1. Year C / Ordinary Time / Week 4 / Sunday
    Readings: Jeremiah 1.4-5,17-19 / Ps 70. 1-2, 3-4a,5-6ab, 15ab, 17 (cf 15ab) / 1 Corinthians 12. 31-13.13 / Luke 4.21-30



    “The word of the Lord was addressed to me” (Jeremiah 1.4)

    These words from the Prophet Jeremiah echo a desire we all have: to hear the Lord speaking to us. The Lord celebrating when we are joyful and encouraging us when we need hope. The Lord comforting us when we grieve and assuring us when we are anxious. This desire is good and holy because it is God’s gift to us – to draw us nearer to him.

    Jeremiah describes the depth of God’s desire for us. Listen to God’s words. “Before I formed you…I knew you”: here is God knowing us. “As though I would leave you”: here is God consoling us. “I am with you…to deliver you”: here is God promising us salvation. There’s an urgency in the Lord’s voice. He wants to reach out and remind us of his faithfulness.

    The Psalm describes varied ways we respond to God. We seek his protection: “In you, O Lord, I take refuge.” We plead for his help: “In your justice rescue me…save me.” We entrust ourselves to Him:  “You are my hope, O Lord…On you I depend.”  Each one expresses our desires to hear His voice and experience His nearness.

    What compels God to reach out and speak with us? What moves us to seek God and plead, as well as to thank and praise? Simply, Love.

    Yes, Love is what Jeremiah and the Psalm speak about. Love that God and us share. We are entwined in a love relationship. To be honest, this is beyond our understanding. We can speak and sing about it. We can express it in art and film. We can experience it in prayer and liturgy. We try to makes sense of it in all the God moments in our lives. But our relationship with God always remains a mystery of love loving. God’s love, perfect and divine, and our love, imperfect and human, simply loving each other. 

    Remarkably, this love rings truest, I feel, when we sin. In two ways. In God’s continuing goodness to  seek us out to forgive and restore us to life. And in our deepest yearning for God’s mercy to live better. Yes, God’s love is most present in the messiness of our sins.

    What kind of love makes this possible? In 1 Corinthians Paul describes the essence of Love in clear and simple language, teaching what Love is and what it is not. “Love is patient…kind…trusts… hopes… endures…and rejoices with the truth.” “Love never fails.” “Love is not jealous….pompous…inflated… rude…and resentful”  Here is Paul teaching Christians and non-Christians the truth of what God created us for. Listen again: “there are three things that last: faith, hope and love; and the greatest of these is love.” And “if (we) do not have love, we gain nothing.”

    Jesus came to give everyone life to the fullest.  Filled with the Spirit, he revealed life as God’s love to cure, to free, to restore, and to proclaim the Lord’s favour. All should see and hear and rejoice. Not all did however, including his own as we hear in the gospel; they wanted to get rid of him. Even now many act like them.

    What about you and me? When are we like Jesus’s very own?  Perhaps, doubting Him when we cannot find Him however much and hard we seek. Maybe, wanting to get rid of him when we judge Him failing us no matter our prayers and petitions.

    If we do, we sadly forget how today’s Gospel story does not end but continues. Not with Jesus staying away. Rather, He returns again and again to God's people. To the sick who He heals with prayer and touch. To the despised who He eats and drinks with. To the hurt who He comforts. To the seekers who He teaches and enlightens. To those who despise, doubt or deny him, He still comes. The simple truth is: Jesus never abandons anyone. He always turns up on time for everyone and in time at every moment. This is indeed Good News.

    Recognising this helps us see more clearly who Jesus  is and what he does when he says, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” He is God’s word made flesh for us. His actions are God’s splendour in our midst. 

    It is therefore right we give thanks for God’s goodness we receive. It is even better to give thanks for what more God has in store for us each day to come.  With faith, we need not wait to experience this goodness. We can believe that it will be so, ahead of time. We can live with expectant joy to come, ahead of time. We can thank God for this, ahead of time.  As Christians, this is a startling, even radical, way to live in God’s love – always ahead of time. 

    Impossible? Think again.  We are here at Eucharist, practising it already. We have come ahead of time to hear Jesus, God’s Word, and God has just fulfilled it. We have come ahead of time to receive Jesus as God’s Bread, and God will fulfil this shortly. We have come ahead of time hoping to be transformed for better, and God will do this in Communion. Then, he will sent us forth as God’s bread too, blessed, broken and given for many. Yes, we have come ahead of time to Eucharist to want to give God thanks. 

    All this is how the Lord is addressing us today. How shall we address God in return?






    Preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore
    photo by Thomas Vitali on Unsplash

     

    Posted by
    Labels: Breaking Open God's Word
    0

    Add a comment

  2. Year C / Ordinary Time / Week 3 / Sunday (Sunday of the Word of God)
    Readings: Nehemiah 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10 / Psalm: 19:8, 9, 10, 15 (R/v cf John 6:63c) / 1 Corinthians 12:12-30 / Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21



    “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4.21)

    Here is Jesus delivering the shortest sermon.  Just nine words. Yet it communicates so much. God is good. God is with us. God is labouring for us. God is fulfilling His promises for all. Yes, Jesus is indeed proclaiming Good News.

    What do these nine words mean to you? Luke offers us a possible response in the Gospel passage.  Jesus has a clear understanding of who He is and His mission. He is One filled with the power of the Spirit. His mission is to bring glad tidings to the poor, the captives, the blind and the oppressed.  

    For Pope Francis, Jesus’s shortest sermon is the Gospel come alive in our midst. “Even as it is spoken, it becomes truth brimming with joy and mercy….It is the joy of Jesus, who sees that the poor have the Good News preached to them, and that the little ones go out to preach the message in turn.”* Jesus is really proclaiming his truth and his heart’s desire as expressed in this passage from Isaiah, God’s Word to the peoples.

    Like you and me, Jesus has read, prayed and heard this passage repeatedly.  But today it is different for Jesus. He recognises himself and what he must do in the passage. He is in fact the Word come alive. God’s Word with us. God’s Word seeking us out. God’s Word loving and saving us. Yes, Jesus is God’s Word made flesh. He is so moved by this recognition that he announces, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

    In Jesus we see the power of God’s Word come alive to guide daily living and encourage good works for all. This is the reality of God’s Word: a divine mystery that gives life. Yes, “your words, Lord, are Spirit and life” (Responsorial Psalm).

    Nehemiah’s assurance to the Israelites echoes this reality. He describes how the words proclaimed by Ezra the priest are indeed the words of God. These console everyone that God provides for their daily needs and happiness. They also challenge them to care for all, especially those who have nothing.  

    Like Jesus, Christians come to know who we are and what our lives are meant for when we recognise the intimate relationship we have with God’s Word. I believe we already know this. Don’t we each have a favourite, special scripture text? It may be a word or a few words, a verse or a passage. Each means something to us. We treasure it. We return to it again and again because it touches us deeply, even giving us voice for what we feel but cannot fully express.

    I suggest this scripture is our version of Jesus’s Isaiah passage in our lives. We hold it near and dear because it is our Word of God real and alive in our lives. Our Word of God that consoles and encourages us. Our Word of God that teaches and corrects us. Our Word of God that humbles us, forgives us, and inspires us to dream big that we can always be better versions of ourselves, even shine brightly for God and all. The Word of God can do all this because we are not engaging it. We are in fact encountering Jesus, “the Word made flesh and splendour of the Father.” 

    We need to especially hear this truth about the Word of God in our lives today. Our present world uses the power of words to shape our identity and way of life. Thinks of advertisements that seduce us to become consummate consumers. Think of ideologies that distract us to take sides – left versus right, progressives versus conservatives, even liberal versus traditional Catholics in our Church.

    If we allow ourselves to get sucked into such discourses, with their self-absorbing echo chambers, we tune out other voices and ways of knowing and understanding.  Over time, we will inevitably tune  out altogether God’s voice, God’s Word, that speaks the Truth.

    God’s Truth. We find it every time we encounter Jesus. He is God’s Word with us and for us. We should make God’s Word our own, however different, unique and gifted each of us is. Seriously we must because others who encounter us want to know whether we are filled with God’s Word and acting out of the intimacy we share with it. They will read our words and actions to understand if we live for ourselves or for others as Jesus commands us to. What they really want to discover is whether we are indeed Christ’s body – part of Him, in Him, and with Him for everyone.
     
    As Christians, our stories should be one with Jesus’s story. In Him, God does not just become one like us and with us. He is our very selves because He illuminates our every choice and action, every moment and milestone, with His Spirit. Our lives should therefore reflect Him to everyone we encounter.  This is why I wonder if we will dare say to ourselves, to others and to God in each of these encounters, “Yes, today, God’s Word is being fulfilled in your presence.”

    Will we?





    *Pope Francis, Homily at Chrism Mass, 2017


    Preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore
    photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash 
      
    Posted by
    Labels: Breaking Open God's Word
    0

    Add a comment

  3. 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


    Jesus did this [changed water into wine]…and revealed his glory, and his disciples began to believe in him” (John 2.11)

    This is how John the Evangelist ends his gospel story of Jesus’s first miracle at the wedding at Cana.  This is a happy ending for it celebrates a miraculous moment.

    We all want Jesus to do the same in our lives. We want him to do a miracle to meet our needs, right our wrongs, and lift us up from pain and doubt. In fact, we want him to come when we find ourselves with no more wine. Like when our prayer is dry, or when our burdens leave no room for anything good to fill us up. Also, when our plans fail and hopes dim.

    In these moments, hasn’t someone like Mary invited Jesus into our lives? It may be like this. When they promised to pray for Jesus to come to us. When they advised us to seek out His help for us. When their kindness and compassion reminded us that Jesus is with us.

    These Marys in our lives are the attentive family and friends God places in our lives. They are always looking out for us and our needs, even for whatever else we lack to experience Jesus’ promise that we can have life to the full. Like Mary in today’s gospel, they will always speak to Jesus on our behalf: “They have no wine.”  They turn to Him for us: “Lord, my spouse, my children, my friend, my colleague, need you. You are their joy and gladness. You are their comfort and hope. Only you can provide for them, Jesus.”

    If we really attention to the prayers and promises of these good people in our lives, they also teach us about the practice of believing. Isaiah describes this in the first reading. He gives us the language  of believing. “I will not be silent.” “I will not grow weary.”  Belief is never for our own self-possession or hoarding. It is good we can believe in God. This allows us to praise, reverence and serve God. It is equally good to believe God calls us to  help others to also know, believe and follow God. They show us the kind of intimacy we can have with God when we truly believe. This is how Isaiah describes it from God’s point of view:  “My delight,” “The Lord delights in you,” and “God rejoice in you.”

    Who then are these good people, these Marys, in our lives? How have they connected us to Jesus through their faith-filled desire to help?

    Mary invites Jesus to intercede and help the situation of no more wine at the wedding. Jesus does: he changes water into wine.

    Jesus’ actions should assure us that He will always come to us through the prayers and deeds of many good people accompanying us. We give this same assurance to all when we invite Jesus to intervene and intercede for them. Recall what we all say when Jesus welcomes and embraces us, forgives and restores us, loves and cares for us. To a friend who prayed for us: “thank you for Jesus answered my prayer." To family who pointed us to Jesus: “I know Jesus came; I felt his presence accompanying me.” To many whose kindness, often in surprising ways, touch us: "Yes, Jesus loves me.”

    How can this happen?  Mary provides us a clue: “Do whatever he tells you.” She says this to the servants. She is also saying this to us today. We need to do whatever Jesus tells us to do, often not for ourselves but for others. Indeed when Jesus comes to those we pray for, even to us, he is always attentive to our needs, wanting to take care of us by transforming us for better. He does this by filling our emptiness with God’s plenty. 

    When we become more aware of Jesus's actions in our lives, we begin to realise that the real miracle at the wedding is much more than water being changed into wine. It is how He transforms his disciples – from mere companions to becoming believers in him. Jesus’s actions at Cana move them from fellowship to the intimacy of belief. This is the more wondrous miracle: lives are changed for the better; they will never be the same again.

    Jesus will do the same for us and those we look out for when we invite Him into everyone's lives. One way this happens is how Jesus transforms our individual giftedness, so varied and rich, as Paul describes in our second reading, into the community’s collective work to further God’s kingdom building. This happens in the same Spirit of Jesus we share.

    Maybe when we dare work together for the good of all, not ourselves only, we will discover how God allows us to become that better wine than all the expensive wine already served. Better even with our aches and pains, now and in the future. Indeed, we are transformed to better quench the thirst, the needs, the desires, the hopes of many who come to us and say, “We have no wine.” All this is possible because Jesus transforms us again and again to become better – for others. He does this not just because we ask him to for the people for the people we care for or are concerned about but because He wants to – and yes, He transforms us with His own hands. This is how He opens our eyes and hearts to truly believe in Him.

    Shall we let Jesus do this for us?




    Preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore 
     
    Posted by
    Labels: Breaking Open God's Word
    0

    Add a comment

  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



    “We saw his star as it rose and have come to do the Lord homage” (Matthew 2.2)
     
    This is how the Three Wise Men or Magi explain their journey. They are in fact expressing what every Christian really seeks: Jesus.
     
    The Magi follow a distant star to a distant place to seek Jesus. This burning question motivates their search and sustains their journey: “Where is the infant king of the Jews?” It expresses what every believer must ultimately reckon with if we say we are Christian: that our lives will only be complete with Jesus.
     
    This explains why many like the story of the Magi’s journey. It is our story too. Like their long, convoluted journey to find Jesus, we search for Him in our chaotic lives and messy world. Like the star that guides them to Jesus, our faith leads us onward to Him. Like meeting Jesus who fulfils their longing, our encounter with Jesus satisfies everyone with fullness of life.  
     
    The Magi’s story comforts. It gives us hope: we will find Jesus if we seek him. God’s light will lead us to him.
     
    The Magi teach us that everyone’s journey  to Jesus is much more than seeking and finding him. It is also about God transforming us on our way to Jesus. 

    After adoring Jesus, the Magi return to their country “by another way.” This means they go back different, changed, transformed by their encounter with Jesus. He is God’s light come to shine on the people, guiding, leading and gathering them. Seeing this Light, they “grow radiant,” Isaiah proclaims, their hearts “throbbing and full” (Isaiah 60.5). Yes, Christ come and be our light!
     
    What does God transform? Perhaps, this: our fear to let God into our lives.
     
    This is Herod’s struggle. Hearing that Jesus is born, he consults his priests and scribes to inquire where Jesus is. He has no intention to worship him like the Magi. He wants to kill him. He is frightened of Jesus’s coming. Throughout the Gospels many oppose Jesus; they act like Herod. Every now and then, we are Herod-like too in word and deed.
     
    What is it about God’s coming into the world that many, including you and me, find so difficult to take?
     
    Simply this: God calls us out to become better.  When God came looking for Adam he called, “Where are you?” Adam answered, “I am afraid, so I hid myself.” He did this out of fear for taking the forbidden fruit. Don’t we do the same when we wrong God and others?
     
    Christmas proclaims God comes as love. Love that transforms everyone and everything for better. Love that saves.  To receive this love we must come out of hiding. We need to “let go of ourselves, our identities, our securities, our compromises, our tending to ‘business as usual’. And this is frightening. It is really no wonder that we find it so hard to say ‘yes’ to God and to welcome his presence in our lives.”*
     
    Yet God says, “Come to me.” Amazingly, He invites us repeatedly. On the way, God transforms us. The Magi experienced this on their journey. We are making this same journey to God. All who want to make it and stay on it need faith. Faith because the journey demands much of us, especially, risking our very selves for what the world considers the uncertainty of God and the stupidity of loving like God.
     
    Keeping faith is hard work. It must have been for the Magi, eminently powerful and wise men, to humble themselves, bow down and worship Jesus in faith. This requires nothing less than all that we have and all that we are to do this. Will we do the same?
     
    The Christmas story can encourage us.  Anyone seeking Jesus is never alone. The Magi and the shepherds journey to Him together separately. In their respective communities, they see the star and listen to angels. They are attentive and focus on God’s actions that draw them to a deep encounter with Jesus. Then, they go forth proclaiming Jesus as God-with-us, sharing their joys and hopes with everyone.
     
    Together, they journey to Jesus. Together, they let God transform their mindsets, dispositions and attitudes to encounter Jesus. Together, they proclaim Jesus as  God’s Good News  

    Yes, together – this is how you and I will find fellowship and support to let God transform us on our life’s journey.
     
    With each other, and God’s lead, we can press on in this journey. We need not be afraid of recognising our fears, naming our hiding places or admitting the temptation to turn back. We will find courage and strength in our shared patience to complete this life-long journey to God. This was so for the Magi; it can be the same for us.

    We need this wisdom because making the journey alone in the world will only get us lost. The world’s harsh, unjust and life-sapping ways easily seduce and take us far away from God and the life He wishes us to have.
     
    When the Magi found Jesus, they presented gifts. They did not expect God to gift them with one -- to be transformed on their journey to Jesus and in encountering him.
     
    God always invites us on this same journey to be transformed. If we say, “yes,” He gives us His love and mercy and we become more loving and merciful. This conversion helps us imitate God’s way of being in the world for all.
     
    We are already making this journey. It leads us now to Jesus in the Eucharist. Not just to adore, reverence and praise Him, but to receive and be transformed by Him and then to be sent into world like Him in that more excellent manner, God’s way of loving and serving.
     
    Shall we make this journey together?




    * Trappist writings from Spencer Abbey

    Preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore
    Posted by
    Labels: Breaking Open God's Word Christmas
    0

    Add a comment

"Bukas Palad"
"Bukas Palad"
is Filipino for open palms
Greetings!
Greetings!
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!
The Liturgical Calendar / Year C
The Liturgical Calendar / Year C
Faith & Spirituality
Faith & Spirituality
Tagged as...
Tagged as...
Blog Archive
Blog Archive
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

About Me
About Me
My Photo
is a 50something Catholic who resides in Singapore and works for the Church. He is a priest of the Roman Catholic Church.
Disclaimer
Disclaimer
©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.
Loading