1.  

    Year A / Christmas / Christmas Night 
    Readings Isaiah 9.1-6 / Psalm 95 (R/v Luke 2.11) / Titus 2.11-14 / Luke 2.1-14


    "The grace of God has appeared, saving all" (Titus 2.11)

    This is the Apostle Paul's message to Titus.  We hear it on this most holy Christmas night. It must resonate with all of us for this truth is indeed God's good news for all peoples.

    We see it in the new born child we remember again, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in this manger before us.

    We hear it in the joyful refrains of every Christmas song we will sing tonight, each echoing the celebration of the psalmist and the angel: "Today a saviour has been born to us, he is Christ the Lord."

    We believe it in the wondrous amazement and simple faith of the shepherds whose trust we imagine again propels them to seek out this little one in the manger, who we also long to come up close to and gaze upon his face after this Mass.

    We know all this to be the truth we have long awaited for throughout Advent. Tonight it comes to be in this child Jesus who is born.  Born again in no other place than in us. Our hearts are the very manger where he wants to dwell in. No matter how messy, chaotic or sinful our hearts may be, Jesus chooses our hearts to come and dwell in. And more than dwell in, he comes to save us. 

    Indeed the very place of true belonging -- where God and us are together -- is the space of our lives that God lovingly fashions with his own hands. Nothing we make will be good enough. So, let us rejoice!

    What kind of a God does this for us? A God who comes in the vulnerability of a child. A mighty God who makes himself small to meet us. A powerful God whose powerlessness is his might. A generous God whose poverty is his richness. A merciful, compassionate God whose simple, innocent child-like love is unreservedly and always selflessly for all. 

    This is what we believe we see in Jesus lying in the manger. Only eyes of faith can help us see even more: the utter wonder and goodness of God who freely chooses to come to us in Jesus. He wants to be with us. He cannot bear to be separated from us. He desires that we encounter, know and be together with him through the relationships we share for he is with each of us. 

    To drive home this message that God chooses us, in Jesus God wraps himself in human skin.  Our skin of whatever tongue or creed, whatever scars or wounds, or however we have made up to look pretty or am au naturel in our ruggedness tonight, or even however saintly or sinful our lives are, God intentionally wraps himself in our human skin. Skin that is finite, limited and temporal. Does this shock you? 

    God's action of wrapping himself in human skin expresses his singular desire to come and enter our lives. Enter not once but again and again. This is how God truly becomes God of our lives -- his goodness, ever giving; his faithfulness, ever present; his life never failing to be our life too. All this tells us that God’s love never ends. It also reveals how far God’s love will go for us: so far in coming down from heaven to us in Jesus. God made flesh – this truth should comfort us, give us peace, be our joy. Indeed, let us rejoice!

    Isaiah reminds us tonight that God does all this because he jealousy loves us.  This is why "the great mystery of Christmas continues to give us comfort and consolation," Henri Nouwen writes: "we are not alone on our journey." God is with us. Hear again the angel's proclamation: "Do not be afraid...a saviour has been born."

    Knowing this, let us humble ourselves and join the shepherds to go in haste to find the Christ, this child in the manger. Let us not see. Let us adore and worship. God-is-with-us; his name is Jesus. He will save. Truly, we can be grateful. Sincerely, let us rejoice!

    Something wondrous happens with Jesus’s coming. What was in us and in our lives, like words of anger or deeds of hurt, or even feelings of regret can now begin to fade into a passing darkness. This frees us to look ahead and anew to Jesus, God’s radiant light. 

    His light shows us the way to God. It enlightened the Apostle Paul who taught the first Christians to put on love, the love of God that binds all together. While Jesus was on earth, many experienced this love that guides all to God in Jesus’s flesh and skin. 

    Tonight Jesus comes into our lives. He wraps himself in our skin. This is the unexpected, remarkable gift of Christmas: Jesus being born in us, if we but let him. We should let God do this because as St Athanasius wrote, “In Jesus, God became what we are so that he might make us what he is.” His own, clothed in his love and imaged like his Son Jesus.

    Dare we let God wrap us in the remarkable, unexpected love of Jesus come alive in us? Wrap us so that we become his light to bring others out of their own darkness to reconcile with God and one another? 

    May be if we dare, we might come to know that God’s love would this far -- really so very far -- for all of us to be saved and happy.  Truly, we must rejoice! So, let us!

    A blessed Christmas, my friends!




    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart
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  2. Year A / Advent / Week 4 / Sunday 
    Readings: Isaiah 7.10-14 / Psalm 23.1-2, 3-4ab, 5-6  / Romans 1.1-7 / Matthew 1.18-24



    "...a name which means 'God-is-with-us'" (Matthew 1.23)

    Throughout Advent we have been waiting to hear the name of the one to come at Christmas. Today we hear it. This name 'God-is-with-us' resounds throughout today's readings. 

    Names are important. They tell us who a person is, from whom he comes and where he is from.  In our gospel we hear the name 'Jesus.' He whom the prophets call, Immanuel, a name which means 'God-is-with-us,' as Isaiah proclaims to Ahaz and to us. 

    So what's in a name? God's faithfulness. 

    In the First Reading, Isaiah names God's promise that Israel and Judah will be spared from their warring enemies. It will come in the form of a son born of a young woman to King David's family line. His name will remind all of God's faithfulness: whether in the past, now or in the future, God is with his people, especially, the lowly and the suffering. 

    What's more in a name? God's comfort.

    In the Gospel Reading, Joseph struggles to make sense of Mary's pregnancy. It's a mystery he needs to solve. 

    Mysteries are uncomfortable. They disturb our stable, predictable and ordered lives. We need to know how things work and how they happen. 

    Because Mary's pregnancy is indeed a mystery, God comes to assure Joseph and to direct him onward. In a dream, God's angel reveals the child's name and his mission. He is Jesus and he has come 'to save his people from their sins' as the prophets foretold. This revelation comforts, particularly as it echoes Isaiah's proclamation that this child is God-with-us. Finally it consoles because Jesus's name situates him in David's line of descendants, like Joseph his earthly father is.

    What else is in a name? God's promise.

    This morning we hear of God giving Ahaz and Joseph a promise each. Mary received a similar promise at the Annunciation. These promises point them to God's name for the gift of his Son who becomes one like us, one for us. The readings announce these names: 'Jesus,' 'Son of the Most High,' 'Immanuel.'  However we call God's Son, he was, is and ever will be 'God-with-us.'

    This is why Advent has been waking us up from our mediocrity and laziness, our pride and sinfulness, our fear and stubbornness to hear God's name for the one we are waiting for at Christmas. We need to hear it so that we will welcome him wholeheartedly.  Are you and me sufficiently awake now to hear this name and welcome him?

    Our readings challenge us to do as Joseph did -- to wake up and take Mary to his home. He did by trusting God's guidance about Mary. Mary also trusted what she could not physically experienced. Even Ahaz had to trust what could not be seen. Do you and I also trust God's promise to bring Jesus to birth in us?

    We are good Christian people. We want to trust. Trust helps us as we wait patiently, even expectantly, for the remarkable to come: God coming down to be with us. Our excitement, if not our anxiety, might make us look for signs. Signs of God's promise, both to come and those already around us. Signs like a rainbow after the rains, the first cry of a newborn announcing life, a candle lighting up the dark, a neighbour reaching out to care, enemies forgiving each other. All these are God's goodness in our midst. 

    And yes, even the name 'Jesus.' In him on earth, many experienced God's presence. In birth, life and hope to an unwed mother. In life, protection in Egypt from enemies. In work, providence and friends on his itinerant journeys. In crucifixion and death, resurrection life that turns the world upside down and renews. Here is God's sure, sacred presence. Haven't we glimpsed this in our everyday lives too? Surely, this must make us see differently and believe anew. Yes, there is indeed more to God than a name. There is love -- love that saves.

    This is the goodness we're invited to contemplate on when we stand before the manger on Christmas day. We can only do this however when we dare to see beyond appearances. Beyond the figurine of baby Jesus lying before us to the mystery of God loving us so much that he comes with this promise: to be born in us again this Christmas. Are you really desiring this goodness of God?

    Joseph looked at Mary in this way after God's assurance. He took into his home more than Mary as his wife. He welcomed the mystery of God inside her.  Yes, there is more than meets the eye with the name 'Jesus.'

    There is love that gives the name 'Jesus.' There is love that expresses the fullness of the name 'Jesus.' There is love who Jesus himself is. The love of God's faithfulness, comfort and promise. This is the goodness of Jesus's name. It is a goodness that is hidden and silent because it is modest.* The only way we can know such goodness is to sit before Jesus in the manager and allow him to reveal the mystery of God's love in his smallness. Because God's style is discreet, never imposing himself, we will only know this goodness when we entrust ourselves to God's slow, continuous work of letting us see Jesus anew -- as the sure promise of God's mysterious way of loving to save us. 

    If we dare do this, then we must join the psalmist and declare with trust and expectant joy, these words as we stand at the threshold of Christmas: "Let the Lord enter, he is the king of glory' in our lives.

    Shall we?



    *inspired by Pope Francis, Address at General Audience, 19 October 2022


    Preached at Church of the Sacred Heart, Singapore
    photo: www.stleonardlouisville.org

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  3.  

    Year A / Advent / Week 3 / Sunday 
    Readings: Isaiah 35.1-6a, 10 / Psalm 146  / James 5.7-10 / Matthew 11.2-11


    "Go back and tell John what you see and hear" (Matthew 11.4)

    This is Jesus' response to the question John the Baptist instructs his disciples to ask Jesus: "Are you the one who is to come or should we look for another/"

    I wonder what our response would be if someone asks us the same question. Especially today when it is Gaudete Sunday and we are supposed to rejoice because Jesus's coming is very close at hand. 

    Jesus's reply directs the disciples to the good he is doing in their midst. His miracles. His words and deeds that announce God's Good News to the lowly, the sick, the disliked and the sinful. His mercy that converts and saves many, revealing to all the sure sign that God's Kingdom is real and alive in their midst.

    Jesus's reply should challenge us too to look up and around. And to see clearly. It should demand we strain and tune our ears to hear. And to really listen. What are we to see and hear? That God's goodness is also with us now. 

    We need to hear Jesus's reply. It is in fact his demand that we see and hear his goodness now amongst us even as we look ahead ahead to Christmas. At this time, our busyness is with worldly preparations of present buying, Christmas meal preparations, house cleaning and decorating, and rounds of festive merriment. All this might leave us preoccupied, anxious and stressed that our Advent preparations are spiritually naught. 

    We might say we are preparing for Christmas but we feel disconnected from Jesus. We might claim we are readying ourselves for Christmas but our hearts are still messy, ill-prepared and sin-filled for Jesus to be born in us.  We might feel good that most of the Christmas To Do list is done but we know we are spiritually lifeless and empty. 

    All this might make us feel like the blind, deaf, lame and mute Isaiah, the Psalmist and Matthew describe in today's readings -- struggling.

    Struggling because if I cannot see, I many not know where I am in relation to God and others this Advent. If I cannot hear, I may not hear God's life-giving words the Advent readings proclaim. If I cannot move, I may find myself withdrawing from God's desire to walk with me through Advent. If I cannot speak, I may become dumb, unable to share my desires with God for Christmas.

    For some these experiences make Advent a dark, silent and still time. It is almost as if God is absent. 

    Wait! This cannot be the Advent life. Today's readings tell us so. Isaiah, the Psalmist and Matthew declare that with God there is life and our world is filled with God's presence. This is why the wilderness and wastelands will exult, blossom and rejoice Isaiah proclaims.  We can too.

    Consider.  We may feel spiritually dry; but isn't there enough faith that brings us here, Sunday after Sunday, Advent or not? We may say we are blind because we cannot focus on Jesus; but isn't there enough vision and light to help us still look ahead to Jesus's coming? We may struggle with deafness to hear the Advent readings; but isn't there enough understanding and relationship with God who moves us to go for Advent confession, pray more fervently and make room in our hearts for Jesus? We may become aware of our paralysis to prepare for Christmas because of our sinfulness; but don't we have enough of God's Spirit to want to leap in freedom to see Jesus in the crib? We may sigh that we are not masters of speech to proclaim; but isn't there enough of a Christmas tune or refrain humming within us and lifting up our spirits to welcome Jesus? 

    There is enough. In God's eyes we have enough in us, with us and around us to rejoice! And rejoice we must because this is what we can see and hear. Yes, God is with us, and this is very good. Indeed, rejoice!

    What gives us the right and certainty that we can and must rejoice? That God's goodness is always with us, even now as we await Jesus's coming. This is the Advent message. There is light, instead of darkness. Hope, instead of despair. Love, instead of hatred. Peace, instead of anxiety. Joy, instead of sorrow. 

    Don't we know this message? Year after year we hear it. It's the same story, the same message, the same Jesus we are waiting for. So why bother?

    Because we must. We need the Advent message to give us the right perspective to celebrate Christmas. For what we all long for throughout Advent is exactly what God promised once to in history and still promises us today. It is simply this: the predictability of God's goodness in Jesus.

    The predictability of Jesus' coming and becoming one with us.
    The predictability of Jesus showing us the way to God.
    The predictability of Jesus redeeming us from sin and death.
    The predictability of God's goodness abounding in all our lives, regardless of our state of grace.
    The predictability of all our hopes being fulfilled.
    The predictability of peace on earth and goodwill to all peoples.
    The predictability of Christmas and the joy it brings.
    The predictability of the love come down to us and saving us.

    Indeed, this predictability of God is nothing less than God's faithfulness for us. This is the joyful reminder James teaches us today.  Yes, we are in the midst of Advent and we need to prepare for Jesus's coming. Yet even now we can joyfully anticipate him. To delay being joyful is to deny that God's goodness is already with us -- labouring in us and amongst us to make our waiting for Jesus worthwhile.

    What response can we make for God's goodness? No better response than to do what is expected of us as Christians: to be John the Baptist and point others to Jesus who came before and will come again and, even more, amazing, is already with us now. Indeed, he is God-with-us. When we act like this, we make the most human response to God -- to be his messenger to all in Advent and every day. And this is the most predictable way God expects us to live as Christians. 

    Shall we?




    Preached at Sacred Heart Church, Singapore
    photo: familybritches.com
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  4. This homily was preached at a retreat in the Ignatian tradition

    Year A / Advent / Week 2 / Sunday  
    Readings: Isaiah 11.1-10 / Psalm 72.2, 7-8, 12-13, 17 (R/v cf 7) / Romans 15.4-9 / Matthew 3.1-12


    "Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight, 
    and all mankind shall see the salvation of God" (Luke 3.4,6)

    This is our Gospel Acclamation today. It should encourage us on our Advent journey and along the way to Jesus at Christmas. We must prepare for the Lord; it is good and right for he is coming.

    These words are also apt as we begin this retreat. We need to hear them for a retreat is always about preparing a way for the Lord. To come to us. To visit us. To encounter us. To console and challenge us. To enter into our lives and dwell in us. To make us better persons. This is the hope many have when making a retreat.

    Many of us here are experienced retreat goers. Some are retreat groupies. In Latin 'retreat' means 'draw back.' We know this does not mean taking flight from the world. Rather, it is to do what the monks do -- choosing solitude to be with the Lord. Ignatius of Loyola understood the value of this choice for prayer, contemplation and union with God. All who retreat are doing it for the same reason Jesus did -- 'to get in touch with the One who brought the world in being and who directs it toward some meaningful end."*

    In the First Reading, Isaiah describes what such an end would look like. It will be a world where the poor and afflicted would be treated with justice and fairness. It would be a world infused with a spirit of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and strength. In this world, peace and serenity will reign; the wolf will be the guest of the lamb and the leopard will lie down with the kid. Isn't this the kind of world we long for -- a better, safer, happier world? In truth, Isaiah's prophecy that we hear throughout Advent is for the new heaven and the new earth that Jesus's coming will bring about.

    Surely, Isaiah's prophecy echoes some of the consolations you have for yourselves, your families and friends, the world as you begin your retreat. However, could God have something more he wants us to give us? Could it also be for our Advent preparations?

    The gospel reminds us that we are all crying out in the desert. Specifically in the myriad deserts within us. Hurts and regrets, addictions and sins create these wastelands within. We need to prepare a way for the Lord to enter these spaces. There he wishes to hear our deepest longing, answer it and bring us home to him. There we can count on his forgiveness. However, we need to choose repentance and conversion to receive the fullness of God's forgiveness. Yes, we will make straight our paths by asking God for forgiveness and hope.

    Every year we do this when we make our confessions at the Advent Penitential Service. Then, we return to the same old same old ways of preparing ourselves for Christmas - with Advent busyness to get decorations up, presents bought, festive meals prepared and rounds of merriment done.

    Could it be that God wishes for us to do something more this Advent? To let him enter into the deserts within us and transform them into the manger of our hearts for Jesus to be born in us. I believe this is God's demand. Do we hear it? Will we let God do this for us?

    The image of Jesus with his winnowing fan in his hand can help us understand God's demand. In the Gospel reading John the Baptist describes Jesus clearing out his threshing floor, gathering his wheat and burning the chaff. Here is Jesus clearing out the waste, the dross, the muck in us so that there is space to gather goodness into our lives. Haven't we experienced God doing similarly in a retreat and gracing us with life-giving consolations?

    Humility allows us to let God give birth to Jesus in us. I believe this is the 'something more' God is demanding of us in our Advent preparations. He demands because he wants to save us. We will only hear it when we humble ourselves. Humility is also what we need to enter into this retreat and experience this 'something more' that is God's good labour -- to winnow our lives, separating the good from the bad. Then, we will be renewed for Christian life with Jesus.

    How shall we do this? By retreating into solitude. There, God speaks in silence. This is why the silence St Teresa of Calcutta writes about is the grace worth begging for as we begin this retreat, if not for Advent. Listen: "In silence he listens to us; in silence he speaks to our souls In silence he grants us the privilege of listening to his voice." Truly in silence, God labours to bring to birth Jesus in us and, through us, into the world. When this happens, let us recall Paul's teaching in the Second Reading that God helps the people who did not give up. For we are these people. This good news, Paul adds, is worth praising to all peoples.

    Our readings offer us much to turn our lives around towards Jesus. There is time to do this as we continue our Advent preparations. As we do, let us pray by keeping today's Collect (Opening Prayer) in in our minds, on our lips and in our hearts: "may no earthly understanding hinder those who set out in haste to meet your Son, but may our learning of heavenly wisdom gain us admittance to this company."

    Shall we?




    *E. Glenn Hinson, Spiritual Preparation for Christian Leadership



    Preached at Don Bosco Retreat Centre, Dalat, Vietnam
    photo by Edu Grande on Unsplash  
      
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  5.  
    Year C / Ordinary Time / Week 34 / Sunday: Solemnity of Christ the King
    Readings: Samuel 5.1-3 / Psalm 122. 1-2, 3-4, 4-5 (R/v cf v1) / Colossians 1.12-20 / Luke 23.35-43


    "Today you will be with me in paradise" (Luke 23.43)

    This is Jesus's assurance to the repentant thief who pleads that Jesus remembers him in death. We long to hear this same assurance.  We need it because we want to know that we too will be with Jesus when we die. 

    We might feel like this because the end of every year is a sobering time. We find ourselves reflecting on what we have done and what we have failed to do. As we do, we might see how we have acted like a crook - saying we are Christian but living unChristian lives with our words and in our actions. 

    It pains us to admit how unChristian we are each time we fail to love God and neighbour. We grieve our faults. We confess our sins. We reconcile to be in right relationship with God and all we have hurt.

    May be this is why we might find ourselves drawn to the two thieves hanging beside Jesus in today's gospel reading. We might think of ourselves hanging on our own cross of shame for our repeated sins and believing we are unworthy of God's forgiveness. We might think of ourselves hanging on our own cross of regret that we keep failing and falling so often even as we strive to live better Christian lives.  

    Indeed, we might feel a lot like those two thieves, crooks that they are.

    Between them hangs Jesus. He mercifully forgives anyone who asks for forgiveness. He promises the repentant eternal life. We believe Jesus will do this for us too because he came to die for all peoples so that everyone will have life with God forever. 

    Today the Church invites us to proclaim this same Jesus as King of the Universe. King because he freed us and all creation from sin and death for God. King because he reconciled everyone and everything to God. King because he redeemed all for God. King because his death and resurrection restored all to God's original plan of creation - to live and be one with God.

    But what kind of a king is he who readily accepted being spat on and scourged, crowned with many thorns and crucified to death? What kind of a king is he who willing died for everyone instead of saving himself with power and might?

    Our first reading tells us the kind of king Jesus is, and why he is king of our lives. 

    His ancestor David was anointed king to shepherd God's people. A shepherd-king who cares for his flock, protects his sheep, feeds them and yes, goes out to seek the one lost sheep at the expense of the ninety-nine.  A shepherd-king who guides God's people on the right path, walking with them through valleys dark and who leads them home to dwell with God and to feast at his table.

    Today we celebrate the shepherd-king. He who suffers with the thieves on the cross. He who is with us and shares the burden of our own crosses. He who readily forgives the repentant, again and again. He who sacrifices his life to save everyone and so fulfils his promise that we will be with him in paradise. 

    Today some of us might feel like crooks, sinful, coming to Jesus. As shepherd-king he sees us for much more than our sins. How so? 

    An answer lies in how we understand the word 'crook.' In the English Language, 'crook' has two meanings. The first is that of thief. The second is that of the curved branch a shepherd uses as a staff. With this staff, this crook, he shepherds the sheep, moving them along, protecting them, and herding them back into the sheepfold. 

    If you and I are crooks, we are to Jesus crooks in the second sense of the word. As instruments for his mission. In the hands of Jesus, the shepherd-king, we are this kind of crook - he uses us like a shepherd staff to care for many with the love of God coursing through us.

    Indeed, however poorly or bad we have lived this year, hasn't Jesus used us to bring light, love and life into the darkness, emptiness and nothingness of someone else's life? Haven't we showed concern for the family? Haven't we cared for someone less fortunate at work or in school? Haven't we offered hope to someone despairing, needing faith? 

    I believe we have all done some good charitably, generously, selflessly this year. We have because in the hands of our shepherd-king, Jesus, we are crooks he has used to care for, protect, save and restore others to fullness of life, not just for heaven but for here and now. 

    We have come to Eucharist. Our Christian faith may be limited. Our sinfulness may be habitual. Our zeal to serve may be lacking. Yet Jesus gathers us to proclaim this life-giving message -- we may act like thieves but in Jesus's hands we are also and always instruments, vessels, messengers for God. He uses us to continue his good work of reconciling and restoring every person to right relationship with God and neighbour.   

    This truth is the surprise I found when reading a poem by my teacher, the Singaporean poet, Anne Lee Tzu Peng. She writes: "We are all crooks caught in the hands of the Chief Shepherd. He uses us as hooks to bring the stray back."

    This assurance of who we are and what our lives are for should delight us as we celebrate today's solemnity. Indeed, Jesus judges us good enough to be with him in paradise to come, and even now to partner him on God's mission.  This is why we have every right to sing and rejoice with the psalmist that we are meant for no other destination when our lives end but home with God. 

    There is therefore no other response we can make to this Good News than to simply and gratefully say, "Amen, Amen, Alleluia!" Shall we?





    preached at Church of the Sacred Heart, Singapore
    photo: pond5.com

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  6.  

    Devotion to the Sacred Heart – Friday, 11 November
    Reflection based on Matthew 11.28-30


    Who amongst us would readily or happily accept what is soiled, stained or dented? We prefer something better, if not the best.

    When my nephew Glenn was younger, he liked Lightning McQueen, that bright red, shiny sports car in the animated film, Cars. “Uncle Adrian, that’s my favourite car!” he exclaimed. He didn’t like Sir Tow Mater, another character; it was a rusty, unpolished, tow truck whose chassis was very much dented, everywhere.

    We all have our dents too. Haven’t we been bumped around and knocked about? Hasn’t life been tough on us, sometimes when family and friends are harsh on us? Let’s not even count our self-inflected dents because of  bad choices. 

    We want Jesus to heal all these dents. A sadness that seeks understanding. A worry that yearns for comfort. An ache that hungers to be soothed A way of life that needs reordering. A sin that hopes for forgiveness. Like Tow Mater, we carry these dents on our bodies, and on the Body of Christ that we also are together.  Isn’t this a reason we petition to the Heart of Jesus? 

    Today we hear Jesus’s promise: “Come to me, all you who labour and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” His words console us. How else can it be? In Jesus, we have staked everything we are and we believe in. We trust him so much to  cry out, “have mercy on us” and declare, “I believe in your love for me.”

    Indeed we can do this because Jesus always cares and heals. Listen again: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

    Often, we associate the word  “yoke” with bondage and servitude. We fear it means losing freedom and choice. We picture this yoke to be a heavy burden only one person must bear. Isn’t this why we find it challenging to completely take on Jesus’ yoke, even if he promises it will be easy and light to shoulder?

    But the word “yoke” also suggests connectivity and relationship. Being joined with or connected to is what the verb “yoke” means. Think of the farmer who teams up working animals with one another. He uses a double yoke for this. 

    I believe this double yoke is the yoke Jesus speaks about. A double yoke that we don’t have to pull or bear alone. A double yoke Jesus wears and shoulders with us. A double yoke not for servitude and bondage, but to connect us with Jesus and to be in relationship with. This is how Jesus shares our burdens and apportions our life’s loads.

    Jesus’s yoke reminds us of his friendship with us. He has heard our cry for healing and for life in God. He offers us friendship to care for us and lift us up.

    "Who amongst us would readily or happily accept what is soiled, stained or dented?" This is the question I began this reflection with. We know the answer: Jesus. He will always embrace us as we are no matter how dented our bodies are with sins and failings 

    He will do this again and again, like tonight at this devotion as we pray for many and for ourselves. And he will say, “Come to me if you seek God, if you seek life, and I will ease your burden and give you rest.” Isn’t Jesus’s yoke, then, the right yoke for you and me?


    Shared Sacred Heart Church, Singapore
    photo: schoolsweek.co.uk

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  7.  

    This homily was preached at the Courage SG Advent Retreat

    Year C / Ordinary Time / Week 32 / Sunday
    Readings: 2 Maccabees 7.1-2, 9-14 / Psalm 16.1, 5-6, 8b, 15 (R/v 15b) / 2 Thessalonians 2.16-3.5 / Luke 20.27-38


    "May the Lord...comfort you and strengthen you in everything good that you do and say" ( 2 Thessalonians 2.16-17)

    This is Paul's prayer to the Thessalonians. It is for us too. 
     
    Here we are, good Christians on retreat. We've come away to pray and reflect on the Sunday readings in Advent. We do this to prepare for Christmas. These readings give us words to guide and direct us, inspire and encourage us, challenge and even disturb us. Wise words for good Advent preparation. Life-giving words for all who are same-sex attracted or identify as LGBTQ to hear that Jesus is coming for you too, and, more remarkably, that he wants you to go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. 

    In today's readings, God prepares us for Advent by giving us right perspective. He reminds us that Jesus who we welcome at his brith will also lead us to the Cross, upon which he overcame death, his resurrection wining for us eternal life. This movement is the arc of our Christian life - from womb to tomb, and breaking free of it, to be with God. Yes, praying the Advent readings in this retreat prepares us not just for Christmas. They point us to reason for the season: that Jesus came and lived, he loved and served and he died and rose so that we might have life to the full. 

    Don't we struggle to embrace this and say, "I truly believe" when death confronts us? This past week, we have all faced death as we remembered our beloved dead. Once we with them, we spoke and laughed, ate and cried, touched and held, lived and worked, and prayed and played. Now, death separates us. Our hearts ache and we continue grieving, more quietly, and perhaps,  more gratefully. 

    Faith empowers us to believe they are with God. Our human frailty, however, moves us to ask now and again, "Where is she now? Is he really with God?"

    Only 'hope' can give us a glimpse of an answer. We hear about it when one of the brothers in the 1st Reading says, "Ours is the better choice, to meet death at men's hands, yet relying on God's promise that we shall be raised up by him" (1 Mc 7.14). Indeed, our hope is in God. He is the God of life. Hear again Jesus saying this today, "He is God, not of the dead but of the living; for to Him all mean are in fact alive" (Luke 20.38).

    How can this be? Because God keeps love safe.*

    Look at the Crucifix. Here is Jesus, God-with-us. He chose to die this way. His self-sacrifice is the defining act of loving us. His choice keeps our hope alive in him who is our resurrection and life. We hope because of love - God loving us and we loving God. Yes, Jesus's death keeps love safe.

    Look again at the Sunday readings of Advent we have prayed and reflected on, and also shared about. Haven't we kept our gaze on Jesus's coming? His coming down as St Ignatius of Loyola imagined in his meditation on the Father, Son and Holy Spirit looking upon the world. Again, Jesus's choice reveals God keeping love safe - our love for God. Our love for God that pines for his mercy, yearns for his love and hungers for his bountiful life. Our love for God that trusts again and again that Jesus comes as the hope we need. He comes not just because he has heard the cries of the poor, cared to lead all out of darkness, even uplifted the lowly. No, He came so that God could save and we "might have life and life to the full" (John 10.10). 

    Life grows out of love. So often we think that love grows out of life. Not so, says Fr John Foley, SJ. "Love is a force much deeper, stronger than life. When life ceases, love stays. It becomes the home, the embracing arms of that enfold us. Love is the substance, life is the outgrowth. So the place dead persons go, our beloved dead, leaving their bodies behind, is into the heart of love, into the arms of God who is love."*

    On Good Friday, you and I stand at the foot of the Cross. At Jesus's feet, really. Looking up, we see Jesus's perfect expression of total self-abandonment into God to love freely and to the end, and so save all. We are challenged to do the same. To let go of everything we grab and hoard, of every person we tightly grasp and possess, of everything else we cling on for life but really denies us eternal life. 

    On Christmas morning, you and I will stand or kneel at the the feet of baby Jesus. We will adore him. Small, vulnerable, gurgling, smiling, hands outstretched, waiting for us to lift Him up into our embrace, into our hearts, really. In that moment, we are simply being invited to let go and open ourselves to the surprise of Jesus, God's gift. Then, like children, to simply delight and love even more the giver of this gift. We do this every Christmas but we forget it so often. This Advent, God wants to prepare us again to do just that for his son. Will we? The Sunday Advent readings we meditated on explain why we should.

    In today's gospel the Sadducees are fixated on dying and they deny there is resurrection. Jesus is focused on living and proves there is by rising from the dead. The Christian truth is that we are already participating in what the Sadducees deny. All this comes to be because of what we have learned again about Advent: that Jesus's coming will change us and the world for the better because he is God-with-us and he is love. Yes, it is true - love is coming. 

    Do you believe?






    *inspired in part by the writings of Fr John Foley, SJ



    photo: human-iniative.org

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  8.  

    Year C / Ordinary Time / 31st Week / Sunday 
    Readings: Wisdom 11.22-12.2/ Psalm 144.1-2, 8-9, 10-11, 13cd-14  (R/v cf  1) / 2 Thessalonians 1.11-2.2 / Luke 19.1-10


    “Zacchaeus, come down. Hurry because I must stay at your house today” (Luke 19.5)

    How many of us yearn to hear Jesus make this same invitation to us? Don’t we want him to invite himself into our house, our life? We want to but we may be too embarrassed and ashamed to even contemplate this possibility because of our sinfulness.

    The good news that today’s gospel reading proclaims is simple: Jesus comes; Jesus enters; Jesus stays for good. 

    Haven’t we all experienced a situation similar to Jesus’s coming to Zacchaeus when a stranger or acquittance, a classmate or workmate, a neighbour or parishioner, came up to us and wanted to get to know us better? Might Jesus have come to us through them?  

    Come in this way because as St Teresa of Avila so poignantly reminds us, “Christ has not body now but yours.  No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blessed all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body.”

    Indeed Jesus comes to us through family and friends. They who sit and laugh with us. They who mourn with us in our grief. They who comfort us in our sufferings. They who encourage us home to God when we lose our way in faith. 

    May be like Zacchaeus we feel unworthy to come to Jesus because our lives are less Christian than He teaches us they should be. May be this is why we might stay far away from Him, climb up a tree and stay out of His line of sight. Yet Jesus comes right up to us and says, “Hurry down because I must stay with you today.” I wonder how we would feel when we hear this.

    Jesus comes so insistently – and ever so gently, so intimately, so compassionately – to remind us that we are God’s own and God’s alone. This is the truth of who we are to God and who God really is.

    Today we hear the Book of Wisdom also proclaim this truth of God. “You are merciful to all, because you can do all things and overlook men’s sins so that they can repent. Yes, you love all that exists, you hold nothing of what you have made in abhorrence, for had you hated anything, you would not have formed it” (Wisdom 11.23-24).

    Indeed Jesus’s action of reaching out to Zacchaeus is to remind him that God made him good, and in spite of his sinful choices and actions, he still has the potential to live the good life with God. 

    Today Jesus is doing the same for us. Like Zacchaeus, we have climbed up to see Jesus. Up the steps at the church’s entrance. Up from the main road. Up here because we desire to see Jesus, sinful as we are yet hope-filled that Jesus will look favourably on us and turn our lives around. 

    Isn’t this really our hearts’ desire for coming here to Eucharist?  Jesus knows it is. This is why he comes to us. More so, he wants to stay with us. Stay like he did with Zacchaeus who climbed down when Jesus called and followed him.

    We have climbed up to be here for Eucharist. At Communion, Jesus will invite us to climb down metaphorically, that is, to humble ourselves to receive him. When we do Jesus will enter into our lives to stay with us. He stays as the love of God that seeks us out in sinfulness, transforms us unreservedly to become more Christ-like and brings us home to God.

    We are now in church, God’s home. We have come as Zacchaeus did by giving Jesus permission to lead him back home. There, he repented and saved his life. Jesus wants to do the same for us by inviting himself into our lives. What will be your answer?

    Here, many of us will respond by coming to communion. The Church teaches that all should come to communion in a state of grace. Some who come will not be. I wonder what gives them the strength, courage and faith to come. In fact, it is not a what we should be looking at in their lives but who – the one who invites Himself to come and stay with us. His name is Jesus. He is our Saviour. 

    Some amongst us will however play judge, deciding who can and cannot receive Jesus at Communion. All who do this are Pharisee-like: they are so quick to judge, condemn and punish by throwing the first stone on the sinful. They forget their own sinfulness.

    Jesus came to save. He threw no stones. Instead, he lavished mercy and love on all who sinned. We all know this. We have all experienced the truth of being loved sinners. This is how Jesus always looks at us. Like Zacchaeus, we have experienced others judging us unworthy. Jesus does not. In fact, he says to those who judge and to us who he loves immensely, “Today, salvation has come to this house…for the Son of Man has come to seek out and save what was lost” (Luke 19.1-11). If we have received this mercy of God, how can we not be merciful towards another?

    We are here today because we have heard Jesus speak these words in the Gospels: “I have come that you might have life and have it to the full,” “be not afraid,” and “I am with you always.” These are Jesus's life-giving words. We believe them.

    Today, if we listened more attentively to Jesus’s encounter with Zacchaeus, we might also hear Him say, “I have come to you and now I will stay with you. Will you stay with me too?”

    Will we?





    Preached at Sacred Heart Church, Singapore
    photo by Dave Phillips on Unsplash
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  9. Devotion to the Sacred Heart – Friday, 28 October
    Reflection based in Gospel Reading: Luke 15.3-7


    Wild, barren, and harsh. These words describe the wilderness. The wilderness is also present in our lives, in various forms. Spiritual emptiness because prayer is dry. Emotional desolateness because loved ones hurt us. Wasted hopes because we’ve squandered God-given opportunities.
     
    We avoid these spaces of wilderness because they are the desserts and wastelands within us. We fill them with anything and everything to mask that they exist. We distract our gaze elsewhere to look for happier things that only satisfy temporarily. We numb ourselves with a hundred and one things to avoid confronting them. 

    Perhaps this is how we live – busying ourselves with work and studies, avoiding difficult family situations with leisure and pleasure, intoxicating ourselves when we are feeling down with addictions and fictions. Maybe it’s easier to live on the run than being in the wilderness.
     
    Today we hear Jesus speaking about the wilderness where the shepherd and his sheep are.  In this parable, Jesus focuses us on this singular truth: that good shepherding always happens outside the safe, placid and secure pen-fold where sheep are herded to rest. Yes, good shepherding happens in the wilderness.

    There is where the sheep truly experience the goodness of the Shepherd – in his caring and saving. He will fold up his sleeves to herd them and feed them. He will keep watch over them and protect them. He will be amongst them and smell of them. And yes, he will leave the ninety-nine to find and bring the lost one home. 

    Home with Jesus is where we long to be. Here we are again with the Sacred Heart of Jesus after a long week, may be, even a tiring day. Here we are, perhaps, burdened with suffering and disappointed with failings yet desiring rest in His comfort and renewal in His mercy. Indeed, Jesus’s heart with fervent love for all gathers us into his loving, safe embrace. 

    Let me suggest that no one but Jesus has brought us here. He did not go out to find us physically. Instead, He came to search us out in the wilderness within each of us. There, in our deepest desire to come home he found us. From there, he brings us here. 

    However messy, sordid or sinful we have made out lives into, the wilderness within us is truly the very space where Jesus has been with us all this time. Tonight, he brings us home to His heart. Now one with him, we can speak our prayers, say our petitions, and yes, thank him too.
     
    We can and we must give praise because Jesus’s coming into our life is God’s promise to make our lives better. The parched land within us will bloom. The sickness we have will be healed. The fear we dread will lessen. The brokenhearted will be restored.  Indeed, for Jesus, the wastelands within us are surprisingly grace-filled spaces. 

    There, He will refresh us who are tired, renew us who are jaded, and re-create us who need new life. Such is Jesus’s love for you and me. Perhaps the best response we can then make in return is this: “Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, I implore that I may ever love You more and more.” Shall we?




    Shared at Sacred Heart Parish
    photo by Aaron Kato on Unsplash
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  10.  

    Year C / Ordinary Time / 29th Week / Sunday 
    Readings: Sirach 35.15b-17, 20-222a / Psalm 33.2-3, 17-18,91 and 23 (R/v 7a) / 2 Timothy 4.6-9, 16-18 / Luke 18.9-14


    "The tax collector stood some distance away, not daring even to raise his eyes to heaven" (Luke 18.13)

    What do you see when you imagine this scene of the Pharisee and the tax collector, each praying to God? The Pharisee praying to justify himself, and so presenting himself as the religious, pious and obedient worshipper. The tax collector beating his breast as he acknowledges his sinfulness, his eyes cast down before God. I wonder what will we focus on.

    In telling this parable, Jesus mentions the tax collector's eyes. Let me suggest that Jesus's reference to the eyes can help us reflect on the right focus in our ministry. Yes, where are our eyes looking at when we pray, lead and serve?

    The Pharisee's eyes see the tax collector He does because his eyes are roving about as he prays. Seeing the tax collector, he judges himself a better man. His comparison explains the way he prays and what he prays for. There's only one focus in his prayer to God: "I-me-and-myself." The tax collector, on the other hand, does not dare even to raise his eyes to heaven. So he does not look around to even see the Pharisee. 

    This small detail about each one's eyes and what they see is a mirror Jesus holds up for our reflection today. "What are you seeing when you pray? How are you seeing as you pray?" Jesus is asking us. What will our answers be?

    There is a more important question to consider: "What is God seeing when we pray?" Perhaps, not 'what' but "Who is God seeing and why would he look?"

    The story of the Prophet Samuel identifying the new king of Israel can teach us about how God sees. Jesses presents each son to Samuel who God commands he examine. Samuel is sure Jesse's firstborn would be God's choice. God corrects Samuel and teaches him to see from God's point of view: "Not as man sees does God sees, because man sees appearance but the Lord looks into the heart" (1Samuel 16.7).  

    Throughout this retreat, we have been pondering two questions: "Who are you, O God?" and "Who am I?" I wonder what about God you are seeing as you pray. More interestingly, I'd love to hear what you think God is seeing when he looks into our hearts.

    God does not focus on our appearances or the ways we present ourselves to Him. His gaze is fixed on our hearts; He wants to know us intimately and personally. There is a saying that there is no better way to get to know someone then to know their hearts.  The pains that burden one's hearts and the joys that lift it up. The anxieties that crowd her heart and the hopes that free his up. 

    Throughout the Gospels Jesus repeatedly wants to know what is in a person's heart. The adulterous woman's fears and the rich young man's desires. The goodness the Samaritan woman at the well has and the hopes of blind Bartimaeus for healing. The quiet desire of Mary at His feet and agitated resentment Martha has as she prepares the meal. Indeed, know the person's heart and you will understand how to care for her, accompany him and serve everyone. Knowing the heart is how Jesus, God-with-us, ministered to many. As youth leaders who follow Jesus, do you lead and serve by knowing the hearts of those in your ministry?

    We need humility if we want to see those we lead and serve like Jesus did. This involves humbling our own hearts, especially as youth leaders and priest. Then we will recognise how the story of our sinfulness is inextricably intertwined with the story of God's mercy. This is why we are truly loved sinners. This is in fact how Jesus sees everyone: as loved sinners. Even more outrageous is how he sees the God-given potential for holiness in every loved sinner. Jesus sees like this because his eyes are the eyes of God. 

    Indeed, there is no other way for Christians who lead and serve, accompany and minister, others, especially, the most challenging, difficult and sinful, to see them the way Jesus sees than with the eyes of God.  The Pharisee, and the many Pharisee-like around us, cannot see like this. They only see themselves and how much they must matter first and always, saying so righteously and so often, "I am not like the rest, especially those sinners."

    Only a humble heart can see as God sees. Jesus's heart is meek and humble. He came to teach us how to make our hearts like His. If we really want to have His heart, we need to beg for it. We can if we are truly poor in spirit. Scripture tells us that the Lord hears the cry of the poor, and He never fails to answer. So, let us beg the Lord that our hearts be humble to lead and serve. The tax collector teaches us the best prayer to ask for sincere humility: "God be merciful to me, a sinner."

    Shall we?





    Preached at the DVC Core Leaders' Retreat, St Ignatius Parish, Singapore
    artwork: photo still from 'the passion of the christ'


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"Bukas Palad"
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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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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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