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 To focus on a building sounds rather antiquated and out of date.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.

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C 2025

With faith comes gratitude. With entitlement comes a pound of flesh. Today’s 1st Reading and Gospel give us pause to reflect on the attitude that we may want to embrace. Last Sunday’s focus was on faith. Appropriately, this Sunday, we turn to gratitude.

The background of both the 1st Reading and the Gospel is exclusion. Naaman and the Lepers are excluded from polite society. Interestingly, no matter how much of an advance we have made in society or as a civilisation, one thing for sure is that sinful humanity will find a way to segregate or to exclude. This exclusion may not even be wilful. For example, in our rush towards digitalisation, those born recently are frequently classified as digital natives. But the elderly have become digital orphans and excluded from the ever and fast-changing electronic landscape. How many of our elderly or the digital illiterates have been scammed?

The point is that exclusion is something we have to watch out for. Perhaps what Jesus remarked might be useful to remember: “The poor you will always have with you”. The Camino has confirmed this existential truth. We can all start out the same but we will never end the same. We can provide for an equality in opportunity but we can never force an equality of outcome without injustice to the natural order of things. There will be people who will be excluded, not wilfully but by the sheer truth that an equal outcome cannot be enforced. Now, in the case of those who have been left out, their salvation is in God. It makes sense that God is called the Father of orphans, widows and the poor simply because nature is simply unfair.

Thus, Naaman and the Lepers were able to see that blessings were not their entitlement. Rather they were gifted to them. When one has received a gift, one becomes a person of thanksgiving. Naaman found the true God and decided that he would now worship the God from Whom he had received the gift of healing. The Samaritan Leper came back to thank Jesus and praise God. 

Gratitude is a response of faith. In other words, it is faith in action. We give thanks to God for His bountiful love shown towards us. Perhaps it makes sense to look at Laudato si from this perspective. It is not so much this overarching fear of the destruction of the environment that spurs us into action. Rather we begin to take care of the world because God has gifted it to us. It is our gratitude toward the Lord’s kindness that we begin to look at the world differently.

What might prevent this gratitude is the attitude of entitlement. Without denying the pain that people can go through or suffer from, take the example of a child. Every child is really a gift from God. In this sense than, abortion is spitting in the face of God who desires to give. Childlessness on the other hand, painful as it is, is not a curse from God. We do not know why some can bear, some cannot. It could be due to the quirkiness of nature combined with our lifestyles. Suffice to say that from the natural point of view, not every married couple will succeed in bearing children. There is pain involved and this is not to deny that.

However, we take the example of a child who died. It is always tragic as any death before time is. Yet, it is a matter of faith and gratitude that one gives thanks to God for that life, no matter how brief it may have been. Everyone who comes into our lives and has made a difference is a gift. It has never been an entitlement. Rather, it is a privilege.

How often is it that we become angry with God or are disappointed by God for not giving us what we ask for. Along the Camino on a very wet day as I was walking, someone scrawled on the white line at the edge of the road, God is love. It was so random and in the rain, I was thinking what that meant. Does God’s love for me means I get everything I want? What if I do not get what I want, would God still be love?

Could we or would we ever give thanks to God for the little that we have? Like the mother whose baby died at 5 years old giving thanks to the Lord for the 5 years rather than for not having more than 5 years?

We have become so entitled that our gratitude is now part of our entitlement. Meaning? We thank God only because He has fulfilled our wishes. Otherwise we would never thank Him.

St Josephine Bakhita, a Canossian Sister who was abducted, abused and sold into slavery thanked her former abusers. She reflected, “if I were to meet those slave-traders that abducted me and those who tortured me, I would kneel down to them to kiss their hands, because, if it had not have been for them, I would not have become a Christian and religious woman”.

When we are entitled we will struggle to show gratitude. There will always never be enough for us to be thankful for. Profound gratitude is a radical orientation. Prayers should consists of asking, showing sorrow, giving thanks and praising. Most of the time we petition or we express sorrow. But the prayers to thank and to praise are frequently hinged on how much we can get. That is entitlement. To let go of that, we need to give thanks and to praise no matter what. It is not easy and it might take an entire lifetime to move from “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” to “Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thess 5:17-18). But like the Camino, no matter how hard the climb, the grace to be thankful is one step at a time. We will get to the summit of praise with the grace of God.

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C 2025

Habakkuk is not an ancient prophet. He could be classified as a “modern” one. He saw the injustice that existed during his lifetime. We too can notice the inequalities glaring back at us. Like us, Habbakuk cried out to a God who is seemingly silent and uncaring. But the Lord reminds him to have faith in the future and to continue living. Today’s prophets who fight can end up dispirited if they do not have faith that God will make right the situation that calls out for righteousness.

We are movers and shakers. We cannot sit still. In a way, we are keen to change the world for the better. It is a good attitude to have. Yet it might also lead to discouragement and disillusionment. Movers and shakers are performance-driven and also production-centred. In other words, we thrive on measurable results and count on successes. We have been bred to succeed and when we do not succeed, the result can be anxiety and depression.

Given that the organisation of the world we have is complex and knowledge about the universe is also immense there is a tendency to organise life through specialisation. The ever-increasing specialisation of knowledge has led to increasing fragmentation of our experience. With specialisation, we know more of less.

Sounds gibberish but take a look at our medical faculties. A doctor-friend told me that given his mother’s medical condition, it was a good thing that he himself is a doctor because specialisation has made the specialist an expert but he or she is often hampered by the lack of multi—disciplinary experiences. It made a wholistic diagnostic of his mother’s condition difficult. Does this sound familiar? And have you known of a person who had to be hospitalised but the doctors were unable to diagnose the condition? As a result, the person was subjected to a whole battery of tests and passed on from one specialist to another specialist.

The result of our inability to grasp the bigger picture and to solve a problem can create a sense of despair especially when we are unable to control our destiny.

If we are not the masters of our destiny, then who is? This is where Habakkuk comes in. His vision leads us along the path of trust and discipleship. We let God take charge and we keep faith with Him. Though we may be tempted by the need for results, what is best is to trust and have faith that God will come through for us.

Take a look at the Gospel. There are two themes inter-related. The first is how faith can do great wonders. What is faith? Remember the saying, “give God the best and not the rest”. For many of us, faith kicks in when we are helpless. God seems to be our fail-safe option and faith tends to be more like “I can do it first” rather than God is at the heart of all there is.

Perhaps the 2nd theme of Jesus in the Gospel on servanthood might be helpful. It is not about humility in service per se. Rather it is leaving all in the hands of God. It is a kind of attitude which can only be described of as letting God be God. This is where we will struggle because we like beings in charge and we need to be in control. We are afraid of letting go.

It is quite natural because humanity has been created a little less than a god. When we see a wrong, when we encounter a problem, we would want to rectify the situation because our human intelligence makes us problem-solvers.

The Camino pilgrimage has taught me one thing which I am still learning. Every journey undertaken, I seemed to have things which I had packed but did not need at all. The redundancies or fail-safe were never needed. The extra set of clothings that might come in handy. This gadget or that instrument. The point of faith is that God will meet us at the moment when we need Him most. That is faith. I must say that I have yet to learnt fully the meaning of having faith in the Lord’s Providence. But like the Camino, it is a life-long process of learning to trust. Perhaps death is the final act of faith that each one has to make because we can only enter eternity when we have placed ourselves fully into the loving embrace of God.

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C 2025

We remain with Prophet Amos who showed concern for the reality of inequality and perhaps we may also grow in the awareness that wealth can desensitise by making us apathetic towards the poor. In a sense riches is both a blessing and a curse and by highlighting the truth that wealth has a corroding effect on our compassion and our concern for the welfare of the less fortunate. If we have grown jaded, then this is the Church’s way of leading us back to the right path.

The shrinking of the known world enabled by easy travel and also the ubiquity of media streaming has brought the reality of poverty right before us. Anyone with a modicum of humanity will definitely find this to be unacceptable and as such there is a pressing need to alleviate poverty. Social studies have raised our awareness of societal inequalities and one of the movements which has come about from this heightened awareness is Liberation Theology. It takes the perspective of action on behalf of the poor. However, its application may also create a dichotomy which in a way pits one section of society against another. Usually the contention is between the “haves” and the “have nots”.

There is a large-scale disparity which according to the Prophet is unacceptable to God and we are called to right this inequality. In fact, more and more we have become aware of how God takes the side of the poor. Therefore the question before us is how we can, for want of a better phraseology, make something wrong something right. Sadly though, more than the existence of inequality, there is also a tendency to interpret reality through a dualistic lens. For example, we tend to look at life from the perspective of black and white with the corollary that white is associated with good and black with bad. Somehow in this difficult journey towards the attainment of a just society, the process would generally involve some forms of vilification. The rich are regularly painted as bad and poor are good. The rich are cruel and the poor are angels.

Will a dualistic typology help or will it create or foment resentment. However, and let this be clear that this is not a get-out-of-gaol card for the rich to justify, legitimise or even sanctify ignorance or apathy. There are rich and well-meaning people who have been hurt by the poor. The cheating, the lying, the stealing etc. A domestic helper can steal as well. Having said this, could such a statement also be a form of vilification of the poor, meaning that, that the rich easily blame the poor and so get away with having to do the right thing.

Bear with me because we live in an age of “hyper-sensitivity” and “trigger-warning”. We are easily offended because we are victims.

Perhaps a good way to deepen our conscience is to look at the stereo-typical “dumb foreign maid” who steals or the “stupid alien“ who does not know to take our food order etc. Many of them are educated. They have dreams too. But they just have no opportunities in their countries. In the Gospel, Abraham was named but in other places he has been described as “my father is a wandering Aramean”. What does that mean?

Many of our fore-parents came from India and China and they settled here. Many of them would have been poor and they struggled and despite challenges they rose to prominence. They had dreams too when they left in search of better opportunities etc. They succeeded and we are enjoying the fruits of their labour.

With regard to the current batches of many migrants within our country, do they not have dreams? Are not entitled to a better life or success?

The question is, would they want to come if they had a choice? Are they begging for punishment? Perhaps, the next time we are irritated by the stupidity of a poor person it might be good to remember that if given a choice, would the person serving us like to be in a position to be subservient or humiliated?

The idea of a better society is enticing and possibly we think that we need to make systemic changes. But systems can only compel our behaviour through the threats of coercion. Our focus on providing the mechanisms to engender change must take into consider the slow growth in conscience. In order to become more sensitive to societal inequality, growing a conscience is good start by becoming more aware of the plight of the poor. It is an awareness that arises from an acceptance that God has not intended injustice to be the status quo. That there is the poor is a result of sin but it does not belong to the active will of God.

The problem for many of us is that the richer we are the more we are in danger of blindness to inequality. On the other hand, there is no guarantee that even if we were to treat people well, they will not turn around to stab us in the back. The point is, we need to be responsible for our just behaviour. Take a look at Joseph’s behaviour when he found out that Mary was pregnant. There will be people who will cheat or betray us. And they can be rich or poor. But their unjust behaviour is no excuse for us not to live a righteous life.

Ultimately, we uphold and embrace a righteous life because it is pleasing to God and it is not dependent on whether others are living it. That the rich should be caring for the poor, there is no doubt. The parable of Dives and Lazarus tends to make us judge the rich as bad actors and Lazarus as the good protagonist. And that does not help us grow a better conscience. What might be more helpful is to be more conscious whether we be rich or poor, there are inequalities which need to be made right. Everyone is responsible through living righteously before the Lord.

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C 2025

In the 1st Reading, Amos stands as a figure of justice for he fought for the poor and condemned those who took advantage of them. He also warns that God will not forget those who have been unjust. Today we have a particular kind of Amos who apparently stands on the side of justice. The SJWs or Social Justice Warriors. Depending on the context, the definition carries a negative connotation. On the positive side, it refers to a passionate campaign on behalf of those who suffer injustice. Just like what Amos stood for. For others, whilst it describes advocacy for the voiceless, it frequently takes a superior position that cancels those who do not share the same viewpoint.

Amos remains a relevant figure in today’s world for there exists a gap between rich and poor which is not just abysmal but also quite unbridgeable. Jeff Bezos or people in the same shade of wealth like him and the common man or woman on the street might as well be existing in different universes.

On the one hand, standing up for justice is laudable. What we need to be conscious of is the phenomenon of being a sour grape. It describes a negative attitude towards wealth only because it is unattainable to the person who is seemingly fighting for justice. In fact, Glaucon, a character in Plato’s Republic, gave a cynical definition of justice. According to him, there are some who fight for justice not because they love justice but because they do not possess the power to be unjust and to get away with it.

Think about it. Some of our political leaders are corrupt because they have the power to be corrupt and best of all, they believe themselves to be untouchable. However, there is also the type who stood against corruption becoming corrupt as soon as they come into power. In the struggle for justice, we may want to be mindful or watchful of our relationship with wealth and power.

Both power and wealth are ordinary measures of success for us. The present philosophy of life is driven very much by production and performance. A cursory glance at our marketing communications confirms this theory. They are centred on access provided by wealth to a lifestyle which makes the wealthy an envy for those who are poor. The engine that drives our notion of a good life is very much powered by envy. Keeping up with the Jones is what they call it.

Thus, the Gospel provides a way to reflect on how we should treat in particular our relationship with prosperity and material plenty. In the parable Jesus brings out the idea that God must come first in our consideration.

The steward is praised for his astuteness. How? He had been caught wasteful and for that, he would be punished with the loss of employment. Somehow, he managed to secure for himself a future by renegotiating the debt owed to his master. That astuteness, and not his dishonesty, earned the praise of Jesus.

Even though money was involved but what the steward did was even better. He was able to manoeuvre and in a way brought to fore two points to consider. First, Jesus brought up the issue that it is basically impossible to serve God and mammon. Second, it is our duty and our salvation to prioritise one over the other, which is, to put God first over wealth. If God comes first, then wealth will have a role to play in our lives.

Years ago I read a quote attributed to St Teresa of Avila but now I am no longer sure if she did say this. Still it bears repeating because it shows us how we should treat money for what it is. “Money may be the Devil’s excrement, but it is certainly a good fertiliser”. If St Teresa did say that, then she knows what money is and what it is good for. In other words, how can we possess money or wealth without being possessed by it?

Our relationship with money is never in terms of possession but as the Gospel reminds us, the material universe is ours only in terms of stewardship. Thus the quantum we possess is basically the amount we are looking after and not the amount we “own”. The African proverb best illustrates this. “We do not inherit the world from our ancestors. We borrow it from our children”. We are basically stewards and servants.

This truly sounds like a communist manifesto which aims to centralise or “collectivise” wealth. But it is not. Rather it is to understand how wealth should serve us rather than be worshipped. We should neither fear wealth nor be controlled by it. And if we desire heaven, God has to come first whereas wealth has to serve us. It is not and never the other way around. This is the long-term view to take if we want to secure our place in eternity.

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C 2025 (Exaltation of the Cross).

The other day I was out for breakfast with a group of people. The Koay Teow Soup had already arrived but everyone was chatting, oblivious of the bowls on the table. What I did was to tap my forehead continuously hinting that we should make the sign of the Cross to say Grace before Meal. But no one noticed me. After a while I indicated to them that my forehead was already turning red from the non-stop tapping. They laughed because they had thought I was tapping because I was ruminating or having a headache.

Last Sunday, the theme was centred on discipleship. Translated, it means that when we follow Christ, there is cost to it. That cost has to be borne by us as Jesus Himself said: “Take up your cross and follow me”. Incidentally, the 24th Sunday this year has given way to the Exaltation of the Cross. For Catholics, the Cross, be it the Sign we make or the Crucifix holds a central place of reverence for us. Today’s feast honours Christ’s Cross as it commemorates the finding of the True Cross by St Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine. Apart from the cross as the price of discipleship, there is also another reality that belongs up to the Exaltation of the Cross. It is our sinfulness and thus the Cross also symbolises the power of Christ’s sacrifice which brought about our redemption and salvation.

The fact that we are sinners is brought out clearly in the three parables if we were to follow the actual 24th Sunday’s Gospel taken from Luke. Sin is analogous to being lost like the sheep, the coin and the son. In each case, redemption is demonstrated through searching,finding and looking out for. The shepherd searching for his lost sheep, the house-holder finding for his lost coin and finally the father looking out for the return of his son.

Sin may drive us away whereas the Cross draws us back by redeeming and saving us. In fact, to be lost is never the end of a chapter unless one intends it. It means that one must consciously reject God’s desire to save and as such be lost eternally in perdition. Thus, the son’s return to the father and in both the cases of the lost sheep and coin, the recovery is filled with joy and ecstasy. There is great rejoicing when sinners repent or return to the fold.

What should draw us towards God is that He is madly in love with us since He seems to long for our return. Therefore, the Exaltation of the Cross is not highlighting our need to suffer for our sins or even the necessity to suffer because we follow Christ. Instead, it is to recall the extent God will go to in order to ransom our souls. This theme radiates through the three readings today. The bronze serpent foreshadowed Christ lifted up on the Cross. St Paul reminds us how far Christ would descend in order to lift us up. In the Gospel, Christ on the Cross is the Saviour of the world.

If that be the case, should not an awareness of God’s yearning for us make humanity turn to Him in droves. Yet for a long time, the response has been lukewarm. What might be the problem?

Would it be true to state that even though we may be conscious that God loves us, it is still not attractive enough? Just like my cat which does not respond to me at all. She only searches for me when she needs food but otherwise there is no relationship at all, not when I call her. In other words, we need God when we are desperate and the only proper response He has is to grant us what we have asked for.

This less-than-attractive quality about God may be explained by our sense of sufficiency which is ironical as there exists a great hunger in us. The evidence of our immense longing is found in how much we are driven to accumulate. Have you noticed all the online shopping available to us? Lazada, Shein, Taobao, Shopee are merely material versions of the spiritual heaven that we actually desire. Apart from these online shopping channels, we are bombarded by some visions of “material” completion or satisfaction through the houses, latest electronic gadgets, club memberships or modes of travel we acquire. Actually, the notion of sin can be explained by this desire or hunger for God. We are looking for Him but in the wrong places.

At the same time, there is a phenomenon which might help us appreciate the cross. This year, there seems to be a positive uptick in Catholic membership in France as witnessed by the higher number of baptisms or increased Church attendance in the UK amongst men. What might be a plausible explanation for this change or this increase? Could it be that Covid Pandemic clarified our vision by pointing out the emptiness of materialism as it uncovers the nagging truth that material accumulation cannot truly satisfy the human thirst for God?

Interestingly, a parallel and observable phenomenon took place in the 19th century. France underwent the upheaval of the Revolution that brought in “egalite, fraternite et liberte” (equality, brotherhood and freedom) and swept away the “ancien regime” of the monarchy. The catastrophe visited upon the Church in France, even though it was witnessed through the wave of de-Christianisation at the same time was paralleled by the rise in religious life. A good example is the Congregation of the Little Sisters of the Poor which was founded post—French Revolution.

Perhaps, what is most revealing is that the human spirit will languish when unchallenged. When our hearts are coarsened by materialism, our spirits will lose their vitality. A lack of challenge will result in a faith which is tepid or lukewarm. What is necessary for the Church to become vibrant is when we have challenges to face and obstacles to overcome. We should not be afraid of challenges but instead look at them as opportunities for growth in our holiness. In other words, to follow Jesus, we need to carry our crosses. Having said that, the Cross does not need us for its own validation. We need the Cross not merely because it is the instrument that saves us from our sins. Rather, we need the Cross if our souls were not to languish from the lack of challenge, impoverished by an absence of courage and character to bear the Cross.

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C 2025

I like that Jesus has set his face like flint. He is halfway through His journey to Jerusalem. There is a resoluteness in His behaviour. Crowds follow Him and in the context of this pilgrimage, He calculated for them the true cost of what it means to be a disciple.

The price of discipleship is the Cross.

What does it mean to take up the Cross and follow Him. Our collective consciousness usually prices or costs it as suffering and our embrace of it. Yet it simply does not make sense within modernity to hold up an ideal from which our culture is trying so hard to escape from. We are terrified of pain. How many women no longer give birth naturally but have to depend on epidural to relieve the pain of childbirth? This is not a derogatory statement about the fear of pain but an observation that there exists a contradiction. It is a challenge because on the one hand, we emphasise a pain-free philosophy of life while at the same time hold up a suffering Christ as an ideal to embrace.

The 2nd Reading might open a way to appreciate better the cost of a discipleship which is unbloody. St Paul was already in prison and possibly had need for the services of Onesimus, a slave. Yet he decided to return Onesimus to his former owner, Philemon. He sent him back not as a slave but rather as a brother. Paul exhorted Philemon to accept Onesimus like he would accept Paul himself.

This is one meaning of the Cross. It is not measured in suffering per se but it calls for us to prioritise our values etc. In a way prioritisation will involve giving up ideas which we hold to be important in order for us to embrace better values. The adage that “in the Kingdom of grace, the good can be the enemy of the better” illustrates this perfectly. What we have hitherto held to be a good may sometimes even be a hinder to our perfection. It happens in many situations where and when we are emotionally invested.

For example, I have an idea of who I am and I like myself because I have cultivated this image for the longest time and it has served me well. There will be self-denial involved, which is painful, when I need to give up my cherished notion of who I am because I have been called to something better. Like Philemon who may, before his baptism, believed in possessing Onesimus as slave. Now he has to treat him as an equal which would require adjustment in his worldview and in the treatment of Onesimus. Having to change one’s mindset can be emotionally distressing and even more painful than physical suffering.

A Chinese father who must accept that his daughter will marry an Indian son-in-law or a Malayalee father who must welcome a Tamil daughter in law. Racism or all kinds of “-ism” are lenses or prejudices which inform the manner we view world. These may have to change just like the Israelites, who in order to enter the Promised Land, must depart from Egypt.

Conversion is precisely leaving Egypt for the Holy Land—a turning away from sin in order to live a life of grace. This is where the Cross is to be found. The use of strong language helps to illustrate the cost. It is not a glorification of pain or suffering. If so, it would be masochistic. Rather, growth will involve the pain of forsaking what does not give life in order to embrace a purposeful life.

However, the idea that discipleship is costly is not the issue here. Rather our greatest challenge is to create the condition for a person to embrace discipleship no matter the cost. At the most basic level, we use fear like the threat of punishment to command behaviour. Countries regularly use their penal system to elicit proper behaviour. At best, fines can corral behaviour but what happens when punishment cannot be enforced. Fear of hell can be a motivation. But look at our children. As they reach 15 or 16, when threats no longer work, then what happens to good behaviour?

Our enticement or motivation should go beyond fear to love. A divinely-inspired spirituality comes from a space whereby we are drawn rather than driven toward giving up what is good for the better. And that kind of a draw can only come from an experience of the love of God. It springs from a growing awareness or consciousness of what pulls me away from life and what makes me edge towards life.
What can we do to make sure each person can come into contact with this loving God? How can we secure the space where God can reach out to a person? This is no set formulary that when it is applied will guarantee a positive outcome.

What might be helpful is faithfulness on the part of the Church with regard to the patrimony she has received. She safeguards the Sacraments and provides them because every Sacrament is the action of Christ Himself mediated through the Church He founded. If the Eucharist is how Jesus feeds His people through the Sacrament of Holy Orders, then the Church must provide access to Holy Communion. The space for the encounter with Christ can be facilitated through the beauty of the liturgy, the architecture and our behaviour and these provide the proper condition for people to encounter and experience God.

God is not a watch-maker Deity who is distant from His creation. But neither is He involved in such a manner as to imposed Himself on us. Instead He is a God who invites us to share His life and be filled with Him. His Son, Jesus, on the Cross, opened His side, not only to pour upon humanity the cleansing waters of the Sacrament of Baptism and feed the Church with the Sacramental Food of His Body and Blood but He opened His side to invite us to a part of His life. This year’s theme of Hope is exactly what the Church wants to do with regard to allowing people to encounter the Lord’s mercy and love and be drawn to Him. Once we have fallen in love with Him, then like Mary and John, we will have the courage to stand beneath the Cross whether it is bloody or not.

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C 2025

Today the Gospel speaks of charity and humility. These virtues remind me of an experience and a conversation. The experience was in the Jesuit noviciate. My fellow novice’s father was a self-made multi-millionaire. Sometimes his family would invite me to join their dinners at swanky hotels. The elderly man never forgot his roots. He made sure that the porters who served him were properly tipped.

A conversation I had the other day centred on the current manpower shortage etc. The reality is that parents all have great dreams for their children. The usual success path usually revolves around the familiar and tangible professions—doctors, engineers, lawyers, accountants etc. No parent, if they truly care and love their children, would aim low. Everyone aims for one of these exalted careers. Perhaps these are already outdated as youths today prefer to be tech-titans or have ambitions to build their online empires.

Can anyone picture a society consisting only of doctors, surgeons, accountants, engineers, lawyers or Elon Musks? In other words, what happens if everyone in the world were a leader. The Chinese proverb rings true—a mountain cannot have two tigers. Therein a disturbing idea that suggests fatalism or determinism. It might even reveal the sort of God we worship. For example, “Does God ever will a person to be a rubbish collector?” which begs the question of what sort of a rubbish God we have. Furthermore, does it sound like predestination to say that someone is born to be a rubbish collector?

The reality is we do need rubbish collectors. We need “slaves” whose lives are dispensable because they carry out the “D” works for us. Dirty, dangerous, demanding, demeaning or difficult. There are jobs which fall within these descriptions. Who is going to be performing all these work? Would it be patronising if the answer is “foreigners”? Does that not suggest that these people are fated and condemned?

The virtue of humility is not really associated with the menial work that needs to be done. What is there to be humble about when it is already servile. Rather, humility is for those who have moved up the ladder of social hierarchy and who are recognised as leaders. Like the father of the Jesuit who arrived in Malaysia penniless and subsequently becoming one of the richest men in the country. He rose up but he never forgot his roots.

Not forgetting where we come from is helpful because there will be people who are born to serve. It is fairly reasonable to conclude that not everyone will be a leader. Leaders must never forget to look after those who may have to remain at the bottom of the rung.

Genuine leadership is sorely lacking in an era of immense wealth and prosperity. Furthermore, we are suffering a crisis of leadership. As leaders falter, society instinctively clings to moral credibility as a standard. It is fascinating that much of this crisis is centred on the personal failure of leaders, to the point that moral failure has become a cause for depression. Take the example of the octogenarian politician who stepped up, seemingly to put an end to “kleptocracy” but he was just a replay of the politics of race, religion and self-enrichment. How not to be depressed if we cannot escape the culture of corruption?

Disappointment with poor leadership can be an excuse for some to abandon the personal duty toward excellence. For example, feeling betrayed by their religious leaders, we have a cadre of young people who has publicly stated that they are spiritual but not religious. While they retain a personal belief in God, they shy away from any form of external affiliation. It could be self-protection, a kind of insurance against the failure of leadership. Succumbing to spiritual suicide, families have stopped going to Church because they are disgusted by a priest or are disappointed by the treatment they had received. Our relationship with God or affiliation with Christianity cannot be premised on whether or not someone else is living up to standard.

Furthermore, the response to excellence gives meaning to the readings. True leadership is a vocation to humility and a calling to remember the poor. It is not just about lowering oneself or making oneself less prominent. We are living in an age where the generation of wealth is phenomenal. There are people who are not just rich but uber rich. The gap between the rich and the poor has widened into an invincible chasm. And the ease of wastage is scandalous in the light of those who are poor and have no access to proper nutrition etc.

Leaders must shepherd humbly and charitably. Wealth may be a blessing but it is also burden of responsibility. The irony of human aspiration is that it is based on an aversion towards poverty. We desire plenty because we fear destitution, as if, being poor were a condemnation or a curse. Hence, the Gospel proposes a divine compensation.

Do not look for material reward because God Himself will provide. In other words, trust that God will never fail us and secondly, earthly poverty is only temporary. It may last one’s entire lifetime but it cannot stretch into eternity. Even though, there will be times when it will feel as if one has lost everything on earth. However, what is true is that God who sees all things done even in secret, will compensate for what we lack in this life.

In a way, both charity and humility reveal how fleeting or contingent life can be. There is a quality of temporality in which fortunes can change hands in the blink of an eye. It would do well for us to remember that. Here today, gone tomorrow. Rich today, poor tomorrow. Store up our treasures in heaven and not on earth. The higher we go, the more we should love and be mindful of those whom God has placed under our care.

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C 2025

In general, if we follow the mind of the Church, ideally, a Catholic should marry a Catholic. It is preferable because complications may arise from a union known as a mixed marriage or a disparity of worship. Firstly, the statement does not mean that a Catholic-Catholic marriage would be problem-free. Secondly, the complications are associated with the possibility of defection from the faith. Even then, the law does not prohibit a Catholic from marrying a baptised non-Catholic, that is, a Protestant, in which case, the union is called a mixed marriage. The law also does not prohibit a Catholic from marrying a non-baptised person, in which case, the union is known as disparity of worship or cult. In both these cases, for a marriage to be contracted, dispensation has to be sought.

At the prenuptial enquiry, I often remark to the non-Catholic party (Protestant or otherwise) that he or she is “sway” (unlucky) to marry a Catholic because he or she has to be “subjected” to Catholic laws. It is unfair but there is an explanation for it.

Today’s Gospel may help us understand this unfairness. Christ tells us that the road to salvation is via a narrow gate. This requirement suggests a Catholic or anyone who claims to be His follower is called to a higher standard. Easy discipleship is not our vocation. At times, people believe that conversion, that is, baptism is the doorway to a better or “blessed” (material-wise, that is) life.

It is not. Baptism is just a decision to follow Christ. There is no easy way to take up the Cross and to follow Him. The vocation to follow the Lord must be seen in the larger context of the 1st Reading. God intends everyone’s salvation. He will gather into His fold, humanity from all the nations to witness to His glory and be saved. The 2nd Reading also makes sense in light of the universal vocation to move towards God. Human that we are, we are subject to the struggles of being faithful to our vocation. Right now we are bombarded by imageries of the conflict and hunger in Gaza. They are graphic and shocking because they are visible. But there is a battlefield far more latent or hidden and it is the human heart where the true struggles between good and evil take place.

Thus the 2nd Reading addresses this truth of our struggles. The author of the Hebrews looks at punishment from God as a form of discipline and rehabilitation. Sadly we have an aversion towards punishment and this distaste arises possibly from a mistaken notion that love should be permissive tolerancecoupled with the absence of prohibition.

What might not be apparent for most is that within the Church’s legal system, punishment or penalty is actually an expression of love that balances both the criteria of justice and mercy. Justice requires that we be accountable for our actions. Mercy is articulated through compassion for those who have fallen.

Excommunication for example. It sounds forbidding and even punishing. But it is not as condemnatory as it is to allow one to recognise the wrong, the sin or the evil committed and to seek reconciliation through the Sacrament of Penance. It is never meant to be a complete or utter separation of a person from the community. It allows sinners to repent, to restore relationship and to return to the community. In fact, an excommunicated person is still under obligation to attend Mass on Sunday, just that he or she is prohibited from receiving Holy Communion.

Love is not permissive. The system of sanction in the Church is medicinal for aperson to come to his or her senses because the true nature of love is that it draws boundaries. It is not tolerance or acceptance of anything and everything. Boundaries are created by love because there are behaviours which are harmful to the lover as well as to the beloved. A man loves his wife and in order for his love to be true, he draws lines which he will not cross. The love he has will never visit upon another woman.

It is the same for how God loves us. He desires our good which allows us to look at His salvific will for humanity. It is universal and as such the Gospel does not discuss or label who will be saved except that salvation depends on a person following Christ. Our behaviour should mirror Christ in the acceptance of God’s will. It means that we will follow Him closely without counting cost or reward.

This is perhaps one of the greatest challenges we face because of our hesitation with regard to suffering. It is a natural inclination to shy from pain because of the innate mechanism of self-preservation. Like gold, we need to be tested by fire and purified because those who claim discipleship are not automatically saved. Those who call out “Lord, Lord” will not necessarily be admitted into heaven. As the Gospel says, others will come to take our place if we are not careful about the state of our souls. That is the standard of God’s invitation.

More than ever, now that we have lost our social net, to follow Christ has to be a conscious personal choice. In the past, we could in some ways depend on religion being a social phenomenon. I know of a housing area near to a neighbouring parish where almost every household is Catholic. The shared commonality in terms of rites and festivals can buoy a person up, even a lukewarm Catholic. But as more of our social fabric is weakened by individualism, now one has to make a conscious choice to live according to what the faith teaches.

Without that commitment, one can be swept away easily by prevailing winds. Fundamental to the conscious choice of following Christ is to understand what it entails. We will have to sacrifice in order to follow Him. Is it worth it that one should deny oneself, give up sin and follow Him? For example, why are you here? To fulfil an obligation? Is that enough? In other words what makes it worth our while to sacrifice? The conundrum of St Augustine highlights a truth of an existence caught between now and eternity. He prayed, “Lord make me chaste but not yet”. We instinctively desire heaven but the allurement of this world is too much to give up.

It might help to recognise that whatever deal the world gives, it is always a bad deal when compared to a life with Christ in heaven. That is the only way we can overcome the world and it is to know that nothing measures up to a life withChrist our Lord. Our completed prayer room is named after Saint Carlos Acutis. He died at the age of 16. Even at his tender age he already knew what it meant to give everything up for Christ. In fact, he gave up his earthly life. He said this “Everyone is born as an original but many people end up dying as photocopies”. The aboriginality that we have been created in should give us a clue why we ought to live for Christ for He is the reason why we are here in the first place and that giving all for Him is the only logical action we can take.

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C 2025

To be baptised with the Holy Spirit and fire is awesome. It can be so amazing that at times nobody wants to stand close to us. The 1st Reading shows Jeremiah filled with zeal for the Lord’s Kingdom. It is fantastic that he was enthusiastically taken up by God’s cause and yet he was punished for that. Many do not like to stand next to a prophet because he or she can make us feel inadequate. Much like being in the company of “holy” people, those of us who are unholy will instinctively feel unworthy.

It is fitting that the author of the Hebrews in the 2nd Reading exhorts Christians to recognise the race for which they have entered and to persevere in running towards the final goal. And Jesus reminds His disciples that there will be frictions and rejections when one embraces His vision. It is a journey of faith for it is fraught with difficulties and rejection.

Human that we are, we have been trying to tame the Gospel. Christ’s warned the disciples that His message would bring about conflict. Christ did not come as much to establish a “new” Kingdom as to restore God’s values in this world. But we are innovative as well as resourceful. As a result, we try to mould or shape Jesus according to pragmatic and relevant criteria. In short, we need to bring Jesus up to speed to keep up with our times or to make Him more like us.

Chesterton was right when he pointed out a painful reality that “the Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried”. As uncomfortable as that sounds, he hit the nail on the head. We continue to dumb Jesus down so that He becomes more palatable since we are unable to rise to the occasion. A saccharine Jesus is pleasant enough to swallow.

It could be true that we fear the cost of Christianity to be too high to pay. The highest price is paid with our lives. It is a known fact that true discipleship will lead to rejection. Jesus repeatedly warned His disciples that this was to be the case. “If they have treated Me shabbily, do you not think that they will treat you badly?”.

This is the objective reality of what it means to follow Christ and to speak His truth. But subjectively, there could be ways for a prophet who dares to speak the truth. Raining down fire and brimstone could be one way of doing it. We tell it like it is. Perhaps what is true and what needs to be said does not necessarily make us right. St Teresa of Avila, the great reformer of the Carmelites, apparently prayed to God to spare us from gloomy saints. Amongst the holy nuns she lived with, there were some who were serious with holiness that they had forgotten to laugh.

There must be a way to be prophetic that embraces both the seriousness of the message we stand for and yet at the same time not impose our righteousness on others. There may be a way to be authoritative without sending out an authoritarian vibe.

Perhaps we begin by not taking ourselves too seriously. St Laurence whose feast is in August held fast to the faith and for that he was martyred. According to his executioner, he was burnt on top of a gridiron. At one point, he told the executioner, “Turn me over, I am done on this side”. Whether or not he said that he embodied a spirit that was at once steadfast and yet cheeky. He was audacious as if he were in control but more profoundly, his brazenness came from a confidence that his story would not end with his death.

There is a Gospel waiting to be proclaimed. The Christian message is true and just living out our Gospel values is prophetic already. We will stand out even without attempting to. What has happened is that given the different ideological bents there are, when we believe that we own the truth, we may have to shout louder because everyone is dug into his or her position or we might apply pressure, overt or covert, in making sure that others toe the line of what we hold to be true. A good example is Laudato si. We may be facing a climate crisis of cosmic proportion. What is not helpful is the pressure, openly enforced or stealthily applied, for us to subscribe to all the climate initiatives that are put out and also the guilt-tripping for failure to comply. People can either be excluded or shamed for not embracing the ecological gospel.

To be prophetic, the question is how we inspire rather than shame people to action. In other words, how to keep our faith without compromising and yet without being self-righteous?

It is endurance with a spirit of joyfulness. A person with terminal cancer is visited by a friend. There is really a gloom surrounding a person whose death is imminent and it is easy to be sucked into the cloud of depression. Drawing a person out of that gloom does not cure the cancer but it can help the person not to waste whatever time he or she has left oppressed by the thought of imminent death but to spend every minute available joyfully.

Life is tough, and yet our faith calls us to live it heroically. However, this heroism does not have to be sad. The joy of the Gospel is such that maybe it is not the truth that attracts others. It is an ability to be joyful that gives hope to others who are looking for a reason to believe. The RCIA or OCIA has begun. It is a programme which centres on the truth of Christ’s Gospel. In itself, should that not be attractive enough? Do we not hold truth to be a paramount desire? And yet, what is most attractive for seekers is to encounter the joy of those who are taken up by the truth of what they believe in. We are naturally uneasy with judgementalism which is a form of being right that overbearingly makes others feel bad. Thus our genius is to hold on to truth but at the same time inspire others simply because we love the truth and are happy to live it to the full.