We are told in the first reading that God cannot be outdone by our confidence in Him. There will be times when everything is bleak and God is distantly silent. In such a situation what should we do? How should we proceed? In general, we easily slip into the temptation to cast God aside because He is useless. However, St Paul in the 2nd Reading advised Timothy to persevere in hope.
What do we hold on to or how do we hope when things clearly do not go the way we want them to be?
This question at first glance appears to have come from a space where trust forms a part of a business transaction. What sort of deal are we talking about? Suffering from a chronic illness with no cure in sight. A spouse whose wayward behaviour is straining family relationships. Stuck in financial ruin brought about by the current economic downturn. Now, if trust in God belongs to this type of contract, then when we pray, the Lord’s duty is to fulfil our request.
The fact that our temporal sphere does not fully capture the entire dimension of our existence shows that trust in God must be located within realm of the Resurrection. Sadly, much of what goes on in the world has severely placed a limit to this heteronomous economy, meaning that our vision beyond the horizon of this life is frustrated and hemmed in by our negative experiences. As pointed out earlier, this is not helped when the concept of our relationship with God is “gimme”. When we cannot peer beyond the shroud of death, we will be intimidated and cowed.
The strength of faith is founded on the assurance that even if life were to end in a defeat, it can only be a temporary set-back because the Resurrection is the final arbiter of life whereas death is not. Death cannot hold on to those who through the waters of Baptism participate in the passion, death and resurrection of Christ.
Such a long-sighted vision provides a perspective to make the connexion between faith and service. Personal faith has a communal dimension because living is not limited to the self in the sense that we live only for ourselves. Jesus’ own life revealed faith to be inextricably linked to a life of service. Another way of expressing this connexion is that service of God and of man must flow from our faith. For if faith and service were not linked, then very easily service can slip into and be co-opted by ideology.
Let me explain.
Within the current cultural setting, more so, now that it is shaped by “woke” consciousness, we are socialised to embrace and serve causes that are important to human progress. For example, consider the present focus on the environment. Every calamity or catastrophe must be environmentally tagged. A new report on the typhoon that hit Japan recently which killed a few people carried a comment that the severity of the storm was the result of climate change.
We are bombarded time and again that our environmental future is in jeopardy and ecologically, the world is doomed. With such a threat, it now falls upon our shoulders to sort things out and to make them right. Additionally, with the god of technology and the goddess of social engineering on our side, the list of original sins can be reversed. The clarion call is loud and clear: to cure creation of original sin and to restore humanity to its aboriginal state. If not the ecological disaster to reverse, then it should be the demands of dismantling systemic injustice of racism or patriarchy. In other words, everyone is obliged to serve because the fate of the world rests on one’s shoulder.
The question is, what is service for, in itself? Why should we serve? The phrase “selfless service” is possibly the closest inkling we have to the reality of the resurrection. If not, that is, if there were no afterlife, if there no were eternity, then service needs to be recognised. Otherwise, what is the point of “serving” if one were not acknowledged?
Without the assurance of the Resurrection, then “eternity” or “memory” must be located within this world. We will be compelled to hunt for acclaim and accolade. The same hunger for acknowledgement can be detected in the drive for memorialisation. Monuments are built because we crave and yearn for immortality. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and all the social media outlets provide the “eternal” platforms to broadcast or televise ourselves. These are networks for self-recognition or virtue signalling.
A story told to me years ago by a Jesuit Provincial of Hongkong might help us appreciate what true selfless service is and how faith in the Resurrection makes it possible to be altruistic. As the Gospel rightly indicates, this kind “selflessness” is not meaningless because even if no one values or appreciates our service, it is not a failure.
The story revolves around the treatment of Jesuit lay brothers. The vocation to the Jesuit lay brotherhood is dying. By no means is the Jesuit Order unique as the different societies of brothers—the Marists, De La Salle, the Gabrielites—are suffering the same fate. The Provincial related the story that in those “bad old days” when a Jesuit brother celebrated his birthday, he followed a routine no different from any other day. He first served the meal to the Jesuit Fathers and only after all the Fathers had eaten, then the Jesuit brother would settle down in the kitchen to have his birthday lunch.
Today such a practice would be considered as “demeaning”. We have done away with such a “derogatory” approach towards the Jesuit lay brothers. Unfortunately, our enlightened pendulum has swung to the other extreme in which everyone must now have a gold star so that he or she will not feel “left out” or “humiliated”. Come Easter or Christmas, the list of people to thank for their service would be long. Not that it is a bad practice to have.
But could this pendulum swing be an indication that we have suffered a loss of faith in the Resurrection? More and more our speeches are required to ensure that everyone is applauded for his or her service. Indeed without the Resurrection, our service must be tied to the appreciation that we get in this world. Does this explain why at funerals, some people have this urge to eulogise or better still, canonise the dead? A faith minus the vision of the resurrection will be condemned to settle all the scores in this world for fear that there will be no justice in the afterlife![1]
Last but not least, faith in the Resurrection is the only hope that can sustain those who are disgusted by and despaired of the politics in Church. Right now, we have a Cardinal in Hongkong standing trial for “colluding with foreign forces”. In the face of this “show trial”, the silence of the Catholic Church is louder than a satanic rock concert but that is just the Church officially. Should we be astonished by such a turn of event? No. We should never be shocked by persecution. We should even be less surprised by sin coming from the sons and daughters of the Church. What Cardinal Zen should do is to stand tall with the martyrs before him as he faces the certainty of suffering and death. He keeps silent not because he is weak but because He knows that God is more powerful. Like the servant in the Gospel, Cardinal Zen must stand in firm hope knowing that if his vindication does not come in this world, it will certainly come in the next because in his fidelity, God will always be faithful.
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[1] In fact, a faith without the Resurrection will see that those whose lives are unproductive, should be terminated. Euthanasia is the logical conclusion to a faith minus the Resurrection. Those who are trapped by forbidden love share this similar conundrum. Without the Resurrection, their abstinence or celibacy makes no sense. They are “condemned” to find fulfilment in this world, for if not, then their lives would be meaningless.
