The Exaltation of the Holy Cross, Friday, 14-09-18

Numbers 21:4-9 / Philippians 2:6-11 / John 3:13-17

Today's feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross is called by various names: "Raising Aloft of the Precious Cross", or "Raising Aloft of the Holy Cross".

By whichever name it is called, red vestments are worn for this feast, the same colour that is worn on Good Friday.

Good Friday commemorates the Passion of Christ and His death on the cross. Christ was nailed to the cross and flaunted before the face of God.

If it had all ended there, then evil would have triumphed because God did nothing to save His Son from evil.

Yes, God did not save Jesus from death, but God saved Jesus out of death (Hebrews 5:7).

And through the Resurrection, the cross of death has now become the cross of triumph over sin and death.

Yes, the holy and precious Cross is now raised aloft for the Church and for all the world to see.

For in the Cross is life and love, forgiveness and healing, redemption and salvation.

We must kneel before the Holy Cross and venerate it for it protects us and the powers of evil and darkness hide and flee before it.

Let us also pray with the Cross so that we will faithfully and courageously follow Jesus in His way of the Cross and finally we glory with Him in the Cross.

23rd Week, Ordinary Time, Thursday, 13-09-18

1 Cor 8:1-7, 11-13 / Luke 6:27-38

It is said that a trapped snake can get so angry and confused that it will bite anything, including itself.

We may find this puzzling or amazing, but that is a good image of what happens to us when we let anger and resentment control us.

We get trapped by our own anger and resentment and we end up biting and hurting ourselves.

When we get angry, we think we are getting even with our enemy.

The truth is that we are harming ourselves more than we are harming our enemy. (If our enemies were to know this, they would be satisfied just to keep irritating us, because we will do the rest of the damage.)

So when Jesus said : "Love our enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who treat you badly", we are actually doing good to ourselves.

Because by following what Jesus teaches us, we free ourselves from anger and resentment, and we become open to the love and compassion of God.

It is a loving compassion that is given in full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, that will turn our so-called enemies into our friends.

23rd Week, Ordinary Time, Wednesday, 12-09-18

1 Cor 7:25-31 / Luke 6:20-26

The word "happy" has as its root word "hap" which is defined as turning out well or favoured by fortune.

So it means that when things turn out well or when one is favoured by fortune, then one is happy. But if it is otherwise then one will be unhappy.

So it seems that happiness is very much subjected to what happens around us. And what happens around us will determine whether we are happy or not.

Maybe that might be the reason why people search in vain for happiness, since it seems to be so subjective and relative.

The 1st reading may sound rather stoic, or at least it seems to tell us to try to be indifferent and to be unaffected by whatever that is happening around us.

Yet the heart of the matter is that St. Paul was telling the Corinthians not to look for lasting happiness in this passing world. Yes, this world as we know is passing away.

There is an eternal "happiness" that will not be subjected by the rise or fall of fortunes or whether things turn out well or not.

Hence the word "happy" in the gospel passage has to be understood as "blessing" and it is a blessing which comes from God.

God's blessing does not depend on His mood or how He feels about us. God will always bless us because He loves us.

Yes, God loves us with an everlasting love and our eternal "happiness" is already assured if we keep on faithfully loving God and others. Any other means of achieving happiness is not going to last.

23rd Week, Ordinary Time, Tuesday, 11-09-18

1 Cor 6:1-11 / Luke 6:12-19

Whenever there is a wrong that is done unto us, we will be thinking of ways of how to avenge ourselves and get even with the other party.

We might think of taking revenge and exact a punishment on the other party.

The options can be anything from embarking on a legal suit to some ugly tactics to cause the other person physical harm.

The 1st reading talks of a case, maybe just one out of many, in the Christian community in Corinth.

To resolve the case, it was brought to the civil law courts and left to their judgment.

But St. Paul criticized such an option and said that they should be ashamed that matters within the community should be brought up before the civil law courts.

To make matters worse, it was the members within the community who were wronging and cheating each other.

They simply forgot that they had been washed clean and sanctified and justified in Jesus through baptism.

They forgot that they were chosen by God to be His people and to be His instruments of holiness and forgiveness, of mercy and compassion.

Just as Jesus chose His twelve apostles, we are also chosen to be His own.

Let us always remember our Christian calling, so that we can be sent out to bring about forgiveness and healing.

23rd Week, Ordinary Time, Monday, 10-09-18

1 Cor 5:1-8 / Luke 6:6-11

The term "common sense" may look like self-explanatory and it is the basis of all thinking and reasoning.

But when things get too muddled up and the thinking and reasoning becomes unclear, then we use another principle and that is "go back to basics".

In the gospel, the scribes and Pharisees have devised a set of rules and regulations about the Sabbath and the Law that it had become so complex and confusing.

And they were watching Jesus to see where He would step out of line.

Yet Jesus took the situation and appealed to common sense by going back to basics.

So He asked the question: is it against the Law on the Sabbath to do good, or to do evil; to save life or to destroy it?

If the gospel passage showed how people can lose their common sense, then the 1st reading showed how even Christians can deteriorate into immoral and shameless creatures.

St. Paul warned that even a small amount of yeast is enough to leaven all the dough.

Yes, even a small sin is enough to make us lose our common sense and make us behave worse than animals.

Let us go back to basics and go back to Christ, our bread of life, who empowers us with sincerity and truth.

Then, everyday, we will be able to do good and give life to others.

23rd Ordinary Sunday, Year B, 09.09.2018

Isaiah 35:4-7 / James 2:1-5 / Mark 7:31-37

One of the inventions that had and still has, a great impact on our lives is the radio. Indeed, the radio has come a long way.

Long enough to say that for some of us present here, we know the price of listening to the radio.

Because during the Japanese Occupation in WWII, anyone caught listening to the BBC broadcast will have chopsticks rammed into his ears.

Even when television came into the scene, the radio was still the primary source of news and entertainment.

And it can even be an instrument for vocations.

A priest was sharing his vocation story and he was saying that although he had enough of signs to tell him that God is calling him, he decided to ask God for one more sign, and a rather difficult one.

And he was like telling God:  If, during the next one week, if I see a blue moon, I will enter the seminary.

Well, as the story goes, he was sitting at his desk doing some work, the radio was on, and then he heard this song being played.

“Blue moon, you saw me standing alone, without a dream in my heart, without a love of my own.”

Well, he didn’t see a blue moon, but he heard one, and that was enough for him.

It seems that, many a times, hearing is more powerful than seeing.

And by that same token, we can also say that being deaf is more an impediment that being blind.

In the sense that blindness is quite obvious; whereas it takes a while before we realize that a person is deaf.

And along with deafness, comes a speech impediment.

Because it is strange but nonetheless true, we can only proclaim what we have heard.

In today’s gospel, the people’s admiration of Jesus was unbounded as they proclaimed:  “he has done all things well, he makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.”

That was their proclamation.  But did they hear anything in the first place.

Yes, they saw the deaf and dumb man being cured.  But the fact is that Jesus asked them not to say anything about this.

But why?  Why be so secretive about this spectacular event.?

Well, simply because the spectacular often takes the meaning out of the miracle.

There is a meaning and a purpose behind this healing of the deaf and dumb man.

And it is in those two words that Jesus said: “Be opened.”

And that was what Jesus said to the people then. And we who are here today, and as we listen, do we also understand.

“Be opened,” Jesus said. “Be opened” to what, we might ask.

Today’s gospel account of the healing of the deaf and dumb man is not just about a miracle that Jesus worked.

Rather it is a simple but powerful proclamation of the sound of grace, the sound of God’s grace.

And that is what we are to be opened to – to be opened to the sound of God’s grace.

To be open to the sound of God’s grace so that we can reproduce that sound.

So what is this sound of God’s grace that I am talking about?

Firstly, in our homes.  The sound of God’s grace takes the form of the sound of prayer.

So is the sound of prayer heard in our homes?  Do we have family prayers at home?

God’s grace is waiting to be poured into hearts that are opened at prayer.

And whenever prayer is being said, faith is being built.

Because faith comes from hearing, hearing the faith that is being expressed in prayer.

One of the elements of the faith crises that the Church is facing today is that there are people who do not know how to pray.

Because they have not heard the sound of prayer at home.

And hence they do not know the language of prayer.  Their tongues remain tied when it comes to prayer.

So, vocal prayers like the Rosary prayer and other devotional prayer might seem rather elementary.

But they are indeed necessary when it comes to conveying the sound of God’s grace.

Today Jesus also wants us to listen to a particular sound, the sound of His love, the sound that will open ears and loosen tongues.

The sound of His love that will overcome the irreversible and the impossible situations that are created by deaf ears and stiff tongues, situations that resist the voice of God in prayer.

So we just have to tune into the sound of prayer. Let the sound of prayer just flow in from our ears and into our hearts.

Let us listen to the sound of God’s love so that we can reproduce that sound of love.

God does not speak to us like once in a blue moon.

Whenever we pray, we immediately tune into the sound of God’s love.

And we become God’s radio station that will open ears to the sound of love, and loosen tongues to speak words of love.

The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saturday, 08-09-18

Micah 5:1-4 or Roman 8:28-30 / Matthew 1:1-16, 18-23

Whenever we think of birthday cakes, we would think of a cake with lighted candles, or at least one candle, and the person celebrating the birthday would make a wish and then blow off the candles.

The meaning of lighted candles placed on the cake is to symbolize the "light of life" and to celebrate that person's life.

As with the blowing off the candles, many ancient cultures believed that smoke carried their prayers to the heavens. Today’s tradition of making wishes before blowing out the birthday candles may have started with that belief.

Today as we join the Church to celebrate the birth of Our Lady, there may be no birthday cakes to cut or candles to blow off.

But the purpose of celebrating Mary's birthday is essentially to thank God for fulfilling the promise of salvation through her.

As the prophet Micah says in the prophecy "The Lord is therefore going to abandon them till the time when she who is to give birth gives birth. Then the remnant of his brothers will come back to the sons of Israel".

Also the angel of the Lord in the gospel of Matthew has this to say to Joseph: Do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife,  because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you must name him Jesus, because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins.

So as we honour Mary and give thanks to God for the gift of Jesus through her, we offer ourselves to Mary like lighted candles on a birthday cake because she has given us Jesus, the Light of Life.

And may the smoke of our prayers also rise up to God with the prayers of Mary as we heed her call to us to do whatever Jesus tells us and pray and work for the salvation of all peoples.