Ascension Thursday 2021 Year B

It matters not if we were in the 5th or 6th infection wave. It matters that we feel hopelessly adrift. Like a raft bobbing in the tempestuous seas longing to spot terra firma, so we yearn for an end to this cursed isolation, boxed in by a slew of ever-shifting protocols to curb this contagion. When our goal is routinely frustrated, somehow, even in our despair, we need to make sense of it.

 

Perhaps Ascension can help us to pierce past this gloom to some celestial clarity in the horizon.

 

Firstly, it is a blessing that this Solemnity which marks 40 days after the Resurrection is still known to us as the Ascension THURSDAY[1] instead of it being transferred to the 7th Sunday of Easter. The commanding rationale for the dominical translation is pastoral, that is, to allow the busy person, who otherwise cannot attend, to fulfil his or her obligation. In many of these Protestant-majority countries[2] which has made this move, the result has proven to be a disappointment.

 

In fact, the attempt to encourage better attendance at Mass has had an opposite effect. Note that it is a fallacy that all the time-saving modern amenities we have at our finger tips are supposed to increase the standard of living. What follows is that we are by far the most stressed generation.[3] It is ironical, no? With so much time saved from manual exertion, when everything is at a push of a button, yet we struggle to fulfil our religious obligation. Perhaps, what is more deleterious is, with the relaxation of practices that shape our Catholic identity, we are also losing our religious character.[4] This process of structuring convenience for religious practices has actually morphed into a religion of convenience. Convenience is now the true religion for of the world.

 

This is not a criticism of the reaction of the government or anyone in particular but an attempt to understand why we, individually or collectively, have acted the way we have thus far. It is not inconceivable that this religion of convenience plays a significant but subconscious part in the handling of this pandemic. As mentioned earlier, an expression of this religion of convenience is our focus on the quality of life. We are always on the look out to improve the “quality of life” forgetting that it is not the same as a “life of quality”.

 

For the Ascension to be meaningful, it belongs within the definition of a life of quality. What does it mean? Firstly, we need to clarify that the quality of life and a life of quality are not mutually exclusive, but one has to be ordered to the other. Even where the quality of life is absent, one is not absolved of the need to strive for a life of quality. No one is exempted from the nobility or excellence of character.

 

In terms of the life of quality or excellence in morality, we have to look at the past. In this consideration, there is one way in which Catholics differ from the Protestant experience. A guiding myth of the Protestant ethos is that they look at the past from a perspective in which time and space have a “corroding” effect on reality. They see the Christian experience or history through the lens of a past uncontaminated. What this means is that the Catholic Church cannot be the Church founded by Christ because she has been deformed[5] by time and space and clearly this disfigurement is evidenced by the many accreted traditions the Church has, which according to the Protestants, are unscriptural.

 

In a sense, this same “myth” actually undergirds the many attempts at righting the wrongs of history. The effort or this pining for that Edenic past is possibly what drove the Communists to impose their social experiment on humanity. They are not alone. All efforts at trying to “recreate” or “re-engineer” the pristine past will fail because they do not take into consideration the passage of time, not so much the erosion or corrosion of time, but rather the reality of sin. But, because history is also graced, this reality is tempered by the possibility of redemption and as such the resurrection and assumption[6] into heaven. Without realising it, the myth of this pristine past renders the coming of Jesus rather superfluous.[7] Time[8] and therefore history, is the medium for Jesus to be present to us through the Sacraments which He left for us.

 

The Ascension cannot be a return to a past. We have to stop thinking of Eden in a wistful manner. What if Adam and Eve had not sinned?[9] Would that not be good? The point is, even without sin, there is a goodness about Eden which is not complete. How so? Sacred Scripture in describing creation speaks of “God saw that it was good”. (Gen 1: 10, 12, etc). Yet when Adam was formed, as part of God’s good creation, God recognised Adam’s incompleteness. Even after Eve was created to complete Adam, still creation was unfulfilled or unfinished because “all creation has been groaning for the Son of God”. (Rom 8:22).

 

Thus, the Ascension cannot be a restoration of a past undefiled. Instead, it is an elevation, an ascent of grace, to the future. If you like, the Garden of Eden, God’s wonderful creation, was just a stepping stone. We are not and will never be returning there. What the Ascension represents is a new creation in which our relationship with God is restored[10] for it shows us a different picture even as He disappears from the sight of the Apostles. The Ascension recognises the past as past but promises a future which is more than what we had in the first place. If we continue to hanker or hunger for a vision of the past, we shall never be able to envision heaven because the past will always be what we think, what we see and what we know. The purity of the past is nothing more than an imposition from our standpoint. Therefore, the Ascension in a way destroys the myth of the pristine past because it gives us perspective into the future. As Pope St Leo once explained in a homily for the Ascension, “What was visible in our Saviour has passed over into His Sacraments”.[11] Through the passage of time, the Sacraments are Christ’s personal assist for us to make concrete a life of quality. They are needed because we are here not focused on the quality of life but rather through the Sacraments, we may embrace a life of quality so that where Jesus our Head has gone, we can follow.

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[1] This tradition goes back to the 4th Century.

[2] or where Catholics are a minority and therefore, Catholic Solemnities have no public recognition.

[3] We all are so stressed by the pandemic because the measure of who we are is “activity” and the lack of it has caused many to feel the loss of stature or status—no work = nobody.

[4] The more we make it easier to practise the faith, the easier it is to abandon it.

[5] Now you understand why this protesting movement is called the Reformation.

[6] A reference to us. Only Jesus ascended.

[7] There is no need to come, we can reconstruct our Eden here.

[8] And space.

[9] O happy fault. O necessary sin of Adam which won for us so great a Redeemer. O felix culpa, quæ talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem.

[10] On the 3^rd Day He rose again. The 3^rd Day = the 8^th Day or Sunday, the 1^st Day of the new creation of grace.

[11] Sermo. 74.2: PL 54, 398

6th Sunday of Easter Year B 2021

Last Sunday, from the description that Jesus is the True Vine, we gather the theme of rootedness. As branches of the Vine, we draw the nourishment of Jesus’ love to spread it far and wide as suggested by the 1st Reading. “God has no favourite”.

God’s sweeping acceptance matches our egalitarian aspirations. Moreover, this extensive ecumenical embrace takes root easily in the fertile soil of modern transportation and contemporary telecommunication. A condensed “global village” is the locus par excellence whereby God’s universal love can be witnessed and experienced. Where once justice and mercy have embraced, now differences and diversity are met with inclusivity and acceptance. In this current “woke” culture, such a catholicity is an overdue development considering that the world has suffered far too long from being “so messed up” by political and social conflicts, no doubt some of these were brought about by “religious” enmity.

Love is the key to this adoption by God. We ought to love because failure to do so is testimony to our lack of knowledge of God. As “wokerati” as we want to be, to speak of love as universal is not exactly what St Peter was saying. The caveat in God’s impartiality is that “(A)nybody of any nationality who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to Him”. To love in the way that God has intended has been diminished and distorted by contemporary culture. Stating this is to tread on dangerous grounds now.

What is love and how are we to love?

There are different types of love as suggested by the Greek words used—eros, philia and agape.[1] To understand what it truly is and how to love, take a look at the foundation upon which God based His covenant with man. Throughout history, what is certain is God’s love for mankind. Despite human frailty and failure, the clearest symbol of Divine fidelity is expressed through married love.

However, the Church in her ministers today dares not but nevertheless still has to teach that sexual love is reserved for marriage. Marital love is moral by nature because it defined a union between a man and woman in which God is more than a witness. This covenant is sacramental for it symbolises the ever-faithful love that God has for humanity. Such a teaching NOW finds uneasy ears, or it may just land on hearts coarsened by an understanding of love that has been trivialised by a process “democratisation” in which “love” seems to cave in on itself because it has lost its mooring in God. In this democratised setting, the boundary of love which is moral in nature is now abolished or erased. Now, love can be anything which one fancies. Love has become sentimental.

True love, as exemplified in married love, always reaches out to the other. It is emphatic in its expression, meaning that it involves feelings, but that should not be confused with sentimentality. Love is an act of the will, that is, it is of the rational appetite. Even though the act of loving can be accompanied by warm sentiments, one must never confuse feelings with love. The absence of sentimentality is not an indication that love is absent.

From a confusion of love with sentimentality, we will begin to include every penchant, predilection or proclivity. When God is removed from the equation, is it any wonder why some men must “marry” their machines? Love in which procreation is a function of our participation in God’s creative love, has now taken on a life for itself. By and large, love has become merely a recreational outlet—where pleasure has been substituted for purpose. As such, responsibility has been reduced to self-indulgence.

Further along, love has also been politicised by a godless agenda which seeks to impose itself as the norm wherein every thought that is contrary to its nihilism has to bow down before it. It is impossible to watch a movie these days without coming across some of forms of “love” contrary to what God and religion have intended, being trotted out as “normal”. Consistently cinematic settings are contrived to pit this Catholic teaching on married love against what is now considered acceptable so as to draw the bitter conclusion that the Catholic position is bigoted for even daring to express itself.[2] Children in many ways are now socialised through “language and culture” to admit that every form of love should be acceptable except those forms sanctioned by this unwritten “norm”. Indeed the command to love has been weaponised. What remains unsaid is how foreign aid policies of powerful nations are also hinged on how “modern love” is to be defined.

This is the travail of love and also of Holy Mother Church in a post-truth world. Oxford English Dictionary defines post-truth as “relating or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”. Truth has become personal belief and apparently, it must reside within that domain. It is into this world, confused by so many definitions of love, that the Church must continue to proclaim that genuine love must be founded in the truth of who God is and who we are. In fact, according to Benedict XVI, “Truth and love coincide in Christ. To the extent that we draw close to Christ, in our own lives too, truth and love are blended. Love without truth would be blind; truth without love would be like ‘a clanging cymbal’” (1 Cor 13:1). If anything, a good reminder for us is that Church’s doctrine on married love has not been changed by teaching. Instead, it may have been “changed” by the default silence on the part of the teachers or those entrusted with the truth of the faith.

The truth is that our baptism grafts us into a life of love that must go beyond ourselves. The best expression of a love that is more than the self is observed in the Sacrament of Marriage. It is true that we cannot be good Christians if we do not know how to be good neighbours. To love the other requires that we understand what Jesus had done. What may be trivialised, politicised and weaponised do not change reality. The reality is God so loved the world that He gave His Son so that we might be saved. This is God’s love for us to which we are to respond.

Therefore our model of love must rise above the triviality of the contemporary and myopic sentimentalism. In the current pandemic, what is often brandished is for everyone to heed what is known as the “Common Good”. We are constantly reminded of the need to “modify” our behaviour in the name of public interest. Apart from politicising or weaponising love, this process of “socialising” love also fails to realise that reducing love to common good is basically removing personal responsibility from the act of loving. Love and Common Good are not mutually exclusive but precisely because the nature of love is sacrificial, then even when no one subscribes to the interest of public welfare, the Christian would still love and sacrifice himself. We love not because we have to but because we want to. Most of all, we love and die because of Jesus Christ. There is no such thing as “common martyr”. Instead, there is only personal sacrifice of one life out of love for Christ and His Church. Love is genuinely love when it is sacrificial. We are accustomed to the Eucharist as thanksgiving, but we forget that the Eucharist is also love sacrificed.

The structures we have known, the institutions we have relied upon and the patterns of life we were accustomed to, all these have altered because of this Covid pandemic. What remains is love in truth. In fact, it must remain because whatever may have changed, God has not. Post-modern or not, Truth stands before us as He did before Pilate 2000 years ago. He stood for love and still does for today. Hence, the Letter of John was clear—not our love for God but God’s love for us. The best expression of our thanksgiving and gratitude is to love as God has loved us.


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[1] Benedict XVI in Deus caritas est lists these three categories as love whereas C.S. Lewis has four categories which include “storge” (familial love or fondness).

[2] S.W.A.T. (Series 2017) has an episode in which David “Deacon” Kay, a Catholic is faced with whether or not to judge the “polyamorous” relations of Christina “Chris” Alonso who is a bisexual in a relationship with Kira (Claire Coffee) and Ty (Daniel Lissing). The subtext is that a Catholic is a good one if he or she does not “judge”.

5th Sunday of Easter Year B

Last week I spoke of the Sacraments as actions of Christ Himself done through the Church. Our passport to eternal life is faith in His Resurrection which when translated is sustained by a belief in His True Presence with us. Through the Sacrament of the Eucharist, He feeds us with the only food fit for eternal life. The delivery of this supernatural sustenance is through the instrumentality of the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

Today’s theme is rootedness. It flows from this mechanism set up by the Lord for the self-communication of His True, Real and Substantial Presence to us.

If last week Jesus spoke of Himself as the Shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep, then this Sunday, He characterises Himself as the True Vine. Like the title Good Shepherd, this self-description is not entirely new either. Israel in the Old Testament was looked upon as the choice vine that God had planted. It is in contrast to this “diseased or degenerate” vine that Jesus is the True Vine. Israel for all its lush verdant thriving was a vine that could not bear fruit whereas Jesus is the Vine from which branches attached to it will bear fruit in plenty.

The implication of this rooted and penetrating relationship with Him is that the fruit will be evangelical in expression. Encounter with Christ is missionary in nature. We witness the bounty of this deepened relationship in none other than the example of St Paul in the 1st Reading. Once converted to Christ, he transformed from persecutor to preacher. Thus, John in the 2nd Reading, reads this belonging to Jesus in terms of loving in deeds and in truth and not only in words. Accordingly, the measure of our love is that we begin to love without measure.

Therefore, it remains vital that we be grafted to Him in order to draw our nourishment essential for the conversion of love to take place. Those who cut themselves off are in danger of being gathered to be burnt. As our loving fruitfulness is measured by being attached to Jesus, one of the invocations for the Penitential Rite provides a practical illustration of what this affiliation consists of. “You come in Word and Sacrament to strengthen us and to make us holy”. Concretely, our link to Jesus is both spiritual and substantial because He feeds us through the Liturgy of the Word and nourishes us in the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Here, we are brought back to the centrality that the Eucharistic Liturgy plays in strengthening our connexion with Him. The Eucharist is the lifeline of Christ the True Vine to us.

This image of being grafted unto Him may be picture perfect but it carries with it the possibility of pruning in order that we produce an abundant harvest. In the Gospel, Christ is pointed out as the Vine which makes the Father the Vinedresser. Perhaps this is where we may face a rude awakening especially if our idea of relationship is one that is based on entitlement.

This sense of privilege and compensation debases our relationship with God to the mere plane of the material. At this level, we think of God in terms of benevolence or blessing. Blinded by worldly affluence, we tend to forget that God’s mercy is also just.1 In other words, we want a God who is kindness towards us. His kindness is basically expressed as generosity of blessings. But, if we are not caught up with abundance as the measure of wealth, then our concept of benevolence is tilted towards health as if nothing adverse should ever happen to us. Here St Bernadette Soubirous is the perfect saint to disabuse us of this kind of “relationship” with the Lord or rather the lack of.

She of all people was denied the healing properties of the waters of Lourdes. If our sense of blessing is narrowly defined by material well-being, then we should be upset by this “meaningless, needless or senseless” cruelty. How can God, who through her gave the world a shrine dedicated to wholesome health, deny her its benefits? In fact, this question about God’s incomprehensibility is heard million times over every day. “How can a good God allow this to happen?”, is a mantra commonly mouthed. But Bernadette did not see it that way. She simply bore her illness as part of her purification—through it, she saw sanctification. Today she is a saint precisely because her attachment to Christ did not shield her from the pruning needed for perfection. On the contrary, her very association with Christ was put through the test of a debilitating illness.

We need to get out of this thinking that God requires little of us. Beyond our sense of entitlement lies a danger and it is an idea that is embraced by some. It is the notion of “practical universalism”. Its tenets include an assumption that the road to heaven is broad and wide, almost, if not everyone, is going in that direction. It also holds that narrow is the path to hell and hardly anyone, ever, reaches there. Such a universalism runs counter to Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel (Mt 7: 13-14) where He Himself declared that the road to hell is broad and wide. Many are headed for destruction whereas the path to heaven is straight and narrow. Few find themselves struggling along the way.2 On Easter Sunday, mention was made of the idea of “cheap grace” amongst which is the expression “baptism without repentance is grace without discipleship and the Cross”. It should not surprise us that as long as we draw life from the Vine, there will be pruning, and thus purification. We may not fully comprehend why God would even allow evil to touch us but through faith, we trust in God’s profound wisdom and love for us. He allows suffering to touch us, so that dependent entirely on Him, we may bear the fruit necessary for our salvation and the salvation of the world.

This kind of faith despite all the challenges we face can only be sustained by a relationship with Jesus the Lord who feeds us through His Word and His Sacrament. The consumption of His Body and Blood is as real as we can get in terms of drawing nourishment from the True Vine. We may not be able to do what St Paul did—preach to half of the known world then. But if St John’s injunction were to make any sense, loving in deed and in truth is going to be as good as what St Paul did. We preach through our love and witness through our actions. This is where we can excel as individual Christians. Drawing strength from the spiritual and substantial sustenance of Christ, we serve the world by engaging in our family, our neighbourhoods, and our county. God knows how sorely this country needs in terms of actions which are honourable and honest. Christians who embrace values of integrity are important to the right formation of society.

As St Augustine commenting on the 1st Letter of St John says, “Love and do what you will”. It does not have to big or spectacular but it has to begin with me. Just being a good citizen is a great start. As Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world”. It is possible because Jesus is precisely the food for this endeavour.


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1 Mercy and Justice are complementary. True justice incorporates mercy and true mercy cannot exist without justice. Thus, God’s mercy is always just, and His justice is always merciful. According to St Thomas Aquinas, mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution as it is indulgent. Justice without mercy is cruelty.

2 This is the absolute claim by Christ Himself that He is the source of salvation, which also grounds the assertion that He is THE way and not just one amongst many ways. He is THE truth and not just any kind of truth. He is THE life and not just any life. For many, this is problematic, especially if the unquestioned assumption is that everyone WILL be saved. Yes, God may will the salvation of all. But it remains the case that at most, some will be saved because the branches have to be attached to the Vine. We should not presume because it requires that we acknowledge the need for salvation. We cannot presume that people are inculpably ignorant meaning that they are not responsible for their ignorance of Jesus Christ. There are people who truly do not know Christ through no fault of their own. . But there are also people who hate Him. That is not inculpable ignorance. A person who actively hates Jesus cannot be saved. Such a statement sounds painfully abhorrent to ears shaped by “practical universalism” because, for all intents and purposes, “universalism” has a tendency to paper over what is particular or what it considers to be an aberration to its presumptuous parameters. It does not tolerate “difference” because this uncomfortable but real difference destroys its deluded grandeur of unity. The possibility of salvation for those who are not baptised (not attached to Christ for whatever reasons) is hinged on three conditions. Firstly, inculpable ignorance. This is ignorance through no fault of the person. Secondly, sincere seeking for God. One seeks God because Man has been created for God and as such, he searches for Him. Here we encounter the danger of indifference. In Noah’s time, the people were living as if there were no danger of damnation, right until the flood swept them off the face of the earth. Jesus Himself predicted that man will be buying and selling until the day He returns. Such indifference to eternity has a price. Finally, the third condition is our conscience. Newman characterises the conscience as the aboriginal Vicar of Christ. Whilst that is true, what is also true is that our conscience can also be corrupted, misinformed and subsequently malformed. The onus is on us to form our conscience clearly. And conscience is definitely not “What I feel is right is right”.

Good Shepherd Sunday Year B 2021

The difference between a Catholic and Protestant designation for a “man of the cloth” is the origin of the handle for the 4th Sunday of Easter. Pastor is the term generally used to denote a minister in the Protestant circle. Today is Good Shepherd Sunday. In the Gospel, Jesus clearly paints Himself as the Shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep. It is not surprising that Jesus should endorse a model of servant and self-sacrificing leadership borrowed from an agrarian setting as the pedigree of the ancient patriarchs and prophets was pastoral. Moses was tending to sheep when God called him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. David was a shepherd boy when the Lord chose him to be King. In other words, these leaders brought with them their shepherding skills as they represented God who Himself, in sacred scriptures, has been described as the Shepherd and the people His flock.

Today is also called Vocation Sunday which traditionally has been dedicated to the promotion of priestly and/or consecrated life. Parishes used to host elaborate bazaars where diocesan seminarians and various religious mingle around to promote the calling to priestly and/or religious life. These days, a shift may have taken place as the emphasis is placed on the universal call to holiness.[1] In other words, every baptised person is called to holiness. There is no such thing as a “higher calling” for the priestly and/or religious vocation. Under this universal clarion, married couples have as much responsibility to answer the call to live the fullness of Christian life and embrace the perfection of charity.

Furthermore, in some parts of the world, vocation to priestly and/or religious life is mostly unheard of. In fact, the more developed the economy is and the more progressive the society is, the more unnecessary is this call. In particular, a priest may have limited utility for people who grieve or those who need to signal a rite of social passage, like baptism, confirmation, marriage and funeral. Otherwise, he is superfluous. This situation basically reflects society’s lack of need for God and fundamentally, it is an indication that God is redundant. More and more the priesthood (and by extension religious life) is becoming irrelevant in a dystopian worldview that has painted God out of the picture.

In the context of this pandemic, there is a yearning detected and also a weakness revealed. Firstly, the general mood is that every nation has been trying to get back to where we were. What were we? From the mouth of Pitbull[2], “No doubt about it”, we are straining to return to that domain where “You can do what you wanna do. And do who you wanna do. Be what you wanna be. Freak who you wanna freak”. We yearn for the life we knew before Covid-19 blanketed us. There is a mental fatigue that comes from this loss of “freedom” and we are craving for the unregimented life we were accustomed to. Such a longing is natural but our Covid response may have just uncovered our unchallenged practical atheism[3]. In a certain sense, humanity wants to get back to an almost “Godless” past rendering any talk of priestly/religious vocation rather mindless. Why should we be concerned about a vocation which is slowly but surely relegated into irrelevance?

Good Shepherd Sunday is perhaps a chance to get reacquainted with the significance of Holy Orders. What is it to be a priest in the context of sacramental theology? It is to be an extension of Christ. According to the Catechism, “…in the age of the Church, Christ lives and acts in and with His Church through the sacraments”.[4]

Since the Sacraments are actions of Christ done through the Church, we can appreciate the powerful instrumentality of Holy Orders. Christ instituted this Sacrament so that He can save humanity. But, in these days as we are rightly reminded of human frailty and moral fragility, there is no currency for the priesthood. Such a despairing sentiment whilst proper actually reveals how poor and dependent we are. This question of why God chooses weak men to serve His Church comes a position of strength, a position which thinks that the strength of the Gospel message lies in the personal prowess of the messenger. But, every single Apostles in the Upper Room was nothing but weakness personified. Peter denied Jesus. Thomas doubted Him. Prior to that, Judas sold Jesus out. The current scandals only illustrate for us that from prince to pauper, no one is immune from the indignity of succumbing to human weaknesses. There is no doubt that everyone from clergy to congregation ought to be more professional. The idea being that weaknesses, heinous human flaws do not invalidate Christ’s means of salvation.

The priesthood is vital to the mission of Christ in saving humanity. St Paul writing to the Romans, speak of “how others are to hear if no one preaches to them”. In the context of the universal call to holiness, that is, the priesthood of all the baptised, every Christian is to preach with his or her life the Gospel truth. However, two quotes from St John Mary Vianney may help us understand the heart of this particular vocation to the priesthood. Firstly, he says, “There is nothing so great as the Eucharist. If God had something more precious, He would have given it to us”. Secondly, "O, how great is the priest! ... If he realised what he is, he would die... God obeys him: he utters a few words and the Lord descends from heaven at his voice, to be contained within a small host". This second quote must be contextualised especially in an age of personality cult. Instead, it should be read in light of Chapter 6 of John’s Gospel, where Jesus declared to the Jewish crowd, which subsequently abandoned Him, that eternal life is premised on eating His Flesh and drinking His Blood. He did not hedge or fudge on this requirement. The Sacrament of Holy Orders is the guarantee given by Him that the Church will always have the power to confect His Body and His Blood so that our passage to eternal life can be assured.

Holy Orders is necessary for Christ’s earthly mission to save the world. St Pio Pietrelcina said this, “It would be easier for the world to survive without the sun than to do without Holy Mass”. For this reason, we should never stop praying for more vocations in general and to the priesthood in particular.[5]

Today is a day for the appreciation of the Sacrament of Holy Orders. It is not a focus on the person of the priest. Rather, in the light of Easter, the priesthood was instituted by Christ for the mission of salvation. Without the priest, there is no Eucharist. Without the Eucharist, there is no Church. Without the Church, there is no salvation. Christ cannot save virtually. He cannot even save with a magic wand. He saves sacramentally. Through Holy Orders, Jesus gives us His Body and Blood, the only food that can sustain the pilgrim on the journey to eternity.


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[1]Lumen gentium (LG5). Dogmatic Constitution of the Church

[2]Pitbull, aka Armando Christian Pérez, the American rapper in the music video from the TV series Empire, featuring Jussie Smollet.

[3]Simply defined as belief in God but living as if there is no God.

[4]Despite our awe with technology and its powerful applications, salvation does not come from human capability. We tend to forget that programmes, no matter how sophisticated they are in themselves, do not save. It may be true to an extent, as witnessed in history, that Man has, by and large, solved the problem of human hunger. But what happens when human efforts fail? The pandemic gives us the answer on two front. Firstly, human solutions provide the condition for the possibility of human flourishing. Secondly, more importantly, programmes can only do that much. No matter how much it can accomplish, salvation belongs to Christ alone. This means we need Christ. We need the Sacraments.

[5]It is ironical that we idolise people through the cult of personality and yet recoil at the “pedestalisation” of the priest. But this is for a good reason because the person of the priest is NOTHING more than a signpost to the sacred. Sadly, through personality cult, he has been reduced to be a purveyor of preferences. Even if a priest chose to obey the liturgical rites of the Church, that would be read as his “personal preferences”. Instead of pointing to Christ, in the cult of personality, unwittingly, the priest is relegated to pointing at himself. This process itself places a limitation on his effectiveness as a sacrament of Christ.

3rd Sunday of Easter Year B 2021

Tempus fugit! Time flies and we are already at the 3rd Sunday of Easter. A message we can tease out from the Readings is faith in and witness to the bodily resurrection of the Lord. Indeed, there is more to mere believing as we read both the 1st and 2nd Reading.

Firstly, Peter’s message was not accusatory as it was not a charge against the Jews for the crime of “Deicide”. Instead, it was descriptive because he placed the death of the Christ within the context of God’s plan of salvation. Whilst the Jews may have acted out of ignorance, Peter exhorted them not to remain as such. Hence, he called upon his hearers to repent of their sins in order to be saved. John’s advice balances reality of sinfulness with the possibility of forgiveness. The theme of advocacy through the Risen Christ is clearly emphasised which flows naturally into Luke’s Gospel passage. Christ appeared into their midst confirming the age-old prophecy of His Passion, Death and Resurrection for the forgiveness of sins.

Does this feel Lenten? Even though we are celebrating the Resurrection, all the three Readings mention, in one way or another, the fact of sin and the necessity of conversion.

It helps to realise that the good news of the Resurrection is not restricted to the obvious phenomenon that Jesus came back from dead. The belief in bodily resurrection must be located within the context of a sacramental life and the mission of the Church.

How so?

In the light of John’s Epistle, keeping the commandments is a sign of one’s faith in the Resurrection. Firstly, it requires a change in one’s life because conversion always has a value which goes beyond the personal. Sin is not only sickly, but it is also sticky. A soul stuck in sin does not inspire. Instead sin is a kind of sickness that sticks as it has the propensity to attract the wrong attention. In other words, it is bad witnessing. This brings us to the next point.

Faith cannot remain within the personal domain. Take a look at the two disciples. They were on an exodus to Emmaus. After their intimate encounter with Jesus on the way, they could not contain themselves as one can imagine them falling over themselves trying to give voice to their experience. From the exhortation of Peter, and from these two returnees from Emmaus, we get a sense that Mission is born of the meeting with the Risen Lord.

The Gospel announces that we now belong to the new creation of Jesus Christ. Our love for Him is the basis for our new state of life. In the context of being a Catholic, our conversion is personally associated with a sacramental life, closely tied to the Church, and intimately linked to Mission. No one is baptised to live alone. One is baptised into the Church to be animated by a sacramental life so as to share her Mission. Both repentance or conversion of life and love for Christ are two sides of a coin. The more we love Jesus, the more we will resolve to change. However,the challenge is that we all like the message of His love for us but may just fail to hear that our love for Him requires a forsaking of our sinful ways. Love for Him is built on repentance and conversion.

Today, we see how the Resurrection experience is intricately related with the kerygma. We are not just proclaiming that He is risen. We are also witnessing that there is a difference in our lives. A life enlivened by the Resurrection is itself a proclamation even if no words were uttered. Of course, in the Gospel, as the two excited disciples described the immensity of their experience, Jesus entered their midst—proof that He is never far from us when we proclaim Him. In fact, our preaching by word or by deed is the palpable sign of His presence. In that way, our lives here on earth must always exhibit a sense of heaven. What is the Resurrection but an expression of the eternal? This quality of eternity gives meaning to our struggles. Without the logic of the hereafter, we may be shouting out empty slogans.

The mission of announcing that the Lord is Risen is clarified by a life without sin or a life in which sin is defeated. Our obedience to God’s commandments becomes our signboards. The saints are not great only for what they did. They are magnificent because they, through grace and in cooperation with grace, have overcome the lure of sin. So, if we were stuck in sin, it might not be possible to direct the world to Christ because we are compromised.

Just like sitting in a bus on a long journey. The landscape can become a humdrum of passing scenery to the extent that one no longer takes notice of it. It is the same with our witnessing. When Christian behaviour is basically “normal” behaviour, no different from what is “socially acceptable”, then what is so attractive about the Christian kerygma? Our bodily resurrection is not only our guarantee of Christ’s redemption and salvation, but also our proclamation. If there is no qualitative difference in being a Christian, then the Gospel of the Resurrection is useless.

It could be that we have become so much more “tolerant” (or unimaginative) in our approach to diversity. It is often heard that all religions are the same. After all, every religion teaches its adherents to do good and each religion promises a kind of heaven. It may also be that we have become relativistic in our assumptions. But more likely, the truth is closer to the lack of conviction on our part of the Gospel proclamation. We do not fully subscribe to it and absent in our behaviour is the coherence of the entire Christian message.

Performative contradiction is the term used for stating a truth whilst differing from it through behaviour. We preach the Risen Christ but we live as if He has not risen. Perhaps risen or not, it is not that central for us. Furthermore, when we claim to represent Christ but have not repented from our sins, it makes for ineffective testimony. Even if we do not think that Christianity is one religion amongst many, weak witnessing makes it so. What has happened is that Christianity may have lost its drawing power because we are living as if heaven does not exist and the Resurrection is just a fancy idea. In other words, we may have the message but few witnesses. We may be packed with worshippers but are hesitant to embrace fully the kerygma.

So, let our sacramental worship of God, our obedience to His commandments as expressed through the Church, be our loudspeakers to announce that the Resurrection is real, that there is forgiveness of sin and death cannot be the last word in this life—even more so in this Covid era. When we witness to the Resurrection we will peril and persecution but we have come to know that the final chapter is written by Jesus, Risen and Glorious. He is the basis for our hope, the foundation of our courage even in the frightening face of mortality and the joy of our life. As in the Upper Room, here in this Eucharist, the Risen Christ is in our midst, let us forsake our sins, fix our eyes on Him so as to follow Him to our resurrection.

2nd Sunday of Easter Year B (Divine Mercy Sunday)

Our Lent came to an end last week. It was truly a long season that stretched from last year’s first lock-down. Whatever waves of infection we went through, an apt description is that we have been put on pause for an incredible length of time. When we think Covid, the word almost conjures up a post-apocalyptic carnage of living dead. How so? The daily tallies of infection and death seem to be the central message of Covid, right? No. The pandemic may be associated with death, but Covid is more than anything else a denial of death.

What does denial of death mean in this case?

The short answer is possibly found in an effort to preserve life “at all cost”. This sounds like a diatribe against the biological instinct to survive, but it is not. Whatever preventive strategies that have been rolled out, it feels as if we have just discovered the unpleasantness of death and not only that; it suggests that death by Covid is the most tragic catastrophe to befall a person. The valid observation is, letting go of earthly existence is not easy because we stand to lose everything. For example, if we were not afraid of being forgotten, then why do leaders go through great length to build monuments to memorialise them by? Why were the Twin Towers built? Everyone is afraid of being forgotten. But that is not the worst. More than anything else is an implied fear that beyond death, there is nothing. Policy or technology can only do that much in this mortal pursuit to postpone death or prolong life. In other words, quarantine or vaccination can only stave off death but never prevent it. We may put off death but never rule it out.

This natural fear of death is a situation which can be addressed by the appearance of the Lord today. What characterises the post-Resurrection state of the disciples is the struggle of grief, confusion, fear, and uncertainty. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus were dispirited. In their anguish, there was nothing to hold them back in Jerusalem. But it was not as if those who stayed back fared better. In fact, they behaved like vanquished soldiers who did not know what else to do—when blanketed by sorrow, one is prone to paralysis.

The post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus which confirm that there is life after death are also acts wherein death is denied. Unlike the Covid-craze of attempting to preserve life at all cost, this is a denial which is in tandem with the Easter message—that death is temporary. On the 3rd day, He rose again. This is our credal formula.

The love with which Christ submits to death, has transformed death as failure to death as triumph, from death as evil to death as a good or a gateway of eternity. If anything, Covid should be a compelling memento mori. If Peter fleeing his own execution ran surprisingly into the Risen Christ entering Rome, asked of the Lord, “Quo vadis, Domine?” (“Where are you going, Lord?”), then Covid is our Quo vadis, a timely reminder that the post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus is our reckoning, a chance for us to open the window of our hearts, the doors of our Churches so that fear may escape, and firm faith may enter—we are on a pilgrimage from fear to faith.

Despite severe restrictions, we have never stopped celebrating the Eucharist. We did have two brief periods of interruption, but we quickly returned to a regular albeit scaled down schedule. Over the period of Holy Week and Easter, we did turn people away though it was not from the lack of capacity as it was from the unfortunate congestion of timing. It was the sad and difficult situation of too many wanting to attend at the same time even though we did provide extra services to accommodate those who had wanted to come. The consideration here is that people are still staying away from the actual celebration of Masses preferring the comfort and convenience of virtual spectatorship of the Eucharist from a distance.

Capacity is not a problem we face. Fear is. We have yet to count the cost of this pandemic. Unfortunately and more so for us living next to a huge financial hub. We calculate in terms of the economic losses forgetting that we also have a rise in cases of mental illness, anxiety and domestic violence. All these factor into our attitudes, behavioural patterns and decision makings.

That we die has never been a taboo for man until this pandemic surfaced. We had carried on with life even though we were embraced by the fact of death. If anything, this pandemic has corralled us willingly into a prison of fear. This incarceration may soon result in procedures or protocols which will, if unchallenged or unchecked, take a form which is not unrecognisable—a tyranny in the name of the common good. Forced vaccination and vaccination passports are two good examples of seeming public interest. As it is, public good is already the principle dictating our social conventions as our everyday freedom has been stealthily surrendered under the auspices of returning to “normalcy”.

It is a sad sounding sermon which does not seem to synchronise with the spirit of the season. The other day I got a call from a lady who, for all intents and purposes, have not gone out since MCO1.0. I offered to bring Holy Communion for her and her sister, but she refused for fear of contagion. Is that living or life imprisonment? By no means were these two sisters the only ones.

Brothers and sisters, we are at a crossroad for the fog of fear hangs heavily over us. The thing is, whether we like it or not, death is a portal we must go through. The only passport we need to carry in order to enter eternal life is faith. Hence, Jesus Christ the Lord entered into the confusion of the disciples behind the closed door of despair to strengthen their faith. Jesus coming into their midst is a timely reminder for us. These few post-Resurrection encounters with Jesus can help us see that in Him, eternal life is stronger than death. God’s love revealed in Jesus Christ gives us the strength to hope for the fullness of life in the Kingdom. Covid or otherwise, death is simply a reminder that God’s reign is not yet fully present—the Resurrection is. It is faith that makes present the eternal life which the Resurrection of Jesus Christ has won for us. Therefore, be not afraid.

Easter Year B 2021

As the Paschal Candle processes in, we intone three times “Lumen Christi” as the lights are switched on progressively. If there is a symbolism to be appreciated, then it is this Easter Beacon burning brightly and illuminating the world, banishing the darkness of eternal death. Indeed, it is a jubilation.

What are we celebrating?

The simple answer is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ the Lord. But we may need to take a step back to appreciate a much bigger picture. We begin with an ancient homily that paints Holy Saturday as the great silence. But it is not an empty silence.

“Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and He has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. . . He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, He has gone to free from sorrow Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him - He who is both their God and the son of Eve. . . "I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. . . I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead”. (quoted in CCC#635).

Christ entered the tomb of death in order that the whole of creation since the beginning of time can follow Him out. St Paul likens the Sacrament of Initiation in the same manner that through Baptism, we follow Him into the tomb in order that we may rise with Him. In other words, in Christ’s Resurrection or in His rising from the dead, we are celebrating, more than anything else, our discipleship. In this way, the Resurrection is therefore not only a joyful observance, but it is a powerful call to discipleship.

To be a disciple, we have to re-examine the Resurrection of Jesus in the light of His death. Otherwise, we may risk an empty or vacuous and meaningless celebration. In order that we have a deeper grasp of this Easter grace of the Resurrection, we borrow an idea found in Dietrich Bonhoeffer book on the Cost of Discipleship. He makes a distinction between what he calls “cheap” and “costly” grace. For him,

“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the Cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate”.

What experience can we draw from life to grasp the difference. The notion of “cheap” grace can be gleaned from our familiarity with a fact of modern marketing—freebies. Our idea of “free gift” is closer to “a thing” we do not need. Like the free plate from the two tubes of toothpaste we buy. In general we have no attachment to this type of a free gift. If it breaks, it breaks. Usually, when we receive a gift we do not need, we will not know how to value it.

To appreciate the Resurrection, we need to acknowledge the reality of sin. But not in the way that we like to commit them even though that may be true for many of us. In fact, some of us have a love relationship with our favourite sin. What it means is that our admission should take the form of accepting that our sins, individual rather than collective, weigh heavily from the Crown of Thorns to the Cross on Calvary. Christ our Scapegoat and Saviour bore the burden of “MY” offences through the winding streets of Jerusalem and every whip across His enervated Body was a stripe for “MY” sins.

The more we desire to celebrate the Resurrection, the more we ought to recognise the price that was paid for it. Without acknowledgement that our sins put Jesus there, what are we celebrating but cheap grace? Here, admission is not unhealthy guilt. It is not meant to be a dark cloud that continually oppresses us. Perhaps to highlight what it means to have a healthy sense of sin, listen to a common rendition of the Act of Contrition.

“Oh my God, I am sorry for my sins. Because you are so good, with the help of your grace, I will try not to sin again”. The operative word here is “try”. What does it mean to try? At best, it imitates the traditional usage “resolve”. I “will” (not future tense but volitional) not to sin again or I “want” not to sin again. But, instead of a firm resolution, what we have here is a rather detached severance from sin, as if one were doing God a favour. In this case, we are not as sinful as God is pathetically "needy". A rephrase might better express this. “Oh my God, I am sorry for my sins. But let me see, because you are so good, I shall do you a favour. I will try not to sin again”. I can safely say that nobody does that at Confession but the unspoken assumption in the prayer does suggest that.

Why?

This formulation exposes a chink in our self-supposition. We are not that sinful after all. Jesus did die on the Cross but not really for my sins. For others, maybe? The truth is, His death paid the price for “MY” sins just like His Risen Body in the Eucharist pays for the price of “MY” eternal salvation. The Blessed Sacrament is truly the medicine of immortality but if we do not count Christ’s death as the cost for this remedy, then this medicine is of no use to us. Just like the unvalued freebie, it might as well just be a health supplement. Something extra but not intrinsically necessary for our wellbeing and definitely not needed for our salvation.

If that were so, our celebration is but an empty victory. We can have fun, lots of it. Or rather, a lot of “eats” (makan) exemplified by the chocolate bunnies and to be fair, the over- eating happens during Christmas rather than at Easter but the point remains.

Addicted to cheap grace, we all want to be comforted by whatever—food is best, sometimes sins too. Nobody wants to be confronted by the reality who he or she truly is—a sinner. However, costly grace which calls us to follow and submit to Christ whole-heartedly requires an honest admission that we are sinners and are sinful. Thankfully, in light of Christ’s costly grace, the fact of our sinfulness is not the final statement of who we are. What liberates is to know that, like the adulterous woman forgiven by Christ, radical repentance is what makes for a better disciple, a faithful follower and an effective evangelist. Only then can our Easter explode with joy. The greater our celebration, the more profound should our appreciation be for the price of salvation. Thus, be wary for cheap grace is always waiting at the corner as a poor substitution for costly grace. It always makes us feel good, but it does no good in the end. Be more aware though that Christ did not die for nothing. "I" (not so much "we") have been saved to copy and imitate Him. He died so that "I" (not so much "we") may follow Him from tomb to triumph, from sin to salvation and from death to life.