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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.
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.
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.
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.
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”.
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.
