2nd Sunday of Easter Year A

Every year, after Easter Sunday, whether it is Year A, B or C, we are treated to this Gospel passage. It is a multi-focused passage. At first glance, it focuses on the theme of peace. They are fearful and are locked behind closed doors. Jesus comes and stands in their midst. He calms their fears: “Peace be with you” [Jn 20: 21]. Jesus the Prince of Peace by his blood on the Cross reconciles humanity with God. He is our Peace. Therefore, it is such a great greeting that a Bishop, instead of saluting, “Good morning brothers and sisters in Christ, the Bishop, by virtue of his ordination, exercises what it means to be truly another Christ: Altus Christus when he stands before you and confidently greets you with the very words of Christ Himself: “Peace be with You”.

Or, at second glance the Gospel could very well refer to the ministry of reconciliation. Here, Jesus gives the Apostles the power to forgive or not to forgive sins: “Receive the Holy Spirit. For those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sins you retain, they are retained” [Jn 20:22-23]. We often point to this passage for the foundation of our Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Or at third glance, we could also focus on Thomas’ incredulity or disbelief at so stupendous or amazing a miracle such as the resurrection. Thomas couldn’t believe that the Promised Messiah would return to life. He asks for physical proofs which Jesus was only too pleased to supply.

But a closer examination of the passage may yield a bit more for our reflexion and understanding.

The beginning of the Gospel passage is our clue as it makes a reference to “the evening of the same day of the week, the first day of the week”. According to the Catechism, “Jesus rose from the dead, ‘on the first day of the week’. Because it is the ‘first day’, the day of Christ’s Resurrection recalls the first creation. Because it is the “eight day” following the Sabbath, it symbolises the new creation ushered in by Christ’s Resurrection. For Christians, it has become the first of all days, the first of all feasts, the Lord’s Day” [CCC2174]. Perhaps, it becomes clearer why we go to Mass on Sunday. We do so not because of “obligation” but because we honour the Day of the Lord, the Day when Creation is renewed.

The Resurrection recalls us to the event of Creation. In effect, Jesus in rising from the death has offered us a new Creation. It is in this context that the giving of the Spirit is so important. If you recall Genesis, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep and God’s spirit hovered over the water” [Gen 1:1-2]. Now, the Spirit rests not on water but on the Apostles.

Thus, Thomas is not really “doubting Thomas” as tradition likes to paint him; a man with doubting faith asking for concrete proof in order to believe. If you recall, Thomas was also the Apostle who said, when Jesus was about to go to Bethany to raise Lazarus: “Let us go and die with Him too”. Here is an apostle whose general personality is not characterised by timidity or pusillanimity[1]. Instead, Thomas’ doubt is rather indicative of unexpressed or un-formed faith. A doubter is not one who does not believe but rather one whose heart is searching for someone to believe in. So, given the context of the Resurrection as New Creation brought about by Christ, given that Christ gave the Holy Spirit that hovered from the abyss to the Apostles, then Thomas’ exclamation is his search fulfilled; it is the birth of his true faith in the Christ who is always more that what He seems: My Lord and My God. The doubter becomes the greatest believer for Thomas is able to recognise the Risen Jesus as the Lord and Saviour—the one through whom the world was created and the one in whom creation is renewed.

Creation is renewed in the Resurrection. The problem is we are like Thomas getting lost asking for proofs of the resurrection instead of asking if our hearts already know that in Jesus Christ, creation has been renewed. This Sunday is a challenge to some of us whose faith is waiting to be born. It is not that we are faithless. A person whose faith is lukewarm is not because of unbelief. Rather, in the onslaught of killing, corruption, and lies etc, how are we to believe that creation has been renewed? In the face of evil where is the Resurrection? Unfortunately, for many of us, the Passion of Christ is easier to understand because we can relate it to the sufferings that we find in the world. That is why people disbelieve the Resurrection; not because it is not true but because it is too good to be true.

But, the truth is the Passion is not Passion without the Resurrection.

The first reading provides us with practical clue as to how/why it is possible to believe in the Resurrection. “The whole community remained faithful to the teaching of the Apostles, to the brotherhood or community, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers” [Acts 2:42-43]. Outside these characteristics or stipulations of the great Apostle, that is, if we do not keep close to Apostolic teaching, the Church, the Eucharist and Prayer, then we will be reduced to seeking for proofs of the resurrection. In fact, history, science and philosophy have tried to find historical, scientific and philosophical evidence to justify that the Resurrection is not possible. Yet, beyond all these attempts, we find that our hearts strain to tell us that there is something which we cannot explain away... no matter what. Let me give a couple of examples: If Jesus were just a prophet. He died on the Cross. As such, then there is nothing to explain anymore. Why? He died like any other person. But, yet, the Jews made sure that Guards would stand guard of the tomb and they paid people to spread the rumour that the Disciples stole the body of Jesus. Islam believes that Jesus was switched on the Cross with Judas. Da Vinci Code believes that Jesus escapes to marry Mary Magdalene. Have you ever wondered that all throughout history one after another elaborate theory is formulated to explain how the Resurrection could not have taken place?

All the attempts to disprove the Resurrection must mean that there is something which cannot be explained away. In fact, when they try to disprove the Resurrection they have already tacitly accepted it. Thus, it is not a question of believing what we haven’t seen. It is believing because the proof is already found according to the Acts: in the whole community remaining faithful to Apostolic teaching, the Church, the Eucharist and Prayer.

Today, let us examine our approach to what the Acts of the Apostles ask of us. If people are slow to believe in the Resurrection, it is perhaps our hearts have not truly embrace what is necessary for the Resurrection to be true for all the world to see: that we have not kept close to Apostolic teaching, we have stayed away from the Church founded by Christ, we do not really appreciate the Eucharist and finally we do not pray enough.

FOOTNOTES:
[1] Of course, the Passion of Christ proved otherwise because the Apostles were described as deserting Jesus or described as following him from a distance. That is why I used the term “general” characteristic of Thomas’ personality.

Easter Vigil Year A

This is the night, when Christians everywhere washed cleaned of sin and freed from all defilement, are restored to grace and grow together in holiness. It is a line which strikes me profoundly this Easter. A short line from the Exultet we heard expresses the meaning of the Roman Letter of St Paul: “When we were baptised in Christ Jesus we were baptised in his death; in other words, when we were baptised we went into the tomb and joined him in death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s glory, we too might live a new life”. This is the night in which this new life has been made possible by the Resurrection of Christ the Lord.

Hence, Easter is not a past event that is just merely of interest to us historically. Baptism means precisely that through the event of Christ’s resurrection, the person baptised is drawn into a new history. This is exactly what St Paul writes in his Letter to the Galatians: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Gal 2:20). When a person is baptised, the "I, me, myself", the essential identity of man is changed in such a way that one has become one in Christ (cf. Gal 3:28). A person who is baptised becomes another Christ.

Even though we all gather here to witness to the baptism of a few people, it is important for everyone present here to understand what it really means. [For many of us, this event about to take place, took place for us in time long past]. In baptism, a person who is subjected to the resurrection of Christ is delivered from his or her isolation to become an “I” of a community of believers otherwise known as the Body of Christ. In baptism, we are carried by the mystery of the Resurrection into the mystical Body of Christ in order to live the new life which Christ won for us. The term Body of Christ truly expresses what it means that we live a new life.

For, Jesus says in John’s Gospel: I live and you will live also (Jn 14:19). How? Well, He is alive to us and we are able to live for Him because He sent His Spirit to animate His Body the Church—to animate each and everyone of us. He is alive to us as He continually nourishes us through every single sacrament He gave His Church. He is alive and He meets us at every turn of the Liturgy. He is alive as every event we encounter opens up the possibility of meeting Him.

That is why the Resurrection cannot be an event of the past. In baptism, the sacrament of the Resurrection, the Risen Lord reaches us and seizes us as we in turn grasp hold of Him. And the good news is that He holds us firmly even when our hands grow weak. He keeps us secure even when our courage fails us. Furthermore, as we grasp hold of him, we reach out to hold each other’s hand simply because together we make up the Body of Christ. No one is ever baptised to be alone because when we are baptised, we are grafted into the Body of Christ. It is Christ who draws us into Himself.

The implication of the Resurrection and we becoming taking part in it is tremendous simply because it allows us and gives us hope because of what Christ can do for us. This is important only because the Church, the Body of Christ is made up of fallible and weak members—sinners, if you like. There are some who stay away because they feel that they are not worthy of Christ. They struggle and are discouraged by personal failure and thus, they stay away out of fear. There are some who have stayed away because of their bad experience with weak members of the Body of Christ. Instead of becoming light, we become stumbling blocks—scandals to faith in Christ. For example, if you want to meet unkindness, join the seminary or religious life. The people supposedly closest to Christ can be the most unkind. The point is, we constantly may fall short of the tall order to love but precisely because the Church is Christ’s Body, our hope is not what we can do but what Christ can do for us. We may fail but He will not fail us if we allow the strength of His Resurrection to carry us. In fact, He feeds, heals, strengthens, forgives and SENDS us continually through the ministry of the Church in the sacraments. In short, His Body, the Church cannot fail simply because Christ will not allow it to happen. This is one reason why no one and nothing can ever take away a Christian’s joy that he or she, through baptism has become a member of Christ’s body; that one has been claimed by Christ.

At Easter, we sing full of confidence in Christ who unites heaven and earth in a cosmic event. "Rejoice, heavenly powers... Rejoice, O Earth!" The Resurrection is not merely a historical event but an everlasting event in which Christ “came back from the dead and shed his peaceful light on all mankind, the Father’s Son who lives and reigns forever and ever". Amen!

Good Friday Year A

The theme today is summed very nicely by this hymn which we seldom sing: Jesus, keep me near the Cross. On the one hand, we exalt the Cross today and yet on the other hand, it is a horrible. How could it not be when Jesus has to carry a Cross and is taunted by onlookers and jeered at? He is charged with treason and executed by the Roman authorities in a brutal manner normally reserved for slaves and other non-Romans who have committed the most iniquitous of offences. Worst is to die hanging on a Cross and in between two thieves.

For those who had hope in him, his was a life of failure. But, our eyes of faith can perceive beyond the veil to see that the Cross is full of meaning. The Cross is about life. Jesus says: “And when I am lifted up, I shall draw all men to myself” (Jn 12:32). In a conversation with Nicodemus, he says, “The Son of Man must be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in Him”. There is so much life in the Cross that St Paul dares to proclaim Christ crucified.

In fact, we glory in the Cross. There is a Cross in every church—in every Catholic church, there is a crucifix... not just an empty Cross.. As we enter the church, we bless ourselves with the sign of the Cross. We trace the Cross over the food we bless. The Cross is used for exorcism. And we wear the Cross as a symbol of personal devotion.

The Cross is thus a great symbol of love for it is love which transmutes or translates sheer suffering into sacrifice. Without love, Calvary would be cavalier, a sheer waste of life. And Jesus would have been a failure.

Thus, the Cross is the supreme symbol of sacrificial love since He himself had said that “no greater love a person has than to lay down his life for his friends”. That being so, our proper response to love is joy: “We adore you O Christ because by your Love you have redeemed the world”.

But we face a challenge here. I have waxed much too lyrical about the beauty of the Cross whilst we face the test of translating the Crosses in our lives—of matching Christ’s Cross with ours. Suffering and pain pose a predicament because of an expectation that has arisen from being schooled in a particular idea of God. In this idea of God, we find it hard to reconcile a good God with suffering especially innocent suffering.

People who are bowed down by suffering sometimes ask this universal question: Why? God’s answer to our searching “why, Lord?” is Christ in His suffering. The Father too gave up His Son and did not shield Him from the reality imposed by the limitation of creature-hood and creation. The Father too knows what it is like to suffer and He too has the right to ask the very question we ask.

Christ on the Cross shows that suffering is not alien to the idea of a good God. According to Cardinal Ratzinger, he laments that,

“Today what people have in view is eliminating suffering from the world. For the individual, that means avoiding pain and suffering in whatever way. Yet we must also see that it is in this very way that the world becomes very hard and very cold. Pain is part of being human. Anyone who really wanted to get rid of suffering would have to get rid of love before anything else, because there can be no love without suffering, because it always demands an element of self-sacrifice, because, given temperamental differences and the drama of situations, it will always bring with it renunciation and pain. When we know that the way of love–this exodus, this going out of oneself–is the true way by which man becomes human, then we also understand that suffering is the process through which we mature. Anyone who has inwardly accepted suffering becomes more mature and more understanding of others, becomes more human. Anyone who has consistently avoided suffering does not understand other people; he becomes hard and selfish.

The incarnation, the event that God became Man, may be seen in this light as God becoming more human when He took on suffering. In love there is always suffering. So much so that St Paul gave this response to suffering. “It makes me happy to suffer for you, as I am suffering now, and in my own body to do what I can to make up all that has still to be undergone by Christ for the sake of his body, the Church” (Col 1:24). It doesn’t mean that Christ hadn’t suffered enough. Paul is just expressing what it really means to be a member of Christ’s body. In the face of suffering, perhaps, we need to find our peace with answers that can only be fully understood when we stand face to face with God. But, for now, it suffices to know that if Christ can share the riches of his divinity with us, perhaps, we too can share the poverty of his humanity—the poverty of his suffering. That is the meaning of the communion of saints.

Holy Thursday Year A

Faith tells us that we are gathered today to celebrate the anniversary of the 1st Eucharist. Over bread and wine, Jesus says: "This is my body. This is my blood”. After they have eaten and drunk, he tells them: "Do this in memory of me." In these Eucharistic words, the Church believes that Jesus the Lord instituted the Sacrament of the Priesthood. The Eucharist and the Priesthood are solidly entwined in such a way that one cannot do without the other.

But, even though it is the Anniversary of the Institution of the Eucharist, nothing in today’s Gospel deals directly with the Eucharist except that the link is made between the Eucharist and service as we heard how Jesus made it so through the washing of His disciples’ feet. So, the Eucharist is the place where our feet are washed by Christ our Lord in order that we might wash the feet of others. True Eucharistic piety must lead to service of others.

Later tonight, after all is done, the silent adoration expresses our obedience to the Lord’s invitation to stay on and to linger for awhile as we accompany Him in His distress. Jesus in his human nature is torn between what is expedient or convenient to Himself and what is necessary. It is convenient or advantageous that He should extricate or remove Himself from the situation of betrayal and danger and yet it is necessary that He remains ever faithful to His Father’s will. So, we wait with Him until such time when the shadow of the Cross is cast upon him.

Tonight, we have the Eucharist linked with the Priesthood, the Eucharist flows into Service and finally the Waiting with the Lord. What of these three themes holds our attention? If you look at today’s world, I would say that there is a disjuncture between the Eucharist and service. Thus, the Washing of Feet is directed to making the connexion between faith and justice more visible. In short, we want people to do more of the washing of the feet.

Granted that the washing of feet is very important, but, in our haste to make the connexion, in our desire to translate faith to justice, we may have missed out on something which is crucial to this translation: the priesthood.

Christ instituted the priesthood for two main reasons: First reason: the Priesthood is to ensure that the Eucharist—as Christ’s sacrifice, as expression of unity and as Real Presence—might be available till the end of time. In the Eucharist, Jesus the Lord continues to offer the same sacrifice He offered on Calvary. He died only once on the cross, but in every sacrifice of the Eucharist, made possible only through the priesthood, Jesus communicates the graces that He has won for us. The Eucharist as communion expresses the oneness of our belief, our worship and our leadership. The Eucharist is Real Presence because Jesus is present totus Christus, totally and entirely as the Church understands it. Wasn’t it that Bishop Fulton Sheen said, “the greatest love affair the world has ever known is contained in a tiny wafer of bread”. In that tiny, white host we receive reverently, we receive Christ in totality.

The second reason for the Priesthood is found in the grave responsibility that Jesus gave His disciples. “Receive the Holy Spirit, whose sins you forgive they are forgiven”. Thus, the priesthood in providing the sacrament of confession is a continuation of the ministry of Christ reconciling the world to the Father. Of course, the usual response is that one can go directly to God without the instrumentality of a human person—an argument which betray a lack of understanding of the working of grace. How can one accept the instrumentality of the priesthood in the consecration of the Blessed Sacrament without accepting the instrumentality of Forgiveness in the Sacrament of Confession?

In conclusion, without the Eucharist, there cannot be Christianity because it is the principal channel of grace by which Jesus gives us what we need in order that we may do his will. Christ in instituting the Sacrament of the Priesthood promises us of His continued Presence and Forgiveness through the Eucharist and Confession.

But, we do have a crisis—a crisis of the lack of vocation. This crisis of vocation actually reveals a loss of faith in Christ and His Church. It does not help that we priests forget who we are and many of us seem no longer confident in our triple roles as teachers (or prophets), shepherds (kings), sanctifiers (priests) sub et cum Christo. Let me give an example. Priests sometimes try to be humble and when asked to exercise their priestly role as “shepherd, leader or king”, in short to exercise authority, they beg off because there are more competent lay people present. They don’t want to be seen as lording over lay people. Laudable as that may be, they actually reveal a failure to understand that being a priest is being a priest of Christ: sub et cum Christo. It is when a priest by exercising his roles as priest, prophet and king, reveals the power of Christ acting through human weakness. It is only when a priest acts on his own behalf that it makes sense that he should say “I mustn’t show off”. The paradox is that at the point when he refuses to exercise his authority as priest, because he does not want to draw attention to himself, he is actually drawing attention to himself.

Lack of vocation is not the result of Christ not calling people to this vocation but reflects a general loss of faith in the ministerial priest's sublime vocation of standing in Christ's place. Ultimately, crisis of vocation reveals a loss of faith in the Real Presence, in the sacrificial nature of the Mass, and in the spiritual authority of the sacerdotal office.

I have dwelt at length on the priesthood simply because it is the nexus, the link, the connexion between Faith and Justice. Without the Sacrament of the Priesthood, how can we make the connection between the Eucharist and Social Justice? Without priesthood, there is no Eucharist. Without the Eucharist there is no Church. Without the Church, what is social justice but communism? Many Catholics are really gung-ho about being able to contribute something to betterment of the world. But, the Church’s ability to do something, if it were not to be reduced to an ideological caricature, is dependent on the strength of the Eucharist. So, the survival of Christian charity depends on a strong faith in the priesthood, not this or that priest but the priesthood which is absolutely necessary for Jesus Christ to remain with us in the Eucharist, in order to feed us and to give us the strength to do His will.

Today, it is good to pray for priests, but not only for priests. I went for confession today and I was asked to pray for religious Sisters and Brothers many of whom are struggling. The form of life called Religious Life is waning not because it is no longer relevant but because somewhere in our history, priests and religious have failed to remain faithful to Christ crucified but are instead infatuated with the spirit of the world. In our desperation to be relevant, we might have just made ourselves irrelevant.

The priesthood (and by extension the Church) is enlivened or strengthened by the deep devotion of religious brothers and sisters. So, pray for priests and religious to love only Jesus crucified and pray that they dare to suffer for Christ crucified because that is what we need most in a crisis of faith and social justice.

Passion Sunday Year A

Passion or Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week. We all know the different characters who played their roles in the suffering and death of Christ. In short, we are made aware of the cruelty, the suffering and the sorrow involved in our salvation. Mel Gibson, through the blood-soaked images of Jesus in the Passion of the Christ, tried to show the sacrifice that the Saviour suffered for our salvation. Even though the blood-soaked images of Jesus may help to convey the depth of the Saviour’s love, yet we might just miss out on that which gives sense to all that we are doing this entire week. And, what is that? Let me draw your attention to one of the readings for Good Friday taken from Isaiah. It speaks so splendidly of the person whose beauty radiates through who He is.

As the crowds were appalled on seeing him—so disfigured did he look that he seemed no longer human—so will the crowd be astonished at him, and kings stand speechless before him; for they shall see something never told and witness something never heard before: “Who could believe what we have heard and to whom has the power of the Lord been revealed”? Like a sapling he grew up in front of us, like a root in arid ground. Without beauty, without majesty (we saw him), no looks to attract our eyes; a thing despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering, a man to make most people screen their faces; he was despised and we took no account of him.

Like Mel Gibson, Isaiah appears to draw our attention to his lack of beauty and lack of majesty. But, in truth, his beauty and majesty shine forth because the entire liturgy is concerned very much with the beauty of the one who died on the cross, the beauty of the one who prayed for his tormentors and the beauty of the one who never lost faith in God. It is His beauty and majesty that beckon or draw us near. In John’s Gospel, Jesus himself said, “When I am lifted up, I will draw all men to myself. And the 2nd reading is nothing but a hymn of sublime poetry. So, if you think about it, the crowd was astonished and kings stood speechless not because of his lack of beauty or majesty but because His beauty and majesty was just too intense that they immediately shied away from him for fear that they might be overcome by the sheer majesty of His beauty.

We are all attracted by beauty because the soul lives for beauty. Unfortunately, we live in a post-modern world. Beauty is ambiguous because the standard of beauty clearly differs from one individual to another individual. One man’s lady is another man’s broad, to paraphrase the popular adage. But, beyond this ambiguity, what is objectively beautiful must not be confused with one’s own tastes and convictions. Beauty is not just what I think or I feel because if truth, goodness or beauty were, then genuine human interaction would not be possible. The Pope reminds us that if it were just what I thought or felt, then we would have given in to a dictatorship of relativism. This dictatorship does not recognise anything as certain but has as its highest goal, one’s ego and one’s desires. It is not possible to be civilised in such a world.

So, there is such a thing as objective beauty that can claim our hearts. And it is important because it has everything to do with God. Let’s reflect on just one facet of our worship--music. When music is beautiful, we listen to it and are caught up by its beauty. Try to make the connexion between hearing and the Gospel. “Listening” is a response to the proclamation of the Gospel or Good News. Therefore, being caught up by the beauty of music should in a way pre-dispose us to be more open to the beauty of the Gospel, the truth of the Good News.

The search for beauty is innate or inborn in us and is part of the human make up when you consider our common experience of addiction. We know how destructive addictions are. We are afraid of them but in truth, an addict is someone who has had an encounter with beauty. An addiction is just symptom of mistaking a lesser beauty for what is truly beautiful. This description also fits the definition for sin because sin is mistaking what is evil (or lesser good) for what is good. But, nowadays the word “sin” does not have the kind of repulsion or revulsion that the word “addiction” has. Addiction does have a rather unsavoury connotation. Thus, addiction is when we get waylaid or distracted by a lesser or poorer experience and we mistake it for the good. For example, the “highs” [euphoria, ecstasy, joy] we get from gambling, over-eating, narcotics, pornography, violence, gossip, smoking, bullying, drinking, flattery etc, we mistake them for what is really good and true: God alone. Addiction is our search for beauty unfulfilled. But, our soul is not created for mediocrity; our soul is created for beauty.

Thus, beauty’s role is to draw us to what is good and true. But, the objective good and truth that lay claim to our heart is not a thing but a person who is good and true: the Christ Himself. Our Elect, those who are to be baptised are moving closer to their baptism. In a sense their journey is a journey for which they find themselves more and more infused and enveloped by the beauty of Christ’s message. The journey that they make does not end before beauty as it ends within beauty—who is Christ himself.

Furthermore, beauty is necessary to our cause for justice because when we are enamoured by beauty, it takes us out of ourselves. Our experience with beautiful music is a good example. And what is justice if not the removal of the “selfish” centre from the equation of things? Often, we begin to see a picture bigger only when the self is no longer the centre of reference. The willingness to step aside because of beauty displaces our ego for other things more important: someone who is sick, someone who is hungry, someone who is dying and etc. The lesson we should learn from this search for beauty is one of self-forgetfulness, self-effacement and humility. To serve truly, you often have to forget yourself simply because people will treat you like their servants or they behave as if you owe it to them to serve them.

This beauty we search for has everything to do with our self-offering to God. I have asked the servers to practise so that they will not “mar” or disfigure the beauty of the worship by their lack of coordination and attention. If the servers do not understand the seriousness of every action of theirs, then they have failed to understand that the beauty of their coordinated actions is crucial to the idea of self-donation—of giving the best to God what God has in the first place given to us. The same can be said of the lectors who do not practise their reading or priests who do not prepare their homilies and a choir that does not train its singing. But, the problem with our concept of beauty is that we are very utilitarian. We are pragmatic. Remember the move Titanic? The Titanic is sinking. Everyone is saving his or her life but the string quartet continues to play the music till the end. There you find two different approaches to life. The quartet represents the “beauty” approach to life. The rest just respresents the pragmatic approach to life. Why bother about “beauty” when we have more pressing questions like injustice or poverty to deal with. This approach to goodness and truth is pragmatic and not beautiful. “I am already giving my time to be an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion etc. What else do you want from me?” Likewise a person who dresses shabbily to Church who says, “I am already here, what else do you want”? Even our notion of beauty is at times closer to seduction than it is to God because people dress not for God but to draw attention to their bodies.

When our approach to goodness and truth is pragmatic and not beautiful, we cut God down to our size and we place him in a convenient place for us to worship, the way we like to and not the way that God deserves to be worshipped.

So, brothers and sisters, we want to do good and we all want to serve the truth but it is beauty that leads us there. Music, Servers, EMoHC, Lectors, Hospitality Ministers--everyone here is involved with beauty. For example, if everyone is lifted up to meditate on divine things because the choir’s singing gave wings to each one’s soul, then the choir has done what fulfilled its purpose. The beauty of your sound had led people to God. Your role is to be like John the Baptist: “He must increase and I must decrease”. John forgets himself in order to guide his followers to Christ alone.

This week, the liturgy opens our eyes to the beauty of the one mocked, the beauty of the one whipped and the beauty of the one crucified to attract us. Beauty is love made visible. Our efforts to let go of sin (or any addiction) are efforts to turn from the false beauty offered by fleeting temporalities and to turn to the true beauty of Christ. As we witness Christ tortured for our sins, let us be drawn by his beauty so that we will allow His grace to reshape our lives so that we reflect His Beauty mirroring His Truth and His Goodness.

Novena of Grace (Day 9) Year A

This Sunday is Palm Sunday and then the rigour of Holy Week begins. Even then I still feel light since the novena is ending today. It has been a challenging 9 days simply because of the fear of failure to make connexion with the readings, the life of St Francis Xavier and the preaching. Now, it is almost over. I can even sense my own palpable feeling of joy that it’s over...

At the point, it is perhaps good to look at Francis waiting for a favourable time to enter China but is in fact, nearing the end of his earthly life. Today we are concerned with the death of St Francis. He left India in April of 1522 and entered the Bay of Canton in September, disembarking on the desolate island of Sancian (or Sanchuang or St John’s Island). Sancian was a hideout for Chinese smugglers but it was also used by Portuguese traders. Determined to get to China, Francis tried to entice some of the smugglers to take him there, but none wanted to take the risk. He eventually hired one of them, but after he paid him, the man disappeared. In the meantime, Francis looked longingly towards China, not knowing that his missionary days are over. On 21st November he was taken ill with a fever and was confined to his leafy hut on the island’s shore. His Christian Chinese servant, Antonio, faithfully cared for him in his final illness and years later wrote an account of the saint’s last days. On 28th November Francis went into a coma but regained consciousness on 1st December. Throughout his waking hour he prayed constantly, until the early morning of 3rd December, when he went to heaven. His body was buried on the island and when spring came his remains were taken to Malacca, and a few years later to Goa.

The death of Francis is not exactly the point of our interest. Rather, his death becomes for us a starting point of our reflexion. Thus far, we have touched upon, in general, the different periods of Francis’ life. Today, we want to think about Francis the Saint. Death opens up for us a vista on what sanctity really is.

Let’s see where sanctity lies. The results of the SPM exams are out. The Olympics will soon come upon us. Our focus is on results as we count the number of “A’s” in the SPM or what the total gold medal haul is for a country. We are result-oriented as we push our students or athletes to excel in classrooms or the field. But, we seem to think that sainthood or sanctity is so different from this human drive to excel that it is beyond our reach. According to St Maximillian Kolbe, a Conventual Franciscan and I quote him because he is contemporaneous, meaning that he lived not so many years away from our experience, he said: There is in man’s very nature a continual drive to perfect himself physically, mentally and morally. In the history of man we find individuals everywhere whom we consider to be in a class above the ordinary crowd, above even the well-educated. These persons we call “Saints”. Unquote. The first part of the quote is of interest to us.

If students strive to advance themselves academically—drive to perfect themselves mentally and athletes exert themselves to break records—drive to perfect themselves physically, the question is why is there a hesitation to drive ourselves to moral perfection. In fact, we continually claim “humanity” to be the cause of our moral imperfection. “I am only human”. In short, we may tower over the rest with our physical prowess or mental mastery but morally we are pygmies. I apologise to the pygmies in Africa for using them as a measure for our lack of moral stature.

“It is difficult to become a saint. Difficult but not impossible. The road to perfection is long, as long as one’s lifetime. Along the way, consolation becomes rest; but as soon as your strength is restored, you must diligently get up and resume the trip”. This is a quote from another one of our contemporaries, Padre Pio or St Pio. St Josemaria Escriva says, “Each day be conscious of your duty to be a saint. A saint! And that doesn’t mean doing strange things. It means a daily struggle in the interior life and in heroically fulfilling your duty right through the end”.

Even in today’s cheap Air Asia flight, many of us will never be able to chalk up in a life’s time the mileage which St Francis did in his short life. It just means that our sanctity has to be exercised from the bedroom to the kitchen to the dining hall; from the car porch to the parking bay under the office; from the office to the meeting... everything and anything becomes the way to fulfil God’s will. The truth is we spend our entire life’s time revolved around the kitchen, the office table, the road, the classroom, the ward, etc. In short, life is routine... very routine. In fact, 95% of our life involves routine. If that is so, would it not be fair to say that God’s will is found in the greater part of our life rather than the 5% of our life which we classify as exciting. And this exciting 5% is often our problem because we keep thinking that the will of God is to be found when we make the corner as if the will of God is just around the corner. But, in truth, the will of God is often “now” and not tomorrow or somewhere else.

This “now” is what we call a daily struggle in the interior life which in today’s Gospel Jesus simply says: If you make my word your home, you will indeed be my disciples, and you will learn the truth and the truth will make you free. The truth about the “now” and not about the “later, the future or tomorrow”. All through the novena, as we come before God with our hearts desires to ask earnestly of God what He can do for us, we are actually struggling with words unspoken to ask God what we can do for Him. O God, what is Your will for me now? It is in the “now” that we are to find our freedom.

Which is why we have kept till today the blessing for those who suffer, first from addiction and secondly for those who are victims of crimes. If you think about it, what is addiction? We might take on a little air of self-righteous indignation with people who suffer from addictions. How come they have no control over themselves? But that is precisely the point. Addiction is not because people have no self-control. Addiction is often a symptom of holding on to something which we cannot and dare not let go because we are afraid that when we do, there is nothing for us to grab onto “now”. That when we let go, God is not thre for us. We dare not die for the same reason too. Fear that God will not be there when the final chapter of our life on earth is finished.

People in general do not want to be addicted. Ask a person who smokes or drinks one drink too many how much loathing takes place in his or her life? Ask them if they go through a period of “one last stick”, “one last drink” only to find that they reach for yet another stick or another last drink. Addiction is looking for God in the wrong place. It is only when we have let go of our insecurity that we will find that we do not need one last stick or one last drink. When we finally have Him who alone can satisfy us, then we will willingly let go of our additions.

Sometimes people do not want to go for confession and their reason is simple: “Why come for confession when I will do the same sin again”? They really missed the point about what sainthood is. We will struggle with temptation right till the end of our lives and we may even be addicted to a particular sin right till we die. Therefore, sanctity is not focussed on the fact that we have no more sin. The blessing is handy because “the saints are those who struggle right to the end of their lives, who always get up each time they stumble, each time they fall, and courageously embark on their way once more with humility, love and hope”. St Josemaria Escriva. Today, as we end our Novena of Grace, let us ask that we never shy from striving for moral perfection even if we do not always succeed and know that our holiness is God’s gift to those who persevere along this pilgrimage called life.

Novena of Grace (Day 8) Year A

We are now entering the penultimate night of the novena. The 8th day and it is good to touch, by way of passing, Francis’ endeavour in this part of the world. He spent most, if not his entire, Jesuit life as a missionary in Asia. I think he is the only missionary that can hold a candle to St Paul the Apostle. The spread of his missionary activity covers an entire swathe of the continent of Asia—sailing the sea of humanity from India to Indonesia and all the way to Japan.

The Gospel today lends itself to our reflexion on what Francis’ endeavour means for us. Jesus speaks of His Father in terms of His intimate knowledge with Him. “What the Father has taught me is what I preach”. He is the mouthpiece of the Father. His knowledge of His Father is the substance of His preaching. Knowledge of His Father becomes the impetus for His preaching. Likewise, knowledge in the case of Francis is to be translated into his missionary enterprise in Asia. How to bring to Asia the knowledge of God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ?

On this front, there is agreement that Francis blazed a trail for subsequent generation of missionaries to Asia. However, in the context of revisionist history, Francis remained just a tool of the colonial expansion of what is now looked upon as the ugly Western hegemony or colonial domination. And there is one criticism I would like to take up.

One of the criticisms has been that the Church is foreign. “Foreign” seems to be the only explanation because the 400 years of Christianity’s presence in Asia has yielded nothing but a miserable 3 percent of Asia claiming to be Christians. “Foreign” seems to be the reason for Asia’s rejection of Christianity. It is an easy and a convenient criticism to make. It makes the Church something so foreign that her presence in Asia is at best tolerated or at worst considered an imposition, a yoke to be freed of. Maybe this will jolt you: Pendatang. This word is an example of how even after 3 or 4 generations, people of South Indian extraction or people of Oriental ancestry are “tolerated” in this country. We’ve been told time and again, “Go back if you do not like it here”.

Since “foreign” is a ghost to be exorcised, the Church, in order for it to succeed, is asked to aim for greater “inculturation”, to shed a lot more of her European features.

If the Church is culturally European, she is therefore a foreign imposition. Fortunately, we have on our side what I would consider to be the porosity or the permeability of cultural boundaries. Because cultural boundaries are porous, it does assimilate and make for its own something which is in the first place “foreign”. For example, where does one get prawn “tempura”? Japanese restaurants! But, its origin is actually Portuguese. Shipwrecked Portuguese sailors cast upon Japanese shores introduced it to the Japanese. On certain days where they had to abstain from eating red meat, they ate fried prawns... the holy days were known in Portuguese as “Quattuor tempora”... We think prawn tempura is Japanese but its presence so entrenched in Japanese cuisine shows that culture is more adaptable. So, if the Church were foreign and we like to draw a more distinct line between foreign and indigenous, then perhaps, we should do away with this microphone and everything that the foreign culture has brought us. [The bra that women wear is a Western importation. Asian women were freer [more liberated] but now Western women don’t want to wear bra but we have kept them]. (Remember the tualang tree).

Technology or the application of science is not a respecter of culture. What every culture does is to adapt technology for its convenience and thus, it is convenience which really is the agent for the inculturation or the reception of technology. Let me give another example: the mobile phone is a technology which is used everywhere. But here in Asia, we’ve made far greater use of this service than say the Europeans or the Americans.

Thus, the basis for the rejection of something or another basically follows along the criterion of convenience. That has always been the way cultures work. Two examples: it is far easier and more convenient to wear the “western suit” when attending Parliament or any of these functions of governance than to wear something which is dangling here or there. Secondly, and you find this amongst people who for whatever reason convert to Christianity. How often have these people returned to their “roots” because they consider Christianity as foreign? Few. I know that people visit this medium or that bomoh because Jesus is quiet and it is more convenient to get the answer from a medium or a bomoh. Often we reject something local or foreign because it is not convenient.

And, the knowledge of Christ is never convenient. At the end of mass, in many parishes, the priest and the servers will process right to the front to meet the people. It is a wonderful practice. Some people have asked me why I am not doing that. Why do I want to miss out on meeting people? The secret is this. When we recess into the sacristy, we wind up with a prayer. It may be routine or habitual. But, I have begun to pull the servers and make them look at the Crucifix. Sometimes they think it is funny but it is not because I tell him, “Look at Him on the Cross. It is your sin that puts Him there”. This is a reminder to each of them that knowledge of Christ will always bring us into the shadow of the Cross. The knowledge of Christ will always entail the Cross. Anytime we know Him better, be prepared for the Cross to come unbidden. The knowledge of Christ is never easy.

Perhaps, that is why Christianity has failed in Asia. Christianity failed because following Christ is too hard. In a homily, which I preached at the beginning of the year, I did mention that Christianity is actually an Asian religion. Christianity failed because it is not easy to live Christ. And the failure is our individual failure. Perhaps, it is unfair. We live amongst the very venerable traditions of Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Hinduism, Islam and Sikhkism. Let me repeat some from a previous homily. “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”. Indeed, the standard exacted upon the disciples of Christ is much higher. We can do better but always with the grace of God. We ask that Francis pray for us in this area that where Francis left off, we will continue to take up his mission of bringing to Asia the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world.