren despite all attempts to remedy their childlessness. Top that with the debilitating stroke of a spouse that ends with caring for the partner’s daily needs and also balancing the responsibility of being the sole bread winner for the family. This is a bloodless discipleship arising from the vow to remain together “for better or for worse”. It is not glossy or glitzy at all. In fact, such a life weighs upon and wears down a person. It is through difficulties that one gathers merits with the grace of God.

So, when Christ spoke of the end-time, it might seem to us that it is set in the future which we have to watch out for. The truth is the end-time can be closer in the sense that we might just drop death, like the priest in the bathroom mentioned earlier. Or like anyone engaging life like clockwork only to be stopped by an untimely death.

The watchfulness that the Lord asks of us is not as much directed to that specific time in the future as it is focused on our behaviour, our duties, our discipline because we can never tell when the time is for us to make that journey to eternity. Thus, we are called to be mindful that whatever good we can do, we should and we must never waste the many opportunities granted to us to make up and to repent while we can.

This sounds rather forbidding and frightening but if we look at the warnings of Jesus we realise that He is not trying to scare us. The life we have on earth is temporal. Between temporal and eternal, there is no comparison, no measure. If anything, the trials that we undergo is but a blip in the spectrum of eternity. We ought to live for that eternity. It might be better to remember that the end-time is not out there but rather it is in our hearts. Christ’s sacrifice has defeated Satan’s power forever but the battle continues in our hearts. It is there that His victory is to be asserted.

In fact, Christ makes it a point to emphasise that all will pass away. As the author of the Ecclesiastes reminds us, “All is vanity” and so we take heed. What Christ also promises is that He will come again and with Him, our salvation is assured. We should attempt to live as if today is our last day so that when we are called, we have already said our goodbyes. Our hearts are already prepared and we have been longing for the coming of the Lord.

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 2024

Last week, the love of God was paired with the love of neighbour. This week, God’s providence is paired with two widows’ generosity. If love for the Lord is the springboard for our out-reach towards our neighbour, then God’s trustworthy providence is the assurance of our generosity. 

The 2nd Reading seals our guarantee. We have been focussing on Christ as High Priest. But the author also tells us that Christ generously offered Himself as a sacrifice for us. He dared to walk into oblivion knowing that He will never lose because of His Father. Laying down His life as a ransom for us is the ultimate sign of trust in Providence. God is dependable because He spared no expense to provide for our salvation.

On our part, scarcity is a fear of the future. There will never be enough when we are fearful or are uncertain about what the future holds. Fearing future scarcity will limit our generosity. Exactly the situation of the Widow in the 1st Reading. She barely had enough to feed herself and her son. We are afraid to part with what we have and instead we tend to operate from a space of surplus. We give only because we have more than what we need and the best part is that we may even feel generous about it. But consider the sacrifice that saved us was paid with no less than the life of God’s only Son. God held nothing back, giving not from His surplus but of His most precious Son.

It is fascinating that we have so much and yet somehow we feel that there is not enough. In fact, some countries today are experiencing population decline. What brought about this phenomenon?

When the Industrial Revolution took off, machination increased production. Whether life became easier for everyone is debatable. What was evident is that medical science advanced in tandem. What followed was life-expectancy increased and correspondingly child mortality decreased. The result was a spurt in the population growth. The world seemed to have more people but somehow there never seemed to be enough for everyone.

When population growth spiked, the alarm was sounded. Humanity was growing at a pace where it was felt that natural resources would not cope. What we had failed to realised was that the industrial progress had made it possible for food production to increase. Instead the scare was that we will never have enough. This fear resulted in some countries’ attempts to limit population expansion through birth control and family planning that even included forced sterilisation. That programme has been so successful and now these same countries are facing a population decline.

The usual mantra is that the world is incapable of supporting a burgeoning population and have you noticed that our food wastage has also increase exponentially. It just does not add up.

Why?

The model that we have been operating under is one of surplus and not of need. We dare to share only because we have surplus. We are hesitant that if we were to part with what we need, then when the moment arises for what is needed, we do not have enough and we suffer. Perhaps it explains the phenomenon of hoarding. Actually, accumulation represents a kind of fear that when the moment comes, whatever we have, cannot supply for the present need. But hoarding is not limited merely to material goods. Some millionaires and billionaires can be considered hoarders too because they fear inadequacy.

Hoarding is just a way of saying that God does not know how to take care of us. Perhaps it would be a wonderful occasion for priests to preach a “gospel of prosperity” meaning that parishioners should be generous because God can never be outdone in generosity. After all we are in the midst of a renovation, right? But do you know that a “gospel of prosperity” actually misses the point? The generosity suggested still operates from a model of “surplus”. According to this “gospel of prosperity”, the person who gives a lot would still be giving out of surplus and not out of need. Do we give to God what we have and do not need any more OR do we give to Him what we have even though we need it? Again, like the Widow and her son of the 1st Reading who were supposed to eat what they had and then die but she obeyed Elijah by surrendering what she needed.

In other words, dare we hand our hearts and our wills, our whole selves to the Lord? That means everything we hold dear, our family, our loves, our joys or our careers. Do we dare to place all in God’s hands to do with them according to His will. Like Jesus walking into death’s embrace for He knows that the Father is ever there for Him. That is the lesson for today. God does not need anything we can give Him. After all, what have we that we have not received in the first place? In fact, everything belongs to Him. Giving back to Him is nothing more than surrendering to the rightful owner. But like Jesus who walked into His death, God wants us to depend on Him.

To be generous even with what we need is a kind of grace. It is a fortitude in facing the future not with fear but with confidence. Fear is certain that scarcity is around the corner whereas faith is a strength that believes abundance awaits because the God whom we trust will never let us down.

31st Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 2024

Today the teaching of Christ highlights the great Shema of Dt. 6:4 and the love of neighbour of Lev. 19:18. How to navigate the love of God and neighbour?

We have a dilemma. The world appears to be on the brink of a war. Looking back at 1914, who would have thought the murder of an Archduke in Sarajevo could have reshaped the world. Now Israel and Iran are digging deep into their trenches, the former in self-defence and the latter intent on annihilation. On top of the spectre of a global conflict we are reminded that the planet is ravaged by climate change while the affluent West is inundated by economic migrations.

In other words, our attention is held sway by “hunger”. Whatever crises we face, be it an armed conflict, economic migration or even climate change, the stomach is involved. There will be hunger whenever a disaster strikes. Where is God in all these?

Today Jesus taught in the Temple emphasising the Great Commandment. We are in a bind. What does it mean to love a God who is absent at best or helpless at worst? Religion is mostly irrelevant and people shy away from organised religion. Increasingly people defined themselves as spiritual but not religious. In a meaningful “spiritual” realm, away from the control of organised religions, God, if there is one, should be a benevolent force. Thus, our definition of a compassionate God necessarily excludes His sovereignty. It means that if He exists, then it is His responsibility to affirm us and to ensure that we feel good about ourselves. In such a “spiritual” realm, God is the ultimate “therapist”.

The truth is, God is sovereign. If we can “define” ourselves, that would necessarily mean that God should be “defined” too. Given such a scenario, our self-definition might not fit in with God’s self-revelation. There is a possibility that we may not be included in His life, not that He needs us. This should give us pause to re-think our idea of who God is. He exists but not to prop us up. He is not our “therapist”.

Moreover, the dilemma we have with God is supplied by an urgency of a global magnitude. We experience how bad the world is and God seems to be silent or helpless even. Thus we set the question up. “How can you love a God whom you cannot see if you do not love the brother whom you can see?”. This question draws our attention to the glaring problems that we have before us. Hunger creates conflicts and also human migration. We want to solve this human ecological crisis.

Perhaps a better way to frame the need for action is to reorient ourselves with regard to the problems that we face. Jesus who laid down His life for His friends did not do it as a proof of His love for the Father. Rather it was His love for the Father that enabled Him to freely to lay down His life.

This should be how we approach the question of the love of our neighbour. The notion that we can create a world free from hunger and totally just or fair is appealing and seductive. However, the pantheon of canonised saint did not achieve sanctity from this great idea. Each became a saint because he or she had a personal love for Jesus. Their love for Christ fired their unreserved charity towards their brothers and sisters.

The ability to love a God whom one cannot see has a powerful effect. There are great people who are able to love even if they have no relationship with God. They are philanthropists and the world is packed with them. From this, it is easy to see how the love of neighbour has become the proof for the love of God.

The Shema is a call to each Christian to fall in love with God, not an idea of God nor even a wonderful idea of humanity. Perhaps what is radically wrong in the world today is that we have forgotten that love should flow from God to humanity. It remains our dilemma because it is never possible to convert the world to an ideology of good. Any attempt to make everybody loving in order to achieve a greater good will only result in human misery. Thus, the saying is true that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

It is rightly so that when we love God, there should be a kind of visibility to that love. The proof of our love flows into the love of the neighbour. That is the correct direction. If there is no love for our neighbour, maybe the question to ask is if one has truly loved God or rather what sort of relationship do we have with the God we love.

We desire a better world as we should and the only way to change is when enough humanity has fallen in love with God. Christianity as an effective force for good depends on this love of God. He is the reason that missionaries dared to fan out into the world to spread the Gospel and to share the love of Christ.

An example might illustrate how the love for God flows into the love for neighbours. Which is easier to order? Char Koay Teow. Or Char Koay Teow but no taugeh, without lap cheong, “see hum” must be cooked and fried with duck’s egg. If you were to “tapau” food, it is much easier to just say to the uncle, “Tapau, Char Koay Teow, two packets”. But it is definitely more mouthful to give that special instruction CKT. If the person were someone you truly love, it would not be a problem. You go and you even ensure that the CKT uncle complied with your instructions. But if it were someone whom you have no love for, you would find listing the exceptions an inconvenience and might even resent the person’s fussiness.

Likewise, in the matter of organised religion, complete with rules and regulations, when there is no love, everything will come across as impositions. But when we are in love, nothing is ever too much. The love of God and of neighbour are not equal loves. In order to fully love our neighbours, the challenge is to recover our love for the person of Jesus Christ.

To love your neighbour as yourself may be feel like the best recipe for social change especially if we think love can be programmed into actions like a machine can be programmed to run. We continually want to reshape the world by the dint of our will-power and thus through our machinations. We do possess technology that can increase food production. We can feed the world all over but why are we not doing it? The truth remains that without loving Jesus, we will be doomed to failure. Therefore, if we want to transform the world, then we must be inflamed by the love of Christ. There is no other way to love Him except to spend time with Him, through personal prayer, through scripture and silence, through the Eucharist and through Adoration.

All Saints’ Day 2024

Today we celebrate our saints who are mostly unnamed.

A particular Christian sect literally reads the Revelation and believes that only 144,000 people will be saved. Thankfully, the Apocalypse is more hopeful because it also describes “a huge number, impossible to count, of people from every nation, race, tribe and language; they were standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands”.

Two essential things to note.

Firstly, for every saint the Church has canonised, there are many more who are uncanonised. They do not live quiet lives of desperation but rather quiet lives of unsung heroism. They may not be acknowledged by man but they are definitely known to God. He alone knows their struggles and tribulations for “these are the people who have been through the great persecution, and they have washed their robes white again in the blood of the Lamb” and now they sing, “Victory to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”.

Secondly, we live in hope. The Saints enjoy the fullness of God’s love. Those on earth are hoping to share in that plenitude of love. We are struggling to get there. Thus, the Saints are beacons of hope because they know our struggles. They continue to pray for us and also to pray for the souls in purgatory. Both the souls in purgatory and those of us who are on earth are either waiting to enter or are still on a pilgrimage to the Beatific Vision. Like the Saints in heaven doing good on earth, so too our brothers and sisters in Purgatory who are praying for us. While they can and do pray for the living, what is lacking for them is that they are totally dependent on the Saints and those of us on earth to pray for them.

An interesting quote might help us appreciate how one can be a saint. “Some people are just born to fight. It is not that they are born brave. It is not that they are born strong. It is just that the universe has decided that this one, this one will have grit and fire and steel in their blood. And it will be tested, this cosmic mettle of theirs. They will face trial after trial, be broken and damaged in countless ways. But this one was born to fight. Maybe it is not the life they would have chosen. Maybe they would love to lay down their arms. But they were born to fight. It is what they know. It is what they do best. It is all they can do”.

But here is the kicker. The difference between a person born to fight and a saint is grace. A person may have grit and guts but without grace it is just brute force. No effort of our own can ever propel us to sanctity. What we need is God’s grace. His grace is our strength and our hope. Julius Caesar writing a letter to the Roman Senate referred to his swift victory over his opponents, allegedly wrote, “Veni, vidi, vici” translated “I came, I saw, I conquered”. The Saints have conquered but they teach us what it means to be graced by God and with greater humility they will paraphrase Caesar, “I came, I struggled, I conquered” with the assistance of God.

In remembering the saints, we also celebrate the vocation of sanctity that every Christian is invited to. As we remember our many unknown Saints, we affirm our belief that we too have been called to holiness and we confess that by the grace of God, we too can be raised to the altar of sanctity.