Monthly Archives: December 2016

21 December
Song of Songs 2:8-14 | Psalm 32(33):2-3,11-12,20-21 | Luke 1:39-45

Today is the only day in the liturgical calendar when the Song of Songs appears in the liturgy. It’s a love poem on the surface, and Michael Card turned it into a 26-year-old contemporary Christian song that occasionally finds its way into Catholic weddings around the world:

But I see a bittersweet connection between today’s reading and Gospel. As Elizabeth exclaims:

Why should I be honoured with a visit from the mother of my Lord? (Luke 1:43)

so we too exclaim inwardly, and far too often:

Why should I be honoured with a visit from our Lord? I am not worthy! Surely He has better things to do than come to me, a sinner?

Yes, we are not worthy, as the centurion in Matthew 8:8 was willing to admit, but Christ doesn’t care about all that. He comes to us because He loves us and wants us to be united with Him, just as bride and groom come together because they love each other and want to be united in one body.

So why do we keep turning away from Him like a reluctant bride? How much longer will we resist His loving call?

Arise, My love, and come.
The winter of your discontent is gone,
the thunderstorms of life have abated.
Flowers of mercy spring forth from the earth,
birds sing songs of compassion!

Why do you still hide in the dark caves of temptation,
in the shadow of sin?

Show Me your face,
let Me hear your voice,
for I have loved you from the day you were born,
and I will love you to the end of time.

Amen.

O come, thou Day-spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death’s dark shadows put to flight

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel

20 December
Isaiah 7:10-14 | Psalm 23(24):1-6 | Luke 1:26-38

‘Rejoice, so highly favoured! The Lord is with you.’ (Luke 1:28)

How fortunate Our Blessed Mother was, to be greeted with such favourable news!

How unfortunate we are, that we keep forgetting that the same applies to us!

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How many times have we exclaimed when we are in dire straits, “God, where are you?”

How often do we forget that He has been there since the beginning of our lives, always watching, always waiting for us to reach out to Him?

How many times could our misfortune have been averted, if we’d just let go of our prideful conviction that we can handle our daily lives perfectly well on our own, and let God guide our actions for the better?

He could’ve helped us not get so greedy, that we fell for that online scam and lost so much money.

He could’ve helped us temper our temper, and avoid that road rage incident and subsequent jail time.

He could’ve helped us remember to be true to our spouses in good times and bad, and not fallen into bed with our co-workers “just because”.

Why don’t we resolve, starting today, to “let go and let God”, not just when our sheltered lives are crumbling around us, but every second of our days?

For as the angel Gabriel assured Mary, “nothing is impossible to God.” (Luke 1:37)

Lord, we readily accept guidance from our peers and even strangers, but rarely do we accept Your guiding hand of love in our lives.

Help us recognize that You are always there, not as a trite and unconvincing phrase to trot out in others’ grief, but a Real Presence who watches over us.

Remind us always that we need us to make that connection to You.

Help us put aside our pride and self-reliance, and engage You willingly and constantly, so that You may work miracles in our lives, and the lives that we touch each day.

Amen.

O come, thou key of David, come
And open wide our heav’nly home
Make safe the way that leads on high
And close the path to misery

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel

19 December
Judges 13:2-7,24-25 | Psalm 70(71):3-6,16-17 | Luke 1:5-25

You will conceive and bear a son. From now on, take no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean. For the boy shall be God’s nazirite from his mother’s womb to his dying day. (Judges 13:7)

Just yesterday, Fr. Paul Goh exhorted everyone at Sunday mass to read the entire Bible in 2 years. It’s easy to believe that we already know all we need from the Bible, thanks to Jesus’ summary command to “love one another as I have loved you”, but by believing thus, we deprive ourselves of a fuller understanding of our faith.

For instance, did you know that all Christians are called to take on a form of the nazirite vow?

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The root word, after all, is the Hebrew nazir, meaning “consecrated” or “separated”, which should sound very familiar to us all:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a consecrated nation, a people set apart to sing the praises of God who called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. (1 Peter 2:9)

We are called to live in this world, but not be of this world.

We exist in this mortal realm, but we should not be “infected” by the temptations and iniquities so prevalent around us.

We are exhorted, therefore, to be modern-day nazirites, dedicating ourselves to Christ, and sharing His abundant love with everyone we encounter, leading them to a deeper relationship with God, especially those who spend much time focused on their secular existence and personal profit.

The trick, of course, is to embody the loving discipline that Jesus taught us. Just as the ancient nazirites vowed to:

• Abstain from wine and grape products
• Let one’s hair grow and refrain from cutting it
• Avoid becoming ritually impure by contact with corpses and graves

so let us vow as modern nazirites to:

• Abstain from pleasures of the flesh
• Let our faith grow through prayer and study, and refrain from “dropping out” with God
• Avoid contaminating our thoughts with things that focus attention on our desires and away from spiritual union with the Almighty

We may not attain the lion-killing, jawbone-wielding prowess of Samson the Nazirite (the subject of today’s reading), but we can certainly take steps to purify ourselves, to be better reflections of Christ’s light for others. As St. Paul pleads with us:

Think of God’s mercy, my brothers, and worship him, I beg you, in a way that is worthy of thinking beings, by offering your living bodies as a holy sacrifice, truly pleasing to God.
Do not model yourselves on the behaviour of the world around you, but let your behaviour change, modelled by your new mind. This is the only way to discover the will of God and know what is good, what it is that God wants, what is the perfect thing to do. (Romans 12:1-2)

Amen.

O come, thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny
From depths of hell Thy people save
And give them vict’ry o’er the grave

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel

4th Sunday of Advent (Year A)
Isaiah 7:10-14 | Psalm 23(24):1-6 | Romans 1:1-7 | Matthew 1:18-24

His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph; but before they came to live together she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph; being a man of honour and wanting to spare her publicity, decided to divorce her informally. (Matthew 1:18-19)

Joseph’s action was indeed honourable, as the canonical penalty for Mary’s supposed adultery was death by stoning (Leviticus 20:10).

I’m also reminded of a recent news article on Venezuela’s economic crisis and its impact on poor families. Facing collective death by starvation, some families have made a heart-rending yet (I think) honourable decision to temporarily give away some of their children to neighbours and friends, rather than abandon them on the street or force them into prostitution or criminal activities. Clearly, they hope to be reunited when their situation improves, and they would prefer to have them raised by people they know and trust, who could offer them the hope of a better life in the interim.

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The world often considers “honour” as a sign of weakness, a failure to employ cold logic and take the easy way out:

to not participate in post-riot looting and miss out on all that “free stuff”,

to admit to a costly mistake at work and risk getting fired,

to help a poor stranger whom everyone else treats like a leper.

Joseph chose to swallow his pride and marry a woman who could’ve tarnished his family name through scandal, trusting instead the word of a dream figure.

These poor Venezuelan families chose a painful path that stood the best chance of benefiting all their children and keeping their family intact in the long term, instead of taking the easy way out and sacrificing some for the good of others.

Do we honour our Father in heaven by choosing the honourable path of love in this life?

Or do we walk the way of least resistance for ourselves, without regard for others?

Lord, as we await Your coming to us as a new-born babe, help us remember that You saw from the beginning Your road to suffering and death on the cross, yet chose to walk that path for the sake of us all. Share with us a portion of that ever-loving will to make necessary sacrifices for the good of all, so that our words and deeds in concert may give honour and glory to You and to our heavenly Father. Amen.

O come, O come, thou Lord of Might
Who to Thy tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times did give the law
In cloud, and majesty, and awe

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel

17th December
Genesis 49:2,8-10 | Psalm 71(72):1-4,7-8,17 | Matthew 1:1-17

Matthew’s Gospel begins with a recitation of the genealogy of Jesus. This list is rather conveniently divided into three chunks of 14 generations (except a possibly missing name in the last), and it differs dramatically from Luke’s own record of Christ’s genealogy (Luke 3:23-38), so generations of biblical scholars have naturally seen fit to pick all the nits they could find in Matthew’s list. We are human, after all, and it’s easy to presume that Matthew may have taken some poetic license.

But for me, what stands out is the very first line:

A genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham (Matthew 1:1)

The link to King David is almost certainly an emphasis that Jesus was born into a royal line, and could claim by blood right (in human terms) to be King of the Jews.

Singling out Jesus’ link to Abraham, however, is more interesting; I’m inclined to agree with those who speculate that this is an oblique reference to His universal work of salvation, as God promised Abraham for his willingness to sacrifice his only son:

All the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by your descendants, as a reward for your obedience. (Genesis 22:18)

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What relevance does this have for me? Well, I can’t trace my lineage past my own grandparents, but since artificial fertilization was a recent invention, I can confidently claim to be the product of an unbroken line of ancestors, all the way back to the beginning of humanity.

Some of them might have been criminals and rogues, just as there were at least three “bad kings” whom Matthew chose not to mention, but every generation chooses its own fate in God’s eyes. Even for less-savory individuals, God has always been willing to accept their sincere repentance and stay His wrathful hand, so it’s never too late to turn back to God with all our heart,

Thus, though it’s clear now that my line will end with me, I choose to follow Joshua’s example:

As for me and my House, we will serve the Lord. (Joshua 24:15)

Amen.

Mother Church begins the ancient practice of singing the O Antiphons today, so let us do the same, but with a more modern translation:

O come, thou Wisdom, born in heaven’s height
Come peacefully, Thy peoples set aright
To us the path of knowledge show
And help us in that way to go

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel