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.

Ascension Thursday Year A 2023

It is weird that we seemed to have transferred Corpus Christi to a Sunday but allowed Ascension to remain on a Thursday. It feels like a sort of liturgical schizophrenia if we consider that there is a wholesale capitulation in the march to the altar of convenience.

Be that as it may, the 1st Reading taken from the Acts of the Apostles gives us food to chew on. Luke took pains to record that the event took place exactly 40 days after the Resurrection. The time frame of 40 days, nights or years refers to phases whereby God’s wayward children undergo cleansing purification and/or paradigm-shifting preparation. They were cleansed of their sins by a 40-day 40-night flood during Noah’s time. For 40 years, they were purified in the desert while preparing to settle in the Promised Land. Even Jesus Himself was subject to the purification of fasting from power, prestige and possession and He prepares for His public ministry.

The period of 40 days sets the post-resurrection stage for Jesus remaining here on earth. It was an intense time of purification and also a preparation for the Apostles—purified of their worldly ideas of the Kingdom and prepared for ministry without the physical presence of Jesus. The ministry waiting for the Apostles is to boldly go into the whole world to make disciples of all the nations through the gift of baptism and to teach all to observe the commands given by Christ.

We have a task ahead of us. In this difficult climate of competing truths, the Truth who Jesus Christ almost stands no chance. The baptism enjoined by Jesus means that we must not only preach with our words but also proclaim with our lives. Everyone here knows how hard it is to match our words with our deeds.

Tough as that may be, the 2nd Reading provides an important detail of the Ascension that has hopeful implications for each one of us. Jesus ascended to seat at the right hand of the Father. There He is far above every Sovereign, Authority, Power and Domination. What are these but the different classes of angelic powers. At the start of creation, God created the angels and as spiritual beings, they are placed way about man. But with the Ascension, Christ in His humanity, has elevated man to a rank even above the angels.

Take a moment to savour this exalted reality. During the 40 days, Jesus was preparing the Church for her mission whereas the Church’s eternal destiny is revealed at the Ascension. It makes sense that the Church dares to proclaim the dogma of the Assumption. In no way is the celebration of Mary being taken into heaven, a deification of Our Lady. Instead, both the Ascension and the Assumption are two sides of the coin of the Resurrection.

The Ascension describes where the Head has gone to and where He is, the Body is bound to follow. Hence, the event of Mary’s Assumption merely states that the Church, the Body of Christ, as represented by her who is the most perfect member, is following in the footsteps of Christ the Head. The Ascension is our divine destiny.

We were given a mission at the Ascension. Go make disciples of all the nations. Why? The command to evangelise is not because we are better but it flows naturally from the act of creation. The entire creation has been created through Him. That means every human being is called to be incorporated into the Body of Christ so that everyone will follow Him to heaven.

Definitely, the Ascension reminds us that we are citizens who straddle two worlds. Even though Jesus is no longer with us physically but through the Ascension, He has made it possible for the Spirit to empower us for the mission of transforming the City of Man. Yet whatever is done on earth has a divine bearing. While we do not neglect our earthly duties here to be Christ to the world, we should always be conscious that our true destiny is to be with Jesus in heaven for in truth we are citizens of the City of God.

6th Sunday of Easter Year A 2023

As we inch closer to two major solemnities of the liturgical calendar, we rejoice at the growth of the Apostolic community. However, both the events of the Ascension and Pentecost share a “negative” reality and that is the withdrawal of Jesus’ physical presence. In His stead, He promised that the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete or the Advocate who is coming, will speak on His behalf. The 1st Reading offers discernible and concrete evidence that the Holy Spirit was present in the building up of believers.

From one of the seven deacons selected from last Sunday’s Gospel, we have Philip the Evangelist who baptised an entire Samaritan village. Peter and John went there pray for those baptised to receive the Holy Spirit. In a way, the action of Peter in laying lands on the newly baptised supports the current Catholic practice that reserves the Sacrament of Confirmation to Bishops. (CCC#1313). Even though, scripturally there is no mention of the word “Confirmation”, the fact that the Apostles went to Samaria seems to identify the rite of laying on of hands with the completion of the rite of Baptism (CCC#1285). In fact, the Eastern Churches provide a way of understanding Confirmation. They call it “Chrismation” which requires, apart from the laying on of hands, an anointing with the “Oil of Chrism”. In a sense, Confirmation grants a special strength of the Holy Spirit in order for a Christian to witness as “another Christ”.

The Farewell Discourse of the Gospel is crucial to understanding the meaning of being “another Christ”. Jesus repeatedly reminded the Apostles that to love Him is to keep His commandments. In other words, to be Christ is to keep His laws. Thus, the Sacrament intensifies the presence of the Holy Spirit by strengthening the Christian to love Jesus more and to bear witness to Him within the Church but most all without the Church. That is the major fruit of Confirmation.

For that, the 2nd Reading sets the context for this witnessing. We know how the early Church was persecuted, firstly by the Jews themselves and then as the community grew larger, by the Romans fearful that this new religion might subvert their pagan worship. Within the opposition and rejection, St Peter asked that each believer be prepared to give an account of their belief.

The word used in Greek is “apologia” which English speakers typically take it to mean an “apology”, that is, to be “sorry”, as in to apologise. While our current usage tend towards regret, the etymology of “apologia” bears the Greek “logos”, which denotes speech or reason. An “apologia” is to prepare a reasoned explanation for the hope that one has. It is to give a justification for one’s faith.

This is not an easy task because the accent or focus is no longer on God but on us. “Meaning” tops the list of our priority. How often do we hear the lamentation that “life is meaningless”? Or a few years of the grand and great wedding, “my marriage has no meaning”. When subjective meaning is primary, we tend to embrace a more relaxed notion of Jesus and His commandments. In the case of a meaningless marriage, “Would God desire my unhappiness?”. Worst is that many no longer believe that there is a God let alone that life has a meaning more than what is found in this world.

Just recently, BBC put out an item on its news app about a disabled Aussie woman named M and a sex worker named C. The woman had never been touched before in a non-medical manner and at 43, she paid thousands of dollars for C to fulfil her erotically. Whilst BBC celebrates this woman’s sexual emancipation and expression, the underlying message is quite clear. This unfulfilled disabled woman has to find her completion or meaning in this life if she were not to be stigmatised as a failure. Such a worldly model of meaning or self-realisation is a repudiation or a rejection of the belief in the Resurrection. Christian discipleship must increasingly witness to a world that has no inkling that there is a supernatural realm beyond this world. Those of you who have remained faithful despite the world telling you that you are stupid, well… you hold on because you believe that failure in this life is not the concluding chapter in your divine destiny.

The complication is that human nature is both wily and also self-centred and this makes the interpretation of God’s commandments rather difficult. More so when everyone feels that his or her interpretation is the correct one. It is an unavoidable consequence of losing every marker we have with regard to human nature, social behaviour and religious beliefs. When we no longer have fixed boundaries, we are naturally forced to retreat to the “self”. But who we are as human beings is not merely a matter of “self-perception”. Rather, our Catholic faith shines a light on who we are as embodied spirits and we are part of God’s created order. We are not fluid beings subject to the whims of how we feel. Meaning is more eternally grounded than it is temporally based.

In a world that has forgotten its divine destiny, the Holy Spirit gives strength for authentic Christian witnessing. “Do not fear” is the other side of heroism and sanctity in living the teachings of Christ and His Church. The remedy to meaninglessness is derived from boldly witnessing to a hope beyond a crude and myopic materialism that drives one in a desperate scramble to accumulate more. We are caged in a materialistic plenty that hides a crushing void inside us.

It is extremely challenging to proclaim to a world that is at best, ignorant of or at worst, indifferent to Christ and His hope for humanity. What is right and what is easy are usually opposing options. The step in the right direction requires the fortitude of the Spirit to walk away from a despairing world caught in the narrow vision that the only sensible progress forward is to accumulate more. Thus, the hope we bear is never for a better future or a more comfortable life. According to Benedict XVI, “the one who has hope lives differently” (Spe salvi) because the risen and victorious Lord will see us through, no matter what. The hope we are, the joy we exude and the confidence we carry is directed to a life that is everlasting and much more than what this world can ever guarantee. We have Jesus’ word as our pledge and promise.

5th Sunday of Easter Year A 2023

We witness a period of the early Church where organisational challenges were beginning to manifest themselves. In order to serve and provide for the widows who were plaintively ignored in the distribution of food, the ministry of “diakonos” was created. Despite the shortcomings in this nascent Church, St Paul in the 2nd Reading pointedly reminded the people that by virtue of their faith and baptism, their incorporation into the Church has consecrated them into holy nation, a people dedicated to God.

Indeed, the 1st Reading portrays the unavoidable growing pains of the post-Resurrection Apostolic community. Even though the Gospel is taken from a time before the Jesus’ Passion and Death, it can still be applied to this situation. The Lord’s Farewell Discourse took place right after He had washed the feet of the Apostles. As He faced His impending death, Jesus exhorted them not to be afraid. He asked the Apostles to trust Him because He is heading towards the eternal homeland to prepare a place for them. When quizzed on how they are able to get there, Jesus replied that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

What can we learn from the readings and the Gospel?

Firstly, trust the Lord no matter the shape of the present. The situation of the apostolic community is instructive for us. There has never been a time where the Church was perfect. Instead, Church membership is made up of fallible humanity which in turn undermined the Church’s witnessing. If anything, the brokenness of mankind should be an incentive to pray most especially for the leaders of the institutional Church. The Apostles did not simply select seven deacons but they gathered first to pray before confirming their choices. An action-oriented culture tends to act first and only then pray to sanctify their actions. Prayers should always precede our actions.

Secondly, the absence of the Institution Narrative connects the Eucharist to service. The Eucharist is central to the life of the Church, not just as food for the journey. It nourishes and deepens the spirit of service. Almost instinctively, our focus is directed to the orphans, the widows and the poor. In other words, service is associated with the notion of social justice. But, Christian service should be more “catholic” than merely focussing on the tenets of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. The present environment that preaches D.E.I. makes it next to impossible to speak of anything in a definite manner. The reason is because definition will require distinct demarcation. In a world that is afraid of being excluded, to designate Jesus as THE way would run counter to the current sentiments.

The prevailing canon is that there are as many ways as there are people in the world. Each path requires respect if we were not to incur the condemnation of “bigotry”. In a way, the fear of bigotry has censored our missionary outreach. Our silence contradicts our belief. As Saviour, He is either the Way or He is not. We may try to accommodate as many people as we can but ultimately we will need to draw the line.

Thus, apart from caring for the poor and making sure that the environment is sustainable, service is also towards the Truth. In this sense, Sacred Scripture is never afraid to draw the line. Today, for fear of media backlash and cancellation, we are feeble in drawing our moral boundaries. How can the moral line be drawn to respect every private perversion except those that include children? The service of the truth requires that we be not selective in drawing the line because it is a mistaken notion that children are the last line of defence. The last line of defence is actually the family. Without responsible parenting, perverts will always look for loopholes to exploit, weakness in the boundaries that protect children.

Jesus asked the Disciples not to be afraid as He prepared them for the time when He will no longer be with them physically. He promised the Advocate to guarantee that His Church will always have His Spirit even if the missionary landscape is tough.

The love and service we can offer to this world is one of deep hope—a hope that is founded on Christ’s promise and presence. There seems to be a hopelessness that we need to combat. The fear brought about by the pandemic, coupled with the extreme isolation that was necessary may have also driven the young into a selfishness which is now exhibiting itself. For example, the medical condition of dysphoria could be symptomatic of the hopelessness that the young are feeling about the dystopian future. Every weather variation is packaged as part of climate change and while we do need to take responsibility, this kind of scaremongering can only demoralise a hopeless generation.

How can we offer the hope that is based on Jesus Christ? As JPII told the world, “Be not afraid”, he was not advocating a kind of “stoicism”. Rather, he was encouraging

Catholics not to be afraid because we are in a century of new evangelisation. This means we need to believe in Jesus first our lives. Our lives must show the world that Jesus is The Way, The Truth and The Life. The “new” in the new evangelisation just means that more than proclaiming Jesus in words, we live Jesus in deeds to the core of our being.

It is so much easier to shout slogans and to put out captions. Look at “Laudato si” initiatives. Much energy is spent on talking about it but when it comes to making decisions in favour of environmental justice, we are slow. Many of our Church events still feature single-use plastic. We are good at speaking about climate change but inauthentic in our actions.

There will never be a convenient time to believe, never a perfect moment to preach. The challenge indeed is to proclaim the same Gospel that was preached by Jesus Christ. Every Catholic who lives this Gospel personally becomes an open bible to others. The Church exists precisely to proclaim that Jesus is The Way, The Truth and The Life. Even when her mouth is taped up, still she must continue to evangelise. The message is only credible through our actions.

Finally, with regard to Jesus’ response to His Apostles on being the Way, the Truth and the Life, “Western” thinking struggles with the idea of “definition” because to define suggests that there might be absolutes we need to accept. For example, a US Suprême Court Justice, at her Senate Confirmation Hearing, was unable to define what a woman was. Definition comes from drawing lines. Because we are afraid to demarcate, we continue to lament that the world is imperfect and the result is a withdrawal into selfishness. Without the certainty of defining, we necessarily resort to self-definition, making the “self” an absolute. The Coronation of King Charles III is timely because it reveals the consequence of our “isolating selfishness”. It is incredibly alien in a cosmos where the self is deified to have someone who is held above everyone else. In a way, the Coronation becomes an antidote to “non-defining, yet self-defining” selfishness that seemed to have enveloped the West. We cannot define anything except that we acknowledge the self to be the only definition. During the Coronation, we see that for those who bear arms, there exists someone other than the soldier and his self-interest who demands his allegiance, his loyalty and his service. In a manner of speaking, the soldier would even die for that Commander in Chief rather than choose to preserve his own life. The Coronation helps to make sense of the absolute and defining statement that Jesus IS The Way, The Truth and The Life. It is impossible to be a holy people and a consecrated nation if there were no one out there whose Lordship lays claim over us. Do not be afraid. With Jesus as the Lord and Saviour, we shall be persuasive witnesses of His Way, humble servants of His Truth and gentle lovers of His Life.

Vocation Sunday Year A 2023

Divine Mercy is definitely more than just a private revelation. Last week, the Road to Emmaus showed us that the Eucharist, the life-line of the Lord to His Church is actually the most radical expression of Divine Mercy. This Sunday, we shall look at a key component of Christ’s extending His life-line to the Church and that person is called “alter Christus”.

The context is in today’s chosen Gospel passage. It is located between the two accounts of miracles that were proclaimed and heard during Lent. He healed the man born blind on the 4th Sunday of Lent and on the 5th, He raised Lazarus from the dead. The argument against curing the blind man on a Sabbath occasioned for Jesus a catechesis on the relationship between the Shepherd and the Sheep.

In teaching about what a herder should be like, the Lord modelled the shepherd on Himself. More than the ease of moving amongst sheep or that sheep are familiar with his voice, the heart of a shepherd is his willingness to lay down his life for them. There appears to be a thread that runs from the Sunday of Divine Mercy to the Breaking of Bread last weekend and to this Sunday, otherwise known as Good Shepherd Sunday. The link between the Road to Emmaus and the Good Shepherd grants us an opportunity to speak of vocation, notably, the priestly vocation.

The Gospel invites us to reflect on Jesus as the Good Shepherd. For some parishes, it is an occasion for sharing the vocation story of a priest. Sadly, last Monday we buried an emeritus Bishop. So, rather than giving a personal testimony, perhaps it might be more profitable to speak on the situation of the priestly vocation.

The priesthood is suffering a decline in number. If an active priest were to suffer an untimely demise, then the diocese would be gripped by a frenzy of adjustment to the new status quo. At it is, the diocese does not have “unemployed” priests. Our exorcist is already in his 80s. Many amongst the clergy are wearing one hat too many. Why is the number of vocation not increasing?

The dismal statistics may just expose our poor understanding of the nature of clerical vocation, the purpose of the Church and how the Lord intends to save. A common strategy in the last few decades has been to promote the vocation of a priest along the line of a professional career. It uses the matrix of productivity and it is ministry-centred rather than presenting vocation as a call to mirror Christ the High Priest. The ministry does not make the priest. Even a monkey can do the work of a priest. Instead we may have forgotten that it is the priest who sanctifies his ministry. As a result, vocation directors may have sacrificed the priestly vocation at the altar of productivity. A priest is a priest even if he does nothing. His main task is simply to be an “alter Christus”.

To speak of the priest as “another Christ” is not to idolise or put him on a pedestal but to state the truth that the “alter Christus” is a mirror of the Eucharist. If the Eucharist make the Church and the Church makes the Eucharist, then the core of the Church’s identity is the Eucharist. Holding on to the principle that every Sacrament is the work of Christ Himself done through the agency of the Church, then at the heart of this principle is the priest who stands in for the person of Christ.

According to the passage in John’s gospel which corresponds to the Institution Narratives found in the Synoptics, Jesus’ conversation with the 5000-strong crowd He fed, highlights the centrality of the Eucharist for eternal life. “If you desire eternal life, eat my flesh and drink my blood”. Jesus was unambiguous in stating this requirement and this was proven by the fact that He did not stop the crowd from walking away after they had heard Him.

The Church uses the theological term “Transubstantiation” to express how Christ is able to feed us His Flesh and Blood. Through the person of the priest, Christ effects the change of the whole substance of bread into His Body and the whole substance of wine into the His Blood so that we may eat and drink of the food of eternal life.

The whole edifice of our Catholic theology is like a house of cards. Every component of our faith is connected one to the other. If we remove one facet, then the house of cards will tumble. While the decline in vocation possibly conveys a lack of understanding of the nature of the Catholic priesthood, what is more likely is that it demonstrates an unquestioned disbelief in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. In other words, all claim to believe in the necessity of the Eucharist but our actions speak otherwise.

According to the same Chapter 6 of John’s Gospel, Christ intends to feed His Church with the Sacrament of Salvation: His Body and His Blood and the only way to do it is through the Catholic priesthood. It means that Christ continues to call but two facts characterise our lack of response. Young men no longer hear God’s call or people no longer believe that the Sacrament of the Eucharist is sine qua non, that is, the Eucharist is not essential for eternal life.

The second could sadly be the case. If we do not really need the Eucharist for salvation, then we do not really need the priesthood in the Church. And if we remove the Catholic priesthood, is the resultant entity the same Church founded and instituted by Jesus Christ? Can the Lord recognise His Church without the priesthood. If no, the dire situation of vocational response leaves much to be desired. Since the number of priestly vocation continues to decline, perhaps it is a clear indication that we do not really need the Eucharist as much as we proclaim we do.

We should pray for young men to step courageously into the sandals of the Shepherd. Either we pray and beg the Lord to awaken new vocations or if not, we will be driven by whatever faddish winds that blow that try to reshape the priesthood according to the spirit of the times. Either the priesthood is necessary for providing the Eucharist or if not, then we will have to look for a solution to this purported or supposed Eucharistic necessity for salvation.

Finally, the death of a cleric is always a moment of reckoning for any Eucharistic community. The fact remains that many priests and bishops fall short of “Whom” they have been called to be. Yet, this shortcoming cannot mask the truth that the priesthood is a reminder of Jesus Christ’s eternal love for His sheep, His Church and a powerful sign that He is still saving the world, through His Church, through the priesthood and through the Eucharist.