1. Year B / Eastertide / Fourth Sunday (Vocation Sunday)
    Readings: Acts 4.8-12 / Psalm 118.1,8-9, 21-23, 26, 28, 29 (R/v 22) / 1 John 3.1-2 / John 10.11-18


    Consider how mottos impact the way we live:
    “You’re a great way to fly”: and so, the Singapore Girl makes sure your SQ flight is memorable. 
    “Be Prepared”: and so, boy scouts and girl guides live in readiness to do their duty. 
    “No pain, no gain”: and so, many athletes spend hours training to excel in sports. 
    “By giving mercy and by choosing”: and so, we better understand why Francis proclaims God’s mercy to the saintly and the sinful.
    These mottos of a business, a uniform group, of athletes and a pope tell us something about how mottos encapsulate the beliefs and ideals each of them holds dear. Their mottos guide them to live and work, to play and pray. Mottos are helpful: they are like a GPS or a compass that enable one to find her direction, and finding it, to steer herself towards her desired destination. 

    What is your motto in life and faith? How is it guiding you? 

    Today is Vocation Sunday. It is a good day to reflect on these questions about mottos and our Christian vocation. What is the Christian vocation? How are we living it? Are we guided by a motto as we live out our Christian vocation? Whose motto guides us? And if the risen Jesus did leave us a motto for our life and faith, for our Christian vocation, what is it?

    The word “vocation” is too often mistakenly associated only with religious life and the priesthood. Christian married life and Christian single life are also worthy vocations in our Church. 

    “Vocation” is a word society also uses to describe how some work are not jobs or tasks but a calling: teaching, nursing, cooking, painting, even parenting come to mind.

    If so many things can be called vocation, what then is really at the heart of vocation? Vocation is not about doing, as it is about being. It is about living in a particular way and for a specific purpose. For Christians, it must be about living with God and for God. As Christians, we understand “vocation” as living in holiness to praise, reverence and serve God. We do this best in community, and by caring for God’s people. 

    Being holy is living with God and in God’s ways. But how are we to be holy? 

    The Greek word for “vocation” gives us one answer: “klay’-sis” means a calling, a summons. For Christians, vocation must be about listening to God’s call, responding to it, and living God’s call fully in our lives. The Gospel writers in particular use “klay’-sis” to describe God’s call to humankind. This is why Jesus calls us to God through his preaching and teaching, his healing and caring. 

    But what are we to trying to really hear in God’s invitation to us? It is this: God’s motto for us to live life fully and happily. 

    And, in today’s gospel story, Jesus invites us to discover again this motto to help us understand and live the purpose of Christian life.

    Jesus compares the good shepherd to a mere hired hand. The good shepherd cares about the sheep; he lays down his life for them. The hired one is mainly interested in getting paid; he cares for himself and runs away when wolves attack, leaving his sheep in danger. 

    Aren’t you and I sometimes like the hired hand? Don’t we put own wants and preferences head of God’s desires for us and of the hopes others have in us? I suspect we do this because we feel we have to hold on tightly to various handles for the good life. Handles like career and assets to assure us security in life. Handles like looks and honors to protect our reputation. Handles like money for home and education to safeguard our families. Even handles like giving enough to charity, making enough sacrifices, saying enough prayers to ensure we will get to heaven.

    What do you and I own that we cannot lose? I suspect much; and so, we grab our own handles tightly to hold on. The more we do this, however, the more we take the road downwards to become like the hired hand: not just self-centered but also irresponsible towards family and friends, employees and superiors, the poor and the needy, God entrusts into our care.

    If the hired hand had a motto, it could well be “Grab and Keep.” This is why Jesus offers us the counter example of the good shepherd; he lives and serves by a different motto. 

    The good shepherd knows his sheep intimately; this is why he can lay down his life for them. His sheep are not his possessions or handles to grab and keep. Rather, they are like handles he is called to open; indeed, his life is a calling to attend to these sheep who are like handles to doors he must open to new rooms and new possibilities. And don’t shepherds who are good open gates and fences to lead their sheep out of the paddocks to greener pastures, to better life? Their lives are at the service of those they serve. This is what the vocation of shepherding is about.

    How can the good shepherd do this? Because at the heart of shepherding is real love. 

    Real love lets go, receiving humbly, giving humbly.* There is nothing to grab and posses about real love. Instead, it is about receiving and letting go. Real love – which is rooted in God’s Love – is what empowers the shepherd to love his sheep into his self-sacrifice for them. Such love recognizes that all one has received comes from God as gift, and that it becomes truly one's gift when it is given away. The good shepherd knows this. We know this kind of love too. Isn’t this the Christian love you and I wish to have and to practice in daily life?

    The motto of the good shepherd then is “Receive and Let Go.” 

    I’d like to suggest that this is the motto Jesus wants us to remember from today’s gospel story but, more so, to live each day of our lives.  

    Why? Because this motto will help us to love, like the good shepherd does: selflessly sharing what we have received from God.  This is how we can better live holier lives in God. But this is a dangerous motto to live by: it will ask us to die to ourselves, to those parts of us that grab and keep. 

    I’d like to believe Jesus lived out this motto: he received life and love from God, and on the Cross he gave them away for us to have God’s life and love. If we live by this motto, our vocation – whatever form it takes – will truly become Christ-like. Yes, Christian vocation must be about letting go of what we have first received from God so that someone else can also have life in God. 

    This is why the Good Shepherd can risk his life for his sheep. And this is why we must dare to waste our redeemed lives in Jesus on others who are in need of Easter life and Easter joy. 

    Then, you and I, and all we share our Christian life and faith with, will truly come to know the richness of the gift the good shepherd's motto is. And it is this: that it is only in dying that we are born into eternal life.




    *Inspired in parts by John Foley, SJ

    Preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore
    Photo: www.thebridgemaker.com

    Posted by
    Labels: Breaking Open God's Word Easter
    0

    Add a comment

  2. Year B / Eastertide / Third Sunday 
    Readings: Acts 3.13-15, 17-19 / Psalm 4.2, 4, 7-8, 9 (R/v 7a) / 1 John 2.1-5a / Luke 24.35-48


    He waited expectantly for the promised Thomas the Train set. When Mommy and Daddy handed down his elder brother's train, he cried out “No, don’t want; old!”

    She placed the earrings, a family heirloom, into her daughter-in-law’s hands. “They’re not even 24 carat gold,” the wife complained to her husband. 

    They moved into their renovated offices: the paint was fresh, the fittings new but some furniture was as before. “Still broken,” they grumbled.

    No to the old. Out with the dull. Reject the broken.

    Isn’t this how you and I sometimes look at things in our lives? Don’t we prefer the new, the bright and the expensive? Who amongst us happily accepts and gives thanks for what we don’t like?

    And doesn’t this disdain, this ingratitude for what we don’t like and don’t want extend to how we sometimes treat the poor, the criminal, the other, be she a prostitute, or he a homosexual, or they those maids, those hawker centre cleaners, those foreign workers, in our midst? 

    If you are like me, we have to admit that we would much prefer the good, better, best in our lives; after all, there is really nothing in anything else. So, let’s push them out of sight, out of mind. 

    But isn’t it ironic that the one we, as a people of faith, most long for, the risen Jesus, comes to us wounded, broken, scarred? 

    This is how Jesus comes to his friends in today’s gospel story; he stands in their midst, his wounds visible, and greets them. “Peace.” I’m sure the disciples did not expect "peace" to be the risen Jesus’ first word to them. They had failed him, and they probably expected to hear words of regret, recrimination, and reproach. But “Peace” is all Jesus said. In this moment of astounding simplicity, Jesus simply offers the gift of silent acceptance and unconditional love.* Peace, no matter how much his disciples had failed him. And peace, no matter how grave and how often we sin.

    “Peace” helps us understand why Jesus asked them, “Why are you troubled?” Troubled because they wanted to make sense of Jesus risen and alive. But troubled much more, I think, because Jesus continues to love. “How can Jesus still love, after we have failed him?” they could have asked themselves. We too should be troubled by Jesus’ continuing presence in our lives, moment by moment, in every choice we make for good or for bad, loving always us into salvation.  

    How does Jesus prove his enduring, saving love for us all? “Touch me and see,” he says. 

    The wounds in his hands and on his feet – holes his disciples would have seen and felt – speak of God’s forgiving love. With his wounded, broken and scarred body, Jesus revealed the love of God to his disciples once, and again to us tonight. This love led him to the Cross but it also disfigured him with wounds, signs of God’s saving love. In the resurrection, Jesus’ risen body continues to be scarred by his wounds; and now, they must remind us that God’s love saves by giving us new life.

    I’d like to suggest that we can only know this reality of God’s saving love in Jesus by seeing and touching his body, and so, enter into the mystery of resurrection life. Jesus patiently led the disciples in today’s gospel story to experience and believe in his resurrection. He came to them where they were. He invited them to touch his body; it may have been wounded, broken and scarred by human evil but it was raised into life by the love of God. And by eating a “piece of baked fish,” he testified that he had indeed risen. 

    Doesn’t Jesus also patiently bring us into his resurrection life? Doesn’t he come to us where we are, touch us with his forgiveness, and invite us to come to his table, feeding us with his risen Body, wounded, broken and scarred as it is?

    In a few minutes, we will hold his body in our hands, before nourishing our lives with his body in Communion. Isn’t this the most concrete way Jesus continues to prove his saving love for you and me no matter how pure or sinful we are as we come to him? “Touch; see; eat.” And we do so because we believe in Jesus risen and alive. “Amen” is the right and holy response we can make as God’s creation to the resurrection life we partake of in Jesus, most palpably at every Mass. Yes, “Amen,” “so be it that you, my Lord and my God, have risen, and we, your friends, are alive.” 

    Our gospel story extends this Easter invitation to us: to let the risen Jesus come alive in us and for us amidst what we don’t like and what we don’t want. 

    Can we let the risen Jesus reveal himself in the old we don’t want, the dull we would rather shun, and the broken we dislike and prefer throwing out? Do we dare step back and allow Jesus to come alive in our encounters with those we have judged wounded because they have sinned, those we have branded broken by their lifestyle choices, and those we have scarred in our hatred and rejection? 

    Perhaps, if we dare to let Jesus reveal himself in our lives and in our encounters with others, we might discover the gracious mercy of God labouring in them all. That divine mercy that never condemns what human evil disfigures but bends low, embraces it up, like a mother for her child, and transfigures it in divine love. This is the glory of God’s saving love that Jesus reveals in his wounded, broken, scarred but risen body. 

    I’d like to believe that when we can let Jesus come alive in us, we will experience the immense goodness of God’s merciful love in us and for us – we who are also wounded, broken and scarred yet profoundly loved, mercifully forgiven again and again, and truly saved already. 

    Then, we will really know the depth of Easter as God wishes us to have, to know and to believe in. And it is this: the joy of being wrong.** 

    Wrong to see that God’s saving love is restricted to the good, the wholesome, the clean of heart: because God is also there in the bad, the broken, those whose hearts are stained by sin  to redeem them like God has redeemed us.

    Wrong to insist that God’s saving love depends on how many boxes I tick “yes” as an obedient Christian: because God is also there for those who don’t always follow the Church’s rules and regulations but whose faith still trusts in God, like we do too.

    Wrong to think that God’s saving love is mine alone in Jesus: because God is always there in Jesus for all people of goodwill, even if they are of another faith.

    Yes, Easter life is to have the grace to look back on our sinfulness of not liking and not wanting what we have or what we are given, and to appreciate how God is already there waiting to redeem us for life. This then is the Easter joy of being wrong about ourselves, about who God is and who we are to God in Jesus. 

    The disciples discovered this truth in the risen Jesus’ first word that consoled, uplifted, loved: “Peace.”  They then went forth and proclaimed this good news.

    Will you and I let Jesus speak his peace to us, and show us the Easter joy of being wrong this evening, so that he can then send us forth to say to another, and another and to all,  "peace be with you"?




    * The Monks, Spencer Abbey
    ** James Alison, The Joy of Being Wrong: Original Sin Through Easter Eyes.


    Preach at St Ignatius Church, Singapore
    Photo: www.timesofmalta.com

    Posted by
    Labels: Breaking Open God's Word Easter
    0

    Add a comment

  3. Year B / Eastertide / Second Sunday 
    Readings: Acts 4.32-35/ Psalm 118.2-4, 13-15, 22-24 (R/v 1) / 1 John 5.1-6 / John 20.19-31


    We sat in a circle around a box with its top removed. “What do you think is in it?” the facilitator asked. We made our guesses. Then, one by one we went up to the open box and peered in. Some looked surprised. Some were puzzled. Some laughed. Some shook their heads. One or two stared for a long time. We saw what the box contained, and we knew the answer. 

    Seeing and knowing is one way we make sense of our lives and our world. We see traffic lights changing, and we know that we should stop or move forward. We see a baby crying and we know it’s time to feed it. We see a rainbow and we know it is because light refracts. And when we see our ordered life unraveling, we know it’s time to re-evaluate our life choices. 

    To see and to know is a theme in our gospel reading today. We are all familiar with the story of Thomas; he wanted to see Jesus in order to know that he had indeed risen. He was not satisfied with the disciples’ report of Jesus’ resurrection. He needed certain proof. “Unless I see the wounds and touch them, I will not believe,” Thomas said.

    We believe because we see and know. Isn’t this why we pay attention to what we see and how we know? Parents want to see and analyze their children’s academic grades; then, they’d believe the teacher’s remarks. Patients want to see and accept the results of the diagnosis; then, they’d believe in their doctor’s advice.Investors want to see and scrutinize a country’s economic policies; then, they’d believe their investments are right.

    These examples suggest that believing is easy; we only need to see and know. But isn’t believing really hard work? Doesn’t believing demand that we surrender control, and have faith and trust? 

    Each of us knows how much we struggle to believe in God whom we cannot ever see but profess our faith in at each Sunday Mass we celebrate. Aren’t we sometimes like Thomas: “Unless I see, I won’t believe”? How then can you and I truly see, know and believe God in the risen Jesus who we will never see? Today’s gospel story invites us to reflect on this question. 

    The first disciples struggled to make sense of the risen Jesus. The women who went to the tomb on Easter morning and heard the Angel proclaiming Jesus’ resurrection, probably asked, “Has he risen, as he said he would?” The disciples on the road to Emmaus, recognizing the risen Jesus in their shared meal, could have pondered, “Will he always be with us when we break bread in memory of him?” Mary Magdalene upon hearing the voice of her beloved rabbi could have asked, “Is that you, Jesus? Do you love me still?”

    Thomas’ story sums up the challenge of Christian discipleship: to find the risen Jesus we cannot see in our everyday lives, to make sense of his presence, and to believe in him. Then, we can love Jesus more dearly, know him more intimately and follow him more closely. 

    How can we do this? Not by seeing and believing. But by experiencing how much we are loved.  

    Only when Jesus speaks her name does Mary Magdalene know him. At first she couldn’t recognize him, but Mary knew that distinctive voice: the voice that called her to wholeness when she was in sin; the voice that welcomed her into his circle of friends; the voice that told her she was valued in God’s eyes; the voice that answered her or laughed over a meal; the voice that cried out in pain from the cross. Mary knew that voice because it was a voice that had spoken to her in love. Then she knew who it was.* 

    Sometimes seeing is not believing; loving is.

    And only when Jesus lovingly takes Thomas’ hand to touch his wounded body does Thomas believe. He couldn’t believe Jesus had risen because he had not seen him, but Thomas knew Jesus’ life-giving touch: that touch that healed and restored the sick and the sightless; that touch that multiplied the five fish and two loaves to feed the crowds; that touch that forgave the sinful and welcomed them as his friend; that touch that caressed the wood of the cross upon which he gave offered up his life to God to save us from sin and death. Thomas knew that touch because it originates from the One who came to give the fullness of life. Then Thomas knew that Jesus was alive.

    Yes, sometimes seeing is not believing; loving really is.

    And what about you and me? Like the first disciples, aren’t we trying to make sense of Jesus, risen and no longer in our midst, yet still with us and for us? Aren’t we experiencing God’s love, and more so God’s mercy, as we follow Jesus in living life and having faith? Haven’t we experienced forgiveness when our sins are forgiven in Confession? Haven’t we known grace when a teacher or employer acknowledges gives us a second chance in spite our mistakes? Haven’t we been loved unconditionally when someone accepts us as we are, and says with great confidence, marry me or be my friend? 

    Yes, sometimes seeing is not believing; being loved is believing. 

    And why should it matter to you and me that loving is believing? 

    When my friends and I peered into that box 34 years ago at a retreat in St Joseph's Institution, this is what we saw: a reflection of ourselves in a mirror. A reflection of ourselves as we were at 16 years old, with our strengths and our weaknesses, our lights and our shadows, our saintliness and our sinfulness. “And this is who you are, who God created you to be; and God created you very good and will always love you, even if you sin,” the facilitator said to sum up the exercise. 

    This morning, with Thomas, you and I have also experienced the love of Jesus. Love that his greeting of peace announces. Love that his touch assures. Love that his presence continues to give. Yes, the love of Jesus that always blesses us to continue believing in God and God’s love and mercy.

    But Jesus’ love also reflects back to us who we are as Christians. That deep within and alive in each of us is this great Easter gift Jesus has given to all believers, and through us, to the world — a hope-filled faith that can really trust in God’s love to always forgive and God's mercy to always give life. This is the faith that has brought us here, no matter whether we are in a state of grace or in the shadow of sin. This is our faith; it comes from God. This is our faith in Jesus who saves. This is God's gift of Easter faith to you and me. And yes, this is the Christian faith that Jesus celebrates today: “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believe.”





    *Brian Purfield, "Woman, who are you looking for?" (March, 2015)

    Preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore
    artwork: detail from painting (Internet: impressionsblog.com)

    Posted by
    Labels: Breaking Open God's Word Easter
    0

    Add a comment

  4. Year B / Eastertide / Easter Sunday
    Readings: Acts 10.34a, 37-43/ Psalm 118.1-2, 16-17, 22-23 (R/v 24) / Colossians 3.1-4 / John 20.1-9


    What if all it took was a minute of hope to free one from death-like fear? A minute of peace to soothe the unbearable pain of suffering? A minute of clarity to pierce the numbing confusion of loss? And a minute of truth to know that the uncertain wait is over, and life can go on better?

    These might be some of the experiences Jesus’ disciples felt that first Easter morning. The women who went to the tomb might have experienced these: hearing the Angel proclaim Jesus’ resurrection, they took a few moments to realize this truth. Then fearful yet overjoyed, they ran to announce this good news to the apostles. Mary Magdalene might also have experienced them: she admonished the gardener for Jesus’ missing body but upon hearing him call her name, she paused. Then, sensing in his voice the timbre and cadence of her beloved, she recognized her beloved rabboni, Jesus, risen from the death, and loving her still. 

    And, yes, these could have also been the experiences the beloved disciple John had as he ran with Peter to the empty tomb that we hear about this morning's gospel story: John looked in, saw Jesus’ burial shroud folded up, and, taking a deep breath, believed.

    The Gospels tell us that all it took for the disciples to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead was just a minute, or two. And then, their lives changed forever.

    Now, what if all it takes this Easter is just a minute, or two, for you and me -- amidst our Easter liturgies and celebrations -- to see anew what is the unimaginable? To recognize hope alive when all is despairing? To believe even as we struggle to deepen our faith? Yes, to simply look and see and to know again that Jesus is indeed risen and alive?

    How can we do this? By keeping alive the truth that Jesus’ love doesn’t forget but always remembers us. Thus, when we experience the memory of Jesus coming alive in daily life, the power of his Word and the promise of his Resurrection will throb in us as the heartbeat of our lives.

    “Do not forget what I have done for you,” Jesus said incessantly in the Gospels. Christian discipleship is about remembering what Jesus did for us: that he died to save us from sin and he rose from the dead so that we will live, not die.

    This is why when we are overwhelmed by sorrows and sufferings, we should remember Jesus’ love. When our lives are not progressing as we hope for or we have meandered into dark corners, we must recall his love. When all we say and do to be good Christians only leads us back to the sin, we must never forget the love of Jesus.

    Why? Because Jesus’ love is not just that selfless love of dying on the Cross to save us. It is also his hope-filled love in a God who will always forgive us and love us into the fullness of life. This is the kind of love Jesus calls us to also make our own. Why? Because his hope-filled love in God is the way, the truth and the life to our salvation. 

    At the heart of this way of loving God is Jesus’ confident anticipation in God’s faithful goodness. Jesus loved like this in the Last Supper and to the end on the Cross. And God loving this confidence Jesus believed in lifted him from the dead into life eternal. Today, we celebrate God’s faithful, life-giving love for Jesus meeting and uplifting Jesus’ hope-filled love for God into God’s embrace. This is why Jesus asks us throughout the Gospels to go and do likewise: to not just love others selflessly in service, but to also love God confidently in hope.

    In a few moments, we will gather around this altar, and remember Jesus’ love for us. Take this all of you and eat of it for this is my body. Take this all of you and drink of it for this is my blood, poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of me. Yes, we will do this in grateful memory of him whose self-giving in body and blood saved us. But we also celebrate and believe that through Jesus, with Jesus and in Jesus, risen and alive, God’s life is ours, restored and never ever to be broken.  These are God’s loving gifts of Easter joy and Easter life.

    We can remember, celebrate and believe in these Easter gifts because we have already experienced that minute or two when the risen Jesus came to us, called us by name and revealed himself alive for us. 

    However this happened in our everyday lives before, or today in our Easter liturgy, or in the quiet of each prayer-time, then, like John, in that minute or two, we will always see, know and believe in the goodness of the risen Jesus alive with us and for us. We can make no better response in these graced encounters, then to do what we do at Communion: “Amen,” we say with a nod, or a smile, or a heart humbled and grateful upon receiving Jesus.

    Our Easter joy and Easter life are meant to be shared, not hoarded or possessed.  How can we share the risen Jesus with the world? The answer we give will determine the quality of ho we live Easter life and its joy as Christians.

    Let me suggest an answer to this question: by living in the spirit of the risen Jesus generously. We know what this spirit involves: in that minute or two when the risen Jesus encounters us, we always experience nothing less than Jesus’ more excellent way of loving us. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul describes this way as that that more faithful and selfless way of loving to the end. The risen Jesus returns to us not just to proclaim God’s power over sin and death but to also declare his love for us to the end of time. 

    Today, the risen Jesus invites us to love others like he does: faithfully, selflessly, loving to the end. Then, they too will experience the dawning of Easter in their lives, as we are experiencing it now when we look out and see the Easter light breaking up the darkness of the night. For them, it will not be just a minute or two of encountering the risen Jesus. But like us, it must be the beginning of what the Jesuit poet Gerard Manly Hopkins prays is a new lifetime of “letting Jesus easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east.” (The Wreck of the Deutschland)



    Preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore
    Photo: sunrise at ocenaside beach, victoria, australia by phil thompson (internet)

    Posted by
    Labels: Breaking Open God's Word Easter
    0

    Add a comment

"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!
The Liturgical Calendar / Year C
The Liturgical Calendar / Year C
Faith & Spirituality
Faith & Spirituality
Tagged as...
Tagged as...
Blog Archive
Blog Archive
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
About Me
My Photo
is a 50something Catholic who resides in Singapore and works for the Church. He is a priest of the Roman Catholic Church.
Disclaimer
Disclaimer
©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.
Loading