1.  

    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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  2. 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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  3.  

    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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  4. Year C / Ordinary Time / 29th Week / Sunday 
    Readings: Exodus 17.8-13/ Psalm 121. 1-8 (R/v cf  2) / 2 Timothy 3.14 - 4.2 / Luke 18.1-8


    "I lift my eyes to the mountain; from where shall come my help?" (Psalm 121.1)

    In today's psalm we are told to lift our eyes upwards. For the Israelites, to look upwards to God's dwelling on Mount Zion and the Temple there. For us, to look upwards to Jesus on the Cross on Mountain Calvary for his death saved us. 

    Look upwards. This must be the stance to take when we pray. To look upwards to God. Upwards as we petition God for this or that, for more and better, for ourselves and others. Upwards when we sometimes grumble or complain to God. Upwards in the best of times to thank, praise and reverence God. Upwards always to see God looking at us lovingly and mercifully. 

    In her poem, 'Praying,' Mary Oliver envisions prayer as "the doorway into...into which another may speak." We all want to hear God speak to us. God comforting and assuring us. God forgiving and guiding us. And if we dare to want, God challenging and correcting us to better our lives.  Most of all, don't we really to hear God's love for us?  "Here I am Lord," we cry out. "Hear I am too, with you," responds the Lord.

    Sometimes however, and may be for long periods, we might experience nothing from God. Just utter silence. Don't we then feel disappointed, frustrated, confused, even abandoned? As tempting as it is to give up n God in these moments, we keep on praying. Why?

    Today we hear of Moses and the widow persisting in their petitions. Moses petitions God for Israel's victory over the Amalekites. The widow petitions a corrupt judge for a just ruling against an opponent.  

    What about you and me: do we persist and persevere in prayer, staying the course, trusting that God will answer our petitions and guide us onward? I believe we do because we keep trying our best to pray and trust. Over time, our efforts brings into that graced awareness that persisting in prayer is about God and us becoming one. About the two of us persevering for faith loving and faith-filled living together. 

    Isn't this then why we really pray: to belong to God totally? St Therese Couderc, the co-founder of the Sisters of the Cenacle, writes, "when one belongs to God, it is not right to belong half-way." Yes, all or nothing. 

    This is why we must look upwards to God. Our upward stance is hope-filled. In God alone, all things are possible, and we will not be wearied by our trials Jesus tells us today. As Paul exhorts Timothy to remain faithful and to turn to the Scriptures, today's readings encourage us to persevere in prayer and turn to God.

    How can we do this?  Moses raising his arms, as we hear about in the first reading, gives us an answer.  He is like a child whose raised arms call out for attention and care. A child awaiting her parent to reach out and cradle her or to make time to be with her. Indeed, Moses's raised hands opens himself to God. This is a posture of entrusting oneself into God, even if one does not hear, see or feel God.

    Like Moses, we need to have this child-like trust when we pray. It humbles us to hope as we persevere in prayer. Indeed, every time we pray, especially when God is silent, we are metaphorically raising our arms and opening our hands to God. We are not giving up as we are indeed placing ourselves into God's hands. 

    Will God respond? Yes, though not always in the manner we want Him to.  Ask and you will receive. Yes, ask even more when you and I don't receive anything from God immediately or when the going gets though because persisting in prayer will move God's heart to respond. 

    The world tells us that to trust God is foolhardiness. As Christians we know better: it is in fact holy boldness to do this and persevere in prayer.  We need to have holy boldness to understand how limited we are and how much we need God. Then, we will pray to be with God, to allow God to labour for our good and the good of others, and for God to save us. 

    To know these truths about God, ourselves and the importance of prayer is reason enough for us to join the psalmist and declare: "Our helps is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth." Only our trust in God can empower us to sing this refrain and believe that God will make it real in all our lives. This trust that dares us to believe in God's sure help that Jesus reveals on the Cross on a hill - that we are not meant for death but for salvation. 

    What matters most in prayer and in life is that we do not hold God within us but that we strive to hold ourselves in God. This is the necessary orientation prayer can bless us with - tilting towards God. Such tilting enables us to realise our deepest human longing for God. When we choose to do this, God returns our look upwards with his tender gaze - full of delight that we are His always, whatever our state of grace is.

    What else shall we do now but tilt towards God who wants nothing more than to hold us all the days of our life.  Shall we?





    Preached at Sacred Heart Church, Singapore

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  5.  
    Devotion to the Sacred Heart – Friday, 14 October
    Reflection based on Matthew 15.21-28


    His name was Rommel. Every Saturday night, he would ride his motorized tricycle to our Jesuit residence in the upper middle-class university campus where we stayed at. In his side wagon were 5 of his 8 children. They rode out from Payatas where they lived beside the unbelievably huge, dirty, smelly and unhygienic refuse dumpsite of Metro Manila. He and his wife would scavenge the garbage dump to earn and provide shelter and food for the family.

    Rommel would come to beg for food. All week, he would promise his family a good meal, saying, “wait, not yet.” This was why he came every Saturday. Sometimes we had more than enough leftovers to give. Sometimes, not. Though he never knew if there would be enough food to take home, he would come. I often wondered what moved him to come so doggedly and single-mindedly. Maybe you are wondering too.

    The mother’s persistence in today’s gospel helps us understand. Persistence is the firm or obstinate action one chooses to continue doing in spite of difficulty or opposition. This mother embodies such action. She shows great persistence. She does not allow the disciples’ irritation or Jesus’s offhand remarks, even his initial refusal to answer, to put her off. She knows what she wants, her daughter’s healing, and she trusts that Jesus can help. Her faith in Jesus empowers her to persist.  It is her persistence that moves Jesus to heal. 

    Because we, equally persistent and hope-filled, are here again for tonight’s devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we come with prayers and petitions for others we love and care for. We come to pray for them, even if he has hurt us intentionally, she has distanced herself from Church, or they are the lost souls no one prays for. 

    Every Friday we come to pray for ourselves and others. Often, we pray the same prayers for wellbeing and healing, safety and protection, peace of mind and happiness, and many more intentions. Despite fervent prayers and sacrifices, many of these seem to go unanswered. But we still come. This is what hope looks like. This is what faith can do.

    Jesus recognised such hope and faith in the desperate Canaanite mother. He saw how she remained firm in her request in spite of all difficulty and opposition. Her persistence deepened her faith and enabled her hope to soar. This is the unexpected yet providential blessing God bestows on everyone who persists in faith.

    Perhaps, Rommel understood this blessing God makes. His persistent faith gave him enough hope to say to his children, “wait, not yet.” It also kept him coming because he believed God would turn up with food for their bodies and their souls. No wonder, “Amen!” was always part of his thanksgiving.

    God is giving us this same blessing tonight and every time we persist in our devotion to Jesus’s Sacred Heart. God does because He sees the depth of our faith. Though our prayers may not be answered immediately and there may be trials that beset us, let us be assured by the story of the Canaanite mother and her persistence in faith. Indeed, her story is our story too.

    So let us take comfort that every time we pray for something and for someone, the answer is already on its way before we even ask God. Tonight, let us entrust our prayer to God’s goodness and, more so, his timetable, for he will answer our prayers according to his will and purpose.  Shall we?




    Shared at Sacred Heart Church, Singapore
    photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash
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  6.  

    Year C / Ordinary Time / Week 28 / Sunday
    Readings: 2 Kings 5.14017 / Psalm 97.1, 2-3, 3-4 (R/v cf 2b) / 2 Timothy 2.8-13 / Luke 1711.19


    "For all things give thanks, because this is what God expects you to do in Christ Jesus" 

    Here is Paul teaching the first Christians that gratitude must be their attitude (1 Thessalonians 5.18). Indeed, it must be for us too. Is it?

    The leper Jesus cured in today's gospel reading was grateful. Cleansed, he came back, shouted for joy, fell at Jesus's feet and thanked him. The other nine who were also cleansed did not.

    Often we focus on their miraculous healing from leprosy. Sometimes, we focus on the differing attitudes between the grateful Samaritan and the ungrateful Jews. But there is something more that we can learn about the relationship between gratitude and salvation by paying attention again to Jesus's healing and its impact on the Samaritan leper. Wise are you and me to learn anew what more Jesus is teaching us today.

    When Jesus says to the cured leper who returns to give thanks, "Stand up and go on your way, your faith has saved you," Jesus is doing something more than a physical healing. He is in fact restoring this man to life. For the early Christians the words "stand up" have to do with resurrection. Yes, this leper who was dead to his society because of disease is now restored to life in the community because Jesus heals him. 

    The new life this cured leper receives evokes a faith in him that he does not know he has. It is this faith that moves him to give thanks. And this grateful faith in Jesus leads him to his salvation - "your faith has saved you." This is the lesson we are meant to learn today.

    You and me want to thank God and for everything. We however do not thank enough and often. Our lives are poorer without thanksgiving because we are not living life to the full. Without gratitude as our attitude we easily become discontent with what we have, reject the good in and around us, and tear apart every relationship or community that gives us life, we sin. And sin denies us fullness of life. 

    When we do this, we also throw away an important life lesson that family hands down to us, friends encourage us to do, schools educate us to practise and Jesus reveals to save us. It is this: that to live is to give thanks for everything. This is the wisdom we need to live purposefully and happily.

    It fills our hearts with praise for God. God who gives us every good gift from his boundless generosity.  If we are honest, there is nothing we have that is not from God. Praise is therefore right and good. It is truly the most human of all responses to God. 

    This attitude of thanksgiving and praise keeps us humble before God. It enables us to count our blessings, name them before God and say, "thank you, Lord." We need it to live the Christ-life Jesus lived on earth. Listen to the Canadian writer, Anne Voskamp describe it:

    Doesn't Christ, at this death-meal, set the entirety of our everyday bread and drink into the framework of the Eucharist?...[Eucharist that means thanksgiving and which] always precedes the miracle.
    Think of how Jesus once took bread, and gave thanks and then the miracle of the multiplying of the loaves and fishes. How he now took the bread and gave thanks and then the miracle of enduring the cross of joy set before him. How Jesus stood outside Lazarus' tomb, tears streaming down his face, and He looked up and prayed, 'Father, I thank you that you have heard me' - and then the miracle of a dead man rising! Thanksgiving raises the dead!*

    All this proclaims the same Good News that we hear in today's gospel - for Jesus, thanksgiving is integral to a faith that saves. Indeed, to receive and accept God's salvation we need grateful hearts. The Samaritan leper learned this. Will we learn this too?

    Perhaps, we will if we understand what we are doing first and foremost at Eucharist today. We are here to remember with thanks. This is the primary quality of a believing disciple.

    To be honest, it is hard to practise giving thanks always and everywhere. There are days and reasons when gratitude is not our attitude. Instead, complaint, grumble and ingratitude are. 

    Yet like the Samaritan leper who encountered God's goodness in Jesus's healing, and was moved to return and give thanks, we also encounter this same goodness in daily life. Doesn't it move us to turn to God and give thanks? We might during night prayer, when we practise the examen to review, or when we feel blessed. When we give thanks we set right again our relationship with God and one another. Our life is renewed and full again. We must however want this. Do we? 

    We can have this life by remembering who and what must always be the center and focus of our prayer. The English mystic Julian of Norwich reminds us:

    The highest form of prayer is to the goodness of God....God only desires that our soul cling to him with all its strength, in particular, that it clings to his goodness. For of all things our minds can think about God, it is thinking upon his goodness that pleases him most and brings the most profit to our soul.

    How true this is. What blessed assurance this is. Where else will we find consolation and hope than this truth. We all know this well. Today, Jesus invites us to remember this with thanks. 

    Let us then join the psalmist to declare, "The Lord has made his salvation known...he has revealed his saving power."  Truly, it is in and through our thanksgiving that we will receive God's salvation.

    What else do we need to do as we come to Eucharist now but this: break into song, sing praise and give thanks.

    Shall we?





    *Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts

    Adapted from a homily by Fr Dominic, Cistercian monk.



    Preached at Sacred Heart Church, Singapore
    Photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash
     

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  7.  

    Year C / Ordinary Time / Week 27 / Sunday
    Readings: Habakkuk 1.2-3;2.2-4 / Psalm 94. 1-2, 6-7, 8-9 (R/v 8) / 2 Timothy 1.6-8, 13-14 / Luke 17.5-10


    "Increase our faith" (Luke 17.5)

    The apostles make this request to Jesus in today's gospel reading. They ask for this because they want to live his teachings well. We want to do likewise, especially as we recognise how challenging it is to live them fully and faithfully. Just consider these teachings. Love God and love neighbour. Put God first before everything else, including family. Change your hearts or perish. Forgive and love your enemies. Share your wealth with all. Seek out the lost. Lead no one into sin. Believe God is always good. All these challenge the disciples and us to love more - to love like God. It's no wonder the apostles asks for more faith. It shouldn't surprise us that we would also ask Jesus, "increase our faith."

    I believe Jesus would reply us as he did his apostles: "were your faith the size of a mustard seed," you would already have the power to perform tremendous feats. 

    "Were you faith," Jesus says. The word "were" is the simple past tense of the verb "be." It refers to the temporary or permanent quality someone has. Hence, by using the phrase "were your faith" Jesus is referring to the faith his disciples and us already have. He is not questioning the quantity of faith each has or scolding each for a lack of faith. Rather, Jesus recognises the faith already present - however much or little - in each of us. He is however disappointed when it is not being practised or put to good use as he teaches. 

    Jesus's reply is indeed enlightening. He is simply saying, "you have faith, use it!"

    Faith empowers us to witness actively to God's love in the world. Jesus commanded us to do this. Our words will not accomplish this mission. What will is action - our self-sacrificing deeds to love God and neighbour, especially, the needy. For St Teresa of Calcutta, "Faith in action is love, and love in action is service. By transforming that faith into living acts of love, we put ourselves in contact with God."

    Faith is therefore the necessary fuel Christians need. Not just to be in relationship with God but to also serve everyone. 

    Today Jesus reminds us we already have the faith to live in his ways and accomplish God's mission. God gave it to us at Baptism. He strengthened at at Confirmation. He nurtures it daily through prayer and charity, and particularly through life's challenges. The faith we have is good. It is sufficient to do good.  Going forward, we have three choices. Let this faith be as it is? Ask for more? Or, use and practise the faith we already have, and so, nurture and grow it?

    The end of today's gospel passage offers a possible answer. Jesus describes how a servant dutifully accomplished all this master's instructions. The servant fulfils the faith the master has placed in him.

    So it must be for us. We must use God's gift of faith to us. Use it to serve Him and everyone, or we will lose it. Yes, it matters that we practise the faith we have. It is the measure of our fidelity to God who Himself trusts us to use our faith well. Paul's instruction to Timothy this morning is therefore also for us: "Fan into a flame the gift God gave you." Our Christian duty is to nurture it. With the Holy Spirit's help we can kindle it ablaze to witness to God. 

    The Prophet Habakkuk reminds us that the "upright man will live by his faithfulness." Isn't this what we want and why we are here? But we struggle, repeatedly, to live upright, faithful lives because individualism and individual rights tempt us. We are distracted and we forget God and neighbour, the common good and community. So, we sinned. 

    Yet God does not give up on us. He has an annoying habit of calling us out of our selfishness to serve others. He provides many opportunities daily for us to do this. Just consider which of the following you did this past week and how often. Cared for someone. Shared with other. Forgave and reconciled with family or friends. Helped another to heal. Encouraged those who needed hope. Recognised and restored the dignity of many society discriminates and God's people sometimes marginalises. All these ways and more are God's efforts to make us use and practise our faith, and so find salvation. God can't stop doing this. He desires us to be with him eternally.

    If we have done this, and I am sure we have, give thanks that God is in fact multiplying our faith. He teaches us an important lessons about our ability to put faith into action. It is this: no Christian can ever say, "I am done with serving and loving!"

    Practising our faith makes Christianity come alive in us and in the world. This is why the faith we already have - however much or little - is good enough for Jesus. It is indeed truly good enough for God - through Jesus, He labours in us and our lives to deepen and expand it, so that we become more like Christ with each act of loving and serving. God wants to do this for us but we need to give Him permission to do it. Will we?

    It is right and good then to heed the wisdom we hear in the psalm: "O that today we would listen to God's voice. Harden not our hearts." Every opportunity in our life to use and practice our faith is God's graciousness to increase our faith. All we need to do is to cooperate with Jesus to nurture our faith. 

    Shall we?





    Preached at Sacred Heart Church, Singapore
    photo by Tom Parsons on Unsplash



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Fall in Love, Stay in Love
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"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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