1. Year C / Ordinary Time / Week 3 / Sunday
    Readings: Nehemiah 8.2-4a,5-6, 8-10 / Ps 18.8,9.10, 15 (cf John 6.63c) / 1 Corinthians 12.12-30 / Luke 1.1-4; 4.14-21


    We’ve all seen those “Keep Calm” memes in red and white. “Keep Calm and Carry On”, “Keep Calm and Stay Positive”, “Keep Calm and Study Hard”. There’s even one for Star Wars fans: “Keep Calm and Use the Force.” 

    A favorite of mine reads: “Keep Calm Because Today’s the Day!” The day something special will happen. The day we will experience love. The day we’ll make a difference by forgiving. The day we’ll rise to the occasion and become better. Yes, this meme “Keep Calm Because Today’s the Day!”  reminds us that every day is God's day of grace.

    This is the good news Jesus announces in today’s gospel reading.

    We are all too familiar with our Gospel story. It is the Sabbath. Jesus is worshipping in a synagogue. From the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, he reads out loud about the Lord’s Spirit anointing one to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom to the captives and sight to the blind, to free the oppressed and to announce the year of the Lord’s favor. He rolls up the scroll, hands it back and sits. 

    For some, this scene records the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. For others, it is about Jesus announcing God’s plan. But notice that all in the synagogue have fixed their eyes on Jesus. They are waiting for him to interpret Isaiah’s words and to teach them. What would Jesus say? 

    Jesus could have preached on the wisdom of past prophets: that God would bring Israel into the promised land where they would live in justice, freedom, and healing. Jesus could also have elaborated on the future Isaiah prophesized: that God’s promised glory would come when the poor, lowly and despised are saved and uplifted.

    But Jesus does neither. He does not reach back to a past the Jews long for, nor does he look ahead to God’s future coming they hope for. Instead, he simply says, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing”.

    Imagine the shock of the Jews upon hearing Jesus say, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing”. These words must have rocked their faith — their scripture in not fulfilled in a past event, nor, will it be fulfilled in a future advent. Their scripture, God’s word, is being fulfilled, right here and now, at this time, in their midst in the person of Jesus.

    “What do you mean that the Spirit of the Lord is here?” they would probably have asked Jesus. “Now? Today? That the poor can hear good news, prisoners are being released, the blind see and the oppressed receive justice?”

    “How can it be?” we’d also probably echo “Yes, how can it be when there is even more inequality, more people unjustly treated, more suffering illnesses, more violently hurt and maimed today? “Really, is this God’s kingdom alive?” is a question we would have asked our parents and partners, our catechism teachers and priests, now and again.

    “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing”. Not yesterday; not tomorrow. Today. Yes, keep calm for today’s the day.  The day of the Lord that is our day too, our every day. 

    How many of us really celebrate each day as God’s day with us and for us? Often, our struggles, frustrations and disappointments color how we see our days: “bad” is that sad word we use. Sadly, I think we grumble and complain about our days more than we count them as our blessings.

    If we have to think of each day as God’s day, we tend to do so through the lenses of “past” and “future”. A past when we were more Christ-like and responded so freely and lovingly to God. A future we fear we cannot live well because we are sinners, never good enough for God’s mercy and salvation. If we mourn our past intimacy with God, we’ll live in regret and grief. If we’re fearful of a future without God, we’ll live with anxiety and doubt.

    As a result, today is lost, and its gift of God’s grace forgotten. But if today is indeed God’s day — especially because God’s Word is being fulfilled as we live—then "today" is a deeply dangerous spiritual reality. It insists that we put aside both our memories of the past and our dreams for the future in order to be free to embrace fully the now, the time of this day, the grace of God being with us today.

    Then, we will discover that we are actors in the most important drama we will ever be part of — God’s sacred drama that our lives are. 

    What is our role? To speak of God's desire unfolding in our varied lives and to enact it for the world with the different gifts we have, as St Paul describes in our second reading. This is how we must be in accomplishing God’s mission: one body in Christ.

    We will know this two-fold role when we begin to see that the most radical thing Jesus announces in our gospel is “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing”. Radical because Jesus is challenging us to return to the essence of Christian life.

    An essence best discovered best through the Latin word vocātiō which means a call. Today Jesus is calling us to see that the Spirit of God is always at work in our midst. This is how we will know that what God says, “I will be with you”, is more than a promise: it is our reality.  

    This is why today’s gospel passage must matter for our Christian life. For Jesus is asking us to open our eyes, to see God’s labor in our lives, to become more attentive to God present with us and for us, no matter how difficult and disappointing our circumstances may be. It would be a pity if today’s gospel went through one ear and out the other; we will be shortchanging ourselves.

    “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing”. This is how Jesus challenged the Jews then, as he challenges us now, to see God in the grace of each day we live in more clearly. 

    He is calling us to go past our disappointment and despair with our immediate sins, family trials, society’s injustices, and human evil. He is, in fact, calling us to recognize and embrace the ever-present reality of love — the mercy of God and our compassion for neighbor — upon which everything else profoundly rests. This is the foundation of Christian living you and I are being invited once again to see, to experience and to grasp in the course of today and each day we live: for love is God's grace actively at work everyday of our lives. 

    If we do these, I believe that we no longer need to fear so much, hate so uncharitably, and discriminate so hurtfully. We no longer need to because we will recognize that in the midst of all things — not matter how bad, difficult or despairing — God is indeed with us and for us. 

    “Keep calm because today’s the day!” Yes, today’s the day when Jesus’ radical announcement assures us again that God is indeed with us and laboring for us right here, right now. So, let us rejoice, be glad and share this good news!


    Preached at Church of the Transfiguration Singapore
    photo: teatime at the museum by adrian danker, sj @new york city, dec 2013
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  2. Year C / Ordinary Time / Week 2 / Sunday
    Readings: Isaiah 62.1-5 / Ps 95.1-2a.2b-3, 7-8a, 9-10a,c (R/v 3) / 1 Corinthians 12.4-11 /John 2.1-11

    Sisters and brothers, how do you react when you’ve received more than you had expected? Are you surprised? Do you smile, give thanks and delight in this excess?

    But do you savour its goodness? Do you let it linger on your tongue like only intense dark chocolate can? Or, does it comfort you like rich red wine warming your deepest self, or delight you like the consoling childhood memory of your first sugee cake with marzipan?

    Today’s gospel passage draws our attention to the surprise of something more and even better. More wine when the jars become empty. Better wine than what was. This is because Jesus changes water into wine. More so, however, is Jesus revealing how God gives us more by blessing us with excess.

    This reality of who God is and how God loves should give us hope to make it through this year.

    We will know this reality when we meditate long enough on the miracle of Jesus changing water into wine. This will lead us to the dawning awareness that the real miracle has to do with transformation. Namely, with how God comes amongst us in Jesus to transform our lives. Yes, Jesus came that we might have life to the full. Do we let Jesus into our lives to do this for us?

    The goodness of God’s transforming action is what the embarrassed wedding host must be experiencing in the gospel story. His wine for the wedding is running low. His guests are thirsting. Jesus fills six empty stone pots with water that he turns into wine. And the wedding party continues — only now, even merrier as the better wine is lavishly being poured out. Truly, all are now enjoying life to the full. 
               
    Empty water pots used for ritual purity now overflow with wine for celebration. This is a miracle of quantity and quality. Quantity, because Jesus turns water into wine in pots that could each hold thirty gallons. Picture 180 gallons of wine: now, so much more. Quality, because Jesus reverses the pattern of serving the best first. Saving the best for last: now, so much better. 

    Jesus reveals God’s excessive abundance. Here is a God who is lavish, generous and extravagant with us. God is not stingy or stern. In fact, God is that vineyard owner who pays a worker a full day's wages for one hour of work because he is the last hired. God is also that father who welcomes home his wayward son who wasted his inheritance with a ring, a robe, and a party. And yes, God even gives his beloved Son who himself laid down his life so that we might have eternal life.

    All this is possible because of God’s mercy. Mercy that is just, that forgives, that sacrifices for others. And yes, mercy that transforms by blessing us with excess, never less or none. 

    I believe we all want this excess Jesus gives — this excess of new “wine” to quench the thirst in our lives. We do not just want it; we expect Jesus to give it to us. We who thirst and hunger.  We who are poor and sick. We who struggle and are tired.  We who fear and despair. We who lose our way because we sin. In such moments, we want this “new wine” from Jesus because we are afraid: our lives seem to be falling apart no matter how much we struggle to recover and restore them.

    How can we continue living and still believe that Jesus will give us ‘new wine’ to quench our thirst and new life to be renewed? By recalling Mary’s words to the servers: “Do whatever he tells you.” 

    Isn’t God doing the same for us through the interactions we have with all who interact with us? Like a family member challenging us to forgive because Jesus forgave and reconciled? Or, like a classmate or workmate sharing a meal with us, just like Jesus who multiplied 5 loaves and 2 fish to share with many? Or, like the poor, the sick, the suffering who demand we care them because Jesus did these to uplift them? Or, like the grieving who hope for our comfort, just like Jesus who consoled Mary and Martha when Lazarus died?

    These are the everyday ways God comes to us. Through one another. In our ordinary, everyday life. Not in the dramatic or sensational ways we want God to come to us.

    Often times God comes in a simple, practical “word” addressed personally to us through these interactions and in these moments. As simple and as practical as we hear in today’s Gospel. Mary saying, “Do whatever he tells you.” Jesus saying, “Go fill some stone water jars and take them to the steward.” Even, this phrase we know so well, especially, in trials and tribulations, “Be still, and know that I am God.”

    Why does God come in these ways?  So that we will hear better and be more open to letting Jesus transform our lives and us. God reaches out to us through someone we love, admire, hurt or desire, even someone whose pain or loneliness moves us. They are the ones whose simple, practical words we will listen to better and more openly.

    Hearing these words opens space within us for Jesus to transform us. For me, Mary knew better than anyone that Jesus never meets us “from without,” but always from within our deepest selves. Mary knew that Jesus is God’s Word in our lives. She physically bore him in her womb for 9 months. She spiritually bore him within her being every day. 

    We know God’s Word. It is Jesus. We received him and the gift of his Spirit at Baptism. Like Mary who bore Jesus within, we bear him within us every day. This is why we can do what Mary did. What did Mary do? She pondered God’s goodness in her heart at Christmas and upon finding Jesus in the temple. We can do likewise when we hear those simple, practical words others speak because they are really God asking us to let Jesus transform us. Do we hear this call God makes through our encounters with one another and all?

    God wants to transform us so that we, in turn, can transform the lives of others.

    Mary did just this for the wedding host and his guests when she instructed the servers to do whatever Jesus asked them. Are we like Mary in our interactions with others, pointing them to Jesus and so that they can let Jesus transform their lives?

    Jesus changed water into wine for all to celebrate even more, even better. Jesus wants to transform every one of us to become more like him so we can live as better Christians for others. This is why we would be narrow-minded Christians if we just fixate ourselves on the miracle of Jesus changing water into wine. We should also focus on how this miracle benefits the community. God transforms us not for ourselves only but for the good of all. This is the real meaning of Christian discipleship: that we live not for ourselves but for God and everyone.

    Paul’s message in our second reading echoes this message. He reminds us that no matter how different we each are and how varied our gifts may be, we live and share in the same Spirit that calls us to serve the one Lord who loves and saves all. Jesus transforms us for this purpose. We are called to let Jesus transform us from being separate individuals with different gifts into one community with God, enriched by shared gifts for all. Let us beg Jesus to do this for us as a parish community; then, we can do great things together to witness to God’s love in the world.

    Today, Mary’s instruction to the servers is a reminder that Jesus really transforms us in God's excessive mercy. How can this loving action of Jesus not surprise and delight us? Our right response must be to savour how very good God is.



    Preached at Church of the Transfiguration
    photo: vinepair.com (Internet)

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  3. Year C / End of the Christmas Season / Feast of the Baptism of the Lord 
    Readings: Isaiah 40.1-5, 9-11 / Ps 103.1b-2, 3-4, 24-25, 27-28, 29-30 (R/v 1) / Titus 2.11-14,3.4-7 /Luke 3.15-16, 21-22

    Sisters and brothers, I am sure you have heard the saying, “When a door closes, a window opens”. It is apt to consider what this saying can mean for the end of our Christmas season today and the beginning of Ordinary Time in the Church’s calendar tomorrow. 

    For all of us, it is time to pack up our Christmas trees and decorations, put away the Christmas crib and get on with life. Some will feel sad. Others will be relieved that normal life resumes. A few would state the obvious: “let’s move on; Chinese New Year’s next!”

    So, when the door to Christmas closes, what window opens upon us? One of possibilities? Or, a repeat of the same old, same old ways we have prayed, behaved and cared for last year?

    I’d like to suggest that today’s feast of the Baptism of the Lord is God’s way of opening a window for us. A window to shed light on how we can live our Christian faith better this new year.

    Every beginning, including starting a new year, is challenging, even hard. But it is also exciting: there is an eagerness to start anew. There is an expectation of change and improvement. If this is how you feel as this year begins, then, you are like the people in our gospel reading.

    These people are eager and expectant that Messiah, the Christ, has come to save them. They see the power of John the Baptist as he baptises, and they think he is the Christ. However, John points them Jesus who will bring an even more powerful baptism. 

    Luke tells us that John baptises Jesus after he had baptised the people. As John baptizes Jesus, we hear God saying, “You are my beloved Son; with you, I am well pleased.” Jesus is God’s beloved Son and God sent him as the Christ to save us.

    The people came to baptism to prepare for the Christ. Isn’t this why we admit our sins at Confession and at the beginning of Mass to ask for God's forgiveness so as to prepare to welcome Jesus into our lives?

    If our answer is “yes” then we can understand why Jesus’ baptism is the right note to close our Christmas season on. It reminds us that we are always in God’s midst because Jesus has come into our midst. It is moreover the window God opens for us to let the light of Jesus shine through to guide us onward.

    How so? Because Jesus shows us how to live our baptismal faith. Such living, Paul tells us in our second reading, can be hope-filled when we give up everything that does not lead to God, and all our worldly ambitions and live self-restrained and good and religious lives. This is what baptism calls us to: to live in God’s ways and to reject Satan’s ways in the world.

    Jesus teaches us two ways to live the Christian faith well through two actions he does at his Baptism. They are being humble before God and being in solidarity with people.

    Being Humble
    Jesus humbles himself to be baptized. His humility shows us how to be in right relationship with God. 

    Humility is about honestly knowing who we are and knowing our strengths and weaknesses truthfully. It is not about making ourselves smaller and lesser, or about downplaying our achievements.

    By choosing to be baptized like us, Jesus witnesses to our truest identity: we are created by God and we are meant for eternal life with God. All that we have, and all that we need, come from God: our birth and life; our everyday joys and strengths; our redemption and salvation.

    How can we live such lives of humility with God? By being thankful for God’s blessings. If God is love and God loves us, then, God blesses us. To live with humility is to live always with gratefulness for God’s blessings and with much generosity to share them.

    However, it’s very difficult now and again to count our blessings, isn’t it? And how are we to decide how much of our blessings we should share with others when we have to feed the family, keep a job, care for a sick friend, and even continue believing in God in a world that tells us not to bother?

    How can we practice gratefulness?  By taking some time at the end of each day and asking ourselves:
    -- Where was God in my life today? 
    -- How did God bless me this day? 
    -- What do these blessings say about who God is to me and who I am to God?

    Being in Solidarity
    By being baptized, Jesus embodies the way to live in solidarity with others.

    Solidarity is about sharing in the human condition all of us have. In particular, it is to share in everyone’s need for God and for God’s forgiveness. This is how we can share in God’s life by sharing God’s love and living together.

    Jesus chose to be baptized with others. This is how he reminds us to live in solidarity with others whenever and wherever we meet them: be in the family and among friends, in school or at the workplace, in the Church and in the world. Solidarity is how we are right relationship with everyone. It involves welcoming, accepting, respecting and nurturing all we interact with to become more fully God’s beloved.

    How can we live this life of solidarity? By caring for those who lack, by uplifting the hurt and abused, by reconciling those at war with each other, indeed, by making space for both the saintly and the sinful amongst us to gather around the Lord ’s Table. 

    Whether we are already doing these in small or big ways, in everyday life or whenever we gather communally, or even if we are not doing these enough, Jesus’ Baptism calls you and me to live in true solidarity with one another.

    Our own baptism calls us to into his kind of solidarity with others. Not by material giving but by a total and loving self-giving of ourselves to others. This call to solidarity dares us to give away all of ourselves for others to have life to the full. When we dare to do this we make real God’s prodigal way of being in solidarity with us: for God so loved the world that God gave us his only son.

    Being humble to have a loving relationship with God. Being in solidarity to have right relationships for others.

    Jesus models these ways of living at his baptism. He teaches us how we should live our lives as baptised Christians. Yes, to love of God and to love others.

    Today’s feast reminds us to live like this for this is indeed the kind of life and love that will save us as it saved everyone when Jesus lived such a life and love fully and to the end on the Cross.

    As we practice living more and more like Jesus, we will grow to appreciate how our baptism is a great gift to live and love like Jesus who lived and loved in God’s ways.  

    Today, we are invited once again to let God open the window of Jesus’ Baptism for our Christian lives. Let us do this so that the light of Jesus’ Baptism will bring more of God’s light into our lives and help us to live better in humility before God and with solidarity for others. 

    In fact, I believe this is what God is doing for us we celebrate today’s feast. God is opening this window as we gather here and now so that his Spirit can come upon us. 

    And maybe if we keep a little more silent we might hear a little more clearly and with a lot more hope what God once said to Jesus and now says to us: “You are my beloved; with you, I am well pleased.”



    Preached at Church of the Transfiguration and St Ignatius Church, Singapore
    Photo: from the Internet

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  4. Year C / Christmastide / Solemnity of the Epiphany
    Readings: Isaiah 60.1-6 / Responsorial Psalm 71.2, 7-8, 20-11, 12-13 (R/v cf 11) / Ephesians 3.2-3a, 5-6 / Matthew 2.1-12


    Sisters and brothers, have you ever watched how parents get their children to do something different or to move to another place? Recently I watched a mother coax her two year old to leave the toyshop and walk to the food court. I am not sure what she said. I can only think she promised her child something special because her daughter’s eyes lit up. The child didn’t see or know what it was. But hearing what her mother told her, she trusted and she let her mother lead her by the hand.

    “We must see to believe.”  We are familiar with this saying.  Today’s Solemnity of the Epiphany challenges us to consider if it is instead true that we believe because we hear.

    In the Gospel, Matthew focuses us on the Three Kings coming before the manger and falling on their knees to adore Jesus. We see them offering him gold that acknowledges him as our king, incense that reminds us he is our High Priest and myrrh that foretells his burial as the one who will die to save us.  

    We center our gaze on how their faces are looking at Jesus. In faith, we say that they see Jesus and so believe that he is God’s revelation to all the nations. 

    As we contemplate this scene, we might ask ourselves, ‘Who did God manifest himself to? Was it to the powerful and rich because we call them kings? Or, to the learned and the smart because we call them wise men? Or, to foreigners who came from faraway lands?

    I believe God manifested himself to all who would hear his revelation. 

    The three men came to Jesus because heard about him and followed his star. They joined others whose faith led them to Jesus.  God asked Mary to bear Jesus and in faith, she obeyed. Joseph believed the angel’s message about Jesus’ birth and in faith, he did as God asked him to. The shepherds heard the angel’s proclamation and searched out Jesus in faith.

    All of them first heard before they saw Jesus. All of them believed what they heard about Jesus.

    Isn’t this how we encounter Jesus too – hearing about him before we experienced him in our lives? As children, didn’t our parents read us bedtime stories about Jesus? Didn’t we sing and hear how ‘Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world’ in catechism class? As we grew older, didn’t we hear about Jesus, his good works, and his saving love in homilies, at retreats or in the stories others told of God at work in their lives?

    Reflecting on his experience of God in the Blessed Sacrament, St Thomas Aquinas wrote, “Sight, touch and taste in you are each deceived, the ear alone most safely is believed.”* We cannot see God unless we first hear and believe.

    Isn’t this why we pray? To hear God’s presence. To listen to God’s love. To experience God’s life resounding in us. To attend to what God says to us as he watches us and watches out for us.

    Often what we see can deceive us. Consider how we say we see darkness when we struggle with disappointment, pain, and suffering. Everything looks bleak and hopeless. Where is God? 

    If sight can deceive, St Thomas’ wisdom that the ear alone is best believed is worth considering on this feast day.

    The three men followed the star in faith. They could because they heard God’s revelation that a new king would be born to the Jews and that a star would light up for him. 

    It was on the strength of God’s revelation, the hope they heard, that they journeyed to Jesus.  It was on the truth of God’s revelation they heard that enabled them to recognize that the baby in the manger was truly Jesus, the infant King. 

    Because they heard first about Jesus, they could understand who Jesus really is when they saw him in the flesh – the Messiah, the Wonder-counsellor, the might God, the eternal Father, and the Prince of Peace. This is why this moment is a glorious epiphany: what they heard about Jesus, they now fully understand as God’s glory for all peoples. 

    Today’s feast of the Epiphany is indeed another of God’s Christmas gifts to us. It comes as two lessons to help us live our Christian faith better.

    First, that we cannot recognize Jesus present in our midst if we do not first recognize God’s Word in our lives. We need to hear God’s Word first; this revelation helps us to believe. Then, we can see God in our midst more clearly. This is why St Paul writes in the second reading that “the mystery was made known to me by revelation”(Ephesians 3.2-6). 

    Second, that we cannot bend our knees before Jesus and be with him unless we first bend our ears in prayer. The three men bent their ears in prayer to God’s Word that led them to Jesus. Then they bent before Jesus who they understood and recognized as Saviour and Light to the Nations. 

    In a few minutes, Jesus will manifest himself in the smallest of ways to us – in a small piece of bread. This is how Jesus comes to us in life – in small and simple ways, like that quiet inner voice in our conscience, those simple loving gestures of family and friends, in the simplicity of daily consolations, like waking up in the morning and coming home to rest at night.  What we see of God and how we respond to God depends on what we first heard and believed. This is why this line from the first reading rings true for those who pray, even in the cloudiest of days: “See, darkness covers the earth and thick clouds cover the peoples; but upon you the Lord shines, and over you appear his glory’ (Isaiah 60.1-6). 

    Today, God is inviting us, once again, to come to Jesus, as he did to the three wise men. One way we can come closer to Jesus is through sacred scripture. Here, God manifests and reveals the mystery of his love for the world and us. Wise are those among us who choose to bend their ears and listen to God’s Word as they read, hear and pray it in their lives. These actions can help all appreciate how good it is to journey to Jesus and kneel before him, like the three wise men.

    Let us pray then to listen to God’s Word, especially, in sacred scriptures, so that his Word can dwell in us and guide us to Jesus. To Jesus who is God’s light, love, and life to all people. 

    God has chosen us through Baptism to have his light, love, and life. And as the baptised, God calls us to be like Jesus and share his light, love, and life with all. Yes, God wants you and me to be an epiphany or a manifestation of God’s love to all. Are we? 

    I know we want to do this. We are God’s good people, and we want to share Jesus with all. However, many Herods will try to get in the way and lead us astray. Herod tried to do this to the wise men. They stayed faithful to God by fixing their eyes on Jesus. They also listened to God’s Word in a dream that they go home by another route. Let us do what the wise men did when the Herods in our lives come to lead us away from Jesus.

    Today God’s Word has come to us again. We have heard it. Now, let us believe it – that Jesus is indeed God’s light for the nations.  

    Then, let us let God’s light lead us through the ups and downs, the straight roads and the meandering paths of this new year to that certain destination it will lead us to – Jesus, who we will see and be radiant, our hearts throbbing and overflowing when we do (Isaiah 60.5).





    *Thomas Aquinas, “O Godhead Hid, Devoutly I Adore Thee”

    Preached at Church of the Transfiguration, Singapore
    Artwork: from Internet / www.lepetitplacide.org


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