1. Year B / Ordinary Time / Twenty-sixth Sunday
    Readings: Numbers 11.25-29 / Psalm 18.8-10, 12-13, 14(R/v 9a) / James 5.1-6 / Mark 9.38-43, 45, 47-48


    Have you ever watched boys play football at recess time? They begin by dividing themselves into teams. I often see our secondary boys selecting their teams whenever I look out onto the green field at St Joseph’s Institution. Each team has a strong sense of togetherness, that sense of “us” versus “them” when the match begins.

    “Us” and “them”. This is what we hear at the beginning of today’s gospel reading. John is complaining to Jesus of one who drives out demons but is not one of them, one of Jesus’ followers. This man is one of those.

    John’s use of “us” and “them” echoes a very human way we all interact with others. Think of how we express ourselves towards one another: you, me; men, women; Asian, not American; straight, not gay; professional and blue collared; long time parishioners and newbies. And as Pope Francis reminds us in his recent homily in New York City, city dwellers and the faceless migrants in their midst.

    This divide between “us” and “them” has also marked how humankind has fought to relate to God. It is as old as the story of the Israelites claiming Yahweh as their God against the Egyptians and the Caanites, and it is as contemporary as the actions of Islamic fundamentalists like ISIS who persecute Assyrian Christians.

    Sadly, human beings don’t usually think of the common things we share; we are quicker to highlight our differences. We don’t need to look very far for this evidence. How many times have you and I welcomed those like us to receive communion but harshly turned others away from communion because he is divorced, she has remarried, they are homosexual. We judge those others on the basis of who’s better than and who’s worse than in our eyes, not in God’s. Sadly, I sometimes do this; may be you do too. 

    Our first reading challenges us to examine if this human way of judging and dividing is our way of living. We hear of how God blesses seventy elders for them to help Moses govern the wandering Israelites and prophesize about God. Two of them are however not present at this blessing. Yet God’s spirit comes to rest on them and they begin to prophesy in the camp. Moses receives a complaint against them and a call to stop them. He does not. Instead, he wishes for God’s Spirit to embrace everyone else. Moses responds as he does because he recognizes what is common between the elders who were present at the blessing and those who were not: God’s spirit is in them all.

    Are we like Moses in our everyday life, striving to see God’s spirit present in another?  Do we understand how God’s spirit is common between us and them because all are created in God’s image? Or, are we simply distracted by differences?

    Our gospel reading challenges us even more. It asks us to reflect on “Who can do the works of grace in the name of Jesus?” and “Who belongs and who does not?” These questions force us to reflect honestly on how our ways of judging and dividing prevent us from accomplishing our baptismal call to mission. 

    Our answers to these questions will either cripple us from cooperating with those God places in our lives for the mission or free us to partner them. I believe that whether we work in the world or minister in the church, whether we are lay, religious or ordained, whether we are charismatically gifted or spiritually poor for the mission, God never calls us to mission alone but in community.

    Jesus teaches this in the first section of today’s Gospel passage when he answers John’s complaint. He says: those who do good work do so with and in his name; and they should not be prevented from doing so. For Jesus, these people are the collaborators God wants us to reach out to and include in our mission. Why? Because their good works come from and lead back to God. 

    Indeed, God’s goodness can be fuel for our mission when we draw on the life-giving experience of inclusiveness. This is possible when we welcome another into our Christian life, faith and work as our partner and collaborator, and not as a competitor or enemy. For example, children complain about parents, as much as parents complain about children. Each however needs the other for the mission of loving each other into that communion and commonwealth we call “the family”.  Their mission would be poorer if one didn’t have the other.

    Christian discipleship is about following Jesus’ way of bringing about inclusion and unity, not exclusion and division. Hence, “us” and “them” cannot be on our lips, nor can it be the fruit of our labors. This is why Jesus’ teaching is important: it answers the question about who belongs and who does not, who is in and who is out, who is with us and who is against us. 

    Jesus shows us two ways to be inclusive and to build community in the second section of today’s gospel passage.  

    First, Jesus teaches generosity toward others. We cannot be generous unless we learn to be less selfish and self-centered. Doing this better transforms us for mission. This is why being generous is how we are blessed for mission. This is the lesson behind Jesus’ words about generosity towards others of goodwill when we offer them a cup of water.  
    Second, Jesus cautions against division by leading others into sin. When he teaches about ridding a community of those who lead others into sin, he is challenging us to consider how our actions can divide and break up.  We know how painful this action is because we squirm when we hear Jesus’ analogy of removing body parts that make the soul sinful. Jesus’ warning is wisdom for our mission: we are to foster the one body of many parts that God’s kingdom must be on earth, not divide it. 

    The purpose of Christian life is to lovingly reconcile differences into union with God and communion with all. If you agree with me about this, then, Jesus’ teaching today is not about being better than others. It is really about being better for them. Jesus himself did this for the disciples, as he still does this for us: he meets us in every moment of our lives to inspire us to become better disciples. Then, he sends us out to do the same for someone else. It seems that you and I are better for each other because Jesus has made us better than we judge ourselves to be.

    The teams on the SJI football field dribble and back-pass, they defend and strike, they kick and rush and score. When the end of recess bell sounds, they give each other a high-five. Some give one another a slap on the back, while others give a thumbs up saying, “good game” to one another. Then, they return to class, sweaty and smelly, but together to continue learning.

    Their coming together again reminds me of the kind of unity our Christian communities can enjoy when you and I remember who we really are with Jesus. We are not just his students, nor is he just our teacher. Rather, Jesus and you and I are one in God. 

    Now, whom else should each of us invite to join us in our oneness?



    Preached at St Ignatius Church
    Photo from imgkid.com


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  2. Year B / Ordinary Time / Twenty-fifth Sunday
    Readings: Wisdom 2.12a, 17-20 / Psalm 53.3-4, 5, 6 and 8 (R/v 1b) / James 3.16-4.3 / Mark 9.30-37


    “Are you listening?”

    “Are you listening?” asked the teacher of the noisy class he was instructing for the Science practical.

    “Are you listening?” demanded the wife of her husband, glued to the football channel and ignoring her worries about the kids.

    “Are you listening?” the boss said to the employee he was correcting again for  the same error made.

    “Are you listening?” 

    It is a frequent question we have been asked, and one we ask of others too.  If we are honest, our answer would be that sometimes we just weren't listening. We weren’t listening because we were probably distracted and following the devices and desires of our own hearts. 

    I’d like to think that “Are you listening?” is the unspoken question Jesus is really challenging his disciples to answer in today’s gospel passage. Why? Here is Jesus working to raise a family of disciples, teaching them his ways, only to find them listening to their desires to live their way.

    Our gospel passage begins with Jesus teaching his disciples about hardship, suffering, death and resurrection. These things are ahead of him, and also ahead of his disciples But they aren’t listening attentively enough; they talk among themselves about greatness and glory, and how these should lie ahead of them. They speak like most human beings do: caring for self and self-interests.

    Doesn’t this focus on greatness and glory sound a lot like our endless, feel good conversations, talks, seminars in Church that Jesus has saved us and we don’t have to do anything more? Yes, there are some scripture readings, and perhaps some homilies, that speak about suffering and its redemptive role in Christian discipleship. Paul describes this in this way: suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character, hope, and how hope does not disappoint us because it is God’s love poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. 

    But aren’t our hearts really captivated by our very human dreams that we’re already saved for greatness and glory? Don’t we want conversations, sharings and homilies about good times than challenging ones? Don’t we much prefer the happy, Good News of Christmas than the painful Good Friday truth that it is in dying that we are born to eternal life? 

    “Are you listening?” Jesus is asking.

    What should we be listening to? To this: that the way to salvation, God’s glory and greatness for us, lies in our dying to self for others

    Jesus teaches this as the way, the truth and the life that will lead him into God’s glory and greatness. He wants those who follow him to do the same. 

    This is a hard teaching. For many of us, this is probably the least acceptable teaching of Christianity. Many walk away from it. You and I know many who have done so. But let’s not be so quick to point them out. What about you and I? Haven’t we at times not onlywalked away but also ran very far from Jesus’ teaching when we heard the call to sacrifice ourselves for another’s life? How many times? May be like me, you’d admit, “too many”.

    So how can we begin to learn this teaching Jesus gives us and learn how to live fully? By paying attention to Jesus’ words and action as he draws a child into the midst of his disciples.

    By placing a child before his disciples, Jesus counsels them and us to be child-like. We will always be able to learn his teaching when we are child-like.

    The child Jesus drew into the middle was probably hanging around Jesus and his disciples: curious about them and open to hearing Jesus’ words. I’d like to imagine that he was probably disobeying his mother by being out and about, and not at home. Yet, here is a child whose heart was not yet so fixed in unrelenting ways and whose curiosity kept him open to learning. Perhaps, this is why he hung around and listened to Jesus, a little longer perhaps than most others would.

    Could Jesus be challenging you and I to measure ourselves against this child? To become more child-like in how we listen to his teaching, and more so, to consider the quality of how we receive it. Do we do so with openness, curiosity and welcome? Do we make his teaching our own? Or, do we pick and choose? Or, will we turn and walk away from it again? 

    Jesus also draws this child before his disciples and us as a reminder that these little ones will save us into God’s greatness. How so?  Because they will invite us to die to our desires and live selflessly to give them life to the full. 

    In Jesus’ time, children, like women, orphans, lepers, tax collectors and prostitutes were banished to society’s edges. They were the poor; they were best forgotten. It is the same today: as Pope Francis observes, the poor still embarrass us, and we hide from them.  

    But Jesus teaches that it is these poor—the last, the lost and the least—whom we must place before ourselves and serve wholeheartedly. For Jesus, greatness is not about reversing the first/last order.  He is insisting on a radically different way of understanding what being first, being great, means: it is about taking on God’s humble, self-denying way to become one like us and to serve us to the end, even onto death. 

    Putting aside our desires so another can have a better life. This is always a hard teaching to listen to, and a truly challenging call to live it out well in everyday life.

    Yet, this teaching must be for us Christians hope-filled. Hope-filled precisely because when we can listen to those who reach out to us in their poverty, suffering and pain to be with them, to uplift them, to forgive them, and to give them life, we will be surprised by who we will really encounter in those moments. 

    For then, we might glimpse in their faces the face of our crucified Jesus, and hear in their cries the loving timbre of his voice. And as we recognize Jesus in crucified sisters and brothers, we will remember and believe even more in what Jesus crucified did for you and me and all peoples: he rose from the dead that we might enjoy the glory of life’s bounty in God. 

    “Are you really listening?” Jesus is asking us. 

    What will your answer be?




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

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  3. Year B / Ordinary Time / Twenty-third Sunday
    Readings: Isaiah 35.4-7a / Psalm 145. 6c-7, 8-9a, 9bc-10 (R/v 1b) / James 2.1-5 / Mark 7.31-37


    One of my joys of studying theology in Boston and preparing for priesthood was living with newly ordained Jesuits. They would preside at our community mass and I would learn from them. 

    Once, a newly ordained friend, barely a few weeks into his priesthood, began a community mass by coming late. He wore the wrong vestment colour for this feast day. He preached on the wrong readings. He said “oops” and apologized. He forgot that there was a dedicated Eucharistic Preface for the feast. He set the altar, leaving the deacon confused about his role. He forgot to pour the drop of water into the wine. At the end of Mass, he forgot to let the deacon give the dismissal.

    “What a mess!” I remarked to an older Jesuit. Being wiser, he simply said: “He's probably nervous. Besides God’s grace still works, yes? Didn’t we celebrate Eucharist?” Here I was fretting that my friend’s mistakes would make the sacrament less sacred, only to have this wiser Jesuit teach me that there was sacredness in the messiness: God was present. 

    The truth is, God is present at all times in our lives: in the good, the bright, the perfect, as well as the bad, the dark, the imperfect. 

    This is the hope, I think, our gospel reading this morning offers us. We see God present in Jesus healing the deaf and mute man. But it is a healing that could only happen because Jesus chose to enter into the messiness that the deformity of deafness and the imperfection of being mute are. 

    How do we know Jesus chooses to heal by entering into the messiness? By paying attention to Mark’s description of this healing. Jesus took the deaf man aside for healing. Jesus touched the deformed ears that could not hear. Jesus spat and touched this man’s tongue that could not speak. Then Jesus cried Ephphata, “Be Opened,” and immediately the man’s ears open to hear and his tongue loosened to speak.

    This is not a sterile, hygienic healing. It involves Jesus rolling up his sleeves, so to speak, and getting dirty. He engages the messiness to bring out of it healing and restoration for the deaf and mute man.

    Haven’t we have experienced Jesus’ healing and restoration many a time in the messiness of our lives? It might have been in the embrace of our parents when we failed in school. Or, when friends supported you when were ill, or your work was terminated. It could even have been in those gracious words a confessor said to remind you of God loving you even more in your sinfulness. 

    Whatever our experiences of Jesus’ healing and restoration are, and no matter how many times we have experienced them, there is always a question we need to answer. It is this:  “Why would Jesus want to heal me in my messiness?” 

    “Be opened!” Jesus commands the deaf-mute man. Jesus’ call is more than a matter of physical healing. It is call to see and embrace the sign of God’s salvation.  Jesus heals; his action is God's superabundant life breaking open our messy human lives, so often soiled, stained and spoilt by human sin. 

    He breaks us open to the holy possibilities God wishes to give us: God’s healing and life; God’s mercy and forgiveness; God’s love and intimacy. And yes, Jesus especially breaks us open to God’s desire to be present in our messiness to save us.

    We often approach miracles like today’s healing with a myopic perspective: what is in it for me, we all want to know. Today Jesus’ command to the deaf-mute man is also his command to us. But it is not for healing only; it is for us to open ourselves to the universal significance of God’s healing. This is: God’s salvation is for all. 

    This movement from me to all, from self to community, from church to the world is seen in the juxtaposition of our 1st Reading and Gospel Reading. The theme is the same: God saves. Where Isaiah poetically proclaims this in the 1st Reading to the Israelites, Mark presents Jesus’ action in his gospel as the truth for all peoples, regardless of colour, tongue and faith. 

    How can our ears and eyes—yes, our whole being—then not be open to this Good News that God's salvation is for all, and our tongues loosened to proclaim it when we see Jesus healing the deaf-mute man? It can only be in how you and I respond to Jesus’ command, “Be Open.” The most Christian way to respond to Jesus is to recognize him as God’s Word we must hear. Why? Because Jesus summons us to live a life of faith, hope and charity. 

    Faith, that we can hear Jesus properly, and let him heal us from spiritual deafness. Hope, that we will receive God’s life fully and deeply. And charity, that having received God’s life, we can let Jesus empower us share with others what we experienced as God’s goodness. Faith, hope and charity: these make the messiness of life bearable, meaningful, and most of all salvific because God is with us and for us. 

    This is why there is probably no time in our life when we should not ask for the healing of the blindness of our hearts. It is likely, too, that any time is a good one to ask Jesus to bless us with the prayer, Ephphatha, “Be opened!” For the better we can hear the Gospel, the better we will grow out of the messiness of our lives and into God’s life.

    Perhaps, it is when we dare to open our hearts to Jesus’ command that we will understand what the older, wiser Jesuit taught me Boston some years ago: “God’s grace always works.” Then, we will know that what we will shortly proclaim in the Nicene Creed, that we believe in God, the creator “of all things visible and invisible,” is very true. It is because God who was present in the messiness of my friend presiding at Mass, is also very much present in the messiness of our lives—always with us so that we can have life to the full.



    Preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore
    photo: www.nailschool.com

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"Bukas Palad"
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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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