5th Sunday of Easter Year A 2026

I cannot imagine driving around without Waze or for others Google map. We have become that dependent on GPS navigation to guide our way. This dependence might help us to appreciate the Gospel theme today.

From the readings, we hear how the community of believers was shaping up. There appeared to be a process of specialisation as more were added to their number. The Apostles were now to focus more on the spiritual welfare of the newly baptised. A class of servants, the “diakonoi”, now formed the beginning of the ministry of service (diakonia) to the community. They are our deacons today.

The separation of duties did not and does not diminish in anyway the vocation of ALL believers. Everyone has been called to participate in the priesthood of Christ. Not the ministerial or cultic priesthood but the priesthood in which each member offers to God, from where they are, with all they have for the glory of God and the service of the people.

According to the Principle and Foundation of the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius, humanity is created to praise, revere and serve God. Perhaps one can understand the vice of “selfishness” from this perspective. Everything we have is a gift from God. So to speak, every talent we have is on loan to us by God. Thus the offering of ourselves, in whatever capacity we have, to God is right and just. This is the spiritual sacrifice of the common priesthood which is to consecrate the world to God and to participate in Christ’s mission on earth.

In the Gospel we see these sacrifices from the perspective of Christ and who He is as we are brought back to a time before the Passion. He was talking to them to prepare them for His Calvary that they would soon experience. In order to assure them that His eventual loss of life would not be a defeat, the exchange between Jesus and Philip and Thomas, gave us two certainties.

Firstly Jesus promised them a future after the Resurrection. If there were doubts about life after death, this conversation provide powerful proof there that is an after-life. Otherwise, why would Jesus speak of going to prepare a place for the disciples to follow. Furthermore that going away presumes that one needs to die. Under the glorious glow of Easter, we are assured that death will no longer be the final chapter. It will not be the end of the story and it will certainly not be a closed door.

Under the triumph of the Cross, we dare and should in fact speak of (a) life after life because the victorious and risen Lord has tamed death and transformed it from a trap to a doorway that leads into the other life. The Canticle of the Sun composed by St Francis of Assisi has a stanza which reflects the attenuation or the weakening of death rendering it less frightening and affectionally more friendly. “Be praised through Brother Death of Flesh, from whom no living man can flee”. Death is no longer a chokehold but the welcome embrace of a friend who has been waiting to journey with us to the next life.

However there is a difference between life before the curtain of death and life after. The stanza continues “Woe to those that he finds in sin but those in grace he sets free”. This is a maxim which many may have heard before. "I shall pass this way but once; any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now”. Note a sense of urgency here. We are alerted and notified not to be complacent because the crossing once made is irreversible. Once we have passed the curtain, there is no returning.

As such Thomas’ query provides the second certainty found in the Gospel. Thomas wanted to know how he or anyone else could enter into the resurrection to which Jesus replied. “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life”. There are two side to this certainty. From the perspective of evangelisation, it is for us to proclaim Jesus. We need to tell the world that He is the Way and not just a way amongst many other ways. He is the Truth and not just a truth amongst many other truths. He is the Life and not just a life amongst many others lives. Such a proclamation can be structured and methodical. In fact, it is easier to announce to the world that Jesus is the way which can make it feel less threatening personally. What do I mean? Wear a Sacred Heart tee-shirt, hang a cross or a rosary in the car or tattoo a Jesus on the Cross on your chest etc.

There are many ways to express our faith but these can also be less personal in the sense that we can follow a programme without personal investment. We tell others about Him and if more embrace Him, we would consider that our efforts have borne fruits. For example, increased in baptism, more confirmation of those who have not been confirmed or greater attendance of the Landings programme etc.

What is more difficult to be and to do is to personally follow Jesus as the Way, to speak Jesus as the Truth and to live Jesus as the Life. That requires working on ourselves, which involves a lot of effort. Everyone knows that self-reflexion is already difficult to do let alone self-change. Often enough in our spiritual life, we take one step forward and we fall back two. To change our personal behaviour to conform to Christ is much harder than wearing a tee-shirt or tattooing His Cross on our forearm.

In a way, Protestants may have got it right when they ask us if one has accepted Jesus as the personal Saviour. Social religion, in which people practise their faith because everyone else does so can be empty. One goes to Church as expected. When a child is born, he or she is baptised because it is customary to do so. Marriage must be officiated in the Church because of parents’ wish etc. Personal profession is different because it requires my conscious investment of time and space.

Time to pray and time to let God into our lives. It is hard to live Jesus as the Way and the Truth because the path is long and arduous. It requires sacrifice etc. St Therese of Lisieux who never left the Carmelite monastery conceived of a life where Jesus became the centre of everything she did. It was not easy for her. But she showed that it is possible.

In conclusion, Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life but more than merely proclaiming Him for others to accept etc, we will be more convincing if we follow His path letting His Truth guide us to the life we are supposed to have which is to be with God the Father. Perhaps it is time to go beyond Waze or Google Map. Let us take the whole Way of Jesus.

4th Sunday of Easter Year A 2026. Vocation Sunday

Christ chooses to be with us and He does that through the gift of the Eucharist. At least that was the message of last Sunday’s Gospel. He inserted Himself into the despair of the Disciples who were fleeing from what they thought was the failure of Jesus’ political programme.

The means to ensure His Presence is the Eucharist. And the human instrument to make present the Eucharist is the priesthood. Today it is a good time to speak about being called to the sacrament of Holy Orders.

The word order suggests hierarchy, rank, arrangements etc. In terms of arrangements, both the Responsorial Psalm and the Gospel outline the pastoral pattern of what it is to be a priest. God is the Good Shepherd and Jesus calls Himself the Gate of the sheepfold. He is the one who watches over the flock and is prepared to lay down His life for the sheep. Pope Francis echoed this when he said that the shepherds must smell like their sheep.

There have been reports of the increase in the number of baptisms this year at Easter. But the statistics of priestly vocation show stagnation or in some places, the number seems to be dwindling. How shall we approach this sacramental crisis?

There is an inseparable link between the priesthood and the Eucharist. One is unable to exist without the other. In celebrating the Eucharist, the priest is ordained to act “in persona Christi”. The Eucharist, as the source and summit of Christian life, is the purpose of a priest’s ministry. Given by Christ to His Church, the priesthood is for the purpose of confecting the Eucharist to provide the faithful with the means of salvation brought about by Christ.

Very central to the salvation of humanity is the Eucharist that Christ offered us before He returned to the Father. That means He intended the Mass as a way for us to be present at the sacrifice of Calvary. Each one can take part in Christ’s sacrifice and gain inexhaustible fruits from that. For centuries, we have lived this faith.

The crisis caused by scandals notwithstanding, we need to address the issue of the shortage of priests in the local Church. Time flies and passes us by quickly and often without our realising it, we wake up and suddenly we are already in our 60s with the shadow of our past years stretching behind and the prospect of a future that is rather dim. The median age of priests falls in the territory of heart problems or diabetes or any of the debilitating diseases.

Still, the parishes need to be staffed. The solutions of the Anglican communion, of married priesthood or a female clergy have not in any way worked. Their numbers continue to drop. We have increased lay participation as a solution butstill it remains that our theology does not or cannot support the confection of the Eucharist without Holy Orders. We may want to change the theology but that is the topic of a conversation for another day.

What can be done in the meantime?

Firstly, recognise the connexion. If Christ intended the Eucharist as the ordinary means of salvation and the priesthood as the instrument that makes thatpossible, then the lack of instruments cannot be a case of the absence of calling. Christ has not stopped inviting young men to join Him in this sacrifice of praise and worship. It is we who have stopped listening and responding. The vocation crisis is symptomatic of a generation that has not responded to God—ours is an era deaf to God’s calling.

I say this with a kind of apathy. It is not that I do not care. Rather, I am way past the sell-by-date and I am increasingly irrelevant. When I am dead, it is not that I do not care. Rather I cannot care because the dead has no say in this world. And the shortage of vocation is not my problem but it is definitely your problem or the problem of the living.

Second, a vocation is not death. The idea that one sacrifices and loses everything is not true. It is a sacrifice, yes and, it makes a lot more sense for the word “sacrifice” means that we trade our life for the life of others. However, the less we believe in the Resurrection, the less appealing will the idea of sacrifice be because the priesthood is truly an oblation. One must believe that there is more to this life that makes it possible to embrace the loneliness attendant with giving up one’s autonomy.

Thirdly, the model for our economic life is basically driven by production and manufacturing. The metrics of success for us are work and wealth accumulation. Poverty is simply having nothing to shout about. It is not difficult to translate such a model into the priesthood. The same standard for the measurement of success easily seeps into the Church. With wealth inequality, our idea of justice is equitable distribution of wealth etc. Priests are drawn into this endeavour and are supposed to be at the forefront of fighting for justice. It is surely a noble enterprise. But behind this utilitarian mentality, we easily reduce a person’s worth to his or her ability to produce. So what happens when a person has finally outlived his or her usefulness?

The proliferation of homes for the aged is witness to this kind of thinking that a person is valued only when he or she can produce. Thus, our elderly priests are shunted to homes and there, like other elderly, are left to slowly fade away. The point here is that the priesthood is fundamentally a call “in persona Christi”.

Ultimately, he does not need to do anything except to celebrate Mass and make present Christ’s Body and Blood. Sadly, we value people for what they can doand not who they are. A priest is a priest by virtue of his ordination; not by virtue of what he does or can accomplish.

Finally, Christ chose 12 fallible men to shepherd His people. The first amongst them was the first to deny Him. The one trusted with money was the one who sold Him. Without a doubt Christ chose frail and flawed men to stand in His person. However, now what we demand is, as in everything in this world, from politician to priest, a candidate who is perfect. Apparently no one can fail and there is no room in the closet for any skeletons. But whatever our standard, there is no denying that Christ willed for priests to pastor His people. Thus, our job is to pray for more young men to courageously accept Holy Orders and pray for them to grow into the Heart of Christ so that like the Master who laid down His life, we will have holy priests who willingly lay down their lives for the people whom they serve.

3rd Sunday of Easter Year C 2026

History is not merely a chronicle of events that took place. It is not simply a record of happenings. Instead, history is more a record of salvation if only we look for it. Today’s Gospel is taken from Luke and it details the story of two disappointed disciples of Jesus who decided to call it quits and made the decision to abandon Jerusalem.

Jesus came up to them and invited them to relook at history from the perspective of salvation and to consider what they had gone through, not as a loss but to view it as how God has been at work. They had experienced what they thought to be the failure of the person of Jesus but in light of Sacred Scripture, Jesus pointed out that events happened because God had permitted them and what was supposedly a massive failure was not Christ’s death but His victory. With God there are no accidents.

One of the greatest place to experience God’s presence to us is through the Eucharist. Did not our hearts burn within us as he talked to us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us?

Often we can be overwhelmed by disappointments. Somehow crippled by our materialistic vision of life we are incapable of taking a long-term view of life. A proper long-term view of life must include the Resurrection. Thus the walk to Emmaus became an occasion for Christ to open their minds beyond the disappointment of the present. He not only opened their minds but He accompanied them corporeally.

Oh how nice if Jesus were to accompany us, I hear some said. Especially when we endure disasters, encounter defeats and experience disappointments in life. The fact is, He does. Today is the clearest proof of what He does best. He is with us for He is the Emmanuel. The context for His presence is the Eucharist.

To appreciate how He is present to us, we take a look at dancing. What is it that most attracts us? Not the formless kind in which hands and feet are going everywhere, right? What most fascinates us is when a dancer has coordinated movement that flows with the music. There is rhythm. The same can be said of the Eucharist. It is akin to a dance in which we are drawn into it by the rhythmic movement of the liturgy. But sadly, we generally do not make the connexion between the liturgy and Christ’s Real Presence.

In other words, we generally prefer a formless spontaneity in which what is central to our experience are the palpable emotions or maybe the intellectual coherence. If you read the Gospel passage today, you might not discern that it is actually a description of the Eucharist that we celebrate each time.

Our attention may be drawn towards the two disciples’ disappointment and the consequent movement away from Jerusalem. But if you view it from the perspective of the Eucharist, you might grasp how closely Christ is with us in our experiences most especially when we encounter disappointments.

While He was at table with them, He took bread, said the blessing, broke the bread and gave it to them broadly describes the Liturgy of the Eucharist when we celebrate Mass. The four verbs of taking, saying, breaking and giving correspond to the offertory, the Anaphora, the breaking at the Agnus Dei and the reception of Holy Communion. Just as soon as Jesus broke and gave them the bread, He disappeared and their response was “Did not our hearts burn within us, as He spoke to us on the road and explain the Scripture to us”.

The burning hearts belong to the part of the Mass called the Liturgy of the Word, where we hear God speaking to us through Sacred Scripture and the Homily. If the entire episode of the Disciples fleeing Jerusalem on account of their disappointment basically traces our liturgical steps, it gives pause for us to consider that the Eucharist is where Christ journeys with us especially in our darkest moments. He fulfils the description of Emmanuel, God with us, most radically in the Eucharist.

Often we hear this repeated that “to love God and not to love one’s neighbour is a dereliction of one’s love”. The reality is that the love of one’s neighbour is not necessarily a proof that one has relationship with God. A good communist is theoretically a philanthropist meaning that he or she is a lover of humanity but a good communist does not believe in God. In that sense, the end of this Gospel passage highlights an important aspect of our encounter with the God who seeks us out.

As soon as Christ disappeared from their sight, they recognised Him at the Breaking of Bread. The result was that they could no longer contain their excitement. They had to return to Jerusalem to share the good news of the Resurrection with the other disciples. As they say, the proof is in the pudding. When Christ touches us, we become evangelisers. We bring that good news to others. Not necessarily do we need to bang people’s head with the Bible. Rather, we become the Good News in other peoples’ life.

The thing is this, without the Resurrection, then the Disciples were right in their decision. Cut their losses and leave Jerusalem, start elsewhere. On the other hand, the Resurrection grants us an ability to carry on with life and even be joyful, celebrating that Christ did rise from the dead and He is still with us for as long as we need Him to be. His enduring presence is real through the Eucharist which He has bequeathed to His Church. We dare to be joyful despite not tasting victory because the ultimate triumph is assured by the Resurrection in the Lord.

Divine Mercy Sunday Year A

Today is Divine Mercy Sunday and the readings bid us to appreciate God’s merciful love and to extend that mercy to others. The exercise of mercy in the present context usually means we should be less judgemental.

“Who am I to judge?” is a sentiment that has gathered much traction because the world has dug itself into little trenches of self-reference and self-protection. We have gone one step further than the Cartesian Cogito. “I think, therefore I am” is fundamentally “I am the centre of the universe”. As such, I must do what I can to protect that universe. This feels like a full circle. The movement from geo-centrism to helio-centrism to a narrower ego-centrism.

The imperative “Do not judge” is correct because we cannot fully know a person’s intention or motivation. However, we do not live alone without relationship to others and that means that what is available before us are the actions of a person. They form the basis for our judgements.

Instead of drawing lines here and there to determine “judging” perhaps the question “Who am I to judge?” should direct our focus to “encounter” more than to “labelling”. It invites us to meet a person rather than to classify or categorise him or her. Here, we are not talking of condoning a person’s behaviour. Rather it is an invitation to be open to the possibility of encounter and allow us to separate a person from his or her actions. That is important.

However the truth remains that we continually judge. Rather than hiding behind the impersonal “we”, better I speak from my experience. The minute I see a face; I am already assessing a person. Whether I like it or not, I am constantly making assessments and assumptions about a person. Now, here comes a person, who, in my assessment is a sandwich short of a picnic. To be fair, it is a two-way street. People passing my office window will immediately have impressions. Me too when I stare out. “Who is that?” and given the way the person dresses, I am already analysing the situation.

What shall I do? For example, the beggar whom I encounter in the food court, always with the same sob story that I can even repeat word for word. Or the parishioner who will come and the “please, my I have 5 minutes” will stretch into a good 25 minutes and despite my attempts to steer the conversation, the story will move from A to B to C. Therefore the question, “What I supposed to do?” is relevant since I am not supposed to judge. Yet the reality is, I would try my best to avoid that person at all costs.

This is who we are. We are judging all the time. The point is not if we were judgemental but rather how we can encounter each other better and what sort of compassion should we bear each other? That is where God’s mercy can be experienced and appreciated.

His mercy is reflected in the compassion we demonstrate, in the respect towardand in the sensitivity to the needs of others. Having said that, all these actions are not incompatible with judging in the sense that even though we show mercy towards others, it does not exclude the reality that some actions are incompatible with civilised and accepted human behaviour. It also means that we recognise some behaviours are beyond the pale of our religious beliefs. So, the call to be merciful does not negate the truth of what we believe in or the actions we need to take.

Mercy as action towards and on behalf of others fall within two categories—the spiritual acts of mercy or the corporal acts of mercy. In fact, the Church prescribes a list of things we should do and it might be good to re-learn how the Church looks at mercy. Feed the hungry, quench the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the sick and imprisoned, bury the dead. These belong to the time-tested corporal acts of mercy and under Pope Francis, he also listed the care for our common home as a corporal act of mercy.

Corporal acts of mercy are easier to do or realise. What is more difficult to accomplish are the spiritual acts of mercy. Instruct the ignorant or teach them the faith, counsel the doubtful, admonish the sinner, comfort the sorrowful, bear wrongs patiently, forgive all injuries and pray for the living and the dead.

In a climate where everyone believes that he or she knows the best, instructing or teaching is not an easy task. Coupled with a belief that personal autonomy is the supreme authority for one’s behaviour, it is not easy to point out the faults of others, even lovingly. What more, to bear injustice from others and to forgive them.

Mercy is not just what we receive from God nor should we confuse it with “tolerance”. To trust God’s mercy is an invitation to savour God’s love and to repent of our sins. While God’s mercy is infinite, it also means that we seek and receive it with remorse and repentance.

The message of repentance is not always appreciated. When someone is so wrapped up by hurt, the tendency is to avoid the truth and go along with the idea of “accompaniment”. A good example is a divorcee who is in a second marriage. She had been hurt by the first marriage and now the second marriage is considered to be irregular which technically means that she is living in sin. Translated, she is barred from the reception of Holy Communion. The present practice is to turn a blind eye to the irregularity of the second marriage simply because of the fear of reigniting the hurt that comes from the first failed marriage.

There is a confusion which often mistakes passive tolerance of sinful behaviour as mercy. For mercy to be divine, it requires our active and loving intervention to heal an offender rather than accepting or even enabling the offence. It is hard work and not easy.

Finally, it is true that God’s mercy is much bigger than ours. We do not judge only because we cannot always see the bigger picture. But we can judge actions which are incompatible with our faith and the Church’s teaching. We need the courage to call them out but with charity bearing in mind that the salvation of souls remains the Church’s chief duty. Whatever the confusion in terms of what mercy is, the Church still needs to uphold that mercy is inseparable from truth. While it may be uncomfortable, we cannot coexist with wrong doing or sin. For those who betray God, mercy makes a lot of sense. Somehow they are not going to change because we yell at them or even punish them. God’s grace is what they need. For them, we pray and ask God to bless them, not so much that they will change but rather that they may experience the profound healing of God’s mercy and are moved to change in return. The goal of mercy is always directed to the salvation of the whole human person.

Easter Vigil 2026

This is a story told one time too many and I am rather shy to repeat it here. Abridged, it is about a boy named Sammy—a bit slow and dying from a disease. In his school the teacher wanted to illustrate the Resurrection and so gave each student a plastic egg-shell. Each child was told to put something into the egg-shell to symbolise the new life of the Resurrection.

One of them put in a flower representing new life. Another, a plastic butterfly symbolising a caterpillar transformation into a butterfly, another sign of new life. The teacher came to Sammy’s egg-shell. She opened it and it was empty. Not wanting to embarrass Sammy she proceeded to take another egg—shell. But Sammy shouted out… “Why are you not saying anything”? The teacher replied, “It is empty inside”. Sammy responded, “So too was Jesus’ tomb”.

He died and He rose and the only evidence we have is the empty tomb. But the empty sepulchre is not just a physical reality. For the Gospel of the 5th Sunday of Lent, we heard that Jesus raised Lazarus from the death. He bought him back to life but that revival was only an appetiser, a foretaste of what was to come. That was not the resurrection but a resuscitation.

More than a vacant tomb, the empty sepulchre is a powerful proclamation of Christ’s victory over sin and death. Death can no longer hold on to us for eternity. Instead, death now becomes a doorway, offering hope to us in a life which is often incomprehensible. For example, how is one to make sense for someone whose life is just one mishap after another? You know the kind where one bad thing happens after another. Or someone for some tragic reason, life is cut short just when one’s fortune is about to take off?

All the Readings, both old and new, and the Gospel provide a view that history, since the beginning of creation, is basically a testament to the Resurrection. Firstly, sin came into the world and the world, suffering the sting of eternal damnation, has been groaning for salvation. Christ has always been the awaited Saviour. Creation and humanity having always been longing for Him so that we may have life to the fullest.

The word “fullest” has different meanings for people. Amongst our generation, it is a promise buoyed or propped up by a material foundation. The Chinese “fuk1, luk6, sau6” (福, 祿, 壽. Cantonese pronunciation) best epitomises this materialism which reflects a preoccupation with prosperity, position and permanence (longevity). We conceive of a fuller life when we are materially or even psychologically fulfilled or contented. Even our information superhighway, now propelled by artificial intelligence, promises us a more complete or wholesome existence.

Yet, baptism numbers seem to have increased in some developed and progressive countries where there appear to be no need of religion. For example, France saw the highest number of baptism in the recent past. Why? In London, I encountered people attending mid-day Masses and people going for Confession. Why?

Perhaps fullest is ironically incomplete when it is based on a material satisfaction or even psychological gratification. Buy the “hot-off-the-press” whatever and you know what that means. The minute you possess the latest computer, phone, car, house, the item purchased is already obsolete. By September sometime this year, your cutting-edge iPhone 17 will be outmoded. And we are left craving for more which is nothing more than a pining for a permanence which is transcendent. The soul has a hunger for heaven which we have mistaken earthly realities for. The pathway to heaven can only be traversed through the Resurrection.

So Lazarus or anyone brought back to life had to die again so that they could experience the Resurrection. Christ conquered death to free us from the fear of dying and death. Death is no longer the final chapter that closes our lives in this world. The man or woman who in the eyes of the world is considered a failure now stands a chance of redemption and completion, if not temporally, then eternally. Christ by vanquishing death has made it into a pathway through which we could pass over safely. The Viaticum now makes a lot of sense. We gain spiritual strength from consuming Jesus so that we can make the necessary transition for this life to the next.

When the stock exchanges or financial markets were having it so good, materially that is, all it took was for the pandemic to uncover the false promises of economic prosperity. We were stopped in our tracks and the world woke up to the question, “Is there more?”. Right now, Iran may provide yet another chance for reflection. Iran's indiscriminate use of conventional weapons of war has put many on edge with questions. What if she truly possesses enriched uranium, enough and unafraid to to initiate a nuclear winter? The very fear of death which we encountered during the pandemic and now with Iran's nuclear capabilities, has now given courage to people to peer beyond the curtain of mortality imposed by existence to a more promising completion. Is there more that awaits after death?

That promising fulfilment is called the Resurrection. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, He can stay buried with Muhammad or Muhammad can even outrank Him. Jesus can sit with Buddha and converse on the cycle of endless reincarnations. Or Jesus can enter into the multiverse of the Hindu deities. But He rose from the dead, proving that He is the Lord of Life. Death and life are in His hands and because He holds life in His hands, we are empowered to live beyond the fear of dying. He alone can offer us a new life.

O death where is your sting and O grave, where is your victory?

The martyrs whom the world considered to have senselessly lost their lives are alive in Him because what was their annihilation was in fact their triumphant entry into the new life of Christ. Thus, every single saint who suffered in this world, or all who went to their death as if they were considered failure in this lifetime can take comfort that their death will not be the end. Tonight’s empty tomb affords us reason to live with hope because life to the fullest is promised by Risen Christ.

Good Friday 2026

“We adore You O Christ and we bless You. Because by Your Holy Cross, You have redeemed the world”.

This acclamation is familiar to those who attend the Good Friday Stations or Way of the Cross. Today we come and the starkest reminder of how important the sacrifice on Calvary is, is the fact that we do not celebrate Mass today. Every day, wherever there is a Catholic Church, and the Church is staffed by a priest/s, then the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, the Mass, is re-enacted except for today.

There is no beauty about Him, nothing to attract us to Him. Yet, for our sake He was bruised. For our sins He was crucified. Thus today is an invitation to reflect on love and the call to repentance.

God’s benevolence is immense. The entire season of Lent is basically a display of God’s outpouring love for us. But there is a subtle movement. There is a rhythm which is not focused entirely on contrition or remorse. Rather it is a clarion call to repentance because contrition and conversion are two sides of a coin. Change is integral to repentance.

But for some reasons the world has developed some forms of addiction towards victimhood. We have been hurting for a longest time, a hurt that arises from being unloved. Mother Teresa’s description of poverty somewhat fits our generation pretty well. She said that loneliness is the most severe form of poverty and suffering. We are a generation hurting from the loneliness of being unloved. We crave for love.

Therefore it is not surprising that the last 50 years we have the greatest explosion of self-help therapy and its attendant sister, self-love and in a way the biblical story that best epitomises this need for self-esteem is the Prodigal Son. There you have in the parable, an irresponsible son and a helplessly loving father.

God is loving, ever ready to forgive. That is true. But coupled with self-help, self-esteem and self-love, the loving nature of God has become, instead of a grace toward change, is now more of an entitlement. Does it now make sense that we often miss the proper movement of Lent. It starts off with remorse because we have offended God’s majesty and it ends with a growing appreciation of God’s generous love. Appreciation of God’s love is demonstrated by our penitential behaviour. That is the meaning of repentance.

I repent of my sins for having offended you, my God. Today we witness how Christ opened up His Heart to an outpouring of love for a humanity, that blinded by a sense of entitlement, is incapable of fathoming the depth of His mercy.

If the idea of a God who is vengeful, exacting His pound of flesh as justice for offending Him is unacceptable to a modern audience, perhaps our idea of a God who is ever merciful and who overlooks all our sins is a caricature of our sick psychology. We crave love minus the hard work of tough love. As St Augustine pointed out, the God who created us without our permission, cannot save us without our permission. That means with our cooperation and our desire to work with God’s grace. There is a balance here between the God who loves and our appropriate response, between mercy and justice. You may have heard of this: mercy without justice deteriorates into indulgence whereas justice without mercy hardens into cruelty.

Our unloved age will never fully appreciate God’s mercy unless we recover a sense of sin. Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross would basically be meaningless without an appreciation of the cost of salvation. Could God have saved us without shedding a drop of blood? Definitely. But our experience have shown us that what we gain without sacrifice is often what we care least for. Any achievement without pain or dying to oneself is cheap. We all want victory but any win without a vanquish is pyrrhic or vacuous. It feels like we have won but for nothing. It may explain why lottery winners often squander away their easy gotten gains.

The objective today is not to beat ourselves but to look at Him, all bloodied up and look at ourselves. See the love that drips from His side for us. Feel in ourselves how much we long to love in return, for that is the only language that the human heart truly appreciates. Love in return for love. St Ignatius in the 1st Week of the Spiritual Exercises reflects this Lenten experience. The medications therein are centred on God’s love which despite our sinfulness and unworthiness, is unconditional. The meditations are on the sin of the angels, the sin of Adam and Eve and one’s personal sins. In all the meditation, against the backdrop of God’s unwavering love, one is moved to gratitude and repentance.The flow within the 1st Week of the Exercises is similar to the movement within the season of Lent. It begins with a recognition of my sins, remorse for them and a firm resolution to align my life to my Saviour and Lord. At the end of week, three questions are asked that reflect one’s desire to reform.

“What have I done for Christ?” is a question that is centred on my past. So, what are my past sins?

“What am I doing for Christ?” focuses on what my present disordered attachments are. Where are my energies focused on?

“What ought I to do for Christ?” is a question that invites me to change my way so as to live with greater love and more authentic service. I am invited to leave behind my disordered attachments and the useless pursuits that do not give life so that I can run after Christ. In everything, all I do is in return love for Christ’s sacrifice. I love you, my Lord and my God.

Holy Thursday Year A 2026

You may have heard of the phrase, “reading the room”. It is an ability to assess, in a particular situation, the attitude, the mood and the emotions of the people. It is an aptitude that translates into adjusting oneself to a social setting if one were not to lose the crowd. Skilled politicians are usually good at reading the room, so they say. Now, what I am going to say will run totally against the grain of “reading the room”.

Today Christ left us two greatest gifts. He left us the priesthood and the Eucharist. Both the Sacraments are intimately linked together. Without the priesthood, there is no Eucharist. Without the Eucharist, the priesthood is meaningless. The thing is this. Stating that the Eucharist is a great gift, we can understand. Many appreciate the Eucharist and accept it as a central and daily feature in their lives. However, the priesthood, that is debatable considering the glaring scandals in the last few decades. Is it that important a gift for the Church? Yes, it is but it is a truth that is not readily acceptable. We may accept the notion of its importance but the reality is another different matter altogether. Priests have not always lived up to their vocation.

Today is the eve of Christ’s great passion. It is His final countdown. One can frame His impending death as a garden-variety political struggle, that is, of a group of people who are afraid of Christ’s influence and their consequent loss of authority or control over the people. Or if one prefers a Church of the poor, then the washing of the feet may be interpreted as an emphasis on the service of the priesthood. The priest is more a pastoral servant who advocates for the poor. The tendency is to downplay his cultic or sacramental role with the result of marginalising the focus on the Eucharist. Just as an aside, exactly two months down the line, the spotlight will land on the Eucharist through the Solemnity of Corpus Christi.

Both Holy Orders and the Eucharist are at the heart of a cosmic conflict. In instituting both these Sacraments, Christ is rallying His Body, the Church to the great cosmic spiritual war that has taken place since the beginning of creation. He starts tonight with the battle to defeat sin and to vanquish death. Up until the coming of Christ, death was the final chapter and those who were virtuous were just waiting in a state of limbo. Sin has separated us from the life of God. Now, Christ enters into a combat to win back souls and to open the gates of heaven for those who are waiting for salvation.

Both the Eucharist and the Priesthood go beyond this evening’s Passion. Yes, Christ goes to His death for our sake. But there is more. The forces that are arrayed against Christ’s Kingdom are still at work in the world.

Perhaps we have become good pacifists. After two great wars and witnessing so many deaths, we are sworn to detest war as unnecessary. Hence, we are no longer accustomed to hearing the language of combat or conflict. If anything,we are more interested in the fight against climate change or for people to gain equal access to wealth in the world.

Yet at night in our prayer, a line is rather revealing. 1 Peter 5:8, “Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the Devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour”. How does the Devil in this cosmic battle devour souls? If tonight, we have one of the great gifts of Christ for the Church which is the priesthood, perhaps we should not be surprised by the spiritual attacks mounted on the institution of the priesthood in general and on individual priests in particular.

It is easy to appreciate the Eucharist. This is the food, the weapon to endure thecosmic struggle. We are not left alone. Christ gives us food for the journey, the viaticum. However, we seldom see the other part of the equation which is the priesthood. We often view vocation as a finished product and that priests are supposed to be priestly. Few see that the Devil will want to attack the priests themselves and destroy the priesthood. Right from the beginning of any priestly or religious vocation, the Devil and his minions are already at work.

It feels like an excuse for the priesthood to state that a defective priest is the Devil’s work as it lessens one’s culpability. This makes it easier not to be accountable or responsible. Worst of all, a priest should not be pointing this out because it will come across as vested self-interest. It is not to give priests an easy pass but to recognise that the priesthood component of Christ’s great gift tonight can be easily overlooked. The prophet Zechariah said this, “Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered”. We heard this on Palm Sunday’s Passion Narrative from Matthew’s Gospel.

We should temper our expectations of the priesthood and perhaps enter into a more focused prayer for this class of flawed people. Without the priesthood, the battle against Satan’s kingdom is already lost. At the least, there should be concerted prayers for vocation. Secondly, to pray for priests most especially because they can fail and they will. We should never be surprised by the foibles or imperfections of priests. This is not an excuse but rather an invitation to a more prayerful approach to this crisis.

The likes of St Jean Marie Vianney are few and far in between. The failure of the shepherds reveals, not really a failure of formation but rather a crisis of holiness. God is holy and nothing unholy can enter His presence. This is not helped by present philosophy which confuses bad with good, profane with holy. Currently, to be good, you need to be bad. That confusion seems to suggest that good or bad is immaterial because we have a God who does not really care because He is all loving. Does such a confusion not lend itself to a kind of tepidity or lukewarmness amongst us all?

Since we are sensitive to the need for justice, perhaps we should also consider that justice demands that God’s holiness be acknowledged. Nothing unholy will ever enter His Presence. It does not in any way denigrate who we are, unworthy but rather states who God is. He is holy and our duty in life is to approach Him with holiness. If holiness is a universal responsibility, all the more shepherds need to be disciples of holiness.

Holy Thursday is the gift of the priesthood and the Eucharist to the Church. Perhaps, it might just be a time to double down in praying for the priesthood, the “persona Christi” broken by sin and damaged by the ways of the world. Today we see the world from the perspective of justice and in particular justice for victims. No doubt that justice for victims is important. Yet there is also a need, not justice, not mercy but a need in terms of healing to pray for the Church, specifically for the priesthood. A holy priest is a compelling witness ofChrist’s presence in the world.

Holiness is a reminder of transcendence. It is a kind of separation, not meant to belittle the mundane but meant to uphold the sacred and the eternal—the true abode of souls. A priest of the world is amazing but a priest shot through with and shining forth in holiness exudes the presence of a transcendent God. Pray for that kind of a priest amongst us.