3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 2021

The previous week, we bade farewell to the Baptist. In fact, he bowed out with a key message that discipleship should always be a signpost—one who points in the direction of the Bridegroom. The best we should be is the groomsman. This week we continue to explore the idea of discipleship.

Both the first reading and the Gospel tie the notion of discipleship with the message of repentance. But, as the experience of Jonah suggests, repentance is more than just the absence of sin. It is more active in the sense that one turns away from in order to turn towards. Consider the dramatic conversion of the first reading. It was a time of xenophobia as Israel was in exile. She was a victim playing the blame-game especially of the foreigners in whose land she was now disenfranchised. And of all things, Jonah was asked to preach to these aliens. To his surprise, one and all citizen of Nineveh turned away from sin and turned towards God.

The second reading provides the basis for this conversion. In order to turn away from sin and turn towards God, St Paul speaks of the provisional nature of the world. The world as he knew it was going to end therefore the Corinthians were advised not put all their trust in the world. The context was clear—St Paul thought he was living within the imminence of the Parousia. He, like many of his contemporaries, believed that Jesus’ return was sooner rather than later. On the one hand, such an advice can sound depressing, if not distressing, especially in a time like this, a raging pandemic, when everything is uncertain. But, on the other hand, it is living with a hopeful sense of dependence and a recognition of how reliant we are on God and how much our lives should be directed to Him.

Within this framework of St Paul’s provisional cosmos, where we are shown that nothing is more contingent than a raging pandemic, the question is, how can we be disciples in a passing world?

Apart from the economic havoc, an issue that this pandemic has underscored is the reality of death. That this pandemic has been devastating, in every sense of the word, is true. However, our reaction might just reveal where we are and where we have come from. To a large extent, the prevailing attitude has been to ignore death. This outright attempt to deny mortality has largely been unsuccessful, which may explain why we want to control the narrative. A hedonistic lifestyle is a good illustration. Live today to the hilt without a thought for tomorrow. A more excellent example is the phenomenon of euthanasia. It shows that even at the hour of death, we want to be in control. Whilst the acceptance of assisted death is not as widespread here as it is in some parts of the world, perhaps what is more indicative of that determination to disregard death is the mushrooming of nursing homes. They simply symbolise our desire to shift death away from our line of vison. Stating this is in no way a judgement of those who have an elderly parent in a home.

Instead, it is trying to make sense of St Paul’s exhortation in the second reading. Death, which is a “passing away”, can teach us how to live in this world that is itself fading away. But it is complicated because along with disdaining death, we may have also lost faith in God. Faith helps us navigate death as well as gives dignity to human existence because it sustains and helps us grapple with the incomprehensible.

What has clearly replaced a faith in God is another faith—a belief in the engineering prowess of our technical, social and political skills; that these are adequate when facing the full reality of life and death. As such, our faith in God is nothing more than a faith in ourselves. If not, faith just means that God must bend to our will.

Whether we like it or not, Covid has merely laid bare this nakedness of ours, that is, we can die and our faith in God is weak. A firm faith would have allowed us to perceive death, while not positively willed by God, nevertheless, it would be permissively allowed by Him as part of His mysterious plan of salvation. Faith in God gives us a perspective which may allow us to hold death, if not like St Francis of Assisi who considered death to be a sister, at least death as the essential key in the passageway to eternity. Therefore, Covid has done two things. It has brought death squarely right in front of our face as well as challenge our faith in God.

This is where our discipleship comes in. Christ called the four of them for a purpose—to be fishers of men. Of course, at the top of every vocation is the call to salvation. Everyone is called for salvation. However, salvation ought to be worked out in the concrete. So, how do we exercise this discipleship in a situation where the fear of death has become almost a deity to be worshipped? How can we be disciples of faith in God who remains mysterious in the workings of the world?

Firstly, as disciple we must recognise that here and now is not all there is. To say the least, our civilisation is in existential shock as our “normal” has been so disrupted that we struggle to expand our vocabulary to embrace the “new normal”. Our novel arrangements have been, at best “disincarnational” since we have veered toward the glorification of the virtual, and at worst, flounder helplessly in mere materialism as they have left many adrift and alone in facing the incomprehensible abyss of death. There must be more to life than the here and now. This brings us to the second point.

A disciple has to live beyond the here and now. A disciple of hope with a knowledge that is grounded, neither endorsing reckless fatalism (takdir) nor enmeshed in destructive fear. This hope allows us to hold the tension between what is necessary in health measures—masks, social distancing, avoidance of large crowds and what is essential to us as social beings—meaningful contact that is human in expression. Ultimately, our faith accepts that no solution, this side of eternity and apart from God, is fool proof. “To live forever” is not eternity.

In a world searching for direction amidst uncertainty, the disciple is called to be the solid Gospel of Hope. Today has been designated as the Sunday of the Word of God. This Word of God, the Gospel of Hope is where one encounters a rightly ordered perspective where the mortal is understood through the lens of the immortal. We are called to a fearlessness (not recklessness) in the face of death so as to be a sign of hope in a God who, despite all the despair surrounding us, is working for our salvation. Therefore, our hope is not in the cure, even if it is a great good, but rather our hope is in God because faith in Him is the only vaccine against a madness of death without eternity.

7th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C 2019

The Gospel this weekend continues with last week’s instruction. What Jesus teaches is not unfamiliar to us. Both Matthew and Luke focus on the Beatitudes but with different target audiences and emphases. Matthew’s teaching is directed at the disciples and the crowds whereas Luke’s target is specifically the disciples alone. Matthew ends His teaching on the love of one’s enemies with an invitation to imitate God’s perfection whereas Luke concludes with an affirmation of God’s mercy.

All in, whether we imitate God’s perfection or His mercy, we are told that to be His disciples, we must love our enemies, turn the other cheek, give to those who ask, do unto others, lend without expecting repayment, judge not lest we be judged.

Just listening to the Gospel, we get a sense that Christian discipleship is truly a tall order. It is really a “big” word.

By big, I do not mean hard. Sure, the discipleship of Jesus is a tough calling; a tall order to fulfil. We are easily slighted in this age of entitlement and victimhood. Whenever I am stopped for a random security check at London Heathrow, the first thought that goes through my mind would be, “Why? Is it because I am Asian”? Closer to home, when stopped by the police, what goes through the mind is, “Because I am Chinese”? We readily flash the minority card, be it race, religion, sexual orientation and now gender identity. Therefore, it is not surprising that we will find ways to mitigate or soften Jesus’ teaching about love or walking the extra mile. And, even if we were to embrace the notion of love for one’s enemies, I am certain we will find some forms of “justice” to say that love does not extend to the categories of people like terrorists or a rapists. In would appear that Jesus’ definition of love is quite unlivable. What is worse is that loving those who love us is not love at all.

So, how are we to live up to the love that He has taught us? How do we embrace the difficulty of His teaching and where do you think the call to love most felt?

Judging from our electronic experiences, our universe appears to be divided into different echo chambers. The Church is not untouched by the world as she too is fractured by camps. We all inhabit eco-systems which we routinely encounter beliefs or opinions that coincide with ours, so that whatever we hold to be “true” is reinforced while alternative ideas are disregarded. Furthermore, there is a virtualisation of religion, in the sense that what we want to believe is easily accessible through the electronic medium and it does not help that we suffer from herd mentality. Check out your online new provider like the BBC app. There you can personalise your news in such a way that only the content which confirms your bias is delivered to you. In everyday life, do you have friends who forwards you pictures, messages, videos and emails? Do you realise what you see is filtered through the preferences of your friends? If you have a friend who is slightly paranoid, you are bound to be fed a daily dose of paranoia. And if you are paranoid, it amplifies it.

In this polarised and fragmented world, religion can be reduced to a form of social therapy. Jesus functions better as counsellor rather than a Saviour. Religion works more as a therapy rather than a belief system that aligns us to God. In this fearful and lonely world we encounter a strong antagonism towards what is different or the other. Nevermind walking the extra mile or lending to others without expecting any returns. If Najib calls himself the King of Trolls, he is definitely not the only one because cyberspace is veiled by an anonymity that engenders a meanness that is nothing short of vicious. What matters for many are the “likes” as if number were a measure of right. And guess what? People just need to be “right/like” for they fear the loneliness of being “wrong”. Yet, the need to be right does not always lead us to the path of good or truth. One could be “right” or factual and yet be espousing some form evil or falsehood.

The discipleship proposed by Jesus hinges on a person rather than on an idea. One the one hand, the whole shebang about “loving one’s neighbour, turning one’s cheek and etc” which is good in itself can also be a form of ideology. Would it not be nice if everyone got on together and there was more kindness in the world? We have tried to engineer this world before—bridging the gap between what the world is and how the world should be. A good example is how liberation theology proposed a socio-political vision of humanity whereby the “kingdom” of God had a better chance of success if it were conceived more as a “kindom” of God—not a hierarchical top down “kingdom” structure but a democratic system of kinship equality. The fact is, Communism had tried to impose an order of social fairness for everyone but without the person of Jesus Christ, any system that imposes itself on humanity will fail because it is merely an ideology, an idea without heart and without mercy. On the other hand, St Paul describes this link between what the world is and how the world should be as being modelled upon the heavenly man. Thus, discipleship is a “big” word in the sense that its horizon extends beyond the natural domain as it reaches into the supernatural realm.

Clearly, what Jesus asks of us is beyond our natural grasp as it requires a strength that comes from above. This strength is not derived from an ideology no matter how alluring it is. Instead strength comes from an encounter. In Deus caritas est, Benedict XVI furthers St Paul’s understanding: Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.

This new horizon and decisive direction projects  a “big” picture which we often fail to see if we focus on mere ideology. It is big because it invites us to believe in a God who definitely sees more than we dare to acknowledge. It is a trust which places one’s life into the hands others and finally to God. This is exemplified in the lives of countless men and women who do not fight back not because they are cowards but because they trust in God. We would think it stupid but for them, justice is not confined to this earthly existence life and punishment does not end with incarceration. Now you see why Catholics offer Masses for souls in purgatory. However, St John Paul II, in our recent past, showed us the power of forgiveness and love for one’s enemy when he went to the gaol to forgive and be reconciled with the man who had tried to assassinate him.

Hence, to do what Jesus asked of us, we need to fall in love with Him. We can take our cue from our Protestant brethrens when they term it as a “personal” relationship. When I love Him, then I will love even the person whom I do not like or even know. Seeing with the eyes of Christ, I can give others much more than what I can normally give. How can we fall in love with Him? Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity spend an hour with Him present in the Blessed Sacrament especially before they step out to do works of charity. This Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the one who gave up His life as He embraced His Father’s will. That which gave meaning to His life gives us ours too especially when life turns messy. It is only in Him that we gain the courage to see selfishness as folly and accept self-sacrifice as triumph. For Him, because we love Him dearly, we dare to love our enemies and when everything we have is taken away—pride, wealth and health—and we still say we are victorious, it is then that our discipleship will shine brightly and pulsate with the light and love of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.

3rd Sunday of Lent Year A

There is something familiar, almost tragic in the life this woman whom Christ encountered at Jacob’s Well. We could called her the Woman in the Well. Why? She had been married five times before and the sixth man she was with has left her empty and disappointed. What better describes her predicament than a well—a dark hole of incomprehensibility, of meaninglessness? St Augustine likened her condition to that of sin; the sixth man representing sin which only left her dissatisfied. Some of us may be living in wells even if we are not conscious of them; driven in despair or despondency to search for fulfilment in wrong peoples and places. Sounds familiar?

At the centre of today’s Gospel was a woman’s search and how an encounter with Christ led to her freedom from sin. A few scriptural facts may help us appreciate this encounter. First, Christ seemed out of touch with the reality that His people and the Samaritans did not always see eye to eye. There existed a wall of prejudices between these two groups of people. Second, social convention had already condemned this Samaritan to invisibility. She had to come to the well at an hour where people generally did not. Third, this was the longest conversation recorded in the four Gospels. The disciples may have been scandalised by His behaviour judging by their surprise.

The encounter was not a case of Christ deliberately over-turning social taboos. Instead, Christ broke barriers indicating that no human condition is outside the purview of His salvation. The conversation began simply with the reality of physical thirst that subsequently led to a fulfilment of her spiritual search. In the course of the dialogue, she told him, and we know it was lie, that she did not have a husband. There seemed to be a play between the numbers six and seven; with six indicating incompleteness and seven signifying perfection. Sin can never fulfil us no matter how promising. In her state of sinfulness, one can say that Christ came into her life as the “seventh” man. In meeting this seventh man and opening up to Him, she found what she had always been longing for.

We can surmise that she longed for the completion which only God can give—and not sin. St Augustine aptly described this craving as a restless heart searching for God. In a sense, she typified the search of every human heart. In searching, we often think in terms of objects or goals—money, fame, recognition, people and even God. But, our searching, at the same time, reveals what we truly need and who we really are—we long to be known, to be accepted and to be loved. To be known, accepted and loved are expressions of the search for who we are truly and what makes us whole.

Unfortunately, the prevailing wisdom has narrowed our search for who we are truly and what makes us whole to self-esteem, self-love and self-fulfilment—a need to be recognised, to be accepted and to be remembered. Christ is the only one who can fulfil this search. He is the only mirror that can reflect our true self to us. In this respect, Lent’s penitence is a potent path to this encounter with Christ. We deny ourselves of food and creaturely comfort to quieten our distractions. We intensify our prayers in order to strip away any vestiges of resistance to Christ and we amplify our charity so that we can meet Christ in His brothers and sisters.

We can appreciate the connexion between sin and the search for who we truly are. The woman in the well symbolises the slavery of sin and the search for freedom from sin’s slavery represents the desire to be who we truly are. This is the irony of it all. Our search does not end when we have discovered Christ. Here, the statement does not mean that Christ does not fulfil us. Instead our search does not end with Christ because it continues with Him. This is important as we can glean from the stages that Christ led the Samaritan woman through. Have you ever felt that there was a time when you were closer to God and now you no longer feel Him? That is what I mean when our search has somewhat “stopped”. We associate the time and space which we had as definitive of our relationship with Christ our Lord. For example, the high or the ecstasy after baptism or a retreat. Just like the 1st Reading: The Israelites wanted to return to the “sin” of Egypt only because of its familiarity.

Our search continues with Christ entails that we journey with Him into the deserts, up the mountains, down the valleys and into the plains. Saying that our search does not end when we have discovered Christ means that once we have discovered Him, where He is, there we want to be too. This mean discipleship—one who follows closely and intimately. Thus, the woman at the well is really a story of discipleship. She represents the meaning of Christian conversion. Conversion is not simply shrugging off sin. It is also discipleship. After her conversion, she became the Good News to her people.

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Today, Christian discipleship is given two powerful images to help shape it. The context for this moulding or modelling comes just after Christ preached the paradoxical blessedness of the Beatitudes. To His disciples whom He had told to rejoice even if they were persecuted, He added these two defining characteristics: A Christian disciple must be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

What does it mean to be salt and light? The first reading speaks in terms of justice and the poor. Isaiah skilfully links the practice of justice and a caring concern for the poor to a genuine worship of God. And in that way, the disciple’s light will shine like the dawn.

But that is a bit lofty, is that not?

Perhaps what resonates with us is how religious belief must not lose its vital connexion with life. We use phrases like “practise what you preach” to encapsulate this connexion. If not, we would be like salt that has lost its taste and a lamp its light. Simply put, a faith that does justice is the most effective witness of discipleship in Christ.

How can we practically live a faith that does justice and so be effective disciples? Here, we need to disabuse ourselves of a glorified or a heady notion of “discipleship”. In practical terms, it is enough to be salt and light where we are. Thus, a faith that does justice does not require that we leave our home or our job and go searching for wrongs to make right. Nor are we expected to be salt and light only in Church. A glorified notion of discipleship often blinds us to the reality that where we are is where we flavour the earth and light up the darkness. One sad fact is when people are asked who they think best represents the salt of the earth and light of the world, many do not go further than Mother, now Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. She is the prime example of a faith that does justice.

Placing Blessed Teresa up there on a pedestal has a way distancing us from looking at ourselves. Perhaps it is timidity. We are fearful. And a common lamentation is, “I not good enough”. Or it may simply be that there and not here, tomorrow and not today would be the best place and time to embrace discipleship. But, more than location or waiting for the perfect moment, what is unsaid is that we have not fully counted the cost of discipleship. Poor discipleship is often a reflexion that we may have a vague notion of or simply have not embraced what discipleship entails. It is said that we would be hard pressed to find an atheist—someone who does not believe in God. Instead we will encounter many practical atheist—they just do not believe because it is more practical not to. Likewise, many of us are disciples not because we are truly convinced but because it is more practical to believe.

To follow Christ is always radical. Again, do not confuse radical discipleship with glamorous discipleship measured in terms of this world—novelty, excitement, recognition and etc. The unpleasant truth is that discipleship will lead one way or another to Calvary. If we honestly reflect on this, our image of Christ is closer to a feel-good doting indulgent Christ than to the exacting Christ of the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes and Calvary. In short, we have blunted our discipleship by our false expectation or worse by our lowering our expectation to the point that we expect Christ not to expect anything from us.

As long as I pay my dues: go to Church, go for confessions occasionally or once a year and do what is necessary like feed the poor, then my religion must not inconvenience nor exact anything from me. For many of us, salt and light are simply reduced to “see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil”. It is a form of privatised religion and it accords well with a religion of convenience. People who live in condominium know this—you do not know your neighbours and so “morality” becomes a private matter and quite easily relativised. Priests will tell you that they have heard this in confessions: “I have not really done anything wrong”. Well, it is commendable to have done nothing wrong. But, discipleship is not a measure of the wrongs we do not commit. Instead poor discipleship is a measure of the good we neglect to perform. Poor discipleship is not paying the full price of being the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

Salt and light are powerful images of discipleship. In themselves they sort of describe the purpose of discipleship. But, their strength as images are tied to the requirements of the Beatitudes. “Happy are you when people abuse you and persecute you and speaks all kinds of calumny against you on my account. Rejoice and be glad”.

A clarification is necessary here. Firstly, it does not mean that we go searching to be “abused or persecuted”. That is masochism. What others would call a “martyr complex”. Rather, discipleship in Christ is born out of rejection. Christ was rejected and so will we be if we stand with Him. The master was treated so badly. We should not expect less and often rejection often comes from fellow Christians. Second, discipleship does not mean we need to “do” something extraordinarily. It is about faithfulness and not about glamour. For example, there is nothing glamorous about discipleship in suffering. Would you dare embrace sickness as a vocation? That for no reason than personal identification with Christ that He calls you to personal suffering through debilitating illnesses. Of course, there are two types of suffering. One is we deserve it. When we live a dissolute life there will be consequences and perhaps suffering to be deserved. The other type is uninvited, incomprehensible and that for no other reason we find ourselves having to put up with it. Here, the prayers in the Rite for Anointing is quite helpful catechetically as it helps us to understand what it means to be salt and light. One of them prays that the sick person would be serene in hope and so give us all an example of joyful patience in the midst of suffering. Thus, quiet suffering through no fault of ours when united with Christ’s suffering is valuable salt and light.

Discipleship is here and now. In the pew now. You bag on the seat is meant for another person. And afterwards in the car on the way out, no honking and of course it also goes for those who habitually take their own sweet time to go the car—to make sure that they do not unnecessarily inconvenience others. At home in the kitchen, at the desk in the office etc and the list goes on. And here, St Paul in the second reading consoles us. The success of the Gospel, that is, how we can be more flavourful or more enlightening is not dependent on our cleverness. It may depend on perseverance but certainly how we can salt the earth better and light the world brighter is dependent on the power of Christ. Thus, we should worry less about how we may fail but entrust ourselves more and more all to Christ for He never fails us. If He calls, He will provide the necessary grace.

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Recently, the British PM addressed the House of Commons, where he acknowledged, amongst other things, that British soldiers had fired on unarmed and fleeing civilians in Derry or Londonderry—depending on which side you take. He did this based on the outcome of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry and consequently, on behalf of the British Government, he apologised to the families of the victims for the event that took place in 1972. Three days later, on the 18th of June, a headline in the New York Times read “In Bloody Sunday Apology, a Promise of Closure”.

Have you notice that the word “closure” frequently crops up from those who seek justice? It is a word which is important to us not just from a personal perspective. For example, the corporate world is constantly looking out for deals to close. It is possible that we have imported this corporate word into our everyday life as we look for closures in our lives. This Sunday, the Gospel may help us reflect further on this need of closures, their significance in our lives and their place in the theme for today: “The Lord we serve”.

First, the arresting line of today’s Gospel is “Jesus resolutely took the road for Jerusalem”. And mind you, this is taken from Luke Chapter 9. We are not even halfway through the Gospel and we encounter a stiffening of Christ’s posture. Actually, I like another translation better: “He set His face for Jerusalem”. The imagery is evocative… Christ has a mission. He is not distracted by anything, not even righteous revenge on the Samaritans, as He is intent on accomplishing His mission.

Therefore, the severity of Christ’s responses to the man who wanted to bury his father and to the man who needed to say goodbye to his parents must be seen in this context. Setting His face for Jerusalem underlines the unconditional nature of discipleship: “Once the hand is laid on the plough, no one who looks back is fit for the kingdom of God”.

Here we may begin to ask what the connexion is between closures and discipleship.

In the second and third man’s responses to Christ’s invitation to follow Him, we find conditions attached to their responses. If you scrutinise them closely, these men’s conditions simply symbolised the closures they needed in their lives. They were not reluctant to follow Christ. In fact, they were eager to follow Christ but, they just needed to finish some tasks before they embarked on the next phase of their lives.

In many ways, we are like these men. We look for closures in our lives because they befit an enlightened existence. First, we do not just leave something half done and move on. Parents who have children changed their major halfway through know the exasperating cost of transferring. Those of us who have had to clean up after somebody know the annoyance and the irritation that comes with the unpleasant task. When a job is completed, there is a sense of accomplishment that opens up to new possibilities and new beginnings. Secondly, some of us carry the pains of unsaid goodbyes; especially of a loved one. Nothing rends the heart more than a death without proper goodbyes.

Thus, closures are important and necessary to our sanity—spiritual, psychological and also physical. The first reading actually attests to that as Elijah allowed Elisha to go home to kiss his father and mother goodbye.

The question for us is this: if closures were necessary to human existence, why did Christ not take note of them? In fact, his responses came across as cold and quite heartless. Now, if these responses sound alien and if they come across as harsh, it could be that they are upsetting the assumptions we have of life. We have somehow lost a vision of life—of eternal life to be exact--because an exaggerated preoccupation with closures may come from a vision of eternity that is impaired. Unfortunately, this is basically the vision of most people—who cannot see beyond temporal life. Two examples—reality TV and documentaries may illustrate the impaired vision of eternal life. Reality TV and documentaries are both entertaining as well as educational, didactical or informative. [1] But what reality TV and documentaries do is to take apart what might belong to the realm of the mysterious. We do not need to know everything in the private lives of people, least of all the salacious and sordid details of their sex lives nor do we need to know everything about nature. The human drive to know is divinely endowed but it is not an absolute drive. That was why God said to Adam: “Eat anything or everything except the fruit of this one tree”. And our Liturgy confirms this when it says, “And on that day, we will see You, God, as You are”. For now, we see murkily and so it is quite alright that we do not know everything because the need for certainty drives us to immediacy whereas mystery allows us to bear with what is beyond our control.

Because we are driven or enslaved by the phantom of immediacy and certainty, the lack of closure usually means people stop living. Those who have fallen in love with people who cannot return their love know how debilitating the feeling of unrequited love is. There is no closure when one is love-sick and one practically pines away for the unattainable. The same goes for those unable to forgive and are forever trapped in a life-sapping or enervating hurt. A lot of energy is used in trying to force a closure.

When our vision of life is purely temporal, the messiness and the uncertainties of life become added burdens. Now, even though it is good to say goodbye or to complete a task, we learn from the Gospel today that discipleship in Christ falls within the context of His Father’s eternal project. If you like, in the context of discipleship, Christ’s responses to these men were: move on. We move on because in the bigger vision of life eternal, everything, even the unfinished business, has a place. A present and incomplete picture is not always disastrous but rather it may be an imperfection waiting for completion. So, the messiness of life is not a final verdict. We must not let it detract us from giving what we have and all we have to Christ. That is the meaning of service. [2]

Christ invites us to follow Him. His discipleship is intense and often we do not feel up to the demands of the call; we feel that we do not measure up. As a result of this perceived failure to measure up and coupled with a temporal view of life, we will certainly feel the pressure to find closure in this life. It is as if we need to complete everything here in this life. Sometimes we find our closure by “perfecting” ourselves in order to give God a better present than we are. [3] But, St Paul says otherwise. As he tried to get rid of his so-called favourite sin, he came to the realisation that he had only Christ’s strength to rely on. With Christ’s grace, our strength grows out of our weakness. Therefore, when everything is not complete, and even when our lives find no closures, God can still do great things through us…

To serve the Lord, we need a better grasp of eternity but not only that. To serve Him better, we need a spirituality of the “Other” world because a temporal vision of life will only trap us in the closures of false perfection in this life. We ought to seek for closures but we need the wisdom to recognise that some closures are only possible in the next life and because of that, it is possible to serve the Lord despite our pains and sorrows. The other world of Christ our Lord allows us to put our hands to the plough of incompleteness and not look back. According to St Paul, we can run the race and finish it.

FOOTNOTES:
[1] I like the Jerry Springer Show. The hair-pulling histrionics and slapping antics make for great entertainment and titillation. What about emails? How many of us have received emails giving us details on how we can prevent our future stroke. We are being informed to death!
[2] You may begin to see that in serving the Lord, sin (the lack of closure) is not a good reason to stop serving. I guess this explains why divorced Catholics in an irregular relationship, meaning a divorced Catholic in a second marriage outside the Church, [in the old days, we called that living in sin] is still obliged to attend Mass on Sunday even if he or she cannot receive Holy Communion.
[3] It explains why people shy away from confessions. The usual excuse is “Why go for confessions when I am going to commit the same sins again”? The flipside of this question is an assumption that confession is meant to wipe the slate clean (therefore denoting a closure) so that the end result is a perfect gift of ourselves we present to God. It is no less than the pride of Babel in which we are really saying to God, “Let me be as perfect as You and only then will You be worthy of me”.

Baptism of the Lord Year B

Sometimes a pithy phrase can mean the world. “You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you”. Firstly, Psalm 2:7 is used for the coronation of the kings from the House of David. This verse in Psalm 2 is echoed in Mark as he points to Jesus as the Royal Messiah—the one anointed by God. Secondly, Isaiah 42:1 refers to the suffering servant who bears the infirmities of many and here, in Mark, Jesus becomes the Suffering Servant in whom God’s favour rests.

Just a voice from heaven at Baptism and Jesus is revealed as the Christ or Messiah and the Suffering Servant. St Paul in the letter to the Romans says, “When we were baptised, we were baptised into the death and resurrection of the Lord”. This means that baptism not only opens for us the gate to salvation—to the other 6 sacraments but baptism also imprints upon us, the very charisms of being the anointed of God and also His suffering servant. Put it in another way, baptism means that the path of Jesus from Calvary to the Resurrection will also become our path. In short, suffering is part and parcel of the resurrection.

Why must suffering be part and parcel of the resurrection? The 2nd Reading puts it rather well: We can be sure that we love God’s children if we love God himself and do what he has commanded us; this is what loving God is—keeping his commandments. If we keep his commandments, we know that there will be a price to be paid because in John 15, Jesus says, “A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you too”.

We often think of vocation narrowly as vocation to the priestly or religious life. But vocation is more than being a nun or a priest. It is also to be married, to remain single or to be a professional. However, all these are what I would call “secondary” vocations. Our “primary” vocation is that of being called. Baptism is primarily the sacrament of calling because we are called to be sons and daughters of God and brothers and sisters of Christ. It is only in embracing this primary vocation of being called that we begin to express it by becoming a nun, a husband and a father, a wife and a mother, a priest, a teacher, an accountant and etc.

Sometimes we forget that the secondary vocation is the embracing and living out of the primary vocation. What does it mean to embrace this primary vocation? In some countries, the sacrament of baptism has degenerated into a social event. Parents, as a matter of fact, baptise a child because it is the social convention. But if you look at the ritual of baptism, then you begin to understand that it is truly a sacrament which is the foundation of all else. The rite of baptism, properly celebrated takes place at the entrance of the church where the priest welcomes the parents of the child to be baptised and asks two questions. The first question asks the name of the child to be baptised; the name given must not conflict with the faith or recall anything unsavoury. The next question asks the parents what they want for their child. The appropriate answer is “faith”. And during the rite, the parents will be reminded of the faith that they are to hand on to their child. To baptise means that one takes seriously the responsibility of handing on the faith—it is handing on the faith of the Apostles upon which the entire Tradition of the Church rests.

Next week there is going to be a celebration of another sacrament, namely, the sacrament of confirmation. In the Catholic tradition of the Eastern Rite, confirmation is given to infants immediately after their baptism. In the tradition of the Latin Rite, this sacrament is conferred on to teenagers who had been baptised as infants. I am not interested in the theology of the sacrament. However, I want to comment on the “late” age which this sacrament is conferred. It is given that late that it almost becomes a sacrament that somewhat confirms the primary vocation that we have been called to be sons or daughters of God our Father. Whenever we struggle with our vocation in life—be it a husband, an engineer or lawyer etc—apart from the fact that we may have chosen the wrong vocation, often it is because we have not clarified our original intention or we have not fully embraced the reality of our baptism.

Most teenagers go through a phase of rejecting everything that is passed on them (except the money of course). It is a phase of self-determination as if the definition of the self begins when everything is rejected. It is almost as if they want to shout, “I am not everything that you are”. At confirmation, they must decide to accept or reject the faith that their parents have handed to them. Every teenager must make a choice for Christ or not.

Thus, the sacrament of confirmation which some of you will receive next week may be a test of your immersion or baptism into Christ. It is the test of accepting the responsibility and the price of baptism. When we follow Christ, we may lose our family. Those who have gone against their family’s wish when converting may just lose their family. When we follow Christ, we will certainly lose some of our friends. When we follow Christ, we will begin to ask questions: why there is more justice for some people and less justice for others. We will begin to take notice of the less privileged surrounding us. The test of our immersion (because the meaning of baptism is to wash or to immerse) is when we have acquired the heart and mind of Christ.

Some of us fail because we want the benefits of baptism, which is salvation ,without paying the price, which is discipleship. Today, we ask the Lord for the strength to embrace the grace of our baptism as we grow into the heart and the mind of Him who first called us.

Solemnity of Mary Mother of God Year B

In the next few days traffic will pick up as students return to schools and warrior-mothers take to the road of sending children to school. The year end and the beginning of the year are marked by a return to school and in a way, the Liturgy is no different. As we continue to deepen our appreciation of the Incarnation, we herald in the new year with close attention to the Mother of Christ.

The 2nd Reading serves as an invitation to enter the school of Mary—this Mary whom Paul spoke of as the Woman through whom the Son of God came to be born. Luke’s Gospel not only tells us that she treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart but points out to us that Mary is also the great Theotokos because she is the bearer of God our Saviour. To celebrate Mary at the beginning of the year is to enter the school of her discipleship.

What does it mean to enter the school of Mary?

The theme of the World Day for Peace is Fighting Poverty to Build Peace. Peace is the desired goal of our struggles. The abolishment of poverty is the means to attain that goal. If we understand poverty to be material deprivation, then the creation of wealth is as an exercise in the abolishment of poverty.

But, from the school of Mary, we learn that wealth or its possession is not the end poverty. Benedict XVI in his Message for the World Day of Peace speaks of the conditions of moral under-development or the negative consequences of super-development in wealthy country. A country may be wealthy but suffers from poor moral or spiritual health, that is, moral or spiritual poverty. Hence, poverty is not always material deprivation. But, what is significant is that wherever you encounter any form of externally imposed poverty, you will find that it has as its root a lack of respect for the transcendent dignity of the human person.

And, from Mary we learn that the transcendent dignity of the human person is to be found in the acknowledgement of who we really are before God. We are nothing and if at all we can boast of any possession, then we can boast of only one thing: our nothingness. This nothingness is the basis for Mary putting her entire trust in the Lord.

Mary’s posture before God teaches us that we will never win the fight against poverty out there if we do not, in the first place, acknowledge not so much the poverty that is imposed upon us but the poverty that is us. Poverty is the condition of the human person before God.

The acknowledgement of our nothingness is the basis for overcoming our selfishness—the selfishness which is an attributable cause for the current systemic failure in the world’s economic system. There is something lacking in our fight against “material” poverty when we think that the change of structure is going to solve our problems. At present there are talks that governments in the world are trying to reform the international financial system. Reform may just offer a temporary relief before the next wave of greed overwhelms the economic system again. This country, we all know, is awashed in natural resources. It has all ingredients for a truly amazing economy. But, no matter how much we have, it is never enough to withstand the rapacious or the systematic pillage of a few greedy people.

Reform must begin with the human heart. Greed is not what people do but rather an attitude which denies our true state of being as nothing before God. What we have witnessed as the unbridled amassing of wealth beyond an individual’s, a family’s or country’s need is not proof of greed but a sad confirmation that we have failed to address our poverty before God.

God created us poor not because He wants us to be poor but because He wants us to acknowledge our dependence on Him alone. He created us poor so that we may share His riches. Unless and until we acknowledge our nothingness, we cannot hope to arrive at peace. This is important as we enter a period of economic downturn that will affect everyone.

Only when we begin to acknowledge our nothing and that our being or our salvation comes from God alone that we will begin to acknowledge the other as brother or sister. In Mary, we learn that poverty is the expression of who we truly are. “He looks on His servant in her nothingness” became Mary’s impetus to visit Elizabeth her cousin. When we acknowledge our nothingness, then everything we have is a blessing from God and can be a blessing to others. Otherwise, material abundance becomes the curse of division and disunity.

So, as we enter the New Year, with hearts desiring peace for ourselves, our family and our nation, we ask Mary to teach us how to be true disciples who with faith and prayer accepts our nothingness and place our trust in God who alone can grant salvation and who desires to give to those who trust in Him.

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

The reality doesn’t match the picture. The truth often falls short of the imagination. How often has it been that we saw a brochure or an advertisement of what we intended to buy, order or where we intended stay and when we have bought the item, ordered the food, or arrived at a hotel, we were disappointed? Nothing is like the disappointment of being short-changed.

Today, Jesus lays before us the reality of discipleship and not the imagined picture of it. Luke tells us that “great crowds accompanied Jesus and he turned and spoke to them: Anyone who does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple”. The cost of discipleship is measured in such practical terms as “unless a grain of wheat falls onto the ground and dies, it remains but a single grain”. In short, discipleship is sacrifice.

Take up your cross and follow Christ. But, the truth is that many of us are followers of Jesus from a distance. Why? The definition of discipleship is made more difficult by a certain caricature of it. In the 70s and 80s, it was customary to paint Jesus as a political revolutionary and therefore the idea of discipleship was perhaps more a reflexion of Che Guevara, the ideal political revolutionary than the historical Jesus ever had been. If discipleship were about political agitation, it marginalises a lot of people—who will fall within the category of the “politically useless”. From a psychological point of view, it doesn’t take a lot to move from feeling useless to being useless. Useless people give up hope in themselves.

The truth is that there is a cost to discipleship which we ought to reckon with. St Maximillian Kolbe, the Conventual Franciscan, who died in a WWII concentration camp was granted a vision of Our Lady and in that vision she offered him a choice between “White” or “Red” Martyrdom. He chose both. What is relevant to us is that the distinction between Red and White is a distinction between the forms, modes or types of martyrdom but not a distinction or a measure between good or better. The cost of discipleship is to be equally paid for by those who receive the Crown of Red Martyrdom or the Crown of White Martyrdom. If Che Guevara or any revolutionary form or political manner of discipleship which involves the shedding of blood or Red Martyrdom were promoted as the ideal mode of martyrdom, then, those who receive the crown of White Martyrdom might just feel less worthy before Christ. And, I suspect that accounts for a reason why the Church is marked by the lukewarm phenomenon of discipleship from a distance. When you don’t feel that your sacrifice is worthy of Christ, you tend to follow Him with a half-hearted resolve. Just like a wife/mother cooking for her husband/family. If no one appreciates her cooking, very quickly the cooking falls into a formulaic predictable pattern. You know what to expect for Tuesday dinners. Likewise, if you feel Christ doesn’t really appreciate what you can offer, you are less likely to give/offer Him your best. It’s human.

Discipleship is sacrifice, whether paid for by blood or otherwise. The reality is often we pay less with blood than with a life of constancy, consistency and commitment. In fact, faithfulness demands so much more than blood. It is easy to die in an instance—in a hail of bullets but much more difficult to die over a lifetime of faithfulness. [It’s easier to call out Viva Christo Rey than to undergo years of faithful labour]. Thus, Christian discipleship is not lived in the abstract and to think solely in terms of red martyrdom is to live somewhat in a vacuum. It also turns discipleship into something unattainable and thus keeps us at an uninvolved distance. But, discipleship is nearer than we think. All we need to do is to focus on where we are and we will find the answer to how best we can exercise our Christian discipleship.

For example: marriage. It is one of the best forms of discipleship today. Christ loves us so much that he gave his life for us. A man and woman bound by the bonds of marriage is the best reflexion of the union between Christ and the Church. We live in an era which tries to promote intimacy without complications. The reality is that there are no perfect couples just like there are no perfect disciples. There are a lot of struggling couples. It is in the struggles that discipleship is lived out and perfected. In fact, the prayer of blessing over couples celebrating their marriage anniversary acknowledges that “amid the joys and struggles of their life, God has preserved the union between them”. The trials or tribulations we face are rich grounds upon which the seeds of discipleship can take root.

In an earlier part of Luke’s Gospel Jesus said: “If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross every day and follow me”. Thus, discipleship does not take us out of the ordinary. Instead, discipleship is exercised in the mundane everyday existence that we lead. A teacher is called to discipleship through faithful teaching. A harassed mother tending to her brood is answering to discipleship. An aged father or mother you are landed with is discipleship. When there is disability in the family, often when the parents are gone, you shall have to bear the burden of caring for an adult but disabled sibling; that is discipleship. In fact, nothing in the ordinary is outside the boundary of discipleship. Our Maximillian Kolbe was an ordinary priest who served ordinarily before he died extraordinarily.

Today, in a world which exalts the exciting, the glamorous and the sensational, there is a grave need to reclaim discipleship from the amazing, extraordinary and the unusual. Discipleship is not the preserve of a few but the arena for the many. We don’t need to hate our family because ordinary life provides enough opportunities for abnegation, renunciation and sacrifice in the exercise of discipleship. Hating mother or father is not the measure of discipleship because Jesus is not concerned by the size of our sacrifice. Instead, the depth of discipleship is measured by the size of the heart that makes the offering. Let us ask Christ in the Eucharist to give us hearts big enough so that we may dare embrace his discipleship with heroic courage and quiet fortitude.