4th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 2024

From last week’s exhortation to repent and to believe in the Gospel, this Sunday Mark records Christ’s first public action. While teaching in a synagogue, Jesus freed a man bound by Satan’s yoke. Any act of exorcism can beguile and bewitch the modern mind because, let us face it, some of us are fascinated by horror and are drawn towards the grotesque. Many of our traffic jams are caused by curiosity as to how bad the accident is on the other side of the highway. In focussing on Christ’s performing an exorcism, we can miss out on a crucial aspect of His ministry. His teaching, while it made an impression on the crowd, was also liberating. Thus, He was not just freeing the demoniac. He was also freeing the minds of those whom He taught.

It is significant that we witness right at the start of Christ’s public ministry, the extent of His authority both as a teacher and as an exorcist.

There is no doubt that He was a teacher par excellence. A good teacher always draws the students towards enlightenment. Many of us have cherished memories who our good teachers were in school. Through the mazes and labyrinths of raw information, they help us organise our thinking and knowledge, inspiring us to greater freedom and integrity. In the Gospel, beyond the authority to teach, the crowd was also attracted to Jesus’ authority over nature.

At the heart of Christ’s exercise of authority, He battled with the forces of evil. In fact, many of His encounters were with spiritual forces. Without second thoughts, we are used to glossing over the accounts of Him spectacularly sending a legion of devils into a herd of pigs plunging off a cliff to their death, silencing a shrieking spirit or simply casting out a demon and we think nothing of them.

Yet, a major feature of Mark’s Gospel is a Jesus who was a prolific exorcist. The problem is with the notion that exorcism was central to Christ’s ministry always feels antiquated. It explains why we pay scant or little attention to this aspect of His ministry. His exorcisms are not as significant as viewing Him under the light of our current focus.

What does this mean? We resonate with a notion of a revolutionary maverick—a political kind of Christ who came to set us free. Liberation is often measured in terms of political progress and material improvement meaning that our standard of freedom is calculated in terms of a better social standing. A good life is basically seen through the lens of material comfort which means we seldom equate Christ’s liberation in terms of exorcism.

Fascination with the horror genre in broadcast and print media could be an explanation because evil is reduced to sensational entertainment. More than fascination or entertainment, we may have also banished the reality of satanic possession to the margin. Since such a spiritual reality cannot be explained scientifically, it is consequently translated as non-existent. In fact, science already does not look too kindly on spiritual realities like God or angels let alone spiritual infestation. For example, how many people ask for house blessings, especially in the West?

Mark records many actions of Christ freeing people from the oppression of evil. The span of His pastoral activities covers quite a lot of spiritual warfare where He is seen fighting against forces inimical to the Kingdom. Yet, this important ministry forms less than 1% of a priest’s life today. Of course, what was described of as demonic possession may simply be psychological from the perspective of modern medicine. For example, what could be considered possession in the past could very well be symptoms of a chemical imbalance. A person suffering from bouts of seizures would be considered to be a person possessed when in fact, he could just be an epileptic. The miracles associated with healing could be also psychological. The case of the mother-in-law of Peter is instructive. When Christ visited Capernaum, He went to Peter’s house and all He needed to do was to assure the elderly woman and she got well.

The danger arises when we try to explain everything away under psychology forgetting that evil is a spiritual reality at work in our world. Our scientific mindset may have driven the devil into oblivion with the last witches of the Dark Ages. We are at east that evil remains portrayed in movies—the sinister and menacing type whose function is to scare us. But such an attitude may be too naïve and trusting. The forces of evil are at work and because we have rationalised evil to almost non-existent, we may fail to recognise it even if evil has been staring us in the face. It may not be hideous, as portrayed in the movies but it is nevertheless effective in holding us hostage.

We are comfortable that Jesus taught with authority. But we do not share His concern about evil forces that try to subjugate humanity. It is a kind of naïveté to focus solely on Jesus who taught authoritatively without also appreciating His battles with the forces of Satan’s machinations. We ignore this central aspect of Christ’s ministry to our eternal peril. However, this is not to suggest that every nook and corner is infested or that every abnormal behaviour is sign of demonic possession. Not at all. When a case is presented as demonic, the first thing to do is to rule out that it is not psychological. The point to note is that Christ wrestled with Satanic forces and we must not lose sight of this reality.

Taking the scientific axiom that nature abhors a vacuum, we should be aware that scepticism creates a kind of emptiness. When we no longer acknowledge the reality of evil presence, then we have created a vacuum. When God created the world, His Holy Spirit roams about it. But when God is absent by our choice, that is, when we do not admit the reality of evil, then we have in a way created a vacuum for Satan to wreak havoc. The devil becomes powerful when we make God absent.

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 2023

The Gospel is a repeat of last Sunday’s vocation of the first Apostles. If last week, Andrew and another disciple of John curiously sought Jesus out and was invited to follow Him, today the Lord actively summoned Peter, James, John and Andrew to be His disciples. The craft of priesthood or prophecy is connected to repentance as we read in the 1st Reading. Jonah, the most reluctant of all prophets was at the same time the most successful. He managed to convert an entire city, thereby averting a catastrophe of divine destruction.

This leads to the 2nd Reading where St Paul placed or contextualised the challenge of conversion in terms of the shortness of time. Vocation and redemption are closely linked and there is not much time to waste when it comes to the call of salvation. How are we to grasp this sense of urgency?

The notion of urgency can drive us helter-skelter because we are fearful that we may lose out--the kind we know as “kiasu”. But a famous productivity guru advised that we should not allow what is important to become urgent. It means we accomplish what needs to be done without letting a situation to deteriorate into a panic that makes us run like “kiasu” headless chickens.

Instead, repentance is a matter of importance because it deals with our eternal salvation. It should not be left to deteriorate into an issue of urgency. A good example would be to wait until an elderly or an invalid becomes so incapacitated only then to request for anointing. We often have ways of procrastinating which reduces an important matter into an urgent task. This takes us closer to our lived experience. Here are some points to consider.

Firstly, life is contingent. The recent experiences of deaths of loved one, especially during Covid and now the deaths of a few priests can help us appreciate how important it is to not allow conversion to “wait” simply because we think that there is still time. This false sense of security that time is on our side fosters a procrastinating attitude. Untimely deaths remind us that time is not ours and we should not presume. For example, do not wait until it is too late to show your appreciation to those whom you love or to forgive while you still have time. It is not easy but one should take heart and this brings us to the second point.

Life is also a series of slow conversion. Many of us who go for regular confessions will lament that we have not or have barely changed. What is most frustrating is to gain a step forward only to fall two steps backward. Sometimes after a retreat or a seminar or confession, we gain strength to make the necessary changes in our lives, only to relapse after a short period. This is frustrating not to mention demoralising. What we should recognise is that conversion is a life-long journey. Change often happens imperceptibly and over a long period of time. It is like getting fatter. We suddenly realise that our trousers no longer fits when they fitted a month ago. What is central to the journey of conversion is constancy and not time.

Constancy or consistency requires that we regularly hone our good habits. A good example is replacing our curses with blessings. If we are habitual in cursing on the road, we can begin by replacing that swearing phrase with a benediction. “What the….” becomes “The Lord is great” or something to the effect. Slowly and without realising it, the new habit will become who we are.

This weekend, we celebrate the Sunday of the Word of God. For the harvest to be bountiful, the Word of God is like seed that should fall on fertile ground. That fertile ground is not passive. In other words it is not a given. For soil to be fertile, it requires tilling and turning over in order to prepare it to receive the seed sown. Likewise, if we want to hear God’s Word and pay attention to Him, we must prepare our hearts to receive Him. This requires good habits. Sadly, we tend to focus on our failures feeding our hopelessness and despair. Teresa of Calcutta reminds us that God does not require us to succeed. He only requires that we try.

The Lord’s desire that we never give up trying explains why He continually calls each one of us. Our response to Him becomes our journey of salvation. Prayers with patience are needed because not every path is straightforward or is headed heavenward. In the end, the Lord will judge everyone not because we have failed but because we have not made any attempt to receive Him. The 1st Reading which recorded God’s intended punishment of Nineveh was stayed or put off, conjures an image of a God waiting to pounce on our mistakes and punish us for our missteps. He does not. Pope Francis expressed a hope that hell is empty because such a sentiment rhymes with an image of God who is merciful. But God is both merciful and just and if our trajectory in life consists of making the same mistake of turning away from Him instead of responding to His overture, punishment is ours by just dessert and not by God’s active will.

In summary, by calling Peter, Andrew, James and John, Christ enrolled them into the vocation of repentance and redemption. He continues to invite us to join the same enterprise. Interestingly Christ’s first words in His public ministry were “Repent, believe in the Gospel”. His exhortation shows us the close connexion between the acceptance of God’s Word and repentance. We cannot do any better than to listen to, believe in Him and be converted.

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

The Child last Sunday has become the Man. Actually, the Monday after the Epiphany itself, we celebrated the Baptism of the Lord, marking Christ’s entry into public ministry. This Sunday could very well be “Vocation Sunday”. Even though at first glance, the 2nd Reading does not seem like it, the thread that runs through every reading is very much centred on God’s calling.

Our duties and responsibilities are related to the mission of Christ the Messiah. The Church draws her meaning and identity from His vocation which, effectively, can be distilled and expressed through the two-fold ministry that is commonly known as the Sacraments of Service. They are Holy Orders and Matrimony.

The word “mission” has an evocative ring to it if we were to think about “Mission Impossible”. However, what can make Christ’s mission impossible is because we are distracted by what we can achieve rather than how these two Sacraments are to shape the manner or the way we ought to think and live.

Apart from it being suggestive, the word “mission” can also be ambiguous. What does it entail to state that the Church has a mission? Is the mission of the Church to increase the number of Christians through baptism? Or is it her role to “make the world a better place”?

Both are not mutually exclusive. But there is a calling within the Church which is crucial for her mission ad extra—to be salt of the earth and light of the world. The Church being the Body of Christ will need to be fed with His Body. Unless the Church sees herself merely as another “philanthropic” entity, like any charitable body, then we must take a look at the dwindling vocation to Holy Orders. It is the means through which Christ feeds His Body so that His Body can carry out His mission of evangelisation, of making more Christians and also of changing the world.

The number of priests is dropping. In these two short months, 4 priests in the different dioceses of the country have passed. Each time a priest dies, water has to find its own level. It is an unenviable task for the Archbishops and Bishops to shuffle and reassign priests to cover parishes and provide services to the laity. If Holy Order is an essential component of the Church’s identity and if she is to be faithful to the mission of Christ, where should our vocations be coming from?

The aim of vocation promotion is mainly to encourage young men to embrace Holy Orders but still it does not answer the question why we do not have enough vocations. The uncomfortable answer to this lack of vocational response is because it possibly reflects the loss of faith or lack of belief in this Sacrament as instituted by Christ Himself. God is calling and it is not that we are not listening to Him. The lack of vocation just exposes the dissonance in our belief system that on the one hand, we affirm the necessity of the Eucharist for salvation but on the other hand, we actually do not appreciate what the Eucharist truly is. If we know what the Eucharist truly is, there will be a floodgate of vocations to the priestly life.

This fall in priest vocation raises serious questions for us. What is the Church? How should it be shaped, particularly in the matter of the Sacrament of Holy Orders. As priesthood is suffering a decline in number, should we follow the Anglican model? Experience has shown us that the model adopted by the Church of England and those who follow in her footsteps is not the solution. The solution must come from knowing what the mind of Christ was and is with regard to Holy Orders? Recently, the Holy Father made the timely call for us to recognise the Church as feminine. It is precisely that the Church is feminine that there exists a complementarity which translates into a masculine Holy Orders. This brings us to the challenge to be chaste as found in the 2nd Reading and it is closely linked to the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

St Paul’s Letter to the Corinthian is a vocation too. Just that it is not one which we want to hear or are comfortable listening to. St Paul spoke of fornication and linked his abhorrence to it by connecting the human body to being the Temple of the Holy Spirit. It is a call to chastity which in today’s myopic search for meaning or fulfilment we are incapable of appreciating. Why? We have arrive at a rather sad state of life where we associate the fullness of life with earthly satisfaction or pleasure. Many people can no longer live with or are patient enough to wait for a life of eternal fulfilment. Such a vision entails sacrifices which many are not willing to pay.

Let us take for example, a man who is married. He is expected to give up his roving eyes for other women. That sacrifice is essentially an articulation of fidelity in marriage. It is not easy but it is made possible through the grace of the Sacrament of Matrimony. Marriage’s faithfulness is a mirror of God’s covenant with humanity and Christ’s fidelity to the Church because of all the permutations in human relationships, that which is between a man and a woman in the sacrament of matrimony is the most appropriate sign in which faithfulness is both fruitful and life-giving.

But our sight falls short of the Resurrection and in our unwillingness to wait for eternity, what we have done is to widen the net of permissibility. There are many models of relationships that are possible. The bounds of faith that corrals us in is felt to be too stifling under the present philosophy which regards fulfilment only in this-worldly terms. We continually try to rationalise and accommodate whatever relationships possible in order to satisfy this short-sighted philosophy. Therefore the Church is at a crossroads. What is the Church? And what should her response be to God’s calling?

The most beautiful definition of the Church is expressed through both the Sacraments of service. If there is failure in the Sacrament of Matrimony one can be sure that the same will be detected in the Sacrament of Holy Orders and vice versa. Both these Sacraments are at the service of the Church and the world at large. When society becomes self-referential, it will not be able to fathom or appreciate God’s calling. Perhaps, this explains the ease of divorce in marriages and the lack of priestly vocations. Christ’s invitation to Peter and Andrew, Paul’s chastity challenge to the Corinthians should help us better appreciate the link between the vocations to Holy Orders and to Matrimony.

The lack of seminarians can be remedied only to a certain extent by a vigorous promotion of priestly vocation. The proper solution to this crisis of vocation is to recognise that the faithfulness of married couples is enlivened by the commitment of priests and the dedication of the priests is supported by the vows of marriage. Without the full strength of these two Sacraments of service, we will always struggle and stumble in our service of the Church and our witnessing to the world.

Epiphany Year B 2024

The Magi have arrived in Bethlehem. Their presence is recorded only in the Gospel of Matthew and this visitation is called the Epiphany. Since three gifts were presented, we assume that they must have been three kings, traditionally known as Casper, Melchior and Balthasar.

This visitation is a kind of Theophany or Hierophany. On Monday we will celebrate a Christophany. All these are just words expressing the same phenomenon—a manifestation. A theophany is an appearance of God, a hierophany is a showing of the sacred, an epiphany is a manifestation from above and a Christophany is the “presenting” of the Christ. Each of these terms has to do with the Divine making Himself known to us.

The Epiphany is the revelation of the Son of God to the entire world. However, our reach/span today is incredibly universal that it feels as if the entire world has shrunk to the point that we describe ourselves as a “global village”. Many of us recognise this type of experience, which is, today, one is here in Singapore and tomorrow, one is already in New York.[1] In a way, the fluidity of mass movement has relativised the Epiphany into a non-event. So, what is the big deal when everyone can be anywhere at the click of a button?

The point of the Epiphany is more than God becoming known to the world. It celebrates also that man’s search for God has found a definite answer. Creation hungers for God and the only answer that can fully fulfil is found in Jesus Christ. Therefore, if we pair the Epiphany with the Christophany of this coming Monday, that is, the feast of the Baptism of Jesus, perhaps we can come to a joyful appreciation of our Christian responsibility.

God has made known His salvation. According to the author of the Letter to the Hebrews, in the past, He spoke to our ancestors through the prophets; but in our time, the last days, He has spoken to us through His Son. We belong to these “last days” and are privileged to hear God speaking to us through Jesus Christ.

The entire pontificate of Pope Francis can be interpreted from this angle. The Holy Father wants to proclaim the message of salvation that Christ has brought to the entire world. He dialogues with cultures and even with human experiences which many of us may not appreciate. For example, rightly or wrongly, whether I agree or not, the controversy over the blessing of same sex couples can be interpreted from the perspective that this Jesuit Pope desires to dialogue with current reality. Furthermore, the Holy Father has consistently spoken to us on the environment, that according to him, is God’s gift and is part of the salvation that Jesus has come to bring. In a way, Pope Francis echoes what God has done by extending the message of Jesus Christ to the world. For the Pontiff, it feels as if the Church has kept that message to herself instead of sharing it as the “Gospel of Joy” to a world waiting to know Christ.

Perhaps Pope Francis is nothing but a poor echo of God’s word. This is not a condemnation of the Pope because everyone is a sinner. No one is an exception. Everyone is a poor sinner who does not always mirror God’s great news of salvation. We know that for a fact that we can be better but we are not. We should live up to the name of Christ but we do not. God’s desire in these last days to make known His salvation has frequently been frustrated or hampered by our sinfulness.

That the event of the Epiphany took place just before the Holy Family fled to Egypt is crucial to the celebration because the focus on the Magi makes us forget the other key player in this saga. The Magi were not the only ones looking for God. Herod was too. In fact, Herod was deeply enamoured by power believing that power was god. History has recorded Herod as a man whose exercise of power was terrifying. What both Herod and the Magi symbolise is the divine gift of human desire which is a powerful drive.

Creation in general and man in particular will never stop seeking the Saviour. When the search is misguided or misdirected, as in the case of Herod, it becomes destructive. But when the search is properly guided, as directed by the Star, it yields a great reward in Christ.

The Epiphany represents two movements. God’s movement towards humanity in Jesus Christ. Man and creation’s search for the Saviour. From the side of God, He has never stopped reaching out to humanity. From our side, sin which arises from the lack of correspondence between our words and our actions, our belief and our behaviour, makes us poor quality Gospel, dim stars, for those who are searching for the Way. Both the Magi’s search for the Saviour and Herod’s greed for power challenge us. How do we become like stars that guide others to find Jesus Christ and be saved.

The Epiphany proclaims to the world that Christ is the only answer to Man’s desire and search for the Saviour. For Jesus Christ to be known, it requires that we be attentive to His presence, most especially at Mass and in the tabernacles of our Churches and adoration rooms. At the same time be mindful of our sacred duty and mission to be better messengers of His in the world. May the light of our Christian witnessing lead others to know the Saviour, who is Jesus Christ the Lord.


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[1] Consider that the known world then was small and therefore the visit of the King is even more stupendous considering that practically nobody travelled the way we do. Like for example, the Americas, north and south were “discovered” only in the 15th century, according to accepted historical accounts. Of course, “discovered” sounds rather Eurocentric which makes the word “New” a description taken from a European perspective. Second, the more “politically-correct” term is “uncovered” because the existing continent uncovered the so-called European greed that brought about the destruction of existing cultures and religions. This is a “woke” interpretation of the event whereby two cultures collided or interacted.