1. Year C / 17th Sunday / Ordinary Time / 
    Celebrating the Solemnity of St Ignatius of Loyola in St Ignatius Church, Singapore 
    Readings: Deuteronomy 30.1-14 / Ps 1 (R/v 39.5) / Galatians 5.16-25 / Luke 9.18-26
         


    Have you ever made a trek through unfamiliar woodlands before?

    Hiked through a national park overseas, 
    like the Marborough Sounds in New Zealand 
    or walked the Appalachian Trail along the eastern ridges of the USA?

    May be, you have navigated your way 
    from Lim Chu Kang back to Pasir Laba 
    as part of your National Service training?

    If you have done any of these,
    you would have probably used a compass and a map.

    A compass and a map to navigate, 
    to make sure you could find your way 
    through the twists and turns, the ups and downs, 
    of journeying 
    through uncharted lands or dark nights
    to arrive safe and sound 
    at your hoped for destination.

    As a people of faith,
    we too are on a journey, a spiritual journey

    Ours is a pilgrimage of life, 
    from the womb to the tomb.
    Ours is a pilgrimage of faith, 
    from life on earth to eternal life with God.

    Today, we celebrate the life of a fellow pilgrim,
    Ignatius of Loyola, our patron saint.
    One who has walked before us on this same journey. 

    Like him, our journeys are marked
    by better days of walking close to Jesus.
    And, if we are truly honest,
    our journeys are also marked
    by days when we are meandering and detouring 
    on our own self-centered routes, 
    far away from Jesus.

    Sisters and brothers,
    I’d like to propose Ignatius’ pilgrimage
    for our contemplation this evening.
    I'd like to propose it as an invitation for us
    to consider our own pilgrimages of life and faith towards God. 

    What is a pilgrim?  
    One who is on her way to someplace else, 
    one on the move.
    More importantly, a pilgrim 
    is one seeking something greater - seeking God.

    Ignatius found his life's fulfillment 
    in seeking out and devoting himself 
    to following God's will in his life. 

    But how did he do this? 
    What compass and map did he have 
    to navigate his own journey of life and faith?

    A story is told of Ignatius’ fondness 
    of looking at the stars each night before he slept. 

    He would go up on the roof of the house.
    He would take his hat off and look up for a long time at the sky
    He would sit there quietly, absolutely quietly.  

    Looking up, 
    at the wide, magical and heavenly expanse of the starry vault above him, 
    he would find himself sensing 
    that the God of heaven and earth is always with humankind.

    Then he would fall on his knees, 
    bowing profoundly to God in thanksgiving.

    In thanksgiving 
    for God’s fidelity to be with humankind still,
    for forgiving us of our sins,
    for loving us into fullness of life, again and again.

    But the beauty of this story 
    is not in this moment.

    Rather, it is to be found each morning 
    when Ignatius returned his gaze onto the world
    and saw it in a new light, in a renewed way.

    He saw all things 
    in God’s way, 
    in God’s light, 
    in God’s sight.

    He would see amidst the drudgery of the everydayness of our world, 
    God’s faithful and abundant goodness 
    in everything, in every person, in every situation 
    as gifts for our wellbeing and happiness.

    He would sense in our human struggle 
    with pain, suffering and sin, 
    God’s faithful compassion 
    that loves and provides for us
    because we,
    who are made in God’s image and likeness,
    are good, very good indeed, for friendship with God.

    He would marvel that in spite of our human limitations and finitude, 
    God keeps offering us infinite possibilities 
    to be transformed, to become more than we are,
    to become a lot more human and a little more divine.

    The compass and map Ignatius had to do this 
    was the person of Jesus.

    In Jesus,
    who revealed God’s presence in our human world,
    through our human form and in our human voice,
    Ignatius found a Christ-like way of seeing the world and 
    a Christ-like way of loving God and neighbor.

    And, as Ignatius deepened his friendship with Jesus,
    over the course of his lifetime,
    he discovered who he was born to be 

    --- not just the founder of a worldwide religious order 
    doing much good, 
    or a master of the spiritual life, 
    or a soldier of God --

    but, first and foremost,
    a faithful pilgrim 
    called to be Jesus’ companion
    in life and faith.

    This truth of who Ignatius was as a pilgrim
    is also be our hope-filled reality 
    as Christian pilgrims on the journey.

    Jesus’ ways of living, praying and serving,
    which was Ignatius’ compass and map, 
    can also be our compass and map.

    ‘Who do you say I am?’ 
    Jesus asks his disciples in today’s gospel reading.
    Jesus also once asked Ignatius the same question.
    And today, he challenges you and me to answer this question.

    Peter’s answer, ‘The Christ of God,’ 
    is surely how most of us will respond.

    However, we can only say this answer - with conviction - 
    when we are open to and prepared to put 
    all our trust in Jesus as our Lord.

    When we dare to place our trust in Jesus, 
    we will find him to be the foundation of our happiness,
    as the psalmist assures us today.

    How so?
    Because Jesus is a worthy compass and map for us,
    or if you wish to update the technology, our GPS.

    He is so because 

    with him, 
    we find the right and meaningful way to God:

    in him, 
    we discover the truth of who God is 
    - always with us and for us on our pilgrimage,

    and through him, 
    we can have  and enjoy the fullness of life with God,
    not as a future reward we have to work for, 
    but as the already given joy of resurrected life, here and now.

    Here and now because like Ignatius,
    we can let Jesus shape how we see the world 
    and how we ought to live in it.

    With Jesus,
    we can begin to see, like Ignatius,
    the world afresh; 
    that is, our world is indeed charged with the grandeur of God, 
    as Gerard Manley Hopkins once described so poetically.

    With Jesus, 
    we can then ask, like Ignatius,
    the right questions to better attend to God calling 
    us to enter bravely 
    into the spaces of burden, hurt and despair 
    and to lift those suffering 
    with the good news of God’s saving love

    With Jesus, 
    we can begin to respond, like Ignatius, 
    to the truth once again that our lives are meant for
    something more, something better and something beautiful 
    than all the imperfections, pains and darknessese
    that scar and stain our lives.

    With Jesus, then, 
    sisters and brothers,
    we can begin to live like Ignatius did:

    looking heaven-ward at the end of each day,
    each long, tiring and sometimes disappointing day
    at work, in studies, in life,
    to remember again the love of God,
    so that in the morning 
    we can turn our gaze 
    onto the sometimes broken and smeared shards 
    of our daily lives
    and there, there too find God 
    walking with us,
    faithfully, constantly and joyfully.

    Now, isn’t this hope
    worth us joining Peter and Ignatius 
    to answer Jesus’ question, 
    Jesus who is our compass and map ,
    by professing together that he is our Christ?


    preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore on the occasion of the parish feast day celebrations



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  2. Year C / 16th Sunday / Ordinary Time   
    Readings: Genesis 18.1-10a / Ps 15 (R/v 1a) / Colossians 1.24-28 / Luke 10.38-42
         

    We have all seen them.
    We have all heard them.
    We have all participated in them.

    Conversations.

    Conversations to solve a problem or two at work, in school or in the family.

    Conversations filled with laughter and good humor 
    at birthday celebrations, weddings and after work drinks.

    Conversations about life and death, 
    about sufferings and dreams, about faith and hope 
    in those quieter, more soul searching moments 
    we all have had now and again.

    And perhaps, sometimes, conversations 
    we could have avoided but found ourselves falling into: 
    conversation as gossiping.

    Today, our first reading from Deuteronomy 
    and our gospel reading from Luke 
    invite us, sisters and brothers,
    to consider prayerfully the conversations we have with one another:
    -- the quality of our conversations; 
    -- the manner we converse with each other;
    -- the purpose we converse for.

    Luke’s scene in our gospel reading contrasts 
    the busy, life-sapping activity of doing 
    with the give-and-take that is the life-giving exchange conversation can be.

    The anxious, burdened and a tad frustrated Martha,  
    fretting away to get both table and dinner ready for Jesus’ meal 
    is contrasted sharply 
    with Mary, sitting and listening to Jesus. 

    And Jesus says to Martha  - and to us - today, 
    “Mary has chosen the better part.”

    What is this better part? 

    Surely, it is too simplistic, even uncharitable, an answer to say:
    the better part is Mary’s contemplativeness because she listens to Jesus. 

    This suggests that Martha’s busyness is not attentiveness to Jesus; 
    truth be told, she is busy playing the part of the kind and gracious host, 
    welcoming Jesus as her guest and attending to his need for food.

    No, perhaps, the better part Jesus invites Martha and us to consider is this:
    the grace of conversation.

    How can our conversations
    with family and friends, with workmates or classmates, 
    with each other in church, 
    - who we sometimes don’t really know 
    in spite of sitting next to each other every Sunday -
    and even with the unknown Bangladeshi aunty 
    who clears up for us to sit and eat at Adam Road Hawkers’ Center,
    be graced?

    Our readings from Luke and Deuteronomy 
    suggest two ways conversations can be graced.

    First, being friends and being strengthened 
    Luke does not tell us what Jesus said and Mary listened to. 
    But we can imagine that they conversed:
    conversed perhaps about what Jesus said and taught and Mary learnt,
    conversed maybe too about each other’s lives and faith,
    sharing stories of how their lives are bright and beautiful, 
    and perhaps, even painful and challenging.

    Their conversation is about friendship, 
    about being together, about supporting and encouraging, 
    and even correcting and challenging each other,
    on their journeys of life and faith.

    And this too is what our conversations with one another should be.
    In and through our conversations, 
    we can help strengthen one another on our pilgrimage to God.
    God calls us personally by name in Christ to make this pilgrimage.
    But God does not call us to do this privately. 
    We are always together on pilgrimage,
    always in the good and necessary company of each another.
    Conversing helps us make this pilgrimage better.

    Second, being welcomed and being blessed.
    In our first reading, Abraham invites the Lord, 
    who is journeying in the heat, into his tent.
    He invites the Lord to rest:
    he welcomes the Lord; he feeds the Lord; he refreshes the Lord.
    Abraham’s hospitality provides the very best he has to receive the Lord.
    And the Lord in grateful return, thanks him with a blessing for Sarah:
    she will conceive in her old age.

    And isn’t this what we should do when we converse with one another?
    -- Welcome each other’s point of view with kindness that it is their good intention.
    -- Receive another without judgment into the safe harbor of our care.
    -- Feed yet another with words that uplift, transform and give hope.
    In short, shouldn’t our conversations anoint and bless one another for life and faith?

    Ultimately, these two ways, I’d like to propose, sisters and brothers
    are truly graced 
    because they can lead us into deeper union with God,
    if we but pay attention to the story of God’s saving action
    woven as it is 
    - sometimes hidden, sometimes apparent, but always present -
    into the conversations we share with one another.

    They can lead us into the mystery of God’s love that saves
    just like the movement one experiences when prayerfully contemplating 
    Andrei Rublev’s icon of the Holy Trinity,
    which is based on the scene our first reading describes.

    Rublev has the Three Divine Persons 
    - who is God Abraham meets by the terebinth  of Mambre -
    sitting around a table, feasting and celebrating, communing together. 

    Each converses with the other 
    with the tilt of his head and the pointing of his hands.
    Theirs is an intimate conversation, 
    that inner life of the Triune God we believe in.

    But their circle is not closed; 
    there is an empty space in front of the table.
    Here you and I stand.

    Together, the Divine Persons turn outwards to us, 
    inviting us into their gracious communion, 
    calling us to complete the circle, 
    to be one with them
    and to continue their conversation of love with one another.

    This invitation to you and me 
    to enter into the conversion and communion 
    Father, Son and Spirit share
    is nothing less than invitation 
    to enter  into the hope-filled promise 
    of  eternal life with God.

    Can it be that we are being invited 
    into this one communion through our conversations too?
    And if we are, shouldn’t we also invite others into this communion through
    the quality of our conversations, 
    the manner we converse with each other, and
    the purpose we converse for?

    Sisters and brothers,
    if there is indeed grace at work in and through our conversations
    to bring all of us into a fuller life with God,
    should we not be more thankful for the gift of conversation
    and, more mindful of how we converse as Christians?



    preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore
    artwork: the conversation by edgar degas


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  3. Year C / 15th Week/ Friday / Ordinary Time
    Readings: Exodus 11.10-12-14/ Psalm 116 (R/v 13) / Matthew 12.1-8


    If we remember the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday,
    we will remember that the first reading then is our first reading this morning.

    It is a story about the meal the Israelites shared 
    before the angel of the Lord passed over them, 
    slaying all Egypt’s first born to move Pharaoh’s heart 
    to free them from enslavement into a new land and a renewed life 
    as God’s chosen people.

    Our reading ends with the Israelites 
    being instructed to remember this meal, 
    a sign of God’s saving action.

    To remember is a gift; our act of remembering makes this gift alive. 

    When we remember, 
    we are able to situate ourselves amidst the traffic of life
    and to connect with those who have gone before us and those still with us,
    making present their goodness and love in our lives. 

    When we remember, 
    we acknowledge where we have come from 
    - our past origins and spaces - 
    and we look ahead hopefully to where we want to go 
    and who we can become. 

    When we remember, 
    we have a sense of who we are and what we are called to do.

    This what the Lord invites the Israelites to do at the end of our first reading: 
    “The day shall be a memorial feast for you, 
    which all your generations shall celebrate.”

    Whenever they and their children 
    and their children’s children remember this meal, 
    they celebrate who they were - God’s chosen people - 
    and what they are called to - to walk with God not just into freedom 
    but all the days of their lives.

    Let me suggest that today the Lord also invites you and me
    to remember the Lord’s goodness in our life here in CJC.

    As you study and teach, as you play and pray, 
    the Lord is inviting you 
    in your interactions with each other, 
    in your learning and teaching, 
    in your being here at this place and in this time, 
    - and not somewhere else -
    to know, to keep and to cherish God’s goodness 
    in your lives and in those around you.

    Like the meal the Israelites feasted on, 
    our first readings invites us to feed on and to savour God’s goodness.

    And we are being asked to do this 
    in the brightest of moments in our our life here, 
    like winning a game, ace-ing a test, falling in love, 
    and if you are a teacher, seeing your students graduate,
    and also in the darkest, most difficult of times,
    like failing an exam, falling out of friendship, struggling with teenage angst, 
    and if you are a teacher, not getting promoted this year. 

    In all of these, wasn’t God there for your wellbeing? 
    Isn’t God still present and laboring for your happiness?

    And, I’d like to believe, God’s goodness is for no other purpose than this:
    first, for God to form you and me as his grateful people now
    and then later, as we grow older and wiser, 
    for us to remember  
    with even more thankful hearts, 
    and to share, really share, with one and all,
    that what we have received here in CJC, our many gifts,
    through friends and teachers, 
    has been and will always be
    - in truth and in love -
    the very goodness of God, 
    which is always more than we had ever hoped for 
    in this place and at this time.


    preached at Catholic Junior College, Singapore



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  4. Year C / 15th Sunday / Ordinary Time / Bible Sunday
    Readings: Deuteronomy 30.10-14 / Ps 69  (R/v 33) / 
    Colossians 1.15-20 / Luke 10.25.37
         

    Who am I?
    Where am I going?
    How am I to live my life meaningfully?

    Did we not ask these questions growing up? 
    Some of us still ask them. 
    And we will probably keep asking these same questions 
    as our studies enlightened us and as our work burdens us, 
    as our family life calls us to be more selfless 
    and as our growing older and falling sick 
    challenge us to keep the faith and to continue having hope.

    When I was young, I often sat next to my grandmother 
    threading needles for her sewing as she answered these questions I had. 
    Often she gave me no specific answers, only stories.  
    Stories about our peranakan family:  
    who my forebearers were, where they came from and what they did. 
    Stories of how my father and mother met, fell in love and got married. 
    Stories of births and deaths; stories of successes and failures; 
    stories of our family customs and tradition.
    Her stories helped me understand our Christian faith, 
    how I ought to live a good life 
    and what I could dream of becoming in the future.

    Sisters, and brothers,
    the family stories and histories handed down to us do help answer 
    there questions we ask.
    And the stories we in turn pass on to our children and our children’s children 
    can help them answer theirs.

    In today’s gospel reading, Jesus answers 
    the question,  ‘who is my neighbor?’ with a story.
    With the story of the Good Samaritan
    which we are all so familiar with from our reading of the Bible 
    and from our hearing it proclaimed during Mass.
    Jesus does not provide a categorical answer that states, 
    “this is your neighbor and this is not your neighbor”
    He does not respond to the question of the lawyer 
    with a definitive answer based 
    on social, ethnic or religious conventions such as 
    -- Your neighbor is the one living next door, not the outcast or the leper.
    -- Your neighbor is your fellow Jew, not a Gentile.
    -- Your neighbor is the observant, obedient practising Jew, not the sinner. 

    Perhaps, like this lawyer 
    we too, every now and then, ask the same question, ‘who is my neighbor?’

    We ask ourselves and we ask others 
    this question because we want to know 
    who we should reach out and be charitable to,
    who we should really bother about and care for,
    and sometimes, who we should distance ourselves from 
    and put at arm’s length.

    Like the lawyer,
    we want Jesus to provide us that precise and clear answer we expect -
    ‘this is your neighbor and this is not’
    so that we will know how to interact with others.

    Yet, Jesus answers 
    the lawyer, and us today,
    with an invitation to find ourselves in this story of the Good Samaritan.

    Are you the wounded person in need of another’s help?
    Am I the callous, busy and unsympathetic priest and Levite rushing by?
    Are we ever the Samaritan who reads the situation correctly 
    and provides compassionate, neighborly and necessary life-giving deeds 
    for another’s healing, wellbeing and happiness?

    Sisters and brothers, 
    Who are you in this story? 
    What is God asking of you through this story?

    I think we can better answer these questions
    when we dare to enter more fully 
    into this story of the Good Samaritan.

    When, we do so, 
    we will realize that
    if we are truly made in God’s image
    and God’s law is really in our hearts
    then our world is indeed full of neighbors, just like us,
    each one a child of God, 
    each one just as worthy of God’s care and concern 
    as you and I have experienced God’s love in our own lives.

    It is by entering more deeply into this bible story of the Good Samaritan
    that we begin to understand
    that we are called to be another’s neighbor,
    called to exercise mercy that will give others all life to the full,
    like Jesus did.

    Entering into this story enables us 
    to know our God-given identity 
    and our God-given purpose of who we must be for our neighbors.

    Coming to know who we are to God, 
    who God is in our lives,
    what God’s purpose is for us 
    and how we can live to accomplish it --
    these make up the good news that the Bible stories,
    in the Old and New Testaments, reveal
    and communicate to us about God in Jesus Christ.

    This good news is what you and I are being encouraged 
    to embrace more wholeheartedly today on Bible Sunday.

    The Church invites us today:
    -- to commit ourselves to more responsibly read, pray and contemplate the    
        Bible;
    -- to turn to more readily to the Bible as the wellspring for our Christian faith to grow;
    and 
    -- to share its stories of salvation in Jesus Christ 
       and through his Spirit more generously with each other, 
       especially, with those seeking the truth.

    More significantly, the Church reminds us 
    that we can indeed enter more deeply 
    into these Bible stories and live out the good news of our Christian salvation
    because these stories that

    our mothers and fathers have shared with us,
    our catechists and lectors have taught and proclaimed for us
    our bible sharing groups have prayed about with us
    and our deacons and priests have offered their reflections on to us

    are the hope-filled presence of God’s Word --
    God’s Word that is always already with us, in us and for us.

    This presence is what our first reading proclaims,  
    as that something which very near to us,
    already in our mouths and in our hearts,
    and which we only have to carry it out to make it alive.

    When we make God’s Word that we have received 
    alive in our being, real in our words, present through our actions
    we allow God’s Word to become our spirit and our life in Jesus.

    And it is this Christ-like spirit and life that will enable us 
    to better know who you and I are
    to more resolutely walk towards where we are destined for, life with Godself.
    and to more meaningfully live our Christian life with God and one another.

    So sisters and brothers,
    shall we not join the psalmist today 
    and turn to the Lord whose words, which we find in the Bible,
    can answer our needs and truly give us life to the full? 


    preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore


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  5. Year C / 14th Sunday / Ordinary Time   
    Readings: Isaiah 66.10-14c / Ps 6(R/v 1) / Galatians 6.14-18 / 
    Luke 10.1-9

         
    Dear sisters and brothers,
    have you ever had to plan, prepare and cook 
    a dinner party for family and friends?

     Did you work hard at putting the right menu together?
    Did you search out for the best ingredients 
    and wines from various places?
    Did you spend hours cutting up the ingredients,
    marinating the meat, even making the desert ahead of time?
    And did you labor all afternoon arranging 
    and rearranging the table settings
    to create the right feel and ambiance for the evening?

     And as you did all this, 
    did you not feel that this was your sole responsibility
    to get everything just right for a successful celebration?

     If you have done this, 
    like I have when I’ve cooked the Christmas dinner 
    for my Jesuit community in Boston,
    it is probably because we share that sense 
    of ‘it’s my duty as the host to do this well and right.’ 

     And isn’t this how 
    we also sometimes understand our Christian discipleship?
    Don’t you and I, sisters and brothers,
    have that sense that Jesus calls me - me alone - 
    to carry on his good work of proclaiming God’s Kingdom 
    to the less, the least and the forgotten?

     If we are honest enough, 
    we will confess that this is how we sometimes 
    live out Jesus’ call to continue his mission.

     Yes, we do hear
    Jesus’ call, like we do this morning,
    that ‘the harvest is abundant and the laborers are few,’
    and we readily give ourselves as we have
    to Jesus’ mission of teaching, reconciling and healing
    by sharing our Christian faith with another,
    by forgiving a family member who has hurt us,
    and by caring for the less fortunate in kind or with our time. 

     But because we sometimes have that sense 
    that Jesus calls us individually,
    we respond to Jesus likewise:
    our response is about what I alone can do for Jesus,
    what I alone will bring to furthering his mission.

     Our gospel reading today
    reminds us that Jesus calls his disciples 
    to proclaim ‘the kingdom of God is at hand,’
    not individually but two by two, 
    in a community of seventy-two.

     In the same way, 
    Jesus does indeed call us personally to continue his mission.
    But he does not call us to do this privately.

    He calls us to further his work of proclaiming God’s kingdom
    as a community, not alone or individually. 

     This is how Jesus commissions his disciples
    to carry on his mission before he ascends to heaven.
    At the end of the Gospel of Matthew
    Jesus instructs his disciples to go out to the world,
    to make disciples of all the nations and to baptize them.
    They are to do this as the community 
    of Jesus' followers, not as individual believers.

     Why would Jesus call his disciples to continue his mission together? 
    We can think of several reasons:
    to share in the mission;
    to be in good company to fulfill the mission;
    to be safe in the security in numbers.

     Our second reading offers two more insights 
    into why it is good to work together to continue Jesus’ mission.

     The first is humility. 
    ‘May I never boast,’ Paul tells us, 
    ‘except in the cross of Jesus Christ.’ 
    To follow Jesus 
    is to have his humility that leads to the Cross.
    Jesus’ humility saves us for eternal life
    because it is rooted in and animates 
    self-giving love for God and others.

     Most of us are not humble by nature.
    Yet, working together 
    for Jesus’ mission can nurture Christ-like humility.
    Working in partnership to proclaim God’s Kingdom
    will always invite us to die to our self-centered wants and ways
    because we will have to listen to 
    and accommodate another’s perspective,
    even follow her better lead to realize Jesus’ mission.

     The second is peace.
    Paul reminds us that peace 
    follows those who humble themselves 
    in service to God for others and with others. 
    This is the peace of Jesus,
    present as his Spirit, when we are two or three
    gathered in his name to do his mission. 
    And it is Jesus’ Spirit -- and not our own capacities --
    who will animate, guide and secure the outcome 
    of the mission we are called to fulfill.

     Humility and peace, sisters and brothers,
    can help us better proclaim God’s kingdom.
    They enable us 
    to do what Jesus does on mission:
    to attend to one another, 
    especially, the poorer amongst us.

     Attending to another,
    to another’s need for peace,
    for accompaniment, for welcome,
    for hearing and experiencing the Good News
    is what Jesus calls his seventy disciples, and us today. 
    He warns us against obsessing
    with what to bring for the mission, 
    or how we should carry it out.
    Rather, he calls us 
    to attend to others in need.
    And, more significantly, today,
    to do this in partnership with one another.

     Indeed, to continue Jesus’ mission
    of proclaiming God’s kingdom together,
    is the experience of what we are doing
    now as we celebrate Mass.

     Our celebration of this eucharist
    cannot be anything less than 
    a communal preparation and celebration 
    of this eucharistic feast at Jesus’ table of plenty.
    None of us can do this alone.
    Together, however, with Jesus’ Spirit and with one another,
    we make this the reality of our Christian faith

     Consider our bread and wine prepared by
    by many who sowed and reaped wheat to make bread,
    by others who planted and harvested the vine for wine.
    Consider the music our choir leads us in, 
    the preparation of the gifts and altar by our sacristans and servers,
    the proclamation of God’s Words by the lectors,
    and the welcome by our greeters.
    Consider yourselves who bring your gift of faith and your prayers
    and add them to the Church’s prayers that Fr James and myself
    offer up in thanksgiving in this liturgy.

     Together, we bring our different gifts and charisms,
    each one, good enough, to be shared in this Mass 
    and together in Jesus’ Spirit 
    we offer them up to God in this 
    our thanksgiving celebration.

     Unlike the dinner parties 
    we might have cooked and planned by ourselves, 
    the reality of the eucharist we now celebrate 
    is enabled because we here together
    responding to Jesus’ call 
    to become the Body of Christ
    through our communion.

     And we become the Body of Christ together,
    blessed, broken and given together,
    through our compassion and care,
    our generosity and goodness,
    our forgiveness and fidelity for others,
    both within and without the our Christian community.
    Doing this helps us to better live our Christian discipleship
    and to better continue Jesus’ mission.

     Indeed, when we respond together to Jesus’ call
    for laborers to continue his mission in our world,
    we will be able to better reach out to 
    the abandoned and forgotten
    the discriminated and rejected
    indeed, to one and all,
    and bring them back to their rightful place 
    at this table of the Lord we gather around.

     When we do this, we can truly cry out to God
    in joy with the earth, as our psalm proclaims, 
    because the prosperity of the Lord,
    which our first reading promises us, is indeed
    for each and everyone.

     Now, isn’t this possibility of us working together
    to ensure everyone one, both the saintly and the sinful, 
    have a place at this banquet Jesus provides
    truly good news we can celebrate this morning?
    preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore
    artwork: emmaus from www.sanktmichael.de
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"Bukas Palad"
"Bukas Palad"
is Filipino for open palms
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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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