Monthly Archives: February 2017

Thursday of Week 7 in Ordinary Time (Year I)
Saint Polycarp, Bishop, Martyr
Ecclesiasticus 5:1-10 | Psalm 1:1-4,6 | Mark 9:41-50

And if your hand should cause you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter into life crippled, than to have two hands and go to hell, into the fire that cannot be put out. (Mark 9:43)

I was walking to a meeting yesterday, and happened to pass through the basement of Ngee Ann City, when I boggled at this advertisement:

“If there’s no candy in heaven, I’m not going.” WHA?!?!

I get that it’s a tongue-in-cheek inducement to a candy coma, but it got me thinking: What would make me not want to go to heaven?

The obvious answer: Nothing. We believe that we will be reunited with Our Father in heaven one day, to sing His praises forever.

So why do we still allow ourselves the secular luxuries of avarice, envy, wrath, sloth, gluttony, lust, and pride?

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We may snicker at Jesus’ solemn pronouncement that we should cripple our bodies than fall prey to sin. We may think guiltily to ourselves, “He’s kidding, right?”

Yet sometimes it’s the pain of denying ourselves that which leads us away from the Almighty, which helps us focus on our future with God.

We’ve heard of the many saints who practiced mortification for spiritual discipline, from St. Francis of Assisi to St. Ignatius of Loyola, from St. Catherine of Siena to St. Thérèse of Lisieux.

I once slammed my hand against a table to stop myself from reaching for yet another fragrant helping of bulgogi. I got The Look from my old friend, and when I explained my action to him, he grinned evilly and asked me to let him know next time, so that he could, in the name of charitable discipline…

ENOUGH ALREADY!

Or was it “I’ll stab you through the hand with my chopsticks”?

Behold the instruments of thy DOOM!

I’d rather not remember.

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Lent will soon be upon us. It’s a good time to take a hard look at our decadent lives, honestly ask ourselves what we can live without, and Just Get Rid Of It.

Then we won’t have to worry about missing eyes and limbs in the afterlife.

Amen.

Saint Peter’s Chair
1 Peter 5:1-4 | Psalm 22(23) | Matthew 16:13-19

Tonight, I’ll be chairing my last parish Liturgical Committee meeting. It’s been a quiet two-year tenure, mostly because liturgical functions aren’t really open to much debate or innovation.

It certainly wasn’t as eventful as St. Peter’s time as first among the apostles. None of the aspects of the faith we practice today had been codified at that point; St. Peter had to get the Christian ball rolling, and defend it against the Sanhedrin twice, eventually being flogged for his troubles before embarking on his missionary journey to Rome and his martyrdom.

Me, I just took a 2-year Sunday stroll in a local park.

I hope I made a difference, or at least didn’t make matters worse. Now that we’ll have a new parish priest, it’s a good time to get off this chair and continue with my own liturgical duties.

That said, I can’t help but recall Jesus’ last words to Peter in John’s gospel:

‘I tell you most solemnly, when you were young you put on your own belt and walked where you liked; but when you grow old you will stretch out your hands, and somebody else will put a belt round you and take you where you would rather not go.’ (John 21:18)

Lord, as I relinquish this chair, help me take stock of what I learned from this experience, and apply it to whatever You want me to do next. You are Wisdom, Lord, and I know nothing. Amen.

Tuesday of Week 7 in Ordinary Time (Year I)
Saint Peter Damian, Bishop, Doctor
Ecclesiasticus 2:1-11 | Psalm 36(37):3-4,18-19,27-28,39-40 | Mark 9:30-37

‘Anyone who welcomes one of these little children in my name, welcomes me; and anyone who welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’ (Mark 9:37)

I spent over two hours on the phone and WhatsApp with a client yesterday, trying to debug what should’ve been a simple network setup issue. We were getting nowhere, until I thought to ask him to check something fundamental that I’d assumed had been configured correctly.

It hadn’t.

ARGH!

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Children have a way of cutting through complexity and getting to the heart of whatever matter is before them. Without many preconceptions, they often notice things we “wise” adults blindly pass over.

We could stand to be childlike in our approach to God. Rather than trying to quantify the depth of our sin, and inadvertently convince ourselves that we are unworthy to be forgiven, we should draw close to God with a simple wish, “Father, I have sinned. Help me find my way.”

So as we prepare to enter the season of Lent, let us come to the confessional in hope and faith, that Christ comes to meet us in the person of His priest, to absolve us, to free us, to love us.

And let us come back again next month, and the month after that, until Reconciliation becomes as regular as the breath of a child, rather than gasping and wheezing as we adults tend to.

Amen.

Monday of Week 7 in Ordinary Time (Year I)
Ecclesiasticus 1:1-10 | Psalm 92(93):1-2,5 | Mark 9:14-29

A man answered [Jesus] from the crowd, ‘Master, I have brought my son to you; there is a spirit of dumbness in him, and when it takes hold of him it throws him to the ground, and he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and goes rigid. And I asked your disciples to cast it out and they were unable to.’
[…] When [Jesus] had gone indoors his disciples asked him privately, ‘Why were we unable to cast it out?’ ‘This is the kind’ he answered ‘that can only be driven out by prayer.’ (Mark 9:17-18,28-29)

Yesterday, as I boarded the bus home from church, and made my way to the back, I beheld a young man in T-shirt and shorts, slouching in his seat, staring into space, with his sandaled feet propped up on the seat opposite him.

I took the seat across the aisle from him, thinking, “What an uncivil person!” I also noticed the middle-aged man sitting across from him, peering intently at the “offensive” young man. “I guess someone else noticed too!”

At the next stop, the middle-aged man stood up, reached over…and grabbed the young man by the arm, pulling him to his feet. I watched in amazement as the elder shepherded the younger towards the exit door, and I suddenly realized that I was thinking unkind thoughts about an intellectually disabled person, not a deliberate lout as I’d assumed.

I had a bitter taste in my mouth for the next few minutes.

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I’ve noticed a growing synchronicity between each day’s scripture, and my earthly experiences from the day before. It’s probably a case of the Good News shaping my reaction to events around me, and making me more aware of my surroundings.

Anyway, you can clearly see how today’s gospel resonated with my unfortunate encounter, except the “spirit” to be cast out of me is my tendency to jump to conclusions on limited data.

Clearly, all the mental exercises and “notes to self” I’ve tried to this point haven’t worked. Oddly, I haven’t tried prayer…

Jesus, help me to stop getting ahead of myself, to pause and reflect and look and listen before rushing to judgement. You who are the Divine Mercy, source of all love and compassion. Amen.

7th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)
Leviticus 19:1-2,17-18 | Psalm 102(103):1-4,8,10,12-13 | 1 Corinthians 3:16-23 | Matthew 5:38-48

Make no mistake about it: if any one of you thinks of himself as wise, in the ordinary sense of the word, then he must learn to be a fool before he really can be wise. (1 Corinthians 3:18)

I love answering questions on Quora because I love challenging myself to research topics and scenarios in far more areaa than I could ever encounter in real life. I also love sharing what I already know with others…which makes discovering that my knowledge base has significant holes in it both exhilarating and embarrassing in equal measure.

For instance, I answered a question yesterday on a database language (SQL) that I use pretty much every day. I confidently responded that what the questioner wanted wasn’t possible, then hit Submit.

Then, out of curiosity, I looked at other answers to the question…and discovered that I’d completely forgotten about a particular SQL fact that not only did the trick, but had also been standardized back when I started learning it! Oh, if I could only headslap myself…

Stupid, stupid, STUPID!

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The same could be said for the very faith we profess.

“Love God with all our being, and love others as ourselves.” It’s short, sharp and easy to remember.

So why do we find ourselves lost at sea when we encounter “neighbours” whom we’ve been called by Jesus Himself to love:

• the quarreling couple down the hallway,
• the forlorn and hungry beggar sitting along a footbridge,
• the shrieking child driving his parents (and all the other train passengers) insane,
• the tired cleaner who accidentally spills curry gravy on us?

What stops us from reaching out to make peace, to help, to console, to forgive?

Is it our “knowledge” that:

• “if I try to calm them down, both of them will turn on me”,
• “if he’s hungry, he can go find himself a job”,
• “it’s their kid, not mine, so not my business”,
• “you can’t even lift a bowl properly, why are you in this line of work”?

Perhaps we should think twice about overthinking the issues.

Perhaps we should instead ask God to inspire us to help in the most appropriate way.

Let us be fools for God’s heavenly love, instead of sages in our mortal domains.

Amen.