Category Archives: Daily Reflections

Monday of Week 3 in Ordinary Time (Year I)
Hebrews 9:15,24-28 | Psalm 97(98):1-6 | Mark 3:22-30

If a household is divided against itself, that household can never stand. (Mark 3:25)

I blogged yesterday about how we should deal with the upcoming rotation of parish priests, with understanding and a desire to find common ground.

As should happen in the house of God, so should also happen in our own households.

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The nomadic Bedouin have a saying:

I against my brother,
I and my brother against our cousin,
I, my brother and our cousin against the neighbors,
All of us against the foreigner.

It’s a natural hierarchy of loyalties in this distrusting world, but we Catholics have a different outlook:

We are one in the Spirit.

So as we approach the Chinese New Year, let’s work on repairing whatever broken relationships we may have with our family members, and let the Lord enter all our lives in the process. After all, the family is the original church.

Amen.

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)
Isaiah 8:23-9:3 | Psalm 26(27):1,4,13-14 | 1 Corinthians 1:10-13,17 | Matthew 4:12-23

What I mean are all these slogans that you have, like: ‘I am for Paul’, ‘I am for Apollos’, ‘I am for Cephas’, ‘I am for Christ.’ Has Christ been parcelled out? Was it Paul that was crucified for you? Were you baptised in the name of Paul? (1 Corinthians 1:12-13)

This passage reminds me uncomfortably that we will soon have a “changing of the guard” at our parish, and most other parishes in Singapore. Already, I hear rumblings like “aiyah, the incoming priest is terrible, everything also banned one!” and “never mind, Singapore so small, I will follow Fr. X to his new parish!”

That sounds dangerously close to the kind of schism that St. Paul warns us against – “I am for Andrew”, “I am for Terrence”, “I am for J.P.”

Granted, our priests have markedly different temperaments and preferences. If a by-the-book shepherd replaces an easy-going one, or vice versa, there will surely be discontent.

There will be likely be changes in how we celebrate the sacred mysteries, some subtle, others in-your-face.

Inevitably, there will be conflict.

But if we all, priest and parishoners, are willing to work together, to find common ground, to achieve a shared understanding of the community spirit in our parish, such differences can be overcome.

We just need to remember that God is for us. He sent Jesus to die for our sake; He can’t possibly be against us.

So why should we set ourselves against one another?

Amen.

Saturday of Week 2 in Ordinary Time (Year I)
Saint Agnes, Virgin, Martyr
Hebrews 9:2-3,11-14 | Psalm 46(47):2-3,6-9 | Mark 3:20-21

When his relatives heard of this, they set out to take charge of him, convinced he was out of his mind. (Mark 3:21)

I’m still writing this blog every day.

I must be mad!

There’s no other explanation for my continual drive to sit down each night, ponder the next day’s scripture, then let the words flow from…somewhere.

I hope and pray that “somewhere” is the Holy Spirit.

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What kind of man would sacrifice himself for everyone around him, despite knowing that they all despised him?

A madman, so conventional wisdom would tell us.

Christ went ahead and did it anyway.

Was He mad?

I think He was…madly in love with all mankind.

We’ve all experienced that special kind of insanity that deep love breeds, the urge to draw closer, the emptiness when we’re apart, the willingness to do anything for our loved ones.

I think Christ had that kind of love for us. Do we reciprocate in kind?

Shouldn’t we?

Lord, You loved us so much that You deigned to experience the pains and weaknesses of humanity first-hand, and eventually to give up Your life for our salvation. Help us understand the depths of Your depthless love, and help us return even a fraction of that love willingly and constantly, in prayer to You and loving actions to our fellow humans. Amen.

Friday of Week 2 in Ordinary Time (Year I)
Hebrews 8:6-13 | Psalm 84(85):8,10-14 | Mark 3:13-19

By speaking of a new covenant, he implies that the first one is already old. Now anything old only gets more antiquated until in the end it disappears. (Hebrews 8:13)

My second home file server died last week. It was working just fine, serving up my data faithfully…until I restarted it, whereupon the disk light on the front panel turned from a flashing green that meant “checking…checking…” to an ugly “IT’S DEAD, JIM!” red.

Apparently, the stress of having to spin up and down sporadically (for power-saving reasons) finally caused the internal hard drive to die permanently when I power-cycled the box. At least I didn’t lose any critical files, and the involuntary loss of thousands of old documents and electronic periodicals may actually have been a blessing in disguise.

Still, after reading the above passage, I relived the mental shock of seeing that baleful red eye staring back at me.

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I wrote about the benefits of spiritual renewal earlier this week, so I’ll share my thoughts today about its necessity.

Just like the contents of my dead hard drive, we probably have one or more regular spiritual practices, like a daily rosary recitation, that we perform religiously but also perhaps a little mechanically. Even the best of intentions may not be enough to stop ourselves from sliding into humdrum repetition of words and actions that have lost their cherished meaning.

And after enough meaningless regurgitation, we stop altogether, and our faith likewise “gets more antiquated until in the end it disappears”.

This is why I prefer to pray the rosary on public transport. Even though I’m traveling the same route each day, the people I see while I pray are always different, and this inspires me to imbue the same old rosary prayers with a unique twist each time.

For example, my trip yesterday began with a pair of young girls in preschool uniforms chasing each other up and down the train carriage, loudly giggling all the way. I happened to be wrapping up the Third Luminous Mystery as I boarded, so before I started on the Fourth:

Mother Mary, I lift up to you these two young girls. May they never lose the joy they now possess, as they grow up and face life’s issues head-on, and when they have children of their own, may they always show their little ones the love you show to us, the sinners whom your Son suffered and died to save.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

The day before, it was a tired and visibly pregnant woman. I prayed for good health, a smooth delivery and a joyful motherhood.

The day before that, I spied a young Caucasian couple sporting enormous backpacks. Safe travels to the lovebirds, yo!

Thus the old is made new again.

I think the same principle can be applied to any spiritual activity. Instead of mechanically doing the same thing over and over again, let us dedicate and orient it each time towards a different person we have encountered. In this way, we can remind ourselves that though our deeds are directed to God, they are for the people around us, our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Amen.

Thursday of Week 2 in Ordinary Time (Year I)
Hebrews 7:25-8:6 | Psalm 39(40):7-10,17 | Mark 3:7-12

You do not ask for sacrifice and offerings,
but an open ear.
You do not ask for holocaust and victim.
Instead, here am I. (Psalm 39:7)

I took yesterday off from my normal work schedule to help my sick sister-in-law, the steadfast caregiver of her Parkinson’s-afflicted husband for almost 20 years. In the process, I got to spend a few hours “babysitting” with her eldest grandson.

My grandnephew (dear Lord do I feel old now) is a precocious, energetic and very observant 6-year-old. He noticed just about everything about me, from my lack of hair up top, to the Pebble smartwatch on my wrist, to the almost-invisible patch of threadbare denim on the left thigh of my jeans.

At one point, he saw me peering out the window when a local thunderstorm started, and asked me what I was looking at. When I told him that I was watching how the storm drain outside filled up over time, he clambered excitedly up to the window next to me, listened while I described my fascination with how quickly a small stream at the bottom grew into a raging torrent filling over three-quarters of the drain, and interjected with descriptive exclamations each time a bizarre piece of trash rushed by. (Naturally, it turned into an object lesson against littering.)

He also asked me what that weird “stick” that he saw atop every block was. I can’t think of a single adult who would’ve noticed lightning rods, much less be curious about how they worked and embellish my matter-of-fact description with appropriate hand gestures and sound effects.

In short, he paid attention to me.

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God also asks us to pay attention to Him in our daily lives,

to have an “open ear” to His prompting in the silence of our daily prayer,

to have an “open eye” to the people around us, to their needs and sufferings,

to have an “open heart” to compassion and mercy for the weak and helpless.

As the psalmist notes, God doesn’t ask for burnt-offering or sin-sacrifice, dead lumps of matter fit only for show. Instead, He asks for us to serve Him – alive, active and attentive in our faith.

Lord, here we are to answer Your call. Do with us what You will. Amen.