Monthly Archives: June 2016

Wednesday of the 11th Week in Ordinary Time (Year II)
2 Kings 2:1,6-14 | Psalm 30:20,21,24 | Matthew 6:1-6,16-18

When they had crossed [the Jordan], Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Make your request. What can I do for you before I am taken from you?’ Elisha answered, ‘Let me inherit a double share of your spirit’. (2 Kings 2:9)

That was quite a bold request on Elisha’s part, to be twice the prophet Elijah was. Yet God granted his request to serve Him even more faithfully than his master, and Elisha eventually outdid Elijah 28 to 14.

But if you polled the Christians around you, you’d probably find that everyone remembers Elijah, but “Elisha? Oh, you must mean Elijah!” Oh, how Elisha must be rolling his eyes up in heaven now!

Not.

I believe Elisha would probably just shrug, go “so what?”, and go about his heavenly business, as would all the great prophets. Jesus explained why in today’s Gospel – the true Christian attitude is service in secrecy: not calling attention to oneself, just Getting Things Done and on to the next task.

Jesus also reminds us of the three Great Tasks in Christian life: prayer, fasting and almsgiving. We generally only hear about them during the Lenten season, but of course we’re called to do them regularly as part of everyday life.

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I suddenly thought to look up the etymology of “alms”, which sounds so archaic. You might already have guessed its origins…in “mercy”:

The word, in the modern English language, comes from the Old English ælmesse, ælmes, from Late Latin eleemosyna, from Greek ἐλεημοσύνη eleēmosynē “pity, alms”, from ἐλεήμων eleēmōn “merciful”, from ἔλεος eleos “pity”. (Wikipedia:Alms)

I think the Wikipedia article is worth reading, especially in this Jubilee Year of Mercy, for inspiration and encouragement:

For I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you made me welcome; naked and you clothed me, sick and you visited me, in prison and you came to see me. (Matthew 25:35-36)

Amen.

Tuesday of the 11th Week in Ordinary Time (Year II)
1 Kings 21:17-29 | Psalm 50:3-6,11,16 | Matthew 5:43-48

You must therefore be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48)

Um, how can Jesus expect us imperfect humans to be perfect like God? After all, everyone sins. At minimum:

Including this guy.

This is yet another passage where nuances were probably lost in translation. The troubling word above was translated from the Greek word τέλειοι (teleioi), which does mean “perfect”, but also has the connotation of “full-grown” or “complete”, specifically from the root word τέλος (telos, “end goal”).

So I think Jesus is actually commanding us to be “complete” or “mature” Christians rather than “sinless”, but what does that entail? Remembering that:

God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him (Genesis 1:27)

it should be clear why Jesus commanded us to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). We are created in the image of God, but so are our enemies – we all spring from the same God-created stock. Seeing that God chose not to curse them with darkness and drought (Matthew 5:45), who are we to do otherwise?

Obviously, loving one’s enemy doesn’t come easily, so Jesus exhorts us to be exceptional, to go beyond the love-those-who-love-you and greetings-for-brothers-only crowd (Matthew 5:46-47). In this way, He wants us to “be perfect”, to be the “complete Christian”, to love each other as He loved us.

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While I was writing this entry, John F. Kennedy’s famous Moon speech suddenly sprang to mind. If he had instead been reflecting on today’s Gospel, I’d like to think he’d have said this instead:

We choose to love others! We choose to love others without expecting returns and do the other Christian things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to catalyze and test our faith in God, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win by the grace of God.

Amen.

St. Antony of Padua, Priest & Doctor
Monday of the 11th Week in Ordinary Time (Year II)
1 Kings 21:1-16 | Psalm 5:2-3,5-7 | Matthew 5:38-42

Today’s Gospel once elicited a dubious reaction from a non-Christian friend (not the old friend I keep writing about): “Wah, Jesus is telling you to take it up the arse man! So how come I always see Christians fighting back hah?”

For starters, I’m confident that Jesus has never condoned sodomy, and the answer to “why don’t Christians do XYZ like how the Bible says they should?” is often either:

• “those Christians don’t know, understand or care about scripture, and that’s just not right,” or
• “you misunderstood scripture, but that’s easily fixed” ?

That said, my reading of Jesus’ words can be summed up in two words: Spiritual Aikido. In a nutshell, we are called to deal with the assaults and insults of the wicked in a peaceful way, to take that negative energy and deflect or change it somehow.

Let’s delve a little deeper…

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Offer the wicked man no resistance. On the contrary, if anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other as well.

Note the specific reference to the right cheek. For the majority of people, that involves a back-handed slap, which is traditionally considered a grave insult. Anyone who does so is obviously up to no good, and is probably expecting you to take umbrage and start a full-blown fight to your own shame and potential legal liability: “Look, I just tapped him on the cheek, and he tried to KILL me!”

This is often the case with anyone who offers insult to you, and so it should be clear that the proper way to defuse the situation is simply: “I seem to have offended you somehow, and I’m truly sorry about that. If you could explain what offence I’ve caused, I’ll make amends accordingly.”

Now you’ve put your opponent on the spot. If he comes up with a silly rationalization, he looks like a fool. If he leaps directly into attack mode, you’re morally and legally entitled to defend yourself.

If he does give a proper reason for his anger, though, you get to make amends as a true Christian, so that’s not exactly a bad thing either.

If a man takes you to law and would have your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.

When someone decides to use legal avenues to cripple you in an immoral way, it may actually be best to let him have everything and more, thereby unburdening yourself of things that may cause you trouble later…like that cloak you never really liked because it kept tripping you up.

This actually happened to a friend’s brother-in-law, when his own brother used underhanded means to try to gain majority control of their shared business. To the no-gooder’s surprise, the former decided to give up the business entirely, as he was going through a bout of severe illness.

The upshot: he was legally forced to find the capital to buy his brother out. Last I heard, he also found out too late just how much work his brother had been doing behind the scenes (hence the severe illness) to keep the business going, and the sudden additional demands caused no small number of marital and familial problems at home too.

And if anyone orders you to go one mile, go two miles with him.

“C’mon man, it was your idea, so keep up already! Anyway, exercise is good for your health. Hup hup hup!” ?

Give to anyone who asks, and if anyone wants to borrow, do not turn away.

I’ll get pedantic here and note that Jesus didn’t say to give what was asked for. Instead, I believe He wants us to use our best judgement on what to give, the judgement that’s based on love for our fellow man. In that light, it’s clear that Jesus is not calling us to, say, finance a compulsive gambler just because he asked. Instead, He expects us to help said gambler recognize the hurt that he’s inflicted on himself and his loved ones, and help him recover self-control, dignity and inner peace.

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The concept of Spiritual Aikido is very simple: Instead of trying to oppose wicked force with more of the same, redirect the inbound energy in an unexpected direction, causing your opponent to lose his footing and fall. If he should fall into a renewed sense of love and holiness in the process, so much the better.

It’s also easier said than done, of course. We’re genetically predisposed to fight for control, but with practice and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, I believe we can learn to turn darkness into light without sullying ourselves in the process.

Amen.

P.S. It seems that I’m not the only person who’s drawn parallels between Christian life and aikido. Here’s Eri Izawa’s detailed connection between aikido principles and Christian spirituality – it’s fascinating at first glance, and probably bears deeper reflection.

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)
2 Samuel 12:7-10,13 | Psalm 31:1-2,5,7,11 | Galatians 2:16,19-21 | Luke 7:36-8:3

I tell you that her sins, her many sins, must have been forgiven her, or she would not have shown such great love. It is the man who is forgiven little who shows little love. (Luke 7:47)

That last line, taken literally, is actually quite troubling. We know that Christ redeemed us from all our sins, past, present and future. How can it be that those who lead holy lives, and therefore don’t have much to be forgiven, love God less than we who are inveterate sinners?

I think it’s because there’s an erroneous assumption in the question. It’s not that “earthly saints” have committed fewer sins. They probably commit as many sins as we do; most of those sins, like ours, are generally hidden from public view, in their depths of their (and our) hearts. After all, we seek forgiveness at the start of every mass for the transgressions not just in our public words and deeds, but also in our private thoughts and our unwitnessed failure to act as Christians.

What sets them apart is that:

• they recognize more of their sins than we do,
• they frequently and actively seek and accept the forgiveness of God that has already been offered to them, and
• they rejoice in their redemption by praising God and avoiding future transgressions to the best of their ability.

Most of us just confess a few sins at most twice a year during the communal penitential services at our parishes, and often quite reluctantly at that. More importantly, most of us hold back on the really serious sins, either because we’re too afraid to seek God’s forgiveness for the likes of fornication or bodily harm, or because we don’t even recognize them as sins to begin with, just like Simon the Pharisee in today’s Gospel.

Now the context of Jesus’ parable about the two debtors becomes clearer: It’s not that the 50-denarii debtor was otherwise lily-white, it’s that he was only forgiven that specific debt. Both debtors might still have to answer to other creditors, but the 500-denarii one just had a major burden lifted off his shoulders, and would therefore be in a better position to satisfy his other creditors. No wonder he’s more grateful!

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Now let’s take that parable one step further: Imagine that the 50-denarii debtor, instead of going to his other creditors to similarly seek forgiveness (or at least work out an installment plan) decides to run away and hide from them. What has he bought himself? Just the eternal agony of constantly looking over his shoulder for the debt collectors on his heels.

So it is with us and our sins. Unless we come clean and accept God’s forgiveness that He’s been offering to us since the day we were born, we’ll be saddled with the burden of our trespasses till our dying day, always fearing the oncoming spectre of death and the accounting of our lives to follow. In the words of the beloved former parish priest of Holy Spirit Church, Fr. Louis Fossion: Stupid lah!

He was never one to mince words.

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In short, the likes of Blessed Mother Teresa and Pope St. John Paul II may or may not have committed fewer sins in their lifetimes, but they almost certainly confessed far more of them, and thereby gained much greater joy in accepting God’s forgiveness for the entire lot.

Lord, help us to recognize the redemption for our sins that You’ve already purchased for us, to accept it with our hearts unburdened through confession, and to rejoice in the renewal of our bond of love with You. Amen.

St. Barnabas, Apostle
Acts 11:21-26,13:1-3 | Psalm 97:1-6 | Matthew 10:7-13

Whatever town or village you go into, ask for someone trustworthy and stay with him until you leave. As you enter his house, salute it, and if the house deserves it, let your peace descend upon it; if it does not, let your peace come back to you. (Matthew 10:11-13)

I see Muslims wishing each other salaam alaikum/alaikum salaam all the time. I don’t have any Jewish friends, but I understand that shalom aleichem/aleichem shalom is the appropriate exchange of greetings. In either case, “peace be upon you/upon you be peace” is the noble wish.

What do Christians say when arriving at someone’s home? Usually Hi! or Nice place! ?

Proffering peace is, for some reason, relegated by general Christian agreement to being a “mass-only thing”. No wonder the “sign of peace” is always an awkward occasion; we Catholics have so little practice wishing peace upon each other!

That may also explain the unpleasant incidents that erupted after mass in my parish on several occasions; the general belief seems to be that adopting a peaceful demeanor in this cruel world just gets you laughed at…and stomped on.

I think we could learn something from our Abrahamic cousins. Personally, I’ll start greeting people with “peace be with you” and homes with “peace upon this house and all who live here” and see what happens. Hopefully, it’ll serve as a gentle reminder to everyone involved that the peace of Christ should reign in our hearts every minute of every day, and not just within church confines.

Amen.