Trinity Sunday Year B 2021

In the realm of monotheism, we have two contradictions going against us. Firstly, it is Jesus the Son of God. Secondly, the Holy Trinity. Both of these dogmas run smack into the wall of strict monotheism. In a milieu devoid of metaphysics it is not easy to explain what seems like a mathematical inconsistency: God is One in Three. We believe in one God who is three in Persons, but these three Persons are not three Gods.

Is that possible?

On one side, there is the monolithic monotheism, quite a mouthful, in what we experience of Judaism or Islam. We share an Abrahamic history with these two major religions and unsurprisingly, they hold Christianity in disdain for what they view to be a blasphemy against the central tenet of monotheism which is the unicity or oneness of God. On the other side, in the face of the many divinities of the other religions, we have to defend a central but perplexing dogma which in the first place resembles the pluralism of deities as we confess that in God there are three Persons in One.

In short, the belief in the Trinity divides rather than invites. Even Karl Rahner, the noted theologian at Vatican II lamented that by and large, Christians are “mere monotheists” and if the Church were to declare that the Trinity is no longer a dogma, this will have no impact on their lives. Ironically, the only “trinity” which truly matters to many is “I, me and myself”.

The Trinity is the self-revelation of God that is somehow conveniently ignored, if not forgotten. In fact, it is so inconsequential that we may have been praying to Three Gods (Tritheism) for all we know.

How so?

The Collect is Trinitarian because it always addressed to the Father through Jesus Christ in the unity of the Holy Spirit. The familiar formulæ of the different Collects end like this in Latin: “Deus, per omnia sæcula sæculorum” which, when translated into English, became “ONE God, forever and ever”. In May of 2020, a notice came from the Congregation for Divine Worship that the English translation must reflect the correct formulation of the Church by removing the word ONE.

Why is the omission important?

Firstly, this prayer is a 4th century formulation, adopted to combat the Arian heresy which held that Jesus Christ became God, rather than having been God eternally. Thus, “Deus” in Latin refers to the earlier mention of “the Son” and it is a Christological and an anti-Arian affirmation. A way to understand this formulation is to read it like this: “through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son, who lives and reigns with you (O Father) in the unity of the Holy Spirit, [for He is] GOD, forever and ever”. The parenthesis [for He is] captures Who Jesus is in His nature. He is divine in nature. Therefore, there is no need for the word “ONE” because the focus of our prayer is not on the unity of God. Even though the Collect is Trinitarian in expression, the context of the usage of the word “Deus” or God shows that it is not referring to the oneness of the Blessed Trinity.

Secondly, our prayers are expressions of the ancient principle of lex orandi, lex credenda—the Church believes as she prays. According to the explanatory note of Bishops of England and Wales, to add the word “ONE” before God “undermines the unique dignity of the Son within the Trinity or it could lead to an interpretation that Jesus is one God amongst three Gods”. In other words, such a formulation damages our faith in the uniqueness of God.

The Creed we profess expresses a belief that God is one in essence but three in Persons. In the Old Testament, there were already hints. In Jesus, the picture becomes clearer because He is the revelation par excellence of who God is ad intra. He reveals that God is trinitarian in nature.

And why is this important?

Who God is, is central to the Mission of the Church. Just before Jesus ascended, He gave the Great Commission to the Apostles that they should “go and baptise all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”. They were not commanded to go and baptise in the NAMES of the Father… This formula, reflecting, who God is, is as important as to render invalid a priest’s ordination because a très chic cleric chose to deviate from the norm when baptising a child by using these words “We baptise you”. [1]

Christ gave the Great Commission to evangelise so that He can incorporate every man, woman and child into the family of God. Right at the beginning, we are initiated in the life of the Trinitarian God who is the Father, who is the Son and who is the Holy Spirit. The relationships between these three distinct Persons characterised by one who loves and one who is loved and the love between them become the template for us with respect to our relationships. The language surrounding the Trinity is hard because its task is to safeguard the truth about who God is as He reveals Himself to us through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, who God is, is the measure of who we are supposed to be. Just like the “standard” weight kept somewhere in a vault in Paris,[2] there must be a measure for us in building up human relationships. We find that fundamental measure in the Blessed Trinity of Father, Son and Spirit[3] because we are “imago Dei”—created in the image and likeness of God. But, given our inclination toward “self-determination”, it would appear that our need for God has grown weaker. In fact, a forgetfulness of the Trinity may be the cause of our “destructive inward turn”. When Man forgets that there is a standard beyond himself, when there is no “objective measure” like the Parisian kilogramme, he will always be tempted to remodel God according to the dictates of his present narratives. If we have no need of God, then His only utility is that He serves to validates who we are or rather who we want to be. And currently, in an era of identity confusion, as seen in the recent attempt to redefine marriage, we are now caught in yet another ideological war that continues to pummel the Christian understanding of the human person, marriage and the family.

How God chooses to reveal Himself to us is our salvation. No matter how much we want to dismantle patriarchy, it is basically an effort to remodel Him into our image and likeness and that is not salvation but self-destruction. To become more human, we need to become more divine or rather we should reflect in our lives, the God who is a trinity of relationships. As St Irenaeus said, “Vita hominis visio Dei”, which means that "the life of a man is the vision of God." We who are baptised are granted a vision of this Trinitarian God in which the Father and the Son united in the Holy Spirit is a loving and self-giving unity. The Holy Trinity is the pattern for our love and our life. Hence, we who have been given the grace of the Gospel are empowered and energised by this Trinitarian love to go out to make more disciples because there is still a world waiting to accept what we have been privileged to receive.

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[1]It was trendy at one time to baptise using a formula that is less “patriarchally offensive”. Thus, “I baptise you in the name of the Creator, the Redeemer and the Sanctifier”. It definitely sounds enlightened to use neutral language, but it misses the theological reality that the Father and the Son are relational terms whereas the Creator and Redeemer could mean anything from “modalism” to “bitheism”. An American priest was baptised with this formula “We baptise you…” as in “In the name of the father and mother, of the godfather and of the godmother, of the grandparents, of the family members, of the friends, in the name of the community, we baptise you…”. The implication is immense because invalid baptism invalidates the subsequent Sacraments of Confirmation and Orders as well as render invalid the sacramental acts of priestly absolution in Confession and consecration at the Eucharist.

[2] This piece of information may be useless, but it gives us a clue about what is needed to make the world run. It is standards or measures. When every form of behaviour is acceptable (except for a few crimes), then “objectivity” or measure becomes by and large irrelevant. Yet, there is a meticulousness about this so-called “standard” kilogramme upon which all weights are measured from. The bid to dismantle “objectivity” arises because it is considered to be too “judgemental” except for a few crimes—like murder or child molestation, thereby “curbing” human “freedom” for self-expression. The useless bit of information is that there is a metal piece of kilogramme made of platinum and iridium that resides under lock and key. It is called the International Prototype Kilogramme (IPK). Since its creation in 1889, it is the standard by which the world’s weights are defined. Originally, 1kg was defined as the mass of a cubic decimetre of water, while the metre itself was calculated as a fraction of the distance between the North Pole and the Equator. In 1798, the Metre was officially redefined as 1/10,000,000th of half the Earth’s meridian. They have since adopted Planck’s constant, which is the smallest action that can be taken by a photon. And so a kilogramme is now defined as Planck’s constant divided by 6.626,070,15 × 10−34 m−2s. The painstaking scrupulosity with regard to the accuracy of the weight reminds us that there is still some “objective” reality to which we conform ourselves too. The world may have been created for us. But, we are not the sole measure of the world.

[3]The Father begets the Son from eternity. The Son is begotten of the Father from eternity. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son from eternity.

Pentecost Year B 2021

As an embodied spirit, the human person requires “definition” because meaning is largely derived from limits and boundaries. An indefinite existence cannot supply the substance necessary for life to be purposeful or worthwhile. A simple example can be illustrated through a marriage. If there were no commitment, which is a kind of definition, it does not take long for marriage to disintegrate. Likewise, in this century where social interaction can aptly be summed up by neologisms like “cellfish” or “textpectation”,[1] a group of friends very soon finds itself retreating behind the digital barrier of pings, buzzes and rings which defeats the purpose of gathering to “chillax”. Indeed, we seem to exist “together alone”, not realising that the inability to connect face to face is a result of a digital addiction that knows no limits.

The point is this tangible boundary or restriction that “defines” who we are is clearly brought to the fore for us in this pandemic. How so? Pentecost marks the “definitive” end to the season of Easter. What does a categorical conclusion really mean considering that we are still hemmed in by this lockdown? The way Man has been created, the passage of his time is stamped by the change of seasons be it monsoon or dry, winter, spring, summer, or fall. The Pandemic has now dragged on into the 2nd year and the promised of a flattened curve is constantly revised. The end seems to retreat beyond the horizon.

Set within this paralysing Pandemic is an event of serious significance—Pentecost or the Descent of the Holy Spirit. In 2018, Pope Francis decreed that the votive Mass in honour of the Beatæ Mariæ Virginis, Ecclesiæ Matris (Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church), be inserted into the universal Church’s liturgical calendar as a Memorial[2] on the day after Pentecost, that is, on Monday. The title of Mary as Mother of the Church is nothing new. It was not as if Pope Francis felt like it and he went ahead to impose it. St Augustine had spoken about it as early as the 4th century. St Leo the Great says that the birth of the Head is also the birth of the Body which indicates that Mary is at once the Mother of Christ, the Son of God, and mother of the members of His Mystical Body, the Church. In short, for as long as the Church has had doctrinal formulations on Our Lady, we recognise that in every Marian title, the focus is not Mariological but rather Christological.

In this simple act of inscribing a votive Mass of Mary, the Mother of the Church into the Universal Church calendar, we catch a glimpse of what Pentecost truly is. In 1943, Pope Pius XII issued the encyclical “Mystici corporis Christi” on the “Mystical Body of Christ”. There, the Pope explained that the Church was “born from the side of Christ our Saviour on the Cross like a new Eve, mother of all the living”. (MCC 28). At Pentecost, the Church was made manifest for she had already been born at Calvary.

She was not known to the world as yet because the Apostles had been hiding behind closed doors. On this day, through the Holy Spirit who descended upon the Apostles like tongues of fire, they acquired the strength necessary to courageously proclaim the Gospel of the Risen Christ. Pentecost was the Epiphany of the Church.

That means it was also the birth of evangelisation. St (Pope) Paul VI said in Evangelii nuntiandi[3] that the Church exists to evangelise because the Lord before His Ascension gave His Apostles the Great Commission to go and baptise all the nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Precisely, He is required for this momentous task of preaching Christ crucified.

The Holy Spirit freed the Apostles from the clutches of fear so that Peter could stand in front of the multitude and boldly proclaim that Jesus is the Lord. As the Catechism reminds us, “the outpouring of the Holy Spirit AS ONCE granted to the Apostles on the day of Pentecost brings an increase and deepening of our baptismal grace. Amongst the effects of its coming, we are rooted more firmly in Christ and makes our bond with the Church more perfect. As soldiers in the Church Militant, the Holy Spirit enables us to spread and defend the faith by word and action as true witnesses of Christ, to confess the name of Christ boldly, and never be ashamed of the Cross”. (CCC 1302ff).

In his letter to the Corinthians, St Paul clearly asserted that “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord’ unless he is under the influence of the Holy Spirit”. And, given that “There is no true evangelisation if the name, the teaching, the life, the promises, the Kingdom and the mystery of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God are not proclaimed”.[4] We have a task ahead. Pentecost and the Holy Spirit both direct our attention to this central mission of the Church. She exists to proclaim Christ and to bring all creation into the fold of His Body.

To say that the Holy Spirit is least understood Person of the Trinity may reflect the current understanding of Who He is. Partly, this could be due to an unquestioned assumption that He is basically spontaneity. We may derive this idea from the description that He is like the wind that blows where it wants. Swayed by this spontaneous Bohemian notion of freedom, we imagine Him to be unfettered. It is over-rated to say the least because the “freedom” of the Spirit must be linked to the central kerygma of the Church, which is, Jesus Christ is Lord.

The Holy Spirit is not exciting the way we understand exhilaration as an adrenalin rush. Despite the frailty of her children, the Church remains the primary instrument through which the Holy Spirit works so that Jesus Christ may be recognised and embraced. Without the Spirit’s “limit” or a way of proceeding that is tightly bound to the Church, we will constantly be charmed by this lofty ideal of transforming the world into a globalised fraternity[5]. It is tempting because it “feels” achievable[6], and this involves “co-opting” the Spirit into an “extra-Christological”[7] and “extra-Ecclesial”[8] programme since the task of proclaiming Christ in this post-truth society is too fraught with difficulties. It appears easier to be united in this worldwide enterprise than to be united in Christ.[9] But, the Tower of Babel reminds us that the universality we desire[10] is not established by an endeavour to build a kingdom for God[11] but rather the fraternity is founded in the proclamation that Jesus Christ is Lord. In Him, through baptism, we become brothers and sisters. Thus, Pentecost is a sobering celebration which reminds us that we are part of the Great Commission. Send forth your Spirit O Lord and renew the face of the earth. Indeed, the Spirit is waiting to renew us each one of us so that we might become better messengers in the Great Commission of Jesus.


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[1] Cellfish. (n). an individual who continues talking loudly on or watching a clip with full volume through the mobile without consideration of others. Textpectation. (n). the anticipation or expectant feeling of waiting for a person to text back.

[2] Decretum de celebration Beatæ Mariæ Virginis, Ecclesiæ Matris in Calendario Romano Generali.

[3] Cf. EN§14. Evangelising is in fact the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to evangelise, that is to say, in order to preach and teach, to be the channel of the gift of grace, to reconcile sinners with God, and to perpetuate Christ’s sacrifice in the Mass, which the memorial of His death and glorious resurrection.

[4] Cf. EN§22.

[5] It is a vision of the universality which is pretty much prelapsarian—that is, without sin.

[6] Six-Million-Dollar Man, “We have the technology”…

[7] Christ is truly a stumbling block in this universalist project.

[8] If Christ is not necessary for this project to succeed, the Church is even more unnecessary.

[9] Pre-Pandemic, Davos’ Great Reset was supposed to be this “universal” and “globalised” project of rebuilding the world—a project which rivals the arrogance of Babel.

[10] Why this fascination? The human spirit has an infinite reach because man is imago Dei (made in the image and likeness of God). Therefore, we harbour within us this divine longing; a yearning for the infinite. Without proper “guidance” (or supernatural assistance) we will still reach for the infinite. (Albeit, looking for the infinite in the wrong places). The dilemma is we will attempt to grasp it, not realising that this “grasping” is precisely that—a kind of “grabbing”. We tend to “grasp” or “grab” because our reach (natural inclination) for God has been “vitiated” by sin. In that sense the Holy Spirit has been sent by the Father to assist us in this upward journey to heaven—in truly forming the Body of Christ. The undertaking of this universal brotherhood without Christ is bound to fail.

[11] The ideal of a universal fraternity is glamorous and enticing because it is warm and fuzzy. But all we need is just “one” escaped virus and this fraternity very quickly retreats behind the shield of a Vaccine Passport with the boundary clearly marked as “we” vs “you”, vaccinated vs non-vaccinated, infected vs non-infected. The Saints, precisely because they are brothers and sisters of Christ see no difference between the vaccinated and noninfected and non-infected. Many have died serving the brothers and sisters in Christ. Caveat: In this age, to “see no difference” does not mean that believers ignore science. Instead that medical knowledge is contextualised with regard to the practice of the faith. For example, a front-liner doctor who takes ALL the precautions deemed as necessary by science also recognises that despite all precautions, the prevention of death is never ABSOLUTE because he knows and accepts that the domains of life and death belong to God.

7th Sunday of Easter Year B 2021

This is a Sunday of preparation for the coming of the Holy Spirit. According to some writers, we are in the midst of the “proto-novena” on which all subsequent novenæ are based upon. While waiting for the promised Advocate, the Gospel chosen features the High-Priestly prayer of Jesus where He lifts up His followers. He asks the Father to keep humanity united so that they can reflect the oneness between Him and the Father.

How is that union achieved and what does it consist of?

Firstly, unity can be a slippery concept to grasp. The modern era may value diversity and inclusivity, but in reality, our notion of unity is not exactly bound by these two defining characteristics. Instead, unity is markedly designated by uniformity. Just ask Facebook or Twitter. They have policies that enforced a kind of “group-think” even if they were to vehemently protest that they do not. If a platoon of soldiers marching across a bridge in unison can cause a bridge to collapse, then “group-think” imposed by societal pressure can only result in an environment known as the “echo chamber”. It is a phenomenon[1] where a person only encounters information or opinions that reflect or reinforce their own. Solutions to problems will always be less than optimal which could have catastrophic results. In short, unity cannot consists in uniformity.

Unity has to breach the suffocating walls of “group-think” and “echo chamber” in order to thrive. The 2^nd Reading offers a clue that for unity to flower, it must be planted in the soil of love. It goes without saying that the unity we yearn for must be set in relationships. Without love, without connexion to each other, how will unity take root?  However, the difficulty we encounter with regard to love is its definition. The current meaning of love bears a close resemblance to licentiousness. What lust does is to wound love as Black Eyed Peas cautioned us because “fools in lust could never get enough of love, love love”.[2] Therefore, love must be grounded in truth as St Paul reminded the Corinthians in the famous ode we often hear at Wedding Masses and Services: “Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins but delights in the truth” (1 Cor 13: 6).

Given the fondness of blaming conflicts on differences in terms of race or religion, language or learning, sexual orientation or social status and etc, we are, in some ways, driven to look for the common denominator of unity. We have come to think of unity, not in terms of love but of rationality—a product of our highly technical and mechanised mentality. In a sense, “Modernity” is the proud mother of the French and American Revolutions symbolised by the figure of “Marianne” who personifies the familiar values of “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” and is the embodiment of Reason. Unfortunately, this same “reason” also gave birth to the Jewish Holocaust[3].

Sadly, the history of Modernity and Rationality has shown us that the unity we desire for mankind cannot be achieved without the truth of love. Love cannot paper over the ugliness of sin. In our idea of unity as one, we think that love means ignoring differences which are substantial. For example, Holy Communion, the powerful symbol of unity. In an endeavour to fulfil the high-priestly prayer of Jesus for unity, some think that Holy Communion, instituted by Christ at the Last Supper, can be a means of unity. Yet, the differences in our approach to this ritual meal are substantial. What the Eucharist is for many Protestant denominations and Catholics is as different as between a disposable piece of wafer and the Real, True and Substantial Presence.

Furthermore, in an attempt to accommodate Modernity’s paradigm or model of love without truth, the Church has become divided. We have a faction that holds fast to the Church’s teachings on love and a bloc that believes that such teachings should be brought up to date to coincide with modern sensibilities. Thus, the battlefield today is observed in a concerted effort to expand the definitions of marriage and family so as to make room for alternative lifestyles. The unity we all believe in is not made easy because everyone is convinced of the “truth” his or her position.

Today we celebrate Communication Sunday. To arrive at the unity prayed for by Jesus, there is no other way except to preach, teach, and manifest the truth in love. In order for unity to grow, love has to be anchored in the Truth. If the Truth is Jesus Christ, then this Novena to the Holy Spirit makes sense. If the Truth is Jesus Christ, then the Spirit of Truth is the Spirit of Jesus the Lord who teaches us how to love as we prepare to receive the gift of unity.

Thus, we are invited to a relationship with the 2^nd Person of the Trinity—Jesus Christ. Where we stand in terms of our belief is always relative to Him. In the first reading, it is shown that who stands in the place of Judas is not really that important. What is central is that the person who takes the place of Judas, be it Barnabas or Matthias should always stand in relation to the Truth, to Jesus Christ. In other words, we stand on the side of God and that side is secured by our relationship with Him.

This requires a change in our perception because the Truth is not an object over which we have control. It is never a possession through which we exhibit strength. In such a scenario, “truth” as an object opens up the possibility of coercion and manipulation as exhibited by the phenomena of “group-think” or “echo chamber”. Truth as “Personal” is always Jesus Christ before Whom we are humble and under Whom we serve. We preach Jesus Christ crucified.[4]

In the daunting depth of Deepfake, in the fearful face of Fake News, in the menacing mischief of misinformation, the electronic media is the new Wild, Wild West where the powerful hold sway over what is “truth”. But we are unafraid especially when our communication, that is, our proclamation of Jesus Christ is shaped by love. Through discourses, exchanges, dialogues that “strive to be clear and honest, in the press, on the internet, in the Church’s daily preaching and in political or social communication”[5] we pave the path of love for the Holy Spirit so that He can forge the unity that we desire. With human technology, we can go only so far in forging the unity prayed for by Jesus. With the Holy Spirit, heaven is the limit because unity is His gift for our cooperation and for our love.

 

 

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[1] Think of Google, Facebook and Twitters’ algorithms. They, especially Google’s, are not geared towards “free” information but subtly, they act as a corral towards businesses that can feed our queries or searches. What you frequently search for will subsequently turn up as blinking pop-up advertisements that are targeted to stoke your curiosity. At best, they are distractions. At worst, one ends up buying what is not necessary.

[2] Black Eyed Peas, “Shut Up”.

[3] Modernity as a rational process, seeks to remove from the person, the uncertainties of life and also to increase security for the individual. This requires personal freedom to be sacrificed in order that uncertainties are lessen and security heightened. To achieve that, attempts will be made to control nature, structure hierarchy, impose rules and regulations, and to enlarge control over people through social and telecommunication media. In an effort to “control”, obedience to the “diktat” of the state is considered a moral good which if unchallenged will result in the exclusion of some people because they do not fit into the organisation of a picture-perfect society. The Jews did not fit the programme of “beauty and excellence” of the Aryan race. Hence, the Holocaust.

[4] 1 Cor. 1: 23-24. Here are we preaching a crucified Christ; to the Jews an obstacle that they cannot get over, to the pagans madness but to those who have been called, whether they are Jews or Greeks, a Christ who is the power and wisdom of God.

[5] Cf. Communication Sunday 2021

Ascension Thursday 2021 Year B

It matters not if we were in the 5th or 6th infection wave. It matters that we feel hopelessly adrift. Like a raft bobbing in the tempestuous seas longing to spot terra firma, so we yearn for an end to this cursed isolation, boxed in by a slew of ever-shifting protocols to curb this contagion. When our goal is routinely frustrated, somehow, even in our despair, we need to make sense of it.

 

Perhaps Ascension can help us to pierce past this gloom to some celestial clarity in the horizon.

 

Firstly, it is a blessing that this Solemnity which marks 40 days after the Resurrection is still known to us as the Ascension THURSDAY[1] instead of it being transferred to the 7th Sunday of Easter. The commanding rationale for the dominical translation is pastoral, that is, to allow the busy person, who otherwise cannot attend, to fulfil his or her obligation. In many of these Protestant-majority countries[2] which has made this move, the result has proven to be a disappointment.

 

In fact, the attempt to encourage better attendance at Mass has had an opposite effect. Note that it is a fallacy that all the time-saving modern amenities we have at our finger tips are supposed to increase the standard of living. What follows is that we are by far the most stressed generation.[3] It is ironical, no? With so much time saved from manual exertion, when everything is at a push of a button, yet we struggle to fulfil our religious obligation. Perhaps, what is more deleterious is, with the relaxation of practices that shape our Catholic identity, we are also losing our religious character.[4] This process of structuring convenience for religious practices has actually morphed into a religion of convenience. Convenience is now the true religion for of the world.

 

This is not a criticism of the reaction of the government or anyone in particular but an attempt to understand why we, individually or collectively, have acted the way we have thus far. It is not inconceivable that this religion of convenience plays a significant but subconscious part in the handling of this pandemic. As mentioned earlier, an expression of this religion of convenience is our focus on the quality of life. We are always on the look out to improve the “quality of life” forgetting that it is not the same as a “life of quality”.

 

For the Ascension to be meaningful, it belongs within the definition of a life of quality. What does it mean? Firstly, we need to clarify that the quality of life and a life of quality are not mutually exclusive, but one has to be ordered to the other. Even where the quality of life is absent, one is not absolved of the need to strive for a life of quality. No one is exempted from the nobility or excellence of character.

 

In terms of the life of quality or excellence in morality, we have to look at the past. In this consideration, there is one way in which Catholics differ from the Protestant experience. A guiding myth of the Protestant ethos is that they look at the past from a perspective in which time and space have a “corroding” effect on reality. They see the Christian experience or history through the lens of a past uncontaminated. What this means is that the Catholic Church cannot be the Church founded by Christ because she has been deformed[5] by time and space and clearly this disfigurement is evidenced by the many accreted traditions the Church has, which according to the Protestants, are unscriptural.

 

In a sense, this same “myth” actually undergirds the many attempts at righting the wrongs of history. The effort or this pining for that Edenic past is possibly what drove the Communists to impose their social experiment on humanity. They are not alone. All efforts at trying to “recreate” or “re-engineer” the pristine past will fail because they do not take into consideration the passage of time, not so much the erosion or corrosion of time, but rather the reality of sin. But, because history is also graced, this reality is tempered by the possibility of redemption and as such the resurrection and assumption[6] into heaven. Without realising it, the myth of this pristine past renders the coming of Jesus rather superfluous.[7] Time[8] and therefore history, is the medium for Jesus to be present to us through the Sacraments which He left for us.

 

The Ascension cannot be a return to a past. We have to stop thinking of Eden in a wistful manner. What if Adam and Eve had not sinned?[9] Would that not be good? The point is, even without sin, there is a goodness about Eden which is not complete. How so? Sacred Scripture in describing creation speaks of “God saw that it was good”. (Gen 1: 10, 12, etc). Yet when Adam was formed, as part of God’s good creation, God recognised Adam’s incompleteness. Even after Eve was created to complete Adam, still creation was unfulfilled or unfinished because “all creation has been groaning for the Son of God”. (Rom 8:22).

 

Thus, the Ascension cannot be a restoration of a past undefiled. Instead, it is an elevation, an ascent of grace, to the future. If you like, the Garden of Eden, God’s wonderful creation, was just a stepping stone. We are not and will never be returning there. What the Ascension represents is a new creation in which our relationship with God is restored[10] for it shows us a different picture even as He disappears from the sight of the Apostles. The Ascension recognises the past as past but promises a future which is more than what we had in the first place. If we continue to hanker or hunger for a vision of the past, we shall never be able to envision heaven because the past will always be what we think, what we see and what we know. The purity of the past is nothing more than an imposition from our standpoint. Therefore, the Ascension in a way destroys the myth of the pristine past because it gives us perspective into the future. As Pope St Leo once explained in a homily for the Ascension, “What was visible in our Saviour has passed over into His Sacraments”.[11] Through the passage of time, the Sacraments are Christ’s personal assist for us to make concrete a life of quality. They are needed because we are here not focused on the quality of life but rather through the Sacraments, we may embrace a life of quality so that where Jesus our Head has gone, we can follow.

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[1] This tradition goes back to the 4th Century.

[2] or where Catholics are a minority and therefore, Catholic Solemnities have no public recognition.

[3] We all are so stressed by the pandemic because the measure of who we are is “activity” and the lack of it has caused many to feel the loss of stature or status—no work = nobody.

[4] The more we make it easier to practise the faith, the easier it is to abandon it.

[5] Now you understand why this protesting movement is called the Reformation.

[6] A reference to us. Only Jesus ascended.

[7] There is no need to come, we can reconstruct our Eden here.

[8] And space.

[9] O happy fault. O necessary sin of Adam which won for us so great a Redeemer. O felix culpa, quæ talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem.

[10] On the 3^rd Day He rose again. The 3^rd Day = the 8^th Day or Sunday, the 1^st Day of the new creation of grace.

[11] Sermo. 74.2: PL 54, 398

6th Sunday of Easter Year B 2021

Last Sunday, from the description that Jesus is the True Vine, we gather the theme of rootedness. As branches of the Vine, we draw the nourishment of Jesus’ love to spread it far and wide as suggested by the 1st Reading. “God has no favourite”.

God’s sweeping acceptance matches our egalitarian aspirations. Moreover, this extensive ecumenical embrace takes root easily in the fertile soil of modern transportation and contemporary telecommunication. A condensed “global village” is the locus par excellence whereby God’s universal love can be witnessed and experienced. Where once justice and mercy have embraced, now differences and diversity are met with inclusivity and acceptance. In this current “woke” culture, such a catholicity is an overdue development considering that the world has suffered far too long from being “so messed up” by political and social conflicts, no doubt some of these were brought about by “religious” enmity.

Love is the key to this adoption by God. We ought to love because failure to do so is testimony to our lack of knowledge of God. As “wokerati” as we want to be, to speak of love as universal is not exactly what St Peter was saying. The caveat in God’s impartiality is that “(A)nybody of any nationality who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to Him”. To love in the way that God has intended has been diminished and distorted by contemporary culture. Stating this is to tread on dangerous grounds now.

What is love and how are we to love?

There are different types of love as suggested by the Greek words used—eros, philia and agape.[1] To understand what it truly is and how to love, take a look at the foundation upon which God based His covenant with man. Throughout history, what is certain is God’s love for mankind. Despite human frailty and failure, the clearest symbol of Divine fidelity is expressed through married love.

However, the Church in her ministers today dares not but nevertheless still has to teach that sexual love is reserved for marriage. Marital love is moral by nature because it defined a union between a man and woman in which God is more than a witness. This covenant is sacramental for it symbolises the ever-faithful love that God has for humanity. Such a teaching NOW finds uneasy ears, or it may just land on hearts coarsened by an understanding of love that has been trivialised by a process “democratisation” in which “love” seems to cave in on itself because it has lost its mooring in God. In this democratised setting, the boundary of love which is moral in nature is now abolished or erased. Now, love can be anything which one fancies. Love has become sentimental.

True love, as exemplified in married love, always reaches out to the other. It is emphatic in its expression, meaning that it involves feelings, but that should not be confused with sentimentality. Love is an act of the will, that is, it is of the rational appetite. Even though the act of loving can be accompanied by warm sentiments, one must never confuse feelings with love. The absence of sentimentality is not an indication that love is absent.

From a confusion of love with sentimentality, we will begin to include every penchant, predilection or proclivity. When God is removed from the equation, is it any wonder why some men must “marry” their machines? Love in which procreation is a function of our participation in God’s creative love, has now taken on a life for itself. By and large, love has become merely a recreational outlet—where pleasure has been substituted for purpose. As such, responsibility has been reduced to self-indulgence.

Further along, love has also been politicised by a godless agenda which seeks to impose itself as the norm wherein every thought that is contrary to its nihilism has to bow down before it. It is impossible to watch a movie these days without coming across some of forms of “love” contrary to what God and religion have intended, being trotted out as “normal”. Consistently cinematic settings are contrived to pit this Catholic teaching on married love against what is now considered acceptable so as to draw the bitter conclusion that the Catholic position is bigoted for even daring to express itself.[2] Children in many ways are now socialised through “language and culture” to admit that every form of love should be acceptable except those forms sanctioned by this unwritten “norm”. Indeed the command to love has been weaponised. What remains unsaid is how foreign aid policies of powerful nations are also hinged on how “modern love” is to be defined.

This is the travail of love and also of Holy Mother Church in a post-truth world. Oxford English Dictionary defines post-truth as “relating or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”. Truth has become personal belief and apparently, it must reside within that domain. It is into this world, confused by so many definitions of love, that the Church must continue to proclaim that genuine love must be founded in the truth of who God is and who we are. In fact, according to Benedict XVI, “Truth and love coincide in Christ. To the extent that we draw close to Christ, in our own lives too, truth and love are blended. Love without truth would be blind; truth without love would be like ‘a clanging cymbal’” (1 Cor 13:1). If anything, a good reminder for us is that Church’s doctrine on married love has not been changed by teaching. Instead, it may have been “changed” by the default silence on the part of the teachers or those entrusted with the truth of the faith.

The truth is that our baptism grafts us into a life of love that must go beyond ourselves. The best expression of a love that is more than the self is observed in the Sacrament of Marriage. It is true that we cannot be good Christians if we do not know how to be good neighbours. To love the other requires that we understand what Jesus had done. What may be trivialised, politicised and weaponised do not change reality. The reality is God so loved the world that He gave His Son so that we might be saved. This is God’s love for us to which we are to respond.

Therefore our model of love must rise above the triviality of the contemporary and myopic sentimentalism. In the current pandemic, what is often brandished is for everyone to heed what is known as the “Common Good”. We are constantly reminded of the need to “modify” our behaviour in the name of public interest. Apart from politicising or weaponising love, this process of “socialising” love also fails to realise that reducing love to common good is basically removing personal responsibility from the act of loving. Love and Common Good are not mutually exclusive but precisely because the nature of love is sacrificial, then even when no one subscribes to the interest of public welfare, the Christian would still love and sacrifice himself. We love not because we have to but because we want to. Most of all, we love and die because of Jesus Christ. There is no such thing as “common martyr”. Instead, there is only personal sacrifice of one life out of love for Christ and His Church. Love is genuinely love when it is sacrificial. We are accustomed to the Eucharist as thanksgiving, but we forget that the Eucharist is also love sacrificed.

The structures we have known, the institutions we have relied upon and the patterns of life we were accustomed to, all these have altered because of this Covid pandemic. What remains is love in truth. In fact, it must remain because whatever may have changed, God has not. Post-modern or not, Truth stands before us as He did before Pilate 2000 years ago. He stood for love and still does for today. Hence, the Letter of John was clear—not our love for God but God’s love for us. The best expression of our thanksgiving and gratitude is to love as God has loved us.


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[1] Benedict XVI in Deus caritas est lists these three categories as love whereas C.S. Lewis has four categories which include “storge” (familial love or fondness).

[2] S.W.A.T. (Series 2017) has an episode in which David “Deacon” Kay, a Catholic is faced with whether or not to judge the “polyamorous” relations of Christina “Chris” Alonso who is a bisexual in a relationship with Kira (Claire Coffee) and Ty (Daniel Lissing). The subtext is that a Catholic is a good one if he or she does not “judge”.

5th Sunday of Easter Year B

Last week I spoke of the Sacraments as actions of Christ Himself done through the Church. Our passport to eternal life is faith in His Resurrection which when translated is sustained by a belief in His True Presence with us. Through the Sacrament of the Eucharist, He feeds us with the only food fit for eternal life. The delivery of this supernatural sustenance is through the instrumentality of the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

Today’s theme is rootedness. It flows from this mechanism set up by the Lord for the self-communication of His True, Real and Substantial Presence to us.

If last week Jesus spoke of Himself as the Shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep, then this Sunday, He characterises Himself as the True Vine. Like the title Good Shepherd, this self-description is not entirely new either. Israel in the Old Testament was looked upon as the choice vine that God had planted. It is in contrast to this “diseased or degenerate” vine that Jesus is the True Vine. Israel for all its lush verdant thriving was a vine that could not bear fruit whereas Jesus is the Vine from which branches attached to it will bear fruit in plenty.

The implication of this rooted and penetrating relationship with Him is that the fruit will be evangelical in expression. Encounter with Christ is missionary in nature. We witness the bounty of this deepened relationship in none other than the example of St Paul in the 1st Reading. Once converted to Christ, he transformed from persecutor to preacher. Thus, John in the 2nd Reading, reads this belonging to Jesus in terms of loving in deeds and in truth and not only in words. Accordingly, the measure of our love is that we begin to love without measure.

Therefore, it remains vital that we be grafted to Him in order to draw our nourishment essential for the conversion of love to take place. Those who cut themselves off are in danger of being gathered to be burnt. As our loving fruitfulness is measured by being attached to Jesus, one of the invocations for the Penitential Rite provides a practical illustration of what this affiliation consists of. “You come in Word and Sacrament to strengthen us and to make us holy”. Concretely, our link to Jesus is both spiritual and substantial because He feeds us through the Liturgy of the Word and nourishes us in the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Here, we are brought back to the centrality that the Eucharistic Liturgy plays in strengthening our connexion with Him. The Eucharist is the lifeline of Christ the True Vine to us.

This image of being grafted unto Him may be picture perfect but it carries with it the possibility of pruning in order that we produce an abundant harvest. In the Gospel, Christ is pointed out as the Vine which makes the Father the Vinedresser. Perhaps this is where we may face a rude awakening especially if our idea of relationship is one that is based on entitlement.

This sense of privilege and compensation debases our relationship with God to the mere plane of the material. At this level, we think of God in terms of benevolence or blessing. Blinded by worldly affluence, we tend to forget that God’s mercy is also just.1 In other words, we want a God who is kindness towards us. His kindness is basically expressed as generosity of blessings. But, if we are not caught up with abundance as the measure of wealth, then our concept of benevolence is tilted towards health as if nothing adverse should ever happen to us. Here St Bernadette Soubirous is the perfect saint to disabuse us of this kind of “relationship” with the Lord or rather the lack of.

She of all people was denied the healing properties of the waters of Lourdes. If our sense of blessing is narrowly defined by material well-being, then we should be upset by this “meaningless, needless or senseless” cruelty. How can God, who through her gave the world a shrine dedicated to wholesome health, deny her its benefits? In fact, this question about God’s incomprehensibility is heard million times over every day. “How can a good God allow this to happen?”, is a mantra commonly mouthed. But Bernadette did not see it that way. She simply bore her illness as part of her purification—through it, she saw sanctification. Today she is a saint precisely because her attachment to Christ did not shield her from the pruning needed for perfection. On the contrary, her very association with Christ was put through the test of a debilitating illness.

We need to get out of this thinking that God requires little of us. Beyond our sense of entitlement lies a danger and it is an idea that is embraced by some. It is the notion of “practical universalism”. Its tenets include an assumption that the road to heaven is broad and wide, almost, if not everyone, is going in that direction. It also holds that narrow is the path to hell and hardly anyone, ever, reaches there. Such a universalism runs counter to Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel (Mt 7: 13-14) where He Himself declared that the road to hell is broad and wide. Many are headed for destruction whereas the path to heaven is straight and narrow. Few find themselves struggling along the way.2 On Easter Sunday, mention was made of the idea of “cheap grace” amongst which is the expression “baptism without repentance is grace without discipleship and the Cross”. It should not surprise us that as long as we draw life from the Vine, there will be pruning, and thus purification. We may not fully comprehend why God would even allow evil to touch us but through faith, we trust in God’s profound wisdom and love for us. He allows suffering to touch us, so that dependent entirely on Him, we may bear the fruit necessary for our salvation and the salvation of the world.

This kind of faith despite all the challenges we face can only be sustained by a relationship with Jesus the Lord who feeds us through His Word and His Sacrament. The consumption of His Body and Blood is as real as we can get in terms of drawing nourishment from the True Vine. We may not be able to do what St Paul did—preach to half of the known world then. But if St John’s injunction were to make any sense, loving in deed and in truth is going to be as good as what St Paul did. We preach through our love and witness through our actions. This is where we can excel as individual Christians. Drawing strength from the spiritual and substantial sustenance of Christ, we serve the world by engaging in our family, our neighbourhoods, and our county. God knows how sorely this country needs in terms of actions which are honourable and honest. Christians who embrace values of integrity are important to the right formation of society.

As St Augustine commenting on the 1st Letter of St John says, “Love and do what you will”. It does not have to big or spectacular but it has to begin with me. Just being a good citizen is a great start. As Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world”. It is possible because Jesus is precisely the food for this endeavour.


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1 Mercy and Justice are complementary. True justice incorporates mercy and true mercy cannot exist without justice. Thus, God’s mercy is always just, and His justice is always merciful. According to St Thomas Aquinas, mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution as it is indulgent. Justice without mercy is cruelty.

2 This is the absolute claim by Christ Himself that He is the source of salvation, which also grounds the assertion that He is THE way and not just one amongst many ways. He is THE truth and not just any kind of truth. He is THE life and not just any life. For many, this is problematic, especially if the unquestioned assumption is that everyone WILL be saved. Yes, God may will the salvation of all. But it remains the case that at most, some will be saved because the branches have to be attached to the Vine. We should not presume because it requires that we acknowledge the need for salvation. We cannot presume that people are inculpably ignorant meaning that they are not responsible for their ignorance of Jesus Christ. There are people who truly do not know Christ through no fault of their own. . But there are also people who hate Him. That is not inculpable ignorance. A person who actively hates Jesus cannot be saved. Such a statement sounds painfully abhorrent to ears shaped by “practical universalism” because, for all intents and purposes, “universalism” has a tendency to paper over what is particular or what it considers to be an aberration to its presumptuous parameters. It does not tolerate “difference” because this uncomfortable but real difference destroys its deluded grandeur of unity. The possibility of salvation for those who are not baptised (not attached to Christ for whatever reasons) is hinged on three conditions. Firstly, inculpable ignorance. This is ignorance through no fault of the person. Secondly, sincere seeking for God. One seeks God because Man has been created for God and as such, he searches for Him. Here we encounter the danger of indifference. In Noah’s time, the people were living as if there were no danger of damnation, right until the flood swept them off the face of the earth. Jesus Himself predicted that man will be buying and selling until the day He returns. Such indifference to eternity has a price. Finally, the third condition is our conscience. Newman characterises the conscience as the aboriginal Vicar of Christ. Whilst that is true, what is also true is that our conscience can also be corrupted, misinformed and subsequently malformed. The onus is on us to form our conscience clearly. And conscience is definitely not “What I feel is right is right”.