1. Year A / Ordinary Time / Week 21 / Sunday
    Readings: Isaiah 22.19-23 / Psalm 137.1-2a, 2bc-3, 6, 8bc (R/v 8c) / Romans 11.33-36 / Matthew 16.13-20

    “I am disturbed.” Sisters and brothers, have you ever felt like this?  Felt disturbed when family or friends you have known for the longest time stopped you one day and asked you, “Who am I to you?” Did this question make you doubt everything you are to each other as family or friends? Did you feel disturbed?

    “I am disturbed.” I imagine this is how Peter and the apostles might have felt when they were confronted by Jesus’ question, “But who do you say I am?” Disturbed because here is Jesus, the teacher they followed and the Messiah they hoped for, asking them about the meaning of his life in their lives. 

    I think we would be small minded to interpret Jesus’ question to be only about identity and recognising it. I’d like to suggest that this question is really about opening oneself to a fuller relationship. Because hidden in Jesus’ question is this unsaid invitation: “Do you want to enter into deeper friendship with me?”

    We have all experienced similar moments when someone’s question led us into deeper relationship. Perhaps, it was an acquaintance in school or at work who asked that question that led to a lifelong friendship. Or, it was the woman or man you dated who one day asked you that question that led to lifelong commitment and marriage. It could one day be that question you and I will ask our loved ones as death draws near because we want to hear them say, “Papa, mama, grandpa, grandma, you loved me; I love you too.”

    “Who do you say I am?” This is that question into deeper, fuller relationship Jesus asked his disciples in today’s gospel story. Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” You and I believe that Peter replied from the depths of his being about who Jesus is in his life. I am not sure if Peter knew the correctness of his answer then, but he took a stand in faith and declared what he really thought in belief. That was all Jesus wanted. 

    I’d like to suggest that Jesus’ question is very good for us too. It should make us pause right now on our journey of life and faith and really take stock of our friendship with Jesus. 

    We hear Jesus’ question in the gospel reading. It is not meant for the apostles only. He is really addressing us: “Who do you say I am?” He demanding our honest answer. He is challenging us to consider how willing we are, and how much more, we want to let him enter into our lives and transform us. Beware: our answer will shape the kind of Christian life we want and the kind of Christian charity we hope to share. This is why Jesus’ question must disturb us.

    And disturb us it must in this time of the Church’s Liturgical Calendar we call Ordinary Time. During the expectant advent joy and the delight of Christmas, the sobriety of Lent reflection and the Easter rejoicing, the solemnities and feast days, we find ourselves having more time to pay attention to Jesus in our lives. In Ordinary Time, however, our everyday life, our daily chores and our weekend recreation tend to distract us more. This everyday ordinariness sweeps us along a rhythm of life that seems the same, day in and day out. This is a rhythm that can comfortably lure us into complacency: nothing needs mending; everything is fine; I come to Sunday mass; I go to confession if I need to; I pray when I can; I give to the poor when I am asked to. And so, it is very easy for you and me to forget that we are being called to attend to Jesus who asks us at every moment, “Who do you say I am?

    Yes, even now. “Who you say I am?” Jesus is asking you and me right here, right now. He wants us to consider how much we want to enter into friendship with him. What will our answer be? Are we ready to answer? Will we answer, or will we stand by and wait for another time? Or, will we slowly step back and away from answering?

    However we will respond to these questions, we need to keep in mind that Jesus’ question is God’s grace: it gives us another chance to enter into deeper intimacy with Jesus. This is why Jesus keeps asking us the same question. If we truly hear Jesus’ question and we really want to answer him as Peter did, “You are the Christ”, then we must be prepared to be disturbed. Disturbed because Jesus is making us account for our faith in him, our belief to follow him, our love for God with him.

    But we must be disturbed too because something more profound is being revealed in Jesus’ question. We believe that Jesus is God-made-man. In asking this question and leaving the answer to us, Jesus reveals the utter vulnerability of God before us: we have freedom to choose our answer. We have freewill to say, “You are the Christ” or not. Jesus only asks the question. In Jesus we have a God who does not demand our love; we are free to love him, or not. Which other god would make himself so vulnerable to us to choose God in our human freedom, to act for God with our human freewill, and to love God with our human love, or not at all? 

    This surprising revelation of who God is and what God does for us is indeed the hidden surprise in Jesus’ question. His question must disturb us because God’s vulnerability is indeed his gift to us. Only when we embrace God’s vulnerability will we know the magnitude of God’s love. The love of God to become like us so as to give himself over to us in trust—believing as only God can—that we, in our dignity, will welcome him freely and rightly into our lives, and so, let him transform and save us. Which other god will make himself so vulnerable to do this for us?

    In return all God asks of us is to do what Peter once did: to take a stand in faith, and to profess in belief who Jesus is in our lives.  Peter said, “You are the Christ”. We too are being invited to make the same profession of faith. 

    Jesus responded to Peter with these words: “Blessed are you, Simon Son of Jonah!”  Jesus says, “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father”. I believe we will hear these same words because Jesus will see in us what he saw in Peter: the grace of God enlightening all who seek him into deeper relationship with Jesus. This openness to God moved Jesus to give Peter responsibility beyond his imagining, appointing him the “rock” on which his church is to be built.  How can Jesus not do the same for us who profess faith in him as the Christ? We too are his rocks to strengthen the church in building up God’s kingdom.

    Professing faith in Jesus as the Christ promises intimacy with God and service for God. If this is what Christian faith leads us to, how can we not welcome Jesus’ question—however disturbing it is because it saves us to live Christian lives and to practice Christian love for all? 

    This is why it is good that we have considered the grace of being disturbed by Jesus’ question this morning. This prayer by Bishop Desmond Tutu sums up the goodness of this grace: 
    Disturb us, O Lord,when we are too well-pleased with ourselves;when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little;when we have arrived in safety because we sailed too close to the shore.  
    Disturb us, O Lord, when with the abundance of things we possesswe have lost our thirst for the water of life;when, having fallen in love with Time, we have ceased to dream of Eternity;and in our efforts to build the new earth have allowed our vision for the New Heaven to grow dim.
    If you agree with me then that Jesus’ question, “Who do you say I am?” is grace-filled in drawing out of us this right and good answer, “You are the Christ”, then join me in saying these closing words: “Yes, Jesus, you do disturb me, and it is very good that you do. Amen”.




    Preached at St Ignatius Church and the Church of the Transfiguration
    photo: daniel and the waves by adrian danker, sj

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  2. Year A / Ordinary Time / Week 20 / Sunday
    Readings: Isaiah 56.1, 6-7 / Psalm 66. 2-3, 5, 6, 8 (R/v 4) / Romans 11.13-15, 29-32 / Matthew 15.21-28

    “What if?”  
    “What if I had studied harder, wouldn’t I now be in SJI?”
    “What if you had taken that overseas job offer, wouldn’t we be better off today?”
    “What if they had married, wouldn’t they happier in their old age and not alone?”
    “What if I had accepted my difference, wouldn’t I be freer from your hatred?”

     “What if” Don’t we all ask and struggle to answer this question, now and again. Some of us answer this question with regrets. Others respond with gratitude for what they now have. The answers of the young or hopeful are  filled with promises, I pray. All too often however many of us would prefer dismiss this question quickly.

     I’d like to suggest that Christians would be foolish to avoid the “What if?” questions and moments in our lives. From a faith perspective, these can open up our limited, human point of view to the infinite, boundless horizon of God’s point of view for us.

     This is the lesson I think Jesus learns in his encounter with Canaanite woman in today’s gospel story. We should pay attention and learn.

     Jesus enters Tyre and Sidon, Gentile territory. A Canaanite woman approaches him, a Jew, to heal her sick daughter. Jews do not mix with this non-Jew and her people. It is understandable that Jesus ignores her. She continues pleading. He pauses.

     At this moment, you and I would expect this scene to play out as it usually does in the miracle stories we are familiar with in the Gospels. The woman would plead some more, the disciples would continue scoffing but Jesus would really hear her need and respond by forgiving or healing. We would all then delight in God’s saving love.

     But this is not how Matthew’s story today unfolds. In fact, Jesus appears callous: "Ma'am," he says, "I'm here to feed the children of Israel, not the Canaanites. Not you. It's not fair to take the children's bread and feed it to the dogs, now is it?" 

     Do Jesus’ words and actions shock and disturb you? Is this the Jesus we know, love, and follow—the caring teacher, the merciful preacher, the compassionate healer? He who came announcing God’s saving presence to the Jews, God’s chosen people? He who multiplied fish and loaves to feed 5,000 abundantly? Could he not proclaim God to the Canaanites and feed their hungry too? Why are his answers dismissive and derogatory? 

     As puzzling and confusing Jesus’ actions are, what we all also see is how his attitude and attention towards the Canaanite woman changes after she keeps on persisting. “Children’s bread shouldn’t be wasted on dogs,” Jesus curtly decries. “Dogs need to eat,” she plainly tells him, “and they will gladly eat the crumbs from the master's table”. Moved by her faith that God will provide for all, Jesus praises her and he cures her daughter.

     I’d like to suggest that this is a “What if?” moment in Jesus’ life and ministry. I imagine Jesus asking himself questions to make sense of this moment. “What if this woman is challenging me to love as God loves, without limits, without borders, without restrictions?” “What if God is inviting me to broaden my horizon of who God is and what God wants me to do? “What if this woman’s utter trust in God’s certain providence for her, a non-Jews, is challenging me that God is with all and that God wants to save all”.  I would like to think that this is one of many “what if” moments when Jesus—in his humanity—had to grapple with, reflect on and seek God’s will.

     Aren’t we like Jesus too whenever we find ourselves pausing, keeping still, trying to find God in the people and events of the day, and then letting God more into our lives? Isn’t this the exercise of reflecting on the “what ifs” of each day: What if I had let God into this situation? What if I wasn’t so self-absorbed today? What if God did reached out to me through another? What if?

     In his encounter with the Canaanite woman, Jesus sees, hears, and experiences the woman’s faith in God. He responds by healing her daughter. He could do this because he opened himself to God working through the Canaanite woman. His openness is his permission for God to show and lead him to the more God wishes for him—more than he knows, more than he plans for, more than he could ever imagine. 

     Every person we meet and every situation we find ourselves in is God’s gracious way for us to experience God as Jesus did when he encountered the Canaanite woman. God invites us to open ourselves to the many more and good possibilities God has in store for us. God calls us to make room for Him.

     In the interview, A Big Heart Open to God, Pope Francis reminds us to “leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties” because  “the one who has the answers to all the questions—that is proof that God is not with him” For Francis, leaving room for God allows God to seek us out, surprise us and satisfy us beyond what we can possibly imagine. Yes, God’s ways are not our ways.

     You and I would be wise to leave or make room for God whenever we find ourselves in our “What if?” moments. Coming into them with all that we know and all that we are certain about, especially, about God and God’s ways is the surest way for us to have a great big tumble like Humpty-Dumpty from that great wall of our self-arrogance. 

     Indeed, leaving room for God is the only way we can make sense of every “What if” moment. We can because God’s presence and God’s labour graces each of these moments with many good possibilities of what more Christian life can be for us, and for all we are called to uplift. This begins by making room for God.

     Let us not forget that making room is also how God makes Himself available to us. So, let us be brave and wise and into this room, this space, this embrace God makes for us to come to him in faith and to persist in prayer as we ask him to act for us and those we care and serve, like the Canaanite woman did to Jesus. 

     We can do this because “faith, by nature, is persistent. Persistence, by nature, is single-minded. Single-mindedness, by nature, achieves the end it seeks”.* We all know and we believe that our faith in God must be great enough to overcome barriers. Focusing on Jesus wholeheartedly empowers us to have such faith. And  this faith will bear fruit, I believe, when we persist by single-mindedly bringing ourselves, we hold in our hearts and the many others we serve to God who always makes room for us to come to him. 

     I like to imagine God utterly joyful when we do this because God delights in how we trust that we’ll find the answer to our “What If” questions in Him alone.

     So let us be bold and enter into those grace spaces where God has made room for us, as we have made room for God. Enter so that may we come to experience God’s surprising love for us and our world: in the smallest voices that will proclaim truth and set us free; in those we have hurt who will forgive us; in those we deem useless who will uplift us in our need. 

     And yes, even in those scraps we think fit for the dogs: for in them we will also learn of God’s bountiful goodness that will still nourish us and someone else.








    *Working with the Word, Sunday Website of St Louis University


    Preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore
    photo: www.monotours.wordpress.com
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  3. Year A / Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
    Readings: Revelations 11.19a; 12.1-6a, 10ab / Psalm 44.10, 11, 12, 16  (R/v 10bc) / 1 Corinthians 15.20-27 / Luke 1.39-56

    How did you come to choose SJI? I would like to think by learning about our school. You probably did this in a couple of ways. By coming to Open House. By surfing our website. By asking friends and alumni. And if you are a parent, you might have checked out Kiasuparents dot com to help your son choose. 

    However you found out about SJI, you were looking for a review. A review to know more about our school, the education we offer, and the community that we are. But what you were really looking for was a preview—a preview to see ahead so that you can make a good choice.

    Today’s Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary gives us a preview of what our lives are destined for: a glorious union with God. In Mary’s Assumption into heaven body and soul, we have the example of how God wants humankind to be one with Him. Today’s celebration gives us hope to live our everyday life: we are bound for glory with God. This preview of the heavenly promise at the end of our lives is helpful: it enables us to look ahead to our journey's end with confidence, as well as to make good choices to help us get there.

    How can we make this journey to heaven, to this union with God, to this place Mary has gone to ahead of us? By following Mary’s example of being humble and being joyful.  

    Mary’s humility allowed her to welcome God more intimately into her life. Her ‘yes’ at the Annunciation was her permission for God to dwell in her in the person of Jesus, his Son. Her ‘yes’ was possible only because she humbly recognised who she was, God’s own, and who God is, her God. Her humility reminds us that we cannot know ourselves unless we have an honest understanding of our relation to God. Her humility also allowed her to respond freely and obediently to God’s invitation that she bear Jesus. Mary’s humility should challenge to ask ourselves, “Do I know I am God’s own and am I ready to say ‘yes’ if God calls me?”

    Mary’s joy was the fruit of her humility. Her joy sprang from her realisation of God’s goodness in her life and in the lives of all around her. Joy in God is a message our gospel passage proclaims. Mary’s visit to Elizabeth is about her bearing forth or sharing the Good News that Jesus had come into the world. I imagine that she came to Elizabeth with a quiet, inner joy. It was however infectious: John the Baptist leapt in Elizabeth’s womb upon hearing Mary’s greeting. Mary’s joy was not for herself as God’s handmaid but for God himself who is good and merciful, providential and faithful as she sang in the Magnificat.  Mary’s joy must challenge us to ask ourselves, “Do I we praise God often and joyfully?”

    The image of Mary in the Gospel is truly that of the humble handmaid. The image of the woman in our First Reading, which we often associate with Mary, is triumphant. Here is “a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars”. These images seem contradictory, but they are not if we remember these words of Jesus: “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16.25-26). Mary finds herself raised to heaven body and soul in glory because she had put aside her wants and needs to receive and bear Jesus. Her humble ‘yes’, her willing consent, found favour with God—a favour which is today celebrated as her glorious Assumption. What about you and me: do we put ourselves aside and let God lead us in life?

    Today, you and I are being invited to imitate Mary’s humility and her joyful sharing with one another in school, with each other at home, and with all who we meet with at work and in life. Mary exhibited these two ways in the Annunciation and at the Visitation. They invite us to lose ourselves in God and for others. They are grace for by living in these ways we can find the fullness of our lives in God and with others, like Mary did. 

    I believe that when we practice humility and share joy, we will be writing the glory of God in us and among us. With our own words and by our own actions, we will then be writing a review of how we live our Christian lives well in school, at home, in the workplace and in life. May be then, many others who see us live like this will say, “See how they love one another; surely they must be Christian”.  And when they do, it is because what they really see before them is a preview of the goodness Christian life is and, more so, the beauty of the promised union with God that we see in Mary’s Assumption—salvific, beautiful, glorious.

    For us in school, the task of writing our own review of how you and I live our daily lives here as good Christians will give the many others who are considering coming to SJI an added delight. And this is that we really do live and move and have our being in SJI in the holy presence of God, as Mary always did.  




    Preached at SJI
    painting:  Assumption of the Virgin by Correggio (Internet: www.officeholidays.com)

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  4. Year A / Ordinary Time / Week 19 / Sunday
    Readings: 1 Kings 19.9a, 11-13. / Psalm 85.9ab-10, 11-12, 13-14 (R/v 8) / Romans 9.1-5 / Matthew 14.22-33


    Sisters and brothers, do you realise that you and I sometimes walk on water? I suspect we don’t because our experiences of sinking like a stone in the water overwhelm us more.

    Walking on water is a helpful metaphor to make sense of everyday life. Don’t we feel like we are above the waterline, walking, when our studies or work is going well, when family life and friendships are happy, when life is good and hope-filled? But when disappointments multiply, when family is broken or friendships are lost, when life is painful and hopeless, don’t we sense we are going under and drowning?

    These same ups and downs of life are also part of our faith life. For the spiritual writer Ron Rolheiser, faith is not something we can ever simply achieve. Rather, we have faith that gives way to doubt before we recover it more confidently, only to lose it, then to realise the cycle repeats. This is why ours experiences of faith can be like walking on water on some days and sinking like a stone on other days.

    Today’s gospel story of Peter walking on the water challenges us to consider how our faith must lead us to walk on water—to walk like this often and happily.

    We can better appreciate this challenge by recognising the scenes before and after today’s gospel. The scene before is the miracle of Jesus feeding the 5,000 with five loaves and two fish. The apostles experience God’s presence in this miracle. Their faith in Jesus is strong. The scene after is the miracle of Jesus healing the sick, including many who touched his cloak. The apostles see God’s power. Their faith in Jesus grows stronger.

    In today’s gospel, we find the apostles on a boat, being tossed and battered by a fierce storm. They are frightened and panicking. Jesus is not with them. They are struggling. They have little faith. Jesus comes to them in the storm. He enters their boat. The storm dies down. Their faith is restored. Apostles having faith, losing faith, and finding it again. Sounds familiar?

    I particularly wonder if we see ourselves in Peter who wants to walk on water to Jesus. The storms challenged Peter’s faith. Jesus’ coming on turbulent waters renews and strengthens it. "Come," Jesus says. More confident, Peter steps onto the water. He begins walking towards Jesus. Then realizing what he is doing and the incredulous nature of approaching Jesus on the very waters that threaten him, he immediately starts to sink. He cries for help and Jesus reaches out and saves him.

    Doesn’t our own faith experience echo Peter’s? At times, it lets us walk on water towards Jesus. At other times we sink like a stone.

    Baptism gives us faith to walk on water. But we often sink. Why? Because we doubt our worthiness for God’s love. Many of us struggle to accept that God really love us as we are, striving always to be saintly yet acting often sinfully. When our struggles becomes too tough, our faith becomes weak and we would rather let it go.

    Jesus is not prepared however to stand aside and let us do this. He keeps coming repeatedly into our lives, especially into all our raging storms and sinful struggles, to call us to faith and to live in faith. “Take courage; be not afraid”. His words are his mandate that we can indeed walk on water, and walk towards him always.

    We can make this walk if we keep in mind what Jesus sees in us when we struggle, sin and sink—not fear, doubt or worthlessness, but the goodness of our hearts. He saw this in Peter as he struggled. This is the goodness every disciple has. It moves us to want to be with Jesus, to follow him, and to know and serve his Father. Isn’t this why we sometimes imagine what walking on water to Jesus would look like, even if the world calls it crazy?

    So, how can we let Jesus help us to walk on water? By being attentive to God. In particular, to God’s faithful presence in the smallest details of our lives.

    This attention is our permission for Jesus to empower us to walk on water like him. He empowers us with the same divine life he has to walk towards God and the same divine love to save all. He does this by saturating us all of us, including the smallest details of our lives, in God.

    I love walking through Central Park in New York City. Many green benches dot the park. On my first few visits, I did not look at the silver plates on them. On later visits, I began reading them. They bear inscriptions like these: “Emily who I’d rather sit beside. Will you marry me?’ Tom”; “Celebrating Phoebe’s Favorite Playground. Love Mom, Dad and Carter”; “Now baby makes three. Katherine Anne, born 2 August 2013” and “For Greg Myers on his retirement. With gratitude from Greenbridge Partners.” Most visitors miss these small details of people’s lives. They are lost amidst the splendour and activity of the park. Paying attention to them taught me about the immense richness of this city, its people, and their seasons of life.

    Our first reading is about paying attention. God instructs Elijah to listen for God’s word. Many of us, like Elijah, expect to hear God speak loudly, and so proclaims clearly, “I am here.” But God does not come and speak to Elijah in strong wind, earthquake and fire. Instead, God comes in “a tiny whispering sound”, in this smallest of details.

    Elijah’s experience demands that we pay more attention to God in the small details of our lives. Like knowing God in being alive each morning. Like finding God in one’s good health to care for family, to study in school, to serve the poor. Like celebrating God upon arriving home safe at day’s end to love ones. Like relishing God in a friend’s laughter or an enemy’s forgiveness. God is more than just present in these small, ordinary moments; God is labouring for our wellbeing and happiness.

    I can imagine God’s excitement that we find him in each small, ordinary moment. Are we equally excited about finding God in every detail of our life, however messy or bright it is? When did you find God recently?

    God’s goodness in the small details of life. Paying attention to this helps us appreciate the depth of God’s fidelity in the larger details of our lives. Like discerning a significant marriage or religious life. Like making a moral decision when a loved one nears death. Like reconciling our conscience with the God’s ways in trying times.

    God’s fidelity in small things imbues us with trust and hope that He will be ever more faithful in the bigger details of our lives.

    “We are what we do with our attention” (John Ciardi). Paying attention to God’s faithfulness in the storm transformed Peter into the confident believer who chose to walk towards Jesus on turbulent waters. We can be equally confident believers by paying attention to God in small things.

    This attention we make deepens, broadens, and enriches our understanding that Jesus always comes to us when we are troubled.  He comes to offer his guiding hand. His help enables us step out and walk. To step out of our fears and pains, our troubles and struggles, even our daily ordinariness and spiritual mediocrity. And then, walk towards God and fullness of life. In him we have faith and we can believe.

    Indeed, in the grasp of Jesus’ hand and with him leading us onward, you and I can always walk towards God—yes, even on water.

    Shall we?




    Preached at St Ignatius Parish, Singapore
    Painting by youngsung kim on www. thegingersnapblog.com
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  5. Year A / Ordinary Time / Week 18/ Sunday—Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord
    Readings: Daniel 7.9-10, 13-14 / Psalm 96.1-2, 5-6, 9 (R/v 1a & 9a) / 2 Peter 1.16-19/ Matthew 17.1-9


    Sisters and brothers, have you wanted to stay where love found you—stay there and not go anywhere else?

    I remember, or maybe I was told, how I once clung to my grandmother and wouldn’t let go. It was the first day of primary one. The crowd of students, teachers and parents swirled around me. I felt dizzy and afraid that I’d have to leave Mama’s warm, protective embrace for the scary world of school. I didn’t want to go.

    Joshua, my friend, shared with me how he woke up one morning and thought about the workday ahead, about the responsibilities he had to do, about the craziness of life. Beside him was his beloved. “Do I really want to work?” he asked. “Can’t I say in bed with my love, safe from a world so often cold and cruel?” He didn’t want to go. 

    Peter, James and John went up to the mountaintop with Jesus. The radiance of Jesus’ transfiguration, like the sun’s bright light, dazzled them.  They experienced the divine, and it was good, very good. Peter offered to build places to stay. Jesus however led them downhill. They didn’t want to go.

    Protected by Mama. Safe with one’s beloved. Uplifted in the Divine. Each of these is a union so good, so beautiful, so true that none of us experiencing this goodness wanted to leave and go away. We all wanted to stay. 

    Haven’t you had similar experiences in prayer, with someone special or when indescribable peace or happiness surprised us? Experiences of being held safe when you were in pain, of being forgiven when you had sinned, of being loved when you felt unworthy, of being alive again when you felt empty or lost? I believe all of us wanted to stay in these experiences and not leave and go.

    Peter, James and John wanted to stay with the transfigured Jesus. I suspect they were first bothered and bewildered by Jesus’ transfiguration. But they did not run away. They stayed. And as they looked at Jesus being transfigured, they realised what his transfiguration was really all about: the revelation of Jesus’ true identity as the Christ, God’s anointed saviour they had long awaited for. 

    The apostles could see this because their senses were transfigured. Choosing to remain still before the transfigured Jesus attuned their senses to the glory of God in this moment. Remaining still and being attuned to God’s presence is how Christians through history have always practiced entering into God’s presence. This practice transfigures the human senses so that we can see, hear, feel, even taste the goodness of God. When we make this practice daily, I believe our hearts will be transfigured more and more into the likeness of God.

    Prayer is the practice that allows our senses to be transfigured, so that we become more sensitive to God’s presence and more open to God’s action in us and around us. Our prayer should not stop at an Our Father or a rosary, at adoration or a retreat. Prayer should lead us into prayerful living. 

    Prayerful living is about living in the constant awareness of God’s presence in the ordinariness of our day and life, of our home and friendship, of our work and study. Prayerful living also makes us more attentive to how God labours for our happiness. Such a life helps us to find God in all peoples and in all creation, on every street corner and in every place, in our happiest moments and our painful times. For St Ignatius of Loyola, such a life moves us to praise, reverence and serve God constantly.

    Prayerful living promises us great comfort and hope. Comfort that God is faithfully with us. Hope that God is persistently for us. I believe the apostles experienced comfort and hope on the mountaintop, even as they experienced fear. This experience enlightened them about the glory of God Jesus revealed: it is God’s faithful love to be with them and to save them. It is no wonder they wanted to stay, not go. I believe that whenever you and I experience the comfort and hope of God’s love, we too want to stay in that moment.

    But go we must, as the apostles did by following Jesus down the mountaintop to serve. Christian life is oriented for service, not for staying alone with God in spiritual ecstasy. Our mandate as Christians is to go and serve all. We cannot call ourselves Christian if we don’t do as Jesus did: heal and reconcile, feed and teach, bend down and wash feet, lay down one’s life for another. To be Christian is to live selflessly and to serve generously. Jesus lived such a life to reveal the glory of God’s love. He calls us to do likewise. We can, when we let God transfigure us, like the apostles were transfigured to continue Jesus’ good works. 

    The ultimate goal in Christian life is to let God transform us, in order to transform the world. It makes sense then that Christian life is characterised by these three movements: seeking God; letting God transform; going forth to transform the world. The apostles made the same movements: they climbed up the mountain with Jesus; they were transformed by his transfiguration; and they followed him back down to serve. 

    Do you realise that we are in fact participating in these same movements, right here, right now? We left the world behind when we ascended up the slope from the mainroad to enter into church for this Eucharist; we are here to find God. When this Eucharist ends, we will be sent forth into a world that needs mending. God created the world beautiful; human sin stains and tears it apart. Yes, the world needs mending; Jesus calls us to this task. We are transfigured for this work through the Eucharist. In Communion, we become the Body of Christ that will bring the peace and hope we received here to all we meet. This is how we are to accomplish Jesus’ commandment at the end of Matthew’s gospel: “Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them…and teaching them” (Matthew 28.17-20a) 

    As I prepared for this homily, I recalled these lines from the poet, William Blake: “And we are put on earth a little space/ That we may learn to bear the beams of love”. In that moment on the mountaintop, Jesus shone with beams of love from the Father, until his garments blazed as white as light. The apostles let these beams soak them in God’s love and transfigure them for mission. They then bore these beams to others.

    Here in this space, we too are invited to soak ourselves in the beams of God’s love. These radiate from the Eucharist—bread and wine transformed into the body and blood of Jesus that we, in turn, take and eat. Then, our hunger for God will be satisfied. More satisfying is how we will become more like Jesus when we let ourselves soak in these beams of God’s love: they transfigure us so that we can transform the world as Jesus did by bearing God's beams of love to all.

    What we will find in this moment of being soaked through and through with God's love is that it becomes part of our very being. Hence, whenever we go forth and to wherever we go to share it with others, God remains with us, like Jesus was still with the apostles when the glory of the Transfiguration ceased. God remains with us, always. This truth frees us from having to choose between staying and going, between remaining on the mountaintop and going back down to serve the multitudes. We do not have to choose because God remains with us in the peace, joy, and love of Jesus; he is are simply with us wherever we happen to be. We can stay or we can go; it does not really matter. What really matters is this: that what remains constant wherever we are or go to is the joyful truth that God is with us, always, to the end of time. 

    This is why it is so good today to hear Jesus say to us who struggle to live amidst the challenges of our ordinary life what he once said to Peter, James and John, “Stand up; do not be afraid”.




    Inspired by the monks of the Society of St John the Evangelist 


    Preached at Church of Divine Mercy, Singapore
    photo: www.psdbox.com

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  6. This is a weekday homily preached at the House Chapel of the de la Salle Brothers at SJI

    Year A / Ordinary Time / Week 12 / Friday
    Readings: Exodus 33.7-11; 34, 5b-9, 28 / Psalm 102.6-7,8-9,10-11, 12-13 (R/v 8a) / Matthew 13.36-43

    In today's first reading, Moses builds a tent to meet God. We praise, reverence and serve God in tents humankind have built--chapels and churches.These were built according to different cultural, historical and theological tastes and sensibilities. Each of these expressed how humankind wanted to make a holy space to please God. But it is God's coming to meet Moses face to face in the tent that makes this space holy and sacred. It is indeed God who consecrates and sanctifies this space by filling it with his mercy and graciousness, his kindness and faithfulness, his loving and forgiving.

    This reading should remind us that these spaces become and remain holy because God wants to dwell in them. His presence makes them holy, as he also shapes the holiness of all who come into this space to pray, commune and celebrate God and God's love. We do not make the tent holy; God does. We are only ask to enter, to dwell in, and to grow into holiness in the tent of God.

    As we continue to complete our renovation of the SJI Chapel, let us be humbled by this reading. And let us allow God to meet all of us in our SJI Chapel as God wishes to meet us for worship and communion, for forgiveness and love, for life and joy as God deigns. Deo gratias!



    photo: sji chapel by adrian.danker.sj
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"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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