3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Have you ever perpetuated a misconception or even lived one? Remember how we were told never to eat two conjoined bananas because of the belief that eating them will result in giving birth to twins? It is a simple case of similarity mistaken for causality. It’s like playing with your uncle’s bald head will make you bald faster. We may call it plain and pure superstition but unwittingly or unknowingly, many of us do perpetuate misconceptions or even live them.

The calling of Andrew, Simon (otherwise known as Peter), James and John might be a good start or beginning to debunk some misconceptions.

In a sense, you can say that the calling of these four men was the start of Christianity. Therefore, it is safe to conclude that Christianity was a religion born in Asia. But for many of us, Christianity seems to be a foreign religion; as foreign as a missionary La Salle Brother or Infant Jesus Sister imported from Ireland or France, for example. It doesn’t take much to arrive at this conclusion. Statistics may support the conclusion for of all the continents, the most populous is Asia and yet it is the least Christianised.

Still, it is a misconception which we must dispel with. Christianity is NOT alien to Asia. It is true that Christianity was able to use Greek philosophy in its self-explication but that does not diminish the fact that Christianity was and is an Asian religion because its roots are the Old Testament and therefore Semitic. Jews and Arabs may be Semitic but nonetheless Asians. In the beginning Christianity spread towards the East, towards Persia, India and China. In fact, if you like, near Karbala the city of Shite prominence, south-west of Baghdad, you should be able to find an ancient Church that pre-dates the dominant religion of Iraq today.

It is not surprising that because of this misconception that Christianity is a Western importation, we have been told not to use a certain word for God. In fact, I remember that we were told to stick to Latin. So, you imagine what a misconception can do? And, the worst thing is that there are Catholics who live this misconception because they tell me that it is wrong for another priest to call God by the name which we are not supposed to use.

Today, we are told that Jesus called the four. There is perhaps another misconception that we may labour under. We are used to thinking that calling equals vocation—vocation to the priesthood or religious life. The calling of these four might give us an excellent occasion to speak about answering the call to priesthood or religious life. But that is to restrict the call of Jesus, as if his calling were for “new” people. Like Christ is calling for new apostles.

But, we need to re-think about calling because there is a crisis here in Asia, whether we recognise it or not, whether we acknowledge it or not. It is a crisis of recognition; a crisis which touch upon our Christian identity. If we accept Christianity to be an Asian religion, then it should find the soil of Asian hearts a fertile ground. It’s like having a home-ground advantage. Christians should have their task of evangelisation cut out for them. There should be more Christians in Asia since Asia is the home of Christianity and Christianity is at home in Asia.

But, there are not. Christians make up less than 3 per cent of Asia’s population.

So, the crisis we have is related to the majority of Asians not recognising the few Christians living amongst them. The call of the four is not so much Christ calling for “new” apostles as His call is a challenge to Christians living out to their utmost ability the charism of their baptism which according to the CCC the “common priesthood of the laity is exercised by the unfolding of baptismal grace—the life of faith, hope and charity, a life according to the Spirit”.

It is through this life of faith, hope and charity lived according to the Spirit that others recognise Christ. This is a challenge to which we must rise. But, the sad thing is we often excuse our failure by supplying the reason for the lack of conversion to Christianity on the venerability of the other religions—notably Buddhism and Hinduism. The usual response is: Buddhism and Hinduism are older and more established religions whereas Christianity is a Western importation and 3 per cent is testimony to 500 years of failure in evangelisation. We blame the crisis of recognition on the failure of evangelisation and on Christianity as a Western important. Then, we shoot ourselves in our foot because we think we’ve adopted a “western” way and thus we are less of an Asian.

The point is China could have been Christianised if Christians hadn’t fought amongst themselves. The Controversies of the Chinese Rite arose precisely because of Catholic infighting. It does give credence that our crisis is because Christ is not clearly visible in our lives. You may say we had Mother Teresa who is well-recognised in Asia. But, she was one of so few Christians. The fact is, we should discount Mother Teresa because she was truly a Western importation since she hailed from Albania. The presence of Mother Teresa is perhaps a great shame to us Asians who should be the first to show forth the light of Christ.

Let’s recognise our failure for what it is: the failure to live our profession visibly. Let us not blame it on Christianity as a Western importation. Otherwise, we would have perpetuated a misconception or worse, live the misconception. The First Reading is echoed in the Gospel. Land of Zebulun, Land of Napthali—the people that lived in darkness has seen a great light. We are so unremarkable that Asia does not see our light—the light of Christ. So, Gandhi was right to say, “I believe in Christ but I don’t believe in Christianity”. But, the blame is not on Christianity. The shame is upon us Asians. We have failed our home-grown Christ. We have failed to be Christ. We have dimmed his light.

Baptism of the Lord Year A

Jesus comes up to John the Baptist. There is an awkward moment. John recognises the inequality of the relationship and signals his unworthiness to baptise Jesus but Jesus insists. How can we understand the baptism of The Sinless One? The insistence of Jesus can be understood from the perspective of how firstly, Matthew wants to make the connexion between Judaism and Christianity where he understands the latter to be the fulfilment of the former [1] and secondly, of Jesus’ desire and its consequence on those who are baptised.

From the perspective of continuity and fulfilment, we have the opening of heaven. Imagine in the Old Testament when heaven remained shut and no rain fell upon the earth? Here at the River Jordan, heaven is opened and God re-establishes His relationship with the world. Of course, the Father’s eagerness is a response to the Messiah, his beloved Son.

Second, the Spirit coming down like a dove is sign of a new creation dawning. In Gen 1, the earth was a formless void and there was darkness over the deep and God’s Spirit hovered over the water. Further on in Gen 8, we read that the dove sent out by Noah brought back an olive branch thus signalling a new beginning. (Gen 8:11). With the Spirit coming down like a dove, Matthew reads the history of Israel anew in Jesus. In the baptism of Jesus, a new beginning has dawned upon us. For Matthew, he is reassuring the early Christians that there is greater continuity rather than discontinuity between Christianity and Judaism. For us, the implication of Jesus’ baptism can only be extraordinary for each one of us because we too have been baptised. Let us explore some of the implications.

In Canon Law, baptism is described as the gateway to all the other sacraments (Can 842 §2). It grants us a host of privileges. For example, without baptism, we cannot receive Holy Communion. Once, an un-baptised person was rather annoyed because he was not allowed to receive Holy Communion. He said, “I am a practising Catholic. I believe in what the Church teaches etc”. The answer is simply this: baptism. Baptism initiates a person into a believing community. We are baptised in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. That means through Jesus we gain God for our Father and through Jesus we become brothers and sisters to one another. Communion implies just that “communion”. It means that we not only “communicate” with Jesus but the Eucharist expresses the communion we share as brothers and sisters in Christ.

This initiation which baptism achieves is not just a convention we observe. It is not like a community which you join willy-nilly. One day you are happy with the people, you consider yourself as belonging to the community. One day, you fight with this person, then you exclude yourself from the community. It is somewhat analogous to the family. You are born into a family and no matter what happens you remain a member of that family. The same can be said of baptism. Once you are baptised, you become a member of the Christian family no matter what happens after because at baptism, your entire being is changed and you become configured to Christ. In baptism, there is a marking which after it has taken place, cannot be reversed. The consequence of baptism is once baptised you will always be baptised. This explains why for us Catholics, when an Anglican joins us to become a Catholic, he or she is formally received into the Church. We do not “re-baptise” the person. The same too is said of a Christian who for convenience converts to Islam to marry a person. However you may want to see it, the person remains internally configured to Christ.

This is frightening, is it not? In today’s world of freedom, freedom is often translated into self-determination. If I am defined as who I want to be, such an implication can only be frightening. In that case, why should one be baptised, you may ask? And further into this “why should one be baptised” is a subsidiary question: “Should not we wait for a child to grow into maturity before we baptise the child”? [2]

The answer I would give is that the implication or the consequence of privileges is duties... Earlier I mentioned that baptism is gateway to the other sacraments—granting us a host of privileges. If you like, duty is the other side of the coin of privilege. The problem is when we are gung-ho about our rights and privileges, we may forget about our duties. Thus, we need to reconcile our understanding of freedom and duty. Freedom is not the ability to do just anything but rather the freedom to embrace our destiny or our duty. Why? This is because the human spirit is made for a great destiny. It is when we deny the spirit the drive to rise above itself that we kill the human spirit. The understanding of freedom as doing anything that you want is a denial of the human spirit’s destiny for greatness.

Today, Jesus walked into the water not because he had nothing better to do but because he had come to a point in his life where his destiny opens him to embrace the Father’s will. His baptism is a declaration that He intends to live according to His Father’s will in the way that will please His Father. Now you see how enormous the consequence of Jesus’ baptism is for us for it expresses His openness to God’s will. For us, baptism is God’s invitation and our acceptance is salvation. It is a privilege and also a duty to be embraced.

Many people feel unworthy. But let not the fact that we can sin cloud or limit the vision of our calling/vocation/destiny as sons and daughters of the Father, called to greatness. Do you believe it? The crisis we face today is not sin. Ours is a crisis of belief that God can and still does call us. If you don’t believe this, then know that the Devil has clouded your judgement.

FOOTNOTES:
[1] Of course, these days it is politically incorrect to look at Christianity as the fulfilment of Judaism.
[2] Baptism of an infant does not violate the infant’s right. A parent routinely chooses for a child or on behalf of a child. Our skewered sense that freedom is self-determination seems to think that in the matter of “religion” a child should have the right to choose. The point is, when your child is sick, you’d never think twice to bring him or her to the hospital. So, our idea of freedom is challenged by our practice. A parent always wants the best for the child. No one sends a child to the worst school in the area. Baptism is a supreme good; life with God. So, why shouldn’t one choose the best?

Epiphany Year A

In Ratatouille, Remy the gastronomic rodent describes his brother Emile as someone who is easily impressed. We too are like that because we are taken up by the bright lights of Christmas. But in reality, Epiphany is the reason for us to celebrate Christmas.

Year A is Matthew’s Gospel. Whatever historical foundation we want to establish for the wise men—were there three of them, were they actually kings, etc—we should not overlook their symbolic value for Matthew’s Gospel. More than any other evangelist, Matthew sees in Jesus Christ the fulfilment of the hopes of ancient Israel. For Matthew there is continuity between Judaism and Christianity. Therefore, when he tells the story of Jesus, he does so with a rear-view mirror glance at the history of Israel. For example, the sermon that Jesus gives is set on a mountain. This is because Jesus is now the new Moses for Moses had brought divine revelation from Mount Sinai. The wise men's coming today parallels Solomon whose wisdom was sought by a visitor from the East—the Queen of Sheba. She marvelled at the wisdom of Solomon. (1 Kgs10:1-13). Now the wise men are in search of the true wisdom.

The Second Reading gives us a theological or wider vision of the feast whereby God invites both Jews and Gentiles to share on an equal footing, the benefits of salvation brought by Christ. Epiphany brings out the true significance of Christmas because it reveals to us the universal significance of Jesus Christ. This is possible because of the continuity in the plan of God’s salvation for the world. There is no salvation just for the Jews alone. Therefore, it makes sense then to speak of the continuity between Judaism and Christianity.

Who is Jesus Christ for the world? How are we to come before him? Today’s feast is meant to open our minds to the possibility of conversion to Christ, to his truth, to his wisdom and his salvation.

This is where we meet closed minds. People like to be known as “open-minded”. If I called you narrow-minded, I don’t think you like that because we are especially sensitive to the charges of prejudice, bigotry or intolerance. But, this seeming “openness” may actually represent a kind of conformism which is actually a closing of the mind. When we are afraid to think the deeper questions, then we have actually closed our minds. At this point in human history when there is a breakdown of meta-narratives, that is, a breakdown in the ability to have an overarching story that binds all the experiences, when we no longer are able to tell the same story, we react by closing our minds. For example, in a dialogue of life, when a person says, “what is true for you is true for you and what is true for me is true for me”, that means that we have already closed our minds or we admit that we are incapable of truth or incapable of approximating the truth.

You’d be surprised where closed minds can come from. There are those who have accepted Christ as Saviour. The acceptance of Christ is not really openness. The acceptance of Christ to the exclusion of others is really a kind of “closing of the mind” as there is no possibility of accepting other people who do not share our convictions. A closed mind will look at them and think: We have the truth and you have falsehood. The current debate about what to call God in another language is a clear example of how a closed mind works. Such a closed mind sees a great divide between them and us. “Ours is the true God and we alone can call God by this name. We are saved. Yours is not the true God which is why we forbid you to call God by that name. You are not saved”. But, let’s not point our fingers at other people. Let’s look at how closed a Catholic mind can be. For example, in marriage too, there are families who might exert the pressure to either the son-in-law or the daughter-in-law to convert to become Catholics. And there are many who enter into marriage a Catholic only in name but will never live a Catholic life. It is sad that people embrace a religion such as Catholicism out of convenience. But that’s not because of them but because of our stance towards those who are not Catholics. We have acted with a closed mind.

On the other side of the spectrum, there are some who pride themselves to be open-minded. For some people, everything is the same. That too is a form of closed mind. Everything cannot be the same for if it were, then why aren’t you everything? It betrays a laziness of one’s capacity to choose or one’s capacity of conviction—a poor exercise of the faculty of choosing and be convicted. For example, people who believe that every religion is the same, ultimately believes in no religion, set themselves up as the standard and in the end reduced themselves to an idol of no consequence. Ask a person who is a friend of everybody. That person will probably die of loneliness. "Every religion is the same" is a form of relativism because it leads not to conviction but rather dissolution of life, of character and morality.

What we need is a rigorous openness to Christ and the true meaning of his coming. In the first example of a closed mind, we are not supposed to beat people into submission because force in conversion can only result in superficiality. On the other hand, we should not confuse what we believe in to be with everything else. Not all religions are the same. We are duty-bound to respect them but we are not bound to accept their truth claim.

This is where we hear the common saying that religion is one of the greatest sources of conflict in the world. But true religion does not lead to conflict. Instead true religion leads to conversion.

Therefore, given the scenario, what is important is for us to hold the tension of being “exclusive”, on the one hand, in which people who do not think like us are excluded and “inclusive”, on the other hand, in which people try to dissolve differences because they are unable to deal with them. When people can’t deal with differences, they either divide the world into a “we vs. they” reality OR they dissolve the differences by making “everything the same”. Within this tension we enter Epiphany in which Christ is revealed to be the Saviour of the world. This is the meaning of Epiphany. The only credibility we have for proclaiming Christ to be the Saviour is through our lives. Now, He is revealed in and through our lives. How can we live our lives so that people may recognise the Christ in us? Epiphany is thus a reminder that every deed of ours must match the name Christian. For example, if your car has a sticker that says, “Jesus is the answer”, be careful how you drive because for many of us, our actions are not extraordinary enough to show the world that Jesus Christ is Lord. Go to the supermarket and see how our behaviour is no different from others.

Today is a good day because we are commissioning our catechist. The word catechesis is rooted in the Greek "Katekhein", meaning to resound or echo faithfully the teaching of the Church in Scripture and Tradition. But, I should add that catechesis is also an echoing of the actions of Christ. Let our actions be the most credible witness to the presence of Christ the Saviour of the world.

Feast of the Holy Family Year A

The priesthood to which some of us are ordained for and committed to is principally directed to the service of the family. The preface of the mass for wedding, [the preface is the part which begins with “The Lord be with you” and end with the “Holy, Holy, Holy”.] may help us understand the relationship of the priesthood to the family. “You are the loving Father of the world of nature, you are the loving Father of the new creation of grace and in Christian marriage, you bring together the two orders of creation: nature’s gift of children enriches the world and your grace enriches also your Church”. The baptism of infants is the normal channel whereby the grace of God enriches the Church and through which the membership of the Church is increased. And it is to this grace that the priesthood is involved because the family is at the centre of the Church’s apostolic vision. We are in the business of the nurturance of or in the formation of grace-filled families.

In this endeavour the Church aptly gives us the Feast of the Holy Family for us to reflect on. The Holy Family is given to us not because they are a perfect family. In fact, as a family they resemble some of our families. Mary was pregnant out of wedlock. Joseph wasn’t quite sure about what he should do and the young boy “serious” about his father’s business is perhaps too head-strong at such a tender age.

They are considered holy not because they have an unblemished family history. They are holy because they constantly sought God’s will in their lives and they lived their holiness through the grace of God. A conclusion thus is that there is hope yet for every family here especially for those who consider theirs to be less than perfect. This path to holiness may be gleaned through the readings we heard today.

In the first reading, we hear of the command to honour our parents. To care for one’s kith and kin is no easy task. Not especially when the demands of career and work are plenty. But the book of the Ecclesiasticus enjoins upon us the duty of ensuring that our parents live out their final years in comfort and dignity. Unfortunately, comfort and dignity are often interpreted as sterile and clean... put them into a nursing home where they will get better care than they would get at home. But, have you ever heard of a saying that “one mother can take care of ten children but ten children cannot take care of one mother”? It is possible that the elderly sometimes need professional care that only a nursing home can provide but professional care is not what they always need. There are more people who die from lack of love and affection than from physical neglect. The pressure of forging a future may make us forget our past or history. But Jesus hanging on the Cross gives us a model of what it means to honour one’s parents. On the cross, Jesus thought not of his suffering but of his mother and entrusted her to the care of his disciple. The call to holiness often challenges us to walk beyond the convenient path of comfort.

The second reading widens the path towards holiness. It is quite telling that people often think that theirs is the worst family there ever is. Parents know this to be true. You send your child to school and your child wants you to drop him or her 150m away from the school gate. You are NEVER to kiss the child in front of his or her friends. Peer pressure may explain your child’s embarrassment. But it is more likely that your child probably thinks that he or she comes from the worst ever family.

It just illustrates for us that a holy family to be proud of is not just a wish. It takes a lot to make a family holy. St Paul says that the foundation of a holy family is anchored upon the bonds of commitment, fidelity and self-sacrifice. It is a common experience that people are kinder to strangers but can be mean to their kin. When we encounter this phenomenon of dislike in our family, then we are challenged to re-think how we relate to each other as members of a family. Even religious life is like that. St John Berchman--whose portrait can be seen in the stained glass said that his greatest cross was community life. We are born into a family and we have no choice about it. Likewise a religious community is not something we choose—we are sent there. This is significant because the family or even a religious community is ordinarily our first path to salvation. That is why we say that charity begins at home.

Finally, our path of holiness must cross God’s will. The paths of Jesus, Mary and Joseph were not straight-forward—just like many of ours. What makes their lives remarkable was the will of God. At every juncture in their lives, they sought the will of God. “I am the handmaid of the Lord”. Joseph unquestioningly took Mary to his home and Jesus upon returning from Jerusalem was obedient to both Mary and Joseph.

That being so, every family’s story, shameful as it may sound, may turn out to be a story of salvation. The will of God is always to save us and God can write straight line with crooked ones. Therefore, holiness is never beyond the reach of any family.

In conclusion, the holy family is given to us not because they were perfect. They were on their way to perfection, thus giving us hope that one day we too may enjoy the perfection that became theirs.

I said at the beginning that the priesthood is directed in the service of the family. Yet the vocation of the priesthood is tied to the “fortune” of the family. A weaker family is a poorer society. A poorer society will result in poorer vocations to the priesthood.

Whilst the priesthood may be directed to the service of the family, it’s the family that must give birth to the vocation of the priest. It is time to rethink and re-embrace the path of holiness that runs through our family.

Christmas Year A

Have you ever been mean to people? The condition of “bitchiness” affects both men and women. Sometimes a person drives the car and is in the wrong lane and has to quickly switch lanes. This happens a lot at traffic lights. But what you do is prevent him or her from cutting into your lane. And when a comment is passed that you were mean, have you ever heard this excuse or used it yourself? “It’s only human” or “I am only human what”. This excuse is used when someone has lost it and has given in to temptation and is finding an explanation for the lapse of judgement. Whilst it is true that “to err is human [and to forgive divine]”, the fact is, if we reflect upon it, the excuse “it is human what” is proof that we have already lost our sense of humanity. Why? Why do I say that? Christmas is why—Christmas is the reason the excuse is an expression of a lost sense of humanity.

Christmas is about the incarnation. The incarnation means simply that God has come down to earth, took on our human nature in order to confer upon us the dignity of children of God. “The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us” is significant because through the incarnation, Jesus came to show us how to be truly human. When we give ourselves the excuse that our sins are indications of our humanity, we miss the point. What is worse is that “the Word made Flesh” is sometimes used against Jesus. In order to defend ourselves and to find an excuse for our actions, we point out that “Jesus is God what, so, how can he sin”. This argument misses the point simply because we take as our reference that we are made for sin. We may sin but we are not made for sin.

Therefore, “Jesus is like us in everything except sin” says that Jesus is sinless not because he is God but because he is human. He came to show us that it is possible to live for God and to live in God. He became one of us in order to show us our true destiny, which is a divine destiny.

You can’t imagine how pervasive the contrary idea that our destiny is less than divine is. Hence, Christmas is a timely call to attention that we are not made for sin. In the encyclical, Deus caritas est, incidentally signed on Christmas Day by BXVI, helps us understand why humans are not made for sin. In the encyclical, the Pope speaks of two types of love: eros and agape. Eros, from which we get such terms like erotic along with all the steamy imageries of love, actually points out our true destiny. Our perception of what is erotic usually revolves around “sexual perversion” bordering on “pornography” or leading towards the darker side of our human nature. But, eros is actually ever reaching out towards its fulfilment in agape, in God. How? Human desire which is a powerful drive of the “erotic” or eros is a sign that human persons are made for and directed toward a love that never ends. St. Augustine, the Pope’s favourite philosopher illustrates this point. St. Augustine asks us to reflect on our experience of desire. Our experience shows that when we have desired something very badly, and have worked very hard to possess it, often at the end, we lose interest and become bored with the very things we chase after. Sometimes we are even condemned to a relentless move to seek one thing after another. Ask a womaniser if he’ll ever be satisfied when he gets the woman he lusts after. Black Eyed Pea sang this song which proves this point: fools in “lust” could never get enough of love, love, love.

Our experience of desire points out to us something very important about who we are. No good thing that we have wanted and even possessed can finally quench desire itself, because we are made for the uncreated Good who is God himself.

Christmas then sets us right on our path to thinking about our humanity and our potential. We are made for God and our inner dynamism or drive is directed towards God and not towards sin. We sin, even routinely sin but we are not made for sin. To say “I am only human what” may be an insult to God—a kind of indictment against God meaning “You, God cannot have made me better. That is why I am like that”. The fact that we sin is not the same as we are made to sin. Our capacity to sin is indicative of the freedom we possess as created beings and it not an indictment against God who created us less than perfect.

During the celebration of the Eucharist, sometimes people can miss an action. But insignificant as that action may be, it speaks volumes. When the wine is poured into the chalice, a drop of water is added to the wine and the following prayer is said silently: “By the mystery of this water and wine, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity”. God when He created humanity, He put the stamp of divinity in us. We are created with potentiality for the divine.

The second reading tells us that God spoke to us through different prophets and at different times but in our own time, he speaks to us through his Son. What is most relevant is not that God “speaks” to us as much as God indicates His desire to be at close quarters with us. He became one of us so that we can look upon Him as the model of humanity, as the model of how to be fully a human. That is the meaning of grace because grace is the gift to enable us to fulfil our divine destiny.

Christmas is not a time to be discouraged by our sinfulness. It is a time to be encouraged by the possibility of being human, like Jesus is and also to be divine like Jesus. Only Jesus can make us more human and more divine. "In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God. The Word was made flesh." He lived among us and so it is time to give thanks that finally we have the possibility of regaining our full and true humanity.

4th Sunday of Advent Year A

I wish Christmas were over. Why? In some places, the way a feast is celebrated is rather prolonged or aggressive. For example, in the Philippines, the preparation for Christmas is already afoot comes September... it seems that when the month ends with “ber”, Christmas preparations would start. We may not begin in September but we are no less aggressive or intense in our preparation.

That is why, I wish Christmas were over. The aggressiveness with which Christmas is anticipated with so much effort is put into “celebrating” Christmas before the actual feast itself that when the actual day finally arrives, we are already too tired to celebrate—a feeling that as Christmas arrives, it’s already passé. The same can be said for our Moon-cake festival, Aidl-Fitri or the Lunar New Year celebration.

But, Christmas is essentially a religious feast. Regrettably, the aggressiveness of our commercial celebration tends to overshadow the spiritual aspect of Christmas. I am not against the commercial celebration of Christmas. What I am lamenting may be the poverty of our spiritual preparation for Christmas.

Christmas is a religious feast and the 4th Sunday of Advent brings out more of this aspect as we stand at the threshold of Christmas. First of all, the word "religion" is widely understood by many to be a set of common beliefs and practices generally held by a group of people, often codified as prayers, rituals, and religious laws. That is why the airy-fairy spirituality is so much more popular because “religion” is rigid whereas spirituality is seemingly more spontaneous. But the more fundamental meaning of the word “religion” has something to do with “re-alignment”. Thus, to be religious is fundamentally to be re-aligned with God.

Advent is clearly a period of re-alignment. We see how as the drama of both Mary and Joseph unfolds, it also reflects their alignment with God as the one who is at the centre of their will. Mary, who was found with child not of her future husband, risked everything she was. Joseph, an honourable man, when told to accept a child not of his, did exactly as he was told.

The circumstances of their lives may not be simple or straightforward. But what they show us is that the alignment of their lives with God’s will has something to do with a firm belief that God is in charge. This God who is in charge challenges our current cultural presupposition that we are the masters of our destiny. We are constantly urged to take charge of our lives and to make things happen. So much so that, when we encounter failure, it is because we hadn’t tried hard enough.

In the gospel, we learn that God takes charge in really critical situations—what can be worse than after having prepared for a wedding, the couple finds out that one is pregnant and the child is not the fruit of their love. The first reading assures us that God is really in charge. It is this: the maiden is with child and will soon give birth to a son whom she will call Emmanuel, a name which means “God-is-with-us”. God is in charge by being with us. Both St Paul in the 2nd Reading and the Gospel confirm this when they speak of Jesus as the Son of David and the Son of God. Every king in David’s line is an embodiment of God’s promise to be with us and this promise finds its fulfilment in Jesus.

If we accept that Christmas is a religious feast, then, we are asked to submit to the demands of divine desire or accede to the sovereignty of God’s will. For those who do not believe, to be aligned with God is escapism. Karl Marx says that “religion” is the opiate of the people. But, for those who believe, alignment with God can only result in the freedom to truly embrace life without escape. We do not need to buy more, eat more or undergo cosmetic surgery to escape from the “cruelty” of life.

Mary and Joseph illustrate for us that our personal history, no matter how much the world may measure it as failure, is always the arena for the exercise of God’s sovereignty and a display of God's love. It is also a reminder that there can never really be any doubt about the ultimate victory of God's goodness. It is incredibly consoling to know that a good and loving God is in charge of history.

Religion, far from shielding us from the reality of life, actually brings us into life and helps us especially at those times when life does not make sense. For example, the death of a parent before his or her time, the loss of an only child. For many of us, life’s “downs” are proofs of God’s absence. Whereas, in the case of Mary and Joseph, life’s vicissitudes are charged with the presence of God. And they prove that by acceding to God’s will.

Indeed in these two days before Christmas breaks upon us, may we find the time to sit religiously with God asking for the grace that our life be a reflexion of God’s will, a reflexion that indeed God is with us: Emmanuel.

3rd Sunday of Advent Year A

John and Jesus couldn’t be further apart than the North is to the South Pole. Theirs is a life of great contrast because John prophesied the judgement of God whereas Jesus emphasised the salvation of God. John lived like an ascetic, apart from people. Jesus happily enjoyed the crowd, eating and drinking with sinners.

John had prepared the people for the coming of the Messiah and as he faced his end, doubts and questions about this Jesus whom he had believed to be the Messiah.

But, John wouldn’t be wrong to have lost faith in Jesus. Who wouldn’t be? Every expression of his life showed that he had lived for the image he had of the Messiah. But, it was as if Jesus had seemingly failed to live up to John’s image of how a Messiah should be.

In prison, John is supposed to face the truth on two fronts. The first is the truth about who his Messiah really is and secondly the truth about himself and what he believed in. Both these two truths are connected. How?

Humans live ideals. Even the most despised of all people have ideals. Drug addicts want to live in a world wherein they can remain on a high for all time without really having to pay the price of their addiction. The point is when reality does not match our ideal we are challenged to face the truth. In the case of John the Baptist, Jesus almost “repudiated” his definition of what a Messiah should be. That repudiation was bewildering because John had staked his entire life on whom he had believed in. When his ideal was shattered, John began to doubt himself.

Parents may be disappointed that their children have given up the practice of the faith in spite of all the efforts in bringing up the children in the tradition of the faith. Parents in such situation will certainly begin to question the very foundation of their belief. Not so much, “What have I done wrong?” but rather, “Have I believed in the wrong things all these years”?

People are scandalised and deeply hurt by the actions of some members of the Church especially priests in regard to the treatment of people. Whenever a scandal breaks out in Church, the people’s faith takes a knocking. People not only question the faith but they also question the very reason for believing.

In both these crises: children giving up their faith or scandal in the Church, the crises ultimately point back to the believer. The question that John asked: “Are you the one who is to come?” can be rephrased: “have I been wrong to have believed in you?”.
The key is: “Have I been wrong?” I remember when a good friend of mine left the Society of Jesus, I was quite affected. Upon hindsight, it was not so much the fact that the person had left that affected me. The leaving actually raised the question of “whether I should stay or not”. The same can be said of the effects of divorce. Those who are married and have witnessed their close friends getting divorced are sometimes plagued by the uncertainty that they too have staked their belief in the wrong thing, in this case, marriage. Should they continue to believe in the sanctity of marriage?

When things do not turn out the way we want them to, our disappointment is with God. However, is it the case that we are disappointed because God has not answered our prayers? Or are we more disappointed with ourselves? We are disappointed with ourselves for having trusted God. Why have I been so stupid to have trusted… Often it is not the failure or the betrayal of the person whom we have trusted that holds us prisoners. It is the fact that we have trusted that holds us prisoners. Our lack of faith in God may actually reveal deeper crisis which is the lack of faith in ourselves. Our trust has been wounded and we are just wary of trusting.

The first reading says: Courage! Do not be afraid. James says: Do not lose heart. Be patient and have hope like farmers waiting for the harvest to come. And Jesus tells John: Look again. Your faith has not been in vain because what I do herald the coming of the Kingdom prophesied by Isaiah.

All these words of comfort give us a sense that God is still in charge. We can still believe.

Today, Jesus asks us to have faith in him. We might have to wait a little longer. But he has never failed us. He says, “Have faith in me but have a little more faith in yourselves as you trust me”.