15th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A 2023

In the coming weeks we will be hearing from the 3rd discourse of Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus uses a number of parables to direct our attention to the Kingdom that He has come to inaugurate.

The choice medium of instruction is through parables and today Jesus describes the Kingdom from the perspective of the Sower. The narrative is simple and the descriptions of the places where the seed falls reflect the conditions of the human heart. The harvest yield is dependent on the willingness to hear God’s word.

What lesson can we derive from this teaching moment of Jesus?

At least three points. Firstly, what does yielding a great harvest mean for us? Secondly, is there a question of wilfulness? Thirdly, how do we get from failure to fruitfulness?

We resonate very well with the idea of producing a bountiful harvest because we are a result-oriented people. In fact, our language is really markedly materialistic in measure. We call it KPI or Key Performance Index. In the case of the seed that had the misfortune of falling on the wayside or stony grounds, they are just wasted opportunities. Given that we are success-oriented, children at a very tender age are already primed to succeed as scientists, engineers, doctors and etc.

No parents want their child to be a rubbish collector. In fact when a young boy who shows a little inclination towards musical prodigy is immediately enrolled in a musical school to hone his skills etc. We think nothing of this way of proceeding. But imagine that same youth at the age of 12, revealing that he wants to be a priests and many parents will probably brush that off as a childish fantasy because he does not really know what he wants.

While it is not wrong to aspire for success or prosperity, the first point of the parable widens our scope of life beyond what is merely material and social progress. A great harvest should be more spiritual. In this matter, parents would want their children to behave but what about teaching them, apart from academic or sporting achievements, to excel in kindness and goodness, to care for the poor and the marginalised? No parent wants his or her child to behave badly but for the Kingdom, just being good is not enough because one has to be excellent in moral character.

This failure to yield a harvest raises the matter of the will and this is the 2nd point. We often assume that failure is wilful as if someone wants to fail. Nobody really wakes up in the morning to want to fail which must lead us to re-look at the conditions for the possibility of hearing God’s word and bearing fruit. If the harvest is to be great, what causes the poor harvest? Why can we not hear properly? The truth about deafness is that it is never wilful which means that we need to school our hearts to hear God better. This is the part which is not easy because we are basically used to having things our way. A good example is how some parents might lament that their adult children do not seem to follow in their footsteps. It is not a guarantee that right training will result in the appropriate behaviour but suffice to say that proper discipline is necessary to ensure a favourable outcome.

More than that, failures are really opportunities to change and to improve. While it requires patience to bear with our own frailty, what is most needed is the grace to move in the direction of freedom. In other words, the will needs to be trained to be more Christ-like in thinking and behaving. A clearer moral vision requires that we grow to know Him better and not just to know about Him.

This brings us to the next third point about moving from failure to fruitfulness.

We are not good only because we act in a manner which is good. Rather, we are good which is why we behave in a particular manner, that is, we make choices in accordance with our dignity as sons and daughters of God. Who we are as persons is not just plasticene to be moulded according to our whims and fancies. Instead, we have been created in the image and likeness of God. There we already have a blueprint for our moral behaviour.

In a way, what is brought to mind is another imagery which may help us to bear a bountiful harvest. It is the image of the Vine and the branches. In order to be fruitful, we remain in the Vine drawing our sustenance from it. This is really an invitation to enrich our sacramental life and to draw strength from the Sacraments. But there are self-assured or self-contented minds who think that it is enough that they do not harm and a sacramental life is not necessary for bearing fruits. The barren fig tree is a powerful reminder that not doing any harm is not good enough. To be fruitful, we must be connected to the Vine.

Finally, the Sower’s prodigality in scattering seed reveals God’s generous patience with us even if we are slow in bearing fruits. He sows with love and waits patiently for the harvest to flourish. However, the take-away lesson is that this not a one-way street because the terrain symbolises the disposition of the heart towards God’s goodness. He is generous but that does not mean we cannot be excluded from His mercy. By our lack of response or negligence, we will draw the pruner’s secateurs or clipper. It sounds ominous to our entitled ears but it is not. Although God desires our cooperation, He cannot force it. The parable ends clearly with the message that the seed is in our hearts, akin to having the ball in our court, and very much like the wedding of the King’s son, if we are not careful or conscientious, we may just disinvite ourselves to the wedding feast.

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A 2023

We have a timely Gospel. At this moment not a few are exhausted even if they are not aware of it. To be fair, the flood of broadcast media images, beginning especially with hunger in the Horn of Africa in the 80’s, has not eased. Unequal wealth distribution notwithstanding, over the last 30-odd years, we have been buffeted and battered by wave after wave of heart-rending pictures that portray human suffering from calamities like devastating earthquakes, terror attacks, explosive volcanoes, cataclysmic cyclones, surging tsunamis, nuclear meltdowns and more.

The recent pandemic too shined a spotlight on the economic destitute who suffered from the loss of employment. Not only did the poor suffer much from the lockdown. When resources were stretched, movements were restricted and freedom was curtailed, the demands placed on generosity merely accentuated one’s compassion fatigue. How not to be tired? In fact, last Sunday we were invited to grow in generosity.

Therefore, the Gospel is refreshing because Christ promises that He will ease our burden. How is one to grasp this? The 1st reading flows with the Gospel even though it feels like the Holy Week’s introduction to Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. The Prophet describes the humility of the King who enters His Kingdom without fanfare, riding on a donkey. In the Gospel, Jesus thanks the Father for concealing the truth from the learned, the wise and the powerful and instead He chooses to reveal the truth to children who in this case represent those who are humble.

The context for Christ’s prayer was the experience of rejection by the Galilean towns. Those who seemed to know who He was could not accept the miracles He had performed. In this prayer, Jesus revealed two things. Firstly, His identity and secondly, His relationship with the Father. Much of Jesus’ identity was hearsay and many did not know who He truly was except of course the Father. The identity of Jesus was His Father. And in terms of knowing the Father, what Jesus revealed shone a light into the mystery of the life of the Blessed Trinity.

This knowledge is now made available by Father through Jesus to the humble. The Trinity remains a mystery because the more we know about God in Himself, there is still a lot more we will never know about Him. Humility is the key to knowing God better and it is this same meekness, the same abnegation that allows us to embrace the invitation of Jesus. He asks those who are burdened to approach Him to find solace and rest. But then, a generation exhausted by the incessant cries of humanity’s need finds rest elusive. From extreme hunger to climate change, how to believe that we can find solace in God when we are teetering on the edge of extinction?

Yet, the message of Jesus remains relevant. He invites us to give up our burden for His. It is indeed a radical invitation because it requires humility and trust in Him. Somehow, our “can-do” or “self-motivated” or “self-help” spiritualities chafe at such a suggestion that we should actually acquiesce rather than attempt a solution for our mounting crises. The Lord reminds us that sorrows, hardships and pains, no matter terrible they are, cannot destroy us without His permission. In other words, trust Him just like how He would respond when we are generous. If last weekend was an invitation to generosity, this Sunday is again a call to generously trust Him as we humbly take on His yoke.

God will never betray our trust. The challenge is that we operate under the assumption that trusting God equates to a smooth path. We mistakenly assume that when we have God on our side, we will not have to face problems. This is false hope or expectation because the true meaning of God on our side is that whatever challenges we face, He will always be there to help us.

The humility is to acknowledge that we need Him. This pandemic has exposed the truth of who we are. Man was brought to his knees facing a virus could have wiped him out. At the peak of a protracted pandemic, many turned to God conceding that overcoming this flu was not up to them but up to God’s benevolence. Sadly though, this post-pandemic period has become one of forgetfulness. Now that we are past the danger, in a bid towards achieving pre-pandemic production, we seem to believe that we are back in control—frantic to catch up with lost opportunities and lost time.

In this process, we can back ourselves into a corner forgetting that God is in charge. We stress ourselves up and the load becomes heavier not because God has laid it upon our shoulders but rather, we have created our own burden as we blindly pursue the god of progress, success and achievement.

The result is pretty simple. We have returned to a default setting where we turn to God only when we are helpless making God the last port of call instead of Him being the one we turn to first before all else. The god-of-last-call is simply a mechanical deity of the vending machine where we slot in some prayers for him to dispense the solution we need. Any wonder why we become disappointed with God because He does not play according to our tune?

Like the Collect we heard at the beginning, “Come to me” is truly an overture to joyfully allow God to take the lead. It is way of life that permits God to take charge because He can be trusted not to fail us. “Not failing us” has nothing to do with Him fulfilling what we want but rather that He will see to it that everything will work out according to His plans. Go to Him all you who are burdened and He will give you rest. Compassion fatigue is not an exhaustion of the generous and trusting but a weariness of souls who attempt to carry the burdens of world all by themselves.

The World Youth Day is around the corner and there is a young man who might inspire us to turn to the Lord. Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, not well-known, not a priest but definitely an inspiring icon for many self-absorbed young and not so young people. Pier Giorgio died at the tender age of 25 but for such a short life, he embodied the Beatitudes and the joy of the Gospel to the full. Even though he was dying from polio caught from serving the poor, he thought nothing of himself but instead focused on the funeral of his grandmother who had just died. He said, “As long as faith gives me strength, I will always be joyful”. In a photograph of his depicting him climbing up a summit, he scribbled “verso l’alto” meaning “to the heights”. This is a spirit who knows that the Shepherd of souls is in charge and not even death is ever going to hold him back from going towards the Lord for His yoke is indeed light.

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A 2023

Recently a NY comedian made fun of this country that got the collective knickers all twisted up. So, what is exciting considering that the Ringgit has plunged into hell? Tesla cars are coming. Officially. Even when the “planes cannot take off”, we should rejoice that this 3rd world nation has finally vroomed into the “developed” status. What does such a luxurious rewards of life have anything to do with the readings today? It does.

The last two Sundays laid out the cost of discipleship. The call of apostleship can come across as rather harsh and uncompromising; almost like an unfair one-sided contract whereby serfs or slaves are coerced by a capricious god who demands a pound of flesh. A cursory glance at the Gospel might suggest this—"Love me above everything. Or else”.

The 1st Reading provides a different view. An elderly and barren Shunammite woman showed hospitality to a man of God without thinking of what she could get out of the gesture. For her generosity, God rewarded her despite her age proving that He is not vengeful. He cannot be outdone by our generosity. The 2nd Reading is really invitation to be generous with God. Baptism, even though it feels like a simple rite of passage one undergoes without thinking, is really an invitation to totally surrender to God. According to St Paul, the Sacrament of Baptism symbolises a Christian’s entrance into and the embrace of the death of Jesus so that one can rise with Him in the Resurrection.

Generous discipleship is being single-minded in devotion to God. The language in the Gospel is unambiguous. When the Lord says, “Love me above all else”, it is not a truly a command but it flows from logic. To love God above everything is more a duty rather than a demand. Even though it sounds like He demands our love, but if we were to consider it dispassionately, we would soon realise that to love Him with our being comes from appreciating who we are and who He is. This is the only logic between a Creator and His creatures. We owe our Creator everything. He owes us nothing. Yet He chooses to share His life with us. Imagine a gangster “taikor” (mafia don) and his “macais” (henchmen). It is acceptable for a henchman to sacrifice himself for the mafia boss. Whereas we have a God who sacrificed Himself for sinners.

How not to love God in return? If we proceed along this trajectory of thinking, then generosity will become a way of life. The hospitality shown towards the Prophet as we heard in the 1st Reading or to anyone of the disciples listed in the Gospel is a gesture of generosity toward the Lord Himself. That a good deed will be rewarded is not the reason for its action. It has to be more than that. Of course, one can use this as a basis to preach a gospel of prosperity. The point that God cannot be outdone by our generosity is more a description of our journey toward interior freedom with regard to possession than it is a statement of God’s abundant providence.

Let us consider the family for example. The family unit is crucial to our sense of well-being. Some families might be broken due to tragic circumstances. So, if you have a good family, be thankful. If not, there will always be a hunger for it. Whatever the situation may be, it is natural to yearn for the intimacy of family life. In the Gospel, Jesus seems to pit the love of family against the love for Him as if both were mutually exclusive. They are not. One can love one’s family and one should always do so. Family gives us meaning and also provides stability for our worldview. But the truth remains that the family is not an absolute.

The idea of generosity towards God has to do with what holds absolute value in our lives. It should be God or Jesus Christ and nothing else. Not even the family and this is hard to hear and difficult to accept. When we have God as the sole desire and goal of life, it allows us the freedom to relativise everything else, even very important relationships of love that we hold so dearly.

Perhaps the Prayer for Generosity, mistakenly attributed to St Ignatius might help us understand what it means to be a disciple and an apostle. “Lord, teach me to be generous, to serve you as you deserve, to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labour and not to look for any reward, save that of knowing that I do your holy will”.

Why?

We belong to God and to serve Him is the only freedom that is truly liberating. Apparently, St Ignatius who had just founded a new religious order in the 16th century whose aim was to serve the Church, had to overcome many obstacles. At the beginning, there were rumours that the newly-minted Society of Jesus was to be suppressed. He was asked what his reaction would to be to the suppression and He mentioned that he needed only 15 minutes to pray and then he would be on his way. This type of interior freedom is the fruit of one’s encounter with Jesus. In meeting the Lord, we ask for the grace to grow in the freedom of true apostleship—to freely offer who we are and what we have as we labour for His Kingdom, beginning here on earth and as the whole of creation moves in the direction of heaven.

There may be hardships ahead but caritas Christi urget nos [2 Cor 5:14], the love of Christ always nudges us towards excellence in both discipleship and apostleship. The reward will always be beyond what this world can ever promise. No Tesla, no electric vehicle, nothing can compare to the prize of giving our all to Christ. Suffering and not even losing one’s life can measure up to the reward of holding on to Christ and that is eternity, an everlasting life.

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A 2023

We heard how Jesus had called 12 amongst His disciples to send them out. This weekend He highlights the sober realities that they will encounter. They will face opposition, undergo persecution and endure hardship just by being His apostles. As God’s servants they should expect suffering.

In fact, the 1st Reading recounts the deadly plots of evil men that Jeremiah the prophet of God was subjected to. The 2nd Reading shows how Christ shed His blood to deliver humanity from the terrors of death brought about by the sin of Adam. The contrast between God’s assistance towards Jeremiah and Christ’s sacrifice is huge. God came to the rescue of an innocent Jeremiah whereas Christ came to the rescue of those who bear the burden of inherited sin.

The depth of God’s love as reflected in the redemption of abject sinners is proof that He can be trusted to care for His servants. To save us Christ stared into the abyss of evil, subjecting Himself to hatred and enduring the torments of the crucifixion. This is our consolation as apostles. The cost of our salvation is no less than the life of God’s only Son. This makes the Gospel a powerful message. “Do not be afraid. Trust Him despite the possibilities of troubles and suffering.

However, the invitation from Jesus may not be compelling enough because we are a crowd at pains to stamp out suffering at all costs. We are incapable of accepting that there is no way to escape from suffering no matter how much we try. A generation that believes that there is a-pill-for-every-ill cannot grasp let alone understand the inevitability of pain and sorrow. Suffering merely reflects the imperfection of created reality but most of all, it is the result of creation having lost its original harmony with God.

We necessarily suffer because death is the price of sin. Whilst Christ may have ransomed us from everlasting death, what the 2nd Reading left out is that His death did not save us from suffering. We may be saved but we are not shielded from suffering. In fact we are terrified by suffering. Just look at the continual masking. I am not advocating the removal of masks. No way am I am mocking anyone who wears it especially those who are elderly, vulnerable and need protection. The observation, and I am prepared to be wrong, is possibly because we have developed an adverse allergy to suffering and pain. Many who wear the mask have no fear of dying though they may be afraid of the effects of Covid—the headaches and body aches. Is it any wonder why Panadol is in such short supply? Our tolerance of pain is so low that the notion of pain is basically heightened. Fear amplifies suffering and our child-bearing process is a good example where epidural is widely used to relieve the pain of child-birth.

Suffering is unavoidable because of evil. One may argue philosophically that evil does not exist. Just like cold or darkness do not exist because cold is merely the absence of heat and darkness is simply the absence of light. Thus, evil is the privation of good. However philosophy wants to define evil, cold or darkness, the truth is, evil is real. As in the case of Jeremiah who suffered on account of the wicked men.

Evil is an expression of the forces that are arrayed against God our Lord. It started with the angels, jealous of the dignity that God accorded to man. That the Son of God would deign to assume the lowliness of human flesh was too much for the pride of angels and as such, they rebelled and that rebellion has not stopped. We should not be surprised by the presence of evil.

Sadly, the reality is that we are often taken aback. We assumed that civilisation having progressed that much, we would have arrived at enlightened behaviour. For example, genocide in this 21st century. We are shocked and disgusted that this can still happen. This assumption is rather erroneous simply because it is founded on a thinking that the world is untainted by Original Sin. A corollary of this erroneous thinking is that there are no forces that work against God.

If we look at the life of Jesus, He was not a revolutionary leader. He was not fighting to overthrow a foreign regime. Instead He came to save humanity from the clutches of evil. He encountered forces that tried to sabotage those who wanted a relationship with God. As long as there are forces opposed to the rule of God, evil will rear its head and when it does, suffering ensues.

Perhaps we will persevere better if we accept that the price of love is suffering, exemplified in the birth of a child. In everything we care for, or better still, when we care for someone, there will be suffering. Thus, by being faithful to the Church’s teaching on the sanctity of life and the truth of human sexuality, we will encounter opposition, persecution and as a result, suffer on account of Christ. There is expectation that Catholics should fall in line with present thinking on matters of life and death or sexuality and identity. Hold on to what the Church teaches and you will meet the forces that insist that you are wrong. Orthodoxy is the new heresy.

In preparing His disciples to be apostles, to be sent, Jesus warned them that they will face opposition, endure persecution and undergo suffering. Are we ready to uphold a civilisation of life that defends the sacredness of life and at the same time stand against the civilisation of death? It is easy to believe privately but it requires courage to express what we believe publicly. If we are afraid of being persecuted for holding on to Christ’s teachings, then we must ask the courage to embrace our apostleship. Take heart and trust God for we have not been sent to suffer but rather bear in mind that we will definitely suffer because we have been sent. The God of all grace who has called us to His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will Himself perfect, confirm, and establish us, after a brief time of suffering. Therefore, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen (1 Pet 5:10).

Solemnity of Corpus Christi Year A 2023

There is something to love about Corpus Christi. It is the second celebration in the liturgical calendar that highlights the Body and Blood of Christ. The first was Holy Thursday. At the Last Supper, even though the Passover Meal instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist, the emphasis was rightfully placed on the establishment of the priesthood of the New Covenant. After Easter, after Pentecost and right after the Solemnity of the Blessed Trinity, the attention is now shifted to the topic of Jesus’ Body and Blood.

The Solemnity celebrates, highlights and acknowledges Christ’s promise and presence. First, the promise was made right after He had multiplied bread and fish to feed to the hungry horde. The empty stomachs occasioned for Him a teaching moment on the necessity of eating His Body and drinking His Blood in order to secure eternal life. We know what happened from that incident. Everyone left Him: None of the 5000-strong crowd of men, not counting women and children, could fathom eating flesh and drinking blood—an act suggestive of cannibalism. Jesus did nothing to disabuse them of this idea.

Second, He told the Apostles before the Ascension that He would be with them until the end of time. Through both the establishment of the priesthood and the institution of the Holy Eucharist, Jesus has kept His promise to be present to us from then until the moment the Church on earth crosses into eternity.

Most interestingly, with regard to the charge of cannibalism, for 1500 years, Catholics or Christians had no problem understanding what they consume. The beauty of the accusation is that it actually lends historical weight to what the ancient Church believed in. They understood Jesus’ literal reference and without any reservation, they ate His Body and drank His Blood. They were unfazed by the accusation of cannibalism because they were not eating body parts as cannibals do. We consume Jesus in His entirety—His Body, His Blood, His Divinity and His Humanity. We eat Jesus, full stop. Not parts of Him. It matters not how big a piece of the sacred Host that we consume or how much from the consecrated chalice we have drunk, we would have eaten and drunk of Jesus fully.

To appreciate why we need to eat Jesus, we start with what happens in the process of consumption. The food we eat has a way of becoming us. Try a two-regimen of “Char Koay Teow” and witness your girth expanding. But there is another way of looking at how food changes us. A good example would be garlic or “petai”. If we consume nothing but just garlic or “petai”, soon enough our entire body will reek of garlic or “petai”. This analogy can help us grasp how slowly through the regular reception of the Holy Eucharist, we undergo a transformation which mirrors what the bread and wine undergo when they are consecrated at Mass.

Both the bread and wine retain their accidental appearances meaning that they will taste like bread and wine but through both the Spirit and the Word, both the substances of the bread and wine are changed completely into the substance of the Person of Christ. In other words, the process we term as “Transubstantiation” is achieve at an essential level thereby allowing the accidents to remain. Whatever renders bread as bread and wine as wine has been changed into the full divinity and humanity of Jesus.

The process of Transubstantiation is guaranteed by Christ Himself through the Sacrament of Holy Orders. Through the priest who celebrates the Eucharist, Jesus fulfils His promise of giving us His Body and Blood. We eat and drink of Him in order that we may become like Him. In other words, just like the body beginning to exude the smell of garlic or “petai”, worthily consuming Christ’s body and drinking His blood will make us resemble Him more and more.

The Solemnity is truly a call for us to be the Body of Christ. This privileged vocation is a timely reminder especially when we are caught in the throes of a culture war that is centred on gender politics. That may not strike a chord for those in this country who are more familiar with racial politics. Here, our identity is not tied to qualification but “kulification” (skin colour) which simply calls to attention that identity is important. When we look at man’s attempts to secure a better world, nothing much has changed no matter how much we have advanced technologically. In the past, people cheated people and now they just have better ways of scamming electronically. It merely proves that we do not change the world by the dint of our might and effort. Instead, lasting transformation takes places through the conversion of heart. The more the human heart is shaped like Christ, the better will the shape of the world be.

The procession of the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ is an expression of this desire to be moulded into His image and likeness and it provides a solid foundation for our Catholic Christian identity. It does not solve the problem of posed by gender ideology or racial politics but it does give us a firm foundation to stand on. We are the Body of Christ and in carrying the Body of Christ, we signal our intention to be shaped more and more into His Body. As we continue to eat His Body and drink His Blood at the Eucharist, we beseech Him to mould and form us to be more like Him so that the change that humanity longs for can truly take shape.

Pentecost Sunday Year A 2023

We have been skirting around the 3rd Person of the Trinity in the last couple of weeks. Today He makes a grand appearance. The event that took place 50 days after the Resurrection is what we celebrate today. Originally, a Jewish feast, it commemorates the 50th day after the offering of the first sheaf at Passover. It was a harvest festival.

Actually both the Solemnities of Pentecost and Easter share the same reality concerning the Holy Spirit. Firstly, Pentecost marks the end of the Easter season where the Acts describe the promised Holy Spirit descending upon the Apostles. The Gospel, however, harkens back to Easter Sunday where according to John the Evangelist, Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles in the Cenacle. In effect, there are two accounts of the Holy Spirit’s coming. He was gifted by Christ at the Cenacle and He was sent by Him at Pentecost.

The description of fiery tongues of flames coming to rest on the heads of the Apostles, Our Lady and those who gathered in the upper room, paints a picture of a Church waiting to burst forth into the world. This imagery is traditionally associated with the birth of the Church.

The Church, while being a force for good, is not a gathering of do-gooders. The association of Confirmation with Pentecost shows that the presence of the Holy Spirit transforms the entire person which explains the Apostles running out of the upper room ready to evangelise the world.

The account in the Gospel however records another tack. Jesus breathed the Spirit upon them granting them peace and also forgiveness. In effect, He sent them out to reconcile the world through the forgiveness of sins. Like God breathing life into Adam, Christ breathes the Spirit upon the Apostles before missioning them to the world.

Both evangelisation and reconciliation are two sides of the one mission of the Holy Spirit. The structure of the seven Sacraments supports this enterprise. Firstly, we need to know who we are. We are initiated through Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist to become the Body of Christ. Secondly, if we use the analogy of Church militant, that is, the Church here on earth has a mission, then the remaining four Sacraments can be grouped into two under the Sacraments of Healing and Sacraments of Service. Both Confession and Anointing belong to the reconciling presence of the Church in the world whereas Matrimony and Holy Orders belong in the service of evangelisation. We bear witness to Christ in the world through reconciliation and sanctification.

In other words, Pentecost has cut out our job for us. Proclaim the Gospel and reconcile the world to Christ the Saviour. Easier said than done, actually. This is why we need the Holy Spirit. He is given to the Church to help her navigate through this world. Given the present trend to polarise reality, we need to know that both the Holy Spirit and the Church are not diametrically opposed to each other.

It is not as if the Holy Spirit suddenly appeared on Easter Sunday as Jesus breathed upon the Apostles nor at Pentecost when He descended upon them. Our Creed tells us that He had spoken through the Prophets. The difference now is that the age of the Church is also the age of the Holy Spirit. The Father was most seen and revealed in the act of creation. The Son was most seen and revealed in the act of redemption. Now the Spirit is most seen and revealed in the sanctification of those who follow Jesus and seek the will of the Father.

That is exactly the Church’s mission which the Holy Spirit has a central role in animating. The Catechism of the Catholic Church lists how present the Holy Spirit is. He is present in the Scriptures that He inspired, in the Tradition, of which the Church is always a timeless witness, in the Church’s Magisterium, which He assists, in the Sacramental Liturgy, where He brings us into communion with Jesus, in prayer where He intercedes for us, in the different charisms and ministries through which He builds up the Church, in the signs of apostolic and missionary life, in the witness of saints through whom He manifests His holiness and continues the work of salvation. (CCC #688).

In short, He animates the Body of Christ by teaching through the Bishops, by sanctifying the sons and daughters of the Church through prayer and the Sacraments, and He evangelises through the apostolic ministries and works of the Church. The Holy Spirit has been very much active in the history of our world and continues to be active in the life of the Church. Yet we all know it is not easy to reconcile everything that the Church does with the Holy Spirit?

It is not easy simple because some seem to have confused the Holy Spirit with spontaneity which for most of the time is taken to mean that one should not be tied down by “rules” or Tradition. In other words, the Spirit is constantly trying to break free from the restraints of the past. Conflating the Holy Spirit with the spirit of the times or rather the spirit of the changing times has only resulted in a rise of an anti-institutional attitude against the Church.

Perhaps an answer is found in how the liturgical calendar is organised. Next week we return to Ordinary Time. Sure, for two Sundays we will have the Solemnities of the Blessed Trinity and after that Corpus et Sanguis Christi. Still they belong in Ordinary Time and this is instructive because it shows us that Pentecost does not usher in a “new” age as if “newer” were the better age. Neither does it inaugurate a “freer” Church. We are not “living after” Pentecost. Instead, we are “living out” Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is specifically gifted so as to transform and strengthen us into better witnesses of the Saving Mysteries of Christ’s life, death and resurrection. Thus, the Holy Spirit is not a spirit that validates whatever the spirit of the times demands. Instead He animates the Church so that she can effectively evangelise humanity and reconcile creation in its entirety under the reign of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.

7th Sunday of Easter Year A 2023

As mentioned last Thursday, when so many parts of the Catholic-sphere celebrate today as Ascension, the 7th Sunday feels useless. Nevertheless, hanging around is not nothing. The Eleven with Mary and some others gathered, as instructed by the Lord Himself, in their usual hangout to wait for the Holy Spirit. The Gospel, however, brings us back to the time when Jesus was still preparing for His Passion and Resurrection. His prayer to the Father comes at the tail-end of His Farewell Discourse and He will be arrested after this.

What Jesus offered, amongst other things, is Him glorifying the Father and vice versa. The act of glorification is achieved through setting His disciples apart from this world. They are indeed in the world but they do not belong with it. This setting apart feels almost like a double existence but it is precisely in straddling the City of Man and the City of God that makes Christianity a force to be reckoned with.

“In the world and not of the world” expresses the true character of the Incarnation. He came into this world but He did not belong to this world. From a certain perspective, we can say that He was way ahead of His generation and time. Even though the social norms were restrictive but Jesus was never afraid to break many of them. He ate with sinners, touched lepers, forgave an adulteress, healed the servant of a Roman official, associated with tax collectors and spent time with in a Samaritan village. All His actions sprang from a source that has a deeply scriptural basis. “Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves”. Jesus valued people because each person has been created in His image and likeness. His behavioural pattern characterises a man not of this world.

Perhaps the theme of this year’s World Communications Sunday can help us reflect further on the balance between being in this world while not belonging to it. “Veritatem facientes in caritate”, that is, “speaking the Truth in love”. How can we do that?

Perhaps, we should start with disabusing ourselves of or with debunking a common notion of who Christ truly was. Firstly, He prayed for the unity of those who followed Him and as such, He consecrated His followers so that they could be united by a love which holds both the Father and the Son together. This idea of unity is certainly appealing when all around us we experience fragmentations and divisions. People are at each other’s throats. Worst of all is that truth is now decided by who possesses a greater media presence—broadcast, digital or print. In this age of media power, a lie told one time too many tends to become “truth”, and this can happen because there are players that control the narratives. The experience of Elon Musk and Twitter shows how Big Tech functions tweaking algorithms to corral our thinking. Whoopi Goldberg who has a media presence uses God to justify gender altering surgeries for children.

One of the misguided truths about Jesus that flows from the ability to platform such a view like Whoopi’s is that Jesus was nice without qualifications. He covers our multitude of sins simply because He is merciful. Yet the most glaring exception is found when dealing with the woman caught in adultery. Jesus was incredibly gentle with her but He was also firm: “Go and sin no more”. This is the real Jesus that we need to proclaim. Having a God who is loving and kind is of course something we all want. We want a Jesus who understands and accepts us unconditionally. In reality, the truth who Jesus Christ is can both unsettle and disturb us. Yet, we should never shy from communicating the truth that has its foundation in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The unenviable challenge is to proclaim Jesus. While His truth must always be proclaimed with mercy with regard to the human condition, the question is how we should balance a kind Jesus with accepting differences while not tolerating perversion. Every encounter with someone from the fringe, the Samaritan woman, Zacchaeus or Matthew, both tax collectors, concluded with them entering into the fold of Jesus. Truth is always humbly attractive rather than thoughtlessly heavy-handed. The fact remains that while Jesus accepted all, He was uncompromising in the salvation of souls. This fact is important because “nice” seems to suggest that Jesus tolerates perversion. No matter how perverse one’s sins are, yet each experience of Jesus was always an encounter of faith and conversion. Hence, the virtue of compassion that we crave requires truth. Without truth, it is not compassion. In fact, without truth, compassion is wicked.

We can see that the entire ministry of Jesus was an acknowledgement that He lived in this world. What He did not do was to live “LIKE” this world. It makes sense that He prayed for unity. He prayed for His disciples to be united because unity is fostered by embracing the truth which is taught in the gospels and translated into action. Thus, unity requires that we speak and act in truth because the choice to live in truth has an effect on society. Civilisation can only change when we change. It begins one choice at a time.

Truth is therefore not a matter of right or being right. Rather it is an ability live truthfully that makes our speech compassionate, yet convincing and compelling. Our challenge these days is that the faculty of communication has been co-opted by an ideology that is set on dismantling the structures of racism, patriarchy and heteronormativity. It seems that these oppressions are obstacles to a freer and fuller expressions of human existence. In other words, woke ideology has compelled both speech and communication to virtue signal to the world that one’s opinion and belief stand on the “correct, right and safe side of the truth”. Think of the recent advertising fiasco where a man who identifies as a woman was put forward to be the spokesperson for Bud Light Beer because the VP for Marketing felt that the brand should keep up with the changing fads and feelings. And now Adidas seems to have jumped into the same bandwagon because it uses biological males to model women’s swimsuits.

In this age of woke virtue signalling, one must be outraged by people who are racists or behave in a patriarchal way or try to restrict created genders to basically male and female. It is as if our communication must broadcast that we are freed from racism, patriarchy or the bondage binary genders. This is the new political correctness that communication must obey if one were not to incur the condemnation of bigotry, hate speech and prejudice.

The truth to be communicated is more than just freedom from racism, patriarchy or binary restriction. It is true that any form of communication that serves the truth requires open dialogue, fraternal charity and freedom from coercion. Most of all, we should never forget that we have been set apart with a duty to present to humanity, our brothers and sisters, with the full array of what it means to live truthfully in this world but always with eyes set on another world to come.