29th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A 2020

As we edge towards the end of the liturgical year, as usual, the themes will also revolve around the Apocalypse, that is, the reckoning that will come at the end of time. What can we make of today’s Gospel? 

Firstly, does it sound like the Apocalypse? No. If you consider the seemingly innocuous but really loaded question they asked Jesus. An adapted saying from Shakespeare’s The Tempest—“politics makes strange bedfellows” best describes this elite group—both Herodians and Pharisees, hell-bent on tripping Jesus. So, they set Him a trap. Initially, they praised Him hoping to catch Him off-guard. Interesting though the conversation may be, the central point of this riposte between Jesus and the powers that be, is to be found in the meaning of obligation. Yes, it is in our duties that we find the connexion between the here and now with the there and after. It is indeed apocalyptical.

“Render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God”.

The recent Confirmation hearing of a nominee to Supreme Court in the United States is possibly an instance of this principle at work or how it seems to be absent in the line of questioning from some of the Senators. At the heart of the principle is the question of worship. Where do we worship, and Whom do we worship? To which altar do we go and at which altar are we at home with?

In the said confirmation hearing, a lot had been remarked about the faith of the nominee, Amy Coney Barrett. She, being a Catholic, was for many of the Democrats a source of angst, making her out to be a religious freak or fanatic. It was not even a subtle attempt as it was a blatant effort to silence, shame or even harass as a bigot, anyone who even dared to think outside the progressive view held by some people. Perhaps, like Jesus she held to the line between God and Caesar.

Between God and Caesar, there is a distinction or a separation. What belongs to God must be rendered to Him and what belongs to the secular realm, as Christians and Catholics, we have a duty to support. In our Catholic understanding, the boundary is pretty clear and to dare to insist that there is actually a line, one has to be ready to be called a fanatic. But, in terms of our day to day experiences as citizens of a country, we are subject to the authorities because they are representatives of God. We owe our duly elected government our loyalty to collaborate with it in order that our public and social life can function. We have a duty to love and serve our country. This includes paying our taxes. The Catechism clearly teaches this.

This distinction is the reason why we also have a conscience. When the laws of the land conflict with our moral obligation, then in conscience, we are free to disobey such laws. In other words, what is legal is not necessarily moral. In the disagreement with Henry VIII, St Thomas More gives us an example of what it means to serve both God and Caesar: I die the King’s good servant but God’s first. Indeed, we must obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29)

But is this where our problematic lies? We can be certain that the State, properly speaking, despite its hegemony is not as insistent that there be no line drawn. Instead, there is a far greater power that does not want to draw any line. In fact, this power tries to obfuscate the boundary as we witness more and more confusion in the moral realm. There is that much unclarity that it has become difficult for us to judge between the good and the bad, the right and the wrong. For example, as long as there is love between two people, that is good enough to warrant it as a marriage. However, where is the morality of love between a man and a woman in the context of marriage as determined by Sacred Scripture? This question is enough to invite some woke responses or even provoke a cancel order for daring even to ask this question. In fact, Miriam Webster Dictionary, in response to the use by the SCOTUS nominee of the term “sexual preference” has decided to list it as offensive.[1]

In other words, there are powerful forces in the mainstream media and the technocratic world that are far more absolute than the state. They are determined to set the line or rather to blur the line between God and Caesar. The boundary they have drawn has excluded God or cancelled Him out of it. There is no God except the preference of these prevailing powers that be. In other words, morality is now decided by an atheistic narrative that we are expected to bow before or submit to.

Take another instance. In some countries, foetuses in utero diagnosed with Down Syndrome are systematically aborted. The science dictating this action is way ahead of the moral or ethical discussions about this. Imagine a medical student in one of the universities of such a country who has the audacity to hold this ethico-moral view that all life is sacred—even a deformed foetus is precious in the eyes of God. Would that student have passed if he or she does not submit to the predominant “science”?

It is easy to be labelled a fanatic today. Especially if you dare to stand on the side of God. Nobody in the right frame of mind wants to be shamed but the Gospel today is here for a reason because the line between heaven and hell is that thin and we can go to hell for less than 30 pieces of silver. I say this not as a judgement of you as cowards because it is as much about me. I am afraid to draw the line for God. I am afraid of being cancelled or called a bigot etc. Imagine if a priest has no backbone, how does one expect the sheep to draw the line?

The chasm between God and Caesar is as important as the separation between deliverance and damnation. Within this divide our conscience is the compass of the Apocalypse, of the end time. That means we need lines drawn in order that our conscience can be guided. It is not easy to sift through the competing claims that are floating around. Thankfully, the Church gives us foundational signposts to steer us in the right direction. There are values which, if we claim ourselves to be Catholic, cannot be violated. The sanctity of life is one case. Sanctity of marriage is another and the preservation of religious freedom to mention a third. These principles upon which we organise our moral lives are foundational in our effort to build a city of man where God is present. These moral principles form the integral good of who we are as human beings made in the image and likeness of God.

In short, our path to heaven is already marked out. We have not been left to wonder about and to wander around searching for a place to go. We know where we are heading. Christ left us His Church to show us how to get there. The principle is pretty clear. If there is no distinction between God and Caesar, then God becomes no more than a crutch and the Church nothing more than a spa. We come to feel good about ourselves. But, if that is not the case, then we need to give back to God what belongs to Him because we owe it to Him and ourselves. Which is why we also give back to Caesar because we are social beings living amongst others and we have a duty to society to make it a better one. However, between God and Caesar, God’s law must always triumph over whatever human laws we make. In a world that is trying to blot God out, it would be to our credit if we dared to make a stand for Him.

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[1] Apparently, the term is anti-gay simply because it speaks of one’s orientation as a matter of choice or preference when the current narrative demands that we accept orientation as a key part of a person’s identity. It is not a matter of choice.

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A 2020

There are two words which have been running around in my head for the longest time. Remember the so-called millennium that came and went. Prior to that, we were gripped by the possibility of chaos arising from Y2K, the so-called glitch conundrum of whether or not we will experience a catastrophe because the year “00” could be read by computers to mean 1900 or 2000. The thing is, we crossed the year of the Lord 2000 seemingly without a problem. Yet, two words have been left behind by this crossing and they aptly describe our current state--dystopian and surreal.

 

Dystopian is derived from the word “utopia” to mean an imaginary bad place. Surreal is taken from French to mean beyond realism. The long-running series The Walking Dead is possibly an epitome of how dystopian and surreal the post-AD2000 has become even though we did not experience the collapse that should accompany Y2K. If anything, our present pandemic has revealed that we are not as distanced as we imagined ourselves to be from the idiot box.

 

If life imitates art, then, the line between fact and fiction is rather blurred and hence, the first reading speaks loudly to our dystopian and surrealistic situation. We have a God who wills to save everyone. And the symbol of His overflowing love is depicted by tables laden with food and wine. (Again, a suggestion to have wine tasting, cheese platters and grapes). God invites all to this meal.

 

This is the same for Jesus too. However, in the Gospel, there may be two parables conflated into one and both are directed to different truths. The first echoes the vision of Isaiah with regard to God’s universal salvation offered to all. God invites us to His joy even though it is unmerited on our part. We have been invited to share in the exhilaration of God’s Kingdom because He intends to save all.

 

However, we may also mirror Jesus’ time. How so? A meal was a rich symbol of inclusion and equality. Those who share a table eat from the same plate. To share is an immensely powerful sign of unity and inclusion. But those who were sick would be automatically barred. Why? Sickness is a symptom of sin and those who are sick, are banned from the communal meal—the exclusion is a form of excommunication. Our temperature taking is something like that, no? I am not advocating that we discard the SOP. Plus, a higher temperature is not an indication of sinfulness. I am simply making a point that what we are doing runs the danger of turning the Mass into something which only a “healthy” person, sinless or sinful, can attend.

 

The Mass is meant for saints or sinners, healthy or sick.

 

The Eucharist is God’s invitation to partake of His life-giving generosity. However, the second parable does provide a sense of condition that God has imposed—a bit like the temperature taking. Whilst God’s invitation is universally inclusive, we respond because we want to be a part of the wedding celebration and as such, we are required to play the prerequisite role. It is fair to expect that one goes to a wedding dressed appropriately.

 

Whilst we cannot presume that all would want to be saved, the question remains if everyone wants to be saved. The answer technically should be “Yes”. But, in reality, the answer should be “No”. “Yes” requires that the good news be preached to them. How can they be saved if the Gospel is not brought to them? Nevertheless, “No” remains a possibility that, for some reasons, people choose a life without God. Here, we trust that God will do His best to save while at the same time, we deeply respect those who choose otherwise.

 

Because God is generous in the outpouring of His salvation, we have to reckon with it. Do we want it or not?

 

Many years ago, I remember Fr Moses Lui—at that time, a young deacon. He spent time in the parish of St Theresa, Malacca and one night came to our youth gathering for some group dynamics. Anyway, he did a session which stayed with me till this day. It was a “what if”: “What if you have 3 more days to live. What would you do?”.

 

The surreal or the dystopian nature of this pandemic has brought to fore the contingency of life—how easily it can be snatched from us. It is odd that we all can walk out of here and drop dead or get knocked down by a car and yet we do not seem to be bothered by this possibility. But we seem to be obsessed with the likelihood of dying from Covid-19 that we appear to have invested death in this pandemic only, forgetting that people are still dying from other causes. The question about what we would do, given three more days to live, may help us take stock of where we are in relationship with God.

 

We have been saved through the Sacrament of Baptism—that is, we have been invited to the Wedding Feast. For many of us, too many, if you ask me, live with this proviso, “I will take care of whatever is important when the time is right”. Time does not wait for us and neither will death. The aim of the exercise that Fr Moses gave was to arrive at more or less this answer: “If I have 3 more days to live, I will continue with what I have been doing so far”.

 

This answer shows a readiness. It is as if one already lives with a clear conscience, ready to embrace death and to meet God, face to face. How many of us have the courage to say that “I have a clear conscience”? This obsessive fear of dying from the pandemic has revealed a chink in our armour of “self-reliance”. We are afraid of God and His judgement. In other words, we are nowhere near the preparedness for eternal life. Much like the man who insists on going to the wedding on his own terms.

 

God wills to save. The question remains, “Do we want to be saved”? If we do, then, Covid or not, we must live prepared for eternal life. In the coming days, we will be tested again especially when the infections no longer follow any observable pattern. As the curve was flattening, many felt that light was at the end of the tunnel. We took things for granted but death has other ideas. As we witness the resurgence of the disease and as we return to worship, what should our response be? The Gospel reminds us not to be afraid because death is more than just Covid-19. What is crucial is to have a clear conscience because God invites, and He awaits our response. Therefore, fear not for the appropriate answer we give to God is courage, hope and trust.

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A 2020

If not for this cursed pandemic, we could have, after Mass, wine tasting, a platter of cheese and crackers. Why? These last three weeks feel like a course through three domaines in the Châteauneuf du Pape region of the Rhone Valley. Vineyard, vineyard and this weekend, vineyard again. 

What is the story regarding the vineyard this Sunday? 

In fact, both the first reading and the Gospel are focused on vineyards but with a twist. In Isaiah, God Himself will destroy the unproductive vineyard. For Matthew, there are no tenants involved. Thus, the problem is neither the vineyard nor the harvest. The attention is rather on those to whom the vineyard has been entrusted. These tenants represent the leaders whose stewardship has not been up to measure. 

In other words, with leadership, there is always expectation, that is, God’s expectation. But, before we proceed, note that strictly speaking, God has no needs. The nature of God is impassible, meaning that He does not undergo emotional changes of state of being. While God has no needs, it does not mean that God is passive and therefore uncaring. Instead, when we describe God’s expectation, we know that it is metaphorical as it denotes our relationship with Him. God’s expectation of us is literally a sketch of our potentiality—we have been created in His image and likeness and so, we have a vocation to live up to in order that we become the best of whom we are called to be.

From this perspective, the repudiation of the cornerstone in the Gospel may be understood as a rejection of God’s standard, that is, to mirror Jesus in life. If anything, the Gospel reveals that we all suffer from an error known as the heresy of low expectations.

When we expect something, we must first of all provide for the possibility that the expectation can be fulfilled. For example, if the authorities want cleanliness on the streets, then they must provide rubbish bins so that people can throw their waste in them. Otherwise, they will just litter. This illustrates that written into the nature of man is that he lives up to what is expected of him. When we remove expectations, people’s motivation tends to dissipate. For instance, in one of the programmes which focuses on overcoming the addiction to pornography, what is required is the addict be accountable to another person. He talks to a companion who journeys with him. That way, expectations are set up so that the one who seeks to conquer his bad habit tries to live up to an ideal. A goal helps.[1]

In the movie Field of Dreams, there is a memorable line “Build it and they will come”. The premise is based on creating an opportunity for a dream to come true. In business, this might not be that helpful because no one should try to sell a product for which one has not researched if there is a market for it. However, in pastoral endeavours, what we often fail to recognise is that if we do not provide a service, people in general will not avail themselves of it.

This is the case for Confessions. It appears that few people are coming for it. Is it because people no longer believe in the Sacrament or is it because priests have not made themselves available for it? What we have done in this country is to reduce confessions to basically the two penitential services. It is a chicken and egg situation, but the truth is, people need to see a priest in the confessional before they queue up. What is required is consistency on the part of the priests.

An expression of this heresy of low expectations is the process of dumbing down which results in a self-fulfilling prophecy. I studied in Dublin for my theology and where I lived, it was a township of about 20,000 people, presumably Catholics, who had the opportunity to go to 3 parishes. In my parish, I was easily the youngest person there in a Sunday crowd of 40 people. Now, to make Mass more attractive, the liturgy was simplified to, 1^st or 2^nd Reading and the Gospel. They took out one reading to make Mass shorter. If it is that important, dumbing down the liturgy just sends a signal that Mass is not all that essential. If it is not that critical, why bother?

Most people usually live up to (or down to) the expectations placed on them. So many of you are parents. Guess what, you attempt to remove all “troubles” from your children’s life because in your protectiveness and love, you want them to have an easier life, smoothening things out and making it convenient for them so that they can get on with their lives, right? Well, in time to come, packing you off to an old folks’ home would be the expedient thing to do. You have taught them that convenience is paramount.

My younger brother has three children. One of them is special (I dislike this word because if it is special, why is not everyone desiring it. But it is the only acceptable PC term). I tell my nephew and niece that they have a responsibility to take care of their special brother because God gave him to them. Some might view this as guilt-tripping but I look at it as inculcating them how to think beyond themselves to thinking of others and helping them to live up to ideals beyond I, me and myself.

We short-change ourselves when we dumb down. If God were angry with us, it has no connexion with a need that God seems to have but rather it shows how much we have not lived up to our vocation. In fact, this exalted vocation of ours is frequently toned down by a rationalisation or justification which abuses God’s mercy as an excuse for our failure. In other words, the “impassibility of God”, that is, God who is immutable can be easily translated into a God who makes no demands on us. Removing God’s expectation will naturally result in the lowering of our morals.

It is true that God is impassible. He has no need of us, but we need Him now more than ever. Not because we are experiencing the surge of this third wave of Covid-19 but because the more we cancel out His expectation, the more immoral we will become and the more lost we will be. God’s expectation of us is truly a sign of His overflowing love for us—a salvific invitation by Him to the excellence, nobility and perfection for which He has created us. God expects much of us because He knows that with His grace which He has lavishly poured out on us, we can live up and countless saints have lived up to the standard of the Cornerstone—Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

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[1] Even “Cheat-Days” are goal-oriented. A person on diet tries to stick to a rigorous regimen and at appropriate moments, the regimen is relaxed to “reward” a person who has hitherto been faithfully following the plan or programme.

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A 2020 (Migrant Sunday)

The context of today’s teaching is the exchange between Jesus and the powers that be. In questioning His authority, they have provided us a key to help us understand what it means to do the will of God. Of course, these religious elites, meaning the entitled Pharisees and Scribes, did not like Him for exposing their hypocrisy. Perhaps a Chinese proverb might help here. “Makers of idols rarely believe in them”. They, who were supposedly the closest to God, were the furthest from Him. Suffice to say their conducts do not commensurate with their proximity to God. To add insult to injury, the Lord reminded this entitled and privileged class that those marginalised from God, in other words, the prostitutes, tax collectors, or to use a modern term, the deplorables have better chances than them of securing a foothold in heaven.

As illustration, Jesus’ parable about the two sons highlights the discrepancy between what we profess and how we live. In short, there is a gap between word and deed. We all suffer this credibility deficit because we frequently fall short of our preaching. Call it sin or selfishness but this lapse between conviction and conduct is set within the context of who we are (or what we claim to be) and what we are supposed to do.

It is a contest in which coherence, consistency and constancy are at stake and it takes place on many levels. At the most basic, it is a matter of integrity or principles. If we cannot be trusted in our words, what else can we be trusted on? The present political impasse in our country is really a crisis of honesty, righteousness and virtue. Many who switch allegiance do not realise that they betray the principles of trustworthiness and self-sacrifice. While we may be appalled by this lack of honour amongst our politicians, right at the heart of this fight, as in every combat or conflict, there stands the will of God for humanity. What does it mean to be a creature in relationship with God and with others?

Everyone here is familiar with “Thy Kingdom come”. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. Perhaps we know it too well that it does not really register anymore. In embracing the will of God, what complicates the process is the sense of entitlement. Observe the ruling class in our country that during this pandemic how above they are to the law. For example, social distancing does not apply to Najib’s gatherings. Be that as it may, the focus is not about the “atas”or the privileged but rather about how entitlement just makes the attainment of the Kingdom a reality so much more difficult to come about.

In the last couple of weeks, the Gospel passages have depicted how the Kingdom is to look like. For example, the Sower and the seed demonstrates how God’s word should flourish in our hearts. Last Sunday, the first reading reminded us that God’s ways are not ours. Today, obedience to God’s will is expressed as having the mind of Christ.

What is this mind of Christ?

A saint who has the title Doctor of Prayer can help us to understand this better. He is St John of Avila who stated that “one act of thanksgiving when things go wrong with us is worth a thousand thanks when things are agreeable to our inclination”. Our natural disposition is to complain immediately when things do not go our way. Some would be quick to seek alternatives. “Bomohs” or the so-called “Catholic/Christian-claiming faith healers”.

To grow in the mind of Christ, a spirit of gratitude is a step in the right direction. Not entitlement. After all these months of the various shades of “lockdowns” and a close shave with the Bukit Tiram cluster, we are attempting a return to normalcy. Some people have grumbled about the procedures that have been imposed upon us. Others have lamented that these bilingual Masses are more than an hour long. Instead of griping my question is simply this: Where is the gratitude to God that we are able to have Mass? This merely reveals how entitled we have become as if God owes it to us to make life easy for us. Without gratitude to the Lord, the mind of Christ will very easily become our mind for Christ. It is not God’s will for us but rather our will for God.

In Luke’s account of the pivotal moment in Jesus’ ministry, we have the Lord asking the Apostles who they thought He was. Peter’s answer was unequivocal—the Christ of God. But, even then, Peter was wrong for he thought that the Christ of God was to be a glorious one. Whereas Jesus told them quite simply that the Christ was to suffer grievously at the hands of the Scribes and Pharisees and to be put to death. Thus, the mind of Christ and our obedience must include the Cross on Calvary before we can get to the glory of the Resurrection.

If we fail to recognise that the Cross is part of our Christian calling, we will struggle to do the will of God. St Joseph Pignatelli gave us a prayer for perfect resignation to the will of God. He prayed, “My God, I do not know what must come to me today. But I am certain that nothing can happen to me that you have not foreseen, decreed, and ordained from eternity. That is sufficient for me. I adore your impenetrable and eternal designs, to which I submit with all my heart. I desire, I accept them all, and I unite my sacrifice to that of Jesus Christ, my divine Saviour. I ask in his name and through his infinite merits, patience in my trials, and perfect and entire submission to all that comes to me by your good pleasure”.

This prayer expresses profound faith in God’s providence even if there is no inkling of how God’s will will unfold. It springs from a covenanted love which goes way beyond fear. Without this faith, we can be like the son who claims to do God’s will but lives otherwise through his selfish choice.

It is never easy to have the mind of Christ, to embrace God’s will if we are entitled like snowflakes or strawberries—easily bruised, hurt or victimised. If anything, it will be a lifetime of “failures” on our part because we will easily resort to wallowing in self-pity. We ought to remember that what is sublime always requires sacrifice. Without dying on our part, we cannot hope to rise above ourselves. Hence, to live the mind of Jesus Christ, He left us sacraments because He knows that we need His grace to get out of this self-defeating narcissism. We are not our own saviour. We need Jesus if we desire to heroically embrace the vocation to be His faithful followers. Thus, for the mind of Christ to radiate through us, the Eucharist must be our sustenance, our strength and our soul. With Jesus in the Eucharist, it is possible to embrace God’s will to climb up our Calvary so as to enter into His Resurrection.

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A 2020

In adjudicating, we are told that there are always two sides to a story. Today, we get to hear from both sides—from the workers and the landowner. We learn from the labourers how disincentivising it can be. Especially for those who had worked from the beginning, slogging the entire day only to receive the same wage as those who came almost at the last minute. In other words, it does not pay to be hardworking. Just like this country, especially in the civil service. You work hard but because you have the wrong epidermal pigmentation, soon enough you will run into some unwritten barriers and you progress no further. The other side of the story flows from last week’s Gospel where we were taught to forgive in a manner which is outrageously disproportionate—not seven times but seventy times seven. This teaching provides a vista into God’s benevolence which brings us right to the point of the Gospel for today. God is incredibly generous. As the Landowner, He employs people to work in His vineyard but in terms of remuneration, he pays everyone equally.

 

While such an action might offend our sense of fair play, God has not been unjust. He actually paid those whom He had employed from the start of the day with the agreed sum of 1 Denarius. Yes, to put into perspective, one cannot be faulted for feeling resentful or victimised because prior to this parable, Peter did pose a question: “What about we who had left everything for you?”. To that question, Jesus promised the Apostles amazing rewards which suggests that those who have worked hard should expect better remuneration. Or if you were good, surely the reward should commensurate.

 

Sadly, this parable seems to shatter whatever notion we may have of what a just compensation should be.

 

Are we on the right track here? See, to think this passage is about justice or fairness is to miss the point. That God’s ways are not ours is not even the focus. The parable’s emphasis is the benevolence of God. The first truth to note about God’s generosity is how absurdly lenient it is. Pope Francis’ Iubilaeum Extraordinarium Misericordiae pinpointed this. However, bear in mind that God’s largesse is not in any way indulgent. This point that His compassion is not indulgent is vital simply because we are accustomed to entitlement.

 

Thus far, we can safely conclude that God’s benevolence has nothing to do with distributive justice—that is, it is not about God playing fair. Rather, God mercy is directed at the restoration of sinners. Hence, it is in fact even beyond retributive justice for we see how God readily admits into His kingdom those who sometimes enter by the skin of their teeth. In the parable, the workers employed last represent those who even at the last minute merited an admission into the Kingdom.

 

God’s generosity highlights an essential truth of our salvation. Firstly, nothing we do will ever merit an entrance into God’s Kingdom. Our Proddy brothers and sisters have reminded us time and again that our access into heaven has been merited by Jesus Christ alone. God owes us nothing whereas we owe Him everything. However, the fact that salvation is gratuitous does not remove culpability on our part and this leads me to the next point.

 

As stated earlier, God’s mercy is not indulgent because it requires cooperation on our part. The First Reading tells us to “seek the Lord while He may be found”. Whilst God is merciful, our search for Him is time-framed, if you like, because there will come a time when we will not be able to look for the Lord. Perhaps you begin to appreciate why Catholics offer Masses for the dead. Our ability to cooperate with God’s grace ends with our very last earthly breath. Rightly, the Catechism which quotes St Augustine states this: “’God created us without us: but He did not will to save us without us"[1]. To receive his mercy, we must admit our faults. "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (CCC#1847).

 

This Sunday we catch a glimpse of a God who is always bountiful in His mercy. However, the ball is in our court. Entitlement and indulgence will not cut it. Entitled because we feel that God owes it to us to let us in without any cooperation on our part. Indulgent because we sometimes confuse being good with feeling good or having a good life. In the Second Reading, St Paul is caught in a dilemma. For him, a good life is not living it up but to be with Christ. Nevertheless, he also realises that he is needed here on earth for the sake of his brothers and sisters. Likewise, for many us, we can be distracted by trying to have a good life forgetting that our goal is to be good and not necessarily to feel good in life. It is natural that none of us wants to die. In some parishes, thankfully not for us, if attendance at Mass were any measure, it is testimony to our desperation to hold on to dear life. But, whatever our disposition, having a desire to be with Christ like St Paul or to be fearful of dying and therefore staying away from Mass, St Paul’s advice remains as valid then as now. “Avoid anything in your everyday life that would be unworthy of the Gospel of Christ”. This is how we cooperate with God’s grace.

 

It would be good, like St Paul, to desire eternal life with Christ but in the meantime, we have a life to live and the goal is truly living it up but not in the sense of over-indulgence or lapping up in luxury but rather it describes a life in which we never lose sight of our destination—heaven. What is clear from this parable is that God always want to let us in. However, we must be like the workers who have this yearning to labour: “Nobody has hired us yet”. God’s invitation stays open and our aspiration remains the one key necessary to unlock the gate of entry. We desire, Lord, so let us in.

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[1] St. Augustine, Sermo 169, 11, 13: PL 38, 923. Another translation reads better. The God who created us without our consent cannot save us without our consent.