1.  

    Year A / Ordinary Time / Week 3 / Sunday (Sunday of the Word of God)
    Readings: 
    Zephaniah 2:3; 3:12-13 Psalm: 146:6-7, 8-9, 9-10 (R/v Mt 5.3) ) / 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 / Matthew 5:1-12a


    Seek the Lord” (Zephaniah 2.3)

    Our readings begin with these words. They call us to look for the Lord. We know we must, today and always. For when we do, our whole being and all our life are centered on God. When we focus elsewhere, other things distract us from God. We begin to make compromises with our Christian life. If we carry on compromising, we drift further away from God. 

    Jesus himself tells us so. “No one can serve two masters,” he teaches, “for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other” (Matthew 6.24). Hence, Jesus’s repeated calls in the Gospels that we strive to seek God and live in his ways. 

    Today’s two readings, the psalm, and the Gospel all come together to give a definition of how to seek the Lord. By seeking justice and righteousness, by seeking peace, by seeking humility. These ways enable us to live our Christian vocation to love God and love neighbour. 

    Notice the  readings do not offer instructions like a step by step guide for us to follow rigidly to get to God and to live regimentally in his ways. Instead, Jesus elaborates God’s call to His way of living. This is what his sermon on the Beatitudes is about. 

    When we hear the Beatitudes, many of us would not count ourselves among the poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful and so forth. Nor do we tend to see ourselves as blessed. 

    Jesus challenges us to think otherwise as he teaches the Beatitudes. He celebrates them as the blessedness we have; this is a quality of who we are as God’s creation. He also offers the Beatitudes as the blueprint for how we are to live  like him

    Reflecting on the Beatitudes, my New Testament teacher, Fr Tom Stegman, a Jesuit, invited us to think of them as a painting of Jesus’s qualities. When Jesus calls us to embrace and live them in everyday life, Jesus is calling us to become like him. This is how we share family resemblance with Jesus, Tom emphasised. 

    To live like Jesus and share family resemblance with him means we walk through life in his steps, see the world's opportunities and challenges with his eyes and love everyone with his heart. Consider this. Jesus the Word of God became Flesh to save us and “in flesh” lived amongst us. When we make the Beatitudes our way of life and become like Jesus, we participate in the process of how we give birth and life to Him in our lives. What flesh do we put on? The love of Jesus as St Paul teaches we must put on over all virtues and that binds them in perfect unity (Colossians 3.14). This is how we become like Jesus and we live like him – with his love.

    “They will know we are Christian by our love, by our love,” is a hymn we used to sing in Church. We hear its echo when Zephaniah proclaims God’s promise of planting a people whose lives would reveal His loving presence. This is the remnant of Israel who shun sinful ways to live in God’s ways. Instead of telling everybody not to tell lies or how to act toward each other, God works through this remnant to show them how to live justly with God’s love. We are this remnant in today’s world. Our task is to carry forth God’s plan for establishing a just reign for everyone.

    Christians need to do this because the world is far from perfect or just, far from recognising the common dignity everyone has as God’s children. In a perfect world, people would treat each other decently. A perfect world would be at peace, and justice would prevail.
     
    Sadly, our world is imperfect. We see leadership going usually to the bold. How then will the gentle lead? We see injustice around us every day. How then will those who hunger for justice be satisfied? We know many who mourn because they suffer so much. Where then is comfort for the mourning? 

    To them and for their hope, God chooses us. We are – if we are honest to admit – oftentimes the foolish, weak, lowly and sinful he has redeemed and still repeatedly forgives. He chooses us to shame and humble, teach and convert the wise, the powerful, the high and mighty, even the self-righteous and the holier-than-thous in church. He does this in order that they will encounter Jesus’s message that God saves because he loves them too.

    The Good News is that God needs us, Jesus’s disciples, to help him bring his saving love to all peoples – not with a set of dos and don'ts but with our very lives. By living the Beatitudes like Jesus did, we can do two things for anyone seeking God. First, we help others to discover their blessedness as God’s own. Second, we enable them to encounter God’s presence in this world that sadly lacks enough mercy and compassion, hope and love, forgiveness and salvation. All of us have had both these experiences at different times in our lives. Every time God does​ this for us​, ​His love​​​ touches us unexpectedly yet ever profoundly. We come to know who we are  – always his, never forgotten, no matter our struggle with sinfulness.

    Now, Jesus is asking us to partner him and help others experience the same goodness God wants to give gratuitously. Maybe when they know God’s saving love, through the lives we live and share, they will sing with the psalmist, “happy the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

    Shall we do this for everyone?




    Preached at Church of the Sacred Heart, Singapore
    photo by Karl Fredrickson on Unsplash
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  2.  

    Year A / Ordinary Time / Week 3 / Sunday (Sunday of the Word of God)
    Readings:  Isaiah 8:23-9:3 Psalm 27:1,4,13-14 (R/v 1a) / 1 Corinthians 1:10-13,17/ Matthew 4:12-23


    “You have made their gladness greater, you have made their joy increase” (Isaiah 9.2)

    Here is Isaiah proclaiming the goodness of God’s mighty actions in the 1st Reading. He assures the people that God is faithful and will not abandon them. To the people in darkness, God lets them see and they are consoled. To these people in exile, God uplifts them and they are glad. To these people burdened by oppression, God frees them and they are joyful. They experience all this because God is with them. In His light they see the light of salvation

    Haven’t we heard this before? But have we embraced the goodness of God’s light in our lives?

    Here we are also in God’s presence. Not just because we are at Sunday Mass. More truthfully, because we live and move and exist in His presence everyday. We are more mindful of God’s presence this Chinese New Year morning. We thank God for many blessings in our lives, from family and faith to springtime plenty to new beginnings promising more. God alone is the Giver of every good gift, including the Scriptures that we call the Word of God.

    Today we also celebrate Sunday of the Word of God. The readings invite us to reflect on the Word of God that gives life – the fullness of life, really – to all peoples

    Jesus is the Word of God. “He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.” This is how Luke describes Jesus engaging the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Throughout their journey together, Jesus’s closeness with, compassion for and tenderness towards these disciples opened their minds and hearts to God’s Word. It healed their pain and restored them to life. More significantly, it burned in their hearts so profoundly as the light of Christ. This experience emboldened them to return to Jerusalem and announce “Jesus lives.” 

    Closeness, compassion and tenderness.* This is the style of God’s Word labouring in every person so that all might have life to the full. God’s Word opened Isaiah’s mind to know His light is for those in darkness. God’s Word opened Matthew’s mind to record in the Gospel that Jesus is God’s mercy who forgives and heals, gathers all to himself and sends them forth as apostles. 

    And now, God’s Word wants to open our minds for us to acknowledge Jesus as God’s light in the Scriptures we read, pray and live out daily. This is how Jesus, the Word of God, is that lamp unto our feet, and the light unto our path.

    It is good and right we hear this message. We need to. We are all looking for light to journey home to God. We need light for none of our roads to get there are smooth and straight. Too many experience difficulty and despair making this journey: personally, professionally, and in the family. Our hearts want to open to them and dispel the darkness overwhelming them. We want to because we hear Jesus’s call resounding in our discipleship: “love one another as I have loved you” (John 13.34).

    Many will say, “It’s difficult and daunting to do this, Father.” This is their fear. For others, it is their convenient excuse. But why should we be afraid? The Psalmist sings, “The Lord is my light and my help,” with joy, hope, and courage.  With faith, we know He is our refuge. In Baptism, we receive Him as our Light. Both are part of God’s many blessings in our lives. God means for us to share them generously with everyone. And yes, we can because God’s Word is living and active in us and his Light kindly leads us onward.

    To anyone wanting to proclaim Jesus, myself included, Paul issues this warning in the 2nd Reading: “Don’t preach about the Word of God and the Light of Christ with human eloquence.” Instead, embrace the humility of the Cross and live it, he demands. The Scriptures teach that this is how Jesus lived and his disciples are to live like him. This is how the Scriptures give us life – when they are our life

    Here and now we are breaking open the Word of God to hear how to live in God’s ways. In a bit, we will break bread to remember Jesus laying down his life so that we can live as God’s people. When Mass ends, we will be sent forth as the Body of Christ, each to be bread broken for others.  

    We hear all this. We receive it in this Mass. However all this will mean nothing unless we celebrate our Chinese New Year gatherings as Jesus calls us to. 

    First, by practising repentance or turning away from darkness to focus on the light. God’s light. Look for God’s light today. Help others to find God’s light. You will find it in all that is good and right that you will receive, have and hold these days. 

    Second, by imitating the style of God that is closeness, compassion and tenderness with everyone you celebrate with. The apostles Jesus called learned this style by dwelling in his presence. We are dwelling in his presence now; so let us learn. Then, let us go and do likewise these festive days -- be close to someone alone or forgotten, forgive or aid another in need with compassion, and care tenderly for the difficult or black sheep amongst us. Jesus himself did them once. 

    I believe when we do any of these to those God entrusts into our love and care, we will make their gladness greater and their joy increase.

    Shall we?





    *Pope Francis in a letter to Fr James Martin, SJ, 30 September 2019


    Preached at Church of the Sacred Heart
    photo: Internet

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  3.  
    Devotion to the Sacred Heart – Friday, 19 January
    Reflection based on Luke 15-3-7


    Here we are on the eve of the eve of Chinese New Year.  We could be busy at home preparing for the coming festivities or in Chinatown buying last minute goodies. 

    Yet here we.  To prayerfully ask God to hear our petitions. To happily thank God for answering our needs. Here we are in devotion because our belief in Jesus draws us to his Sacred Heart – the ‘source of all consolation’ and from ‘whose fullness we have all received.’

    However we might ourselves focusing now and again on another gathering to come. For those celebrating Chinese New Year, on tomorrow night’s gathering of family. For others needing some R&R this long weekend, on an evening’s gathering of friends over a meal or drinks. What’s on your mind as you think about these gatherings?

    Every Chinese New Year Eve when my siblings and I were children, great grandma and grandma would get us to lay out the plates and bowls, forks and spoons, and yes, the chopsticks, on three tables for the extended family coming for the Reunion Dinner. As we did, they would share stories of the family, of the past year’s successes and losses, of how we cared as family and those who were hurting or suffering. They particularly reminded us to set a place for those who had kept away because of family quarrels, felt estranged or had done wrong. “Remember,” said great grandma, “it’s reunion dinner and everybody should have a place at the table.”

    Tonight Jesus teaches us that even the one lost sheep is worth seeking out and bringing back to the fold. Bringing back in fact to his own, to his home.  And when the shepherd does this, everyone should rejoice. Yes, rejoice because the one who was lost is found, the one who was dead is now alive. 

    Isn’t this what every Reunion Dinner and every gathering of friends can indeed be? Not just a gathering of the same old same old people but the added joy of welcoming back those black sheep in our families or long forgotten friends. Back to sitting at the tables we gather around to eat and feast as family and friends. When we do this, we express more than welcome and hospitality. To them, we express forgiveness and healing, reconciliation and acceptance. More simply, we express genuine love – in deeds, not words. 

    Some might say, “this is too idealistic to be true.” Others, “It’s too difficult to make real.” I wonder if excuses like these cheapen the Christian call to live like Jesus, that is, to live with greater love. Jesus does this as the good shepherd. He chooses to do more than tend to his ninety-nine sheep in safety. He risks his life to save the one lost sheep. This is how much the lost ones matter to him. His kind of shepherding is characterised by closeness with, compassion for and tenderness to others. The lost sheep experience and delight in this goodness when the shepherd seeks them out. 

    I believe the black sheep in our families and long lost friends yearn very much to have this experience too. Especially at festive times, they hope to have a place at our tables. Tonight, Jesus’s story of the good shepherd shows us how we can gather them home – by risking our safety. The safety to be right, self-righteous and self-preserving in order to reach out and bring them back. Only then will our gatherings be truly reunions. I can only imagine the wondrous rejoicing everyone will have, and especially, God, if we do as Jesus shepherds with his big heartedness.  Indeed, how else should we act when we bear the name ‘Christian,’ that is, like Christ?


    Shared at Church of the Sacred Heart
    photo: dreamstime.com

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  4.  

    Year A / Ordinary Time / Week 2 / Sunday
    Readings:  Isaiah 49:3, 5-6 
    Psalm: 40:2, 4, 7-8, 8-9, 10 (R/v 8a and 9a) / 1 Corinthians 1:1-3 John 1.29-34


    'Look: there is the Lamb of God' (John 1.29)

    Today we hear John the Baptist’s testimony about Jesus. He is more than John’s cousin. Jesus is “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” John makes this pronouncement because God revealed Jesus to him. He is the one “whomever you see the Spirit come down on and remain, he is the one who will baptise with the Holy Spirit.” John saw this and he recognised.

    How could John not know who his cousin was as they were growing up? Because only at Jesus’s Baptism did God opened the eyes of John’s heart to see Jesus in divine light. Jesus is the Son of God and our Saviour. 

    John's experience of recognising Jesus challenges us with this question for Christian life. Do we recognise Jesus already in our midst?

    Here we are at Mass. Our readings speak about Jesus. Our songs remind us of him. Our Eucharist affirms that he with us and for us. Yet at other times and places we do not recognise Jesus’ presence. Even here and now, if we are distracted, we can’t.  

    Distracted or inattentive is how we also interact with one another. When we do, we engage each other in auto-pilot mode, that is, in our same old, same old ways. Do we?

    Parents, consider how you love and treat your children. Children, consider how you honour and relate to your parents. Husband and wives, consider the openness you have to hear, really hear, each other. For all in authority, do we really listen to those we teach, we employ, we make decisions for? For all in employment, do we try to understand those who lead or do we gossip, gripe, and grumble? 

    Let’s be honest, we are all guilty of the many ways we close our eyes, our ears and our hearts to one another. Sometimes, we even harden our hearts.

    Aren’t these the same ways we interact with Jesus sometimes? Jesus comes daily in our lives, like family and friends, classmates and work colleagues do. But do we let ourselves be surprised with Jesus’s living presence?

    Sometimes we blind ourselves to those who matter to us. The greater blindness happens when we turn our backs on God for whom we matter dearly.

    Today John the Baptist’s testimony calls us to pay attention to Jesus in order to recognise him as  the Lamb of God, the Christ to save us, the Son of God. If we do, we build on two earlier revelations this year proclaiming who Jesus is. On the Feast of the Epiphany, Jesus is God’s Light to the Nations. On the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, he is God’s Beloved Son.  

    The Church places these revelations about Jesus at the beginning of the year for a reason. They can guide Christians to be clear who Jesus is, what his mission is about, and why God gifts him to us. We can then enter more deeply into relationship with Jesus and follow him more closely throughout the year.

    Humankind is created for relationship. Imagine a friend seeking her spouse. Each man she dates isn’t the one. When she meets the right partner, she declares, ‘this is the one!’ 

    John the Baptist recognises Jesus with the same excitement and ardor as this woman. “Behold…he is the one,” John announces when recognises Jesus.

    Do we recognise Jesus in the same way? As the ultimate partner for life? As the foundation of our Christian life? If we do, do we have the guts to say like John, “Jesus is the one.”

    I believe we can when we make the effort to see Jesus like John did — with clarity and certainty when God reveals him to us. All who read and pray the Gospel of John will realise that following Jesus begins by looking to see and beholds Jesus. It involves encountering him, checking him out and knowing him. When we do, Jesus can transform and ready us to go out and do as he does — to save the world. When let Jesus do this to us, we become what the Lord demands of Isaiah and the Israelites – to become “a light to the nations.”

    “It’s hard to see and recognise Jesus,” many lament. It is when our sins blind us from seeing him. Yet, aren’t we here at Mass to encounter Jesus? Whatever our state of grace we have come to see and hear Jesus, receive his forgiveness, be nourished in communion and saved from death. We want to have Jesus with us and be in his good company. The Good News is that our desire for Jesus is stronger than any shame to stay away is. This desire is God's gift to us; it makes us yearn for Jesus who is God made flesh. No other experience humbles us to know this than in coming to Communion.

    We want to see Jesus and God wants to see more of Jesus in us. “Be ambassadors for Christ,” Paul teaches Christians. Today we hear how he with Sosthenes are apostles who bring God’s grace and peace to all. God sends many to do the same for everyone. For John the Baptist, it was his cousin. For us, it is family, friends, even strangers. God challenges us to search their visible faces and behold him, our invisible God delighting in us through them. Yes, God is dwelling in our hearts. We’ll find Him when we remember Jesus’s countenance upon us: it is the look of love.

    Yes, look: here before you and me is the face of another in whom God abides.

    Can we recognise His look of Love?




    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart, Singapore
    photo: insider.com

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  5. Year A / Christmastide / Solemnity of the Epiphany 
    Readings:  Isaiah 60:1-6 / Psalm: 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13 (R/v cf 11) ) / Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6 / Matthew 2:1-12


    “Lift up your eyes and look around, all are assembling and coming towards you” (Isaiah 60.4a)

    Here is Isaiah demanding that the exiled Israelites look up and see God’s light come upon them. It rescues them from the darkness of their misery and pain. God’s light is with them. It will attract their own dispersed peoples and all other nations to come to God’s light.

    This truth of God’s light shining through the Israelites and attracting others to them invites us to reflection on this Solemnity of the Epiphany. What we celebrate is the revelation of Jesus to the world. The Magi, foreigners dressed in richly adorned and brightly coloured clothes and bearing extravagant gifts remind us so. 

    These details of the story we call the 3 Kings delight us every Christmastide. Do they blind us however from recognising that Jesus is God’s light to all peoples and not just to Christians to save us only?

    Two points about the Magi’s journey might give us some answers.

    First, Jesus is God’s gift for everyone

    The Magi paid attention to the stars and when they saw something special, they sensed there was meaning in the event. This explains their decision to follow the Star that led them to Jesus. 

    I wonder if we pay the same attention to what or who can lead us to Jesus. Too often we aren’t that open to see a new light or a new message or even a clear call through people and events in our life that can lead us to Jesus. Perhaps, we are distracted elsewhere away from Jesus.

    At Bethlehem, the Magi found Jesus and did him homage as the infant King of the Jews. Perhaps, knowing something more they fell to prostrate and adore Jesus. That he, in smallness and vulnerability, birthed into poverty and squalor, is God himself – now revealed to them, foreigners, as he was to Jewish shepherds on Christmas night. 

    I wonder if we really believe this too. And that in Jesus God holds nothing back, not even his beloved only Son, to reach out and draw everyone into intimacy with him

    If this is our belief, then, let us not just see Jesus only at Christmas. Let us contemplate the face of God in Jesus daily in every person and every moment we live and move and breathe as his people. 

    We’ll need to be disciplined and committed to keep centering our gaze on Jesus, rather than on the world, particularly as Christmastide ends. When we turn away from Jesus, our focus will shift to other distractions. Then, we will wander down paths that lead us astray. We should ask God to set our sights on Jesus as the Magi did, and so help one another on life’s journey to him.

    Second, Jesus calls everyone to God’s mission.

    In this solemnity we celebrate God showing forth himself in Jesus to all peoples. This is what Epiphany means. Isaiah uses the metaphor of light to describe it. Jesus is this light. He enlightens us about God’s desire and plan to draw all peoples to him. He enkindles justice for all to flourish and to save the poor and helpless. Both should inflame our hearts to join him on God’s mission and become his light for all peoples. But we first need to die to our selfish, self-serving ways that so easily get us lost, confused and far from God. The hardhearted cannot do this; they refuse Jesus’ light to set them ablaze for mission. Are we the hardhearted?

    Today God offers those of us who are hardhearted the chance again to receive Jesus as God’s gift and to join him on God’s mission.  All it takes is a gifting of ourselves, regardless of race, language or religion. The Magi prepared gifts for Jesus. Gold to honour his kingship. Incense to reverence him as God. Myrrh to anoint him in death. Many come to Jesus, probably empty-handed because we haven’t prepared well for this moment. I doubt Jesus wants us to offer him material things. What matters more to him is the gift of our very selves

    We do have this gift to offer. It is most precious and particular to each of us. We can only give it totally and freely if we are prepared to die to ourselves and let Jesus live in us.

    Honestly, it is hard to do this if we limit where and how we expect to encounter Jesus. Expectations shape our attitudes and actions. If we expect failure, we will probably fail. If we expect happiness, we have a better chance of finding it. The Magi learned to find Jesus in Bethlehem, not expect him in Jerusalem. They learned to recognise him in the simplicity, poverty and dirtiness of a manger, not expect him in trappings of power and majesty. These foreigners learned how to look for Jesus, while Herod and his court did not. What about us? Where do we expect to find Jesus and who do we expect him to be?

    Our readings challenge us to look anew at how God’s light really shines through even the non-Christians. His light is in everyone because in Jesus God has come for all peoples. So let us not deceive ourselves that we alone save non-Christians. In fact, God uses them to save us too. Together, we help each other become saints. What better way to celebrate this truth of God’s saving action than to proclaim to everyone this Good News St Paul declares: “pagans now share the same inheritance, that they are parts of the same body, and that the same promise has been made to them, in Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 3.6).

    Amen, Hallelujah!



    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart, Singapore
    Photo: ideapod.com

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  6.  


    Devotion to the Sacred Heart – Friday, 6 January
    Reflection based on Luke 23: 35-43



    “I promise you today you will be with me.”

    Don’t we want to hear these words of Jesus as we begin this new year?  In today’s gospel, the thief who asked to be with Jesus in his kingdom did; he heard these words. They must have so greatly consoled him. 

    Whenever we start something new, we want encouragement more than consolation. Whether it is going to school for the first time, beginning a new job in a new workplace, or starting out on a new phase in life like marriage,  we want to hear: “All will be fine,” “Good Luck” “All the best!,” even “Yes, you can.”

    Jesus offers us more than words. He offers us better. He gives us his promise. This is why what we hear tonight must matter as we enter this new year.

    We may excited about a fresh start that began on 1 January. We may look ahead resolutely now that we have written our new year’s resolutions. We may even be confident of the goals we want to achieve in the coming months. However, if we are honest, each of us has some fear, anxiety and concern as look ahead. We do because we don’t really know what the future holds. Only God knows.

    We hear Jesus’s promise. They are the words of a dying man. In fact, they are of a God who chooses to die for us. This is our Christian belief. Yes, no greater love can there be than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

    Here is Jesus thinking of another in need even in his final hours, in his immense pain and suffering, with all his dignity stripped away and ridiculed as a criminal. 

    This must surprise yet assure us. Jesus thinking of us. He answers us when we ask. He turns to us in our need. He does not give up on us. Isn’t this why we are here again at this Friday devotion? Here, more so, because we are beginning this new year. Here, really because Jesus is our hope.

    Isn’t He our reason for offering our lighted candles?  They express our hope that He will be with us on the journey through this year. Lit, each one of these candles is our simple, humble act of entrusting ourselves into the bigheartedness of Jesus’s Sacred Heart, the fervent intercession of Mary who ponders our petitions in her heart and the prayer of Joseph who listens to God and provides for Jesus and Mary, and us too. 

    Tonight, Jesus’s promise that the thief will be with him is the light we need. It dispels and overcomes the darkness of death. It lights up the dawn. More important is Jesus, God’s light onto our paths ahead. He leads us onward and leads us home to God. We need not just hope. We can believe. All because Jesus declares, “Indeed, I promise you today you will be with me.”



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

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  7.  

    Year A / Christmastide / Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God
    Readings: Numbers 6:22-27 / Psalm 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8 (R/v 2a) / Galatians 4:4-7/ Luke 2:16-21


    “O God, be gracious and bless us” (Psalm 67: 2a)

    This is the refrain we sang in our Responsorial Psalm. It might express the prayer or blessing each of us is desiring this New Year. 

    God is good; He has gathered us into this Sunday’s Eucharist so that we can ask him specifically  for what we need this New Year.  So, ask and petition God for it in today’s Eucharist. It's not just another Sunday Eucharist; it is extra special this New Year's Day.

    The most human response we can therefore make today is this: to turn to God. Yes, to turn to God and ask for our needs and hopes. Bust also, to turn and thank God for the gift of new beginnings and possibilities this year brings. More importantly, to entrust ourselves into God’s hands for him to lead us into the new year and every day to come. 

    Does it surprise you that the Church invites us to thank and to trust God with today’s feast of Mary, Mother of God? 

    In fact it is good and right. Today’s feast honouring Mary opens the new year with this Christian truth: that God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son to be our brother and our rescuer, to paraphrase St. John's Gospel. Yes, to Jesus, through Mary.

    Contemplating Mary’s motherhood reveals more: the tenderness of parental love

    At the Annunciation, Mary gentle ‘yes’ allowed God to make her Jesus’s mother. At Christmas, she cradled Jesus as only a mother can – with great love. During Jesus’s childhood years, her motherly care sought him out when he was lost and taught him to grow in wisdom and find favour with God. In Jesus’s ministry, often, itinerant, she trusted with a mother’s heart in God’s protection. At the foot of the Cross, Mary’s motherhood ended with Jesus’s death. In the Upper Room, before Pentecost, her motherhood kindly embraced the disciples praying for the Holy Spirit to come. 

    Mary’s tender love is echoed in today’s readings. Each reading speaks of the tenderness of love to bless another.

    In the Book of Numbers, we hear this:  “The Lord bless you and keep you! The Lord let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you! The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace!”

    How are we receiving the Lord’s blessings? Do we bless each other with the same tenderness God shows us?

    In Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, we hear this: “God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’”

    How are we welcoming God’s Spirit into our hearts? Do we receive each other with the same tenderness?

    Tenderness towards another’s wellbeing, happiness and redemption marks both Mary’s parental love and God’s divine love. This is the style of selfless love; it is utterly other-centred. It should also challenge us: just as God shows tenderness to us, we must show tenderness to one another. Are we?

    This new year promises much good. There will also be many challenges. Such is God’s way for us who follow Jesus. The good will keep us humble and dependent on God. The challenging will convert and sanctify us as God wants. Only a heart of tender love can give thanks for the good and trust that challenges are equally good.

    Mary can be the guide we need to show us how to do this. She had that heart of tender love that gave thanks and trusted. Today’s Gospel declares: "Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart." All her life, she pondered about Jesus. She could because of her heart.

    We also have a relationship with Jesus. We experience him as friend and Saviour. We encounter him in all persons we interact with and through the different communities of faith we inhabit. We come to know him through our prayer, worship and service to those in need. In each of these meetings, Jesus comes to us to reveal his goodness and salvation. 

    How we will know this truth? When we begin to open ourselves, particularly, our hearts, to receive these encounters with Jesus and reflect on them. Like Mary, we will learn to treasure all these things and ponder them in our hearts. This is how we will know our true selves as God's beloved, particularly blessed by His countless blessings upon us. 

    We will also know the true needs of those accompanying us: family and friends, the poor and the sick, the imprisoned and the discriminated, the sister or brother in need whose outstretched hands begs us to share our gifts of faith, hope and love with them. Then, we can bless them, as God blesses us.

    Perhaps, to know that God’s love is tender and faithful for us, and through us for many peoples, is indeed the gracious blessing we should ask for today. We should because I believe God wants nothing more than to make our hearts tender and loving like his heart.

    Today’s feast invites us to once again encounter Jesus through Mary. In the new year we will be challenged to extend this encounter with Jesus with many more. So, let us pray for a heart of tender love to recognise our encounter with Jesus, and, even more, for us to pass it to help others encounter Jesus too. Mary did so magnificently in her being the Mother of God.

    Shall we do like her?





    Preached at Church of the Sacred Heart
    Photo by Andrae Ricketts on Unsplash

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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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©adrian.danker.sj, 2006-2018

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