1. Year C / Ordinary Time / Week 26 / Sunday
    Readings: Amos 6:1,4-7 / Psalm: Psalm: Psalm 146:7-10 (R/v 1b) / 1 Timothy 6:11-16 / Luke 16.19-31


    "Father Abraham, pity me and send Lazarus" (Luke 16.24)

    Here is the rich man crying out for mercy in the gospel reading. We hear it too. However, I wonder if we recognise that this story of the rich man and Lazarus is God's way of staring us in the face and crying out to us today for no other reason than this - God wants to be merciful to us and remind us He wants to save us for Himself.

    What does God's mercy look like? We each have an image of this. Being forgiven. Experiencing healing. Reconciling with one another. Knowing peace that only God can give. Even this truth: that God enters into the mess and chaos our lives sometimes are to sit with us in pain and sin, and at the right time, when we are ready, to lift us up into salvation

    But what if God is calling us to recognise mercy in the person of one like Lazarus coming into our lives? 

    The Lazaruses who are difficult to behold, covered in poverty, pockmarked by illness, handicapped by disability, lesser for lack, homeless as refugees and soiled by sin.

    The Lazaruses who only asked to be fed, to be welcomed and accepted, to be respected with dignity, to be affirmed for their goodness and to be loved as we are loved by God. 

    These Lazaruses and many like them are indeed God's mercy come to us in human form

    Do we see God's mercy in their faces and voices? Probably difficult, may be not. Not because we have dug chasms that distant and differentiate them from us. 

    Chasms, like gulfs, that divide because have created too many gaps in education, economic opportunities, gender inequalities, in racial, religious and linguistic differences and in access to our common good to share and our community to live in. 

    Chasms that begin when we tell our children to be good or else the 'karang-guni' men* will take them away. Or, gossip about that woman's dressing in the office that casts doubt on her moral values. Or, whatsapping messages that ridicule the socially awkward or fat or dim-witted. 

    Chasms that widen when we refuse to celebrate a neighbour's good fortune because we have quarrelled. Or, refuse to forgive a family member who has embarrassed or hurt the family. Or, shame parents by passing unChristian remarks about their noisy children during Mass.

    All these chasms pit us against one another. They divide us. These chasms are sinful acts. They are like the gulf that separates the rich man from Lazarus. What chasms have we created to keep us apart from others?

    What is the rich man's sin? Simply, it is the sin of omission.  This is how the Letter of James describes it: "So, for one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, it is a sin" (4.17).

    The rich man's sin is like those of the "complacent in Zion" the Prophet Amos describes. He does not want to see Lazarus in need at his door. He does not want to listen to Moses and the prophets who offer guidance to live in God's ways. His self-contained, self-satisfied lifestyle numb him to the plight of the poor like Lazarus. His sin leads him to the "netherworld, where s in torment."

    What if the rich man had reached out and helped Lazarus to cross the divide and enter into his home? Not just cross but welcomed, fed and clothed him, greeting him as a worthy guest?  As people of faith, we know God would be pleased because he would have cared. Lazarus's coming would save him because he would have had to change his attitude and behaviour to care.  This is how God's mercy comes in the person of Lazarus. But Lazarus could not do this because the rich man did not permit him to enter his home. 

    Aren't we like the rich man sometimes in our words and deeds?  God wants to come to us but he is waiting for our permission to enter into our lives and abide in us to save us

    "Behold, the Lord says, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and will eat with him and he with me" (Revelation 3.20).  Yes, the Lord is repeatedly knocking on the doors of our hearts that can sometimes be hard and cold. He does this because he wants us to be better Christians and save us. However God cannot open these doors because the handles to open them are on our side of the doors.  Do we open? Can we open? Will we open?

    Christians are called to be merciful to all as God is merciful to us. How can we do this unless we let ourselves receive God's mercy first?

    This is why the Lazaruses in our lives matter. They are God's mercy come to us. They demand we open our hearts, minds, all of our lives to create space and welcome them, to host and feed them, to sit and say, "you are my sister, my brother" and to dignify them as my friend, one who shares the same likeness of God I have. 

    We all want mercy. God comes to give us mercy. The choice to receive it is ours.  How can we do this? By reordering our everyday life and choices to Jesus's teaching. For Paul, these enable us "to be saintly and religious, filled with faith and love, patient and gentle," and so, "fight the good fight and win for ourselves the eternal life to which we are called." The many Lazaruses challenge us to live this way because they are God's agents of mercy toward us. Mercy that calls us out of our sinful, selfish, self-preserving ways and saves.  

    God's mercy demands one more thing from us: that we stop being deaf and blind to who we truthfully are and how we should really live. The word 'Christian' explains. Christian indeed are we and how we ought to live when we know God's mercy is not just for ourselves but through us for all who seek God

    Today, God's mercy stares us in our face to see and cries out in our ears to hear. We glimpse this stare and hear this cry in none other than the Lazaruses God sends into our lives to save us. 

    Will we see and hear? What will we do?





    Preached at Sacred Heart Church, Singapore


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  2.  

    Year C / Ordinary Time / Week 25 / Sunday
    Readings: Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14 / Psalm: Psalm: 51:3-4, 12-13, 17, 19 (R/v Lk 15:18) / 1 Timothy 1:12-17 / Luke 15:1-32


    "God our saviour...wants everyone to be saved and reach full knowledge of the truth"  
    (1 Timothy 2.3-4)

    This is Paul's teaching about the God's deepest desire for all peoples - to announce the truth and to save.  It has been handed down to us as a truth Christians hold dear.

    Paul's teaching should console us. We who turn to God for protection, healing and peace when we are in distress. We who hope God will rescue us from difficult, dangerous situations and the risks of perishing. In fact, haven't we experienced this consolation whenever we called out to God for help and he has saved us, even if it is not as we wanted it to be but as he faithfully acted for our good?

    How does God save? By revealing the truth to us - the truth about ourselves and our need for conversion. We need to hear, see and own this truth. Only then can God begin his saving work in us and for us. Too often we struggle to accept this truth. Our preoccupation with education, our obsession over possession, our concern with status, and even, our self-righteous acts to be Christian and pious distract us from recognising our need for salvation. To say we have no need for salvation is dangerous thinking and foolish behaviour

    One way God reveals the truth about ourselves is through the prophet-like deeds and words of family, friends, superiors at work and teachers in schools. This truth they speak can be hard to hear.  Wise are we however who hear, learn and convert our lives for better. 

    Amos spoke the truth to the Israelites about their religious observances. It was all a sham, as we hear him declare in the First Reading. They acted in their own way; not in God's ways. Their disobedience displeased and angered God. 

    Jesus teaches us how to hear and respond to the truth about ourselves in the parable of the unjust steward. This is the story in today's gospel passage. This steward hears his master's truth assessment of his character and work. His business practices are unsound and wasteful because he is crafty, cunning and scheming. The steward responds shrewdly. He changes his ways. Now, he makes friends with those who owed his master. Now, he slashes their debts. This is how he saves himself from ruin and humiliation. 

    Oddly Jesus seems to praise this steward. I think he does this to wake us up from the lukewarm attitude we sometimes have and practise as Christians. Some express this waving their membership card, 'Christian,' as their passport to heaven. If this steward, not a follower of Jesus, could hear the truth about himself and amend his ways, would we, Jesus's disciples, change our manner of life and faith when others tell us the truth about ourselves and the changes and corrections we must make to be better Christians? Do we hear in their truth-filled voices of care, concern and hope for our conversion God's own voice wanting to save us? Do we want to really hear?

    The steward heard and did his best to change even if he did so in the service of money. As Christians we can and must respond differently. Hence, Jesus's exhortations that we must amend ourselves in ways that please God and not increase our own fame, fortune and face. He wants us to prioritise God and God's ways over the world. This means placing God at the center of our lives. How can we do this?

    Paul's reminder to Timothy to offer prayers, petitions and intercessions is good advice for us. These, he points out, will enable us "to live religious and reverent lives in peace and quiet." Indeed when we are at peace with God and one another, and resting in the quiet of solitude, we will begin to hear more clearly God's voice saying, "You were created for salvation." Today's readings lead us to this providential truth. 

    This truth is in fact the hope we all desire so much and so often. We however struggle to find the right words to speak it, ask for it, even cry out to God for it. It is the hope we hear when God speaks through Amos to remind us of our infidelities and disturb our conscience to repent and convert. It is the hope we hear when God speaks through Jesus, the Word of God himself, commanding us to remain in God whose love saves. 

    The rains are falling heavily outside. We have all made the effort to come to Eucharist. It is good and right that we have for we are blessed. We hear, again, God's truth that he wants to save us all, if we permit ourselves to be saved. This truth is the hope God gives us to move onward next week and always. For now, in the Eucharist we humbly and gratefully give expression to this hope and find its fulfilment.  Truly, here is God - he alone saves.

    Shall we?




    preached at Sacred Heart Church, Singapore
    photo: ucatholic.com
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    Reflection at the Devotion to the Sacred Heart – Friday, 16 Sep
    Gospel Reading: Matthew 14.22-36


    Each day so much happens around us. As we go about our daily life, what or whom do we keep our gaze on? 
    This is a question tonight’s gospel reading offers us for reflection.

    All of us are preoccupied daily with things to juggle, demands to meet and wants to fulfil. Every task is urgent. Every deadline is immediate. We have families to care for and friendships to nurture. Our health demands attention, the sick need our care and the poor hope for our help. Too many attractions and distractions keep us looking to our right, to our left and yes, even all around.

    Perhaps, you feel like this as you heard the gospel reading proclaimed. So much is going on. Jesus is mourning and praying. The disciples are struggling in a storm, their boat tossing and turning. They mistake Jesus for a ghost on the water. Peter tries walking on water to Jesus. When he sinks, Jesus saves. The storm ends. They land and people come seeking Jesus’s healing.

    So many details in this gospel reading. Each one is grabbing our attention. Doesn’t this sound like our struggle in faith and life? What to see? Which to look at? Where is God inviting us to focus on? 

    On Jesus. Peter learned this the hard way. He began well walking on water looking at Jesus. When the wind rose, he took his eyes off Jesus and sank. Haven’t we had similar experiences of starting well with Jesus but losing our direction, even our footing, and crying, “Lord, save me!”?

    We need to keep our gaze on Jesus. Isn’t this why we have come tonight? To gaze upon the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He is our life. He is the mercy and salvation we need. His love gives us hope to move onward. He is indeed all things to so many as we hear in the Litany. This is why so many trust in Jesus like no other.

    Jesus bids us, “Come” and we have tonight. There is however this greater truth to know. We are here because Jesus first keeps his eyes on us. Even before we focus on him, he gazes on us lovingly. His compassionate heart directs his eyes to meet the longing for God in our eyes. Jesus does this for no other reason than for us to experience his love. This is how he draws us to his Sacred Heart. There, we can speak our hearts’ intentions, its joys and pains. There, he will assure, comfort and encourage us onward. Most of all, there he will declare the delight we are to him.

    Indeed, how good and right it is that we have come. And this is God’s gift to us: to gaze wholeheartedly on his heart and be filled with His bountiful love, now and always.





    Shared at Sacred Heart Parish
    Photo by Todd Cravens on Unsplash

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    Year C / Ordinary Time / Week 24 / Sunday
    Readings: Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14 / Psalm: Psalm: 51:3-4, 12-13, 17, 19 (R/v Lk 15:18) / 1 Timothy 1:12-17 / Luke 15:1-32



    "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (1 Timothy 1.15)

    We hear these words in the First Letter to Timothy. They aptly describe Jesus's mission. We could say they express his mission statement.

    This statement explains the purpose of Jesus's life and his reason for becoming one like us and living out life. It describes his work on earth, most of all his death and resurrection that saves and redeems. All he said and did on earth revealed who he is and what he does - He is God who saves. 

    Hearing Jesus's mission statement we might think of other mission statements of institutions we know about in the world and the Church. There are a variety of motivations and ways to fulfil each of these mission statements.

    We know the mission of schools is to educate each child to be a learner, a good person with sound moral values, and a citizen who will use his abilities to build up the common good.  Each school will however have its own unique ways to accomplish this mission, for example, through general studies, the arts, sports, scientific research and applied technology. 

    What is Jesus's motivation for fulfilling his mission? How can his motivation to carry out the mission reveal the heart of God?

    The three parables in today's gospel provide a possible answer. Collectively they reveal the heart of God. The shepherd diligently searching for the lost sheep and the woman relentlessly looking for the lost coin find their fullest expression when they rejoice at finding the lost. This, Jesus teaches, is how God passionately searches, and, more so, rejoices wholeheartedly each time a sinner is found.

    To emphasise these points, Jesus tells the story of the prodigal son. He focuses us on the love of the father who is really God. Our God who saves sinners, waits patiently for their return and rejoices when all who have gone astray and far return. 

    This parable of the prodigal son, I suggest, can enrich today's celebration of Catholic Education Sunday. It enlightens us about the mission of Catholic Education. It is more than preparing students for examinations, imbuing them with sound moral values for good character, and shaping their hearts to be big-hearted to serve all, especially, the last, the lost and the least. 

    As a Catholic educator, I believe the mission of Catholic education is to help every student choose life. I am not talking about being pro-life as in advocating against abortion and the death penalty, fighting against gun violence, correcting hurtful words that traumatise and pain, and ending wars. 

    I would like to invite you to appreciate the real grace of Catholic education. It is this: educating every student to choose life like the younger son did. Life that God wants to give, and will always give even if one has squandered all God's given goodness and blessings. This life is the fullness of God's life and it is meant for us all. 

    In our Catholic schools, students - regardless race, language and religion - are taught that learning is not meant for themselves. Neither is it to empty others so as to benefit themselves. Instead, they are taught to empty themselves, that is, to 'waste' their education in that Christian manner of loving self-sacrifice for others. Jesus gives us this example to live so that others may live too. This is how all can find purpose and be happy in life. Isn't this Jesus's teaching throughout the gospels?

    Choosing life contrasts with the elder son's attitude for life. His anger, resentment and jealousy prevent him from rejoicing in his father's goodness, even for him. He is unable to appreciate the depth of his father's love for him and his brother. He has lost the right perspective. In a sense, refusing the father's goodness is denying life and choosing death

    The elder son's choice expresses entitlement. Entitlement intoxicates all who embrace it with that heady self-righteous need to grab. Grab every honour and privilege, everything because it must be "mine." Such grabbing only leads to self-destruction and everyone's pain. 

    Isn't this why Jesus teaches repeatedly in the gospels to love one another as He loves and to lay down our lives as He did? Only compassion allows us to do this. It enables us to care for others. It helps us respect the dignity of everyone. It celebrates the goodness of everyone as God's creation. Compassion is indeed the opposite of entitlement. 

    These lessons about compassion are how Catholic education imbues students with an important lesson. This is the Christian understanding that everyone is worthy to be alive, be part of the community and share in the common good, contribute to building God's kingdom and yes, always have a place at God's table.

    Many times in the Scriptures God is presented as gazing at us lovingly. We cannot begin to imagine the depth, breadth and height of His love but we know His love is steadfast and constant. Today we see the face of love in the father who waits for his younger son's return and whose look of love embraces his entitled elder son. 

    We are those sons. We waste God's goodness when we sin. We refuse God's blessing when entitlement is our choice. Yet we are always the focus of God's gaze, especially when we sin and stray. Indeed, God cannot not look for us and bring us home to him. God searches because each of us is truly the source of His joy, particularly when we allow ourselves to be foundThis perspective distinguishes Catholic education. It educates every child - yes, every teacher, every staff, and every parent - that each of us precious to God. 

    This good news is not just for the many in Catholic education. It is for us and all peoples. It must be because God's prodigal love - lavishly poured for saint and sinner alike - is the right focus of our meditation on today's readings. They remind us that God's extravagant mercy and goodness urge us to choose life over death

    Truly, what other choice is better?






    Based in part on the writings of Richard Gabuzda

    Preached at Sacred Heart Church, Singapore
    photo: biola.edu

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    Reflection at the Devotion to the Sacred Heart – Friday, 9 Sep
    Gospel Reading: Luke 15.3-7
     

    My first spiritual director used to say, “Waste time, waste your efforts, waste yourself on others.” Fr Gerard Keane, a Jesuit, would repeat this line to those of us in formation often.  He would also say this to parents, teachers and many in church ministry.

    To him, making time for another, giving our best efforts for others and daring to make sacrifices for all who need us, and sometimes, to just hang out together, is never wasteful.

    In fact, it is necessary to live, to love and to serve well.

    For some, the search for the one lost sheep in today’s gospel may seem wasteful. It is not. This is in fact how the love of God is – always so tender, wide and deep, and yes, always ready to waste itself on everyone. The source of this love is God’s longing toward each of us.  It is a longing to seek out anyone who is lost. It is a yearning to celebrate the one found. It is a desiring to be together. 

    Fr Keane’s call to waste is really about making ourselves available for one another, especially those in need. 

    This evening we are here for our devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. We have made ourselves available for Jesus.

    I believe we have because each of us has experienced the wasteful love of God pouring forth from the heart of Jesus.  Wasteful in that sense of one lavishly pouring out love generously and gratuitously to one and all.
      
    Yes, we have come in gratitude to Jesus for prayers answered and to pray for petitions needed. Whatever our reasons for coming to tonight’s devotion, God will assure us in our meditation on the Sacred Heart of Jesus He has already set aside a place for us in Jesus’s heart.

    This truth should comfort us; we do not need to be afraid, even if we are lost and wandering afar and afraid. 

    What more do we need to live, love and serve as Christians?




    Shared at Sacred Heart Parish
    Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

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    Year C / Ordinary Time / Week 23 / Sunday
    Readings: Wisdom 9:13-18b / Psalm: 90:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14-17 (R/v 90.1) / Philemon 9-10 / Luke 14: 25-33



    "‘If any man comes to me without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple. Anyone who does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple."  (Luke 14.26-27)

    What strong words. What challenging words, What impassioned words from Jesus to us this morning. Are they hard to hear? Do they disturb you?  However difficult and uncomfortable it is to hear these words, we must because here is Jesus speaking to us about the high cost of our discipleship. We need to hear Jesus say this because we have said "yes" to being his disciples and following him.

    The theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes that "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." This is the real cost of our discipleship. We are called to die - die to ourselves so that Jesus may live in us. John the Baptist says this plainly and simply: "I must decrease and Jesus must increase."

    The cost of Christian discipleship is more than sacrificing rest to come to Mass or giving away our possessions for the poor. It is more than setting aside time to pray or taking on more and more to serve. 

    To Jesus, the cost of following him is that he wants our all. He wants all our love for him and God's kingdom in order to transform everyone of our relationships and our ways of being and acting. Jesus wants all of us - every part of his disciples' lives - so we will never be separated from him and his love. Such is the resoluteness and commitment he wants from us because he himself does the same for everyone. He showed the depth, breadth and height of his resolute commitment by sacrificing himself for us to have life to the full. 

    Today Jesus challenges us to consider how resolute we are in our commitments, particularly to be his disciples, living in his image and bearing his name. May be this is what Jesus is asking us to consider when he warns his disciples in the gospel reading about the challenges anyone wanting to pledge his life and follow him will face.

    The Christian journey to God will be steep and difficult, there will be twists and turns, valleys deep to cross and mountains high to crest. Some might lose their way. Others might give up and drop out. A few might feel overwhelmed and not even begin the journey.

    I wonder if the disciples, like the builders, had calculated the true cost of their commitment when they began following. Or, if they were like the generals when realising the bigger, strong army to combat made the right decision for everyone's life and safety. Have we calculated the cost of our discipleship with Jesus? 

    The commitment to follow Jesus, and how resolute we are to remain disciples depends on faithfulness. Indeed, faithfulness is at the heart of commitments that matter like marriages, vows, oaths of office. It also is in everyday commitments like turning up, being present, getting the job done and making a difference.

    We want to be resolute in our commitments. We are however challenged everyday to remain faithful to them. Sometimes, we easily break them, including those with God. Who amongst has not broken a promise we want to keep? Or, failed in our fidelity to our vows? Or renegaded on commitments we hope to see through? When we have, we are ashamed. We are sad and contrite for hurting those who depend on our commitments. We feel humiliated we failed. It is indeed hard to stay resolutely committed. Yet we must.

    So how do we, in today's world, respond to the challenges to remain committed, especially, in wanting to be Jesus's disciples? Do we measure the costs of being true and faithful to Jesus who us the way to God? Or, do we rush headlong, doing our own thing, ignoring the possibility of defeat - especially spiritual defeat - because the Evil One is present with his army to tempt and overwhelm us into sin?

    A good first response is to remember that we have a forgiving God. He knows our weakness and understands we will stumble and fail repeatedly. He knows because he has lived our human life and, though he has never sinned, he understands every temptation we face. Indeed, in Jesus, God extends his hand to pull us up when our discipleship falters. He is the Wisdom we hear about in the first reading: the one who straightens our paths and teaches us on the right ways to delight God in order to save us

    This is why Jesus points us once again to the Cross today. There we recognise God's forgiveness shinning through. More so, we see the fullest expression God's resolute commitment to love us to the end.  God hangs in Jesus's total self-offering for us. His crucified body - battered, scarred, disfigured - reveals even more: his infinite mercy and compassion that bursts all bounds, even those that bind us to our crosses.

    As disciples, our crosses can be our self-offering to Jesus. When we do this, we join ourselves to Jesus. He will then make of us with him a source of life and hope to all. He will transform our crosses, like he does his own, into a bridge and a gateway from death with no life to resurrection with fullness of life. This saving action he makes expresses his resolute commitment to the love of God and for love of us. 

    Letting Jesus bear our crosses is the permission we give him to lead us beyond the Cross and death onto that bridge where we will march into resurrection life, singing 'glory, glory, hallelujah!' We can sing joyfully because we will not have just run the race well but we would have kept faith with Jesus, remaining resolute and committed in our discipleship. Indeed, resurrection life is God's promise to all who say "yes" when Jesus bids us come and die as his beloved disciples.

    Is there then any more assurance we need to live as Christian?






    Preached at Sacred Heart Church, Singapore
    photo: James Coleman on Unsplash

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"Bukas Palad"
"Bukas Palad"
is Filipino for open palms
Greetings!
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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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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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