Leviticus 19:1-2, 17-18 / 1 Cor 3:16-23 / Matthew 5:38-48
The past week can be called a happening week. It was a happening week for the world, for the church, for Singapore, and for our parish.
For the world, the happening day was on Tuesday, the 14th February, because it was Valentine’s Day.
It was a day of love and one of the ways to show that is to give chocolates.
And if you had received too many chocolates and can’t finish it, you can pass some over, preferably dark chocolates 70% - 80% cocoa.
But the origins of Valentine’s Day is to honour St. Valentine, a priest who defied the imperial ban on marriages and continued to officiate marriages until he was caught and martyred.
Last Tuesday, besides being Valentine’s Day, it was also a day of rejoicing for the Church in Singapore, because that was also the day that the newly restored Cathedral was re-dedicated. It was first dedicated in the year 1897, on the same day, 14th February.
We had waited a long time for the joyful day and for those of us who were there or watched the live streaming of the dedication, we gave thanks as we witnessed the outpouring of God’s love on the Church in Singapore, and especially on the Cathedral, our Mother Church.
Indeed the 14th February was a day of love, a day of blessing and rejoicing, a day to give thanks to God.
But the day after, the 15th February, was a solemn day for Singapore, as we commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Fall of Singapore to the Japanese Army. And there was also a memorial service at the Kranji War Memorial.
It was a dark period for Singapore as it began the 3 years under Japanese Occupation.
And it affected not just our nation but also our parish, Church of the Sacred Heart. It was recorded in the archives that on the afternoon of the 15th February 1942 (1st day of Chinese New Year), a couple of Japanese shells fired from Johor Bahru targeting Fort Canning, fell through the roof of our church.
No one was injured as the Chinese New Year Mass was in the morning, but furnishings and fittings were damaged. But despite the shells exploding and especially in the church, the walls did not buckle. It remained firm then and still firm to this day.
So this church is quite remarkable. It had seen peace and rejoicing, it had seen war and suffering.
And the Catholics of this parish back in 1942 would certainly be angry and even bear hatred for what the invaders had done to this church as well as to the country.
How would they be able to come to terms with what Jesus is teaching in the gospel about offering the wicked man no resistance and to love your enemies and to pray for those who persecute you?
We would go for that “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” retaliation because it is so difficult not to resent and hate those who inflict pain and suffering upon us just because they think that might is right, and with that they can humiliate the weak and helpless.
There must be some kind of retribution for them. Better still if we can inflict some revenge upon them to make them pay for what they have done.
But is that the Christian response? And just what is the Christian response?
To begin with, vengeance belongs to God and not to us. We don’t have a right to revenge.
And it is also said that if you want to take revenge, then you have to dig two graves – one for your enemy, and one for yourself.
Because revenge also results in more blood being shed.
And here God Himself teaches us how to respond. In the 1st reading, God instructed Moses to tell the people this: “Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.”
And the 2nd reading tells us this: Didn’t you realise that you were God’s temple and the Spirit of God was living among you? If anybody should destroy the temple of God, God will destroy him, because the temple of God is sacred; and you are that temple.
That brings us to think about the Christians that are still undergoing persecution, and also about the martyrs of the Church who shed their blood in witnessing to Jesus.
Let’s go back to the dedication of the Cathedral on Tuesday. For those who were watching the live-streaming, you would get a clearer close-up view.
After the consecration of the altar, the Archbishop proceeded to inter the relics of two saints into the altar, which is a traditional practice.
One of the saints is St. Francis Xavier, who is quite well known. The other is St. Laurent Imbert. We might ask who is that and why is his relic interred there.
Well, let’s begin with the name of the Cathedral. It is called the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd.
The story behind that name is that in 1821, an MEP priest (Paris Foreign Missions Society), Fr. Laurent Imbert was sent to Singapore to see if there was a possibility of opening a missionary station in the island. He spent about a week here and he could have been the first priest to celebrate Mass on the island.
In 1837, after being ordained bishop, he crossed secretly from Manchuria to Korea. During this time, Korea was going through a period of Christian persecution.
He secretly went about doing his missionary work, but the authorities found him out and before they captured him, he wrote a note to two other fellow missionaries.
He urged them to give themselves up to the authorities because he believed in doing so, the flock will be spared from persecution, and he wrote that a good shepherd must give up his life for his sheep.
So eventually the three of them were captured and tortured and beheaded. They were canonized in 1984.
When the Cathedral was to be dedicated 1897, the name "Good Shepherd" was chosen in memory of Fr. Laurent Imbert and his two companions.
St. Laurent Imbert, as well as the other martyrs of the Church followed what Jesus taught as well as followed what Jesus did.
They offered the wicked man no resistance. They did not curse their persecutors or threatened them with retribution. They even prayed for their persecutors.
The blood the martyrs shed is truly the seed of Christianity. So besides K-pop and Korean TV dramas, Korea is also the land where the Church experienced a phenomenal growth.
Truly the blood-soaked prayers of the martyrs washed away the evil and wickedness of their persecutors, just as the blood of Christ washed away our sins.
The truth is what Jesus taught us: offer the wicked man no resistance, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.
That is what true holiness is, and that is what we are called to be.
Because that is what Jesus did. That is what the martyrs did. That is the Christian response to evil and wickedness, so that our enemies will be turned into our friends, and our persecutors will be turned into peace-makers.