1. This winter I took a walk 
    through Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. 
    Its undulating lawns were covered with snow 
    and its many leafless trees and its tombs and memorials 
    were encased in a cold, haunting white silence. 

    Yet, amidst its stillness and death-like nothingness, 
    there was a hint of life.  
    The stick-like trees harbored tiny buds awaiting to burst forth. 
    Some families paying their respects taught me 
    that painful separation gives way to thankful remembrances. 
    And the faith of those buried into God’s embrace, 
    reminded me of the promise of everlasting life.

    Indeed, in the face of death, 
    it is not just nothingness we see but the promise of life. 
    This is the ‘good’ we gather to remember, 
    to celebrate and to believe in 
    as we turn to the contemplate the Cross this evening.

    We remember the Cross 
    and the evil born of human sin that scourges Jesus, 
    crowns him with thorns and nails him painfully to his death. 
    But our eyes of faith see more; 
    we see Love hanging on this Cross. 
    Jesus’ boundless love for humankind 
    moved him to lay down his life 
    so that we can have life to the full in God. 
    The real scandal of the Cross 
    is that it is Jesus’ love for God and neighbor, and only this love,
    --for you and me, really--
    that moves him to do this. No
    No greater love has a friend than to lay down his life. 
    And it is this kind of love that saves us for God.

    We celebrate the Cross, 
    not with joyful acclamations 
    but with a quiet and sobering gratitude 
    that this is our way to salvation. 
    Jesus on the Cross reveals that our redemption 
    comes through his total, free and loving self-giving. 
    His faithfulness to God and his mercy 
    for others allowed him to do this. 
    Even as we struggle 
    with our own fidelity to God and our compassion for our neighbors, Jesus’ Cross must be our guide to salvation.  
    When God calls us, he bids us to come and die to ourselves
    in order to have life to the full; 
    the way to do this is Jesus’ way of the Cross.

    We believe in the Cross 
    because here is where God 
    transforms distorted human love that sins and does evil 
    and perfects it through Jesus. 
    The Cross is where we are saved, 
    where we are redeemed into the beauty of who we are to God. 
    Not worthless sinners meant for judgment and condemnation 
    but as God’s beloved, worthy to be redeemed for eternal life. 
    Indeed, the Cross is where we come to know more fully 
    that our God created us to save us as God’s own. 
    This is our Christian belief, and today we experience it most fully.

    Death, then, cannot be the last word in our lives. 
    Rather, like the spring to come, 
    the death of Jesus on the Cross, 
    breaks open the truth of our faith: 
    with Jesus, there is indeed fullness of life with God. 



    Preached at the Good Friday Service Celebrating the Passion of the Lord at Blessed Mother Teresa, Dorchester, Boston
    photo: from thehomeschoolroadtrip.com

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  2. Year C / Palm Sunday / Lent
    Gospel Reading at the Commemoration of the Lord’s Entrance into Jerusalem: Luke 19.28-40


    On Palm Sunday
    we recall Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.
    More significantly, we remember his self-giving actions
    that make real God’s love to redeem us 
    through his death and resurrection.

    Besides the palms we wave,
    there is another image associated with Palm Sunday.
    It is the image of the cloak.
    We hear about it in Luke’s gospel 
    that was proclaimed before we processed into church.

    Luke describes the crowds 
    taking off their cloaks and spreading them on the road 
    to welcome Jesus as he entered the city on a colt.

    For the poor in Jesus' time, 
    a cloak would have been an expensive item to own. 
    If they had one, it would probably have been a prized possession; 
    it clothed and protected them in their poverty and vulnerability. 
    But their cloaks are expensive in another sense: 
    it gave them wellbeing and dignity.

    The action of taking off their own cloaks 
    and spreading them on the ground to welcome Jesus 
    speaks to me of their generosity to give of their best:
    no, not just these garments 
    but their whole selves to Jesus who is coming 
    to give them his most prized possession, his own life,
    so that they -- and us -- will have life in God. 

    And so, I ask myself, “What about me? 
    What cloak have I offered this Lent to welcome Jesus 
    who saved you and me once, and still saves us all, 
    from sin and death?” 

    Looking back on Lent, I’ve to confess 
    that as much as I have tried my best to fast, to pray and to share, 
    I could have done better.
    I have selfishly held back a part of myself, 
    cocooning it in the self-centered, self-assured 
    and self-serving folds of my cloak. 
    Yes, my Lenten practice could have been better.

    May be this is how you feel too on this last Sunday of Lent,
    as you perhaps hold fast to your own cloak, 
    stitched with those threads coloured, 'me', 'I', and 'myself'.

    But if the beauty of this holy week we are about to celebrate 
    is the affirmation that Jesus still comes for us and for our salvation 
    in spite of our wrong doings, our Lenten shortcomings,
    then this last week must also be graced,
    and Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter, truly blessed,
    because these days reminds us more hopefully
    of God’s undying love for us in Jesus on the Cross.

    This holy week then is still a good enough time 
    for you and me to unfasten our cloaks, 
    those we hoard, preserve and indulge ourselves in
    and to lay them down more freely, more completely, 
    before Jesus, like the poor challenge us to today. 

    And as we lay our cloaks down,
    do not be surprised that in our nakedness
    God will cloak us anew,
    enfolding us as he did his Son, Jesus
    who he raised from the dead,
    into that holy, radiant, splendor of resurrected life.



    preached at Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta parish, Dorchester, Boston
    artwork: palm sunday by giotto

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  3. Year C / 4th Week/ Saturday
    Readings: Jeremiah 11.18-20 / Ps 7 (R/v 2a) / John 7.40-53

    "This is truly the Prophet," some say.
    "This is the Christ," others announce.
    "Ah, the Christ, will not come from Galilee," some others protest.
    And the Pharisees? They know him not as the Christ 
    but as the trouble maker, the rebel, the blasphemer.

    Today’s gospel reading
    presents us with people talking about Jesus
    -- giving him titles, figuring him out, describing him, doubting him.
    Yet, Jesus is nowhere to be seen:
    he does not appear in our gospel reading today.
    All we have are people reacting to Jesus.

    Don’t we do the same?
    We talk about Jesus in faith sharing and spiritual direction;
    we preach about him in our homilies; 
    we teach about who he is and what he does 
    at the STM or Sunday school.
    And sometimes, if not often enough, we have questions about him, 
    about his humanity and his divinity.
    Yes, we too talk about him,
    about him who is also not with us.

    And yet talk about him, we must:
    we must because our Christian faith
    compels us to give an account for the hope we have in Jesus
    not just to one another, or to our teachers 
    in school and in their assignments,
    nor to the converted in the pews,
    or to the least, the less and the forgotten we care for.
    Indeed, our faith turns us outwards 
    to talk about Jesus to one and all.

    But who or what are we really talking about 
    when we talk about “Jesus”?
    The Jesus  we read about in the Church's teachings? 
    The Jesus who has been theologized about that we teach? 
    The Jesus that another shares with us in joy or sorrow?

    We are in a time of 
    more sincere prayer before God,
    more penance to purify ourselves,
    more selfless giving of ourselves to others.
    We are in a time of Lent. 
    And Lent, I’d like to believe, also invites us 
    to more honestly consider, in our repentance,
    the question Jesus asked Peter, 
    and always asks you and me, 
    "Who do say I am?"

    The guards in today’s gospel reading offer us 
    a way to answer Jesus’ question 
    so that we can more authentically talk about Jesus.
    When questioned by the Pharisees 
    for not arresting Jesus at the temple,
    they answered, "Never before has anyone spoken like this man."
    Their answer betrays not just an encounter with Jesus
    but a handing over and a receiving back.

    A handing over of themselves into his presence, 
    so as to listen to what he was really saying to them about himself.
    and not what others had told them about him.

    And in a receiving back 
    they would have experienced
    not the Jesus others had identified, described, 
    made him out to be
    but Jesus as he was to and for them.

    A handing over and a receiving back.

    Handing ourselves over to Jesus and receiving Jesus back:
    I’d like to think that this is what Lenten repentance also calls us to.

    For in this handing over of ourselves,
    as we are in our lights and shadows,
    and in receiving back Jesus ,
    as he is to and for us,
    we will better come to know him 
    more intimately, more genuinely, more confidently
    as the living bread for our hunger,
    as the light in our blindness,
    as the good shepherd in our forsakenness,
    and in our sinfulness and death-like unfreedoms,
    as God’s forgiveness and saving grace.

    It is intimacy that will inform us, 
    even as it transforms us,
    to talk about Jesus in a truly knowledgeable manner
    but, more so, to walk like Jesus in faithful imitatio.

    Intimacy will also give us 
    that authentic form to account for our faith,
    that form that is more than hearsay, more than another’s story, 
    more than a tradition handed down 
    or a community’s memory of one who was.
    This form is belief, personal belief.

    And if we dare to believe in this way of knowing Jesus, 
    of following Jesus,
    if we really dare to more fully embrace him 
    in the handing over 
    of our soiled and stained but always potentially good selves to him
    so as receive him back in faith 
    as he truly is, our Christ who saves,
    we might be surprised.
    Even more surprised to also receive back,
    -- dare I hope, even before we formally seek reconciliation --
    the gift of ourselves already forgiven, 
    always reconciled, 
    and truly loved into Godself by Jesus.


    preached this day at Faber Jesuit Community, Brighton, Boston

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  4. Year C / 4th Sunday / Lent
    Readings: Joshua 5.9a,10-12 / Ps 34 (R/v 9a) / 2 Corinthians 5.17-21 / Luke, 15-1-3, 11-32


    My father was a teacher and a school principal.
    He was at his best when he was teaching
    in the classroom, on the playing field
    or at home with  the four of us, his children.
    What I learnt about life and faith, about loving and forgiving, 
    about valuing another and believing in myself,
    I learnt from Dad.

    But the most priceless lesson he taught us
    - the lesson to recognize our limitations and to ask another for help -
    only came in his final years,
    when he finally put aside his pride, his need to be in-charge, 
    his teacher mode, 
    to let my Mom and us feed him in his illness,
    to dress him in his weakness, to care for him to his death.

    I have often thought about this change in him,
    about this transformation from being father who knows best
    to “please, give me a hand because I can’t but you can, my son.”

    I’d like to think he made this turn around 
    because he began to think differently.

    To think differently is also what today’s gospel reading 
    challenges us to consider
    about repentance in this  Lenten time.

    The young man who squandered the inheritance his father gave him
    returns to him seeking only to be hired as an employee, 
    not welcomed back as the son,
    only to be fed enough, 
    not to be toasted with a feast.

    Yet, his father embraces him in a forgiving love 
    that knows no bounds,
    that cloaks him in the finest robe, 
    that returns his stature as son with a ring and sandals,
    and that confirms his return to the family with celebration.

    The father’s reception in the gospel reading should give you and me 
    confident hope in the boundless forgiving mercy of God
    as we continue in our Lenten journey of repentance.
    And this prodigal son,
    who comes to his senses, gets up and goes back to the father,
    can teach us that 
    one repents, not by feeling bad, but by thinking differently.

    What prompts such thinking?
    I’d like to suggest that it is the grace of God working 
    in those sometimes painful, often times uncomfortable
    experiences of emptiness in our lives.

    For the prodigal son, 
    it was the empty reality of his selfish, self-centered actions.

    Perhaps, you like me 
    would have had similar experiences of emptiness.
    The emptiness of a wrong we have not asked forgiveness for,
    of a hypocrisy of who we are not, 
    of an infidelity to a commitment made,
    of hoarding what we should share, 
    of wasting what we should nurture.

    And may be, you like me also
    recoil from entering this emptiness.
    We recoil because we know that entering it forces us 
    to acknowledge our regrets and faults,
    to admit parts of ourselves that are disappointing and unChristian, 
    to confess our sinfulness.
    And this is so painful, so embarrassing before God 
    and to ourselves and another, isn’t it?

    Yet, Lent invites us, through the example of the prodigal son today,
    to embrace and enter these places of emptiness in our lives,
    these spaces of our sinfulness,
    and there to realize that we are more than a sinner to God:
    we are God’s creation, God’s own, God’s beloved.

    Like the prodigal son, then,
    we will not enter into emptiness when we honestly admit our sins.
    Rather, we will step into a space
    where God’s Spirit  moves us to think differently
    about ourselves and about God who always forgives.
    And God’s Spirit will also enable us to think differently
    about our dependence on God.
    It is not a relationship that limits us our freedom.

    Rather, it liberates us 
    from a self-centered preoccupation with ourselves. 
    It frees us into another’s love
    like the prodigal son who wasted away his inheritance, 
    into reconciliation with his family, and
    like my father in his illness, 
    into the uplifting care of his wife and children.

    Lent, then, does not call us to meditate on our sinfulness 
    to be crushed by its barrenness.
    No, Lent draws us to focus on our sins
    so that we can hear more clearly God’s life-giving forgiveness
    calling us to conversion.  

    And God’s call is our hope-filled assurance, 
    as we reach the middle of our Lenten journey
    for it invites us to think differently about repentance:
    to think about it anew as 
    the humility of letting another into our lives to  show us the way to salvation.

    For the prodigal son, it was his father;
    For my father, it was his family.

    And for us here, it could be what we are already doing
    or will want to do in the this Lenten time:
    to let Jesus be more the center of our lives, or
    to welcome another in greater need into our care, or even
    to follow the Church more faithfully in our Lenten prayer, almsgiving and fasting.

    Each of these actions invites us 
    to really open up our self-centered hearts 
    to the slow but certain action of God's Spirit
    who moves us to repent and to come home.
    To come home to that space of our Father’s love, 
    that mantle he will cloak us with as he whispers in our ears,
    “You have been and you are always mine.”




    preached at Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta Parish, Dorchester, Boston
    photo: improveyourconsciousnesscontact.blogspot.com

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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

About Me
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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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©adrian.danker.sj, 2006-2018

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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