1. Year C / Ordinary Time / Week 6 / Sunday
    Readings: Jeremiah 17:5-8 / Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6 / 1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20 / Luke 6:17, 20-26


    Sisters and brothers, what does it take for someone to get through challenging, even trying, times and thrive?

    In 2018, John Seow, a student of mine at St Joseph’s Institution, shared with parents how they could support their sons to do well for the O Level examinations. He spoke about exam strategies and teacher support, parents’ love and self-care. Then, surprisingly, he spoke about turning to God during the exams. He ended saying, “Pray, hope, and don't worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.”

    For many present, this was key message of John’s sharing: we need to anchor ourselves, even better stay rooted, in God, no matter what.

    The first reading invites us to also root ourselves in God. If you have walked along a river or stream you might have noticed how big, how leafy, how green the trees on its banks are. The prophet Jeremiah uses this image to describe the person who trusts in God: “Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose hope in the Lord. He is like a tree planted beside the waters that stretch out its roots to the stream” (Jeremiah 17.5-8). 

    Water is the secret to the tree’s growth, stability, and strength. Water makes it flourish. The trees thirst for it. 

    We thirst for water too. Even more, we thirst for God.  Isn’t this why we come Sunday after Sunday to be nourished by God in Word and Eucharist? We turn to God to forgive our sins. We pray for God’s help in difficult times. Yes, we need God.

    Jeremiah’s message insists that like the tree rooted in water, we too must always stay rooted in God if we want our life to be fruitful, our faith to flourish and our wellbeing safeguarded. Listen again to Jeremiah’s wisdom about the metaphor of the tree by running water for our Christian lives: “not fear when the heat come; its leaves are always green; in the year of drought he shows no distress, but still bears fruit.” 

    I believe we all want to live like this. But are we immersing our lives in God’s life every day to live like this? Jeremiah's reaching about the tree insists we acknowledge that it is not enough to be with God once a week at Sunday Mass, pray when we need Him or reconcile with Him only at Lent or Advent.

    Immersing ourselves in God every day is hard work but it is necessary. When challenges come or we think God doesn’t our prayers, we struggle to believe in God. When other attractions catch our fancy, fulfil our wants, and make us feel superior, we question why God and God’s ways are boring, unfulfilling and inferior. When there are more pleasurable things to do, we easily excuse ourselves from God.  

    In these moments, we would be wise to recall Jeremiah’s words that “the tree fears not the heat when it comes” because its roots are securely in the water.

    Don’t we want this same fearlessness when challenges and difficulties, sufferings and disappointments confront us? If we do, we must choose to root ourselves in God every day. We need to because He is our strength and hope. 

    Prayer is one way to do this. The gospels describe the intimate relationship Jesus had with prayer. He always prays to God. He prays to God when He heals, does miracles, makes important decisions, even before He eats. Through prayer, He invites God into his life. Prayer enables Jesus to immerse himself in God. Do we?

    We see the power of prayer in Jesus at Gethsemane. When Judas and the soldiers come to arrest Him by calling out for Jesus of Nazareth, he steps forward courageously and pronounces “I am He.” He has no fear doing this and entering His passion because His prayer binds Him to God. Having a daily prayer life with God does the same: it will form and shape us to be more and more like Jesus. 

    This happens because in prayer we are gently broken in God’s loving hands and formed anew. In prayer, our laziness is broken, so we can go the extra mile. Our sinfulness is broken, so we can live better. Our self-centered plans are broken, so we can care for others more selflessly. Our hard hearts are especially broken to become tender and bighearted for everyone.

    Most of all, it is in prayer that Jesus comes to know the love of God and live it selfless by serving everyone This is the source of his happiness. To be truly happy, you and I must also choose God and his sacrificial way of loving.

    Jesus makes the same demand in the gospel reading. He offers us a choice. There are the Beatitudes, the ‘Happy indeed are those who…’ statement that call us to be happy by living in God’s ways. There are also the ‘Alas for you…” statements that can take us away from God if we fail to heed them.

    As Christians, the choice is obvious. Be assured we can make that right choice because Jesus’ death and resurrection empower us to choose God and eternal life with God. This is St Paul’s hope-filled message today. 

    This is indeed the long view we must keep in mind as Jesus’ disciples. John Seow knew this. He practiced it by keeping God at the center of his life even as he prepared and sat for his O Level examinations. His prayer life helped him do this. 

    Let us do what John Seow did: strive to stay close to Jesus, especially in the heat of things not going right in our lives. When we do,  we need not fear because God is with us. Then, our lives will flourish like that fruitful tree by the flowing waters because He will prosper our lives. If you agree with me that this is how God loves us to give us life to the full, then, our response must simply be this — to stay rooted ourselves in Jesus.  Shall we?




    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart
    Photo: seekingalpha.com


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  2. Year C / Ordinary Time / Week 5 / Sunday

    Readings: Isaiah 6:1-2a, 3-8/ Ps 138:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 7-8 (R/V 1c) / 1 Corinthians 15:1-11  / Luke 5.1-11

     

     

    “...what matters is that I preached what they preach and this is what you all believed” (1 Corinthians 15.11)

     

    This is how St Paul closes his teaching to the Corinthians in today’s second reading. His words describe the essence of his mission: to proclaim the Good News that Jesus Christ preached and the apostles handed on. Throughout history Christians imitated St Pau; many heard and believed the Good News. We have received this Good News too, and we believe. Our Christian task is to hand it on to others.

     

    St Paul’s words remind me of this instruction to deacons: “Believe what you read, teach what you believe, and practise what you teach.” The ordaining bishop says it to them at their ordination. They are ordained not just to proclaim the Good News; they are to live Jesus’ way of life – for service.

     

    The call to service is the message in today’s readings. Serve the Lord by serving His people. This call is for you and me, as it is for deacons and those first Christians St Paul addressed at Corinth.  We know this call. Today God repeats it to us. Are we hearing God?

     

    St Paul preaches Jesus, God-with-us, loving and saving us. He preaches with words, even more, with his life. He does with a selfless ‘yes’ to the Lord.

     

    We also want to say ‘yes’ to the Lord. We want to echo Isaiah and say, “Here I am, send me.” This is our holy intention because we want our Christian life to count for something.  

     

    The honest truth is that we all struggle to do this. Like Isaiah, we know how wretched, how lost, and how unclean we are when we sin. Even more, we know it when we look into the face of God and encounter his immeasurable goodness and love. For many of us, God’s mercy to forgive overwhelms, and we want to run away from God and hide.

     

    Run away: this is how the Evil One seduces us. Tempting us that we are never good enough. Never good enough especially for God.

     

    Today, Jesus’ words and actions remind us that we are more than good enough to stay with Him and live His call to serve. Stay and serve with him on mission. With Him beside us. With Him who – first of all – steps into the boats our lives are.

     

    In the gospel reading, Jesus steps into Peter’s boat. He does not ask permission. He takes Peter’s place in the boat. From here, He preaches and teaches God’s people with authority. Indeed, Jesus steps into Peter’s boat and the people’s lives as the Good Shepherd who looks out for His own and cares for them. 

     
    To hear God’s Word, and then to trust and follow it. This is how the miracle of the surprising, plentiful catch of fish happens. By stepping into Peter's boat, Jesus makes out of the emptiness of our lives much good. A wasted night of fishing nothing is no more. Now there is an overflowing abundance that even spills into the other boat. All this happens because Peter listens, trusts and follows Jesus’ instruction. 

     

    Even more, it happens because Jesus’s bold, even impertinent, act of stepping into the empty boat changes everything. Peter does not lose his boat nor does Jesus possess it. Rather, both enter into friendship and this makes Peter’s faith, life and service come alive and flourish. 

     

    Jesus wants to do the same for us; He is inviting us to partner him, and as our friend He will let our lives flourish by serving others. If we do, the empty nets in our lives will be filled, often with excess beyond our imagination. There will be fish for the catch, food for nourishment and life in abundance instead of emptiness or lack. 

     

    What we don’t have, Jesus will provide, often with much more that we can possibly imagine.  When we don’t have, Jesus will turn up and give, always surprising us. This miracle of something more and better out of nothing is Jesus’ assurance that God keeps his promise to be with us and for us

     

    Again and again, Jesus reminds us what God’s expectation is: that we share generously, even better, that we do it selflessly. Many others need this goodness that sustains and nourishes, refreshes and remakes us and our lives. Once again, Jesus calls us to share what we receive from Him through lives of service. Are we?

     

    Right here, right now, Jesus is indeed stepping into the boats of our lives. However fragile, broken, shabby, unsightly, even ill-fitted for the open waters, we are, Jesus is stepping into our lives through today’s readings, today's Eucharist. 

     

    Stepping into our lives because Jesus chooses us to join Him and  serve everyone. His love is bighearted that where we see our unworthiness, he values us worthy.  Worthy, and, even more, worth His while and His love to be His. 

     

    Indeed, our life becomes His boat  -- wide and deep enough to include and shelter many. A boat sturdy and strong enough to brave stormy seas to bring all to safety.  With Him in the boat of our life, He will lead us far and wide across the waters to those in need at the horizons. Indeed, we are truly His vessel to carry the lifesaving cargo of the Good News to all peoples.

     
    You know how true this is when you live in God’s Spirit and let Him shape your life for the good of others. Can you recall a moment when you made a difference for others? Now that’s how good your partnership with Jesus can be for someone else.

     

    Jesus does this for everyone through us and with us because He wants to. He desires so very much to step into our lives and set himself up in order to transfigure us for better. He will do this by forming us to:

     

    believe what we read in Scripture,

    teach what we believe to everyone,

    practise what we teach in our lives.

     

    Today we have every right to be joyful because Jesus wants to make us better to serve Him by serving others. We can help Jesus make this happen by cooperating with Him in our lives. Let us begin by responding, not just hearing, this instruction He says to us, as he once said to Peter, “put out into deep water and pay out your nets for a catch.”

     

    Shall we? Dare we?

     



     

    Preached at Church of the Church of the Sacred Heart

    Photo by shayan abedi on Unsplash



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  3. Year C / Ordinary Time / Week 2 / Sunday
    Readings: Isaiah 62.1-5 / Ps 95.1-2a.2b-3, 7-8a, 9-10a,c (R/v 3) / 1 Corinthians 12.4-11 /John 2.1-11


    “O sing a new song to the Lord, sing to the Lord, all the earth. O sing to the Lord, bless his name.”

    This is the psalmist’s call to everyone. It invites us to thank the Lord for His goodness to us. It also exhorts us to praise the Lord for who He is in our lives. Indeed, hasn’t the Lord worked wonders for us as we began this new year? Like beginning well, having good health, perhaps, starting a new job or simply being happy? And, don’t we believe He will continue to do more going forward?

    Indeed, sing a new song to the Lord we must be. Particularly for Jesus’ baptism last Sunday when, with Jesus, we heard God declare him the Beloved. Thereafter, Jesus went into the ordinary, everydayness of his life and ministry making every encounter he had extraordinary. Think of his ‘come and see’ welcome to John the Baptist’s disciples, his merciful forgiveness of the adulterous woman, his trust to call fishermen to become fishers of men and his audacious invitation to eat at Zacchaeus’ house. For us, the grace of Jesus’ teaching and healing, his forgiveness and loving that others do to us are His blessings in daily life. It reveals that we too are God’s beloved.

    So look around as we continue onward into 2025. If we pay attention, we’ll begin to sense this: change is in the air. Yes, change that God is bringing about. Can we see its promise? Do you smell its freshness? Will you taste its goodness? What might these be for you? For my nephew, Daniel, it is hope as he begins secondary school. 

    In the First Reading we hear about the new names by which God will be calling Israel.  Instead of former names of abandoned and forsaken, Her new name will be “My Delight” and “The Wedded.” These names signify great change. They tell us God is doing something wondrous, even life-giving. He is changing how the people understand themselves. As their bridegroom He recognises them as his Beloved, even with their sins. God wants to do the same for all peoples, including you and me. We are all His Beloved. 

    In today’ Gospel we join Jesus, his mother, the stewards and guests at that wedding at Cana. We’re there to celebrate a marriage. There is prayer, feasting, drinking, even dancing. Surely, love is in the air. 

    Then, the unexpected happens; there’s no more wine. Now, there’s dismay amongst the guests. For the groom and his wife, panic, frustration, anger. For the servants, blame and fear. Simply put, there’s chaos.

    Now there’s change in the air too;  a miracle is about to happen. Water is brought to Jesus. Water, that image of chaos in the Creation story, is poured into six stone jars. Six, the number of days God created life, meaning and order out of chaos. Jesus changes water into wine. Now, the guests begin drinking from those six jars of wine, "the best that is kept to the end." No more chaos; now, life to the full, joy overbrimming. Truly a new song is sung. It must be for they celebrate not just a marriage but a reenactment of creation.

    What is created? Change, really. The kind of change God wants for his people. More than turning water into wine, Jesus’ miracle changes them. Their negative feelings when there was no wine is transformed into delight with the best wine. Now, what they experience is Jesus’ gracious care for them. Even though this was not yet the time for his glory to be seen, Jesus is the Christ who saves them. He wants to for they are His beloved.

    For St John the Evangelist, Jesus’ miracle of changing water into wine reveals more than His glory. It is God’s invitation for us to have life to the full. Indeed, through Jesus’ life and teachings, his miracles and healing, we will be saved for life with God.  

    This is the gift of God’s relationship with us, His beloved own, even with our sins. No one can deny us this truth. Nothing can take it away. If you agree, then we have to fulfil God's task to us: to change our minds about ourselves, about others and then about all of creation, because we can no long see, think or understand, even live and love, in any other way than how God values us – precious and cherished. 

    This change takes time – like water into wine, like seed into fruit, like beloved from disowned. It happens nowhere else but in the ordinariness of everyday life, its pace often slow, repetitive, seemingly, going nowhere; for many, a banal waiting. Yet it is happening even now for Jesus is with us and nothing is impossible again.

    We hear this in the second reading. St Paul teaches us that no matter how different each of us are and how varied our gifts may be, the Holy Spirit who gathers everyone to serve the one Lord and one another. Truly, the grace of living, working, playing and praying as Christians is God gathering individuals into one community, and enriched by everyone’s gift, for life with God and one another. This is how we can do great things that witness God’s saving love in the world.

    If you and I choose to do this and let God’s glory shine through us, we are like Mary cooperating with God to fulfil his plan for salvation. The Jesuit Fr Larry Gillick explains: “In a strange way, the history of God’s revelation is a study in punctuation. Creation begins as an exclamation point. Human response is a question mark. God continues the conversation with commas and semicolons, always hinting that there was more to be said.  With Jesus there are more definite statements ending with periods and more rearranging which end where God began, with double exclamation points.  With Jesus, God is saying ‘yes!’”*

    Will we say ‘yes’ too, and sing that new song to the Lord, and bless His holy name?




    *Adapted from the writings of Fr Larry Gillick, SJ

    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Singapore
    Photo by Edward Cisneros on Unsplash

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  4.  
    Year C / End of the Christmas Season / Baptism of the Lord 
    Readings: Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7 / Ps 103. 1-4, 24-25,27-28, 29-30 (R/v 1) / Acts 10:34-38 / Luke 3:15-16, 21-22


    Many of us begin the new year with good wishes to one another and prayers to God for a better future. We also do by writing new year resolutions to change our old ways, become kinder, live happier and hopefully come closer to God.

    When I was younger a childhood friend and I made resolutions for the new year together. We wrote them down and signed off at the bottom of the list. Then, we did that gesture of commitment, a pinky promise, and we tucked that piece of paper away for future reference. 

    At the end of that year, we looked back and we fell short of many of those resolutions. But we still got through the year together. Now, I know what more that the pinky promise was all about. This: that we’d try to be there for each other, for good or ill, no matter what happened. It’s the sort of promise that is stronger than any failure because it is rooted in friendship.

    Isn’t friendship what Jesus also desires with us? “I call you friends,” he declares to the apostles and to us. I wonder if we did make resolutions with Jesus as friends would we share a pinky promise. If we did, would we feel overwhelmed that we’ve a checklist to complete? And if we didn’t, would we judge ourselves not good enough and unworthy to be his friend?

    Yet everything Christianity proclaims in scripture and prayer, worship and practice, is simply this Gospel message: that with Jesus, God’s love comes first, always. 

    We need to hear this message because we are always busy, easily distracted, and often forgetful that we don’t value enough how unshakeable God’s love for all of us is. We hear this truth when St Paul tells Titus in the second reading that in Jesus, “God’s grace has been revealed, and it has made salvation possible for the whole human race.” And as Isaiah prophesied in the first reading: “‘Here is your God”: he is the shepherd who gathers, feeds and leads his flock.

    The world’s way is different. Its contracts and conditional promises, careful measurements and demarcations insist that membership has its privileges, you are either in or out. Some Christians, even amongst us, also hold this view; they police who are worthy Christians, who should receive communion, who God will save. 

    So, hear this again: God’s promise is that he loves everyone and everything and this is more enduring than any sin. Truly, you and I can do nothing to alter or diminish this. For Jesus, there is no other way to love but God’s way – foolishly, indiscriminately, without calculation or agenda, expectation or condition. And, to let ourselves be loved in that same way. 

    I'd like to suggest this is a message the Baptism of Jesus has for us. 

    Jesus comes to the River Jordan a simple, humble man, ordinary like everyone else with their failed resolutions and unfulfilled hopes. He is eager to love, to serve, to be among us. I wonder what John the Baptist thought and felt that the powerful, mighty Messiah he proclaimed all his life now submits himself to baptism that cleanses from sin and failure. 

    But Jesus is no ordinary human; he is God with us. By stepping into the water, he submerges into our human frailties, saying, “I love you as you are, not as I am.” Even more, Jesus’ action assures us that God is together with us, in the best and worst of days, in holy times or sinful moments.

    Jesus himself hears this when he emerges from the waters: “You are my son, the Beloved, my favour rests on you.” His belovedness is at the very core of who he is – the father’s own. It doesn’t depend on his failure or success. His belovedness moves him forward into everything that will follow, toward every person he will meet and onward in every response he will make — be it the temptations or miracles, the outcasts or his disciples, even his enemies, and every daily moment. I believe that Jesus’ recognition that he is the Father’s beloved sustains him when things get hard, when things fall apart, when he suffers and dies. 

    Belovedness is the Good News Jesus proclaimed in word and deed. In flesh, Jesus shows us what this looks like, More so, he enables us to really know that we are God’s beloved. Into belovedness we are baptised. Truly, belovedness is our birthright; claim it we must. 

    As Jesus does this for us, his friends, so must we share belovedness with one another; this is our life purpose. Henri Nouwen explains: “The greatest gift my friendship can give to you is the gift of your Belovedness. I can give that gift only insofar as I have claimed it for myself. Isn’t that what friendship is all about: giving to each other the gift of our Belovedness?”*

    The unimaginable scandal of God’s love is that we are his beloved and because we are, our belovedness is very good. Try as we might, nothing will change this. And once we realize this essential truth, we must begin to live in a new way. With confidence that no one needs to prove themselves worthy. With tender understanding that there’s real goodness about ourselves and everyone else. With the mercy that we can be kind and be friends with God and one another.

    I don’t think we accept this easily. If we do, it’s because we believe in God. In his goodness that no matter how we reach the finishing line this year or at the end of our lives, sprinting or crawling across, or even if we’re still in the messiness of our lives, He will still be there, saying, “you are my child, the beloved, and we’ve always been in this together.”

    Today we celebrate this truth – yes, God has stepped down into the river of life with us. He has been with us when we succeeded and failed. He will be with us in everything we try and are afraid to try, even our efforts at keeping this year’s resolutions. Yes, he will walk beside us. And we can only walk with him if we recognise our faith gives us hope to persevere because we are his beloved

    Indeed, we are. Perhaps, then, the only pinky promise that truly matters is this - his and ours.  




    * Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved


    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart
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  5. Year C / Christmastide / Solemnity of the Epiphany
    Readings: Isaiah 60.1-6 / Responsorial Psalm 71.2, 7-8, 20-11, 12-13 (R/v cf 11) / Ephesians 3.2-3a, 5-6 / Matthew 2.1-12


    “Arise, shine out, Jerusalem, for your light has come.”

    Isaiah declares this to the Israelites in the first reading. It’s his invitation to them to wake up from sleep, to gather in the holy places and to pay homage to God. Simply put, Isaiah challenges them to respond to God’s desire to know and be known by us. Today, Isaiah demands we do the same.

    Isaiah uses metaphors of light and darkness to help us understand and speak of Jesus as God’s radiance that dispels the darkness in us and around us. They help Him explain how an Incarnate God is present among us. Even more, how God is revealed to us in Jesus, just as the day is revealed by its dawning. The Scriptures and Church tradition also use these metaphors to do the same. And they help our finite minds make sense of an infinite God come down to us.

    The wise men do likewise; they speak of a star that guides them to Jesus. “We saw his star as it rose and have come to do him homage,” they say in the gospel reading. I imagine how the light of this star tells that even the galaxies are caught up in the wondrous story of God gifting Jesus to us. Even more, this light, this star, reveals the faith God has given us – it leads us to Him who Jesus alone reveals.

    Indeed didn’t our faith helped us make the Advent journey to the only manger God desires: our hearts? Is He really dwelling in our hearts?

    Jesus also wants to dwell in everyone’s hearts. In the second reading St Paul reminds the Ephesians and us that God makes this same promise to Christians and non-Christians alike: that in Jesus, all peoples are saved

    How then are all of us to navigate the myriad valleys, plateaus and peaks of today’s world and find our way to Jesus? We must consider because these can distract us from finding Jesus or delay our journey toward Him or draw us into the darkness of sin and death, blinding us from following that star to Him.

    The wise men can be our guides to Jesus. They have three dispositions to make this journey; we need them too. 

    First, fervour. These wise men are foreigners, led through the night by wonder and hope. They come to Jesus eagerly following the path fixed in the stars (which, of course, can only be seen in the dark). Do we approach Jesus with equal wonder and hope? How eager are we to encounter Jesus? 

    Second, freedom. The wise men are not bound by Herod’s political machinations. Neither are they beholden to anyone wanting to dominate or exploit them. I imagine them safeguarding their freedom to let the star be their only guide to Jesus. Yes, they faithfully, even obediently, followed God’s light. How free are we to let go and let God lead us to Jesus? What obstacles block us onward?

    Third, faithfulness. To reach Jesus, the wise men are guided by dreams and visions, by the wisdom of hidden roads, by attentiveness to the signs around them. With faith, they say ‘yes’ to  God’s invitation to come and see. Today, God wants to do the same for us. Is our individual, even collective, faith equally strong to go wherever God wants to take us and meet Him there?

    Fervour. Freedom. Faithfulness. These God-given dispositions can lead us, like the wise men, to that place of our collective longing: to gaze upon God’s hidden face in Jesus and through Jesus, to know that He is gazing back at us. What would we see reflected in his eyes?

    Maybe this. Wise men, kingly in stature, prostrating and doing Him homage as the infant king of all the nations. Shepherds, lowly, poor, and socially outcast, but the first to come and adore him. Mary and Joseph looking back at Him tenderly, loving Him who is God-with-us.

    What else can all this be but the revelation that Jesus’ coming as the Christ turns everything upside down. The mighty are made low; the poor are uplifted. The hungry are fed; the rich sent away empty. Yes, all that Mary sung about in her Magnificat comes to life when Jesus is born; because of him, nothing will ever be the same again.

    If we squint our eyes and look a little more attentively into Jesus’ eyes, we might see ourselves reflected back. See our thankful faces that Jesus is born and is with us. Then, we might just realise that it doesn't matter how small we think we are – how insignificant, not worthy or broken – because here we are rejoicing with the angels on high and singing with Mary about the great big love story God wrote that first Christmas and is still writing now. And yes, that we are doing this alongside the wise men, the shepherds and everyone else, regardless of race, language or religion.

    All of this is unbelievably possible because God so loved the world that He sent us Jesus, his only Son, and whoever believes in him  will have everlasting life. This is why the world is now upside down for everyone. Even more, topsy-turvy for us Christians because God’s salvation isn’t just for you and me. It is for all peoples: yes, the pagans but also for every sinner, for everyone who’s hurt us, for everyone we disagree with, ignore or hate. Today’s feast celebrates this Christmas joy.

    We cannot truly grasp the profound depth, breadth and height of this joy unless we understand how different our journey to Jesus could possibly have been if we had dared to choose to let God  guide us like those wise men. It means we would have travelled “by another road.” One on which we might have recognised our limited ways of appreciating Christmas, including our lamentable attitude towards Jesus. Perhaps, then God could have pushed us beyond them to dream what more Jesus’ coming could be in our lives. If this wasn’t our journey to Jesus this Christmas, don’t worry; there’s always the next Advent and the new journey it offers.

    Till then, we have to journey through this year. Let’s ask for the grace to do this with renewed faith. We can because Christ has come; with him, we can more clearly see God in all things. So like those shepherds who adored him and those wise mind who prostrated themselves before him, let’s journey onwards into 2025 singing praise, even more, by a different route, for Christ is with us and we are better for Him.  Shall we?




    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart, Singapore
    Photo by Gaurav K on Unsplash


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  6. Year C / Christmas Season / Feast of the Holy Family
    Readings: Ecclesiasticus 3.2-6, 12-14 / Ps 128:1-2, 3, 4-5 (R/v cf 1) / Colossians 3.12-21 / Luke 2:41-52


    At the beginning of the Christmas Eve Mass, I carried Baby Jesus to the Crib. As I did, many in the pews turned their heads to look. They looked intently. Some smiled. Others trained their phones to take a video or photo. One or two children reached out to touch Baby Jesus. Indeed, everyone was looking out for Jesus.
     
    We all did because Jesus is the long expectant Saviour we prepared ourselves for this Advent. To welcome him not to the Crib but into our hearts, the real manger at Christmas and every day. In us and amongst us, He truly dwells. Isn’t this why we always keep looking out for Jesus?
     
    The act of looking features prominently in today’s gospel reading. The Holy Family is actively looking. Mary and Joseph went to look for Jesus when he was lost. They were anxiously looking for him everywhere, fearful they lost him. Finding him,  Mary said, “your father and I have been looking for you.” Jesus replied: “Why are you looking for me?” I imagine Jesus returning home and looking to Mary and Joseph to learn how to live and pray, to be obedient and grow in wisdom with God and others.
     
    The act of looking is also part of our family life. Parents look out for their children. Look to care for them. Look to forgive them. Look to affirm them. Look to delight in them. Children too look at their parents and godparents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and even each other. Look to learn how to live and care, to be good and loving, to be faithful to God and loyal in relationships. This is the message of the first reading.
     
    The life of the Holy Family is our life too – filled with unexpected problems, anxiety, and suffering. Yet in how Mary and Joseph look for Jesus God gives us a pattern to live as faithful Christians. Let’s consider.

    Mary and Joseph’s anxiety as they look for Jesus is our anxiety when we are distant from him. Our worry grows when too many days pass and we seem to lose him. 

    So, we search for Jesus, looking to find him again. We pray harder, perhaps longer, when we cannot find Jesus in prayer.  We challenge ourselves to be more like Jesus, selfless and giving, when we find ourselves becoming self-centred and self-absorbed. We seek Jesus out in a retreat, a talk with a spiritual director, even in conversation with fellow parishioners when our lukewarm faith slides us into complacency. We humble ourselves and seek Jesus’s forgiveness when we sin. Even here and now, we have sacrificed other wants to come to Jesus in the Eucharist at this time; we do because we need Him.
     
    Mary and Joseph remind us that finding Jesus is hard work. They teach us to persevere, stay focused and be determined in our search. They instruct us to trust  God to find Jesus and where to find him: in God’s House, the  temple, where he is teaching the elders. Finding Jesus like this astonishes us too: “Did you not know I must be busy with my Father’s affairs?” he asks.
     
    Jesus himself teaches us how to look for him. We do, when we like him, seek to be in God’s presence. When we like him, choose to be obedient to God. When we like him, let God nurture and grow us in His wisdom. Consider the many times we have imitated Jesus and found ourselves growing to become more like Him, the fullness of God’s image and likeness. Others will look at us and judge how Christian we are by our life and our love. What will they say?
     
    Looking for Jesus also enlarges where we look for him, how we find him and what new understanding we learn through our encounters with him. 
     
    Listen to this story of St Benedict and the novices. They were praying before the manger in their chapel on Christmas Eve. There was a loud knock. No one got up. Everyone was focussed on the Infant Child. The knocking got louder. No one moved. They were all adoring Jesus. The knocking continued incessantly. St Benedict got up, opened the door and let a beggar into their midst. He prayed beside them. When prayer ended, the beggar disappeared. "Where is he? Who is he?"  the novices asked. "He is Jesus," St Benedict said. "He came to pray with you and for you. You didn’t really look."
     
    The novices had to learn how to experience divine presence, obedience and growing in wisdom within the community they are – with each other and with Jesus as one with them, one amongst them, one for them. We too live in a community we call ‘family,’ as we do in our many communities. In all of them,  we need to learn to become a family of God.
     
    Jesus, Mary and Joseph had to learn to become this holy family. Their story is more than just losing and finding Jesus. They had to take time to understand who their son, Jesus, really is and who they had to be for him and each other.
     
    “So it is with us too,” Pope Francis notes, adding: “Every day, families have to learn to listen and understand one another, to walk together, to face conflicts and difficulties. It is a daily challenge and it is overcome with the right attitude, through simple actions, simple gestures, caring for the details of our relationships. And this too helps us a lot in order to talk within the family, talk at table, dialogue between parents and children, dialogue among siblings.”* And can I add, to talk and laugh, live and love with God.

    Wise are we to learn to look for Jesus in our midst; He shows us how to live as family and  especially as God’s family. We can when we make St Paul’s exhortation to clothe ourselves in the love of Christ our family way of life. Then, we will live and care with heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another. When we do this, we make Jesus’ presence alive in us and amongst us.

    Knowing Jesus is with us will calm us to live. Even more, He will be our satisfaction and delight to live life more fully, even joyfully. Isn’t this what every Christian family needs? Does yours?
     
     

     

    * Angelus for the Feast of the Holy Family, Sunday, Dec 26, 2021


    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart
    Photo by Irish83 on Unsplash

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  7.  
    Year C / Christmas / Solemnity of the Nativity of our Lord (Christmas Midnight Mass)
    Readings: 2 Timothy 4.1-5 /  Psalm 40. 2, 7-8a, 8b-9, 10, 11 / Matthew 5.13-19


    “From this time onwards and for ever, the jealous love of the Lord of Hosts will do this” (Isaiah 9.7b)

    This is how our first reading ends this most holy night. With Isaiah proclaiming the irrefutable truth of Christmas: that God has become man so that we can become sharers in his divinity (St Thomas Aquinas). This happened that first Christmas long ago. Tonight we believe this is happening too. 

    Christians celebrate this truth. We must. For we do not celebrate an ancient religious memory about God coming down to earth. Nor, a Bible story about Mary’s boy child, one like us, dwelling amongst us. It is much more than any art and film, song and poetry can express about that infant wrapped in swaddling clothes.

    What we really celebrate tonight is God’s self-giving love for you, me, and everyone. This truth is the incredibly good news, that unimaginable proclamation, that God’s love is unreservedly and gratuitously for all, no matter saint or sinner. It is therefore good and right that we rejoice and join the angels, singing: “Glory to God in the highest heaven and peace to all who enjoy His favour.”

    This joy will resound in every Mass throughout the Christmas season and into the new year. We will hear it in every reading, prayer and song. They echo this line from the first letter of St John: “In this, the  love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, so that we might live through him” (1 John 4.9). 

    We like these words about the self-giving love of God. In fact we are very comfortable thinking of God like this. Christmas heralds this joyfully: because God came, we can live with God and we can love like God.

    But if we’re a little more attentive to tonight’s readings, we will hear this more profound truth about God: He desires to be one with us. This is how His jealous love loves – so much that He gives His very best, His most precious, His singular treasure, His much loved Jesus, with whom we can have His life to the full.

    We don’t often think of God in terms of desire. Yet this is who God also is. We hear it whispered amidst tonight’s readings. St Paul declares to Titus that Jesus, God-wish-us, came so that we “could be his very own and would have no ambition except to do good.” And the psalmist cries out so loudly, so clearly, that “He comes / He comes to rule the world.”
     
    Hear this then: that God’s deepest desire is for Jesus to come and be the ruler of the world. Even more, He comes to be the ruler of our hearts so we can do good for God and others. To rule our hearts as King. This infant king the wise men sought, and finding him, prostrated themselves in homage. This king the shepherds adored, lying on no other throne but a dirty, soiled, messy wooden manger. This king who would one day lay down his life to save you and I, and everyone for God.

    Indeed, what else can our heart’s disposition be tonight but joyful? How else then can we respond but with praise? Praise for the faithfulness, goodness and love of God who makes his desire real in Jesus. Yes, Jesus came, not to visit and go. He came to  stay with us till the end of time.

    And God declares His faithfulness audaciously by wrapping Himself – pure and holy, mighty and all powerful – in  human skin.  Skin, fresh and supple, innocent and bright like the young. A little more dull, scaly and rough like adult skin scared by life’s burdens and worries. Wrinkled and dry skin like the aged. Skin, brimming with hope like the dreamers.

    God wrapped in our human skin. This isn’t some theological mambo-jumbo to spiritualise Christmas or make it intelligible. I want to suggest that this is the Christmas reality of being human and being human with God and one another. Then, we will know how to love as He has loved us. Consider.

    If others say your skin disqualifies you from being you and being here, Jesus in your skin says, “you're worthy and you're welcome.”

    If some say you are bad because you’ve disfigured your skin with wrong choices, bad habits and poor judgment, Jesus, in your skin, embraces you saying, “my sister, my brother, my friend.”

    If others distance themselves from you because your skin is pockmarked and wounded by sickness and disease, Jesus in your skin says, “I hear; I see; be healed.”

    If the older people ridicule you for your fresh, youthful, innocent skin, Jesus in your skin says, “I believe in you and the good you are.”

    And if you are young and dismiss the old, Jesus in your skin says, “wise are they who honour their elders; they’ll find the way to God.”

    If your skin is injured by hurts, pains and regrets, Jesus in your skin promises you will be with him always and he will make all things new.

    If your skin is a mask you hide behind, Jesus in your skin will help you shed it so you can be your true self and shine.
    If your skin is soiled by sin, Jesus in your skin wants you to know that there is nothing he cannot forgive.

    If your skin makes you a nobody to many, cast aside to the margins, ignored, Jesus in your skin says, “You are somebody; you are mine.”

    And even if you have done nothing this Advent to clean up your skin, refresh and ready it for Him, here is Jesus in your skin, simply for you.

    Yes, God wraps Himself in human skin because this is how much he desires to be one with us. And he does because our human skin is simply very good for God himself. 

    Let us marvel then at the miracle of the Incarnation, of God partaking in our very flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. This is that cause for great joy, that kind of exhilaration that inspired Elizabeth’s unborn baby to leap and shout when Jesus, in Mary’s womb, came visiting. 

    Indeed, isn’t this the same delight you and I must have this Christmas? 

    So let us pray that your heart and my heart, that all our hearts, will skip a beat tonight, as it also must each day this Christmas and every day after, because now more than ever, we know so surely and so joyfully that we’re always in the holy presence of God. He is with us. Amen.



    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart
    photo: imagevine.com

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  8.  
    Year C / Advent / Week 4 / Sunday
    Readings: Micah 5.1-4a / Ps 80 (R/v 4) / Hebrew 10.5-10 / Luke 1.39-45
     
     
    “Why should I be honoured with a visit from the mother of my Lord?” (Luke 1.43)
     
    This is Elizabeth’s exclamation when Mary visited her. It’s really her recognition that God, and no other, was visiting her. She knew this truth when her son, John, leapt in her womb. I’d like to imagine John’s leaping as his way of letting Jesus know he was there and ready to do his part in God’s plan for salvation.
     
    In the Visitation story, we see the visible sign of God’s fidelity in the lives of both women. This reminds us that God really desires intimate, loving relationship with humankind. Elizabeth’s exclamation tells us so: “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”
     
    Th Visitation, like the Annunciation, reveals how God intervened in the lives of both women to bring about good. Mary became the mother of God. Elizabeth bore a prophet who converted many to God. Hasn’t God also intervened in our lives to bring about just as much good?
     
    At the heart of the Visitation is the profound intimacy of these two, faith-filled pregnant women with the Word of God. It’s an intimacy that God laboured for.  We glimpse this when  St. Augustine of Hippo writes :
    You called, Lord; you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You shone and dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew a breath and I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.
    Truly, the breath of God’s fragrance was upon Mary and Elizabeth. With that breath they hungered for God’s Word to come. When it did, they became pregnant with God’s Word to be carried and birthed. I wonder about God’s breath of the Holy Spirit in our lives and all the marvellous things He wants to do for us.
     
    For Mary, the power of God’s intervention sends her to care for a pregnant Elizabeth. Then, it helped her give birth to Jesus for all peoples. From that point onward, Mary cared for every person with a mother’s love, as she did with the apostles at Pentecost.
     
    Mary could do all this this because God swept her up in his own urgent haste to reach everyone to love and save them. Such is the power of God’s intervention. If we are honest, we too have been caught up in God’s haste – every time we love or forgive another, care and uplift the needy, accept all those society shuns, even delight in that one who nobody values.
     
    God’s own haste, Pope Francis, writes, “urged Mary to open the door and go out…to set out on her journey to her cousin. She chose the unknowns of the journey over the comforts of her daily routines, the weariness of travel over the peace and quiet of home. This is the risk of faith that makes our lives a loving gift to others over placid piety.* Mary risked herself to care for Elizabeth. Will we do the same?
     
    We need to risk like Mary. Then, God can bring about His good in our world, even more, for everyone through each of us. So, let us risk ourselves for whomever God wishes us to go to can care for. Risk all the more so that God can have us do this in the manner He wishes us to do, especially, for the lesser and the lost, the forgotten and unknown, the small and insignificant. Like Bethlehem-Ephrathah, “too small to be among the clans for Judah.”
    We must risk because it is precisely in such places and with these people that God will bring about great things, like peace for everyone, a Messiah who saves, and a shepherd who cares. Yes, sister and brothers, risk yourselves this Christmas for someone else.
                                                                                                                                                
    Now, as much as God uses us to care for others, He also works through many to bring about much good in our lives. We have all experienced this. Shouldn’t we then join Elizabeth and cry out, “Why should I be honoured by the mother of the Lord”?
     
    It is however not enough to confess this. We must welcome God who comes to us through those many. Comes into the dimness and emptiness of our souls that we often hide. We dare not tell others our deepest thoughts and feelings. We struggle to be honest and vulnerable. We are too ashamed to be our truest selves. We hide our pains and hurts. We deny our failings and sins. We harden our hearts, afraid to admit “I’m not like you” or “I just want to be loved by you.” Sometimes, we even fear voicing dreams and hopes.
     
    Into these very spaces, God wishes to intervene and be with us. Make his home in us. Come and be born in us like He did that first Christmas morning.
     
    How then can we welcome this child? Not with our cleverness or skills to analyse and rationalise. Dare I say, not even by ticking off the action items on the To Do List for Christmas like buying presents and going to Advent Penitential.

    Rather, welcome Him with child-like wonder. Only this kind of wonder will lead us to that threshold of contemplation we will make before Jesus in the crib. Not so much to see the child there but to enter into the life of this child seeing the world.** That is, seeing everything and everyone from God’s point of view, which is with love.
     
    When we dare do this, we’ll understand how God wants us for Himself. No matter how unworthy we think we are, God loves us too much not to welcome, accept and include us in His life. In fact this is what we’ll experience when we gather at the crib this Christmas. So standing there, look around; you'll discover all of us, so different in myriad ways yet together as Christians. Look too at the little one in that manger. He doesn’t come  to leave; He comes to stay with us always.
    Then, see Him stretching out His hands to us, His beloved. How else should we respond but to do the same – with our outstretched hands, not just individually but together, saying, “Why should I be honoured with your coming, my Lord?” Shall we?
     

    * Pope Francis, Homily, 15 September 2021
    **Inspired by the Trappist monks at Spencer Abbey, Massachusetts



    Preached at Church of the Sacred Heart
    Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash

     

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  9.  

    Year C / Advent / Week 3 / Sunday

    Readings: Zephaniah 3.14-18a  / Psalm: Isaiah 12.2-3, 4, 5-66  (R/v 6) / Philippians 4.4-7 / Luke 3.10-18



    “What must we do, then?”


    This is the question the repentant people asked John the Baptist. They asked because they want to live godly lives. We hear it in the gospel reading. John’s answer is clear and unequivocal; it gave direction to their lives. Beyond merely telling the people how to behave toward each other, it instilled an expectation in them for Jesus. He will show them the way, the truth and the life to God. This is the Good News.


    Jesus is indeed the “mighty saviour” in our midst, the Prophet Zephaniah proclaims. Truly, He is very near, St Paul teaches. Today’s readings emphatically declare that the Good News is not a message but a person—Jesus. And soon and very soon, He will come to be with us.


    Shouldn’t we then be keeping our gaze on Jesus at Advent time? Has it been challenging so far? It may be even more in these final weeks before Christmas. Many will be busy preparing materially for Christmas: shopping, cooking and partying. Many are preparing spiritually too, going from Advent prayer to Advent retreat to Advent recollection to Advent penitential because it’s the expected thing to do. In all this busyness, our hearts and minds may not be centered on Jesus. Our focus might be elsewhere.


    This is like how many approach presents. Too often, we focus on the gift, not the giver. We forget that the present in our hands is in fact another’s love and care for us. Long after I have torn apart the wrapping paper and found the gift, Mom’s presence will remain. And after the birthday guests have gone, the gift of the book I now read will remind me of my friend. Indeed, at the heart of every present we receive is the gift of another’s presence. I wonder whether the gift or the giver will be your focus this Christmas.


    Today is “Gaudete” Sunday. We wear rose-coloured vestments; these remind us to look ahead joyfully. We sing more upbeat Advent hymns; they cheer us up and on for the coming Christmas. Our readings explain why we must rejoice: God is truly coming to dwell amongst us


    Like when Zephaniah tells a timid, disheartened people and us that God comes: “Fear not, be not discouraged...God will rejoice over you with gladness.” Or, when the psalmist encourages us to cry out with gladness because we can hope that God is among us, and we need not fear or remain in sin anymore. And when St Paul teaches the squabbling Philippians and us “Be unselfish. Dismiss anxiety from your minds” because we can trust God who answers all our needs. And with John the Baptist, we hear this joyful news, pregnant with expectancy: the Saviour is very close. His name is Jesus. Yes, we have every right to rejoice.


    But for many who are burdened, suffering or despairing, how can rejoice? What good news is this when many are still hungry, still in poverty, still imprisoned unjustly, still gunned down senselessly, and still marginalized cruelly for race, gender, sexuality? For those hurt or sidelined by the holier-than-thou in our Church who’ve judged them never good enough to receive God’s mercy in communion and confession, what is Christmas but more pain, grief and exclusion? And for you and me who struggle to believe that Jesus is indeed coming for me, how can this be when my life is messy, my choices are bad and my way of life, sinful?


    Advent challenges us to see differently: with hope. That no matter what, God will come and save us, as we are. The individual burdened by anxiety. The selfish weighed down by ego. The troubled person because of sin. The small-minded man. The self-serving woman. The self-righteous believer. All these Christians, really you and me, struggle and fail with repeated sins and bad habits. Yet  we are the singular reason God comes – because He cannot be apart from us. He does not want to lose us. It goes against His divine nature if He does. For what kind of a God is Love if He who loses His beloved?

    Advent is therefore a most gracious and merciful season, pregnant as it always is with expectant longing. It affords us time and strength, hope and reason to take those first steps, once again, to move out of the darkness of sin and to journey into God’s radiant light that dawns with Jesus’ coming. 

     

    Advent cannot be about us waiting passively for God to come. It must be about us cooperating with God as He draws us towards himself. Towards and into His light that burns off those shadowy and sinful, melancholic and burdened parts of us. God wants to do this with the fire of love. And this fire is none other than the love of Jesus for us.


    This is John the Baptist’s message today. “I am baptising you with water, but there is one to come who is mightier than I,” he says. “He will baptise you in the Holy Spirit and in fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn in unquenchable fire.”


    John’s words should not scare us about who is saved and who is lost. Rather, they must encourage us to welcome Jesus as our Saviour. For the Jesuit John Kavanaugh, “Fire is not the fate of the lost, but the refining of the blessed. We all have our chaff, our dross, our waste. And the fire of Christ will burn them away.” Indeed, “the burdens we carry do not make us unfit for Advent’s message. They qualify us as prime candidates.”* 


    This is why we have every right to rejoice. Indeed, Jesus is coming soon. He is because we are worthy to be loved and saved for God himself. Even more, Jesus comes to make us more worthy, more perfect for God. Truly, how can we not rejoice, even more, be assured. we are God’s beloved?






    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart

    Photo by Nuno Silva on Unsplash


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  10. Year C / Advent / Week 2 / Sunday

    Readings: Baruch 5.1-9 / Ps 126.1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 6  (R/v 3) / Philippians 1.4-6, 8-11 / Luke 3.1-6



    “Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight” (Luke 3.4)


    This is John the Baptist’s call. We hear it every Advent. He calls the people to repentance and preparation for Jesus’ coming.  He goes into the desert wilderness of Judea to do this. 


    But here and now, in this Mass, he calls us into the wilderness of our hearts. That expansive, mysterious silent space deep within us. There, he searches us out as we await Jesus’ coming. There, he challenges, even demands, we straighten out the uneven, crooked shape of our lives. Are we doing this as we enter the second week of Advent?


    John’s call reminds us that the spirituality of Advent is not repentance. That is for Lent.* For Advent, we await Jesus expectantly, eagerly. Today we must honestly examine our longing for  God. Do we really want him to come into our lives, often messy? If we do, can we accept God coming in his time, not ours, in his way, not ours and according to his plan, not ours? The prayers, readings, and songs at every Advent Mass prepare us to do this.


    In contrast, the world demands we prepare differently. Focus on the material and commercial, it insists. Buy presents. Light up Orchard Road. Eat, drink and be merry. We’re Christians; we know this isn’t Christmas. 


    Today’s readings are therefore providential. They help us discern what must truly matter in our Advent preparations, and how we can do this.


    Advent and discernment. It seems odd to pair them together. Yet, we should if we yearn for God’s best for us. This is in fact St Paul’s prayer for the Philippians: “My prayer is that your love for each other may increase more and more and never stop improving your knowledge and deepening your perception so that you can always recognise what is best."


    “Deepening our perception to recognise what is best.” This is what discernment is about. It enables us to appreciate the very best God wishes to give us. Advent helps us discern that God’s best is Jesus. Jesus who is God-with-us.  We ought to discern this to “become pure and blameless, and prepare…for the day of Christ,” St Paul teaches.


    How can we practice Advent discernment? By quieting ourselves, paying attention to God and relishing God’s saving actions in our lives and those around us and the world. 


    Today’s readings teach us how to do this.


    With Baruch, we hear how God will not abandon the deprived, desperate or disappointed. God will come to them with mercy and justice, and take off the mourning robes. God will then show all the earth how splendid they are as his own. 


    This Advent, let us look more charitably at all who suffer, especially those we have sidelined with our words and actions. Then, we might see how Jesus is faithfully labouring for everyone's wellbeing. When we do, we can appreciate Jesus as God’s hope for us, not once in history but now daily in our lives. 


    With Paul, we hear how God will complete the good work he begins in every Christian community. The Philippians were besieged by external forces and internal divisions. Yet God drew them together as a community and empowered them to spread the Good News.  


    This Advent, let us look at our families, schools, workplaces, and parish. Then, we might discern how Jesus never gives up on us, even when there are divisions, difficulties, and despair. When we do, we can celebrate Jesus as God’s joy to us, not once in history but now daily in our lives. 


    With Luke, we hear how God sends John the Baptist to care for the Jews and everyone. God wants all to receive salvation in Jesus. What humankind had hoped for generations and thought impossible, God makes possible and real with Jesus’s coming. 


    This Advent, let us look at how Jesus continues to accompany, care and uplift many, ourselves too. Then, let us recognise how Jesus's actions truly save everyone. When we do, we can believe that Jesus is God’s peace in us, not once in history but now daily in our lives. 


    Jesus as God’s hope, God’s joy and God’s peace. Advent waiting enables us to discern these truths. This will help us know who the child in the manger really is, even more God’s promised salvation he brings. We will when we hear and pay attention to God’s voice. He speaks simply and honestly. He proclaims that in Jesus, God is with us and God will save us. 


    God spoke this truth to the Jews through John the Baptist. Many heard and turned to God. Today, God is calling us to do the same. And God is also speaking through many who are like John the Baptist in our lives. They are the ordinary people around us, including the lesser and least. 


    Their voices are hidden amidst the loud and noisy, the mighty and powerful, even the holy and devout. They might be the habitual sinner, that person you hate, someone you are avoiding, like the divorcee or the gay Catholic, and maybe your enemy. It could even be someone who’s hurt you, like a loved one whose words and actions disappoint. Can you hear God calling you through them to Advent preparation? Yes, listen.  


    We must because God wants to come and put our lives in order this Advent. He will do this by labouring for our conversion through those around, even as He labours in us. This is how God prepares us to welcome Jesus; He is the way, the truth and the life to order our lives. All God wants is our "yes" to let Him do this. If we choose not to, we are the foolish ones. Our Advent will be lesser and poorer. Our Christmas will be mediocre, maybe joyless.


    So, let’s be wise and beg for the grace to discern how God wants to prepare us for Jesus’ coming. Even more, let’s humbly ask to be courageous. For when we are, we'll be open to God surprising us with this truth: that ultimately with Jesus, there is no wilderness in which we are ever alone. He is already with us.


    So let us pray, “Come, Lord, Jesus, come!" Shall we?




    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart
    Photo by Ethan Sykes on Unsplash








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"Bukas Palad"
"Bukas Palad"
is Filipino for open palms
Greetings!
Greetings!
Peace and welcome, dear friend.
I hope you will find in these posts something that speaks to you of the God who loves us all and who always holds us in the palm of his hand. Blessings!
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Fall in Love, Stay in Love
Fall in Love, Stay in Love

"Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute way final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything."

Pedro Arrupe, sj, Superior General, 1965 - 1983

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is a 50something Catholic who resides in Singapore and works for the Church. He is a priest of the Roman Catholic Church.
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The views I express in these pages are personal. They do not speak for the Society of Jesus or the Catholic Church.
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