2nd Sunday of Lent Year B 2024

From the desolate desert of deception, this Sunday we scale the top of Tabor to witness Christ’s Transfiguration. It is like spanning the two extreme ends of human experiences. Christ showed us that from the depths of deception we can scale the heights of heaven.

The context for this event is important. Firstly, the three Synoptic Gospels carry this narrative. It happened after Peter’s Confession that Jesus is the Messiah that was followed by Jesus predicting His own passion to come. Jesus’ inner circle of Peter, James and John were brought up to the mountain and there in their presence, He is transfigured. Secondly, as Jesus was resolutely making His way to Jerusalem, this episode was an encouragement to the Disciples. Enveloped by the cloud, the three heard a voice that affirmed once again that Jesus is the Son of God and they were commanded to listen to Him. The matter to consider is that woven into discipleship are both a price and a prize.

The 1st Reading does suggest a heavy price to be paid for discipleship. Abraham was asked to sacrifice his only son. God’s demands feel as if He will always ask for more than we are prepared to give. But that is not the case. God does not ask what He Himself is not able to deliver. Central to Abraham’s experience is faith that God Himself will supply. Isaac symbolises what was dearest to Abraham—his continuity and God asked that Abraham trust Him with his most precious treasure. Abraham becomes the father of faith because he was prepared to trust in God’s providence. The subsequent sacrifice of the ram symbolises God’s greatest Providence. God modelled the way of trust by giving up His only Son to be the ultimate sacrifice.

Even if discipleship is often thought of as a call to action, it is truly a journey of faith. Ultimately it is a journey to the Resurrection. Perhaps, we can better understand this from the perspective of those who are journeying to join the Catholic faith. Why? We who have been baptised long ago might have lost the sense of wonder because our vision is a bit more blurred and our attitude more blasé.

Why do people seek baptism? Does it confer on them material benefits? Maybe. Is there more to material gain in conversion? The answer to the question why the Elect choose to join the Church is Eternal Life. We are baptised into eternal life. The Transfiguration is therefore a Resurrection experience of the disciples. Peter, James and John caught a glimpse of the prize at the end of their discipleship.

As a journey to eternity, discipleship does not settled on what is passing, important though that may be. This is perhaps one of the challenges we face in a consumer society. We may have been promised heaven here on earth. The “Great Reset” proposed at the World Economic Forum operates from a space of responsibility for creation and our common home is noble but it might hide within its philosophy a promise of “eternity” which this temporal and transient world cannot support.

We are not meant to live forever here. For example, the eradication of hunger, diseases and injustice is not eternity because eternal life is premised on death. We need to pass through death before reaching the Resurrection. While discipleship is exercised in the world, still its objective is eternity. The Transfiguration is therefore a kind of foretaste of what is to come.

Any mountain experience is exhilarating. It is wonderful to be able to witness glory but it is a different matter altogether to follow it. In the end, after all the firework display has died off, all that remained was Christ alone. Continuing the journey to Jerusalem, He will go to His death. The glory of the Transfiguration passes through the summit of Calvary.

As Christ was preparing the disciples for His Passover, so during this period of enlightenment, our Elect too are reminded of the price of discipleship. They are not alone. We who have been baptised must count that cost too. We also have to follow Christ and keep our faith until the Resurrection.

The culmination of our faith journey is the Resurrection. Speaking of this reality can feel like a meaningless exercise because it describes an experience that is so out of this world. How do we desire something that we cannot really put a finger on? And moreover, we are continuously promised “eternity on earth”. What may be helpful is the Greek word for the experience of the Apostles. In Greek, Transfiguration is “metemorphothe” or in science, we know the process as “metamorphosis”. Remember how an ugly caterpillar morphs into a dead chrysalis (pupa) before it transforms into a beautiful butterfly.

Our cosmetic industry is basically mimicking for humanity what metamorphosis does for the insect kingdom. We all want to be beautiful and we are prepared to go to great lengths to beautify ourselves when in fact discipleship is the process whereby the beautification of the soul takes place. If physical beauty is our objective, then the Resurrection is the ultimate spiritual goal of the transformation that we desire.

In summary, the Transfiguration is an important symbol of the Resurrection; a foretaste of what is to come. The part of the Eucharistic Prayer III used in a funeral Mass reflects this reality. “…When from the earth He will raise up in the flesh those who have died and transform our lowly body after the pattern of His own glorious Body”. Placed early in Lent, the Transfiguration reminds searchers and believers not to lose sight of the Resurrection, no matter how good life can be here, for eternity is truly the prize we win after paying the price of discipleship.

1st Sunday of Lent Year B 2024

We have entered rather hastily into Lent. Right at the beginning, related themes in the Readings and Gospel are highlighted for our consideration. This is also a period where the journey towards Calvary is intensified and in way, it is reflected in the Catechumens’ experience.

The Rite of Election is usually celebrated on the 1st Sunday of Lent. The Catechumens who have listened to God’s word, responded to His invitation and participated in the life of the faithful community are sent to the Bishop for their election. From now on, their journey of faith is deepened with enlightenment and purification through the three Scrutinies.

Appropriately St Peter mentions in the 2nd Reading about the Sacrament of Baptism that we are saved through the death and resurrection of Christ. Such a statement sounds cut and dried but it is linked to an article of our faith which refers to the “harrowing of hell”. In the Apostles’ Creed, we usually read it as “He descended into hell” but St Peter stated it as “He went to preach to the spirits in prison”. In the context of Christ’s descent into Hades' domain, the rainbow at the end of the Great Deluge, mentioned in the 1st Reading, makes sense. It symbolises that God will no longer use water to destroy mankind. Instead, two points to consider. First, Christ’s descent into hell reveals the distance and the depth the Lord will go to save us. Second, beyond the rainbow, the covenant is now enacted through the Sacrament of Baptism.

The deluge of death will now become the bath of rebirth. Baptism is the new covenant expressing God’s intent to save everyone. For the Elect, the logical conclusion to their Lent is the Easter Vigil where they will receive the Sacraments of Initiation. But for those of us who had been reborn through baptism, Lent becomes a season of renewal. Baptism may have washed away all sins, original and otherwise, yet many may be bogged down by present sins. Thus, renewal is the chance to walk with a God who first chose to walk with us.

Christ walks with us and the Gospel at the start of Lent, narrates His Temptations in the desert. While all the three Synoptic Gospels tell the same story, Mark is rather sparse with details. He merely mentions that Jesus was driven by the Spirit into the desert to be tested and tried by Satan. We know details of Jesus’ temptations via Matthew and Luke.

The temptations are important. Describing Lent as a season of repentance, renewal and revival, suggests that something is not right. Is there a process of renewal for the sake of renewal? For example, whenever a newer product comes online, it is always marketed as a better iteration. Remember the "best ever iPhone" model? The older model may have been good but the latest offering is always better. Otherwise, what is the “newest” for, right?

Likewise in terms of “renewal”, that is, being made new, either through baptism or reconciliation, it is always in terms of leaving behind what is considered to be less good. In other words, no one is baptised if there is no need for a change in direction or no one goes for confession if there is no need for forgiveness.

It is vital to reflect on this because we are speaking of salvation. We are saved from our sins which are the results of our caving in to temptations. Everyone yearns for salvation which is a natural inclination that arises from our brokenness. Yet, we do not give much thought to the role that temptations play in frustrating our salvation.

Satan tried to find weaknesses in Jesus which means that He will try to exploits ours too. But Christ overcame Satan and thankfully in our Lenten arsenal, the three devout practices of the Jews can aid in overcoming temptations. For long as we want to follow Jesus we need to be prepared for we will not be spared Satan’s wrath. He will aim for us the more we desire to follow Him. If you find yourself in a lot of troubles, then you must know that you are in good company with the Lord. For He was not only tested in the desert but throughout His earthly life.

Firstly, during Lent, we fast. A most basic temptation is our desire for instant gratification. Christ was tempted to turn stone into bread. While it is difficult to give up something good for something better, self-denial actually gives us strength to counter Satan’s assault. Secondly, we give alms. Christ was tempted to exercise His status by lording over the angels. He could have thrown Himself off the roof for the recognition that would surely help Him in His ministry. Instead He served by giving Himself to others. Christian charity which flows from the principle of stewardship becomes an imitation God. This brings us to the third Lenten practice. We pray. Christ was tempted to vain-glorious independence but He chose dependence on the Father. He pointed out to Satan that true worship is directed to God alone.

In every temptation we face, Jesus walks with us because He Himself had experienced them. Through fasting, almsgiving and praying, He gives us the grace and strength to overcome Satan’s wiles. By nature, temptations are relational and we are always tempted against relationship. Praying, fasting and charity are intended to foil not only temptations, nor only to gain strength to resist the Tempter himself. They are meant to strengthen our relationship with God, with oneself and with society. The temptations in the desert remind us that Lent is not needed by the saints. Rather the season is God's gift for sinners to become saints.

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 2024

The popularity of Christ’s healing ministry is brought to fore through the healing of the leper. Beyond the act of restoring the leper to his place in community is Christ in the mission to further the Kingdom’s boundary.

Man being a finite creature naturally needs boundaries. He is not made up of pure spirit but instead is a composite of spirit and matter. Finitude by nature requires definition. To be known, we need to be known as someone and not just anyone. Anybody here who is organising lunch or dinner knows the frustrating feeling when the answer to the question “What do you want to eat?” is met by the response “Anything”. In terms of knowing, we generally want to describe or define things right down to its minutest details in order to be precise.

The act of separation is also a form of definition. For example, racial identity is so important in this country. The forms that we fill in always have this question: Race. Sometimes when we hear a crime committed. The next question we ask is: Race? And almost instantly, if the “correct” race is identified, the racial stereotypical markers will kick in. This race is like this or that race is like that.

In the Gospel, leprosy was a major social marker. The taboos surrounding leprosy not only function as a form of identity but they act as a boundary to secure the general population from the infected. The instructions regarding lepers were draconian. The diseased had to tear off their clothes and shout “unclean, unclean”. This form of isolation or segregation might just remind us of our own experience when Covid exploded onto our scene. Remember the drastic measures taken against those who came into close contact with the infected? They were treated like they were the infected. Recall the “two lines, two lines” of our Covid tests?

When Christ approached the lepers, He did two things for us. Firstly, in crossing prohibited boundaries and entering into the disfiguring territory of the “Leprosarium”, He enlarged the Kingdom. Think about it, the Kingdom that Christ came to proclaim, is not limited by our narrow notions of “wholeness” and “security”. Moreover, we confess that He came to gather all nations unto the Father’s Kingdom. It is another description of the idea of recapitulation. In other words, He did not come to gather only the saved. He came to redeem also the unsalvageable or the unlovable.

Secondly, He deepens our appreciation of the full impact of His Incarnation. When we recite the Creed every Sunday, we can just glide over the fact without grasping the true meaning of the Incarnation. Soon we will enter into Lent. The journey of Lent leads toward Calvary. Again, such an idea sounds quite run of the mill. But when Christ entered into the territory of the lepers and touched the leper, He made Himself unclean. In other words, He became like a leper Himself. He really took our sins upon Himself which means that in the enterprise of recapitulation, nothing, meaning that no one is outside the realm of salvation.

Today we have lines that we do not cross or breach. Uncrossed lines often fade and this is where our challenge lies. They fade or disappear into the background. Or simply we become insensitive that they are there. To give an example, EVs or electric vehicles. Governments around the world are pushing EVs and even Laudato si is pushing for the transformation of our environmental engagement. We have to diminish our carbon legacy, meaning that we must make sure that we leave as small a carbon footprint as possible. All these initiatives are good for the planet. The “uncrossed lines” that may have faded into the background, are the destitute in poorer countries who have to pay the price for our “environmental concerns”. The raw material, like rare metals, are mined from these impoverished countries. The poor often never benefit from this carbon initiative.

Our social exclusion extends further than just the medical outcasts. The reconciliation that both Laudato si and Fratelli tutti are aiming for calls us to a greater consciousness of the frontier, to grow more aware of the walls that hem us in. Our sight must cross into the socially discriminated of today. Social media for example is a divide between those who are “saved” and those who are not. There are many who are left behind in the chase for digital proficiency. In our rush towards electronic integration, imagine those who are not tech-savvy. They become victims of scams and frequently they suffer quietly because they do not want to be seen as stupid or electronically illiterate.

The poor we will always have with us. This is not a canonisation of the poor but rather one way of thinking about them. Meaning that we must never forget them. A thought that might help us to bring to fore what may have become hidden from us is to remember that when we give it is not because we have more. When we help it is not because we are more capable. Rather, every endeavour we take on behalf of the poor, or the socially outcast, it is because we need them. We need them to help us go to heaven. Sometimes we think of the poor as deserving of our pity. It is like a one-way street but the truth is that the poor teach us to rely on God. They show how to be compassionate. They help us enlarge the border of Christ’s Kingdom.

Finally, the extension of Christ’s Kingdom, the enterprise of recapitulation often goes further than what we are comfortable with. We are creatures of habit and when we are comfortable in our blindness, we become complacent. However, if last Sunday, Christ by praying showed that prayer is not an extra duty laid upon our shoulder, then today, in crossing boundaries, Christ shows us that He is truly the Saviour of all and not just a few. We cannot be complacent about our blindness if we want to follow Him.

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 2024

The exorcism of Jesus last Sunday continues this weekend as He is sought by many. Moreover, the new-found Disciples also acted like intermediaries. The good example is Peter bringing Him to heal the mother-in-law.

Last Sunday a mention was made about the vacuum created by the absence of God. This Sunday we begin to appreciate that preaching, healing and exorcism belong to the one mission of Christ to extend the Kingdom of God. In other words, Christ came to reclaim creation back for the Father. Interestingly, from the perspective of sacramental theology, the different healings and cures conducted by Jesus laid the foundation for the latter institution of the Sacrament of Anointing. Restoration, whether it be physiological, psychological or spiritual, is a sign of the Kingdom to come. Recovery from sickness and sin is the beginning of the Kingdom’s rule.

In establishing the Kingdom, we can already discern two Christian doctrines right at the start of Christ’s public ministry. The first is the central notion of the Resurrection. We see it in the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law. He held her hand and the elderly woman was literally brought back to life and to service. Her post-recovery ministration of Jesus and His apostles is reflected in the 2nd Reading where St Paul wrote of the apostolic service of the Lord.

The second doctrine is a less heard concept of recapitulation (see CCC518). The furthering of the Kingdom is not merely an extension of geography, meaning that it is not just to enlarge Christ’s dominion territorially. Rather, recapitulation is the logical conclusion of our profession of faith where we confess that the Word was made flesh and that through Him all things were created. Recapitulation flows into the Great Commission to go and baptised all nations using the Trinitarian formula. Thus, Creation, the Fall, the Great Commission all come under the mission of Christ to lead us back to the Father as He restores us to our original vocation. In other words, creation, from its inception until the end of time, is always headed by none other than the Word through Whom all things were made.

Therefore, anyone who claims Christian heritage is enrolled in this endeavour of Christ to reclaim all creation for God the Father. In that case, evangelisation is not merely to preach the Gospel. It is not even to increase membership in the Church. Rather the Good News is proclaimed in view of the total ministry of Christ who leads us back.

Leading creation back to the Father is an enormous task. In today’s Gospel, an important facet of Christ’s life is inserted into the mission of recapitulation. Mark introduced the idea of Christ praying. He does not give many details but enough for us to know that recapitulation is not merely actions on our part. It is also a life of prayer. Despite the success of his work and the authority with which He had over the crowd, Christ still found time and space to retreat into the quiet and silence in order to pray.

Jesus prayed always in order to do the will of God. In Luke’s Gospel, He spent an entire night in prayer before choosing the 12 to be His Apostles. In raising Lazarus from the dead or in multiplying fish and loaves, Jesus prayed. All through His ministry He engaged in prayers, both formal and informal. His most famous prayer took place in the Garden of Gethsemane where He struggled to choose the path less travelled.

When we embrace the task of recapitulation, the fact that Jesus prayed is something for us to think about. Perhaps our idea of evangelisation is filled with boxes to tick especially of the things that need to be done in order to bring the Good News to those who are waiting for it. Our yardstick for evangelisation is largely action. Many cannot stomach the “NATO” rhetoric, the type who is “No Action, Talk Only”. Our measure of success is achievement-focused to the point that we become afraid of inactivity and prayer often feels like wasted indolence. But Jesus prayed because the idea of “recapitulation” was more than just a task to be accomplished. Yes, He was bringing creation to its proper fulfilment but it was always in light of reconciliation and restoration of creation’s filial relationship with God the Father?

As followers of His, we too need prayers in our lives. Jesus may come across as someone who prayed spontaneously. But in fact, He would have been a man of ritualistic prayers. The word “ritualistic” itself may sound pejorative in our casual free-spirited world but for Jesus ritual was important. Our notion of freedom is an ability to engage in prayers as and when we want but for those who care for relationship, ritual suggests of fixed time for and forms of prayers.

If we look at how life is organised, spontaneity is overrated because 99% of our lives revolves around formality rather than informality. People work and it is not exciting. Doctors schedule their operations. Pilots follow time-tables. In reality, formality signals relational obligations. If rituals denote importance in relationship perhaps we should also recognise why going for Mass on Sunday is so central in our Catholic ethos.

Most of all, we need to get away from a mentality which prizes or values prayers as “effective” to one which is more “affective”. What is the difference? Effective praying views prayers in terms of results, that is, getting what we want from God. In itself, the prayer of asking is not a bad thing. Jesus Himself taught us to ask from God in our prayers. But those who are in relationships know the degrading feeling of utilitarianism. When someone only looks for you when he or she needs something, that is not relationship. Even though we should always ask from God, He is not a sugar daddy type of a deity.

In terms of asking, Christ Himself modelled a relationship based on embracing God’s will rather than bending God to ours. The Gethsemane experience was definitely “affective”, filled as it was with anguished and yet it revealed the depth of the filial relationship between the Father and the Son. In terms of the mission of recapitulation, prayer is not an extra duty enjoined upon us. It highlights that the more important a relationship is, the less we would leave it to chance. Since the task of reconciling creation is a priority in Christian discipleship, Christ by praying led the way by showing that if we want to follow Him, we cannot NOT pray. To pray is actually to live in the presence of the Father to whom all glory and honour belongs.

4th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 2024

From last week’s exhortation to repent and to believe in the Gospel, this Sunday Mark records Christ’s first public action. While teaching in a synagogue, Jesus freed a man bound by Satan’s yoke. Any act of exorcism can beguile and bewitch the modern mind because, let us face it, some of us are fascinated by horror and are drawn towards the grotesque. Many of our traffic jams are caused by curiosity as to how bad the accident is on the other side of the highway. In focussing on Christ’s performing an exorcism, we can miss out on a crucial aspect of His ministry. His teaching, while it made an impression on the crowd, was also liberating. Thus, He was not just freeing the demoniac. He was also freeing the minds of those whom He taught.

It is significant that we witness right at the start of Christ’s public ministry, the extent of His authority both as a teacher and as an exorcist.

There is no doubt that He was a teacher par excellence. A good teacher always draws the students towards enlightenment. Many of us have cherished memories who our good teachers were in school. Through the mazes and labyrinths of raw information, they help us organise our thinking and knowledge, inspiring us to greater freedom and integrity. In the Gospel, beyond the authority to teach, the crowd was also attracted to Jesus’ authority over nature.

At the heart of Christ’s exercise of authority, He battled with the forces of evil. In fact, many of His encounters were with spiritual forces. Without second thoughts, we are used to glossing over the accounts of Him spectacularly sending a legion of devils into a herd of pigs plunging off a cliff to their death, silencing a shrieking spirit or simply casting out a demon and we think nothing of them.

Yet, a major feature of Mark’s Gospel is a Jesus who was a prolific exorcist. The problem is with the notion that exorcism was central to Christ’s ministry always feels antiquated. It explains why we pay scant or little attention to this aspect of His ministry. His exorcisms are not as significant as viewing Him under the light of our current focus.

What does this mean? We resonate with a notion of a revolutionary maverick—a political kind of Christ who came to set us free. Liberation is often measured in terms of political progress and material improvement meaning that our standard of freedom is calculated in terms of a better social standing. A good life is basically seen through the lens of material comfort which means we seldom equate Christ’s liberation in terms of exorcism.

Fascination with the horror genre in broadcast and print media could be an explanation because evil is reduced to sensational entertainment. More than fascination or entertainment, we may have also banished the reality of satanic possession to the margin. Since such a spiritual reality cannot be explained scientifically, it is consequently translated as non-existent. In fact, science already does not look too kindly on spiritual realities like God or angels let alone spiritual infestation. For example, how many people ask for house blessings, especially in the West?

Mark records many actions of Christ freeing people from the oppression of evil. The span of His pastoral activities covers quite a lot of spiritual warfare where He is seen fighting against forces inimical to the Kingdom. Yet, this important ministry forms less than 1% of a priest’s life today. Of course, what was described of as demonic possession may simply be psychological from the perspective of modern medicine. For example, what could be considered possession in the past could very well be symptoms of a chemical imbalance. A person suffering from bouts of seizures would be considered to be a person possessed when in fact, he could just be an epileptic. The miracles associated with healing could be also psychological. The case of the mother-in-law of Peter is instructive. When Christ visited Capernaum, He went to Peter’s house and all He needed to do was to assure the elderly woman and she got well.

The danger arises when we try to explain everything away under psychology forgetting that evil is a spiritual reality at work in our world. Our scientific mindset may have driven the devil into oblivion with the last witches of the Dark Ages. We are at east that evil remains portrayed in movies—the sinister and menacing type whose function is to scare us. But such an attitude may be too naïve and trusting. The forces of evil are at work and because we have rationalised evil to almost non-existent, we may fail to recognise it even if evil has been staring us in the face. It may not be hideous, as portrayed in the movies but it is nevertheless effective in holding us hostage.

We are comfortable that Jesus taught with authority. But we do not share His concern about evil forces that try to subjugate humanity. It is a kind of naïveté to focus solely on Jesus who taught authoritatively without also appreciating His battles with the forces of Satan’s machinations. We ignore this central aspect of Christ’s ministry to our eternal peril. However, this is not to suggest that every nook and corner is infested or that every abnormal behaviour is sign of demonic possession. Not at all. When a case is presented as demonic, the first thing to do is to rule out that it is not psychological. The point to note is that Christ wrestled with Satanic forces and we must not lose sight of this reality.

Taking the scientific axiom that nature abhors a vacuum, we should be aware that scepticism creates a kind of emptiness. When we no longer acknowledge the reality of evil presence, then we have created a vacuum. When God created the world, His Holy Spirit roams about it. But when God is absent by our choice, that is, when we do not admit the reality of evil, then we have in a way created a vacuum for Satan to wreak havoc. The devil becomes powerful when we make God absent.

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 2023

The Gospel is a repeat of last Sunday’s vocation of the first Apostles. If last week, Andrew and another disciple of John curiously sought Jesus out and was invited to follow Him, today the Lord actively summoned Peter, James, John and Andrew to be His disciples. The craft of priesthood or prophecy is connected to repentance as we read in the 1st Reading. Jonah, the most reluctant of all prophets was at the same time the most successful. He managed to convert an entire city, thereby averting a catastrophe of divine destruction.

This leads to the 2nd Reading where St Paul placed or contextualised the challenge of conversion in terms of the shortness of time. Vocation and redemption are closely linked and there is not much time to waste when it comes to the call of salvation. How are we to grasp this sense of urgency?

The notion of urgency can drive us helter-skelter because we are fearful that we may lose out--the kind we know as “kiasu”. But a famous productivity guru advised that we should not allow what is important to become urgent. It means we accomplish what needs to be done without letting a situation to deteriorate into a panic that makes us run like “kiasu” headless chickens.

Instead, repentance is a matter of importance because it deals with our eternal salvation. It should not be left to deteriorate into an issue of urgency. A good example would be to wait until an elderly or an invalid becomes so incapacitated only then to request for anointing. We often have ways of procrastinating which reduces an important matter into an urgent task. This takes us closer to our lived experience. Here are some points to consider.

Firstly, life is contingent. The recent experiences of deaths of loved one, especially during Covid and now the deaths of a few priests can help us appreciate how important it is to not allow conversion to “wait” simply because we think that there is still time. This false sense of security that time is on our side fosters a procrastinating attitude. Untimely deaths remind us that time is not ours and we should not presume. For example, do not wait until it is too late to show your appreciation to those whom you love or to forgive while you still have time. It is not easy but one should take heart and this brings us to the second point.

Life is also a series of slow conversion. Many of us who go for regular confessions will lament that we have not or have barely changed. What is most frustrating is to gain a step forward only to fall two steps backward. Sometimes after a retreat or a seminar or confession, we gain strength to make the necessary changes in our lives, only to relapse after a short period. This is frustrating not to mention demoralising. What we should recognise is that conversion is a life-long journey. Change often happens imperceptibly and over a long period of time. It is like getting fatter. We suddenly realise that our trousers no longer fits when they fitted a month ago. What is central to the journey of conversion is constancy and not time.

Constancy or consistency requires that we regularly hone our good habits. A good example is replacing our curses with blessings. If we are habitual in cursing on the road, we can begin by replacing that swearing phrase with a benediction. “What the….” becomes “The Lord is great” or something to the effect. Slowly and without realising it, the new habit will become who we are.

This weekend, we celebrate the Sunday of the Word of God. For the harvest to be bountiful, the Word of God is like seed that should fall on fertile ground. That fertile ground is not passive. In other words it is not a given. For soil to be fertile, it requires tilling and turning over in order to prepare it to receive the seed sown. Likewise, if we want to hear God’s Word and pay attention to Him, we must prepare our hearts to receive Him. This requires good habits. Sadly, we tend to focus on our failures feeding our hopelessness and despair. Teresa of Calcutta reminds us that God does not require us to succeed. He only requires that we try.

The Lord’s desire that we never give up trying explains why He continually calls each one of us. Our response to Him becomes our journey of salvation. Prayers with patience are needed because not every path is straightforward or is headed heavenward. In the end, the Lord will judge everyone not because we have failed but because we have not made any attempt to receive Him. The 1st Reading which recorded God’s intended punishment of Nineveh was stayed or put off, conjures an image of a God waiting to pounce on our mistakes and punish us for our missteps. He does not. Pope Francis expressed a hope that hell is empty because such a sentiment rhymes with an image of God who is merciful. But God is both merciful and just and if our trajectory in life consists of making the same mistake of turning away from Him instead of responding to His overture, punishment is ours by just dessert and not by God’s active will.

In summary, by calling Peter, Andrew, James and John, Christ enrolled them into the vocation of repentance and redemption. He continues to invite us to join the same enterprise. Interestingly Christ’s first words in His public ministry were “Repent, believe in the Gospel”. His exhortation shows us the close connexion between the acceptance of God’s Word and repentance. We cannot do any better than to listen to, believe in Him and be converted.

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

The Child last Sunday has become the Man. Actually, the Monday after the Epiphany itself, we celebrated the Baptism of the Lord, marking Christ’s entry into public ministry. This Sunday could very well be “Vocation Sunday”. Even though at first glance, the 2nd Reading does not seem like it, the thread that runs through every reading is very much centred on God’s calling.

Our duties and responsibilities are related to the mission of Christ the Messiah. The Church draws her meaning and identity from His vocation which, effectively, can be distilled and expressed through the two-fold ministry that is commonly known as the Sacraments of Service. They are Holy Orders and Matrimony.

The word “mission” has an evocative ring to it if we were to think about “Mission Impossible”. However, what can make Christ’s mission impossible is because we are distracted by what we can achieve rather than how these two Sacraments are to shape the manner or the way we ought to think and live.

Apart from it being suggestive, the word “mission” can also be ambiguous. What does it entail to state that the Church has a mission? Is the mission of the Church to increase the number of Christians through baptism? Or is it her role to “make the world a better place”?

Both are not mutually exclusive. But there is a calling within the Church which is crucial for her mission ad extra—to be salt of the earth and light of the world. The Church being the Body of Christ will need to be fed with His Body. Unless the Church sees herself merely as another “philanthropic” entity, like any charitable body, then we must take a look at the dwindling vocation to Holy Orders. It is the means through which Christ feeds His Body so that His Body can carry out His mission of evangelisation, of making more Christians and also of changing the world.

The number of priests is dropping. In these two short months, 4 priests in the different dioceses of the country have passed. Each time a priest dies, water has to find its own level. It is an unenviable task for the Archbishops and Bishops to shuffle and reassign priests to cover parishes and provide services to the laity. If Holy Order is an essential component of the Church’s identity and if she is to be faithful to the mission of Christ, where should our vocations be coming from?

The aim of vocation promotion is mainly to encourage young men to embrace Holy Orders but still it does not answer the question why we do not have enough vocations. The uncomfortable answer to this lack of vocational response is because it possibly reflects the loss of faith or lack of belief in this Sacrament as instituted by Christ Himself. God is calling and it is not that we are not listening to Him. The lack of vocation just exposes the dissonance in our belief system that on the one hand, we affirm the necessity of the Eucharist for salvation but on the other hand, we actually do not appreciate what the Eucharist truly is. If we know what the Eucharist truly is, there will be a floodgate of vocations to the priestly life.

This fall in priest vocation raises serious questions for us. What is the Church? How should it be shaped, particularly in the matter of the Sacrament of Holy Orders. As priesthood is suffering a decline in number, should we follow the Anglican model? Experience has shown us that the model adopted by the Church of England and those who follow in her footsteps is not the solution. The solution must come from knowing what the mind of Christ was and is with regard to Holy Orders? Recently, the Holy Father made the timely call for us to recognise the Church as feminine. It is precisely that the Church is feminine that there exists a complementarity which translates into a masculine Holy Orders. This brings us to the challenge to be chaste as found in the 2nd Reading and it is closely linked to the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

St Paul’s Letter to the Corinthian is a vocation too. Just that it is not one which we want to hear or are comfortable listening to. St Paul spoke of fornication and linked his abhorrence to it by connecting the human body to being the Temple of the Holy Spirit. It is a call to chastity which in today’s myopic search for meaning or fulfilment we are incapable of appreciating. Why? We have arrive at a rather sad state of life where we associate the fullness of life with earthly satisfaction or pleasure. Many people can no longer live with or are patient enough to wait for a life of eternal fulfilment. Such a vision entails sacrifices which many are not willing to pay.

Let us take for example, a man who is married. He is expected to give up his roving eyes for other women. That sacrifice is essentially an articulation of fidelity in marriage. It is not easy but it is made possible through the grace of the Sacrament of Matrimony. Marriage’s faithfulness is a mirror of God’s covenant with humanity and Christ’s fidelity to the Church because of all the permutations in human relationships, that which is between a man and a woman in the sacrament of matrimony is the most appropriate sign in which faithfulness is both fruitful and life-giving.

But our sight falls short of the Resurrection and in our unwillingness to wait for eternity, what we have done is to widen the net of permissibility. There are many models of relationships that are possible. The bounds of faith that corrals us in is felt to be too stifling under the present philosophy which regards fulfilment only in this-worldly terms. We continually try to rationalise and accommodate whatever relationships possible in order to satisfy this short-sighted philosophy. Therefore the Church is at a crossroads. What is the Church? And what should her response be to God’s calling?

The most beautiful definition of the Church is expressed through both the Sacraments of service. If there is failure in the Sacrament of Matrimony one can be sure that the same will be detected in the Sacrament of Holy Orders and vice versa. Both these Sacraments are at the service of the Church and the world at large. When society becomes self-referential, it will not be able to fathom or appreciate God’s calling. Perhaps, this explains the ease of divorce in marriages and the lack of priestly vocations. Christ’s invitation to Peter and Andrew, Paul’s chastity challenge to the Corinthians should help us better appreciate the link between the vocations to Holy Orders and to Matrimony.

The lack of seminarians can be remedied only to a certain extent by a vigorous promotion of priestly vocation. The proper solution to this crisis of vocation is to recognise that the faithfulness of married couples is enlivened by the commitment of priests and the dedication of the priests is supported by the vows of marriage. Without the full strength of these two Sacraments of service, we will always struggle and stumble in our service of the Church and our witnessing to the world.