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We live under an oppressive cloud of “Who am I to judge?”. Ever since that famous “ex aeroplano” utterance we have retreated even more behind the walls of “irreproachability”, that is if there were such a word. It is almost “anathema sit” today if one should judge a person’s behaviour because social convention dictates that we just should not. Full stop.
The 1st Reading begs to differ. In no uncertain terms does it warn that everyone is responsible for everyone’s moral well-being. Present social convention dictates that one should mind one’s own business and not be bordered by another’s person’s unwashed linen. The stark contrast is how fearful we have become of what the Gospel tells us to do. If your brother has done something wrong, go and have it out with him alone, between your two selves. It is a call to correction.
Perhaps, we are not that special and the wall of irreproachability is merely a smokescreen. We celebrated almost exactly a month ago the feast of St Dominic, founder of the Order of Preachers. He faced a formidable foe, a herd of heretics, called the Albigensians or the Catharis. A usual approach we are accustomed to when dealing with wrong is to invoke the might of right—a right derived from the possession of truth. It is basically described by “I am right and the only choice you have is to change”.
Well, change was certainly the goal to accomplish for St Dominic but the method was not the invocation of right. Rather, St Dominic followed the truth with humility and the power of persuasion was derived from charity. The previous attempt by Pope Innocent III to convert the Albigensians was to send in the Cistercians monks. They were unsuccessful because the Albigensians were already so ascetical in their lifestyle that there was basically nothing the Cistercians could point to in the Catharis’ lives that showed them to be morally corrupt. Of course, the Cistercians were not corrupt either but they failed the test of credibility because their way of living was not ascetical enough.
St Dominic went in with two tools. Firstly, he met the Albigensians where they were. The Dominicans were ascetical because they lived simply and that made them more credible to the Albigensians. It was Dominic’s way of going down to the level of those with whom he intended to enter into conversation.
Secondly, the Albigensians were interested in the imitation of God’s perfection. While that may be noble desire but it was impossible simply because perfection has always been God’s gift to us. When the Lord created the world, it was “perfect” but that did not mean that it bore the quality of eternity. Even the most perfect creation, in this life, under the regime of time and space, will have to “suffer” an end. In other words, creation has an expiry date. Hence, the Albigensians, though they wanted to be perfect like God is, went about the wrong way.
St Dominic converted them not through the condemnation of their “wrongness” but through charity, that is, love, he slowly changed their vision. The first community he founded at Prouille was in fact for the nuns and women who have returned to the Church so that they could be cared for. He gained greater credibility simply because he was a man, who before he spoke of God, he spoke to God. It was this kind of intimate knowledge that gave his words greater impact.
In a world which has witnessed so much of contradiction, credibility is possibly the only weapon we have against disinformation or misinformation. Both the Great Wars, I and II, were conducted under the aegis of “rationality” meaning that humanity has never been more rational or reasonable and yet, against reason, we went to war. Then, time and again, those with power, namely governments or those who were in government, under the auspices of the common good or the protection of the citizens, were found wanting for they lied and lied and lied. Even the most benevolent governments routinely lie to their citizens. Time has passed enough for us to look back at how the powers-that-be have behaved during the Pandemic. Remember the elites who ruled and yet their behaviour was perfectly captured by the slogan: “rules for thee but not for me”. What is even more blatant was not that we were educated and persuaded to the good of the measures taken to protect the public but instead the citizen were either guilt-tripped or shamed to behaved according to the dictates of the establishment.
More and more credibility is the only weapon we have in order to preach or be able to preach convincingly. An important distinction needs to be noted though. The truth of a position is independent of a person’s moral status. As the saying goes, even the devil can speak the truth. Just because we do not like a person, it does not mean that he or she cannot utter something which is true. But having said that, what is clear is that the preacher’s credibility is truly dependent on his personal moral uprightness. As Paul VI in “Evangelii nuntiandi” reminded us "Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses”.
The lesson today is that we must care for each other’s moral future. The wall of irreproachability or unteachability is not because people refuse to hear. They simply cannot hear because their faith and goodwill to change has been abused by those who preach one thing but behave otherwise.
There is an innate search for the good in all of us. Like the Albigensians, some of us might be misguided. Still that does not negate our search for the good. What happened is that repeated failures in expectation has made our listening so much more difficult because we are incapable of dealing with the constant barrage of propaganda or doublespeak especially from the powerful elites. The reassuring news however is that despite our wounded expectations, Christ has never abandoned us. He is present to us in His Church. Notwithstanding the frailty of her sons and daughters, the Church remains the only sanctuary where we can reliably hear the authentic voice of Jesus Christ. To be able to hear Him, many of us need to humbly dismantle the barrier that we are beyond reproach because pride can easily imprison us from hearing truth. We can do it if we cleave to Christ, hold on to His Church for in Him and His Church we can find the common ground of credibility and charity in our care and concern for each other’s moral good and eternal salvation.
From the height of professing faith in the Christ of God last Sunday, how easily Peter falls from the lofty pedestal of his new office. From being the rock to being the block. Right after confessing Jesus to be the Son of God, Peter began to look for a softer Jesus whom He can worship easily.
This Sunday might be a good time to disabused ourselves of wrong ideas of who this Jesus is supposed to be. As the 2nd Reading goes, we are challenged to model our perspective not on the premise supplied by the world but based on our dignity as thinking or reasonable beings who have been redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ.
We might be distracted by the failure of Peter and even to think of it as a moment of weakness. Perhaps we should view Peter’s failure from the perspective of Jeremiah’s experiences.
Firstly, Peter is known for his impetuous reactions. Consider these incidents. He asked to walk on water but as soon as the winds picked up, he faltered. At the Transfiguration, he blurted out that they should build three tents for Moses, Elijah and Jesus. In the Garden of Gethsemane, he drew the sword and sliced off Malchus’ ear. Prior to the Passion, he boasted that he would never deny Jesus which he resoundingly did three times over. Today Peter remonstratedwith Jesus when the latter predicted His coming Passion. According to Jesus there would be a harsh reckoning awaiting Him in Jerusalem. Our Jerusalem Bible translation uses the word “remonstrated” which means Peter pleaded with Jesus when in actual fact, Peter was quite adamant as in other translations, Peterrebuked or commanded Jesus. In other words, Peter decided that the Jesus he wants to follow should not be meeting that kind of a violent end.
In fact, right down to the end, Peter struggled with the real Jesus which is reflected in the post-Resurrection apocryphal Acts of Peter. The text is the origin for the narrative centred on Peter’s cowardice. “Quo vadis, Domine?” translated as “Where are you going, my Lord?”. According to the legend, Peter was facing his death but chose to escape. At the moment of his departure from Rome, he saw coming towards him, Jesus, which occasioned the question, “Quo vadis, Domine?”. Jesus gave this answer, “Eo Romam iterum crucifigi”. (I am going to Rome to be crucified again).
The fact that Peter turned back and finally met his death in Rome is beside the point. The truth about him is how closely we resemble Peter. All through his life, Peter struggled to accept the true path of Jesus much like we do. We all want a Jesus we are comfortable with, a Jesus we can manage and a Jesus we can even control.
In a way, Peter was very much like Jeremiah. Both were lovers. Both may have been misguided in their love. In the case of Peter, his idea was that Jesus should be a powerful figure. Not unlike Judas Iscariot. For every Jew, to breathe is to inhale the covenant that they are a chosen race, a people set apart. Chafing under the tyranny of a pagan occupation, one can appreciate Peter’s delusion of grandeur. Any Jew would want to have a Saviour who is powerful and capable of over-throwing the uninvited Romans. But beneath that passion was someone who had fallen deeply in love with Christ. Both Peter and Jeremiah were souls deeply in love. In fact, Jeremiah spoke of being seduced by God and expressed the feeling of being cheated. Peter may have been impetuous but he loved Jesus.
As such, he had to learn the true meaning of leadership and discipleship. More than a political liberator, Christ had come to show what it meant to be a leader who serves. To a certain extent, Jeremiah was not wrong. He complained to God and made excuses. Who would not? We all want the glory espoused by Peter but we fear the Cross proposed by Jesus.
How do we overcome this reluctance or this reticence of humanity’s natural indolence to become the man or the woman God intended us to be? In the Gospel, the Cross is mentioned and proposed as the sine qua non of discipleship. The issue is not the Cross. Human experiences have providedproof after proof of how frequently the spirit excels under duress. We are not even speaking here of the call to martyrdom or stoic acceptance. Our experience shows us that a soul spared in the storm rots in the calm.
The only way that the Cross becomes not a cost to be borne but a prize to be gained is the love of God, the love for God. Each in his own ways came to the realisation that their love for Yahweh, in the case of Jeremiah or for the Son of God, in the case of Peter, is the driving force. Our discipleship should be rooted in or driven by love and not fuelled or motivated by guilt or shame.
I think I recognise this especially when we are trying to motivate God’s holy people. Fear of hell is one motivation. Shamed by stigma is another. Let them be haunted by hellfire. Jesus scolded Peter but not out of anger, even though He called Peter, “Satan”. Rather, He was trying to purify Peter’s motivation. “Since you love me, so, just follow me. No need for the excuses of Jeremiah etc”.When a heart is in love, it is easily led. Jeremiah spoke of being seduced by God and a feeling of being cheated. The truth was he was neither seduced nor cheated. Jeremiah realised that it was not a matter of deceit but rather that he had been smitten by his love for Yahweh.
In a previous pastoral posting, I witnessed how children, especially servers were disciplined by fear to coerce compliance. It is not the best way to teach or motivate. Discipline is needed; it is true but children will respond best when there is love. Authentic discipleship should be driven by love for God rather than be motivated by fear or guilt. Love does change everything.
When I was studying in Dublin, I received an email from a well-known chocolate brand canvassing about a possible new chocolate product. I had never experienced this before but I suppose that must have been an industry standard—to manufacture taste and to create demand. The questionnaire polled a number of propositions and asked if I would agree with the name, ingredients and the taste of the product they intended to manufacture.
It was a survey much like Christ surveyed His people by asking two questions. “Who do people say I am?” and “Who do you say I am?”. Unlike the survey regarding the possibility of a new chocolate product, Jesus was not asking so that He can conform Himself to what people expected Him to be. Instead, He was asking where people stood in regard to who He truly was.
The questions are important simply because they touch on who Jesus is and how much we are willing to acknowledge Him. It is easy to know about God. We can in fact expound a whole treatise on who God is but still have no relationship with Him. As observed in a proverb attributed to the Chinese, “Makers of idols rarely believe in them”.
It is true that purveyors of the sacred sometimes have little respect for the sacred. Another way of describing this known experience is familiarity breeds contempt. Sometimes priests can make fun of the Mass they celebrate etc because of their familiarity with it which begs the question of what they truly believe in. Priests are not alone in this matter. Doctors or lawyers can speak disparagingly of their patients or clients.
We can know a lot about God without any personal investment. Hence the questions that Jesus posed to the disciples are important. However, the answer to His questions is equally important in the sense that there are as many definitions as they are ideologies.
In the 19th century when historical accuracy was the trend, there was a serious search for this Jesus whom historians felt had been obscured by the passage of time. The “real” Jesus seemed to be shrouded by centuries of theological veneer which the Church had painted or glossed over Him. In short, historians felt that the Church had made the real Jesus unrecognisable. The irony within the early scientific search for the historical Jesus was that the rejection of the Christ worshipped by the Church was replaced by a Christ who resembled more of an English gentleman. In trying to strip away the theological layers of who Jesus was, historians ended up with a Jesus Whom they wanted Him to be. This so-called myth of a pristine past where Christ can be viewed in an objective 3-D panorama, a Jesus truly accessible to us, was nothing more than a concept of a Jesus who was already shaped by our scientific prejudice.
Today, we are not that different from that putative 1st Wave of the Quest for the Historical Jesus. We can still end up with a Jesus who mirrors our predilections. We want a softer Jesus, less judgemental and more indulgent of our weaknesses. A type of BBC-Jesus who resembles a cosmopolitan metrosexual and who is not hung up on legalism but is totally one who approves of our lifestyle. At the start of WWII, when Hitler came onto the scene, the German Church was cozying up to National Socialism (Nazism), the fascist movement of Hitler by putting a Christ who was watered down, passive and who rather compromisingly signed up to their lifestyle and demanded no behavioural change from them. We too can end with a Jesus who is culturally contemporaneous but Christologically compromised; definitely not the Jesus of the Gospel.
The recovery of Jesus requires more than a knowing about Jesus. In order to follow Him, we need to know Jesus personally; not just a definition or description of Him and certainly not a caricature of Him. The truth about Jesus goes beyond historical interest and accuracy to the person whom we should love. To love Him is to follow Him and to follow Him, the shadow of the Cross looms large. If we were to accept Bonhoeffer’s definition of discipleship, the justification of a sinner is not merely the forgiveness of one’s sin. Instead, justification must include a change in the sinner’s behaviour. Discipleship in Christ necessarily entails the changing of our behaviour.
We must get away from a cosmic rubber stamp in which the Jesus we know is basically a toothless Saviour who does not expect us to change. Thus, the present accent or focus on authenticity has to be more than being right with oneself. Our therapeutic self-assessments like “I am at home with myself” or “I am comfortable with who I am” can be misleading because these are not the same as being at right with God.
This is compounded by a challenge that we face as a modern society. The challenge boils down to the poles that should be kept in tension. One pole is change and the other is stability. Progressives desire change because we need to keep up with the times etc. Traditionalist desire stability because constant change can create anomie, a sense of loss without an anchor. The tension is to hold onto these polarities as we navigate life. But when society is deeply polarised ideologically, we will have a problem accessing the Jesus we should know. At present, on one end of the ideological spectrum, those who claim to be liberal tend to frame opponents especially those who espouse conservative or traditional ideas as harmful and the best way to isolate them is to vilify them for not loving as Jesus would love. All we need is when someone calls us a racist or a sexist or a bigot and immediately we cave in. And on the other side of the spectrum, the conservatives will label the liberals as Marxists or socialists bent on destruction and dictatorial control etc.
We live in fear of the political fallout of being labelled. Such is the paralysing fear of labels that prevents us from having meaningful conversation about the Jesus we ought to know and love. To know Jesus personally, it requires that we dare to cut through these ideological noises. It requires silence and an ability to sit down with Jesus. Prayer is essential to knowing Him. It is not just the rote prayer we are taught. To grow in Him, to know the Christ of the Church, the Jesus of history, we must embrace a prayerful and deeply sacramental life. In prayer we reach out to Him and in the Sacraments, He nourishes us and reaches out to us. To know Him, we read His word in sacred scriptures. To know Him more, He must become the centre of our lives, our families, our decisions and our destiny. He cannot be a side-piece. Hence, the question of Jesus’ identity has only one answer which is meaningful for a disciple. Who do you say I am? You are my all. You are everything to me.
In a way, this Sunday is killing two birds with one stone. I should be happy. Today (Saturday) is Assumption and that means one homily. Tomorrow Sunday, another homily. By transferring the Assumption to Sunday, 20th Sunday’s homily is out the window. I should be ever so happy.
But I am not. While I defer to the wisdom and decision of the powers that be in transferring Assumption to a Sunday, still I do have pastoral concerns. My fear is the encroachment of convenience into our pastoral decisions. Sometimes, priests will lament that the faithful are not attending Sunday Masses etc but I think Catholics are not to be blamed. I lived in Dublin for 5 years in a socially-depressed area. Mass attendance was about 3%. So much for Ireland being a Catholic country. Anyway, in trying to engage lukewarm Catholics, there was always the temptation towards “simplification”, that is, to make it more convenient for the Catholics to attend Mass. How? Make Mass shorter. Do away with the days of obligation or transfer as many as possible to the nearest Sunday. Even the Readings were not spared. We proclaimed either the 1st or the 2nd Reading. Imagine cutting out a Reading to make Mass shorter to entice people to come.
The end result was that Mass attendance remained as miserable as it had been. The usual milestones to describe the Irish Catholic experience was “hatch, match and dispatch” where birth and subsequent baptism, marriage and funeral were the occasions for intersecting with the Church. The rest is a bonus!!
Making it more convenient is not making it easier for people to practise the faith. It is actually giving an excuse for Catholics to lapse. The simple human psychology is basically reflected in our experience of “clubs”. Look at all the condos with their health and fitness facilities which fall into disuse. Why? Membership is free and easy. You know, an elite feels more special when a club membership offers exclusivity and it is expensive to gain entry. Not when it is free!!
It is just how humans are wired. If this were not so, why would this Diocese have this policy where formation programmes require that a parishioner pays one-third of the fee? When a formation programme is offered free, some sign up but have no problem not showing up because they are not paying for it.
Am I ranting?
Feels like it? But no. The reason is that Christianity is a religion of the Cross, it is a faith that is built upon sacrifice which we make, not because we deserve to suffer but because the human soul, though redeemed, is not free from the effects of concupiscence. According to Catholic teaching, even though baptism removes Original Sin and infuses grace, the physical and moral weaknesses within our human nature remain. According to tradition, concupiscence is the “fomes peccati”, that is, the tinder for sins and as a result our senses have an appetite which tends towards laziness or rather our sensual desires do not always obey human reason.
Which is why we celebrate Assumption. Firstly this Solemnity did not jump out of the blue. Think of two bookends that hold your books. The Immaculate Conception is one bookend and the Assumption is the other. There is a flow, which is natural in fact. Mary was conceived normally through both Joachim and Anne but through the singular grace of her Son’s death and resurrection, she was preserved from the inheritance of Original Sin. She does not inherit the fallen nature of Adam but is instead, through the merits of Jesus Christ, filled with sanctifying grace.
Apart from preparing her to be the worthy vessel of singular grace, which was to bring Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour into the world, the effect of her freedom from inherited sin, was an entire life dedicated to the will of God. Of course, this might suggest that she was “inhuman” for our concept of “humanity” is taintedness or rather sinfulness. The truth is she not only lived a fully human life but it was also a completely grace-filled life which meant that she cooperated with the plan of God’s salvation. At the Wedding at Cana, she was able to say, “Do WHATEVER He tells you” because she herself did that completely.
The natural result is that the Immaculate Conception flows into the Assumption. According to St Paul, the wage of sin is death and as a poet once said, “She is our tainted nature’s solitary boast”. Therefore, she who was unstained by sin, would follow a path different from ours. If the logical consequence of Original Sin is death and decay for the human body, then, Mary’s path is different from ours.
Of course, the East follow a different trajectory. They celebrate the Dormition. According to Orthodoxy, even though the title of the Solemnity is the Sleeping of Mary, that is the Dormition, they emphasise that she died a physical death, was Resurrected three days later and brought to heaven. The Catholic position reflects a different emphasis. Pope Pius XII in 1950, through the ex-cathedra Apostolic Constitution, Munificentissimus Deus, left the question open as to how Mary’s life ended except that she was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory. The theological concern about Mary’s actual death was left open because the Pope chose to focus on Mary’s bodily glory.
And this brings the Solemnity down to us, sinners or saints. Firstly, it denotes how sacred our human body is. As more and more bodies are being cremated and given our notion of “freedom” as freedom from restrictions rather than freedom for noble excellence, the idea is that our ashes should be scattered as a final ode to freedom without limitations. The Church’s teaching is based on the sacredness of the human body. We do not dispose of the body, even when it is ravaged by sin, because it is still destined for a heavenly reunion.
A preface which I like is how despite our sins, Christ Himself manages to craft something out of death so that we may enjoy the heavenly reunion. “You came to the aid of mortal beings with your divinity and even fashioned for us a remedy out of mortality itself, that the cause of our downfall might become the means of our salvation”. For Mary, her sinlessness gained for her a glory which only she alone can share with her Son. For us, tainted by sin, Christ fashioned a means of salvation for us through death. Yes, we die because we have to, due to Original Sin, and yet through His death, we gain an everlasting foothold in heaven for, in Him, death has become our means of salvation. We can join Mary in her glory once we have paid the price of our sins. “The Virgin Mother of God was assumed into heaven as the beginning and image of your Church’s coming to perfection and a sign of sure hope and comfort to your pilgrim people”. We can be comforted by Mary’s Assumption.
In conclusion, Assumption should have stood by itself and not be transferred. A hard task is a hard task. It is difficult and it is not the case that a difficult task is always the better choice. As a principle, we should not make it hard to practise the faith. But over-simplifying things because it is more convenient does not inspire sacrifice. A heavy Cross cannot be lightened without losing its meaning. Our faith is forged in fire and sustained by sacrifice. It is not born of comfort or cultivated by convenience. I have one homily less to think about. I should be ecstatic but no. I would rather suffer now than to suffer later.
We all need time to process and despite speeding up processes, we cannot speed time up. Time is a constant whereas our feeling about the movement of time is relative. So last week, Jesus postponed His “me” time when He saw the crowd; a really hungry crowd. This week’s Gospel shows us that He found time to be alone to “process” or to unwind.
And in the process, there was a lot of wind. The 1st Reading saw Elijah encountering the storms of life. He was running away from a murderous Queen. But he was also running from the discouragement of his apparently failed ministry. Despite pouring himself into convincing the Israelite who the real God is, the people refused to repent and return to God. True to a God who is faithful, Elijah needed some assurance and vindication that his ministry was in accord with God’s will. He expected God’s vindication to come via the powerful winds, the shattering earthquakes and the blistering fire. But none conveyed God’s presence and instead, he discovered God’s consolation via the caress of the gentle breeze. God breaks through our preconceived ideas of how He is supposed to answer our prayers.
The same scenario is replayed in Paul’s experience. His fellow Jews struggled to come to terms that the awaited Messiah had already made His presence felt. Paul was even willing to embrace rejection if it meant that there was chance that the Jews came to their sense and accept Christ. Salvation came through the Jews but they were either too dense or too many proud to appreciate that.
Storms are basically storms and the Disciples were no different. When the disciples got into the boat, they were settling in but soon enough the storm overtook them and they were frightened by it. Christ entered the tumult and assured them. Peter, their leader, acting according to his character asked for confirmation. When Christ invited him to trust, instead of having a greater faith, Peter faltered. He could not hear the Lord amidst the whirling of the winds.
Life is never a garden of roses. It is messy and despite our meticulous planning, things can happen. What the message of both the 1st Reading and the Gospel is basically this. We can be overwhelmed by fear to the point that we lose sight of what is real. We can give in to fear to the point that we stop living.
That is not what Christ would have wanted for us. Whether we feel it or not, He is never far from us whenever a storm strikes. The irony of our capable world is that we seem to be more fearful. We want greater control over everything but we are unable to tame our fears. Weirdly so.
We struggle with issues of health, problems in our personal relationships and most of all, monetary constraints or worse financial ruin. When Peter sank, he cried out, “Lord, save me”. Of course, Peter momentarily lost sight of Christ near to him as the winds buffeted him. Nevertheless, he cried out and Jesus reached out to him.
We often miss God if we look for Him the spectacular. Of course, the spectacular is a reminder of God’s omnipotence and presence. See a huge Cathedral and be mesmerised by the sheer immensity. Stand at the edge of the Grand Canyon and be swept away by the sheer power of the wind and water that created the beautiful valleys and fast flowing rivers. Those are just spectacular and like the storms that distract we can be side-tracked to trying to find God in the grand gestures. Nothing is wrong with that.
What we might miss are the gentle caress of God in the ebbing waves. God is found in the silent and the quiet. Which brings us to an important point. How do we allow God to show Himself? If we keep looking for Him in the noisy we will not encounter Him. As St Augustine used to say, “My soul is restless, Lord, until it rests in you”. The rest is necessary if we want to encounter God. Take a step back. “Be still and know that I am God”. The quiet time before the Blessed Sacrament, takes us away from the kind of mentality which says, “I am in control, even of you God”. Without slowing down, it is not easy to sense God’s presence even though He is always there.
Escalators in some places move at incredible speed. You find them in places where people struggle for time. They need time to get more things done or they need more time for themselves etc. Somehow, the speed of how things move, cherished as a modern expression of life, is the same speed that one goes to death. We are dying, whether we like it or not. That we are constantly in a rush to be somewhere is emblematic of the rush to death. It is again ironical that we want to live forever and yet we are rushing to our death.
Perhaps this exercise is helpful. We may be given to fearfulness and that can be paralysing. If we can settle on a truth, perhaps we can do something about it. The truth or the inescapable reality is that there will be storms, like them or not. The path to heaven is never going to be rosy. If we accept this truth, perhaps another saying is essential. It is not the years we have that make life meaningful. Rather it is the living that gives our years meaning. If we trust that God has our back, we can perhaps get more out of life. Look for God but do not be distracted by the spectacular.
Elon Musk is valued at US$1 trillion. A staggering value but that does not mean he is sitting on a pile of ready cash of that amount. Still he has enough money to spend over a few lifetimes. Some people have immense wealth. If wealth is a blessing, then we may say that God has been abundantly generous. In fact, the responsorial psalm is radically spot on in describing that God opens wide His hand and grants our desires.
This generosity of God is revealed in the 2nd Reading for “neither death nor life, no angel, no prince, nothing that exists, nothing still to come, not any power, or height or depth, nor any created thing, can ever come between us and the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord”. Then, in the Gospel, God’s love is abundantly clear as He multiplied food for all to eat and be satisfied.
God is abundantly lavish, that is apparent and in today’s Gospel we get to witness this largesse of our Lord at work. Consider these facts. He had laboured and His miracles were numerous. Yet when He returned to Nazareth, He was rejected by the townsfolk. Then He received news of His cousin’s untimely execution and while trying to find some time for Himself, the crowd followed Him. Even the disciples knew when to stop by telling Him to send the people away. He did not and would not. Instead, He showed us how God’s blessing can be like.
Despite that the world still suffers from wants. We appear to live in a world of scarcity. Otherwise how do we account for the tendency to hoard. This miracle of multiplication teaches us one thing about benevolence, that is, God is never stingy. However, we are somewhat mechanical or sceptical. We are conditioned to want to know and explain the mechanics involved in the multiplication. This miracle confounds and we want to be able, in the eyes of our minds, to account for how a piece of fish or a piece of bread can materially multiply. In a way, our mechanical mindset becomes a mental cage because it is incapable of capturing the infinite divine initiative. Our mechanical minds tries to grasp reality from the narrow perspective of natural law. In fact, we are scientifically inclined to dismiss this miracle as a possibility because science requires repeatability.
Some even argue that this miracle was basically Christ changing the way people behave towards each other. In other words, the multiplication is more psychological manipulation rather than a physical possibility. Sadly, what is truly a supernatural act is now downgraded to merely a gesture of kindness. More than an act of wonder, the miracle highlights God’s dependability. Can we trust Him? Our rational mind likes to work things out. Somehow we need a fail-safe mechanism just in case trusting God does not work, at least we are not left hanging or flailing in the wind.
The experience of scarcity is not solved by wealth or its generation. Making money, generating wealth or promoting prosperity are amazing enterprises. The question we should be asking is, “what for?”. Clearly, the goal of a better life is not a bad proposition. The pertinent question is quantum. How much do we need in order to have a good life? The answer reflects our personal encounter with scarcity.
Have you ever consider how some people who have not, they seem to be happier and they are able to get on with life? Have you seen those who are comfortable but they are not happy? It is a paradox. We believe that scarcity can be cured by more but what abundance can create is less satisfaction. We become worried that there is not enough and worse, we are bothered by others who appear to have more.
The Gospel shows us that God can be trusted. The miracle is out of this world simply because God’s ways or methods are not ours. For a moment, refrain from the scientific curiosity of the mechanics of multiplication or even from trying to reduce God’s ability to bless us to an exercise in psychological persuasion of those who are there listening to Jesus. Then, we might be able to appreciate that God is indeed the one who looks after us and that we can never be in want when He is in charge.
When we surrender our fears to God, our need to be in control in case He fails us, then He can work miracles. When we are not chased by our wants or desires or demands, God will give us exactly what we need. The 12 baskets full of leftovers are proofs that God is generous beyond our needs. He gives us more than enough for whatever is necessary for our sustenance.
Perhaps the most important truth of the miracle of the multiplication is that it prefigures the Eucharist. It is a prelude to Christ’s greatest gift to us which is the Mass we celebrate. Two points we can consider here. The narrative itself mirrors the four Eucharistic verbs. He “took” the five loaves and two fish, raised His eyes to heaven and “said” the blessing. And “breaking” the loaves, He “handed” them to the Disciples who gave them to the crowd. There is a rhythmic sequence to the flow of the four-fold action of Christ which is replayed in Mark, Matthew and Luke’s Gospel and also in St Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians—"He took the bread, said the blessing, broke it and gave it to His Disciples”.
In a way, this four-fold action mirrors Jesus instruction to the Disciples when they presented Him with the challenge of a large crowd in the middle of nowhere and with no access to alimentary resources, “Give them something to eat yourselves”. One can interpret that Jesus is asking the Disciples to try to feed the people through whatever means they can. A comma, however, makes a world of a difference. “Give them something to eat, yourselves”. This highlights clearly the self-sacrificial nature of the Eucharistic meal. Those who follow Christ who gave His life in order that others may live, should emulate His example by the sacrifice of ourselves in order that others may have life. This is the most profound expression of generosity which God has shown us through the laying down of His life for our salvation. The multiplication of the loaves and fish is just a starter, an appetiser to the greatest act of love, the Eucharist which in turn gives us the courage to be food and strength for those who need our love and our care.
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.
