1. Year C / Ordinary Time / Solemnity of Corpus Christi 
    Readings: Genesis 14.18-20 / Ps 110. 1, 2, 3, 4 (R/v 4b) / 1 Corinthians 11.23-26 / Luke 9.11b-17
         

    Sisters and brothers, what do we really celebrate on the Feast of Corpus Christi?

    Is it the miracle we hear today of Jesus multiplying five loaves and two fish to feed the multitude? Perhaps, for many of us, like me when I was young, it is. 

    After all, how amazing it is, isn’t it, that Jesus can take small and few things – five loaves and two fish – from ordinary people – his disciples – and multiply them into many more loaves, much more fish for so many more people to eat and be satisfied. 

    Our second reading, however, gives us a clearer focus on what we must celebrate today. It is really the Eucharist. 

    This section from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians describes what happened when Jesus celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples. We, in fact, hear it at every Mass; it is part of the Eucharistic prayer. 

    What we hear first is Jesus giving thanks to God. He took the bread and gave thanks.  In Greek Eucharist means thanksgiving. Thanksgiving to God is what Mass is about.  

    Eucharist is also what we receive in communion. The body of Christ, the priest says as he holds the Eucharist before you. Not a wafer or bread but the real and living body of Jesus. Amen, you say before you consume the Eucharist and let Jesus dwell in you. 

    Today on the feast of Corpus Christi, are we sufficiently thankful for the gift of the Eucharist that nourishes our lives?  Thankful because it satisfies our hunger for God. Thankful because it heals our human infirmities. Thankful because it answers our worldly needs. Thankful because it assures us God cares. Thankful for no other reason than we are God’s own.

    This is why the miracle in today’s gospel must matter: because Jesus will always feed us like he fed the multitude. He does not abandon us in poverty and pain. He always provides to care and uplift, often giving us much more. We know how true Jesus’ love is for us: he died for us to have life.

    How thankful are we for Jesus?

    “This is my body that is for you.” Paul quotes Jesus. His words enable us to celebrate the Eucharist better. They point to the nature of the Eucharist but also to the fact that he gives his all: his body is for the world, as his body is for you and me. 

    In Jesus as Eucharist, everything God has, God gives freely, totally, selflessly and fruitfully gives for our wellbeing and happiness. God holds nothing back.

    This is how God is for us. How are we with God? Do we give all of ourselves to God? Or, do we hold ourselves back, whether totally or in part? 

    We know how much less we are when we hold back from God and others. We feel empty in our selfishness, miserable in our hardheartedness and guilty in our cruelness. Sinfulness is our pain when we refuse to love God and neighbour.

    Today’s readings are challenging us to give ourselves to God as God gives himself to us in the Eucharist.  We are to give ourselves as Jesus did – freely, totally, selfless and fruitfully. Not for us Abraham’s return of a tithe of everything that we hear in the first reading. 

    Why give ourselves to God? Because God loves us and we love God. This is too simplistic.

    I want to suggest a much better answer. It is this: we give ourselves to God to let God do to us what God does for the world through Jesus – to reach out to those in need so as to love and save them.  

    Can we do this? Yes, through God’s gift of Jesus in the Eucharist. Jesus feeds and nourishes us. He exists for others, not for himself.  His body is our daily bread. 

    Catholics believe we are transformed when we receive Jesus in the Eucharist. We become what we receive – the Body of Christ. Not for ourselves but for others: for us to love God and to serve all, just as Jesus did.

    This is why Paul reminds us that we are to “proclaim the Lord’s death.” Our mission in Christian life is to evangelise, to tell people about the good news of Jesus. We do this best by our deeds than by our words.

    Perhaps the real miracle of the multiplication of the five loaves and two fish is this. The crowd witnessing how Jesus shared the little he had also begun to share the little they had with one another. As they imitated Jesus, they multiplied the few and small into the many and abundant.

    This is how you and I as the Body of Christ are to live in and for our world.  It is precisely when we give away what little we have to satisfy others in need and make them happy that the great mystery of Jesus multiplying five loaves and two fish becomes visible in our lives.  This is how we must live as people of the Eucharist

    The real focus of today’s celebration is therefore much more than bread and wine becoming Jesus’ body and blood. It is the truth about how the Eucharist transforms us to live as Jesus did – freely, totally, selflessly, fruitfully for the salvation of all. 

    This was the message in the very first homily I wrote as a priest for this feast of Corpus Christi. I was then serving in Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta parish in Boston. I worked hard on the homily because I wanted the parish to appreciate and celebrate the Eucharist beyond that image of the miracle of five loaves and two fish. 

    After praying over the readings, researching the theological writings, drafting and redrafting the homily, I delivered it. When I was done, I sat down confident that my homily was very good and I had nourished the faithful. God taught me otherwise. 

    At the end of that Mass, as I greeted the many faithful who talked with me or thanked me, an old woman walked up and said, “Thank you, Father, for a wonderful Mass. I enjoyed your homily”. 

    I asked, “Which part?” as I anticipated her compliment for the profound theological message I had preached about us becoming the Body of Christ to save others. Such was my arrogance.

    “Oh, I like that you began with the memory of Corpus Christi processions. The swaying canopy, the incense, the singing, the priest processing with the monstrance – all this delighted me. I felt young again!” 

    “But that’s not what I said!” “Yes, you did,” she insisted. “Your homily made me feel like a little girl at Corpus Christi and I’m happy”. She smiled as she bade goodbye.

    I was aghast. But Jack, the parish priest, standing beside me, said: “Jesus gave her what she needed: to be young again. You were simply his bread broken for her today”.

    Indeed all we need to be is Jesus for one another. To be bread broken for others by simply giving ourselves as his Body to all. And as we do this, to humbly let Jesus feed them as he needs to. He will know what they need, and he will give them what they must receive.  We just have to be Jesus' simple gifts like the five loaves and two fish. 

    The real miracle we celebrate today is Jesus taking us as we are – whether we are bruised and stained by sin or saintly and hope-filled by grace — and blessing us to become his bread for others. 

    Then, he will break us and give us to all because, in his hands, you and I are offered to the hungry and thirsty, the pained and lost, to all, as God’s goodness for them.

    Isn’t this what we celebrate when we receive Jesus at Communion? Not Jesus as our reward for how good we are, but Jesus cherishing you and me as good enough to be his bread broken to feed, nourish and save all.  

    Will you and I come to the Eucharist, then, grateful that we are receiving Jesus?




    Preached at Church of the Transfiguration, Singapore
    photo: archdiocese of cardiff

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  2. Year C / Eastertide / Holy Trinity Sunday (solemnity)
    Readings: Proverbs 8.22-31/ Psalm 8.4-5, 6-7, 8-9 (R/v 2a) / Romans 5.1-5 / John 16.12-15


    I wonder if we’ve ever considered what it means for us to pray, “Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit”? Maybe we don’t consider this well because we pray it so often and we think we know its significance.

    Today’s Solemnity of the Holy Trinity offers us a graced opportunity to do so.

    Christians throughout our faith’s history has tried to make sense of the mystery of the Holy Trinity. “How can Three Persons be One God?” Theologians and philosophers, lay people and ordained have asked. They have answered it in many different ways. The author Graham Greene once explained this mystery in terms of the same substance we call wine that is in three bottles. The Irish expressed this mystery using a shamrock leaf. You and I have done likewise. I suspect we do this during Catechism, after homilies preached, especially today, and indeed throughout our Christian life.

    God never meant for us to analyse or solve the mystery of God as the Holy Trinity. If God did, God would have enabled us to do this already.  God is a mystery and will always remain so. 

    The only way we can understand how God is Father, Son and Spirit is to humble ourselves and experience the mystery of the Trinity’s presence and work in our lives. We will do this best in the very space God created for us to be in friendship with Him – the world.

    The Old Testament has no doctrine of the Trinity. There are however suggestions of God as Father, Son and Spirit at work, particularly in Creation. Recall the Book of Genesis when the Spirit hovered over the waters as God created the universe for his Son to live with us. In our First Reading this same Spirit is called the Wisdom of God.  Wisdom is imaged as a child at the time of God’s creation. This child delights in God’s act of creation, especially, of God creating the human race.

    God and the child Wisdom share in the joy of creation. Theirs is the happiness of being present to each other. They share in the communion of experiencing the goodness of creation together. This is how the child is in union with God.

    Perhaps, this is the kind of wisdom you and I need to understand the Holy Trinity – with child-like wisdom of using all our senses to experience the goodness of God in the world.

    Maybe this is why St Ignatius of Loyola repeatedly asks us to relish, savour and give thanks for God’s goodness in our lives and our world. If we want to do this, we must learn to let ourselves go into this mystery of God. Let go like boats do to the winds and currents that take them far and wide across the world. 

    We can only let go however if you and I are prepared to be vulnerable before God. Only then can God lead each of us to encounter, understand and know the mystery of God. Even those who suffer, St Paul reminds us in the second reading, will grow stronger in endurance, character and hope because the Spirit will lead them to know the love of God – this mystery of God’s truth, goodness and beauty – that labours in their lives through their friendship with Jesus. This is how Jesus’ promise in the gospel comes to be. 

    Indeed, Jesus' promise can be our delight when we give ourselves permission to let go and experience how true, good and beautiful God is when we pray the Glory Be. For in that moment,  we are in union with God now, even as we were with God at the beginning of creation and we will always be with God eternally.



    photo: ‘dawning’ by adrian danker, sj, sanur, bali, june 2019

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  3. A Note: I wrote this 10 years ago. It remains a good enough reflection for Pentecost, I think.


    Springtime is fast coming to an end: the hotter afternoons promise the long-awaited summer warmth so many in Boston have longed for since winter. As I cycled along the Charles yesterday, I asked myself, how did I miss springtime?

    I remember enjoying the warmth as the snow melted away and delighting in the green, green grass of our backyard peeping through. I recall seeing the first buds that dramatically burst forth into a myriad spectacle of kaleidoscopic blossoms at Easter. And I reminisce about people’s frosty pursed smiles in winter breaking into wide, happy grins with spring’s advent. 

    Often times, however, my spring days were spent in study or ministry. I was too preoccupied with these that I didn’t stop long enough to lift up my head to gaze on the subtle life-giving changes taking place around me. Truth be told, I didn’t relish the quiet springtime transformation well. Such is my regret.

    The Apostle Paul wrote that we live and move and have our being in the Spirit. This Spirit is the faith of Jesus. His faith is characterized by his total self-giving love for God, whose goodness gives, and for neighbour, who is God’s desired recipient of his goodness. His is a faith springing forth from savouring God’s goodness fully; his lingering with people at table or in conversation illustrate this. And filled with glee, awe and thanksgiving, he shared this faith that it is very good that humankind and God are already in communion. At Pentecost, Jesus gifted his apostles with this Spirit of his faith. 

    We too are gifted with this Spirit. In this Spirit, we savour God’s goodness in the people, the moments and the realities in our lives. In this Spirit, we come to confess the undeniable truth: we are still God’s beloved even in our darkest trials and most shameful sins. And in this Spirit, we thank God for all we have, both blessed and challenging, by sharing his goodness with one and all. This is our Christian faith; it is Jesus’ faith. At Pentecost, the Church celebrates Jesus’ gift of the Spirit that invites us as a Christian community into the new springtime of living more fully like he did.

    Today is Pentecost. Today, my prayer is to grow up more in the Spirit of the faith of Jesus with one and all. 

    Would this be your prayer too today?



    photo: springtime tulips by adsj
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  4. Year C / Eastertide / 7th Sunday of Easter 
    Readings: Acts 7.55-60/ Psalm 96.1-2b, 6, 7-9c, 9 (R/v 1a and 9a) / Revelation 22.12-14,16-17, 20 / John 17.20-26


    Sisters and brothers, have you considered the power of prayer

    We know it is not to be underestimated. Jesus himself teaches us so: “I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you" (Matthew 17:20). This is why Paul instructs Christians to “pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests" (Ephesians 6:18).

    The power of prayer resides in God who we pray to, never in us who pray. No matter who is praying, the passion behind the prayer, or the purpose of the prayer - God alone answers prayers that are in agreement with His will. His answers are not always yes, but are always in our best interest. So our prayer that God’s will be done is our permission for God to do what God needs for us.

    Prayer is communicating with God. Consider how we praise and worship God, share our lives with God, and entrust ourselves to God. Consider what we ask for in prayer: petition and protection, wellbeing and happiness, forgiveness and redemption. Consider that we want to hear from God, most of all that God loves us.

    I believe we have experienced God communicating with us. Who will readily testify to this power of prayer? Mothers, I would like to suggest. They know God answers their prayers for so many things, so many people. A healthy delivery. Their children’s success, and sometimes, conversion. Their family’s wellbeing. Their peace of mind. 

    There is however one prayer all mothers, ours included, pray for: that we remain close to Jesus by living good Christian lives.  They pray we remain united with God. 

    Jesus makes this same prayer for unity in today’s gospel passage. “Holy Father, I pray not only for these, but for those also who through their words will believe in me.  May they all be one”. For them, his disciples, and for others, those his disciples will baptise as his own. Jesus prays for all of them – and us – to be one.

    Jesus’ prayer “that all may be one” expresses what he experiences: the unity he and the Father have. Their relationship is a communion. Jesus wants all – his disciples and many who will learn about him – to share in their communion.

    A mother of a student in SJI prays this intention too. She tells me that every morning, she prays for Jesus to protect her son as he goes to and from school and to guide his actions and interactions. She ends by praying that he remains one with God and Jesus.

    She is really praying for him to experience the essential character of God’s presence in his life. This is the heart of Jesus’ prayer we hear today: “I made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love with which you loved me may be in them and so that I may be in them” (John 17:26).  Indeed, where there is love, there is unity with God and one another.

    Our world is urgently in need of unity. So much of our world is spoilt, soiled and stained because people tear each other apart. Stubborn family members refuse to forgive. Hateful words end long-standing friendships. Self-righteous believers divide our church by judging who Jesus will save and will not save. Conservatives and liberals fighting each other for their selfish agendas harm, pain and destroy civil society

    What is needed are actions to unite. Building bridges instead of putting up walls. Reaching out and welcoming instead of turning away and shutting out. Listening to understand instead of lying to demonize. These are all ways to bring about unity through reconciliation. This is why to be a Christian is to be an agent of reconciliation in the world. 

    We can bring about reconciliation by first learning to pray together. Praying as Jesus did for a unifying love. A ‘vertically unifying’ love that moves us and those we pray for start loving God more like Jesus. And, a ‘horizontally unifying’ love that moves all of us to care for others the way Jesus did.

    Praying like this makes real what love does. It unites. It establishes oneness. It nurtures communion.

    Praying like this helps us incarnate Jesus’ love that reconciles God and humankind. 

    Praying like this humbles us to follow Jesus’ teaching and live in God’s way.

    Praying like this allows Jesus to lift our gaze onto God instead of looking down in confusion and despair.

    Praying like this helps us to forgive like Jesus and be at peace with God and others

    Praying like opens us to Jesus’ example of touching the unclean, blessing the unbelievers, feeding the hungry, embracing the poor, and chastising the powerful, and so bring about God’s reign on earth.

    All of these can bring about the unity Jesus prays for in the gospel. 

    It will, however, confront and challenge us. In a world that chides us for wanting a relationship with God, to pray like Jesus is to take a long hard look at what ought to really matter in our relationship with God and with one another.  It must be communion.

    If not communion, what then? 

    Communion is why Jesus the Good Shepherd seeks out sheep that stray away and brings them into our midst. Does this trouble us? Really trouble us because we will be standing the table of the Lord shortly to receive Jesus side by side with those we judge sinner, those we call enemy, those we despise, those who have hurt us, those we pray to God we don’t want to meet ever again in our lives? Can we wholeheartedly accept that God wants this kind of communion for us?

    If Jesus’ action to include others disturbs you, give thanks. Because this is how God cracks open our hard hearts, tears down our walls that exclude and divide, broadens our fixed mindsets and narrowmindedness and corrects our self-righteousness. God will do all this to save us from corrupting Jesus’ prayer for our communion with God. 

    God does this to chastise and humble us who too often bluff ourselves that Jesus is praying exclusively and only for you and me, for the chosen and baptized, for the obedient and saintly to be one with God. 

    Jesus is not. On earth, he also prayed that God’s communion is for all, especially, the most wretched, the most despised, the most unredeemable. Now ascended, he sits at the Father’s right hand and prays this same prayer. Yes, with Jesus, all are welcomed into God’s communion.

    This truth is the message of this year’s World Communications Sunday: “We are members of one another” (Ephesians 4.25). For Pope Francis, communications and social media should build community by encouraging encounter and dialogue with one another.  We should not use them to divide, damage and discriminate others.

    Maybe this is why prayer is equally powerful when those praying communicate to onlookers the power of God’s presence in their midst. And more than this, communicate God's invitation for them to enter into prayer too. I see this whenever our students in  SJI pray in public before a football match or the National Science Challenge or our Annual Cross-Country at Bedok Reservoir. When onlookers pause to see us pray, and some of them join in, it is not us and them, school and public, Christian and non-Christian. It is simply all of us together united in God’s holy presence.

    Isn’t this the power of prayer we should imitate Jesus and ask God for – peace and unity in our world? If you agree, what’s stopping us?




    Preached at St Ignatius Church and Church of Christ the King, Singapore
    photo: the christian broadcasting network (internet)

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"Bukas Palad"
"Bukas Palad"
is Filipino for open palms
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Peace and welcome, dear friend.
I hope you will find in these posts something that speaks to you of the God who loves us all and who always holds us in the palm of his hand. Blessings!
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Fall in Love, Stay in Love
Fall in Love, Stay in Love

"Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute way final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything."

Pedro Arrupe, sj, Superior General, 1965 - 1983

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is a 50something Catholic who resides in Singapore and works for the Church. He is a priest of the Roman Catholic Church.
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©adrian.danker.sj, 2006-2018

The views I express in these pages are personal. They do not speak for the Society of Jesus or the Catholic Church.
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