1. Year C / Christmas Season / Feast of the Holy Family
    Readings: Ecclesiasticus 3.2-6, 12-14 / Ps 128:1-2, 3, 4-5 (R/v cf 1) / Colossians 3.12-21 / Luke 2:41-52


    At the beginning of the Christmas Eve Mass, I carried Baby Jesus to the Crib. As I did, many in the pews turned their heads to look. They looked intently. Some smiled. Others trained their phones to take a video or photo. One or two children reached out to touch Baby Jesus. Indeed, everyone was looking out for Jesus.
     
    We all did because Jesus is the long expectant Saviour we prepared ourselves for this Advent. To welcome him not to the Crib but into our hearts, the real manger at Christmas and every day. In us and amongst us, He truly dwells. Isn’t this why we always keep looking out for Jesus?
     
    The act of looking features prominently in today’s gospel reading. The Holy Family is actively looking. Mary and Joseph went to look for Jesus when he was lost. They were anxiously looking for him everywhere, fearful they lost him. Finding him,  Mary said, “your father and I have been looking for you.” Jesus replied: “Why are you looking for me?” I imagine Jesus returning home and looking to Mary and Joseph to learn how to live and pray, to be obedient and grow in wisdom with God and others.
     
    The act of looking is also part of our family life. Parents look out for their children. Look to care for them. Look to forgive them. Look to affirm them. Look to delight in them. Children too look at their parents and godparents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and even each other. Look to learn how to live and care, to be good and loving, to be faithful to God and loyal in relationships. This is the message of the first reading.
     
    The life of the Holy Family is our life too – filled with unexpected problems, anxiety, and suffering. Yet in how Mary and Joseph look for Jesus God gives us a pattern to live as faithful Christians. Let’s consider.

    Mary and Joseph’s anxiety as they look for Jesus is our anxiety when we are distant from him. Our worry grows when too many days pass and we seem to lose him. 

    So, we search for Jesus, looking to find him again. We pray harder, perhaps longer, when we cannot find Jesus in prayer.  We challenge ourselves to be more like Jesus, selfless and giving, when we find ourselves becoming self-centred and self-absorbed. We seek Jesus out in a retreat, a talk with a spiritual director, even in conversation with fellow parishioners when our lukewarm faith slides us into complacency. We humble ourselves and seek Jesus’s forgiveness when we sin. Even here and now, we have sacrificed other wants to come to Jesus in the Eucharist at this time; we do because we need Him.
     
    Mary and Joseph remind us that finding Jesus is hard work. They teach us to persevere, stay focused and be determined in our search. They instruct us to trust  God to find Jesus and where to find him: in God’s House, the  temple, where he is teaching the elders. Finding Jesus like this astonishes us too: “Did you not know I must be busy with my Father’s affairs?” he asks.
     
    Jesus himself teaches us how to look for him. We do, when we like him, seek to be in God’s presence. When we like him, choose to be obedient to God. When we like him, let God nurture and grow us in His wisdom. Consider the many times we have imitated Jesus and found ourselves growing to become more like Him, the fullness of God’s image and likeness. Others will look at us and judge how Christian we are by our life and our love. What will they say?
     
    Looking for Jesus also enlarges where we look for him, how we find him and what new understanding we learn through our encounters with him. 
     
    Listen to this story of St Benedict and the novices. They were praying before the manger in their chapel on Christmas Eve. There was a loud knock. No one got up. Everyone was focussed on the Infant Child. The knocking got louder. No one moved. They were all adoring Jesus. The knocking continued incessantly. St Benedict got up, opened the door and let a beggar into their midst. He prayed beside them. When prayer ended, the beggar disappeared. "Where is he? Who is he?"  the novices asked. "He is Jesus," St Benedict said. "He came to pray with you and for you. You didn’t really look."
     
    The novices had to learn how to experience divine presence, obedience and growing in wisdom within the community they are – with each other and with Jesus as one with them, one amongst them, one for them. We too live in a community we call ‘family,’ as we do in our many communities. In all of them,  we need to learn to become a family of God.
     
    Jesus, Mary and Joseph had to learn to become this holy family. Their story is more than just losing and finding Jesus. They had to take time to understand who their son, Jesus, really is and who they had to be for him and each other.
     
    “So it is with us too,” Pope Francis notes, adding: “Every day, families have to learn to listen and understand one another, to walk together, to face conflicts and difficulties. It is a daily challenge and it is overcome with the right attitude, through simple actions, simple gestures, caring for the details of our relationships. And this too helps us a lot in order to talk within the family, talk at table, dialogue between parents and children, dialogue among siblings.”* And can I add, to talk and laugh, live and love with God.

    Wise are we to learn to look for Jesus in our midst; He shows us how to live as family and  especially as God’s family. We can when we make St Paul’s exhortation to clothe ourselves in the love of Christ our family way of life. Then, we will live and care with heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another. When we do this, we make Jesus’ presence alive in us and amongst us.

    Knowing Jesus is with us will calm us to live. Even more, He will be our satisfaction and delight to live life more fully, even joyfully. Isn’t this what every Christian family needs? Does yours?
     
     

     

    * Angelus for the Feast of the Holy Family, Sunday, Dec 26, 2021


    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart
    Photo by Irish83 on Unsplash

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  2.  
    Year C / Christmas / Solemnity of the Nativity of our Lord (Christmas Midnight Mass)
    Readings: 2 Timothy 4.1-5 /  Psalm 40. 2, 7-8a, 8b-9, 10, 11 / Matthew 5.13-19


    “From this time onwards and for ever, the jealous love of the Lord of Hosts will do this” (Isaiah 9.7b)

    This is how our first reading ends this most holy night. With Isaiah proclaiming the irrefutable truth of Christmas: that God has become man so that we can become sharers in his divinity (St Thomas Aquinas). This happened that first Christmas long ago. Tonight we believe this is happening too. 

    Christians celebrate this truth. We must. For we do not celebrate an ancient religious memory about God coming down to earth. Nor, a Bible story about Mary’s boy child, one like us, dwelling amongst us. It is much more than any art and film, song and poetry can express about that infant wrapped in swaddling clothes.

    What we really celebrate tonight is God’s self-giving love for you, me, and everyone. This truth is the incredibly good news, that unimaginable proclamation, that God’s love is unreservedly and gratuitously for all, no matter saint or sinner. It is therefore good and right that we rejoice and join the angels, singing: “Glory to God in the highest heaven and peace to all who enjoy His favour.”

    This joy will resound in every Mass throughout the Christmas season and into the new year. We will hear it in every reading, prayer and song. They echo this line from the first letter of St John: “In this, the  love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, so that we might live through him” (1 John 4.9). 

    We like these words about the self-giving love of God. In fact we are very comfortable thinking of God like this. Christmas heralds this joyfully: because God came, we can live with God and we can love like God.

    But if we’re a little more attentive to tonight’s readings, we will hear this more profound truth about God: He desires to be one with us. This is how His jealous love loves – so much that He gives His very best, His most precious, His singular treasure, His much loved Jesus, with whom we can have His life to the full.

    We don’t often think of God in terms of desire. Yet this is who God also is. We hear it whispered amidst tonight’s readings. St Paul declares to Titus that Jesus, God-wish-us, came so that we “could be his very own and would have no ambition except to do good.” And the psalmist cries out so loudly, so clearly, that “He comes / He comes to rule the world.”
     
    Hear this then: that God’s deepest desire is for Jesus to come and be the ruler of the world. Even more, He comes to be the ruler of our hearts so we can do good for God and others. To rule our hearts as King. This infant king the wise men sought, and finding him, prostrated themselves in homage. This king the shepherds adored, lying on no other throne but a dirty, soiled, messy wooden manger. This king who would one day lay down his life to save you and I, and everyone for God.

    Indeed, what else can our heart’s disposition be tonight but joyful? How else then can we respond but with praise? Praise for the faithfulness, goodness and love of God who makes his desire real in Jesus. Yes, Jesus came, not to visit and go. He came to  stay with us till the end of time.

    And God declares His faithfulness audaciously by wrapping Himself – pure and holy, mighty and all powerful – in  human skin.  Skin, fresh and supple, innocent and bright like the young. A little more dull, scaly and rough like adult skin scared by life’s burdens and worries. Wrinkled and dry skin like the aged. Skin, brimming with hope like the dreamers.

    God wrapped in our human skin. This isn’t some theological mambo-jumbo to spiritualise Christmas or make it intelligible. I want to suggest that this is the Christmas reality of being human and being human with God and one another. Then, we will know how to love as He has loved us. Consider.

    If others say your skin disqualifies you from being you and being here, Jesus in your skin says, “you're worthy and you're welcome.”

    If some say you are bad because you’ve disfigured your skin with wrong choices, bad habits and poor judgment, Jesus, in your skin, embraces you saying, “my sister, my brother, my friend.”

    If others distance themselves from you because your skin is pockmarked and wounded by sickness and disease, Jesus in your skin says, “I hear; I see; be healed.”

    If the older people ridicule you for your fresh, youthful, innocent skin, Jesus in your skin says, “I believe in you and the good you are.”

    And if you are young and dismiss the old, Jesus in your skin says, “wise are they who honour their elders; they’ll find the way to God.”

    If your skin is injured by hurts, pains and regrets, Jesus in your skin promises you will be with him always and he will make all things new.

    If your skin is a mask you hide behind, Jesus in your skin will help you shed it so you can be your true self and shine.
    If your skin is soiled by sin, Jesus in your skin wants you to know that there is nothing he cannot forgive.

    If your skin makes you a nobody to many, cast aside to the margins, ignored, Jesus in your skin says, “You are somebody; you are mine.”

    And even if you have done nothing this Advent to clean up your skin, refresh and ready it for Him, here is Jesus in your skin, simply for you.

    Yes, God wraps Himself in human skin because this is how much he desires to be one with us. And he does because our human skin is simply very good for God himself. 

    Let us marvel then at the miracle of the Incarnation, of God partaking in our very flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. This is that cause for great joy, that kind of exhilaration that inspired Elizabeth’s unborn baby to leap and shout when Jesus, in Mary’s womb, came visiting. 

    Indeed, isn’t this the same delight you and I must have this Christmas? 

    So let us pray that your heart and my heart, that all our hearts, will skip a beat tonight, as it also must each day this Christmas and every day after, because now more than ever, we know so surely and so joyfully that we’re always in the holy presence of God. He is with us. Amen.



    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart
    photo: imagevine.com

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  3.  
    Year C / Advent / Week 4 / Sunday
    Readings: Micah 5.1-4a / Ps 80 (R/v 4) / Hebrew 10.5-10 / Luke 1.39-45
     
     
    “Why should I be honoured with a visit from the mother of my Lord?” (Luke 1.43)
     
    This is Elizabeth’s exclamation when Mary visited her. It’s really her recognition that God, and no other, was visiting her. She knew this truth when her son, John, leapt in her womb. I’d like to imagine John’s leaping as his way of letting Jesus know he was there and ready to do his part in God’s plan for salvation.
     
    In the Visitation story, we see the visible sign of God’s fidelity in the lives of both women. This reminds us that God really desires intimate, loving relationship with humankind. Elizabeth’s exclamation tells us so: “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”
     
    Th Visitation, like the Annunciation, reveals how God intervened in the lives of both women to bring about good. Mary became the mother of God. Elizabeth bore a prophet who converted many to God. Hasn’t God also intervened in our lives to bring about just as much good?
     
    At the heart of the Visitation is the profound intimacy of these two, faith-filled pregnant women with the Word of God. It’s an intimacy that God laboured for.  We glimpse this when  St. Augustine of Hippo writes :
    You called, Lord; you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You shone and dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew a breath and I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.
    Truly, the breath of God’s fragrance was upon Mary and Elizabeth. With that breath they hungered for God’s Word to come. When it did, they became pregnant with God’s Word to be carried and birthed. I wonder about God’s breath of the Holy Spirit in our lives and all the marvellous things He wants to do for us.
     
    For Mary, the power of God’s intervention sends her to care for a pregnant Elizabeth. Then, it helped her give birth to Jesus for all peoples. From that point onward, Mary cared for every person with a mother’s love, as she did with the apostles at Pentecost.
     
    Mary could do all this this because God swept her up in his own urgent haste to reach everyone to love and save them. Such is the power of God’s intervention. If we are honest, we too have been caught up in God’s haste – every time we love or forgive another, care and uplift the needy, accept all those society shuns, even delight in that one who nobody values.
     
    God’s own haste, Pope Francis, writes, “urged Mary to open the door and go out…to set out on her journey to her cousin. She chose the unknowns of the journey over the comforts of her daily routines, the weariness of travel over the peace and quiet of home. This is the risk of faith that makes our lives a loving gift to others over placid piety.* Mary risked herself to care for Elizabeth. Will we do the same?
     
    We need to risk like Mary. Then, God can bring about His good in our world, even more, for everyone through each of us. So, let us risk ourselves for whomever God wishes us to go to can care for. Risk all the more so that God can have us do this in the manner He wishes us to do, especially, for the lesser and the lost, the forgotten and unknown, the small and insignificant. Like Bethlehem-Ephrathah, “too small to be among the clans for Judah.”
    We must risk because it is precisely in such places and with these people that God will bring about great things, like peace for everyone, a Messiah who saves, and a shepherd who cares. Yes, sister and brothers, risk yourselves this Christmas for someone else.
                                                                                                                                                
    Now, as much as God uses us to care for others, He also works through many to bring about much good in our lives. We have all experienced this. Shouldn’t we then join Elizabeth and cry out, “Why should I be honoured by the mother of the Lord”?
     
    It is however not enough to confess this. We must welcome God who comes to us through those many. Comes into the dimness and emptiness of our souls that we often hide. We dare not tell others our deepest thoughts and feelings. We struggle to be honest and vulnerable. We are too ashamed to be our truest selves. We hide our pains and hurts. We deny our failings and sins. We harden our hearts, afraid to admit “I’m not like you” or “I just want to be loved by you.” Sometimes, we even fear voicing dreams and hopes.
     
    Into these very spaces, God wishes to intervene and be with us. Make his home in us. Come and be born in us like He did that first Christmas morning.
     
    How then can we welcome this child? Not with our cleverness or skills to analyse and rationalise. Dare I say, not even by ticking off the action items on the To Do List for Christmas like buying presents and going to Advent Penitential.

    Rather, welcome Him with child-like wonder. Only this kind of wonder will lead us to that threshold of contemplation we will make before Jesus in the crib. Not so much to see the child there but to enter into the life of this child seeing the world.** That is, seeing everything and everyone from God’s point of view, which is with love.
     
    When we dare do this, we’ll understand how God wants us for Himself. No matter how unworthy we think we are, God loves us too much not to welcome, accept and include us in His life. In fact this is what we’ll experience when we gather at the crib this Christmas. So standing there, look around; you'll discover all of us, so different in myriad ways yet together as Christians. Look too at the little one in that manger. He doesn’t come  to leave; He comes to stay with us always.
    Then, see Him stretching out His hands to us, His beloved. How else should we respond but to do the same – with our outstretched hands, not just individually but together, saying, “Why should I be honoured with your coming, my Lord?” Shall we?
     

    * Pope Francis, Homily, 15 September 2021
    **Inspired by the Trappist monks at Spencer Abbey, Massachusetts



    Preached at Church of the Sacred Heart
    Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash

     

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  4.  

    Year C / Advent / Week 3 / Sunday

    Readings: Zephaniah 3.14-18a  / Psalm: Isaiah 12.2-3, 4, 5-66  (R/v 6) / Philippians 4.4-7 / Luke 3.10-18



    “What must we do, then?”


    This is the question the repentant people asked John the Baptist. They asked because they want to live godly lives. We hear it in the gospel reading. John’s answer is clear and unequivocal; it gave direction to their lives. Beyond merely telling the people how to behave toward each other, it instilled an expectation in them for Jesus. He will show them the way, the truth and the life to God. This is the Good News.


    Jesus is indeed the “mighty saviour” in our midst, the Prophet Zephaniah proclaims. Truly, He is very near, St Paul teaches. Today’s readings emphatically declare that the Good News is not a message but a person—Jesus. And soon and very soon, He will come to be with us.


    Shouldn’t we then be keeping our gaze on Jesus at Advent time? Has it been challenging so far? It may be even more in these final weeks before Christmas. Many will be busy preparing materially for Christmas: shopping, cooking and partying. Many are preparing spiritually too, going from Advent prayer to Advent retreat to Advent recollection to Advent penitential because it’s the expected thing to do. In all this busyness, our hearts and minds may not be centered on Jesus. Our focus might be elsewhere.


    This is like how many approach presents. Too often, we focus on the gift, not the giver. We forget that the present in our hands is in fact another’s love and care for us. Long after I have torn apart the wrapping paper and found the gift, Mom’s presence will remain. And after the birthday guests have gone, the gift of the book I now read will remind me of my friend. Indeed, at the heart of every present we receive is the gift of another’s presence. I wonder whether the gift or the giver will be your focus this Christmas.


    Today is “Gaudete” Sunday. We wear rose-coloured vestments; these remind us to look ahead joyfully. We sing more upbeat Advent hymns; they cheer us up and on for the coming Christmas. Our readings explain why we must rejoice: God is truly coming to dwell amongst us. 


    Like when Zephaniah tells a timid, disheartened people and us that God comes: “Fear not, be not discouraged...God will rejoice over you with gladness.” Or, when the psalmist encourages us to cry out with gladness because we can hope that God is among us, and we need not fear or remain in sin anymore. And when St Paul teaches the squabbling Philippians and us “Be unselfish. Dismiss anxiety from your minds” because we can trust God who answers all our needs. And with John the Baptist, we hear this joyful news, pregnant with expectancy: the Saviour is very close. His name is Jesus. Yes, we have every right to rejoice.


    But for many who are burdened, suffering or despairing, how can rejoice? What good news is this when many are still hungry, still in poverty, still imprisoned unjustly, still gunned down senselessly, and still marginalized cruelly for race, gender, sexuality? For those hurt or sidelined by the holier-than-thou in our Church who’ve judged them never good enough to receive God’s mercy in communion and confession, what is Christmas but more pain, grief and exclusion? And for you and me who struggle to believe that Jesus is indeed coming for me, how can this be when my life is messy, my choices are bad and my way of life, sinful?


    Advent challenges us to see differently: with hope. That no matter what, God will come and save us, as we are. The individual burdened by anxiety. The selfish weighed down by ego. The troubled person because of sin. The small-minded man. The self-serving woman. The self-righteous believer. All these Christians, really you and me, struggle and fail with repeated sins and bad habits. Yet  we are the singular reason God comes – because He cannot be apart from us. He does not want to lose us. It goes against His divine nature if He does. For what kind of a God is Love if He who loses His beloved?

    Advent is therefore a most gracious and merciful season, pregnant as it always is with expectant longing. It affords us time and strength, hope and reason to take those first steps, once again, to move out of the darkness of sin and to journey into God’s radiant light that dawns with Jesus’ coming. 

     

    Advent cannot be about us waiting passively for God to come. It must be about us cooperating with God as He draws us towards himself. Towards and into His light that burns off those shadowy and sinful, melancholic and burdened parts of us. God wants to do this with the fire of love. And this fire is none other than the love of Jesus for us.


    This is John the Baptist’s message today. “I am baptising you with water, but there is one to come who is mightier than I,” he says. “He will baptise you in the Holy Spirit and in fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn in unquenchable fire.”


    John’s words should not scare us about who is saved and who is lost. Rather, they must encourage us to welcome Jesus as our Saviour. For the Jesuit John Kavanaugh, “Fire is not the fate of the lost, but the refining of the blessed. We all have our chaff, our dross, our waste. And the fire of Christ will burn them away.” Indeed, “the burdens we carry do not make us unfit for Advent’s message. They qualify us as prime candidates.”* 


    This is why we have every right to rejoice. Indeed, Jesus is coming soon. He is because we are worthy to be loved and saved for God himself. Even more, Jesus comes to make us more worthy, more perfect for God. Truly, how can we not rejoice, even more, be assured. we are God’s beloved?






    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart

    Photo by Nuno Silva on Unsplash


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  5. Year C / Advent / Week 2 / Sunday

    Readings: Baruch 5.1-9 / Ps 126.1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 6  (R/v 3) / Philippians 1.4-6, 8-11 / Luke 3.1-6



    “Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight” (Luke 3.4)


    This is John the Baptist’s call. We hear it every Advent. He calls the people to repentance and preparation for Jesus’ coming.  He goes into the desert wilderness of Judea to do this. 


    But here and now, in this Mass, he calls us into the wilderness of our hearts. That expansive, mysterious silent space deep within us. There, he searches us out as we await Jesus’ coming. There, he challenges, even demands, we straighten out the uneven, crooked shape of our lives. Are we doing this as we enter the second week of Advent?


    John’s call reminds us that the spirituality of Advent is not repentance. That is for Lent.* For Advent, we await Jesus expectantly, eagerly. Today we must honestly examine our longing for  God. Do we really want him to come into our lives, often messy? If we do, can we accept God coming in his time, not ours, in his way, not ours and according to his plan, not ours? The prayers, readings, and songs at every Advent Mass prepare us to do this.


    In contrast, the world demands we prepare differently. Focus on the material and commercial, it insists. Buy presents. Light up Orchard Road. Eat, drink and be merry. We’re Christians; we know this isn’t Christmas. 


    Today’s readings are therefore providential. They help us discern what must truly matter in our Advent preparations, and how we can do this.


    Advent and discernment. It seems odd to pair them together. Yet, we should if we yearn for God’s best for us. This is in fact St Paul’s prayer for the Philippians: “My prayer is that your love for each other may increase more and more and never stop improving your knowledge and deepening your perception so that you can always recognise what is best."


    “Deepening our perception to recognise what is best.” This is what discernment is about. It enables us to appreciate the very best God wishes to give us. Advent helps us discern that God’s best is Jesus. Jesus who is God-with-us.  We ought to discern this to “become pure and blameless, and prepare…for the day of Christ,” St Paul teaches.


    How can we practice Advent discernment? By quieting ourselves, paying attention to God and relishing God’s saving actions in our lives and those around us and the world. 


    Today’s readings teach us how to do this.


    With Baruch, we hear how God will not abandon the deprived, desperate or disappointed. God will come to them with mercy and justice, and take off the mourning robes. God will then show all the earth how splendid they are as his own. 


    This Advent, let us look more charitably at all who suffer, especially those we have sidelined with our words and actions. Then, we might see how Jesus is faithfully labouring for everyone's wellbeing. When we do, we can appreciate Jesus as God’s hope for us, not once in history but now daily in our lives. 


    With Paul, we hear how God will complete the good work he begins in every Christian community. The Philippians were besieged by external forces and internal divisions. Yet God drew them together as a community and empowered them to spread the Good News.  


    This Advent, let us look at our families, schools, workplaces, and parish. Then, we might discern how Jesus never gives up on us, even when there are divisions, difficulties, and despair. When we do, we can celebrate Jesus as God’s joy to us, not once in history but now daily in our lives. 


    With Luke, we hear how God sends John the Baptist to care for the Jews and everyone. God wants all to receive salvation in Jesus. What humankind had hoped for generations and thought impossible, God makes possible and real with Jesus’s coming. 


    This Advent, let us look at how Jesus continues to accompany, care and uplift many, ourselves too. Then, let us recognise how Jesus's actions truly save everyone. When we do, we can believe that Jesus is God’s peace in us, not once in history but now daily in our lives. 


    Jesus as God’s hope, God’s joy and God’s peace. Advent waiting enables us to discern these truths. This will help us know who the child in the manger really is, even more God’s promised salvation he brings. We will when we hear and pay attention to God’s voice. He speaks simply and honestly. He proclaims that in Jesus, God is with us and God will save us. 


    God spoke this truth to the Jews through John the Baptist. Many heard and turned to God. Today, God is calling us to do the same. And God is also speaking through many who are like John the Baptist in our lives. They are the ordinary people around us, including the lesser and least. 


    Their voices are hidden amidst the loud and noisy, the mighty and powerful, even the holy and devout. They might be the habitual sinner, that person you hate, someone you are avoiding, like the divorcee or the gay Catholic, and maybe your enemy. It could even be someone who’s hurt you, like a loved one whose words and actions disappoint. Can you hear God calling you through them to Advent preparation? Yes, listen.  


    We must because God wants to come and put our lives in order this Advent. He will do this by labouring for our conversion through those around, even as He labours in us. This is how God prepares us to welcome Jesus; He is the way, the truth and the life to order our lives. All God wants is our "yes" to let Him do this. If we choose not to, we are the foolish ones. Our Advent will be lesser and poorer. Our Christmas will be mediocre, maybe joyless.


    So, let’s be wise and beg for the grace to discern how God wants to prepare us for Jesus’ coming. Even more, let’s humbly ask to be courageous. For when we are, we'll be open to God surprising us with this truth: that ultimately with Jesus, there is no wilderness in which we are ever alone. He is already with us.


    So let us pray, “Come, Lord, Jesus, come!" Shall we?




    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart
    Photo by Ethan Sykes on Unsplash








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  6.  

    Year C / Advent / Week 1 / Sunday
    Readings: Jeremiah 33.14-16 / Ps 24. 4-5ab, 8-9, 10, 14 (R/v 1b) / Thessalonians 3.12-4.2 / Luke 21.25-28, 34-36.


    “For you are God my saviour” (Psalm 24.5)

    Here is the psalmist declaring who God is in our lives. Since Creation, humankind has yearned for God’s saving love. In Advent, we recall the Jews and their desire for the Messiah. Every Advent, Christians are invited to get in touch with our own longing for God. Do we?

    Advent is anticipation. Listen to Jeremiah’s excitement: “The days are coming when the Lord will fulfill the promise...He will raise up a just shoot...He shall do what is right and just in the land…and Judah shall be safe and Jerusalem secure.” 

    Advent is promise and prayer. Listen to St Paul’s desire: “May the Lord be generous in increasing your love and make you love one another and everyone.”

    Anticipation. Promise. Prayer. These express our Advent longing.

    The child in us waits eagerly for what comes after Advent, Christmas. For lights on Christmas trees and presents underneath. For Christmas carols in the air and the Christmas manger in Church to see. For Midnight Mass and family gatherings. And for arms that will reach down to lift us up in love. 

    Yet, like every child, we have fears. The unknown, the unmanageable, the treacherous all around us. The fear of being hated, ignored, forgotten. Now, the worry of possibly more sick and dead and even a prolonged pandemic because of the Omicron variant. 

    All we want is the familiar, the comforting, and the loving in our lives. Like a parent coming home, a friend’s comforting message, and even forgiveness again from those we have hurt. Could what we really need be the opportunity to hope?

    Advent focuses us on Jesus. He is our hope. He will fulfil our longing. 

    This is the message of today’s gospel reading. Even as Jesus speaks of the portents of the end times, he promises hope – “the Son of Man coming on a cloud.” We can indeed “stand with confidence before the Son of Man,” Jesus assures.

    We associate this image of standing with God judging us for heaven or hell. But “To stand with confidence before the Son of Man” is the most appropriate image to begin our Advent with. Doesn’t the Advent journey lead us to stand before the infant Jesus, adoring him in the manger, at Christmas? 

    How do we get there? By attending to our longing for Jesus.

    This involves waiting. We are however too busy to wait. We are all rushing about, doing everything quickly, and demanding instantaneous interaction with Whatsapp, Instagram, and Discord.  Often, we don’t wait properly for things to unfold, for relationships to develop, or for people to reveal their true selves. We want everything now.

    We rush about like the young boy who puts a candle to heat up a cocoon and open it, albeit gently. He wanted the butterfly to come out quicker. He was impatient that it was taking a long time to emerge. The butterfly finally came out but it couldn’t fly. The added heat had disturbed the process of the butterfly forcing its way out of the cocoon and so strengthening its wings for flying.

    The butterfly would fly if there was time to wait. Instead, there was haste and no respect or reverence for the process. 

    Advent means waiting. Waiting with reverence. For God to come to us in Jesus. For our longing to be fulfilled. For others to share our advent journey.  We have a part to play in all of this: we must make our hearts bigger for Jesus to come to birth in each of us at Christmas.  What is needed is time. To wait and to prepare. We must respect this.

    Yes, “before the messiah can be conceived, gestated, and given birth to,” Ron Rolheiser writes, “there must always be a proper time of waiting, a necessary advent, a certain quota of suffering, which alone can create the proper virginal space within which the messiah can be born.”*  Will we wait like Mary waited?

    In the coming weeks, we will be busy. Shopping for presents. Baking Christmas goodies and preparing for Christmas meals. Writing Christmas wishes. Decorating our homes. Gathering for Christmas celebrations, however, we can in groups of 5s. Even bringing Christmas cheer to the lesser. These might seem like Christmas has come and Christmas gifts opened early. 

    But on Christmas morning, would our longing for Jesus be fulfilled? Perhaps not because the process of advent waiting had been short-circuited. The needed time to attend to our longing had been truncated. There hadn't been enough advent.

    Our readings today propose we wait and prepare ourselves properly for Jesus’ sure coming. We can begin by acknowledging the longings within our souls for God: our unanswered desire; our anxious need; the questions we don’t have answers for.  Then, let us pray for God who knows everything to meet us in our longings. 

    If we dare do this, we will be grateful for the grace of advent longing. It is our opportunity to hope. To receive Jesus, there must first be some reverence to receive. To have a feast, there must first be some fasting. To appreciate love as a gift, there must first be some respect for Giver. This is why we must learn to wait – for God our Saviour, for love excelling to come down, for Christmas joy. Will we?




    *Ron Rolheiser, “Advent - A Time to Learn How to Wait”

    Preached at the Courage Advent Retreat, SFX Retreat Centre, Singapore
    photo: by Paul Gilmore on Unsplash
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  7.  
    Year B / Ordinary Time / Week 34 / Sunday: Solemnity of Christ the King Readings: Daniel 7.13-14 / Psalm 92. 1ab, 1c-5, 5 (R/v 1a) / Revelations 1.5-8 / John 18.33b-37


    “Yes, I am a king. I was born for this” (John 18. 37)

    This is Jesus' reply to Pilate’s question if he is king of the Jews. Jesus declares that his kingly mission, Jesus declares, is to witness God and God’s saving love in the world. 

    I wonder how you and I have experienced Jesus’ kingship. Was it in his peace that cares or in his mercy that reconciles? Might it be in how his concern heals or his love gives life?

    For some, kingship is about power, bravery and majesty. We hear such echoes today. The First Reading describes an eternal Lord coming from on high to receive sovereignty, glory, and kingship. In the Psalm, a king robed in majesty has a throne that is firm from of old. The Second Reading presents a Ruler of the kings on the earth. 

    But Jesus the king is unlike the kings we know. He declares it to Pilate and us: “Mine is not a kingdom of this world.” His kingship witnesses to the truth that God loves us, and because of love he wants to save us.

    Today we hear how this love Jesus embodies – merciful, compassionate, and sacrificial – leads him to his passion and death. He is alone. His best friends have deserted him. The crowds condemn him. He is humiliated, spat on, and rejected by leaders, jealous, and afraid of his kind of loving. He will die a criminal: crucified on the Cross.

    This is how St John’s Gospel portrays Jesus as king. He is powerless. He suffers.  He is broken. If Jesus is king, He is the servant-king. He washes his disciples’ feet and eats with sinners. He mixes with the poor, seeks out the outcasts, sets free the oppressed, and uplifts the burdened. He feeds the hungry, cures people every day of the week, and touches lepers, becoming unclean himself. He unravels our idea of what kings and kingship are about. For the apostles, Jesus does not fit their image of  the Messiah.

    There’s more. In Jesus, God’s love forgives unreservedly, especially those like the woman caught in adultery. It’s a love that ultimately saves. When Jesus confronts her male accusers, they drop their stones to kill her, not because she isn’t guilty, but because they are guilty of sinning too. We are just as sinful as them. Yet God’s saving love is Jesus’ life-saving blood pouring out from His crucified body that washes away all sin. Truly, God wouldn’t have it any other way. This is the Good News the second reading proclaims.

    Throughout the Gospels, Jesus proclaims that “God’s love saves everyone.” It is a radical message declaring that in God’s Kingdom everyone matters and no one is excluded. This is why “Jesus is most truly king — king of upside-downness. King of little ones. King of losers and last ones. King of those burdened, disappointed, and rejected. King who becomes a guilty outsider with the outsiders.”*

    King also of those who sinned against him. And even as the pious, devout and obedient Christian claim Jesus as king, He is always king of every person we as Church, with our words and actions, have sidelined to the margins – the divorced and remarried, the LGBTQ and the questioning. Who are all these Jesus is King to and for but you and me too.

    Because every life counts, Jesus readily laid down his life, in selfless service and sacrificial love, so that all might have life to the full. It shouldn’t surprise us then that Jesus “reigns from a cross and rules on his knees. His crown is thorns. His orb and sceptre, a basin and towel. His law is love.”** 

    We know how hard it is to live out Jesus’ law of love. We wrestle to love as He loves us. Yet many have, like the saints. Even here, many of us do. Yes, we struggle. We get it wrong sometimes. We fail when we don't want to. But aren’t we all sincerely trying to serve family and friends, church and state, the poor and the outcast, lovingly, even generously? There’s no other reason we do than this: Jesus’ call to love sacrificially is strangely attractive; it appeals to that innate goodness in us to give of ourselves selflessly to someone else. 

    We hear Jesus. He brings us here. To learn from the Scriptures how to love as He loved. To receive in Communion His life so we can live as He did. And, yes, to love, simply love as we are loved. If we don’t believe this, why are we here? 

    Today’s feast reminds us that Jesus wants to do all this for us as our King. Everything He says and does reveals His kingly power to love. It is not about power over but power to. To be with us. To be for us. 

    This is why Jesus says repeatedly in the Gospels, “Listen to my voice.” The voice of the Good Shepherd. He calls by name in order to lead us to fullness of life with God and one another.

    We must hear Jesus’ voice and let it resound personally in our hearts, Then, we can discern Jesus’ guidance and do as God wants us to. We must because the truth of God’s kingdom does not lie in anything of this world but in hearts turned to God, ears attuned to Jesus' voice, and actions bespeaking faithful following of Jesus. 

    When Mass ends, we’ll return to everyday life, to familiar relationships and to the vagaries of the world. Receiving Jesus as God's Word and in the Eucharist enables us to navigate the tension between the way of the world and the way of God. Not with words or position, fame or riches but by putting flesh on this truth: laying down one's life for others. Shall we?

    We should because when we do, we will fulfil what Jesus, our King, desires most of us: the union of our hearts – His and ours. Yes, a union of hearts, beating as one. Nothing more, nothing less to live our Christian life purposefully, joyfully. 
    Jesus really desires to be King of this union. Do we too?



    * From the writings of the Trappist monks, Spencer Abbey, USA
    ** ‘Brother Give Us a Word - King,’ Br. James Koester, SSJE



    Photo: www.pastormatthew.net

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  8. Year B / Ordinary Time / Week 33 / Sunday
    Readings: Daniel 12.1-3 / Psalm 15.5 and 8, 9-10, 11 (R/1) / Hebrews 10.11-14,18 / Mark: 13.24-32


    Sisters and brothers, do you remember your report card from school days? Did it just list examination marks and say “there’s room for improvement” or “could have done better”?

    I wonder what we would read if we each received a spiritual report card. Yes, a spiritual report card to sum up our spiritual life and more when this liturgical year ends next Sunday with the Solemnity of Christ the King.  What might it say about the quality of how we’ve lived our Christian life and faith in 2024?

    Today’s readings invite us into an end-of-year examination of how we are doing spiritually and otherwise. It is not an examination of facts and figures, knowledge or skills. Rather, following St Ignatius of Loyola’s examen, it is a prayerful way of reviewing our interaction with God and God’s action in our lives this past year. As we do this, what might God’s remarks be  in our individual spiritual report cards for this year?

    Many might be afraid or uncomfortable to read God’s assessment. But Jesus himself assures: “Do not be afraid.” So, let’s be courageous and welcome God’s spiritual report card: it’s His way of helping us to improve spiritually for the new year. Here are three questions to review 2024 with God.

    First, “Have I kept the faith?” 

    The first reading and the gospel reading speak about distress and tribulation, about the dead rising, about the darkened sun and moon and stars falling from the sky. 

    They frighten me; maybe you too. They speak about the end of the world and the inescapable reality that I — and those I love — will die. They also frighten me because they remind me of what happens after death: that I will stand before God as He weighs how selfish or charitable my acts of loving God and neighbour were. 

    And this year ends, they remind me how  evil continues and many suffer. Ukraine and Gaza are still at war. Bigoted, small minded, revengeful world leaders and nationalist movements are rising up. The powerful and moneyed still  put down the innocent,  the little, the weak. In Singapore, extremists threaten our religious harmony. In our church, a priest was stabbed.

    In the first reading, Daniel speaks of more than wars and distress besieging God’s people. He prophesizes God’s continuing care of them to encourage them to live with God and others. Even more, he assures them that in death their lives will shine forever like the stars. Daniel’s prophecy is for us too, particularly if this has been a difficult, challenging year. 

    We begin our review of our spiritual life with: how have we lived our Christian lives with God and neighbour? Is loving God justly and loving others mercifully our way of life? 

    Second, "Have I hoped in God?"

    In the gospel reading  Jesus describes disaster, destruction, and death at the end times. This is not His focus; God and God’s faithfulness for everyone is. Jesus assures us the Son of Man is coming. Jesus, the Son of God, is this man. Indeed, He came into our world to save us. Though He has ascended to heaven, His Spirit remains with us, most especially in the middle of all that is chaotic, disordered and apocalyptic in our lives and the world. Truly Jesus fulfils his promise to be with us always. He is indeed God’s assurance that “all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well in the end.”*  He is our hope. 

    Let’s continue our review. Did we believe in Jesus as our hope? What does hope in Jesus mean for your everyday life and faith?

    Today Jesus instructs everyone to learn this lesson from the fig tree: that wherever there is life, there is always hope. “Observe the fig tree’s branches becoming tender and leaves sprouting,” he teaches. These aren’t just signs of summer coming; they are signs of life, not death. They are ever present in the small details of life. We so often forget them in our pain, grief and despair.

    The problem is that we’re blind  to hope — to its coming, its presence, its goodness.  Christian living includes being  attentive to God’s presence in our lives.  We’re to observe the signs of life God blesses us with. We must because they express the fullness of life Jesus proclaimed for everyone. Yes, “when you see these things happening, know that he is near.” 

    But hasn’t God already visited us, saved us, laboured for our good in the best and worst of times, in the seasons of light and darkness we live, move and act in? Didn’t He come, however promptly or belatedly, but always surely to you and me this year when

    — your spouse said, “It’s ok, honey, I love you still” when you hurt him or her; 

    — or when a colleague or classmate held your hand and whispered, “It’s over; let’s learn from the mistake and get on with life”;

    — or when you were worried about the medical checkup only to hear your doctor say, “you're fine; you’re healthy”?

    If your answer is “yes”, then the third question as we review 2024 is this: “Have I shared God’s goodness?” 

    In my daily situations and challenges, am I an announcer of doom and gloom or of the goodness of God? When I look at society, the people around, do I see bad news that I always complain and burden everyone or do I see good news, always praising and thanking God and cheering everyone onward? 

    Have I kept the faith? Have I hoped in God? Have I shared God’s goodness? These questions are for our self-examination. They are also for God to review the year with us. I wonder what God’s spiritual report card to us will say? 

    I’d like to imagine God will begin by telling us how much He truly loves us.  Then, if He had to grade our efforts, it would be an A+. Yes, an A+. Not because we’re perfect Christians or holy saints. Rather, because He values our efforts to live as Jesus’ disciples. We’ve done the best we could. Surely, there’s room for improvement. 

    What really matters is that we give out best. To God, this is good enough – for this year. Next year, we can do better. He knows we’re works in progress. We know it too. This keeps us humble to go to Him repeatedly and say, “Come, Lord, come.” When we do, as we have, we’ll always “stay awake and stand ready for His coming.” Then, when God comes, don't be surprised that He might just say, “Indeed, you are mine.”

    Now couldn't this be the good and happy news awaiting us in God’s report card?





    *Julian of Norwich

    Preached at the IJHCC Recollection & the Church of the Sacred Heart
    Photo by Alexander Kirov on Unsplash
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  9.  
    Year B / Ordinary Time / Week 32 / Sunday
    Readings: 1 Kings 17.10-16 / Psalm 145.6c-7, 8-9a, 9bc-10 (R/v 1b) / Hebrews 9.24-28 / Mark 12.38-44


    “He sat down … and watched the people” (Mark 12.41)

    This is what Jesus is doing in today’s gospel reading. What does he see? People  putting their contributions into the treasury.

    Jesus isn’t just watching them. He is also watching us as we go about our daily life. He wants to see how you and I live as the persons God created us to be. Simply, to be generous. Yes, generous because to be made in the image of God is to live as generously He is. In God’s generosity, He gave us Jesus, His only Son, to redeem us. Are we living as generously as God is? What does it mean to be generous?

    Today’s readings offer us possible answers. They present the stories of two women outstanding in their generosity. The first woman Elijah encounters in his travels. She is poor and is in survival mode with her son; famine has control of her country.  The second is the poor widow, the subject of the “widow’s mite” in the gospel.

    That first woman is a widow. She risks the last bit of her flour and oil to respond to Elijah’s need for food. She does this even as she prepares the little and last of what she had for her and her son, possibly their last meal. Who amongst us knowing the widow’s situation would not complain about Elijah’s imposition, “He’s got to be kidding! How can he?”

    Then, we hear this saving message Elijah has been sent to deliver: ‘Do Not Be Afraid.’  He tells the widow God’s promise: “The jar of flour shall not go empty, nor the jug of oil run dry.”  Hearing this, she did as Elijah asked, and the flour and oil do not disappear; there was enough for all.  Even more, she and her son are able to ride out the drought fortified with God’s gift given through Elijah. 

    This story announces that God returns a hundredfold and so much more to those who are exceptionally generous. The widow is generous because she puts another before herself.

    The second woman is the widow putting her two coins into the treasury while the rich people put in much more. Jesus tells his disciples and us that the rich give from their surplus but the widow gives from “her poverty. . . from her livelihood.” This other widow is generous in giving her all.

    Yes, 'give all.' This is how Jesus also wants you and me to live, love and care. Throughout the gospels, Jesus challenges his disciples to do this. To give all they have without counting the cost, calculating self-gain, or seeking attention. To give their all to God first. And to also give their all to everyone. And to do this always. 

    Indeed, the “whole livelihood” of being Christian is to give all that we have and all we are, really to give our very selves, to one another. When caring for the needy. When forgiving loved ones. When  falling in love and staying in love. When sacrificing for justice and doing what is right. Even when praying, worshiping and praising God. Are we truly giving our all as Christians?

    Today Jesus asks us how we live our Christian faith. Is it like the self-important rich who give in order to look good to God and others or  like  the two women who lived their poverty generously because they cared sacrificially?

    When Jesus looks at us then, He does with great love. First, to understand why we sometimes live like the rich who give from their excess and at other times, like poor women who give their all. He does because He trusts in our potential to give out of our own poverty of spirit.  I think this is the risk He takes loving us: that we will give our all. 

    Anyone who gives like this takes a leap of faith, hope and love in God. It’s about believing wholeheartedly that as one gives, God will be equally generous in return, if not, exceedingly, even more.

    Such people have what I call a ‘bukas palad’ spirituality. In Filipino, ‘bukas palad’ means open hands. I learned this from an urban poor  family I lived with one summer in the slums along Manila Bay. They were poor but they gave me everything – the comfort of their only bed, meat at every meal while they ate fish and vegetables, bottled water and coke while they drank boiled water.  They said, “we open our hands to give what God gives us.Then, God puts enough again into our empty hands, and we can give you more.”  No wonder they lived carefree, happily and generously. God never failed them; He always provides. We struggle to live like this. But don’t we want it?

    This is why I believe Jesus also looks at us with hope. Hope that we will love sacrificially and give our all. I believe Jesus does because we are created for this. 

    In Jesus, God reveals the depth, breadth, and height of love, even more, of how we are to love. Jesus embodied when he showed how “No greater love does one have than to lay down his life for another” (John 15.13). We Christians are to live like this. Without calculating the cost to themselves, the two widows gave all that each had. They show us  it is possible to live generous lives. Such generosity goes against the law of survival the world prizes and promotes: that we watch out for ourselves first. Jesus condemns those who live by this law. Instead, He praises those who give generously even out of their little. 

    For Pope Francis, this kind of “generosity belongs to everyday life; it's something we should think: 'How can I be more generous, with the poor, the needy? … How can I help more’? ... We can do miracles through generosity. Generosity in little things....broadens our hearts and leads us to magnanimity. We need to have a magnanimous heart, where all can enter. Those wealthy people who gave money were good; that elderly lady was a saint.”*

    Perhaps, this is why Jesus watches us: to really look out for us to become better. Simply, for us to become saints for God and everyone. And we can. This is such good news we hear today. So, let us with the psalmist say, “My soul, give praise to the Lord.”  Shall we?

    Even more, shall we say "yes' to letting Jesus help us to become saints?





    *Pope Francis, Homily, 26 November 2018

    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart
    photo: ©2024 adrian danker, arab street, singapore, august 2024





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  10.  
    Year B / Ordinary Time / Week 31 / Sunday
    Readings: Deuteronomy 6.2-6 / Psalm 17.2-3a, 3bc-4, 47, 51ab (R/v 2) / Hebrews 7.23-28/ Mark 12.28b-34


    “Your words are spirit, Lord, and they are life: you have the message of eternal life.”

    These words are the Good News the Gospel Acclamation proclaims. Today’s readings echo it. Did we hear it? Are we ready to let go and let God lead?

    Every end of the year is unsettling. There is a sense of impending change and unexpected adjustments even as we hope for better in the new year. 

    In schools, students are graduating and moving to the next stage of learning. At work, some are resigning while others retire.  Also, in our parishes this year, priests are being rotated. We are all grappling with change. Perhaps, you are too in life and at work, maybe, even in your prayer life. Aren’t we wrestling in the hope that this year will end well?

    What keeps us focussed, even centered, in times of change and adjustments?

    Perhaps, love; it really matters in a time of change and struggle. For love roots us to a place and gives us an identity. Love keeps us focused on life-giving experiences that shape and define us and give us reason to live. Love centers us on family and friends who are our life companions. And yes, as Pope Francis reminded us recently, “without love, we are nothing.”* Yet we tend to push love aside as we sort out those anticipated challenges or we worry about possible hopes.

    What kind of love matters then? Not the transient, self-absorbed, self-fulfilling love that contemporary society prizes and promotes. Rather, love that is centered on others, love that pours itself out selflessly for another. We know this kind of love. It is the love of God.

    Today’s readings tell us about this loving God. And that’s the basis of everything. The First Reading enjoins us to love God with our whole being and to keep his commandments. The Psalm tells us that we can depend on God. He is our rock and our salvation. Our Second Reading tells us that Jesus is our eternal priest and his self-sacrifice, intercession and guidance bless us with God’s life.

    Indeed, if we love God, everything will fall into place. Even more, if we have faith in God and follow his words, we can experience the goodness of life here and salvation after that.  To attain these, Jesus teaches how two commandments can help us attain them.

    He says the first thing is to love God completely. This is old news, but it’s important to keep hearing it. We’re told throughout the scriptures that loving God is the most important thing to do, and it’s reiterated again and again. Jesus reminds us here that it’s the first commandment and the most important. 

    To love God is to enter into God’s love. Into complete love that holds us, saint and sinner alike. Into the fullness of love that gives us rest when we are weary and hope when we despair. Into boundless love that forgives us when we fail, restores us when we suffer, and brings us home when we get lost.

    In this relationship, God promotes and fosters love in us because He is unmitigated giving and unlimited forgiveness. Because God loves, we must love too.

    The second is to love our neighbour like we love ourselves. Hearing this, many ask this question: “Who is my neighbour?” I’d like to imagine Jesus replying, “Anyone and everyone you meet along the way.” Everyone is made in God’s image. Everyone should love God (like God loves everyone) and everyone should love each other.  

    If that happens, everything else will now fall into place. If everyone loved God and everyone else, there would be no need for any further commandments. You don’t steal from people you love. You don’t cheat on people you love. You don’t kill people you love. You love them. If we love God, and if we love all God’s people in the image of God, we don’t need anything else.

    However we still need to have Jesus’s eyes and heart. Then, we can imitate his way of looking out for, listening to, and being close to those in need of a relationship. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus attends to everyone in need. He does not offer a solution or a service. Rather, all who encounter Jesus experience connection, belonging, acceptance, care and love. Jesus offers them these in friendship. 

    For Pope Francis, to love our neighbours like Jesus demands we be “attentive to their need for fraternal closeness, for a meaning to life, and for tenderness." To love like this saves us from “the risk of being communities that have many initiatives but few relationships; the risk of being community ‘service stations’ but with little company,” Francis explains.** The point is this: we love best – that is, loving like Jesus – when we are in friendship with one another, even with God, as Jesus did. Indeed, Jesus embodied both dimensions of love the commandments teach, for God and for neighbour. This is how Jesus himself lived and served on earth. He proved the possibility of loving like this.

    This is why we  cannot claim, even proclaim, the Christian call to love our neighbour without loving God. It is nothing but a lie to live loving God but not our neighbour. Both ways of loving are inseparable; they sustain one another. They come together in Jesus in his all-embracing love for God fully and all peoples sacrificially. In His words and actions, Jesus shows us how loving like this is His spirit and His life for us to attain eternal life.

    This is why Jesus must be our strength to love when change burdens and adjustments disturb. After all, what is Christ-like love but the inconvenience of still loving, most especially sacrificially?

    Truly there is no other way to love but Jesus’ way of loving. Wouldn't you agree?






    * Pope Francis, Homily at the Papal Mass, Singapore, 12 September 2024
    ** Pope Francis, Angelus, 4 November 2018


    Peached at the Church of the Sacred Heart
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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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©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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