Holy Family Year A 2025

The Malay word for Eurasians, namely, those of Portuguese descent, in Malaysia and Singapore is “Serani” which is derived from the last verse of today’s Gospel: He will be called a “Nazarene”. Believers in Antioch were called Christians taking their name from the Christ and since “Serani” refers to the Nazarene, to be a Eurasian is indeed doubly blessed—named after Christ and after the Nazarene. While it may be a fascinating trivia yet the whole naming convention does reveal something about what we are celebrating today—the Holy Family.

Coming right after Christmas, we are presented with the Holy Family for two reasons. Firstly, they are a model to emulate. Secondly, the family is central to God’s plan of salvation.

In terms of emulation, the difficulty is that Jesus, Mary and Joseph were not really a customary “family” the way we understand it. Firstly, Mary and Joseph, if we follow the long-standing tradition of the Church, they remained celibate during the entirety of their married life. It is unusual to be married and yet to remain celibacy. Secondly, Mary had a child outside of wedlock. Again it wasnot really a conventional thing to conceive outside of marriage.

And yet they have been called the Holy Family.

Perhaps their domestic disarray is really the food for our contemplation about what it means to model ourselves after the Holy Family. The key to appreciating Jesus, Mary and Joseph is to be found in the 2nd Reading. Taken from the Letter to the Colossians, St Paul lists out the virtues we ought to cultivate in order to live as a family. They are compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience and because God first forgave us, we can also grow in the forgiveness for others. Furthermore, the fact that Mary and Joseph were subjected to hardship may help us because our families are often marked by suffering here on earth. Despite experiencing deficiencies and defects, Jesus, Mary and Joseph still managed to thrive as a family.

No matter how flawed a family background is, it remains the primary place for essential virtues to flourish. Trust, compassion and personal responsibility are all shaped by and formed from the relationships that exist in a family unit. Translated, it simply means that a stable marriage is necessary for a family to function because it provides space for the acquisition of virtues.

Ordinarily the transmission of faith and culture takes place within the framework of a family. In fact, traditions or customs or the way we do things, whether we know it or not, provide a sense of stability for individuals and society. A good example is in Singapore’s Hawker scene. A packet of tissue on a table means that someone has “booked” or “choped” the table. A Malaysian who has no inkling of the local custom sees the packet of tissue and may think that someone has left behind free tissue. We get a sense of belonging when there is stability or a sense that things are arranged in a certain way. But when traditions are constantly changed, people will experience a sense of disequilibrium.

On the topic of providing stability, guess who best transmits tradition? Grandparents. They maintain a link between our past and our future. As families become more nuclear, meaning that, when a family is reduced simply to parents and children, then we will find the transmission of tradition somewhat frustratedor impeded. It is happening even now because our children are marrying much older and when the grandchildren come, we, the grandparents are no longer vibrant and robust. What the grandchildren see in the elderly grandparents are not towers of strength but rather feeble and frail geriatrics who are shadows of their former selves.

Even though the nuclear family is considered the bedrock or foundation of civilisation, the fact that we have retreated into the small families is already an indication of the progressive decline of civilisation. Sometimes we chafe or we react strongly to the reality of the nanny state, meaning that, we do not like it when the state removes the rights of parents to decide what is best for their offspring. The reality is that as we progressively retreat to becoming nuclear families, the greater will the power of the nanny state be.

When there is a breakdown of families, no doubt caused by the failure of marriages, then society will also suffer. When families fail especially in the transmission of values, our society will struggle to maintain its moral compass and identity. Even since the fall of man, there has been cheaters, liars and thieves. Look at Jacob cheating Esau of his birthright. The question is, why our scamming has grown so out of proportion. Look at how families are organisedtoday. When you meet a family whose children are well-behaved, you are immediately impressed. The obverse is also true. When you observe a family whose children have no manners, immediately you shudder. When families fail, we will have to rely more on governmental intervention which we somehow resent.

They say that an apple does not fall far from the tree. I have always thought of my Dad as someone who had issues and in a way, I was freed of them but I have come to realise that I, still in many ways, behave like my father. The truth about us is that we are very much shaped by our family. Whether a family is perfect or not, the pilgrimage to eternity passes through the family. Therefore, parents should recognise how influential they are in their children’s moral development especially during their formative years. If you curse always in your car whilst driving, be sure that your children will also pick up that habit.

In the case of Joseph, as a man of honour, he would have inculcated into Jesus the profound sense of justice which Jesus exhibited through His life. Joseph fled to Egypt because it was the prudent action to take, in order to protect the Child and His Mother. Christ in His life, knew when to confront the authorities or when to withdraw. He would have acquired this prudence from Joseph. In what they did, both Joseph and Mary embraced God’s plan which shows us how we too can collaborate with God’s will. Obedience to God did not shield the Holy Family from the inconveniences of life but what carried them through their tribulations was their faith.

It may be fashionable in a victim society to blame our family for what we are. But blaming merely avoid assuming responsibility for our behaviour and action. Rather than blaming others, Mary and Joseph did what they could, with God’s grace, for their imperfect family. We always assume that their holiness came from being a perfect family but they did not earn the title “holy” from being perfect. They were not “holy-moly white-lily” holding insipid weaklingsrepresented by the white-washed statues we sometimes see in Churches. They gain the honour of being called holy for their supporting role in God’s plan of salvation. Holiness is an imitation but not in the way we associate it with “poor copies” or “cheap imitation”. Imitation is a form of mimicry in that we emulate Jesus, Mary and Joseph who participated in God’s desire to save mankind and creation. Since we have been invited by God to stand under His stream of salvation, that means every family can become a holy family, like Jesus, Mary and Joseph were.

Christmas Mass of the Day 2025

There was a bishop who in striking up a conversation would like to know who the parents are of the person he is talking to. Both Matthew and Luke are no different. In fact, they go even further than just parents because they have presented us with the genealogy of Jesus. However, the Gospel today taken from John does the same tracing back but it goes even further than Mark and Matthew. Instead of outlining the ancestry of Jesus back to Adam and Eve, John traced it even further to God Himself.

There is a profundity in John’s thought as well as a loftiness in his theology because he is able to peer into and contemplate the divinity of Jesus Christ. Using Greek terminology, Jesus is equated with the Logos, the Word or the Reason through Whom, God created the universe. The Logos is not merely a principle but is in fact equivalent to God.

“The Word was with God. The Word was God”.

As such the Mass of the Day is called the King’s Mass. Through John’s Gospel, we are invited to come, more than the Shepherds’ marvelling at the birth of the Child, and to worship the King of Kings. Through the mystery of the Incarnation, our King lives with us and He has come to lift us up to Himself. As the Collects suggests, “O God, who wonderfully created the dignity of human nature and still more wonderfully restored it, grant, we pray, that we may share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity”.

This King is the only king for whom time ticks. All time is reckoned by Him. Before His coming, time is measured as “Before Christ” but after His coming, time has been sanctified. The scale of time, BC and AD are demarcated by His birth. Thus, after Christ’s birth, time is now described as “In the Year of the Lord”, that is “Anno Domini”. The present system of describing time as BCE and CE, “Before Common Era” and “Common Era”, despite an attempt at distancing time from Christ, for fear of religious hegemony, namely Christian dominance, is still hegemonic because the scale or canon is still determined by the academics of the western hemisphere. If these superior intellectuals, so called, in their desires to be inclusive, they could have adopted an Islamic, Chinese or an Aztec calendar.

The fact remains, the convention for universal timeline has been settled upon the birth of a Child who is the King of the created universe. This Child will rule the world. And yet Christianity is not as widespread as it should be. There are about 8.4 billion inhabitants in this world but only 31% of that total is Christian. One can look at this from the perspective a half-empty glass and interpret that as the failure of Christianity or more specifically, the failure of Christians to evangelise.

But what about another perspective? Not so much the half-full glass so that we can pat ourselves on the back. Rather it is truth-telling. The Church in general has been at the forefront of furthering human flourishing. In the arena of agriculture, the science of crop rotation and irrigation has increased yield to feed growing populations. In education, the schools that provided learning led to the formation of the universities. In legal matters, the Church helped enact laws that promoted human rights and due process in defence of human dignity. Through her charities, the Church has founded hospitals and provided health care. In the area of science, the Church has that paved the way for discoveries across many facets of life. The problem is that we are often silenced by the one famous case of Galileo to prove that the Church is anti-science or anti-reason. But not many people hear about the Jesuit Science which because of Jesuit presence and involvement in establishing remote stations for the collection of seismic activity, seismology came to be known as the Jesuit science

The Church has been at the forefront of civilising the world. While in terms of evangelisation, she may not have done a great job, the truth remains that she has contributed to making the world a better place. The world as we know it today has been Christify by the Child born two thousand years ago. His birth signalled His intent on bringing all creation under His rule. His death and resurrection sealed the victory over sin and death.

However, the King has yet to fully reclaim creation in its entirety. The Church is called Ecclesia Militans for this reason. Christ has won the war over Satan’s rule but the battle continues in our courts, in our malls, in our academic halls and most of all in our hearts. Christians throughout the world must fight against their selfishness and conquer over their unruly desires in order to follow Christ.

There are many factors why Christianity or Catholicism has not taken roots in some parts of the world. Suffice to say that the Church’s failure at furthering Christ’s Kingdom stems from the sins of her children—me and you. We need to stand out more than others. As someone used to say, “We might be the only bible that unbelievers get to read” and rightly so, Pope Saint Leo the Great reminded us of our status as sons and daughters of God: “Christian, remember your dignity, and now that you share in God’s own nature, do not return by sin to your former base condition. Bear in mind who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Do not forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of God’s kingdom.”

So, there is a lot of love to give. There is a lot of forgiveness to embrace. There is a lot of good to do. When we are able to love in the manner Jesus did, forgive the way Jesus modelled for us, be and do good Jesus went about, then the world might just recognise the Lord. Can we love better? Can we forgive more magnanimously? Can we be good? We can with the help of God and in so doing, we can become the fire that burns brightly in a darkness that calls out for the Light of Christ. There is a world waiting to recognise her King. It helps if we recognise Him first. So, let us come let us adore Him, Christ the King, Christ the Saviour, Christ the Lord.

Christmas Mass at Dawn Year A 2025

The Mass continues from yesterday midnight. The Gospel for the Angel’s Mass ended with the announcement to the Shepherd. “… Today in the town of David, a Saviour has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord. And here is a sign for you: you will find a Baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger”.

The Gospel for the Shepherd’s Mass takes off from there. After the angels had left, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us”. So they hurried away and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger.

The movement from the Midnight Mass to the Mass at Dawn mirrors the transition from truth or reality to meaning or responsibility. The angels merely announced to the shepherds that the Saviour was born and what the signs were that He would be associated with. With such a proclamation, the shepherds must now contend with the truth of the Saviour’s coming.

“Let us go and see” represents the act of assuming responsibility for one’s discovery of the truth or coming face to face with reality. Under the cover of darkness, Christ comes as Light to illumine the darkness of sins. He is the one who will save His people from the eternal damnation of sin.

The question at the heart of this Mass is salvation. What is it to be saved? And more than salvation is the urgency of it. The shepherds did not tarry. They did not wait for the right time. Instead, upon hearing the good news of the birth of Christ and after the angels’ departure, they hurried to Bethlehem. Their action shows an urgency of their part. They wanted to be saved.

Question for us is do we need to be saved? Or do we want to be saved?

Would it be fair to surmise that many of us are not in a hurry to embrace our salvation? Instead what is characteristic of our behaviour is the lack of haste. Many are just happy to delay or wait for an opportune moment, believing that there is always enough time to make the necessary changes needed for us to be saved.

But a more appropriate question is not if we want to be saved but rather if we truly appreciate salvation. It points to the truth that many do not really know what salvation is, for them to truly yearn for it. Either we do not appreciate it or we feel that we are entitled to it as if God were obliged to save us, whether we want it or not. If not, our lack of enthusiasm shows that we want to be saved with the least effort on our part or that we are not that in need of it because we do not think that it is that important.

The Collect of the 1st Sunday of Advent when using this phrase “resolve to run forth to meet your Christ with righteous deeds at his coming” demonstrates how much of a haste we ought to have.

Translated, it would mean that we would have to become more invested in our salvation. To be invested is to take on more of who Christ is as suggested by the Prayer over the Gifts. That the marvellous exchange between God and man be seen in an increase of our divinity or our godly behaviour. The intensity of our divine behaviour is confirmed by us through our deeds. Love shows itself in deeds rather than in words.

Finally, when we are full, we will not desire more than what our stomach can consume and contain. Likewise, when we are comfortable, we might never see the need to be saved cause we already feel safe. However, note that safety is not the same as being saved. One is a sense that nothing untoward can happen and that is safety. The other has a quality which is eternal and that is being saved. A person in safety does not mean that he is saved. In fact, hidden within the Christmas Octave is a feast which barely draws our attention. It is the Holy Innocents. Even though these children committed no personal sins, still they needed a Saviour. By their nature they shared in humanity’s need of redemption which only Jesus Christ the Saviour can provide. Nothing after Adam’s fall is free from the salvation which only Christ can bring.

The Feast of the Holy Innocents shows how necessary salvation is.

In summary, the experience of the shepherds has shown us that salvation is not a reality to be trifled with. They hastily made their way to see the Saviour born in Bethlehem. We too should not take it for granted. On one level, we are already looking for our salvation even if we were not aware of it. Meaning? We are unwittingly searching for salvation. A desire to be safe is basically a desire to be saved. But on another level, we should be careful to protect our salvation. It is not an automatic given whether we want it or not. It is not an entitlement. It is a gift to which we should respond.

May we have the heart of the Shepherds who rushed to seek Him out and to adore Him. As we adore Him, may we also make more room for Him in our hearts and in our lives so that we might be able to embrace the salvation for which He has come to bring each one of us.

Christmas Midnight Mass Year A 2025

In the Greek version of John 1 verse 14, it literally says that “The Word became flesh and pitched His tent amongst us”. Picture a crowded refugee camp filled with makeshift shelters. In the midst of these temporary settlements is the tent of the King. Nothing spectacular and yet He is just there with His people, sharing their pains and embracing the discomfort of everyone. There is an antecedent to the event of the birth of Christ where, after the Exodus from Egypt, God was carried around in the Tabernacle. However, the scene described by John is nuanced. Now God is NOT merely one with us but He is one OF us. He is Emmanuel.

A way to appreciate the profound reality of God as one of us is to look at history. When we speak of royalty, the imagery is that of a “cordon sanitaire”—a buffer zone surrounding the royal personage. Even though the POTUS is not royalty, still observe how Trump is protected. Compare this “sanitised” version of royalty with Richard III. He was the last King of England who died in battle. He was at the forefront of it all. Whether he was a good King or not is not the point here. Instead the fact that he died in battle gives us an idea of what sort of God we have. He not only pitched His tent amongst us. He bore our pains, carried our grief and suffered for our transgressions.

There is a huge chasm between Richard III and our God. Richard died to protect his position which is basically nothing more than self-interest. He was fighting for his kingship or his reign. Whereas Jesus, our King died for our sins. He who was sinless took upon Himself all our offences.

We have a God who, all holy, dares to take on our messiness in order to save us. The 1st Reading speaks of this messiness by linking it to darkness and how a nation who has lived in darkness has been longing for the light. Christ is the light that broke through the darkness of our sins. He came in order to save us as individuals and as humanity.

The fascinating truth about this salvation is that prior to Christ coming to be with us, the people longed for Him. The irony is that after He came, still people did not know Him. I wager that the world is still waiting for a Saviour to come. A simple example of our waiting is our search for “solutions”. Right now we are looking for a cure for the malaise (not Melayu) known as global warming. While we are trying to stem the rise in ambient temperature due to excessive carbon dioxide emissions, the effort is actually nothing more than a cry for salvation.

The final solution that we all desire is not to be found in human machinations in the first place. In trying to cut waste and the ever-increasing need for landfills that is caused by our disposable culture, we seem to focus on biodegradability. The use of biodegradable plastic bags may have created the illusion that we are no longer polluting the earth, and in some cases, it may have encouraged greater usage. This search to “save” the world merely shows that the solutions we seek are to be found in the conversion of our hearts. And that is a much harder task to achieve.

Conversion is a life-long and life-changing process. Christ in becoming man is God’s great gift to us to reclaim our divinity. As the Psalmist says, “You have made us a little less than a god” but we lost that gift through the sin of Adam. With Christ assuming our humanity, the process of restoring our divine state as a little less than a god can resume. At the Offertory, the adding of water into wine we pray that “we may come to share His divinity as He humbled Himself to share our humanity”.

The Light has come to change our destiny. The trouble is, do we need that Light or are we still interested in that conversion?

Firstly, we are having a good time here on earth. A good example is the luxury afforded by air transportation. Here in the hot tropics, imagine how temperate-climate fruits that have a short shelf-life can now be savoured by us. Literally, from the trees to our tables. Life is good except for the occasional road-bumps. Old age, chronic illness, financial disaster. Other than these minor inconveniences, the truth for so many of us is that we have no need for God, let alone a Saviour.

The sad reality about this is that more than ever we need the Lord. We need the Saviour. Ukraine is still being attacked by Russia. The peace deal in Gaza is at best flimsy and all that is needed is for an idiot to set the region afire. Even though we may have advanced technologically by leaps and bounds, the truth remains that we are not saved and we cannot save ourselves. An alcoholic can tell you that, or any addict, for the matter of speaking. Unless he or she recognises that there is a power under which one is pressed down or in bondage to, only then can the enslaved individual reach out for salvation. We need to be saved. Whether we know it or not. Whether we accept it or not. We need a Saviour, and in many cases, we need to be saved from ourselves.

Tonight, we celebrate the coming of the great Saviour. Indeed every Christmas is a reminder that He has come, He wants to be with us, He wants to save us. The Child, placed in the manger, is our Saviour. Come let us adore Him.

4th Sunday of Advent Year A 2025

Christmas has begun but not in the way we envision or conceive it. The very mention that Christmas has begun may send a shiver or thrills down our spine conjuring up images of fun and frolic. But no, it is not that kind of a beginning. Instead the mystery of the Incarnation is where we begin our contemplation of Christmas. Christ is about to be born. The liturgy invites us to welcome the Saviour.

What is the implication of the Saviour’s birth?

When changes to the Eucharistic liturgy were made in 2011, there was an uproar with regard to the translations of certain parts of the Liturgy. The wordings for the consecration of the wine in the chalice were changed from “for all” to “for many”. The new translation seemed to have put a dampener on God’s salvific will. In simple terms, God’s salvation is rather miserly because the Church, by using “for many” has restricted God’s desire to save TO the multitude rather than TO everyone. Multitude is a lot but there were some who felt that a lot was not enough.

But the translation was correct. Salvation cannot be imposed. It can only be proposed. It means that God’s salvation is offered to all but man still has the freedom to reject it. Even though salvation is extended to all and sundry, it may not be universally or even automatically accepted by everyone. We have the freedom to accept or reject God’s invitation to share in the mystery of salvation. Therefore, from a scriptural point of view, “many” is more accurate as it describes the great, innumerable multitude but not every single individual who has ever lived.

It brings us to a central figure in the Gospel today, that is, Joseph. Even the 4th Sunday of Advent is traditionally understood to be dedicated to Mary, still, in Matthew’s Gospel Joseph features prominently. Described as a just man by the Evangelist, this man of honour saw no need to humiliate a maiden who had conceived outside of wedlock. Instead God appeared to Joseph and proposed to him the plan of salvation in which he would play an integral part. “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you must name him Jesus, because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins”.

As the responsorial psalm suggests to let the King of glory enter, we still have the freedom to reject Him. On the one hand, we could have a God who seemingly forces Himself upon us, by violating our freedom to choose, simplyby “saving all”. Instead, this is the God of the “many or multitude” who, even though He desires all to be saved, still He awaits our cooperation. This universal desire to save all is God’s antecedent will which requires our cooperation.

God proposes many programmes for us because He desires to save. In fact, the history of salvation is basically a chronicle of God making new plans each time we broke the covenant we had made with Him. In the case of Joseph, even without complete knowledge, he trusted God and embraced His proposal and the rest is our definitive salvation.

Now, since we are preparing for Christmas, how has it been so far? If God intends to save us by entering into our lives, the question is, “Have we allowed Him to?”.

We have been given the same freedom as Joseph was. How are we exercising that freedom to choose? We are challenged to expand our freedom by choosing God rather than jealously guard our individual autonomy.

Today’s world is so narrowly individualistic that we no longer see the bigger picture. Perhaps the slew of dystopian series or movies is a reminder of how reduced our picture or how narrow our vision has become. Imagine the Walking Dead going from place to place avoiding the Undead but nobody seems to ask the question where some of these enclave sanctuaries get their electricity from. Electricity, the powerful lifeline that connects us is a reminder of how narrow our vision or how fragmented our connexion to reality has become. The truth of our interconnectedness often escapes us.

For Joseph, despite not having all the information at his finger tips, he is presented by God with a picture bigger than himself. He is going to be a father not just with any Baby but the Child to be born of a woman not of his bloodline. Instead this Child will be the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. This is a bigger plan and Joseph embraced that plan in its entirety.

Sweep away all the glitter and gold we might just appreciate what the heart of the preparation is. To be prepared or to prepare reminds me of a conversation with some youths on a matter called freedom. The mistaken notion that freedom is all about the choices before us misses the point that freedom is not choices available but rather an ability to choose.

When we have come to a forked road, we must choose one. The minute we have chosen one, the other option is already out of the question and it no longer a choice. It is the same with our Christmas preparation. It is a choice to enter into God’s world rather than forcing God to enter ours. We choose God’s will and not serve our own will. That is the heart of our preparation. That was what Joseph embraced when he took Mary to be his wife. Decorations are beautiful this time of the year and sometimes we might find ourselves with not enough room to house all the gold and glitter. But the true preparation is not for more room for decorations but rather that our hearts may have more space for the Child to be born. The Child in the manger is tiny and helpless but His enterprise is universal. He is inviting us to enter that space and to share His vision for the world.

3rd Sunday of Advent Year A 2025. Gaudete Sunday

Today is like a lay-by along the Advent highway, a moment of respite to relieveus of the penitential mood of the season. It is a day to re-position ourselves. The Lord is indeed near. We rejoice for He is coming and for that reason, it is called Gaudete Sunday.

What is “gaudete” or joy?

To appreciate joy, which is a spiritual fruit of the Holy Spirit, we ought to look at the theological virtue of hope. Just as well that we are inching towards the conclusion of the Jubilee Year of Hope. Many have visited this Cathedral or St Louis in Kluang and St Mary in Air Salak as pilgrims of hope. What does it mean to be a pilgrim of hope or to be hopeful?

The answer to what hope is will definitely determine how we rejoice. To be truly joyful, hope is necessary because only hope can provide the space that “dares” to rejoice. In our experiences, it is not difficult to confuse hope with optimism. Hope is not and it cannot be false optimism. What hope does is to root our confidence in the promise of God. Whereas optimism on the other hand expects a positive future that is usually secured through self-reliance and if we were religious enough, we may just dress optimism up in the religious language of hope. Optimism believes that divine intervention will somehow grant us what we desire. It is as if God serves a purpose which is to give us what we want. However, optimism, in desiring a brighter future, can make a person ignore the present. An example is when a marketing director, in the face of a market collapse, is optimistic about the future because he or she bases that confidence on a positive forecast.

Hope, on the other hand, does not ignore difficulties but instead is able to endure and persevere because it is born of an encounter with Christ the Lord. It is a deeply theological virtue because it is founded on the relationship with the Risen Christ, an affiliation cemented by prayer and faith. In the context of a connexion with the Lord, what does it mean to have hope and therefore be joyful? For example, what is there to be hopeful of when one is saddled with a retarded child? He will never get better. If anything, living in a techno-efficient world, the child is just a waste of resources. Efficiency, while it is a good value, in the past had also engender the Nazi’s programme of eliminating those who do not fit the narrative of perfection.

The problem with optimism is that it is unable to deal with the failure of a future expectation. Therefore, what answer can we give to those who are “hoping” that their retarded child becomes better? The list goes on. A cancer survivor, in remission, whose case has now become active again. Or someone who sat for an examination in our public service but is continuously defeated by the racial quota.

How can these people live in hope? How is it possible to live with the disappointment that the temporal or near future is not going to be better? And not only to live with the reality of disasters and yet to be joyful.

Hope, even though it is confident of the future, it does not promise a rosy path ahead. Instead the confidence of hope gives us the strength to weather our disappointments. Even though one may be steeped in suffering and yet one is not defeated by it. St Paul in his 2nd Letter to the Corinthians said this: “We are in difficulties on all sides but never cornered; we see no answer to our problems but never despair; we have been persecuted but never deserted; knocked down but never killed”. It is this hope that grants us, not an optimism but rather the perseverance to carry the Cross into a future filled with Christ and His promise of eternal life.

All the longings that we have in our hearts are actually directed to this promise of the future. We seek wholeness, completion and happiness. Between our hunger for happiness and the completion of our longing is an inescapable truth: the lacrimarum valle—the valley of tear. Therefore what hope does is to ground the believer in the certainty that our longing and our desire will not be disappointed because of Christ Jesus who having rose from the death has conquered eternal damnation. In other words, Jesus Christ is the ultimate answer to our longing and because it was, in the first place, put there by Him, He will not frustrate our desire for true happiness but totally fulfil it. That is hope and it is this certainty that gives us joy amidst the struggles of our time.

Finally, language is perhaps instructive. We used to say, “Enjoy yourself” or “Enjoy the cake” or “Enjoy your holiday”. What has happened is that we no longer say it that way. Instead, we just say “Enjoy”. To enjoy oneself, the cakeor the holiday has a sensible connotation to it. We enjoy something as it were, and that is sensible or material. But we have since used the word “enjoy” in itself which has thereby severed the word from its material moorings and perhaps elevated it to a spiritual realm. In other words, we dare to rejoice even when not feeling it or having any sensible attachment to it. Because hopeful joy is born from our encounter with the Risen Christ. His conquest of death gives us the foundation for trusting in God. Such a joy is distinct from fleeting happiness. Without the Risen Christ, we can only rely on optimism because without a life beyond death, we are condemned to search for the resolution of life’s vicissitudes in this temporal realm. Only with the Risen Christ clearly in our mind that we have hope and therefore we dare to rejoice. Hope is founded on Christ who is the reason for the joy that we hold in our hearts. It is the same hope that allowed a prisoner of WWII to scrawl this on a wall: “I believe in the sun even when it is not shining. I believe in love even when not feeling it. I believe in God even when He is silent”.

2nd Sunday of Advent Year A 2025

The 1st Sunday of Advent focuses on waiting as a way to welcome Christ’s coming. Today we will encounter the figure of John the Baptist. He is the prophet par excellence with regard to preparation for the coming of Christ.

The 1st Reading presents a vision of a future which is inspiring and alluring. Firstly, it lists the characteristics of a coming descendant of Jesse. Secondly, it paints a portrait of the reign this future Child will bring. The notion of the wolf living with the lamb, the panther lying down with the kid, the calf and the lion feeding together is reminiscent of a hoped-for future. In fact, a wall across from the United Nations’ building in New York takes its inspiration from another prophecy of Isaiah where a future will come when men beat swords into ploughshares—echo of the 1st Reading from last Sunday.

We are preparing ourselves for this moment to come.

Yet the Gospel provides us with the roadmap to the time when we welcome this great figure who will bring about the change. The spotlight falls on John the Baptist. He comes in the tradition of a great figure in Israel’s collective memory—Prophet Elijah who preached both repentance and reform. Notably he addressed the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

He did not mince his words by calling them a brood of vipers, warning them of the coming retribution. The Pharisees and the Sadducees did not take that lying down. They fought back which gave an opportunity for John to place himself within the context of salvation. He prepares the people with a baptism of repentance whereas the Christ will baptise with the Holy Spirit and fire. The 2nd Reading gives us the reason for Christ’s coming. He will be a Saviour for all mankind.

What is left for us is to follow John’s prescription so that we can be saved. Like the Pharisees and Sadducees, we prepare ourselves through the repentance from sin and through the reform of our lives. Perhaps in light of the invitation to avail oneself of Landings, the programme designed to welcome returning Catholics, we might want to speak of repentance and reform in the context of managing our expectations.

The programme to welcome people home is premised on inviting them to experience God’s love and mercy. God is merciful and He waits for our return.But what do we expect when we return? The experience of the returning Prodigal Son may set up a kind of expectation which for many of us borders on no consequence. God does intend all of us to be saved. But God also must respect our personal decision with its attendant consequences. This is the part which many of us may fail to appreciate.

We have come to believe that when God is merciful, He makes no expectation of us. Let us give an example. Christianity preaches love and forgiveness. Someone comes into the office of the Church and is abusive. When challenged the person says, “Aren’t Christians supposed to be loving and merciful”? At this, I suspect many Christians will immediately try not to offend the person or even try to placate the person.

The truth is God’s consequent will is just and fair because it respects the decision that a person has taken. In other words, there must be accountability.

In the Gospel, John the Baptist excoriated the Pharisees and Sadducees for their hypocrisy even as he preached a baptism of repentance. He did tell those who came seeking for him to behave justly and to be morally upright.

If you look at all the readings in the liturgy especially when they point to afuture reality as depicted by Isaiah, they are actually expressions of God’s antecedent will. He wills us to be saved and He wants us to be saved. But He also respects our decisions which in a way determines His consequent will.

It brings us back to Landings and a need to balance our expectations. God is merciful and He indeed wants His sons and daughters to experience His forgiveness. But God is also just and righteous as He expects His sons and daughters to leave their sins behind. The Prodigal Son who returned, had come to his senses before making the decision to leave behind his life of debauchery to go back to his Father.

Likewise, in this season of waiting and preparing for the Lord’s coming, we are invited to judge our lives, to shine a spotlight on our personal undertakings and to see where changes need to be made so that we can welcome the Lord when He truly comes.

John is truly a voice that cries in the wilderness. It is not easy to repent and reform our lives. Easier to celebrate Christmas NOW rather than to sweep our souls clean as we wait for the coming of the Lord. We all want a better world, the one whose imagery is forged onto the wall outside of the United Nations. It is an outrageous future, a vision which everyone wants it to come true. But that vision where swords are hammered into ploughshares can only collectively take shape when we have individually begun our repentance and our reformation. Thus, to prepare ourselves for Christ coming and for His reign to take shape, we are invited with the help of His grace to become a better version of ourselves.

1st Sunday of Advent Year A 2025

Last Sunday we concluded Year C with Christ the King and this weekend, we enter Year A’s Advent, a season to help us prepare for the coming of the King.

“The people who walk in darkness have seen a great light”. It is a line from a hymn which is deeply evocative of what Advent is supposed to be. Just as well that in the northern hemisphere the nights are long and waiting for daybreak, waiting for the sun to rise is part of the experience of living in darkness for most part of the day.

However, we have lost the ability to wait. More so when the Christmas lights are already up. Interestingly the toponym for the final stop of the Camino reveals the importance of light in darkness. The word “Compostela” from Santiago de Compostela can mean the field at the end of the stars. In a night sky polluted by light, it is not easy to make out the stars let alone be guided by their light. But in those days, when artificial light was restricted to candles, oil lamps and open fires, the stars above the skies provide enough glow to guide in darkness. Pilgrims who walked at night found their way to Santiago via the illumination of the Milky Way.

To recover the spirit of waiting, of anticipation, Advent is therefore the darkness which helps us to appreciate the coming of light. More than light pollution, life has also been sped up since to the point that time seems to have lost its organic nature. Growth or development which is organic requires the passage of time. A seed needs time to germinate. Cheese needs time to mature and wine needs time to age. Whereas today our processes are synthetic. They reflect who we perceive ourselves to be. We determine our destiny because time waits for no man. We hurry our processes so that our destiny might arrive sooner rather than later.

Recently the clergy went for their annual discernment retreat. The central concern there was on the adoption of the synodal process for our diocese. One of the priests quietly remarked that it has been nearly 60 years since Vatican II Council and we have not even fully implemented the mandated renewal. In fact, right now the main struggle in the Church remains the Council’s proper interpretation. And now we are thinking that the so-called synodal Church can be reality in a period of less than 5 years. There is a belief that the future of the Church is synodal and thus we are in a rush to shape the synodal Church.

Time is of the essence. Indeed, it is but it is certainly not the lack or shortage of time which presents the problem. Rather it is our lack of appreciation for the nature of time. What seems to be organic in its rhythm and development is now deemed to be artificially-driven or synthetically manufactured. In other words, we are rushed by commercial considerations and impelled by demand for instant gratification. The virtue of waiting patiently has been eroded by the need to be satisfied immediately. We want results not today but yesterday.

As we prepare for Christ, we must wait. Time requires that we wait for Him to come. But waiting has become a curse. Take a look at the car-washes surrounding the Cathedral’s vicinity. Observe what the foreign workers do when they have no cars to wash Do they sit and wait? No. They are all peering into their mobile devices, streaming the latest content etc or updating their online presence. The scene is repeated in our waiting rooms be they a hospital, a government agency, an airport etc. Everyone is filling up time with activities, distractions and pre-occupations because we fear waiting. We must fill our minds with endless entertainment.

Waiting is not merely inaction or passivity. It is most intense because one waits for the Lord’s timing. God’s timing is not chronos but kairos. Chronos is the time that ticks away and it follows sequentially. Second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day etc. It can be painful because we must bear its passage. Given that we are activity-oriented, chronos can be excruciating because there is nothing to do as time ticks away and we end up feeling unproductive. On the other hand, Kairos is qualitative. How does one appreciate the nature of kairos? Spending an hour with a loved one can feel like a lifetime. One barely notices the passage of time when one is engaged meaningfully. As someone has remarked about a second accidentally touching a hot iron feels like a lifetime and a lifetime with a beloved feels like a second.

Hence, if we have no patience, chronos can only be painful and boring. Even if we were to fill up that time with endless entertainment, at the end of it, we will still be left with a feeling of emptiness or dissatisfaction. Whereas patience means that we allow time to slowly unfold so that miracles can unfold too. The 2nd Reading today warns us against drunken orgies, promiscuities or licentiousness, wrangling or jealousy. The point here is that when we are waiting for God to reveal Himself, our temptation is to pack up chronological time with activities because we are fearful of the emptiness and the pain of waiting. The usual Thursday Adoration is a good example. The silence before Christ can be unnerving and as such the impulse is to fill the two hours with soothing music in order to distract us from the possibility of encountering God.

For God to show Himself, kairos requires patience as well as vigilance. Furthermore, it is fortified by hope because it is waiting for God to work on us. It requires that we allow the purification to take place in us. We will appreciate God’s grace better when we give Him space to break into our lives.

In a way, you can say that we are already celebrating Christmas. We are eating more, shopping more and maybe travelling more. It is that time of the year. But in the midst of all these activities that seem to do more, we should also clear space, that is, give time for God. Silence is a powerful medium because it stills the soul so that God’s rhythm can be detected. We do much but at the same time, we must leave much not to be rushed through.

As we invite Jesus to come, we must pray. As the silent Adoration on Thursday is an indication for us, we must pray for the strength to wait and not be seduced by the urge to fill our chronological time with activities. Instead for kairos to happen, we need the strength that comes from prayer, to wait for the coming of the Lord.

Christ the King Year C 2025

In 1925, Pope Pius XI, through the encyclical “Quas primas” instituted the Solemnity of Christ the King. This Sunday should mark its centenary anniversary. Even though it was a 100 years ago when the Pope instituted this feast, its history stretches back in time. It was not as if the Pope suddenly thought of declaring the Kingship of Christ. In fact, 1925 was the 16th centenary of the Council of Nicæa of which the Nicene Creed is recited at every solemn Mass. There we acknowledge and acclaim that “His Kingdom will have no end”.

The impetus in 1925 for this feast was to call our attention to the development of totalitarian forms of governance in the years between the two great wars. Firstly, progress of industrialisation depended on the development of science and technology. More and more the canon or the measure of knowledge had become restrictive, in the sense that, scientific knowledge is perceived to be the only knowledge. The result can only mean that religion is sidelined to private belief. When faith becomes non-essential to the organisation of life, religion becomes useless. In that way, secularism paved the path for the rise in anti-clericalism in Catholic countries like Spain, Mexico and Brazil. Secondly, Communism gained its foothold in Russia and soon enough choked the countries behind the Iron Curtain. Thirdly, Fascism reared its head in Italy, Germany, Spain, Brazil and even Japan.

The Church, through Pius XI, pushed back against this move to “privatise” religion with the consequence of rendering it irrelevant. By proclaiming Christ as King, the Pope intended to draw attention to the social Kingship of Christ. It countered the modernist errors of relegating religious expressions to the margins of society thereby restricting it to a purely private plane. In other words, religion was becoming superfluous. The crisis of the modernism was the secularising of public and private life. God is sidelined when He should be at the centre of life and civilisation. The cure was to re-establish the reign of Christ over all individuals, families and peoples.

In terms of power and its exercise, the model of Christ’s Kingship is found in the Gospel. Ours is a crucified King. Nailed to the Cross, He is straddled between two thieves. The imagery of a Man hanging on the Cross runs counter to the word that “royalty” connotes. Pomp and pageantry, tarred with the brush of extravagance and wrapped in the excesses of power and status are not what one would think of when one encounters the bruised and bloodied Body of a King.

The King in the Gospel has no earthly power. The crowd, the leaders, the soldiers and even one of the thieves did not recognise His Kingship. Ironically the signage above the crucifix read, Jesus Christ, King of the Jews. Yet, He could not even commute the punishment imposed on the repentant thief. Compared to Mark, Matthew and John’s Gospel, the Lucan Jesus manifested His power through the forgiveness of sins and the promise of paradise to the thief who desired to be saved. In this lowly King, the repentant thief found his salvation. In other words, Christ displayed His strength through the sacrifice of His life in order to ransom slaves.

Christ is King not because we declare Him or announce Him to be. In fact, the present shape or structure of society today cannot comprehend the monarchical system. Has it become irrelevant to even suggests of Christ’s Kingship?

The relevance of this title is found in both in the examples of men or women and Christ Himself. The examples shown by men or women are a plenty. Herod, was King when he murdered the Innocents. Our notion of royalty is another good example where we mistake pomp and pageantry as a nobility of spirit. The noble spirits who are clothed in pomp and pageantry are a few and far between—King Henry II the Emperor, King Edward the Confessor, Queen Elizabeth of Hungary and her namesake Queen Elizabeth of Portugal, etc. These are Kings and Queens in the image of the Prince of Peace.

These Kings and Queens are monarchs only because they live Jesus. Earthly men and woman are fallen creatures and they abuse their power. Jesus Christ did not and have never abused His authority. The saints who are Kings, Queens, Princes and Princesses are saints only because they follow Him. Some even have to sacrifice their own lives because they follow the only King who is truly a Royal Person.

The Kingship of Christ is established through His sacrifice on the Cross. His love for humanity showed that the Kingdom is not built upon this temporal world. “Mine is not a Kingdom of this world”. It is an eternal and a spiritual Kingdom as He ruled over all things created.

Thus, Christ will be King if we listen to His voice. He is the Good Shepherd who leads us through His Church. He is the Word of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. We live according to His example when we act in conformity to His will and His teachings. We exercise His Kingship by controlling our unruly senses and by reaching out to others in service of the greater good. Our morals should consist of ensuring that Christ can reign through our behaviour. Christ the King is not a title of pomposity. Instead we should not let our acclamation be empty gestures but full of the promise of Christ being alive in our lives.

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C 2025

I had a conversation with someone the other day. This person goes for Mass every day and receives Holy Communion. I asked the person whether regular Confession was a part of the spiritual discipline and the answer was simply “No”. We are familiar with the phenomenon of “fat-shaming” and let me assure you that this is not in any way a kind of “sacramental-shaming”. This person can be any one of us.

Next week is the ultimate Sunday of the liturgical year and we will mark it as Christ the King. The readings towards the final Sunday have been directing our attention to the end of time, that is, the “eschaton”. Characteristic of the eschaton is our reckoning or our accountability. We will be judged and to be accountable, we are urged to be faithful through our perseverance. Consistency is a mark of perseverance.

The example of regularly attending Mass but irregularly going for Confession, is a form of sacramental inconsistency. This is not an attempt at sacramental-shaming. Rather, consistency is best observed in how we bridge our belief with our behaviour. How can we make sure that our actions match our assertions. In other words, how is this worked out in our sacramental practice?

Any person who goes for daily Mass but does not go for regular Confession is simply inconsistent. Why? Presumably daily Mass is motivated by the belief that Holy Communion is necessary nourishment for eternal life. But the hesitation at Confession does not make sense. How can one Sacrament be believed to be from Christ and the other is feared?

Consistency is a hallmark of fidelity and faithfulness to Christ is expressed through a consistent manner of living. Both Confession and Communion are sacramental expressions of diligent discipleship in Christ. The question is why are we stressing on regular Confession?

As we wind down Ordinary Time, the liturgy reminds us of the end of time. I had a parent and by no means the parent is alone in this scenario. Seriously straining to get ahead materially but sadly spiritually shallow. The concern is not that the parent was tepid or lukewarm. The annoyance was that I had to control my tongue. Right at the tip, I wanted to lash out at the person but thankfully I did not. I performed the baptism as requested for a child according to the ritual.

Unfortunately what marks us as human is, sadly, inconsistency. The steady practice of the faith is central to the Sundays close to Christ the King. Noticed how the examples mentioned above do not point to a particular gender because a person or a parent can be a man or a woman. The point is any one of us can be a person who is inconsistent. The reason for the neutral description is to respect privacy. If a person chooses not to practise the faith or chooses to live inconsistent with the faith, that person who has made a choice should be respected. For example, a couple living in a irregular union wants to have a child baptised. Both the man and the woman have decided that they do not intend to live according to what their Catholic faith requires of them. Fair enough, right? But according to Canon Law, there must be reasonable hope that a child to be baptised be brought in the practice of the faith and thus, the problem arises when the couple, in insisting on baptism, wants the Church to be a part of their inconsistency.

What was at the tip of my tongue with respect to the parent who wanted a child baptised?

I wanted to tell the parent that every single sen or cent garnered or accumulated, will never be taken through the portal of death. None of what we own, possess or hoard will or can ever enter heaven. We arrived in the world naked and when we return to the dust from which we came, we bring nothing with us. We may have achieved and accumulated. We may have scaled the pinnacle of success but in the end, God will not look at any of these material accomplishments.

He will look at the heart because where the heart is, there is also the treasure. We may have forgotten this truth because the lure of materialism is simply overwhelming.

To be fair, in the Genesis’ Creation narrative, God saw the material universe that He had created as good. Here, there is no repudiation of prosperity or plenty. So it is not a rich-shaming exercise. But coincidentally the month of November is also known as the month of the dead. It is a bit like the 7th lunar month of the Hungry Ghost. This year’s All Souls Day, what was noticeable at the Catholic graveyard, short of burning cars, condos, cash, cellular phones and credit cards, was food being offered to the dead. Never mind the earthly comforts and convenience burnt, at the base of the practice of leaving food for the dead is really a materialistic philosophy.

What is more in line with the month to remember the dead is the colour black. On All Souls Day, a black chasuble was worn because it was a meaningful memento mori, a reminder that there is a world beyond the material. If anything, what is called for when we think of death are two things. Firstly, if we care for our physical well-being, we should care even more for our spiritual soul. Secondly, the focus on eternity requires that we be consistent in the way we look at the world and also live our lives.

Perhaps going for regular Confessions makes a lot more sense at this time of the year. Like Saint Paul, many of us do not do what we should. We acknowledge that sin is wrong and yet we continue to lie, cheat, hurt other people’s reputation etc. We should not be surprised by our inconsistency. We speak of untimely demise, that is, people who die before their time. The underlying assumption is that there is a normal timeline which we are entitled to. To be born, to live, to have a productive life and to die at a ripe old age. The jarring disruption of an untimely death is a kind of memento mori to remind us of our eternal destiny, to jog and to jolt us to live according to that destiny that we have been called to. Our life can be snatched away at any moment because we are not meant to live forever in this temporal world. Settle our business now while we can before it is too late. If we are receiving Holy Communion consistently, then find time to also go for Confession.

Dedication of the Lateran Basilica 2025

Last Sunday was All Souls. The commemoration of the dead ranks higher than an Ordinary Sunday and so it takes precedence over the 31st Sunday. Today is the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica. The official title for the Cathedral is rather mouthful. I got this off the internet. The Major Papal, Patriarchal and Roman Archbasilica, Metropolitan and Primatial Cathedral of the Most Holy Saviour and Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist in Lateran, Mother and Head of All Churches in Rome and in the World. Once again, this feast ranks higher than an Ordinary Sunday. We are commemorating the dedication that was done in AD324 by Pope Sylvester I.

Think of a country, like Australia and the cities that pop up in the mind are Sydney, Melbourne or Perth. These are metropolis but the capital of the country is Canberra. Likewise, when we think of Catholic Church in Rome, we naturally associate it with or link it to St Peter’s Basilica as the most important Church. The truth is, the Lateran Basilica houses the “cathedra” or the ecclesiastical seat of the Bishop of Rome, who is the Roman Pontiff, the Pope. The Lateran Basilica ranks higher than St. Peter’s, and it is the only one given the title of “Archbasilica”. On its façade, there is an abbreviated Latin inscription, “Clemens XII Pont Max Anno V Christo Salvatori In Hon SS Ioan Bapt et Evang.” Translated, this means “Pope Clement XII, in the fifth year [of his Pontificate], dedicated this building to Christ the Saviour, in honour of Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist”.

Here we are to commemorate this dedication. To focus on a building sounds rather antiquated and out of date. Who cares about a building? Except for what the civil authorities might be interested in, what we now called a heritage building etc. If we were developers, renovation would be harder because of an existing heritage building whereas knocking down a building and building it up from scratch makes so much more commercial sense.

So, how can we make sense of this dedication of a building?

To appreciate the dedication, we begin with a jump back into our recent history. At Vatican Council II there was a tectonic shift in our theology with regard to our understanding of the word Church. How to describe the Church?

At Vatican II, the emphasis on the notion of Church was that it refers more to the People of God. It was a major change because now our focus is on the community rather than on a building. It corresponded to the zeitgeist or the spirit of the age. This communitarian concept is less formal and more egalitarian as it moved the emphasis onto the Church as more of a covenanted community. What it highlighted was our common call to holiness. The People of God and the common priesthood of the laity were both democratic and less hierarchical. A good example of this kind of attitude amongst the so-called “enlightened” people of that time was “Don’t call me Father. Call me by my name”.

Emphasising the experience of the community of the people of God can have a rather dampening effect on the sacramental and hierarchical character of the Church which is represented by the notion of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ. As a Divine institution, the Church has a sacramental character which in turn gives it a hierarchical structure. Implied in the notion of Christ being the Head with the Church as His Body is a ranking or a flow in terms of power.

The Church is both the Body of Christ and also the People of God. The first image comes from the New Testament and the second from the Old Testament. Both these emphases are important. The People of God highlights the Church as a movement of pilgrims in an “already but not yet” position. The Body of Christ focuses on the divine origin of the Church. If Jesus Christ is the Sacrament of the Father, then the Church is the Sacrament of Jesus Christ. As such a building is important. We know this from the definition of what a Sacrament is, that is, it is an outward sign of inward grace. Thus the church building is considered sacramental in the sense that the external structure symbolises the faithful within.

As the Church stepped into the modern world, somehow we seem to over-emphasise the notion of God’s people with the result that we also downplay the Church’s important Divine and Mystical elements. When the profane, meaning the secular world, is celebrated, it does not take much for the sacred, meaning the Church building, to be neglected. It explains plausibly why the dedication of the Basilica would be considered as an outdated celebration. We have been formed by the zeitgeist which considers the people as the primary description of what the Church is. But, the Church is not and cannot be just a sociological affiliation of people who share the same interest or even the same faith. Instead, we are incorporated into the Church through the Sacrament of Baptism. We are united by the Sacraments and bound together into the Body of Christ.

The concept Church itself is derived from two etymologies which have biblical bases and they highlight both these emphases.

The first is derived from a covenant. Ekklesia. Meaning “to called out from”. We are a people that is called from all nations to be an assembly that belongs to God. Ekklesia might sound foreign but it is not. We are familiar with it. For example, the Immaculate Conception Church is located on Jalan Gereja which is derived from Portuguese Igreha and the word is related to Ekklesia. Cognate words are like Ecclesiology or Basic Ecclesial Community. All these related words embody who we are as a people of God.

The second is derived from belonging. Kuriakemeans “of the Lord” or “belonging to the Lord”. Here again, this word is not alien to us. We refer to the penitential part of the Mass as the “Kyrie” and we sing “Kyrie eleison”, that is, “Lord have mercy”. It is the source of the English word “Church” and it came via the Germanic word “Kirche”. In Scotland, the Kirk is a reference to the Church of Scotland. More importantly, the word Church also denotes the sacred space belonging to the worship of God.

Outward sign of inward grace. The Church building is an external structure of the people within.

At times when we have renovation or church building, conversation can feel like this. “Why waste money? Why do we need this etc”? Land or space and buildings or physical structures are sacramental. To help us understand why space and structure are emotive, perhaps we should pose this scenario. The Gaza problem is right in our face. Can we not ship all those people to some desolate desert and house them there? After all, there is plenty of similar sand and stones and should that not be enough? The point is the so-called Palestinians cling to their homeland because it gives them a sense of identity.

Sometimes we hear criticisms that a country that has class and culture and yet peopled by a citizenry that is crude and coarse. Instinctively we react to the incoherence between a country which has beautiful buildings and yet it has “ugly uncivilised” people. On the contrary, a graceful nation will not erect or stomach ugly architecture.

A dirty house is usually a reflection of a troubled soul. Take a look at my office and you know what I mean. Perhaps it makes sense why the celebration of a dedication of the Basilica and a beautiful building. Christ is the Head and the Church is His Body. A majestic Church or Cathedral is therefore a sacrament of the glorified Mystical Body of Christ.

A sacred building is therefore the special image of the Church which is God’s temple built from living stones. The dedication of the Lateran Basilica reminds us to be the living stones for Christ to build His Body. A visible Church building is a visible sign and symbol of God’s Kingdom to come. It would be good for us to have a beautiful Cathedral. It would also be great for us to have noble Catholics inside this beautiful Cathedral.

All Souls Day Year C 2025 (replacing 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C)

We have no Gloria today because All Souls Day ranks higher than a Sunday in Ordinary Time. We have been focussing on the mercy of God and in fact that is the theme of the Readings for Year C’s 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time. In the 1st Reading, God corrects the sinner gently and waits for him or her to repent. In other words, God is slow to anger and rich in mercy.

Yet today we celebrate All Souls Day. If He is compassionate, how do we reconcile God’s mercy and the need to pray for souls.

Slogans have a way of expanding our minds and yet they are not entirely precise in their meaning. They are certainly catchy because they appeal to our sentiments and are persuasive by associating us with positive emotions. The repetition of slogans makes us feel good but sometimes they are nothing more than window dressings with no association to reality. A good example is how we frequently highlight an attribute of God by describing Him as merciful. In fact, we are lulled to believe that God is merciful to the point of a fault.

However, the liturgical language we have is a bit more sober. Yes, we celebrate the mercy of God and yet the caution is that we should never be overly familiar or presumptuous. An example comes to mind. When the bread and the wine have been prepared, the congregation is invited by the priest to: “Pray, brethren, that my sacrifice and yours MAY BE acceptable to God, the almighty Father”. Why is it that we use the words MAY BE and not ARE?

It is a prayer of supplication and it belongs to those who ask or beseech from the Lord not to be presumptuous. MAY BE suggests that God might be merciful enough to accept our oblation. In other words, God is merciful but we are not presuming that mercy because His mercy is ours only by condescension and not by right. This brings us to why All Souls Day is so important for us.

When Christ hung on the Cross, there were two thieves with Him. One on each side. The one who was repentant asked to be remembered in heaven. And Christ promised him that “today you will be with Me in paradise”. That promise is presumably premised on Christ’s forgiveness and therefore salvation was assured for him. Yet, Christ did not commute the suffering of the repentant thief.

Why? Sins have consequences.

The whole system of the Church’s indulgence is precisely to deal with the consequences of sins. An indulgence, according to Catholic teaching is a remission of the temporal punishment due for sins that have already been forgiven. In other words, forgiveness is one thing but there is still a price to pay for our sins.

In God there is always mercy but in Him there is also justice. Whilst the mercy of God forgives our sins, the justice of God requires that we make good our repentance. But the problem we may face is that our sense of mercy is coupled with “forgetfulness”. It means that when we forgive, we are meant to forget or worse still, “pretend that the past does not matter”.

Boyz to Men collaborated in a catchy duet with Mariah Carey: “And I know you shining down on me from heaven. Like so many friends we’ve lost along the way. And I know eventually we’ll be in heaven, one sweet day”. It was a hit but the context was the AIDS epidemic that was raging at the time. The point is not so much the sin but rather the presumption that heaven is assured.

Translated, it means that there are no consequences for sin because God is merciful. His justice is barely noticeable and what is assured is heaven. The Church only recently has started to push back against this presumption by avoiding the eulogisation of the dead during Mass.

A person may be virtuous and righteous and yet we must never presume. That is not because God is miserly in His mercy but rather because we, who are alive, should never believe that we are more compassionate than God is. God’s mercy desires that we be united with Him after death. But God’s justice requires that we be prepared for the reunion with Him after death. Remember that one soul who was invited to the wedding feast but who went without a proper wedding garment? He was thrown out for failing to meet the requirement. (Matt 22: 1-14).

Therefore, when we are presumptuous, we will give up on praying for the dead. The Catechism is quite clear about this. Paragraph 1054 of the CCC states that “those who die in God's grace and friendship imperfectly purified, although they are assured of their eternal salvation, undergo a purification after death, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of God.

Praying for the dead is a spiritual act of mercy and it is also an act of hope for instinctively we all know that souls in purgatory need our prayers. The number of names we have received, thus far, had been phenomenal. We offer Masses for the dead because to pray for them is an expression of hope in the Resurrection. As Jesus assured Martha that those who believe will live, even though they die.

Finally, death is the only pathway to eternity in Christ our Lord. But death is also a curtain. Once we have crossed the threshold of death, we enter into the mercy of God. We will not go to hell because we have retained the friendship of God but neither can we go to heaven immediately because we still need purification. That process of purification is something which the dead cannot do for themselves. The souls in purgatory, even though they can pray for us, they cannot pray for themselves but must depend on the Church Militant, the Church on earth to pray for them.

Finally, All Souls Day is dedicated to the dead, right? Not exactly. It is a day for us who are living. St John Chrysostom wrote. Now is the time of mercy. Later is the time of justice. As long as we are alive, it is the time of mercy, the time when we are repentant, to admit our faults and failures and to ask God for His forgiveness. Because later it will be the time of justice. When we die, the time for forgiveness is over. We will have to pay the price of our sins. It is infinitely better to be sorry now than later.

All Saint Day 2025

Vatican II represents a watershed moment in the Church. The early history of the Church was such that we commemorated the martyrs—those who laid down their lives for Christ. Only later did the Church begin to include the so-called confessors, meaning, those who lived holy lives but did not shed blood for their faith. The earliest form of the commemoration took place in spring, after Pentecost, but it was in the 9th century that the feast was fixed on 1st Nov by Pope Gregory IV.

A major milestone for Vatican II was the universal call to holiness. Saintliness is no longer the preserve of a few but it is an invitation to all the baptised. As such, All Saints Day makes more sense as it focuses on us. Why? Of what value is there for the Saints in heaven to commemorate All Saints Day? As they would say it here in this country, “shiok sendiri kah”? No, right? Instead, All Saints is for us to mark because as St Bernard of Clairvaux said, “Why should our praise and glorification, or even the celebration of this feast day mean anything to the saints? What do they care about earthly honours when their heavenly Father honours them by fulfilling the faithful promise of the Son? What does our commendation mean to them? The saints have no need of honour from us; neither does our devotion add the slightest thing to what is theirs. Clearly, if we venerate their memory, it serves us, not them. But I tell you, when I think of them, I feel myself inflamed by a tremendous yearning. Calling the saints to mind inspires, or rather arouses in us, above all else, a longing to enjoy their company, so desirable in itself. We long to share in the citizenship of heaven, to dwell with the spirits of the blessed, to join the assembly of patriarchs, the ranks of the prophets, the council of apostles, the great host of martyrs, the noble company of confessors and the choir of virgins. In short, we long to be united in happiness with all the saints”. (This long quotation is taken from today’s office of Reading).

We celebrate All Saints to remind us that each baptised faithful has a vocation to holiness. The path to holiness begins with this first step – the admission of our sins, and of our need for God’s transforming grace. The Saints cry out that salvation belongs to our God. And those who become saints constantly beg for God’s salvation. They have the privilege of seeing God’s face. In short, we should be aiming for heaven. As St Paul reminded the Philippians, “For us, our homeland is in heaven, and from heaven comes the Saviour we are waiting for, the Lord Jesus Christ, and He will transfigure these wretched bodies of ours into copies of His glorious body. He will do that by the same power with which He can subdue the whole universe”.

Today we come to celebrate the triumph of God’s grace in the lives of men and women, who were sinners like us but more than that we are also celebrating our potential possibility, meaning that we are reminded that if we cooperate with God’s grace, we who struggle through the difficulties of life can reach the everlasting glory of heaven. St Augustine said that God is glorified in His saints, and that when He crowns their merits and rewards them, then He is crowning the gift of grace which He has put in their hearts.

The grace that is ours is found in keeping the Beatitudes. As Jesus warned the Apostles, “If they hated me, they will hate you too”. Many of our saints bore their Cross and suffered through trials and tribulations and now they are enjoying the fruits of their faithfulness. We too can follow them by also keeping the Beatitudes.

Each one of us who decides to embrace the path of holiness must start with a personal and humble acknowledgement of our sinfulness, that is, we are sinners who long for God’s mercy and redemption. The Beatitudes thus bring us into our work, our kitchen, our Cathedral, our school, our room, our mall, our office. Holiness is found in places familiar and not in faraway places. And God’s response is always to fill us with his blessing, giving us a share in the very life of the Blessed One, so that – if we persevere in friendship with God – we might ourselves become Blessed, and join the company of his saints.

In conclusion, All Saints Day reminds us, firstly, of our divine destiny and it is the clarion call to holiness. Secondly, following the pattern of sacramental logic, the Church is the Sacrament of Jesus Christ as He as He is the Sacrament of God the Father—to have seen me is to have seen the Father. Analogically, we can say that the Saints are sacraments of holiness. If we aspire towards sanctity, how do we become holy? Perhaps All Saints Day, even though it commemorates the great multitude of unknown holiness, it is also for us to know individual saints apart from the favourite few—Theresa of Lisieux, Teresa of Calcutta, Pio of Pietrelcina, John Paul II, Carlos Acutis etc. How many of the Saints in the stained glass do you know? And of their lives? If humanity is represented by all shapes and sizes, saints too have all stripes and sorts. We have many examples to emulate. Perhaps it is time to read up and be inspired by them.

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C 2025

We explored a few themes in the last couple of Sundays beginning with faith, perseverance in prayer and today the Gospel shines a spotlight on the attitude we should have when we pray.

Last Sunday’s Gospel, a contrast was made between a just God and a biased judge. God cannot be compared with the unfair judge simply because He listens to the prayers of all and no one is excluded. However, the 1st Reading makes an important qualification. While He is omni-audient or all-hearing, He is also sensitive to the cry of the poor, the widow or the orphan.

In other words, there is a soft spot in God’s compassion. It is reflected in the Gospel today. Two men prayed. One belonged to an elite class. The other belonged to a despised category. The Pharisee should be the expert in prayer whilst the tax collector barely worthy or deserving to stand before the Lord.

Interestingly the Pharisee’s behaviour may be interpreted from the perspective of familiarity rather than of pride. It would be too easy to dismiss his behaviour as pride and in a way, the dismissal may lend us, the present-day readers, an opportunity to vilify him. It flows with the current trend of virtue-signalling.

What is virtue-signalling? Generally, it is to point out the deficiency of a person or a class of persons in order to make us appear or feel good. Even though the Pharisee himself may have been virtue-signalling, closer to reality is a proverb, attributed to the Chinese, which says that “makers of idols rarely believe in them”. It was not pride which kept the Pharisee apart. Rather it could be a contempt born from over-familiarity.

We all know what it is like to take things for granted especially when we are so familiar with a setting. A good example is observable within the context of sacred spaces. How often is it that we have little or no reverence or respect for the tabernacle in our Churches? Remember Moses’ first encounter with God, the Lord reminded him that the ground he stood on is sacred. Imagine someone who enters the sanctuary day in and day out. Ordinarily, when we are in front of people, we sort of make a bow or we genuflect etc but when no one is looking, it is so easy to forget that the Blessed Sacrament is reserved and business is carried out automatically, almost mechanically without second thoughts. Over-familiarity can have this effect on anyone. The Pharisee thought that as one “set apart specially for God” he was close to God and thus privileged.

The tax collector stood at a distance where he recognised his unworthiness which from the perspective of humility, presents him as a paragon of virtue. We resonate with this kind of meekness. But in truth, we do not exactly want to be that humble because in an age that needs to be noticed to be relevant, we have a nagging fear that we might be overlooked.

In the context of being the “bad guy”, nobody wants to be the Pharisee. Individuals are not alone because corporations too are rushing to identify with the “Tax Collector”. He is the only “worthy” actor in a game of who scores higher in the competition for adulation and admiration, that is, to be held up as a model of virtue or righteousness. The comparison and contrast between the Pharisee and Tax Collector could be an occasion of identification that leads to pride. “I am not like that”. While the contrast between the Pharisee and Tax Collector may be a form of virtue signalling but closer to the truth is that both the Pharisee and the Tax Collector may be alive in us.

Thus, the classifications of Pharisee or Tax Collector bring no advantage because it is the attitude that counts. These categories may have connotations associated with them but they are neutral in themselves. Neither one is about good nor bad. Rather it is the attitude that determines one’s standing before God. It does not truly matter for there may be Pharisees who are as humble as the Tax Collector and there may be Tax Collectors who are prouder than a Pharisee.

The attitude that accompanies our prayers is what concerns the Lord. The proud might struggle with humility but the reverse is also true in the sense that it is easy for a Tax Collector to become a Pharisee. For example, a poor person becoming rich may at times forget or even try to erase his or her past destitution. The point is this, the categories of rich or poor, good or bad, Pharisee or Tax Collector are not our focus. Attitude is.

When conversing with a person, we can sense how much a person is receptive to reality or to alternative points of view. When a person is full of himself or herself, whether a Pharisee or Tax Collector, it is next to impossible to get through to him or her. Likewise with regard to our prayers. We often think of prayers unanswered as if it were a God-problem. Meaning? When our prayers are unanswered we may leave with a disappointing sense that God had been deaf because He has not fulfilled our prayers. It appears that God does not deliver.

The Tax Collector who stood a distance away was heard by God because he was not full of himself. In fact, he felt his unworthiness very acutely. Sometimes God cannot or will not give us what we desire not because He is miserly but because we are too full of ourselves. When a person is full of himself or herself, nothing can penetrate, not even God. God’s silence could be due to our attitude which, in prayer, plays a crucial role in our relationship with Him. It is a reminder of how we ought to humble ourselves when we come before the Lord.

The moral we can learn here is that the Pharisee’s identity or sense of self was not shaped by who he truly is before God. In fact, he took pains to paint himself as not being an extortionist or an adulterer, as if that was enough. In a way, it is reminiscent of Adam’s postlapsarian experience. After God found them out, Adam blamed Eve for his sin. In other words, he defined himself as one whose sin was caused by Eve rather than accept the responsibility for his caving in to temptation. The Tax Collector stood before God accepting his sinfulness. That is the attitude we may want to possess when we come before God. We are nothing, not because we despise ourselves but because we are sinners who need God’s mercy. If we can stand before God, it is only because He has, as the 2nd Eucharistic Prayer reminds us, “held us worthy to be in His presence and minister to Him”.

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C 2025

There are 33 or 34 Sundays in Ordinary Time and the section of the Roman Missal that provides the Sunday’s Collect etc is thin and the sense that we are approaching the final Sundays of the year is when the book mark has few pages left. The theme of faith in God was covered by the 27th Sunday. Then gratitude for what God has done was taken up by the 28th Sunday. We continue to reflect on the attitudes that we bring to prayer in both the 29th and 30th Sundays.

What it means to pray is the point for today. The first imagery of prayer is Moses. Joshua was fighting against Amalek and as long as Moses lifted up his hands, the Israelite army gained the upper hand. Imagine an exhausted Moses with hands heavy from exhaustion and Aaron and Hur supporting prompting up his arms on both sides in order for Joshua to secure Israel’s victory. It is a compelling image which is, in a manner of speaking, repeated in the Gospel. The point is not to confuse the judge with a miserly God but to note the persistence of the widow. In praying persistently, the widow managed to change the mind of the unjust judge. Since God is not unjust, how much more would He listen to us if we were persistent in our praying.

Another word for persistence is regularity. Our idea of a life to the full is possibly governed by a certain notion of carefreeness. It exudes a spontaneity and vivacity suggesting that we are best when life has the least minimum rules that constraint. But the greatest freedom is not found in the absence of constraints but rather the ability to live a regular life. Regularity gives us a sense of order and stability. Ask any child who has to live with caprice. He or she will be unable to put down roots and later in life will struggle with commitment.

The Camino from which I have just returned from is the Northern route that more or less follows the coast of northern Spain. Fruitfulness notwithstanding, I did not like the passage for one reason. The section which we took to Santiago had a number of alternatives. Often enough the choices were between easy and hard. Weakened by Original Sin, human nature tends toward the lazy option. I would have preferred it if I had no choice but to walk because there was the only option available. It would have actually simplified life by reducing the temptation to embrace the path of least resistance.

The Catholic sensibility is marked by an appreciation of order expressed through rhythmic regularity. How does one describe a good Catholic spirituality? Daily prayer that keeps to a consistent schedule. Regular Weekly Mass attendance. Frequent Confession. These form good Catholic habits that will carry us along when times are rough and tough. A good illustration is driving. If you maintain a regular habit, you will soon find your habit in a way protecting you from making rash judgements and movements in your driving. For example, you are less likely to change lanes impulsively.

A regular and disciplined approach in our faith helps us to progress in our virtue and holiness. Prayer is central to this pursuit of holiness. Persistent prayer means that God is not our last resort but our first option. The journey of humanity, seen after Adam and Eve expulsion, observed in the escaping Israelites, has been marked by the struggle to put God first. We were created in the image and likeness of God but our perverted nature wants God to be shaped in our image and likeness. This we read in how soon after they had crossed the Red Sea, the Israelites already wanted a more accessible God when they fashioned the golden calf to worship.

God is faithful in our desire and effort to make His will sovereign in our lives. The idea of God’s faithfulness is a bit tricky for some of us. Somehow there is a sneaky feeling that our present understanding of God’s faithfulness is heavily entwined with materialism. He is our divine ATM, so to speak because we do say that God is providence and He provides for our material needs as He did with the manna given to the escaping Israelites.

Yet Christ hanging on the Cross is our example of what it means that God’s will be sovereign in our lives. Even as life drained out of Jesus, momentarily, He cried out at what He felt to be God’s abandonment. But in the end, He still signalled His commitment to the Father by breathing His last: It is accomplished.

Prayer, apart from asking from God, expressing our contrition, thanksgiving and praising Him is to further our commitment to follow God. Somehow God’s will is quite boring because our sense of fulfilment is shaped by the notion of how life to the full is often portrayed. Everywhere we are bombarded by imageries of plenty, of freedom and of pleasures. Doing God’s will or taking up one’s cross sounds like drudgery or even enslavement. Thus modernity offers “freedom” whereas God’s will binds and is mostly forbidding—cannot do this or cannot do that. There is no prize for guessing which we would choose.

St Paul urged Timothy to remain faithful to God’s word because sacred scripture provides the wisdom necessary for salvation. The ultimate prize to be won by our prayers is not what we ask for but what God has intended for us. That is a life which is far from material fulfilment. Submitting to God’s will is not enslavement but for Him to give us what we most need and that is our salvation.

In conclusion, prayer is the foundation of our relationship with God. It remains the surest connexion we have with God but ironically it is the first thing that we will sacrifice when faced with a wall of “busyness” and we give in to the noble reason of greater good we feel we can achieve through our frenetic activity. We give excuses that we can always pray later when in fact later, we sleep. Keep the prayer, keep the rules and later the rules will protect you and the prayers sustain you.