Monthly Archives: August 2016

Friday of Week 21 in Ordinary Time (Year II)
1 Corinthians 1:17-25 | Psalm 32:1-2,4-5,10-11 | Matthew 25:1-13

How can you say you believe in God, when you have a rabid interest in science?

I get asked this once in a while, and somehow my answer never seems to satisfy the enquirers:

Because science tries to explain the natural world, not God.

It’s funny how many people seem to think science and God are mutually exclusive, that once “we” can explain the workings of the universe down to its Big Bang origins, then God cannot exist.

(Note that by “we” above, they really mean “the scientists we believe without question, and quote without understanding.” Of course, they get really angry when you point out that “scientists are the priests of your religion then,” but mirror-bearers reflecting “inconvenient truths” learn to expect such reactions.)

Except, of course, science cannot, and indeed does not, claim to be able to explain EVERYTHING. At best, scientists might be able to reduce every structure we perceive to a few basic natural forces, explained in a putative Theory of Everything.

Science, however, is silent about what lies outside our perceptual limits, the visible boundaries of our universe. There is still room for a Deus extra machina (lit. “God outside the machine”) to have brought together the necessary primordial elements, and started the universal ball exploding with a gentle nudge and a “let there be light!”

✞ ✞ ✞ ✞ ✞

The “science denies God” crowd can be compared to the foolish bridesmaids in today’s Gospel, confident beyond reason that there is no hereafter, and destined to be caught short when the Day of Judgement comes.

Let us instead be like the sensible bridesmaids, trusting in the lamp of science that informs earthly life, but also carrying with us the “oil” of faith in God, the fuel that powers everlasting light. Others may think us foolish, but being a fool for Christ, as St. Paul urges us in today’s reading, should prove to be wise indeed.

Amen.

Thursday of Week 21 in Ordinary Time (Year II)
1 Corinthians 1:1-9 | Psalm 144:2-7 | Matthew 24:42-51

Stay awake, because you do not know the day when your master is coming. (Matthew 24:42)

Not so long ago, I was taking my usual after-lunch train ride with my business partner, on the way to another location to continue our discussion. The train was fairly empty, so he decided to sit down, but I remained standing in front of him. He asked me why I chose not to sit, probably assuming I’d mention something about the rather heavy meal we’d just consumed. I think my answer surprised him:

There will come a day when I can no longer stand. Until that day comes, I’ll enjoy every chance I get to feel the pressure on my feet, the slight strain on my calves, and the freedom of shifting my weight from side to side. This way, when that day arrives, I’ll have all these fond memories to last me for the rest of my life.

Besides, look around you. Everyone’s sitting down, yet everyone looks so miserable. It’s almost like they’re already imagining themselves stuck in a wheelchair!

I got the Evil Eye from him, but I didn’t come up with that on the spur of the moment. Indeed, it was inspired by today’s Gospel heard several years ago, and reinforced at the beginning of this year when I broke my foot.

Let’s just say that gravity and I have a difficult relationship.

✞ ✞ ✞ ✞ ✞

Similarly, it’s always tempting to tell ourselves that there’s always tomorrow to go to church, to be in communion with our brothers and sisters in Christ, to “feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned.” (Matthew 25:35-36)

But we don’t have the equivalent of HURRY! HURRY! SALE ENDS THIS SUNDAY! to warn us that, past this date, we’ll no longer have the means or opportunity to make amends, for all the times we’ve put God and our fellow humans aside in our quest for earthly comfort.

Those people we’ve hurt, or failed to help? It’s really hard to apologise through a medical ventilator.

That terrible sin we keep “forgetting” to confess? Now that we’re in a coma, it’s on our “permanent record”, buddy.

For that matter, those penitential services we’ve been avoiding altogether? Try heading to the confessional when rigor mortis sets in.

I think the Quakers said it best, over a hundred years ago, so I’ll appropriate their words and tweak them slightly:

I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do, any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, or any contrition I can offer to the Almighty, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again.

Amen.

St. Bartholomew, Apostle
Apocalypse 21:9-14 | Psalm 144:10-13,17-18 | John 1:45-51

‘From Nazareth?’ said Nathanael. ‘Can anything good come from that place?’ (John 1:46)

Ouch. That’s even worse than getting good grades at the National University of Singapore, but forever being passed over for desirable jobs in favour of MIT and Stanford graduates. At least the prospective employer is (presumably) hiring the best candidate for the job, not taking the position that “no good engineer ever graduated from NUS”.

Nazareth may have had a seriously disadvantaged reputation in New Testament times, yet Nathanael was able to surmount his initial prejudices and acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah, when presented with proof that He saw him in his private moments, from (we assume) a great distance away. Mother Church traditionally considers Nathanael to be the personal name of the apostle Bartholomew, whose feast we celebrate today, so clearly the “rabbi from the sticks” had a salutary effect on this skeptic.

Today’s Gospel encourages us to remember that our lives begin anew with each day, that no matter where we come from or how many sins we’ve committed thus far, we can always set ourselves aright and take positive steps towards loving holiness.

We’re also encouraged to give others around us the same benefit of the doubt, especially to those who don’t look like us or hail from the same home town, or are know to have a chequered past. After all, we have to look past the ugly shells of oysters to find the pearls of great price.

Perhaps, by discounting the colour of others’ skin and their ancestry, we might also influence them by our love to turn to the same God we do, and isn’t that our mission on this earth?

Amen.

Tuesday of Week 21 in Ordinary Time (Year II)
2 Thessalonians 2:1-3,14-17 | Psalm 95:10-13 | Matthew 23:23-26

Will the world end tomorrow?

Does it matter?

St. Paul urges us and the Thessalonians in today’s reading to not put any store in the many predictions of the End Times. Rather, he exhorts us to focus on being models of charity and love in the here and now, secure in the knowledge that God our Father and Jesus His only Son will continue to comfort and strengthen us in our Christian endeavours.

In our parish sanctuary, and probably in all others, there is a commendation to our beloved padres:

Priest of God,
Celebrate this Mass
As though it were
Your first Mass,
Your last Mass,
Your only Mass.

Similarly, let us remind ourselves to live each day as if it might be our last day on earth, not by sinking into the depths of hedonism, but by rising to the challenge of living by the light of Christ. As the popular admonition goes:

If you had 24 hours left to live, what would you do differently…and why aren’t you doing it anyway?

Fr. Cornelius reminded us this past Sunday that we have a race to finish, so we might as well run it:

Through His grace,
With His grace,
In His grace.

Amen.

Monday of Week 21 in Ordinary Time (Year II)
The Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary
2 Thessalonians 1:1-5,11-12 | Psalm 95:1-5 | Matthew 23:13-22

In today’s Gospel, Jesus revisits His edict on swearing found in Matthew 5:33-37 (“Do not swear by heaven…”), but from a different angle. Here, He takes the scribes and Pharisees to task for splitting hairs on the matter of swearing.

Even to a non-Christian, the idea that an oath made on a sanctified object doesn’t count must seem absurd, so one wonders how the learned religious of the time could concoct something so bizarre. I suspect it was a case of too many “canon lawyers” spoiling the Mosaic law, or perhaps too many amendments or clarifications formulated over time that had unforeseen interactions with each other.

Still, I don’t see this as Jesus going back on His previous words; He’s not implying that swearing on the Temple of Jerusalem or its altar is actually OK. Instead, I think He’s actually pointing out that the scribes and Pharisees didn’t give the act of swearing the level of gravitas that it deserved – because all swearing on objects deemed holy transitively meant swearing by the Most High.

Which is why I find the parent’s reflexive admonition to “behave yourself or I swear to God I’ll wallop you in front of everybody” quite disturbing, not so much at the idea of corporal punishment for a child (I think it’s sometimes deserved) as at the flippant promise to inflict great pain in the name of our loving Creator.

And if I hear “really, it’s true, swear to God!” one more time, I swear I’d be sorely tempted to respond with “everyone take three steps back, lightning bolts a-coming”, a suitably facetious reply to a frivolous oath.

And in the interest of full disclosure, I really should police my own use of the exclamation “Holy <faecal object>!” in times of great surprise or stress. After all, the Greatest Commandment we know:

You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. (Matthew 22:37)

certainly encompasses “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Amen.