16th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 2024

God spoke last Sunday through the Prophet Amos. This Sunday He is speaking to us through the Prophet Jeremiah.

The theme for the Sunday is leadership and sacrifice. In the first reading, judgement is rendered against the leaders of the people. God “scolds” and our challenge is an inability to tolerate “scolding”. What should have been an act of love, which is discipline, is now construed as the lack of love. Perhaps this intolerance is an indication of our damaged psyche or poor sense of the self. Just think 50 years ago when parents discipline their children. Admittedly, some forms of discipline were harsh and bordered on cruelty. But in many cases, discipline was not meant to be punitive. It was intended to be rehabilitative because there must be some agreed upon and accepted measure of what “good” is. From this perspective, God’s condemnation of the leaders came from the failure of leadership. Furthermore, He castigated them because He was concerned for the welfare of His people. God’s disappointment with the leaders revealed His commitment to the flock.

The same concern is expressed in the Psalms today. He is the Good Shepherd. He cares for the sheep and this concern in turn is reflected in the Gospel. When Christ saw crowd, His heart went out to them.

Just recently, the UK underwent an election wherein the ruling Conservative Party was effectively wiped out. Days before the election, some Conservative MPs allegedly placed bets to see who would retain their seats. The point here is that they already had an inkling that the party would lose its majority, so what was to prevent them from making some money on the way out. The reason for the Tory’s loss in the election and also for the turn towards the right amongst the populace of Europe is in a way not far from the experience of the people in the 1st Reading.

Those who have responsibilities over the welfare of the people have forgotten their duties. We hear people say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. That same highway is also paved with bones of Popes and Bishops. There are Popes in hell but considering that there are officially only 266 Popes and that in comparison, there are thousands of Bishops for every Pope, one can safely surmise that there are more Bishops in hell than there are Popes. But then for every Bishop, there must be tens of thousands of priests, again one can conclude that there are more priests in hell than there are bishops.

The advice of Uncle Ben in Spider-Man ‘s Peter Parker rings true: “With great power comes great responsibility”. Since more has been given, more will be expected of Popes, Bishops and Priests. Leaders fall a lot. But we need to return to a better grasp of God’s chastisement of the world. Scripture speaks of God’s anger against the shepherds but think rather more of disappointment. It rhymes with our experiences. Betrayal is always a failure of faith. I had faith in you but you let me down. Thus, punishment is meant to be restorative rather than to be punitive. God allows shepherds to suffer in order to restore them to His trust.

This is where we need also to relearn what it means that leaders can and do fall. Temptations are always there for them. There is no leader who will not be tempted. Without excusing responsibility, we might want to bring in the notion of prayer. Meaning? Today we tend towards hyper-criticality. Whenever a leader falls short, the first reaction is to criticise.

Criticism can be constructive, that is, it is a form of calling to account for one’s behaviour and action. The current criticism brooks no acknowledgement of frailty or the reality of Original Sin. Instead, there is a denial of Original Sin as if leaders were born perfect. What about prayers? If temptation comes to us from Satan’s attempt to throw creation into a disarray, instead of criticising, we might want to fortify our desire and resolve with prayers. Thus, parents, leaders or anyone who has responsibility, they need our prayers more than our condemnations. Not that we should not criticise them when they roundly need it.

More than criticism, we may want to school ourselves on the idea of duty and sacrifice. No greater love a man has than to lay down his life for his friends. Christ showed that example Himself. He gave up His life so that we might be saved. But He went further than saving those He loved. On the Cross, He cried out, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”. The impulse toward revenge is indeed a strong one for many of us. But Christ did not condemn those who condemned Him. Instead He prayed for them. True leadership is one which is sacrificial.

Good leaders are few and far in between. More so when we do not have a sense of heaven. Think about it. If Najib were a bit more fearful of God, he would not have stolen that much. Au contraire, he used religion as a tool to be a better thief because he knew not better. If only our culture and society have a greater sense of God and a reverence of Him, perhaps leaders will be better because they are aware of the need to be accountable to God. In that way, we have a grave duty to pray for our leaders and pray more for them. But most of all, it is indeed distressingly depressing when we feel that our leaders have let us down. The Gospel message is that Christ will never let us down, no matter what.

In the survey of our leaders and their shortcomings, we might just miss out a crucial truth. Perhaps parents must look at how they bring up their children. Leaders do not drop down from the skies. Countries and communities inherit them from families. Many of our families are failed families and from such poor soil springs the cadre of defective priests and leaders. It is worth a thought that our problem is not out there with poor leadership but also with lousy families.

As we face challenges ahead, we must continually turn to God placing our trust in His care for us. It is this assurance that makes room for peace in our hearts. Despite the troubling roads ahead, God will never forsake us.

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 2024

The 2nd Reading paints a compelling portrait of the “eschaton”, that is, “He would bring everything together under Christ, as head, everything in the heavens and everything on earth”. The passage from St Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians direct our focus to the end of time, that is, to the “eschaton”. What remains at the end of time, that is, what remains of humanity, belongs to the Body of Christ. Take a few seconds to let this declaration sink in.

This statement makes sense of our Creed because it is the only logical outcome of the profession of faith that “through Him all things were created”. Therefore, if Christ is the head and the Church is His Body, then at the end of time, whatever remains, or rather, whoever remains, belongs to the Body which is the Church. This where we find it hard to comprehend. What about those who do not believe or are of another faith tradition?

This notion of belonging to Christ goes with the territory that the Church, by nature, is missionary. All things are to be reconciled in Christ is the reason why the Church has a mission to share the Gospel and to reshape mankind as a whole into the Body of Christ. For this purpose, each faithful, concretely is part of this endeavour. Our talents are not necessarily restricted to the service of the Church. We are always serving Christ in our capacity as His Body in every place and in all capacity. The only challenge is to become more aware of it.

Are we the same in our work place or at home? These are the basic two areas where we move and have our beings. For the younger ones, they move between the schools or the universities and home. Do people recognise us? Recently we carried out a programme of plogging. The point is that many of our neighbours may have never read the Bible or have the chance to encounter Sacred Scripture. But many would have had countless chances to come across Christians like us. We might just be the only Bible that the Cathedral’s neighbours read. In fact, one of them reads us loud and clear because he or she has placed a large reminder on their fence: No parking for Church members.

The sign though unwelcoming is a humbling reminder. When queueing up, driving, working, interacting, do people feel that we are different or are their experiences of us more of the same as everywhere else? Today’s Prophet was called out of nowhere. Amos was not thinking of anything close to being called let alone being a prophet. And yet, God summoned him. Given that the 2nd Reading is God’s blueprint for the entire creation, then we can safely conclude that everyone has been chosen and sent.

What does it mean to be chosen and sent? The disciples are called Apostles because the word signifies that they have been sent. We are sent and this is where we might take a moment to think of how we are sent.

Today, to speak of vocation, that to be called and sent, the understanding is rather restricted. The word “vocation” itself suggests of priestly or religious calling. But it is not. In the past, the notion involves the dedication of one’s entire life. For example, sons used to take on their father’s trade. In a way, they inherit a tradition through which they learn to sharpen or perfect a craft. Craftsmanship is a way of being which contributes to the good of the whole or the well-being of the community. Today we have, in a way, lost this idea of calling and the consequent dedication to craftsmanship. It may survive in some professions like doctors and teachers etc. But by and large, our workforce takes its inspiration from career moves in the direction of monetary gain. The notion of calling has taken on a rather professional turn that is driven by financial considerations. Let it be clear that nothing is wrong with earning more but what has happened is that both financial benefits and self-fulfilment have become the main priorities for the way we organise our lives.

Teachers of old can resonate with the idea of a life-long vocation or surgeons too, who have honed their skills. We all have full of admiration for many teachers and doctors who have dedicated their entire lives to public service. In these two examples, we have a description of how vocation functions. Teachers or doctors practise their “crafts” not for the sake of money alone but for the excellence of our craftsmanship. In that way, the excellence becomes a part of their contributions to regenerating or recreating the world. Society has lost that sense of vocation today. The fact that artisanal products cost so much more is possibly a remnant of this form of thought.

In other words, excellence in craftsmanship is a reminder that everything we do becomes a part of Christ’s mission to reconcile the world. It is not the sum of money that determines how important a work is but rather how excellent one performs it. That means even the lowest paid worker has a role to play in society. This concept is lost if one were to move from a job to another in search of better pay. Again this is not a critique of career change or advancement. When the pay is bad and the work is boring, it is not easy to appreciate what we do as part of recreating the world. In fact, the world is trundling along this narrow economic treadmill.

Creation is indeed moaning and groaning and waiting to be fully reconciled. Many of us who live in this country might feel a little less impressed by what is happening politically in this country. It is common for parents to encourage their children to migrate and not return here. The scope for both religious and racial reconciliation does seem like an impossibility. Yet this is where we must rethink our contribution to God’s reconciliation of the world to Himself. Everyone is important and each one of us has a role to play.

In this sense, the universal call to holiness put forth by Vatican II is not something novel. Holiness is simply the expression of our baptismal commitment. Therefore, every baptised person is a priest who prays for the Church and the world. Every baptised person is a prophet who speaks on behalf of God. Every baptised person is a king who serves. Whatever station in life that we have been placed in makes each one a part of Christ’s work of leading creation back to the Father.

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 2024

The theme of faith in Jesus Christ continues this Sunday but with a twist. He has returned to His hometown and this time it feels like a private visit because His family members are named. Mark also broke with the tradition which customarily identifies a person through his patriarchal lineage. An adult man is usually a “ben” (Hebrew) or “bar” (Aramaic), just like in local custom, a male is normally a “bin”. The Evangelist described Jesus as the carpenter and the Son of Mary. This is one of the contentious passages where Protestants often seize upon to support their claim that apart from Jesus, Mary did have other children. There is no need to defend the long-standing Church’s belief in Mary’s perpetual virginity but only to note that the controversy arose when the Protestants came to the scene. Prior to their advent, for 1500 years, it was a settled and widely accepted Church dogma.

Central to the Gospel narrative is an experience everyone can resonate with. His neighbours were taken up by His teachings but they were unimpressed by His actions. Where could He have gotten such abilities? It is the usual phenomenon of a familiarity that breeds contempt. From what they thought of Him, Jesus had a tough crowd to please.

The response of Jesus was a natural human reaction. He could achieve no more than their faith permitted Him. It is not easy to stand up and be counted but the 1st Reading is a clue to tenacity, that is, to remain steadfast in the face of opposition. To be a prophet one needs courage to stand apart.

It is ironical that everybody wants to stand out but few are prepared to pay the price. In times past, throw a stone into a family and what do you know? It will hit a Theresa or a Mary, an Anthony or a Joseph. My Dad has 3 Theresas for his sisters because his parish is called St Theresa. Today we have special names. Parents want their children to have distinctive names, designed to stand out in the crowd. Yet, few would give up a seat for an elderly passenger in a bus or transit. It is a sad reflection of how far we have sunk when providers of public transportation are required to put reminders on buses or trains to alert us to this basic civic duty—to take care of the feeble. To sacrifice one’s comfort, there is perhaps a hidden fear that others might regard us as weak. Or as Michael McIntyre in one of his comedies about letting cars cut into his lane remarked “I am generous to the tune of one”. FOLO, the fear of losing out arises because we are afraid that we might be taken advantage of if we were too kind.

But more than this fear of losing out is the reality that once we stand out, we will suffer. A prophet, in general, stands alone and is made to pay for holding on to unconventional views. It is daunting to be steadfast. Take for example the experience of youthfulness. Many are fired by ideals and are committed to the faith or to a cause. The change occurs when they enter higher education. Some who have the luxury of an overseas education succumb to the dampening democracy of mediocrity. What does this mean? The multitude or the majority that does not practise the faith exerts an intimidating silence that forces those who believe to either tone down their belief or conform to the accepted norms. The idea that faith is private and not public is a challenge that young Catholics face. If our celebrities can cave in to the fear of cancellation and ostracisation, what more a young anonymous Catholic.

The price of faith in the Lord is also fidelity to our vocation. The 2nd Reading is therefore instructive. St Paul speaks of witnessing to Christ by bearing insults on Christ’s behalf. Both the 1st Reading and St Paul deal with being the spokesman for God, that is, to become the voice of God. Immediately we enter the territory of “right” or “being right”.

There are different ways being right. The first borders on being self-righteous. This is the type which sets itself up as the standard. The Pharisees were like that and it is not difficult to be a Pharisee. In today’s terms, it is called virtue-signalling. In itself, virtue signalling is an indication of the loss of paradise, meaning that, when we can no longer depend on God’s assessment of us, we are compelled to alert the world about how good we are. Currently, celebrities, apart from the fear of ostracisation or cancellation, they also virtue-signal. Consider how many of them have jumped on the bandwagon of the climate-change agenda? Sadly, while they lecture us on our duty to be carbon-compliant, they see no contradiction between their public announcement and personal behaviour as and when they hop onto their gas-guzzling private jets. Sipping spring water flown from the untouched glaciers of the Alps or consuming imported delicacies cast a huge carbon shadow and before they decry fossil fuel, they might want to consider how vacuous their condemnations sound.

The second type of right is having the courage to stand in the light of faith meaning that we are conscious that faith in Jesus is not merely that He can fulfil our deepest desires. Faith is also to be loyal to His calling or to be reliable in what we stand for. Therefore, to be the righteousness of Christ, it is even more important that we be seen not only to talk about it but also to live it. Modern man is sceptical of the truth not because it does not exist. Rather truth becomes empty talk because those who preach it do not live it. As St Paul VI said in Evangelii nuntiandi, “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses”.

How do we speak for Christ? He faced a daunting crowd. We too have the same dilemma. Society can be fixed in its thinking, just like the neighbours of Jesus was. In a way, our fixed ideas of reality are even worse because we have been corralled in the manner we think. In the age of search engines, algorithms organise our thoughts to the point that sometimes we cannot see further than what is presented as “reality” before us. The source of our knowledge can be the echo chambers that insulate us from contrasting thoughts that may challenge the accepted narratives. When we are fixed in our thinking, we will no longer be able to see more than what is proposed.

To speak in the name of Jesus Christ requires courage to step out of the shadows cast by the enslaving technological complex. This bravery to step out can be excruciatingly lonely. Furthermore, credibility is never established from merely mouthing it. Many celebrated cultural and intellectual elites tend to pontificate. By today’s standard, Jesus could also be a celebrity. But in terms of listening to those who speak in the name of “right” or “good”, we are challenged by this fundamental question. Is a cause right because a celebrity endorsed it? Or is it right because God has ordained it. For Catholics, we derive our compass from the Church’s moral teachings. They are not popular and embracing Christ’s Way will result in suffering for Him. When we are ready to be shunned and still carry on, that is prophetic. When we are determined to suffer for Christ’s Truth, we might just gain the grace, the strength and the voice to speak for Him. The road is long and arduous. While the price is often loneliness, the reward is a Life beyond this world. What makes this Truth hard to grasp is perhaps best expressed by GK Chesterton who remarked that “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried”. The cure for this myopia or short-sightedness is to live amongst the saints for they are the signs or symbols that it is possible to live for Christ alone and also to live as Christ while in this world.

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 2024

Very recently some kindly Catholic doctors organised a health check programme for the priests of the diocese. The common observation is that priests do not take care of their physical and at times their psychological health. What was evident in the exercise was the familiar adage: Ignorance is bliss. Some priests did not want to undergo the barrage of questions and tests. They may have valid reasons for avoiding them and this is not a criticism of them because I was tempted to skip the whole process too. The abstention may just highlight the different approaches we all have towards the reality of dying and death.

The First Reading speaks of how death came to be. The short and simple answer is sin. But that is really old news. What is more alluring is the idea that we could have lived forever. If only Adam and Eve did not bite the forbidden fruit what a life we all would have. We could be so side-tracked by the loss of paradise that we might miss the truth that immortality is no guarantee against death. Even if Eve did not succumb to Satan’s wiles, immortality does not preclude death. It does not prevent death. For example, Adam could be strolling in the evening and forgot that the previous day, he had dug a deep ditch to allow water to flow from one pond to another. He stepped right into the longkang (drain) and missing a foothold, hit his head against the other side of the drain and he died. Immortality does not mean we will not die.

I suppose it makes sense that for many of us, death is a taboo topic. Thankfully, we have two miracles that Jesus performed in the Gospel and both are related to dying and the extent of death’s power over us. In one of the miracles, Jesus was approached directly whereas the other, furtively. Imagine the synagogue official who came to Jesus. An officer of THE religion coming to this upstart? A good analogy is like us Catholics who out of desperation careen from a bomoh pillar to a black-magic post to seek a cure. The other case was a haemorrhaging woman who tried to touch Jesus’ external garment ever so stealthily because she too was despondent after 12 years of having spent all she had and was none the better. Everyone was pressing against Jesus and yet He was conscious that power that flowed out of Him. How to explain this awareness? The closest parallel is benediction or blessing. When a priest blessed a rosary or many rosaries, he does not feel it. But when an array of religious articles have to be blessed, candles, statues/holy pictures of the Sacred Heart and our Lady, Cross of St Benedict. The simplest and the laziest way is to impart a general blessing. Short and easy. But if a priest takes time to follow the rite according to the article to be blessed, at the end of all the rites, he will feel like a punctured balloon.

In this sense, the second miracle in today’s Gospel is more than just physical death. In the first miracle involving the 12-year-old girl, it was physical death. She died before Jesus could reach her. Whereas the other involved a kind of social death where this woman who had suffered for 12 years knew that even a casual caress would render the other person dead ritually. As one ritually untouchable, she might as well be physically dead, since she was already a social reject.

The inevitability of death it is not really an issue. In a way we are resigned to it and we handle it by putting it off our minds. Somehow or rather, we accept that we will die but always in the nebulous future. The many who have died intestate is not only proof that we keep death at arm’s length but also we have not really come to terms with it. What slaps us more in the face is not the inevitability but rather the finality of death. It is simply the experience of here today and gone tomorrow. How many of us have this experience of having spoken or met with someone and then receive news of the other person’s unexpected death.

The Gospel shows the power of Jesus over death. But the message is not just the physical restoration of the 12-year-old and the social restoration of the woman with a haemorrhage. Both miracles are invitations to faith in Christ Jesus. For Jairus, his faith journey was a trying test. So public and so urgent was his approach to Jesus only to be interrupted by the delay in the healing of another. Jesus’ response to Him was to continue trusting. This is in fact an experience we all know too well. We pray and yet God does not seem to answer. The message is to keep faith in Jesus. Do not lose hope.

We see how this is played out in the older woman. She symbolises a 12-year journey of faith and interestingly, her pilgrimage carries us into the heart of our Sacramental system. Her faith was profound as she reasoned that only a touch of His cloak was enough to heal her. “Maybe I will not contaminate Him so much, all I need to do is just to touch the fringes of His cloak”. This sort of faith is deeply Catholic. Go to St Peter’s in Rome and notice the right foot of the Rock upon whom Christ built His Church. It has been touched until the toes have all but disappeared.

Such is the extent of faith and the woman’s attempt to touch Christ’s cloak has provided the basis for the veneration of the relics of saints. Faith is the necessary bridge we cross to enter into the sacramental reality of Christ and His Church. But like Jairus, faith does not remove anxiety nor lessen our pains. Much like the long-suffering woman, faith is no guarantee that God’s answer is immediate. What faith grants us is the strength to hold on to Christ as He says time and again, “Have faith in me”. Even if death is final, ultimately what faith in Him does for each one of us is to remove death’s terror because with Him, death becomes a transition, a doorway. He Himself knows the fullness of death. Through the Last Rites, the Viaticum is the continuation of our act of faith in Him because Holy Communion, the promise of eternal life, gives us strength to make the final journey from this life to the next.

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A 2024

Mark is really the Good News of the Son of God as indicated by today’s Gospel. The 1st Reading taken from the Book of Job supplies the context of the oft-repeated lamentation. Why does it feel as if God allows good people to suffer? Sadly, the 1st Reading proper which we heard earlier does not answer the question directly. Instead, what it does is to help us to appreciate who God is and the storm from which Job is addressed directs our attention to the Gospel of the Son of God.

If both the sower and the mustard seed belong to the mystery of the Kingdom, this Sunday we explore our relationship with God through the mysteries of good and evil, blessing and punishment. These mysteries ultimately shines the spotlight on the God whom we worship. Who is He in relation to us?

One of the glaring and lasting effects of science is the marginalisation of God. With Him sidelined to the periphery and with Man occupying the centre of the universe, the very notion of a supreme deity is reduced to a role supplemental to Man’s ambition, well-being and need. We believe in and worship God evidenced by our being present here. But closer to the truth is that God does not direct the course of our lives. We do for we believe that we are in charge and God’s role is to support Man’s quest for self-realisation.

Sounds rather disrespectful but the truth is that God serves no purpose except when He plays the functional role which the Greeks in theatre used to term as “deus ex machina”. This theatrical device justifies God’s utility to be the blessing that we want, at the time when we need it most. Survey the present attitude towards the celebration of jubilees. The original jubilees was a fixed term of letting the year after 7 cycles of 7 years be dedicated to God. For a long time, we waited for the exact moment and it was a long wait of 50 years. A jubilee is not just a milestone of temporality. It is also a marker reminding us that the nature of providence is patient waiting, a humble dependence on God to provide. Today, we have jubilees jumping out of the blue. This is not to say that we should not have them but perhaps the mentality which supports this course of action is that God can be trotted out at our beck and call. Since time is of the essence and urgency is our brand, we simply brandish God to justify our programmes and to legitimise our current concerns.

God cannot be spoken of without acknowledging His sovereignty. In the 1st Reading, He does not answer Job except to draw him deeper into the mystery of His sway and supremacy. But given that our focus is sharply on the “autonomous” and the outlook self-referential, it basically means that we do not look to the heavens to find God but instead we are confident that we can force the heavens to reveal their secrets. The very idea that a deity has sway and supremacy, primacy and power sounds primitively antiquated but more than that, it paints God to be capricious. What makes the caprice worse and God’s impotence glaring is when evil men seem to flourish.

What can we conclude then?

God’s answer to Job does not remove pain nor does it soothe sorrows. Such an unvarnished truth unsettles our maudlin and modern mind. Fundamentally, we face challenges in three major areas of concern. Their shoots spring from the fertile soil of materialism. Our security is measured through the index of “possession” out of which the three challenges seem to expose a distant God who is cold and uncaring. Firstly, we want or demand a God who blesses us materially. When prosperity is our gospel, God is no more than a provider. Secondly, we struggle to cope with the loss of loved ones and not a few are inconsolable when grieving. Life is not on loan, a gift but rather a right due us. It is possibly a symptom of the loss of belief in the Resurrection. Thirdly, we are overwhelmed by the blatant triumph of evil over good.

The experience of Job coupled with the Disciples in the boat show us that both suffering and evil are weaved into the fabric of a fallen world. Nevertheless they invite us to have faith and to put our trust in God. We may never find a satisfactory response to why “bad” people seem to flourish. Or that we fail no matter how hard we try. In fact, social media has definitely deepened our anguish because right in our faces, those who are patently evil enjoy life without retribution!

Thus the Psalmist’s cry is powerful for it beckons us to peer beyond our myopic horizon. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the firmament proclaims the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:2). No, Job did not find the solution to his problems but he was not left unanswered by this powerful God. Neither will we find satisfactory answers to the puzzling mysteries of life. Instead, the voice through the thunderous storm and Jesus stilling the seas remind us that God is always in control.

The evidence or proof for Christians, in the face of suffering and evil is the mystery of the Cross. When we feel most abandoned by God, as Job and the Disciples felt, God is in our midst. Even if we do not feel it, the Cross stands as the everlasting symbol of the forgiveness and the faithfulness of God. Before the Cross, the mystery of suffering and evil is not an abyss of dark despair. There at Calvary, we are offered the full guarantee that God is present even in the darkness of faith. The Supreme God will never abandon those who place their trust in Him.

As the oft-quoted Chinese proverb suggests, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a step”. Put out into the deep is Christ’s invitation to take that first step of trust and faith in Him for we will never be confounded.

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 2024

Not sure where the scriptural writers based their observations from. Last Monday, we heard of a raven bringing food to the prophet Elijah. Have you seen our crows? Mustard is able to grow into a tree to shelter the birds. Have you seen our sayur sawi or chye sim?

But when we look at the Readings, a common theme runs through them. It is the notion of exile which in a way ties in with the Gospel where Jesus uses the parables of sowing and the mustard seed to teach about the Kingdom. The word exile sounds punitive but it is not. If we think of leaving the house, there is always a return. Exile is part of the return home and in a manner of speaking, it rhymes with the nature of life here on earth is either we are passing or we are on a pilgrimage home.

In the 1st Reading, God intends to bring the exiled Israelites from Babylon back to the land that belongs to them. God keeps His promise to the Israelites. In the 2nd Reading, St Paul carries on the theme of how to live for the Lord. Our desire should be with Christ and the longing to be with Him is a form of exile especially when we are delayed. In the Gospel, even the seed sown becomes a journey for it takes time to mature.

In all these return to the Lord, we are given an understand of that it means to make this journey. There is an element of judgement in the way St Paul frames our return to God. We walk by faith, according to him, and not by sight. Yet the faith he speaks about is not devoid of action because at the meeting with the Lord, we will be rewarded or punished for what we have done. The Protestant protest that faith alone saves is challenged here and we do not even have to refer to St James’ Catholic teaching that faith without work is dead. Indeed, walking by faith means that we will be judged by our actions.

An exile is not a curse but an invitation to faith in the Lord. The so-called mustard seed, small in its description is a good measure of faith because from such an insignificant seed, a sheltering shrub can bloom. As a shrub that towers and provides shade, it symbolises the outreach of a lively faith. Faith can never be a passive or inert. True faith, even if it remains silent, radiates a joy that is compelling and attractive.

The nature of faith, even it basically requires a personal response, is that it has social implications. A really good sign for us, as a community of believers, is the impact we have on others. Can we observe this in our RCIA programme? If as the mother church of the Diocese we attract 5 candidates for baptism, we have some soul searching to do. What is the quality of our faith? The vibrancy of faith is like a light that draws others out of darkness into the Lord’s wonderful light. If our annual number of those seeking baptism remains stagnant, it is proof that we do have a lot of miles to cover in this area.

And yet, we are filled with hope. The smallness of the seed is a reminder that no word or action of ours is ever too small. To aim big, we start small. People may not remember us for what we have done but they will remember us for how we make them feel. For example, the car wash across the road. Whenever we walk by, they will shout Assalamualaikum even though we are not Muslims. They are grateful that the Cathedral helped them out during the Pandemic. Sometimes they do lament that some of our parishioners park their cars in a way that impede their business. But otherwise, they have a positive view of the Cathedral.

Regularly, stories are amplified, rightly or wrongly, of how the Church, whether the priests or the personal have turned people away. It is a reminder to each of us that small things can have long lasting effect. An act much appreciated is how Catholics gather to pray for the deceased. Those who have lapsed have often expressed their appreciation for parishioners turning up to pray for beloved deceased. A small gesture can have an enormous effect and the smallness of the seed merely reminds that each one of us is part of the bigger picture of the Kingdom.

The Kingdom that Christ has come to establish is a mystery much like the Trinity is or the True Presence in the Eucharist is. But mysteries are not unknowable. Rather, a mystery simply denotes that God’s working is shrouded or unseen. What is known and glaring for all to see is each one of us. Like seed, we are sown by God and the best part we play is to bear fruits. Imagine how a country, a society or a community can change. Revolutions are fantastic but so too the slow and steady organic change that shapes a community.

Look at the weekly Adoration. It would be nice if we had a whole army of parishioners descending on the Cathedral each Thursday evening. We began with a humble 40 who came. Now our Thursday Adoration draws a crowd of about 100 people. This organic growth took us about two years to cultivate. Much like what we hope to achieve with our RCIA programme.

What we desire to be as a Cathedral, to be part of the Kingdom of Christ, can never be a measure of key performance indices. The pilgrimage to the Kingdom goes through Calvary because it is a path of love. Everyone knows that love is hard work but the good news is that it is not impossible. While we may not see the fruits of our labour, we can trust that God’s Kingdom will still grow because He is the Sower and the Vine-dresser and each one of us is a tender shoot He has planted on the high mountain of the new Israel, the Church.

10th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 2024

We are already 3 weeks into the 2nd part of Ordinary Time but it does not feel it because of Trinity Sunday and that was followed by the Solemnity of Corpus Christi transferred to a Sunday. The 1st Reading today not only provides a scope of Satan’s theatre of operation but it also provides a concrete proof that the seed of the Sacrament of Confession is already found in the very first chapter of the Genesis.

God knew Adam and Eve had already sinned. Yet, He allowed them both to take responsibility for their sins. And of course what happened is really the classic experience that we are familiar with and this is even carried into the Confessional. It is the phenomenon of blaming. Adam blamed Eve. Eve blamed Satan.

Who is to blame is not the point of Genesis but it is rather a way of owning up to our sins. When Adam and Eve hid from God, it is also a form of “lying” as they do not want God to see them for who they truly are. It shows that perception appears to be a crucial criterion of being who we are and it has become prevalent, so much so that we may have forgotten that our true image is to be a reflexion of God. In a manner of speaking, to be an image is vocationalbecause it is a calling to shine with the face of God.

This Sunday, we are provided with the themes of family, perception, fabrication or lies and doing the will of God. What does it entail to be God’s image in every circumstance of our life?

In today’s Gospel, Jesus was living out His vocation, that is, to do the will of the Father. Here comes the family. Our families sometimes know us too well and sometimes they do not. In fact, they are “familiar” (no pun intended) so much so that they would like us to take a certain trajectory, a certain pathway to what we are supposed to be. For example, in some families, the only paths open for them are doctor, engineers, accountants and lawyers. In the case of Jesus, after His baptism in the Jordan, His first act was the preach the Kingdom of God. The family must have felt that He should have continued with Joseph’s trade. To be a carpenter possibly. The family probably thought they were doing Him a favour and they did so out of concern for Him. What would people think of an itinerant preacher with no proper income?

Then we come to the slightly larger family and they are the villagers, the towns’ people and those who might have heard and encountered Him. In general, we form our idea or perception based on our experiences. What we do not know is often supplied by our imagination, either we fabricate or we use whatever we are best familiar with in our personal situation to complete the narrative. It is easier to think less of others than to think better of them. They adduced evil origins for Jesus’ ability to cure and heal the sick. It is not unreasonable for them, given their ignorance and prejudice, to assume half-truths. For example, when we hear the word politician, particularly in this country, even the good he or she tries to promote, we almost always have the sneaky prejudice at the back of our heads that this is just “another corrupt politician”.

One of the reasons for such a dismal view of man is social media. Whether we like it or not, we wear many lenses today and one of the most coloured lenses is “wokeism”. We are expected to be sensitive to social and political injustice, that is, to be well-informed and up-to-date with issues affecting society. Whether or not it is fashionable to be “woke”, the fact is that we may have become possiblya bit over-sensitive. Everything seems to be viewed through the optics of gender or sex, race or colour, victim or oppressed. These lenses are powerful if we live in a bubble, an echo chamber which serves to herd or hive our minds into seeing the same thing again and again, only to reinforce what we want to believe.

Nobody sets out to lie but when we have no filter we often will echo whatever lies we have received. Group thinking profits no one. In this era of hypersonic speed, an outrage observation can easily deteriorate into a riot of cancellation and rejection. Think of the socks with the word Allah in it. The truth is never served but what can help us is to follow a principle. Whatever we want to proclaim, it must be true. But not everything true needs to be proclaimed. It calls for prudence and this comes from a wisdom of praying and begging the Lord for this profound wisdom.

Jesus got His image tarnished by those who may have unwittingly spread lies about Him. Today we call it optics and optics provide perception. Or as they say, “The medium is the message”. Every organisation feels the need to provide the proper optics but nothing can ever outshine Truth, no matter how dark it is. Truth here is not a thing but holding on to Christ. The one thing any public figure or even a private person has no control over is perception. People will say what they want even if one is doing good. It is the norm today and we should never be surprised.

This episode in Jesus’ life illustrates that God’s will is always a tough vocationto embrace. The good news is that Jesus has done it and many countless saintshave likewise followed. The one reminder to help keep us on the straight and narrow is to know the difference. It means that when we are doing God’s will, there will be opposition. Satan will definitely throw obstacles into the path of what we are supposed to do. As long as we embrace the Truth, who is Jesus Christ Himself, lies will appear. But not every opposition we face is proof that we are doing God’s work. Opposition could arise because we are sinners with our pride and blindness. It is wisdom to know the difference and the humility to change course when we recognise that what we are doing is not God’s will. This humility is wisdom at its best and it is a strength and a gift from God which we need and must pray for, if we intend to follow Christ closely.