Spiritus Sanctus

Monday of the 6th Week of Eastertide
Acts 16:11-15 | Psalm 149:1-6,9 | John 15:26-16:4

On this Eastertide day last year, I put up a photo journal of my 2013 visit to Philippi, to go with the reading that describes this very place.

This year, something different caught my attention:

After she and her household had been baptised she sent us an invitation: ‘If you really think me a true believer in the Lord,’ she said ‘come and stay with us’; and she would take no refusal. (Acts 16:15)

Introducing: Soulbnb, my Catholic spin on Airbnb.

Imagine an online lodging service in which hosts post images and videos of their day-to-day activities that befit a faithful Catholic. Instead of airbrushed images of perfect rooms, we’d see hosts:

• sharing a meal with a beggar, sitting cross-legged at an overhead bridge
• volunteering at a MINDS training centre
• quietly praying at home, in front of a portrait of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Now imagine that guests rate hosts not just on how much they enjoyed their stay, but also how closely their hosts’ Soulbnb “image” matched their real-life interactions.

Would you dare list your spare room on such a service?

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Taking Lydia’s challenge at face value, we acknowledge her confidence in her own faith, as befits a new convert. It’s like the incredible high we feel at our own weddings, not really grasping the reality of mundane-ever-after.

It was pretty much the same story when I started blogging. Blue Swede could’ve echoed my heart’s words:

I can’t stop this feeling
Deep inside of me
Lord, I finally realize
What you do to me

When You hold me
In your arms so tight
You let me know
Everything’s all right

I’m hooked on a feeling
I’m high on believing
You gave Your love to me

Ooga-chaka, indeed.

Then one day became another, one week led to a month, and that fiery euphoria faded away.

Now, it’s down to a few quietly glowing coals, not much to look at, but warming and comforting all the same, and much more sustainable than the “Rocket Man” high of spiritual rebirth.

Just as important is the confidence it gives me to list my spare room on this hypothetical service. I’m not perfect, and my wife even catches me in a nasty mood from time to time, but I can’t hide the lamp of my faith and love for God under a bushel (Matthew 5:15) and still call myself a Catholic.

After all, isn’t hospitality a key sign of love?

Amen.

6th Sunday of Easter (Year A)
Acts 8:5-8,14-17 | Psalm 65(66):1-7,16,20 | 1 Peter 3:15-18 | John 14:15-21

Reverence the Lord Christ in your hearts, and always have your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that you all have. (1 Peter 3:15)

That’s a tall order for most of us. When people ask us why we live in hope, when they press us to reveal our secret to happiness, what do we tell them?

Do we launch into a fact-laden spiel straight from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and instantly bore them to death?

Or do we speak from our hearts, and from our own experiences?

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The secret to my happiness is bound up in four simple words from Jesus:

I shall not call you servants any more, because a servant does not know his master’s business; I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father. (John 15:15)

I was staring at that passage a few months before I started this journey of daily scriptural reflection, and thinking:

Jesus actually said that. “I call you friends.”

And he’s not the creepy uncle from upstairs who stares at me in a disturbing manner.

In fact, he’s everything I look for in a friend: loyal, kind-hearted, but also unafraid to let wrong-doers know what’s what.

Why the heck am I avoiding Him? Why am I not spending quality time with Him, like friends do?

So I began reading from the daily missal that I’d bought years before, and only cracked open when my mom would call for advice on how to pronounce some Biblical name in a mass reading.

And then I started blogging about daily scripture, because I had a website with nothing on it. Somehow, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

It still does.

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But my story of hope doesn’t end there…

The funny thing about spending time with your friends…is that you get introduced to their friends, and maybe establish a friendship with them too.

Guess who Jesus is friends with? That’s right: EVERYONE!

And so I started clearing my own table when I finish my lunch, and smiling at and thanking the cleaners if they’re around, and especially if they clear my tray before I have a chance to do the deed. It’s nice to see their mood lift for just a few seconds, before returning to their (literally) thankless task.

And so I started greeting bus drivers when I board, and waving and shouting my thanks when I alight. That usually makes them do a double-take, but they always smile back, and often return the wave too.

And if that lifts their mood, making them pay a little less attention to their personal grievances, and more attention to the road that they’re plying, I might just have made my fellow passengers’ journey a little more comfortable and safer.

No thanks needed. That’s what friends are for, no?

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Now, Jesus is my LORD, so I’m not about to go “hey, ol’ buddy, ol’ pal”.

But he’s also my friend, so I want to spend quality time bonding with Him, like with all my other friends.

And unlike all my other friends, He’ll be around forever.

That’s actually good to know.

Amen.

Saturday of the 5th Week of Eastertide
Acts 16:1-10 | Psalm 99(100):1-3,5 | John 15:18-21

If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you do not belong to the world, because my choice withdrew you from the world, therefore the world hates you. (John 15:19)

Sometimes, it’s hard to remember that being a Catholic means that business is definitely not as usual.

All that bad-mouthing and backstabbing at the office? We need to hold ourselves above the fray.

Got cut off in traffic? The days of cutting the perpetrator’s head off are long gone.

This happens?

Yeah, not ours to keep, plus the bank will probably take it out on whoever made that mistake.

As Mac Davis might have sung:

Oh Lord, it’s hard to be Catholic,
While the rest of the world have their way
It’s veggies for my Friday dinner
While friends have their beef from Kobe
To know You is to love You
My problem’s with my fellow men
Oh Lord, It’s hard to be Catholic,
But I’m doing the best that I can

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCsNunGnqE0

Still, there’s a way to make things just a little easier: Spend more time with the Lord.

The tricky bit isn’t to take that time out of our worldly schedules, but to convince ourselves to do it, to detach ourselves from the world and its demands for a short while every day.

Trust me, it gets easier over time. I’m still scripture-blogging every day after more than a year, and they’ll have to pry my cold dead fingers from my keyboard to stop me.

If you need that little push, brothers and sisters, drop me a message and I’ll give you a friendly kick.

Lord, to know You is to love You, but knowing You requires more time than we might be willing to give up. Help us take proper stock of our daily lives, recognize the things that amount to nothing in Your eternal plans, and dedicate that time to You instead. Amen.

Friday of the 5th Week of Eastertide
Acts 15:22-31 | Psalm 56(57):8-12 | John 15:12-17

It has been decided by the Holy Spirit and by ourselves not to saddle you with any burden beyond these essentials (Acts 15:28)

Sometimes, we overthink our faith.

I think most of us have been bombarded with many “thou shalt” edicts in our lives, especially when it comes to our Catholic faith.

Thou shalt…go to church every Sunday, and other days of obligation.

Thou shalt…fast and abstain on important days.

Thou shalt…not cast thy parents aside in their old age.

“Rules, rules and more rules! I want FREEDOM!”

But why are we asking for what we already have?

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Here’s a “dirty little secret”: We have free will.

Blew your mind, didn’t I?

We can choose…to walk away from the trappings and mumbo-jumbo of communal worship.

We can choose…to indulge in the finest foods every day.

We can choose…to dump our inconvenient parents in an old folks’ home.

But when we choose to honour God and each other, we don’t do so because we were told to, on pain of eternal damnation.

We do so out of LOVE, the love that forms the bedrock of our faith, the love that God Himself bequeathed us through Jesus Christ.

We go to church…because we’re moved deep in our hearts to join with our fellow believers in offering praises to God.

We fast and abstain…to remind ourselves of the love poured out for us by the Passionate Christ, and to set aside something for the less fortunate, in whom we see His face looking out forlornly.

We invite our parents to come stay with us in their old age…because we are driven in our love to care for them, just as they turned themselves inside out for us in our childhood days.

We need not be disturbed by our religion’s demands, for there are few, nor should we let our minds be unsettled by the thought that we fall short in someone else’s concept of Catholicism.

We just need to love God, and let that love propel us towards deeds of holiness for our brothers and sisters…and for ourselves.

If we are to be preoccupied with anything, let us be preoccupied with living to love others, and loving to live our life in Christ.

Amen.

Thursday of the 5th Week of Eastertide
Acts 15:7-21 | Psalm 95(96):1-3,10 | John 15:9-11

instead of making things more difficult for pagans who turn to God, we send them a letter telling them merely to abstain from anything polluted by idols, from fornication, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. (Acts 15:19-20)

The Pharisees who converted to Christianity were still hamstrung by their previous faith, insisting to all new converts that circumcision was still mandatory, and all the old Mosaic laws were still in effect.

Even though Jesus clearly gave everyone a new covenant, one that moved away from their old mechanistic faith, these Pharisees were somehow unable to fathom a life without 600-odd strictures.

It’s as if they were trapped by the trappings of their old faith.

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How do we live as Catholics?

Are we hemmed in by the letter of Catholic “law”, blindly observing fasts and abstinence without giving a thought to the underlying purpose?

Or do we take time to ponder Jesus’ new commandment to “love one another as I have loved you”, and reflect on how that should come alive in our daily living?

Do we tell ourselves, “aiyah, so simple; I’m a vegan, so I’m already abstaining every day already, no need to do anything special man!”

Or do we instead find something else that we love, to offer as our sacrifice? Perhaps our constant grumbling, or careless gossip, or daily unwillingness to greet the people who serve us?

Do we mistake the public signs of our “holiness” as the objective of our faith?

Or do we look inward daily, examining our faults, then look outward to see how these failings could be corrected in our lives?

Are we trapped by our Catholic trappings?

Lord, open our eyes, our minds and our hearts, to truly understand what it is You want from us—to love our neighbors as You loved us, without reservation or hesitation.

Help us be holy, not just on the surface, but deep inside where Your Spirit dwells.

Forgive us when we fail to love, and lift us up when we are pressed down by others’ hatred and anger.

Strengthen us in our conscious practice of the faith You bequeath us, so that others may see Your glory in what we say and do each day.

Amen.