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I was in touristy place the other day. When one is sight-seeing, paths tend to cross. You see this person here this minute and then half an hour later, you meet the same person again. Something like that. So there I was at the end of a walk, lo and behold, the ubiquitous souvenir shop. A girl, whose path I had crossed along the excursion, walked up to me and asked if I could pen an advice in her journal. It was a first for me. I scribbled: “Look for God and God will look for you”.
Today, God told Solomon to ask for the deepest desire of his heart. Solomon asked for wisdom, to have a heart like God in order to govern. With our minds filled up with all kinds of demands and distractions, our focus naturally is directed towards getting on with life. And not just getting on with life, we also want to progress materially or economically. When chasing a better life is our goal, it is easy to lose sight of what must come first.
There are three parables in today’s Gospel. They reveal what the Kingdom of God is like and they are linked directly to what our hearts desire and want. The parables clearly direct our attention to what we should be searching for. We must seek the end for which we have been created. Thus the Kingdom of Heaven is our treasure and the finest pearl.
In a way, we are captives to our yearnings, fuelled by deep-seated longings. This opens up a window for our reflection. The Kingdom of Heaven is not something which God throws at us whether we want it or not. See, when a person desires wealth the easy way, that is, without effort, he or she will not get it just by wishing for it. Remember the story of the disappointed man who had spent a lifetime praying to God to strike lottery but never seemed to get a big payout. Angrily he asked God why. The answer was simple, “How could I answer your prayers when you have never bought lotteries”.
We have an instinctive longing for God and God wants to fulfil it. What happens is that the instinct is merely that, an instinct that is created and left there by God. It is like the compass that points toward God. What has happened is that Original Sin messed up that compass and wounded our natural powers. Instead of loving purely, thinking clearly and choosing properly, we tend towards that which is less than good for us. Humanity seemed to have acquired a persistent inclination to evil. Theologians called it concupiscence.
Our ability to choose God has been compromised by sin. Thus, the question now is how can we be disposed to choosing God, again and again? The beginning of the act of choosing properly is baptism. It restores us to the grace of God. Baptism, however, does not take away our inclination to sin. Instead it provides a channel to the strength needed to fight against temptation. It means we need to cooperate with God’s grace.
That is to say, praying is important both publicly and privately. The act symbolises our desire to keep the channel of communication open between God and us. Prayer is the language of our covenantal relationship. However, we go to Mass not because it is obligatory but because we need Him. It is mutual in the sense that God reaches out to us, to feed us. We go to Confession because it expresses God’s grace and forgiveness. Prayer is our lifeline to and with God but sadly, we often turn to Him only when we are in trouble. That is not a friendship but a utilitarian relationship which reduces God to a transaction. We pray or “pay” so that He will “reward” us. It is basically a conditional relationship which brings us to the next point.
We need discipline. Without discipline, our inclination to evil will overpower us. Take up your Cross and follow me is Christ’s disciplinary command but it is not to punish us. Given that our nature has been compromised by Original Sin, we need some semblance of discipline. Have you seen a child that runs wild when Mass is going on? Now, I am not taking a swipe at any parents here. It must be tough for you to raise a child in this age of digital distraction and endless entertainment. We witness this replayed over and again at eating places etc. People who sit together but are not with each other or present to each other. So, it is tough to a bring up a child in such a situation. Parents with teenage children can appreciate this situation, right? Your children are glued to the computer screen and despite your calling them for dinner, they do not respond or they come late.
We all need discipline and even self-denial because there is a time for prayer if God is not to be just our convenient stop, a time for resting if we want a healthy lifestyle, a time for working if we want to contribute to the progress of society. The Kingdom is build on the bedrock of an ordered life. In fact, an ordered life is necessary for our growth in holiness.
That means our progress towards the Kingdom will always be incremental for we do have a chequered history of cooperation with God’s grace. The one myth we should avoid is that our choice for God is fixed in the sense that once we have chosen God, we can do no wrong. The reality is despite our best intentions we can go astray because of concupiscence. For the majority, the struggle to remain faithful to God will continue even until the moment we die. There is a prayer in the present Rite of Anointing of the Sick which says, “Free him/her from sin and do not let him/her to give way to temptation”. There you have it, a person already half dead and you are left wondering what the person can still do. Well, he or she can “give in to the temptation to doubt God etc”. In other words, our journey will never be easy. We will always have to fight so as to keep faith in God.
In summary, we all have an instinctive desire to live in the Kingdom of God. We want to live eternally for if that were not true, then why are the rich building monuments? To purify our desire, we ask God for grace to know what we should hope for and work towards that goal. We pray for the courage to give up anything that does not lead us to God and the wisdom to choose the path that will lead us to eternal life. If we are earnest in our quest for God, somehow He will find us.
We are getting deeper into the parable of the Sower in this Sunday’s Gospel. The seeds that fall on rocky grounds or thorny patches are in focus today. The Gospel challenges some images we may have of the Kingdom of God. What philosophy powers our engagement in the world and where is God in the formation of His Kingdom?
Perhaps I should start with a fact of what I have been doing whenever I celebrate a funeral Mass. I usually wear a black chasuble. I am, by no means, the only one who wears black. The common colour associated with funerals is purple. In some cases, white is being used because it is the colour of the Resurrection. Using white sends the message that death is but a doorway to the Resurrection. White highlights the Resurrection and downplays death. But it reveals
how jaundiced our view of the Resurrection can be because a poorer parishioner
will never receive the honour of a white chasuble. It is reserved to those who
are ranked or have status, like for example a bishop or a priest!
Black is depressing and it does not inspire hope. It is almost like a condemnation of the person who has just died. Could it be that the rush to “resurrect” a person is indicative of our quick—fix society or instant—gratification mentality? After all, the flick of a switch carries with it the expectation of immediacy. Hence, post death, we expect the person to be in heaven.
What we may fail to appreciate is that black respects the notion of God’s mercy and justice and this is supported by the Catholic teaching on purgatory. The 1st Reading in counselling the wise man to emulate God stresses this point about God’s compassion and that He never judges hastily. Thus, what truly symbolises God’s absolute mercy and perfect justice is the idea of purgation. There has to be a final cleansing of human imperfections and the analogy is like rolling out the red carpet because a dignitary is coming but in the case of purgation, it is more personal and interior like “taking a shower” in preparation for going out on a date or for an intimate encounter. Though souls may die in God’s friendship, they could still be tainted by remnants of sins. Hence, the inevitable necessity of purification for even as God’s mercy beckons us to Himself, God’s justice holds us accountable for our sins.
Contrary to common conception, purgatory is not as punitive as it is restorative. It is not an act of reproach as it is a gesture of respect for God’s holiness and a reminder not to commit the sin of presumption. We should not presume a person commended or condemned, exalted or exiled. Rather, we acknowledge the mystery of God’s mercy at work as we patiently wait for it to be completed.
This brings us to the Gospel and the Kingdom. If we have been too quick to judge a person by canonising him or her to be in heaven, perhaps we should also be slow in condemning him or her. The Kingdom here on earth sees wheat and weed growing together. While we may be impatient for God’s Kingdom to be fully established here on earth, Jesus instead preached that its full realisation will only come at the end of time. Hence to have a bit more faith in the process of God’s Kingdom coming to fruition.
Of course, we want to control the final outcome because hidden within us are control freaks but that is not because we have a pretension to great power. We are threatened by chaos and uncertainty and as part of our instinct to survive, we like to ensure a positive outcome. That is largely who we are. Of course, history has also been shaped by those who are tempted to be God and not even to be like God. Dictators, Communists and Socialists all have this grand vision of life and they believe that their vision alone holds the key to a perfection which can never be achieved in this lifetime.
The Gospel this Sunday encompasses three parables. The longer one does give an impression that both evil and good can co-exist. What is more? The current geopolitical and economic scenario is not encouraging. The price of crude oil is volatile and as such, the situation might just amplify our need to be in control. All these miss the point of the other two parables.
A tiny amount of yeast can leaven an entire batch of dough. A small mustard seed can grow into a big shrub. What these symbolise is how a little can actually achieve a lot. The temptation is always to try to accomplish and complete the Kingdom as if it were ours by right. Sometimes, in our hubris, we might even believe that a better world is our gift to God. Just like those who built the Tower of Babel.
But the Kingdom will always be in the process of completion. Its final manifestation will never be experienced while we are on the way except when the world ends. The grand scheme of creating a perfect world can never succeedthough it must remain a desire, much like the retreating horizon that we will never arrive at. Any attempt to complete and make perfect the world will end in human misery.
What is left for us is to be the yeast that leavens the dough or the shrub that puts out branches so that birds can shelter. The world is messy and we all instinctively know that. Look at our country with its hopeless corruption. Maybe when we cannot change the world, not from a want of desire or effort, but because its perfection is God’s gift to us, then we might do well to be a part of the process towards perfection through whatever effort we can contribute. No matter how small. Since we cannot have a perfect realisation of the Kingdom, perhaps we should strive not to be a problem in its fulfilment. That will take, for many of us, an entire lifetime for we fall, we rise, we fall, we rise. Why? In our hearts we have wheat and weed. In this pathway to the dawning of the Kingdomthe 1st Reading assures us that God is perfectly just because He is merciful. He is also profoundly merciful because He is just.
We enter the 3rd long discourse of Matthew’s Gospel and it represents another teaching moment in Christ’s ministry. Verse 1 Chapter 13 is instructive as we read that Jesus left the house and SAT by the lakeside. Sitting is the posture of teaching. It explains why both the Cathedra and the Bishop are connected. Every Bishop is the fullness of Christ’s priesthood and as such he sits down when he teaches. On May 7, 2005, when Benedict XVI took possession of the Diocese of Rome, he said, “The Bishop of Rome sits upon the cathedra to bear witness to Christ. Thus, the cathedra is the symbol of the potestas docendi, the power to teach that is an essential part of the mandate of binding and loosing which the Lord conferred upon Peter, and after him, on the Twelve. … The Chair is—let us say it again—a symbol of the power of teaching, which is the power of obedience and service so that the Word of God—the truth!—may shine out among us and show us the way of life”.
This week’s teaching is centred on the famous Parable of the Sower. At its heart, this narrative highlights how important it is to allow God’s word to take root in our hearts. In the 1st Reading, we are reminded that God’s word will achieve its purpose. In short, the seeds of the Sower should fall upon fertile ground and to bear a plentiful harvest.
The questions we usually ask is what sort of soil or ground our hearts consist of. Are we the paths, the rocky grounds, the thorny patches or the fertile soil? Interestingly, the Sower, who symbolises God, is prodigious. Since He sows plenty of seeds, the invitation is to look at how receptive we are to God’s word taking roots in our hearts. Can we nurture His gifts and bring about a bountiful harvest?
That would be a usual way of understanding this parable. However, I have always been interested not in the fertility of whatever composition the soil is but to perhaps survey a matter which we seldom pay attention to and it is the seedsthat fall by the wayside.
According to the Gospel, the seeds scattered onto the path will have the birds come and snatch them away. Come to think of it, digital distractions are possibly a good explanation for one being taken away. But what do these snatched away grains actually symbolise? They can serve as tokens of individual Christians who have no connection to the community. How so?
In the past, religion was both social and spiritual. Today we tend to reduce religion to a personal choice and give little thought to its social context. Without a social netting, it is easier to cut corners in one’s personal commitment and fall away from practice. Even solitary monks and nuns who live alone are not so much alone because they are connected to the wider Church through their prayers. In fact, the Church is sustained by their unceasing prayers. As soon as a believer is not supported by a faith community, it is easy to fall away. The imagery of Satan as the prowling lion is most apt to describe the seeds taken away by birds.
Do you know how many of our youths who hail from East Malaysia come over here and without the spiritual support of a believing community and a sense of belonging have abandoned their faith? Or our local West Malaysian youths who after Confirmation go away for studies but when they return for home visits, they attend Mass to hide the fact that they had abandoned their faith. Of course, one can explain their lapse in the practice of the faith as seeds that have fallen onto rocky grounds or thorny patches, either from poor catechesis or beingchocked by distractions etc.
The nature of Christianity is that it is profoundly communal and highly collaborative as we read in the Acts of the Apostles. The Communion of Saintscomposed of the “ecclesia militans”, the “ecclesia triumphans” and the “ecclesia poenitans” are united as one Body even though these three distinct states or conditions are separated by time and space. Through Baptism, we have been gathered into the Body of Christ and this organic metaphor reveals that we are more connected than we admit.
We are happy that the Cathedral is getting more people attending Mass but we seem to worship as strangers. We should not. We should worship as brothers and sisters in Christ. A good way to gauge the level of our being—at—home with each other is simply through how we park our cars properly or how patient we are with someone who is slower. Of course it does not mean that when people are kind, we take it for granted. For example, I take my own sweet time and that the driver of a car being blocked from leaving should be patient and wait for me. No. Rather, all must strive to excel in charity towards one another.
We recently concluded our PPA and out of a body population of close to 2000 souls, the attendance numbered less than 200. I am not criticising parishioners for not coming though I am concerned with the philosophy behind our engagement as a community. We may be operating from a space where the community or the communion is extraneous or exterior to our identity as Christians. Perhaps we can consider the seeds that fell on the wayside as the embodiment of a Christian spirituality which is narrowly self-sufficient. We can be self-sustaining individuals but without a social netting, soon we will cut corners when it comes to our relationship with God and the way we perceive His commandments.
In our self-determined, achievement-centred world, we may hear the Gospel from a view of personal responsibility or capability. Nothing is wrong with that perspective. But recently there was a movie, an “indie” movie from China. Surprisingly, the original language is Teochew and it shines the spotlight on the experience of the “hua qiao’s” or the Chinese diaspora. There was a high degree of cohesiveness of that generation forced to emigrate from China in search of a better future. In the unknown, South-East Asia, their cultural cohesiveness was palpable in how the community held itself together. It explains the different “huay kuan’s” we have in parts of the world where the Chinese diaspora has been. The modern challenge is, in Europe or most of the developed West, they may still retain a lot of the social religion but minus a relationship with God whereas in Asia, we have kept the cultural connexions with some semblances of religious expressions but nothing more. As St Paul writes, we are a Body joined to the Head, who is Christ and therefore both cultural commonality and social netting are crucial to the maintenance of our relationship with the Lord.
The Gospel today certainly invites us to examine our receptivity to God’s word. While it is good to ponder, it can also be a self-absorbed exercise which makes us forget that the Sacrament of Baptism actually incorporates a baptised into the organic Body of Christ and as a result we are connected one to another. Yielding a harvest is amazing but it is never a test of an individual’s abilities or a measure of personal achievements. The seeds that fall by the wayside challenge us to think beyond a silo existence because the danger of being snatched away is real especially when one has no bond or kinship with Christ and with His Body, the Church.
Thus far Jesus had been labouring, teaching where He could and healing those who sought Him or those whom He encountered along the way. His exorcisms and healings were signs of God’s presence amongst the people. His experiences had been mixed though. He was well-received by those excluded to the margins and rejected by those defending the status quo, notably in Chorazin and Bethsaida. As such, He chided the Pharisees for their obstinacy for even though they had seen Him at work, yet they chose not to believe. The context is important to understand the Gospel today.
Whatever the reasons of the Pharisees, whether they were unable to believe or they were simply ignorant, Christ issued an invitation. Firstly, the prayer of Jesus revealed an intimacy between Him and the Father. God is praised for hiding things from the learned and the clever whilst revealing the things of heaven to mere children. In other words, God is ever gentle in reaching out to His people.
We hear of this in the 1st Reading which alluded to a future King who will be a humble ruler. This is repeated in the Gospel. Jesus after speaking of His Father presented a proposal. “Come to me all who labour and are overburdened and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart”. Imagine a King, majestic and resplendent, stooping down to a subject and saying that.
The Pharisees who viewed salvation through the lens of self-sufficiency could never appreciate this invitation. In fact, they had sewn up the entire redemption scene through a legal system which they had concocted. Apart from the 10 Commandments, they had tagged more than 600 rules to make sure that every part of life was covered and that they may be assured of their salvation.
They are not alone in the matter of self-sufficiency. Instead our perception of the necessity of keeping the laws in order to be saved is different. Modernity often perceive “laws” as more burdensome rather than liberating. This brings us to the yoke proposed by Jesus which sounds like a burden until we know what a yoke truly symbolises.
The bull or the cow is a draught animal trained by humans over centuries to perform laborious farming tasks. They pull and they plough. There are different types of yokes used by farmers. In terms of a single animal that is yoked, there is a trust between the animal and the farmer. In order to maximise efficiency, the farmer must ensure that the yoke fits the shoulder of the animal. Hence, it is a sign of trust that when the farmer takes up the yoke, the animal comes forward and allows itself to be yoked. It shows us that the animal trusts that the farmer will not lay an ill-fitting yoke upon its shoulders. In other words, God will not weigh us down beyond our capacity.
This is our God who will not over-burden us. As they say, “When God calls, He qualifies” which means that God will provide the strength when He permits suffering. But that is not easy to appreciate especially when we are blinded by pain. Which brings us to another kind of yoke.
In order to achieve greater efficiency, sometimes two animals are yoked together. This was most likely the image or metaphor that Jesus was using. A younger untrained animal is yoked to an experienced older one so that the more mature animal can shoulder the burden as well as gently guide the younger animal along the right path. “Learn from me for I am humble of heart”.
Either single yoke or double yoke, both these imageries in a way enlarge or widen our vision of who God is. He is the farmer who will never lay an ill-fitting yoke upon the ox. God never does. Or Christ is the experienced and older ox who will pull the greater weight of the burden we face. In short Christ will always be in our midst most especially when we are weighed down. He will be there, only if we trust Him.
We are yoked down by economic realities these days. Of course, there are also the political quagmires we are caught in. On top of that, all the electronic noises that clog our minds. Burdens tire us out. What can we do?
The Pharisees felt that their salvation was within their grasp. They can depend on themselves, their intellect, their strict legalism. When the road to heaven is fraught, what is the best way to guarantee that one stayed on the straight and narrow? More laws? Actually to love and obey God’s commandment was supposed to be easy but it became a source of anxiety because of the fear triggered. Minutiae upon minutiae that what should have led to freedom had instead become a crushing burden for the ordinary folks. In a way, it manifested the pride of self-sufficiency of the Pharisees and Scribes. They easily forgot that salvation was not our achievement but a gift from God, as we heard in the 2nd Reading. To be saved is to embark upon a path of grace and we are saved through our cooperation with God unmerited grace.
As such, the Lord invites us to a life with Him. He knows how heavily weighed down we can be, He asked us to have faith in Him and that He will never betray our trust. Of course, schooled in the university of ease and convenience, we might be tempted to think that the yoke should be convenient and easy. But Jesus did not promise that His yoke will not be demanding. Instead He promised that we would be able to bear it because He is with us. He yoked to us. Of course, we will falter, fail and fall but He will support those who stumble and He will raise all who are bowed down. The yoke is not a burden because the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living is us. He gives us strength to be yoked to Christ, to resist our unspiritual self and to trust that He will be with us all the way. The yoke of Christ is the path of freedom, joy and salvation
