3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 2021

The previous week, we bade farewell to the Baptist. In fact, he bowed out with a key message that discipleship should always be a signpost—one who points in the direction of the Bridegroom. The best we should be is the groomsman. This week we continue to explore the idea of discipleship.

Both the first reading and the Gospel tie the notion of discipleship with the message of repentance. But, as the experience of Jonah suggests, repentance is more than just the absence of sin. It is more active in the sense that one turns away from in order to turn towards. Consider the dramatic conversion of the first reading. It was a time of xenophobia as Israel was in exile. She was a victim playing the blame-game especially of the foreigners in whose land she was now disenfranchised. And of all things, Jonah was asked to preach to these aliens. To his surprise, one and all citizen of Nineveh turned away from sin and turned towards God.

The second reading provides the basis for this conversion. In order to turn away from sin and turn towards God, St Paul speaks of the provisional nature of the world. The world as he knew it was going to end therefore the Corinthians were advised not put all their trust in the world. The context was clear—St Paul thought he was living within the imminence of the Parousia. He, like many of his contemporaries, believed that Jesus’ return was sooner rather than later. On the one hand, such an advice can sound depressing, if not distressing, especially in a time like this, a raging pandemic, when everything is uncertain. But, on the other hand, it is living with a hopeful sense of dependence and a recognition of how reliant we are on God and how much our lives should be directed to Him.

Within this framework of St Paul’s provisional cosmos, where we are shown that nothing is more contingent than a raging pandemic, the question is, how can we be disciples in a passing world?

Apart from the economic havoc, an issue that this pandemic has underscored is the reality of death. That this pandemic has been devastating, in every sense of the word, is true. However, our reaction might just reveal where we are and where we have come from. To a large extent, the prevailing attitude has been to ignore death. This outright attempt to deny mortality has largely been unsuccessful, which may explain why we want to control the narrative. A hedonistic lifestyle is a good illustration. Live today to the hilt without a thought for tomorrow. A more excellent example is the phenomenon of euthanasia. It shows that even at the hour of death, we want to be in control. Whilst the acceptance of assisted death is not as widespread here as it is in some parts of the world, perhaps what is more indicative of that determination to disregard death is the mushrooming of nursing homes. They simply symbolise our desire to shift death away from our line of vison. Stating this is in no way a judgement of those who have an elderly parent in a home.

Instead, it is trying to make sense of St Paul’s exhortation in the second reading. Death, which is a “passing away”, can teach us how to live in this world that is itself fading away. But it is complicated because along with disdaining death, we may have also lost faith in God. Faith helps us navigate death as well as gives dignity to human existence because it sustains and helps us grapple with the incomprehensible.

What has clearly replaced a faith in God is another faith—a belief in the engineering prowess of our technical, social and political skills; that these are adequate when facing the full reality of life and death. As such, our faith in God is nothing more than a faith in ourselves. If not, faith just means that God must bend to our will.

Whether we like it or not, Covid has merely laid bare this nakedness of ours, that is, we can die and our faith in God is weak. A firm faith would have allowed us to perceive death, while not positively willed by God, nevertheless, it would be permissively allowed by Him as part of His mysterious plan of salvation. Faith in God gives us a perspective which may allow us to hold death, if not like St Francis of Assisi who considered death to be a sister, at least death as the essential key in the passageway to eternity. Therefore, Covid has done two things. It has brought death squarely right in front of our face as well as challenge our faith in God.

This is where our discipleship comes in. Christ called the four of them for a purpose—to be fishers of men. Of course, at the top of every vocation is the call to salvation. Everyone is called for salvation. However, salvation ought to be worked out in the concrete. So, how do we exercise this discipleship in a situation where the fear of death has become almost a deity to be worshipped? How can we be disciples of faith in God who remains mysterious in the workings of the world?

Firstly, as disciple we must recognise that here and now is not all there is. To say the least, our civilisation is in existential shock as our “normal” has been so disrupted that we struggle to expand our vocabulary to embrace the “new normal”. Our novel arrangements have been, at best “disincarnational” since we have veered toward the glorification of the virtual, and at worst, flounder helplessly in mere materialism as they have left many adrift and alone in facing the incomprehensible abyss of death. There must be more to life than the here and now. This brings us to the second point.

A disciple has to live beyond the here and now. A disciple of hope with a knowledge that is grounded, neither endorsing reckless fatalism (takdir) nor enmeshed in destructive fear. This hope allows us to hold the tension between what is necessary in health measures—masks, social distancing, avoidance of large crowds and what is essential to us as social beings—meaningful contact that is human in expression. Ultimately, our faith accepts that no solution, this side of eternity and apart from God, is fool proof. “To live forever” is not eternity.

In a world searching for direction amidst uncertainty, the disciple is called to be the solid Gospel of Hope. Today has been designated as the Sunday of the Word of God. This Word of God, the Gospel of Hope is where one encounters a rightly ordered perspective where the mortal is understood through the lens of the immortal. We are called to a fearlessness (not recklessness) in the face of death so as to be a sign of hope in a God who, despite all the despair surrounding us, is working for our salvation. Therefore, our hope is not in the cure, even if it is a great good, but rather our hope is in God because faith in Him is the only vaccine against a madness of death without eternity.

Christmas Vigil Year B

I think the people with the best eyesight in the world are Filipinos, well, rich Filipinos, at least. For security reasons, the windscreens and windows of their cars are heavily tinted. I get extremely claustrophobic sitting in one of these cars not knowing where I am or in which direction I am heading to. Analogously, there is also a quality of uncertainty in all our Christmas liturgies and it is perhaps strongest in this evening’s liturgy. There is a quality of uncertainty that is associated with the injunction to “watch and pray”.

Uncertainty is quite a  disturbing state of being especially to a generation accustomed to pressing buttons. We have come to expect that life’s solutions can be got from merely a push of a button. However, the vigil’s liturgy is pretty much that of “uncertainty” as in “already and not yet”. If you like, this is best captured by the caricature of children in a car asking incessantly: “Are we there yet”.

How can one understand and describe this notion of "already and not yet"?

Listen to the Preface II for Advent. For all the oracles of the prophets foretold Him, the Virgin Mother longed for Him with love beyond all telling, John the Baptist sang of His coming and proclaimed His presence when He came. It is by His gift that already we rejoice at the mystery of His Nativity, so that He may find us watchful in prayer and exultant it His praise.

An observation may be made here. This Mass is called the Vigil Mass. The Latin vigilia, from which we derive the term "vigil", means to keep watch. The Church designates the day before a feast or a solemnity as a Vigil because its nature is to prepare for a greater day that is to follow. Through the liturgy, this is one way the Church keeps close to the injunction of Her Lord and Saviour to “keep watch and pray”. So, in some countries, today is also a day of fasting. They fast to heighten the reception of the day that is to come.

Thus, in this so-called interim period, there is a profound sense that what we want is already here but not completely yet. It is by His gift that already we rejoice and this is important. Why?

"Already and not" yet allows us to catch a glimpse of heaven. For many of us, "already and not yet" is unnerving because we want to catch heaven instantaneously. If you take a moment to reflect, all our experiences of exhilaration are but glimpses of heaven. What it means is that we want the access to heaven on tap—as in we devise ways and means to heighten our exhilaration. Is it any wonder why recreational drugs are part of the culture of our youths?

It is not to say that we should not have any excitement or wonderment. In fact, it is a testament of trust in God that we dare leave aside our worries and concentrate on the moment, to enjoy the moment, to savour the moment… even if we are at a loss, even if we have no work and even if we are struggling to come to terms with the death of our loved ones.

Why? Because it is already and also not yet.

This is why Jesus dared speak to Judas in a way which was shocking, a way which seemed to canonise an aberration which today we are trying so hard to eradicate. He said, “The poor you always have with you”. What this means is that we may banish all hunger in the world but it is still not heaven. We may resolve every conflict in the world and we would not even approximate paradise. And the list goes on. Yet, this is not an admission of defeat as the Catechism reminds us that Christ the Lord already reigns through the Church, but all the things of this world are not yet subjected to Him. But, one thing certain is that with Christ at the helm of His Church, in a nation, in our family and of us, we dare to celebrate. In fact, when God seems to be at His weakest as in the helpless babe, we encounter His greatest providence.

Thus, this evening’s liturgy is full of hope. "Already and not yet" points us in the direction of God. Already as in God will be there and we do not need to play God. Thus, tonight, let us leave God to be God and let us joyfully wait for the moment when the Saviour of the world will burst into our lives.

2nd Sunday of Advent Year A

Do you know that some people hear voices?

I suspect the thing on your mind when you first heard the statement, “Some people hear voices”, is that a person who hears voices is probably a sandwich short of a picnic. He has a screw loose somewhere. You’d want to distance yourself from this screw-loose person. But actually, all of us hear voices. The predominant voice that we hear today is that it is Christmas and not Advent. Everywhere we go, we hear voices shouting to us that we are celebrating Christmas now. Christmas carolling is already afoot in the malls; one wonders where and when one can find the time to write Christmas cards? What shall I buy her? Whom shall we invite for Christmas? And there is the circuit of parties to attend.

The point is: it is not wrong to think about Christmas and what we ought to do but our challenge is not to allow the voices of commercial Christmas to drown out the voices of Advent hope. If Advent is a time of preparation, then we must hold at abeyance these Christmas voices in order to listen to the voices of Advent.

Fortunately, the readings give us three Advent voices and they point to the same thing.

Isaiah’s time was marked by political hopelessness. The rulers of Israel were relying on themselves, upon their political skills and diplomatic manoeuvrings. Whereas, Isaiah had hopes that they would come a time when the new king would be like King David who placed his trust upon God. Relying upon God, Isaiah hopes for a time when the wolf lives with the lamb, the panther lies down with the kid, calf and lion cub feed together. Such imageries give us the idea of a new world of justice and peace especially for the poor and the afflicted. Isaiah is a hopeful voice.

In the 2nd Reading, St Paul furthers the vision of Isaiah as he looks forward to a new era in which Jewish and Gentile Christians may learn to accept one another and live in harmony and peace. Paul is also a hopeful voice.

In the Gospel, we hear a voice crying in the wilderness. Of course, we can get sidetracked by John’s exterior demeanour—his strange diet, his rough clothing, his courage at naming the Pharisees and Scribes as vipers etc. But, beyond his eccentric or unconventional behaviour, people must have recognised in him a voice of hope. Otherwise they would not have flocked to him. He was a herald of hope. He also pointed towards a world which was possible for us to aspire: a kingdom of justice and peace.

We live in an imperfect world. If it were not, then we wouldn’t have people dressed up in yellow on Saturday or attempting to get to the British High Commission. Ours is an imperfect world of fragmented race and religion politics that colours everything we see, hear and do. It is spoken of at home, whispered around in coffee-shops and isn’t it true that we resent having to deal in matters relating to the government?

This imperfect world may spur us onto greater hope in God or our vision may be blurred by despair, anger and worse of all, cynicism. That being said, the many voices of Christmas come not as hope but rather temptations because we want to buy for ourselves what our despair, anger and cynicism cannot afford. We lull ourselves into some kind of self-delusion that the trimming of Christmas is the fulfilment of hope, of Christmas itself.

The Prophet, the Apostle and the Herald offer us a vision of hope that is not utopian as if pointing to some kind of changed political landscape. If it were out there it runs the risk of becoming impersonal so much so that we become detached or uninvolved since we are not responsible for the imperfection of the world. When our vision loses hope, then we will begin to mend the rupture or bridge the gap with shopping, partying and etc.

This vision of the Prophet, the Apostle and the Herald points directly to our hearts wherein we can see a world that is reduced or rid of evil both by human effort and the grace of God. That is why Advent is a time of preparation. We often believe that we can change the world and by changing the world out there, the world will become a better place. But, Advent is the time we discover that the world we want to change is really the changed person we hope to be. The political or social landscape will always be out there and cannot be changed unless we first look inside our hearts.

It is only when we are prepared for a change of heart the vision of the Prophet, the Apostle and the Herald can come through. Prepare the way of the Lord, says John so that by changing oneself, one changes the world. And it is in this way that the world becomes transformed, gradually changed from a world which serves purely human interests to a world which reflects the vision of God, the vision of acceptance, justice and peace.

The vision begins when the self acknowledges the need to change.