Monthly Archives: January 2017

Monday of Week 2 in Ordinary Time (Year I)
Hebrews 5:1-10 | Psalm 109(110):1-4 | Mark 2:18-22

And nobody puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and the skins too. No! New wine, fresh skins! (Mark 2:22)

In today’s Gospel, Jesus reminds us that we should not cling to the old ways while we try to follow His precepts. Such a half-hearted commitment would lead nowhere.

I’m reminded of the old story about the man whose misguided faith led to his death. Here’s that story with a major twist that relates to today’s scripture:

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A terrible storm came into a town and local officials sent out an emergency warning that the riverbanks would soon overflow and flood the nearby homes. They ordered everyone in the town to evacuate immediately.

A devout Christian heard the warning and started packing a trunk full of religious artifacts and relics that he had collected during his various pilgrimages.

As he was dragging the heavy trunk out to his front porch, his neighbours came by and said, “There’s room in our car, but you’ll have to leave your trunk behind.” The man declined. “I have faith that God will not want His holy relics to be destroyed. Go, save yourselves, He will save me!”

Soon, the floodwaters poured into the town, forcing the man to climb up to the second floor, dragging his trunk all the way. A police motorboat came by and saw him at the window. The officers shouted to him, “Quick! Climb aboard, but leave your trunk behind!” The man refused, waving them off saying, “Go save someone else, I have faith that God treasures these relics!”

The waters rose higher and the man had to climb up to the rooftop, his trunk perching precariously beside him. A helicopter spotted him and dropped a rope ladder. A rescue officer came down the ladder and pleaded with the man, “Grab my hand and I will pull you up, but you need to leave your trunk behind!” The man STILL refused, folding his arms tightly to his body. “No! God wants these relics! Go save someone else!”

Shortly after, the house broke up and the floodwaters swept the man away and he drowned. The trunk and its contents were never seen again.

When in Heaven, the man stood before God and asked, “I put all of my faith in You. Why didn’t You come and save me?”

God glared at him. “What made you think I was willing to pay for your extra baggage?”

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As we draw closer to Chinese New Year, most of us are busy performing the yearly ritual of “spring cleaning”, actually 12 months’ worth of should’ve-done-that-earlier compressed into a frantic flurry of blood, sweat and tears.

But as we discard the physical items we no longer need, and dust off the things that remain, should we not also look to our spiritual health as well?

Why not take a long, honest look at our lives and let go of a few activities and preoccupations that really aren’t good uses of our time, or are actively leading us in the direction of the Evil One? Perhaps it’s a casual need to gossip, or a crippling obsession with pornography, or a terrible trouble with alcohol. Some of these are certainly trickier to rid ourselves of than others, but we can ask for help from a sea of fellow Catholics who’ve all experienced similar difficulties.

And after we’ve bid farewell to those nasty habits, why not make a commitment to apply some “polish” to our spiritual lives as well? Perhaps we could upgrade our confessions from a reluctant Advent-Lent to a quarterly schedule.

Or spend some time after Sunday mass praying and reflecting before Christ on His cross, instead of trying to beat everyone else out the church doors.

Anything that would help us brighten our outlook on our lives and the people we interact with on a daily basis, that would help brighten their outlook in turn and make them more willing to partake of God’s love that we share, and share it in turn with others.

Brothers and sisters, the sins we carry around with us will result in hefty baggage fees at the check-in counter to Heaven. It would be best to shed it as quickly as possible, and don the ultra-light and spotless cloak of Christ that is really all we truly need.

Amen.

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)
Isaiah 49:3,5-6 | Psalm 39(40):2,4,7-10 | 1 Corinthians 1:1-3 | John 1:29-34

Seeing Jesus coming towards him, John said, ‘Look, there is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.’ (John 1:29)

St. John’s words should sound familiar, since every celebrant echoes those words as he elevates the Body of Christ:

Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sins of the world.

Many of us who received instruction in earlier times were told to bow our heads at this point, which still made no canonical sense under the words of the missal we grew up with:

This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

Perhaps there was something “lost in translation” from the pre-Vatican II rites, but if I were told by someone that “this is XYZ”, I’d be looking at XYZ to at least confirm that the speaker wasn’t mistaken. The new words makes the appropriate posture even clearer:

Behold! Look at me, the spotless Lamb who took on your sins and the sins of everyone else! Why are you looking down?

If we are unable even to look at our Saviour with love and affection, when He’s presented to us in the form of a clean white wafer, how much more difficult would it be for us to look at Him in the guise of “the least of these brothers of Mine” (Matthew 25:40),

the burdened servants of our daily needs,

the bedraggled poor who wander our streets?

Behold Christ, our Redeemer and Lord. Let us hide not our faces from Him. Let us look to Him always,

in our celebration of Holy Mass,

in the conduct of our daily lives,

in the faces of our brothers and sisters, especially the ones “beneath” us.

Amen.

Saturday of Week 1 in Ordinary Time (Year I)
Hebrews 4:12-16 | Psalm 18(19):8-10,15 | Mark 2:13-17

Let us be confident, then, in approaching the throne of grace, that we shall have mercy from him and find grace when we are in need of help. (Hebrews 4:16)

While waiting for a bus at Paya Lebar station yesterday, I spied a blind old man making his way up a ramp that would end at the station lift. Since he was walking confidently, as if he was familiar with the route, I didn’t give him a second thought.

Until two minutes later, when I saw him walking back down the ramp again. Evidently, he couldn’t find the lift, and this time his gait was a tad less confident. Oddly, though my partner and I were talking rather loudly just a few metres from him, he walked right past us without asking for help, and would soon exit the station grounds.

So I intercepted him and asked where he was going. Sure enough, he was trying to get to Jurong East, so I guided him down to the station gantry, where my partner grabbed a security person nearby and asked him to guide the gentleman to the correct platform.

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What struck me about this encounter was the evident relief on his face and in his voice when I stepped forward to help. It was as if his pride stopped him from calling out for assistance, even though his white cane was pretty much an “all-access pass” for help.

We too have been granted an “all-access pass” to salvation, in the person of Jesus Christ. We can be assured that this “pass” will surely work, that it won’t be rescinded due to some unforeseen technicality.

We know this because Jesus experienced first-hand all our human weaknesses and temptations. Just like a technical manager who rose through the ranks instead of being “parachuted” in from outside the company, He knows all too well what we need, so He’s promised us His grace in full, to fill in the gaps and make us whole again. In His own words:

It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. I did not come to call the virtuous, but sinners. (Mark 2:17)

All we need to do…is accept Him in full too, to ask for His Divine Assistance all day long, to surrender ourselves to His grace and compassion.

Why are we still hesitating?

The Saviour is waiting to enter your heart
Why don’t you let Him come in?
There’s nothing in this world to keep you apart
What is your answer to Him?

Time after time, He has waited before
And now He is waiting again
To see if you’re willing to open the door
O how He wants to come in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHJLmdR5gVQ

Friday of Week 1 in Ordinary Time (Year I)
St Hilary of Poitiers, Bishop, Doctor
Hebrews 4:1-5,11 | Psalm 77(78):3-4,6-8 | Mark 2:1-12

Be careful: the promise of reaching the place of rest that God had for the Israelites still holds good, and none of you must think that he has come too late for it. (Hebrews 4:1)

Yesterday, I learned that Dylann Roof, the young white supremacist who killed nine black American churchgoers in cold blood, was sentenced to death…and that one victim’s family members surprisingly oppose that sentence.

It may also surprise you, dear readers, that the Catholic Church has never issued a blanket opposition to the death penalty, though individual Popes have opposed capital punishment, on the grounds that a lesser sentence like “life without parole” gives the offender time and space to properly repent and reform.

But even a death row inmate, during the last seconds before end-of-life, can repent and obtain forgiveness from God. It won’t save him in this life, but it’s the first step to reunion with the Father in the next.

Right?

Would you believe that there are Catholics who do not believe the above, that there are some sins that are simply unforgivable?

Would you believe that they are both right and wrong in their belief?

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We’ve been taught from the beginning that God can forgive anyone, even the vilest mass murderer. As fallible humans, our forgiveness of each other certainly has its limits, but God has none.

We’ve also been taught that a death-bed baptism, with the subject maintaining a proper disposition of wanting to be united with the Father, forgives all past sins.

So what on earth could escape the Father’s all-encompassing forgiveness?

Just one thing: the refusal to recognize our sinful nature and turn back to God. The Almighty forgives all…except those who don’t want to be forgiven.

This refusal can stem from several sources. The one that’s related to today’s scripture is despair, the erroneous belief that we’ve sinned too much and too often for God to possibly forgive it all, so why bother repenting at all? We’re going to hell, so we might as well enjoy the ride!

I came close to this stance in my college days, feeling lost and alone in a secular world that only believed in itself.

But in the words of today’s reading, “none of you must think that he has come too late for it.” God has never given up on us, so why should we give up on our struggle to reach Him? The promise of salvation, of “reaching the place of rest that God had for the Israelites” still holds good.

Jesus saw to that by giving Himself on the cross for the souls of all humans past, present and future, even blood-soaked Hitler-level maniacs, or Dylann Roof.

Who are we to reject such a gift, but ungrateful bastards?

Almighty and ever-living God, we know that You are ever-loving and ever-forgiving, but we sometimes lose hope in our salvation along our rocky journey through this life. Send us the Holy Spirit to remind us that You are always waiting patiently for us to return to You in humble penitence, and that Your healing mercy will do the rest. Amen.

Thursday of Week 1 in Ordinary Time (Year I)
Hebrews 3:7-14 | Psalm 94(95):6-11 | Mark 1:40-45

Every day, as long as this ‘today’ lasts, keep encouraging one another so that none of you is hardened by the lure of sin, because we shall remain co-heirs with Christ only if we keep a grasp on our first confidence right to the end. (Hebrews 3:13-14)

In yet another fact-stranger-than-fiction moment, the word “confidence” triggered a memory of a long-lost commercial jingle for Rexona antiperspirant from my childhood days, which featured that word prominently. My brain naturally wrote a parody:

Confidence, every day, that special feeling faith in God will give you
Confidence, all day long, Jesus is beside you day and night too

(spoken) Trust in God to illuminate the right path
Leading you with confidence from death to new life

If you want life, God is with us
Or you want comfort, Christ saved us
Confidence, new life, the Spirit just won’t let you down!

Yeah, it looks really weird in writing, but it sounded a lot better in my head. I guess “jingle writer” won’t be added to my CV any time soon.

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It just occurred to me that our baptism day is like New Year’s Day. In both cases, we’re all fired up with enthusiasm, and make all sorts of resolutions to improve our spiritual/physical fitness.

Then Real Life rudely butts in with its distractions and temptations. One by one, each resolution to remain faithful to God/our exercise plan falls by the wayside. “Whatever happened,” we wonder as we reflect at year’s end, “to that ‘first confidence’, that fire we had at the beginning?”

I think we all know the answer to that question: That was a firework, the kind that flares in celebration like a supernova, then disappears quickly into the darkness of humdrum life. What we need to be at the outset is a candle, which gives off less light but burns steadily.

When it comes to physical fitness, that means eschewing fancy high-intensity exercises that make us feel real good one day and real pain the next, in favour of a slow ramp-up from daily walks to daily jogs to daily runs, building confidence that we can sustain this effort over the long term.

In the spiritual realm, it means “showing up” every day, consciously reminding ourselves to pray a daily rosary, or to contemplate daily scripture and (in my case) pen our own thoughts about it.

And in both situations, it helps to have a “coach” or “buddy” along for the ride, someone to keep our spirits up and our legs pumping, physical or otherwise. This blog is my own effort to run the spiritual race alongside you, dear readers, the one that St. Paul meant when he wrote to Timothy:

I have fought the good fight to the end;
I have run the race to the finish;
I have kept the faith (2 Timothy 4:7)

As a good antiperspirant gives us confidence in the sweltering heat of the moment, so may our collective faith give us confidence to stand fast against the pressures of secular life.

Lord, let each day that passes be another day that we draw ever closer to You. Help us find the strength to fight the good fight of faith, and support each other in remaining steadfast against the Evil One, so that in the fullness of time, we will all be reunited with You and the Father, singing one united song of praise and glory. Amen.