1.  

    Year B / Lent / 2nd Sunday / Readings: Genesis 22.1-2, 91, 10-13, 15-18 / Psalm 116.10, 15, 16-17, 18-19 (R/v 116.9) / Romans 8.31b-34 / Mark 9.2-10

    Sisters and brothers, have you had an “A-ha” moment? That moment when what you saw, heard or experienced changed your outlook on life or faith, maybe, a person or an event too? That life-changing moment that altered your sense of identity and purpose?  

    The “A-ha” moment in St Francis of Assisi’s life was when he encountered a leper. In that moment, he realised that Jesus was calling him to serve the poor, not to be rich like his father, a merchant of fine textiles.  

    The “A-ha” moment in St Ignatius of Loyola’s life was when he was reflecting on the saints as he recuperated from a cannonball injury. In that moment, he understood Jesus’ call for him to be God’s soldier and save souls, not one to win wars for a Spanish duke. 

    What about you? Can you remember an “A-ha” moment when Jesus met you and called you to more Christ-like action?

    Our gospel story on this 2nd Sunday of Lent is about an “A-ha” moment in the life of the disciples. 

    We hear about it in the story of the Transfiguration. Jesus takes Peter, James and John up the mountain and they see Jesus transfigured. More significantly, they themselves undergo a transfiguration. They experience a change within themselves. It enables them to hear God's voice announcing Jesus' identity as God’s ''beloved Son." Even more, it opens their hearts to know more clearly God’s terms for their discipleship: "listen to Jesus,” He says. 

    Their “A-ha” moment is about glimpsing the divine—that God is indeed with them and will be with them always. It is also about listening to this truth – that to be Jesus’ disciples is to listen to Him and follow him.

    Today, we are not just reading about the Transfiguration; we are experiencing this moment. It is unfolding before us here and now. We are witnessing Jesus’ being transfigured – in the Gospel and in Eucharist. We hear God’s delight in his Son and His command that we listen to Him. We are the silent, unmentioned participants at the Transfiguration. And like the disciples, God is also inviting us to be transfigured. Do you and I really want this?

    This is the question Lent poses. We must answer it because Lent is God’s time for our transformation and conversion. Only we can answer it individually. We will when we are ready to look at ourselves and our discipleship honestly. How Christ-like are we in our living and our loving, our praying and our playing, our being in friendship with God and in relationship with one another? I believe we’ll confess that we can do better.

    When we fully enter into the Lenten penance and discipline, the grace of Lent transforms us in God’s ways. This is why we must honour and respect Lent as God’s time to renew us and our relationship with God.

    As such, we need the right disposition to enter Lent. It cannot be that attitude of “carpe diem,” of seizing the day - even of seizing Lent - that many have towards life and faith. We need a more fundamental disposition for Lent. What is it? 

    The main character in Richard Linklater's film, Boyhood explains: it is “to let the day seize us, and move us on its ebb and flow.” I see Peter, James and John practise this disposition at the Transfiguration: they open themselves to God who leads them to see the glory of Jesus. Simply put, they let go and let God, even to let God lead them to  their own transfiguration. This is the kind of disposition we need to let God transfigure us too.

    Are you and I open to God's plan to lead, convert and transfigure us this Lent? Or, do we want to control how Lent must be for us – on our own terms? 

    In last Sunday’s gospel reading Jesus proclaimed that the time of fulfilment is now. Indeed this Lent is the time for our conversion and for God’s fulfilment to set our lives right again. For this to happen, we need to identify the necessary changes we must make; then, we can better cooperate with God’s plan to make us better disciples. We can begin doing this by practising God’s command to “listen to Jesus.” I wonder what changes you and I must make to truly listen to Jesus.

    Becoming more humble is probably one way. Today we hear how Abraham humbled himself to listen to God’s command and obey. Because Abraham did this God transfigured his individual life; it lives on through Isaac and his countless descendants to many more.

    It would therefore be good for us to humble ourselves this Lent to really listen to Jesus. He wants to show us how to hear and do God’s will, not just for ourselves but also for the myriad communities we live in and serve. When we readily do this, we give God permission to transfigure us to become more Christ-like.; this is our truest identity as God’s own. “Listen to Jesus.” At the Transfiguration God commanded the disciples to do this. Today he commands us to do the same. 

    We know the pressures of daily life and the world often keep us from stopping and listening to each other, to ourselves and to God. They distract us from what is important, like faith, family and friends. Lent offers us time to stop and listen more attentively to all this, especially, to God. When we do this, we will possibly find ourselves caught up in an “A-ha” moment or two, or more, each day. In all of them, God is there instructing us to live better, holier and more generous lives. 

    This is how God transforms and transfigures us for the coming Easter celebrations. He does this so that we can truly savour the joy of the Resurrection at Easter. This is the Good News today. 

    How can we then say “no” to the goodness of God in all the “A-ha” moments this Lent?



    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart
    Photo: Internet
    Posted by
    Labels: Breaking Open God's Word Easter Lent
    0

    Add a comment

  2.  
    Devotion to the Sacred Heart  - Friday, 23 February 
    Reflection based on Luke 15-3-7


    “There will be more rejoicing in heaven over one repentant sinner than over ninety-nine virtuous men who have no need for repentance.”

    Tonight, we hear Jesus say these words. We are familiar with them. Perhaps too familiar that they are simply words in the gospel. If we take them to heart, even better, pray them, we will come to know that Jesus is calling us to conversion. Yes, we are that lost sheep, that sinner, and He hopes we will repent and come home to Him. Do we hear Him?

    For many of us, repentance is about being contrite and sorry for our sins. It’s about knowing how our sinfulness hurts God, others and ourselves. When we are truly repentant, we know how far we are from God, from one another, even from our truest self. In all of this, we confess we’ve failed to live the Christian life. 

    What if repentance is also about knowing what we no longer have but really need? Mercy that we seek. Forgiveness that we long for. Belonging that we desire. Isn’t this why hearing the words, ‘I forgive you,’ from someone we’ve hurt, even more, from God through the Confession comforts, assures, and lifts our spirits? Don’t we feel reconciled and restored? 

    Perhaps, we repent because we long to be loved again by those around us, and especially by God. When we experience this, we know we matter to them, even more to God. Could this yearning be why we also repent? To have and to hold again another’s love, particularly, God’s love.

    The love of God that assures us we are His, no matter our sinfulness. The love of God that seeks us out in our sin and brings us home to Him. The love of God that saves us because He created us to belong to Him. Indeed the focus of Lent is the saving love of God, not just our sinfulness. 

    I wonder if St Peter experienced this kind of love after betraying Jesus. The risen Jesus came to Peter at the seashore; he spoke with him and cared for him in spite of his betrayal. Loved him not just with boundless forgiveness but with deep faith in Peter’s worthiness to shepherd the Church. I can’t help but believe Peter’s memory of Jesus’ mercy must have fuelled him to witness Jesus in his missionary work.

    What about you and me? When did we experience Jesus’ mercy in our sinfulness? Do we cherish this memory that it fuels us to proclaim the Good News Jesus is?

    Maybe Lent is also about reclaiming this memory of mercy. Only then will our Lenten penance and discipline make sense — each a loving response to Jesus’ love for us. This helps us return to God for the right reason: His love. Today’s gospel reading assures us we can respond confidently with “a humble, contrite heart”; God will never spurn the repentant sinner. 

    This is why the Lenten obligations cannot be the reason for us to return to God. Rather, we do because of the love of God; His Love alone compels us to. It will because we want to respond to God who first searches us out to bring us home, like the man who seeks the lost sheep. 

    Each Friday evening, tonight too, God seeks us out through the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He draws us to Jesus’ heart. There we come to know how intertwined our hearts are with His; both beat as one. They do to the rhythm of His love. And we learn that this is more than enough because God never fails us: He always saves us.

    Truly, it is good and right then for us to pray “I trust in You, Jesus!” For through repentance, Jesus is the Good Shepherd who draws us out of the wilderness of sin to return to the Father’s home. But we must want to come home. When we do and for everyone who does, our Father will say unreservedly, “Rejoice.” 

    Don’t we also long to hear God say to us, “rejoice”?




    Shared at the Church of the Sacred Heart
    Posted by
    Labels: Reflection @ Sacred Heart
    0

    Add a comment

  3.  

    Year B / Lent / Week 1 / Sunday

    Readings: Genesis 9.8-15 / Psalm 25.4-5, 6-7, 8-9  (R/v cf 10) / 1 Peter 3.18-22 / Mark 1.12-15



    Sisters and brothers, have you ever needed a push to get the job done? Perhaps, to get started on a difficult, uncomfortable and challenging task, like completing the school project or taking an employee to task or preparing for the recent Chinese New Year’s reunion dinner. 


    I think we offen need a push. We all have that tendency to procrastinate. “There’s still time.” “No need to rush.” “Why so kan cheong?” We keep saying these mantras to convince ourselves we are in control. Yet, the longer we bluff ourselves and delay, the more anxious we become that something might just go wrong. I am sure you know the feeling.


    When we feel lost, like one might in an unknown place without Googlemaps, a GPS or compass, we become more aware of our vulnerabilities. We experience this most palpably when we find ourselves lost in, or meandering aimlessly about, the deserts within us — the desert-like spaces of our broken hearts, our anxiety-ridden minds, our frightened imaginations, and our disoriented lives. 


    Maybe we are in one of these desert-like spaces as we begin Lent. Could this Lent be our desert-like space right now? Are we indifferent, aimlessly meandering or lost as Lent begins?


    We find Jesus in the desert on this 1st Sunday of Lent. There is an urgency to Mark’s depiction of Jesus’ experience in the desert — the Spirit drives him there. 


    In the desert, Jesus faces his vulnerabilities. He is hungry in body, needy in want, and lacking in physical prowess. In the desert, there is nothing humanly familiar, comfortable and secure to support him. Being vulnerable, Satan tempts Jesus. His temptations try to force Jesus to focus on his own self, on his own needs, on his own strength, and not on God’s presence, providence and power. But Jesus rejects Satan’s temptations and chooses God. 


    What can we learn from today’s gospel passage for our Lenten journey?

    That we can grow in our fidelity to God by acting like Jesus whenever we face temptations. Jesus struggled with Satan’s temptations but he chose God. To be fully human, as God created us to be, is to struggle with temptations. However, in and through that struggle, necessary and graced, we learn to choose God.


    Here we are at Mass: good Christian people wanting to live our faith well. When we are most tempted in the desert-like spaces in our lives we want to overcome them. To do this, today's gospel reading offers us this message: imitate Jesus. In the desert, when tempted, Jesus remembered who God told him He is: “You are my Son, whom I love. With you I am well pleased” (Mark 1.11). When we are tempted, we need to remember who we are: God’s own; God’s beloved. 


    The desert-like spaces in our lives are therefore holy spaces to encounter God. They cannot be those barren, painful and despairing places we fear. Rather, seeing them with eyes of faith, we will find God already there with us in our struggles and leading us through the temptations to choose His love and life. God is with us because we matter to Him; He never gives us up.


    In the Old Testament, the desert is where God calls a person out of the world to speak words of tenderness and truth. He comes to know more clearly who God is — He wants to save, always and without reservation. He also comes to know himself more honestly — human and ever in need of salvation. Knowing this is important to grow in spiritual authenticity. 


    Jesus’ struggle with temptations formed Him to become more authentic. More authentic as the Son of God through love for God. More authentic as God’s Word to all through proclamation of God. He became more authentic through his humility: He put God first when he was tempted.


    As Christians, we can overcome the temptations we face by imitating Jesus’ humility to put God first. This means we must stop hiding behind those masks we wear sometimes before God and others. Masks that make us appear spiritually strong, religiously devout, and morally upright. We wear these to hide the reality that we are sometimes not so holy or so charitable, not so forgiving and so loving: yes, really not so Christ-like. The grace of Lenten conversion can only begin if we humble ourselves, take off those masks and be honest with God, others and ourselves. Then, we can come to Jesus and walk with Him to the Cross and into resurrection life as we truly are: God’s children who need God’s mercy to forgive us, God’s love to redeem us, and God’s life to transform us. 


    Today Jesus reminds that “The time has come and the kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the Good News.” Throughout Lent, we will hear this call echoed in our Lenten readings:  “Turn back to me with all your heart!” (Joel 2.12). “Rend your hearts and not your clothing” (Joel 3.13).  “Choose life!” (Deuteronomy 30.19b). 

    The only proper response to this Good News is to say “yes” to God. After all, God said “yes” to us first when he promised Noah, and through Noah to all humanity, that He will never again punish and destroy creation. Lent is therefore God’s gift to help us say “yes” to God who made this covenant with Noah and all of us, as St Paul teaches in the second reading.


    Our “yes” is to a God who does not destroy but saves. This God loves us and wants the best for you and me. This is why this God calls us to let Him be our God. How can we then ignore God’s call or put it off responding to it, like we do with many things that are difficult, uncomfortable, challenging? The wise among us will know that God gives us the example of Jesus today to push us to begin Lent better. Yes, the time has come for you and me to say “yes.” Let us wait no more. 



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


    Posted by
    Labels: Breaking Open God's Word Lent
    0

    Add a comment

  4. Year B / Ordinary Time / Week 6 / Sunday
    Readings: Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46 / Responsorial Psalm: 32:1-2, 5, 11 (R/v 7) / 1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1 / Mark 1:40-45


    "Of course I want to!" he said. "Be cured!" (Matthew 1.41b)

    Here is Jesus curing the leper. To heal him, Jesus breaks the Jewish law that lepers must live outside the community and no one must touch them. Jesus reaches out to the leper, touches him and restores him to the community. Jesus’ action proclaims God’s love for all, especially the outcasts. 

    Throughout the Gospels, Jesus consistently looks out for the sick, the downtrodden, the discriminated and those hated and cast out. With compassion, Jesus looks beyond their physical appearance. He sees their dignity as humans, like you and me and restores them to that God-given dignity. In every action and word Jesus makes, He shows everyone the face of God. This is the Good News today.

    As Jesus’ disciples, we are the Church. Together, we are to also show  the face of God who cares, is merciful and ever loving to one and all. Today we especially pray that our Church in Singapore can do this as we recall the dedication of our Cathedral of the Good Shepherd in 1888.

    As Christians, we want to help others to see the face of God. Oftentimes, we prefer to show the face of God to those who think and live like us, who don’t challenge our faith and are open to the Christian message. Though it is harder to reach out to those who are lukewarm about knowing God or do not want to believe in God, we also want to.

    Then, there are those who are sidelined and excluded by those strong, loud voices in the world, even in the Church. These voices tell us they are different and must be excluded from society. These voices judge them sinful  and unworthy to be included into God’s family. The different include people of other faiths and cultures, the disabled and aged, foreign workers and immigrants, criminals and prostitutes, homosexuals and transgendered people, and always the poor and uneducated. 

    "These different people are today’s lepers," those strong, loud voices self-righteously identify. "They will contaminate us and make us sick," those strong, loud voices narrow-mindedly claim. "They are unclean, sinful and must live apart," those strong, loud voices prejudicially insist. I wonder if our own voices and actions are among those strong and loud, even in our families. 

    I believe that when Jesus looks beyond the infected skin, the soiled surface of the leper to his innermost being, He recognises the leper’s undeniable, fundamental identity: he is God’s own, made in God’s image. Jesus heals him for no other reason than he is God’s and worthy to be saved.

    Jesus’ action must challenge you and me to examine carefully the attitudes and biases of those strong, loud voices. There is no compassion or care in these voices. Instead, there is a lot of self-preservation, small-mindedness and discrimination. Honestly, those strong, loud voices are self-righteous, wrong and unjust.

    Yet isn’t this our own, shameful attitude and bias sometimes? "They are the bad ones," we say, judging them quickly, condemning them fast. But did we reach out to understand these people, not different but God’s own like us? Did we bother to hear their struggles? Where is our empathy? Where is our Christian charity?

    I suspect we think and act like this because those strong, loud voices have bluffed us with this lie: that what counts as valuable in our society, even in the Church, is looking good, looking right, and looking like everyone else. If we are so fixated on looks, do we really understand that because God created everyone in his image, all are welcomed in our Church and Jesus saves everyone?

    To one another, we look normal. We do not look like those different people. We look good, decent, hardworking, upright and Christian. But let’s be honest: what others see is only what we project, oftentimes, our best. We know our inner defects and bad habits. We struggle with our addictions and sinful ways. We hide our failures, jealousies and fakery. We cover up all these and pretend we are better, saintlier, unlike those different people, those lepers and outcasts around us. 

    If we dare to be honest, we are one of those different people. We need healing too — like the leper who suffers and those who condemn others as outcasts. Like them, we too want to find God and live good and wholesome lives.

    Today’s gospel reading also invites us to enter the mystery of our own defects and disabilities, hidden or otherwise. It really invites us to make the leper’s prayer our own: "If you want to, you can cure me." When we admit our need for Jesus’ healing, we take that necessary step towards Jesus healing and transforming us for better. 

    Honestly, isn’t our hope to be transformed for better why we have come to Mass? Indeed, something more that Sunday obligation compels us here. St Augustine explains it rightly in this way:  "Believe what we see, see what we believe and become what we are: the Body of Christ."

    Maybe then we can appreciate the transforming power of the Eucharist when we pray these words before every Communion: "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed." Receiving the Eucharist heals us to see more clearly, know more fully and value more lovingly those who are different from us as God's beloved. Truly, we are all sisters and brothers in Christ. We share one family resemblance: God's.

    This is Good News, especially for our Chinese New Year celebrations. As Christians, how much more joyful our festivities can be when we welcome and include the black sheep in our families, those who have hurt us and we have hurt, those we dislike or disagree with, and even long forgotten friends. Then, we’ll practise forgiveness and healing, reconciliation and acceptance. More simply, we’ll show them love in deeds, not words, like Jesus did to everyone.

    If we can do this for them, and everyone else we treat like lepers and outcasts, we can give them hope. The same hope the leper experienced when he turned to Jesus for healing and Jesus said, “Of course I want to. Be cured!”

    Sisters and brothers, who is Jesus calling us to reach out to, care for and celebrate Chinese New Year with today?



    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart
    Photo by Yong Chuan Tan on Unsplash


    Posted by
    Labels: Breaking Open God's Word
    0

    Add a comment

  5. Devotion to the Sacred Heart  - Friday, 9 February 
    Reflection based on Luke 15-3-7


    Here we are on the eve of Chinese New Year. Here at 12 noon instead of 7.45pm as we do every Friday. Here we are, first for God before we gather tonight for the traditional family reunion dinner or a gathering with friends

    Here, we are to also offer petitions to God for family, friends and ourselves. Here to say, ‘Thank you, God!’ for answering our prayers. And here we are to experience God’s love and mercy in Jesus’ Sacred Heart – the ‘source of all consolation’ and from ‘whose fullness we have all received.’

    However, let’s be honest: we may be physically here but our minds might be elsewhere. Perhaps, on tonight’s gathering and tomorrow’s festivities. Or about getting across the Causeway early enough to visit family by avoiding the jam. Or, dreaming about the long weekend holidays. So, what’s really on your mind?

    For my two elderly aunts, it is how small our Chinese New Year gathering will be because all my siblings will be overseas on holidays. They feel their world shrinking to just the two of them and me around the table for tonight’s family reunion. Our celebration will be smaller and quieter; it will also end earlier with no new year’s eve count down. The large, noisy, festive celebrations of yesteryear are no more.  It feels like something is lost, something is missing; the family is incomplete.

    I wonder if the ninety-nine sheep and their owner in today’s gospel reading feel this way too when that one sheep went missing. There is a sense of loss, of something missing, of the flock being incomplete. 

    Jesus’ action of seeking the lost sheep, rescuing it and bringing it back to the flock is Good News. He reminds us that God wants to restore families that are separated, communities that are divided, relationships that are broken. Jesus’ story of the man restoring the lost sheep to the flock teaches that God wants us to be happy by being together. ‘Rejoice with me,’ says the man, ‘I have found my sheep that was lost.’ God would say the same of every repentant sinner saved. 

    And wouldn’t we say the same when the black sheep in our families or long forgotten friends come to our festive celebrations? Won’t we shout out, ‘Rejoice!’ and embrace them with a hearty, ‘Huānyíng, zuò!’ to sit, feast and be festive together. When we do this, we’ll express to them more than welcome and hospitality. We'll practise forgiveness and healing, reconciliation and acceptance. More simply, we’ll show them love in deeds, not words. 

    God gathers us from wherever and however we are. God moves us to love one another. God restores us to be together. Three movements God wants to make this Chinese New Year for everyone’s good and happiness. Tonight, one more will join our small family gathering of three. My brother who had planned to travel will be with us. He changed his plans because of my aunts. His coming delights them. One more at the table. For my aunts, though not everyone is present, having my brother join us is good enough. There’s enough be thankful for and celebrate. 

    Maybe this is the disposition we need for the festivities. Not that we have everything or our lives are perfect but that God gives us enough. Isn’t this why we gather today at this devotion? Because God has given us enough faith to believe He hears our prayers and answers us. We can make no better response than to turn to Jesus in whom God loves and includes us always in His love. Shall we? 




    Shared at the Church of the Sacred Heart
    Photo by Brienne Hong on Unsplash
    Posted by
    Labels: Reflection @ Sacred Heart
    0

    Add a comment

  6. Year B / Ordinary Time / Week 5 / Sunday
    Readings: Job 7.1-4, 6-7 / Responsorial Psalm 147. 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 (R/v cf 3a) / 1 Corinthians 9.16-19, 22-23 / Mark 1.29-39


    “He went to her, took her by the hand, and helped her up" (Mark 1.31)

    Here is Mark describing how Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law in today’s gospel story. 

    Jesus heals by touching. We can miss this detail altogether because we often focus on the miracle this event is. In fact, too often we miss the small details in life because we are easily preoccupied with the big picture that is the drama of our lives. This is about missing the trees from the forest.

    Touch. It is a simple action. Yet it says so much and communicates more clearly than the many words we use. A touch is personal and honestly intimate. It more freely expresses our deepest feelings. Touch is not an insignificant gesture.

    A kiss helps us know the depth of our parents’ love. A hug lets us feel the sincerity of our friend’s forgiveness. Another’s hand upon our sick body assures we are cared for. Holding each other allows us to rest in the expansiveness of a love shared. Yes, you and I know one another, and what we mean to each other, because we can touch and feel. And touch never lies.

    Perhaps, the deepest yearning everyone has is to be touched. To be touched and accepted as we are. To be touched and cared for when we suffer. To be touched and loved because we need love.

    Honestly, we struggle to share a touch with someone else. Did you give a loved one an embrace or a kiss this past week? When did you pat a friend heartily on the back to encourage? Why say ‘sorry’ instead of  stretching out your hands in reconciliation? I suspect we struggle to answer these questions. We do because we suffer from the poverty of touch in our lives.

    Jesus healed Peter’s sick mother-in-law by touching her. His touch reveals God’s very personal and intimate way of being in our lives and labouring for our wellbeing.

    But Jesus’ touch isn’t meant for one person; it is meant for everyone. In the Gospels, Jesus heals many this way. He healed and transformed them with his touch. He rubbed his spittle onto a blind man’s eyes to give sight (John 9.6). He touched a leper to cleanse him (Luke 5.13). Jesus’ cloak met a haemorrhaging woman’s touch and she was healed (Mark 5.25-34). Jesus’ touch is God’s power at work to save all. Today we hear that He goes to heal all of Galilee, not those in one place.

    We believe Jesus is the healer of all our lives. Without Him and His healing, life can be that “drudgery" and "enslavement” Job describes as the misery of the human condition when hope is absent and despair reigns. Haven’t we all experienced such suffering and misery before? In those moments, didn’t we turn to Jesus?

    Mark’s story goes beyond assuring us that Jesus is our hope. It deepens our faith in Him. Mark teaches us how Jesus’ touch is fundamentally God’s way of being with us, amongst us and for us. Throughout Jesus’ life and ministry, touch distinguished his way of being teacher and friend, even, of being our Saviour. Through Jesus’ healing and forgiving, his comforting and accompanying others, His touch revealed God’s saving love at work in people’s lives. And Jesus continues to do this whenever we love and care for each other.

    Jesus’ healing restored Peter’s mother-in-law to health. Even more, it restored her to the community. There, she touches others as she serves them. What is service but touching another’s need to be welcomed, cared and provided for.

    This is why the real miracle of today’s gospel story will only happen when we give Jesus permission to touch us and restore us. Then, we can do our Christian duty better—that is, to touch and transform another’s life as Jesus did. Our role as Christians is to share the Good News, particularly, by embodying it through acts of love, mercy, and compassion. This is how we participate in Jesus’ ongoing work daily, and bring light to places of darkness and offer hope where there is despair.

    Listen then to St Paul urging us today to witness Jesus and His message of hope and healing to the world. We must for you and me are the agents of God's renewing power in our communities and beyond. 

    Imitating Jesus opens us to God’s life; it can then take root and come alive in us. This is how we become a little more divine by being a lot more human, like Jesus was by being human and touching another. Jesus shows us how to be fully human and truly Christian. Through His example, God is challenging us to make His love real. We do this best through our deeds, rather than in our words.

    I believe we are all already doing this with our kind words, sincere care, merciful forgiveness and many good deeds; this is what Christian charity looks like. They are concrete, real and better ways to help everyone, especially the needy. They matter more than the words priests preach, spiritual masters write and Church documents teach. Deeds touch and transform us more than words.

    Our world is broken by injustice and hatred, persecution and strife. We can begin to heal it by making God’s love and life real through our everyday acts of kindness and forgiveness, love and care. 

    A good place to start doing this is with those around us. So, parents, hug your children often. Families sit and hold grandpa and grandma’s hands repeatedly. And friends, reach out more and give each other that hearty hug. Then, we will make today's Gospel message come alive. It is this: that what matters most, especially, in troubled times, is the personal touch and presence of another. This is how we feel cared for, loved and supported; let’s do the same for others.

    We all want God to touch us with His love and life. And God does by touching us in faith, with hope, and through love. All God expects from us in return is that we pay God’s goodness forward. We do this best by imitating what Jesus did—touch others to heal and transform them. Maybe then we dare do the Christ-like act of touching another, we’ll experience God’s touch. Even more, we’ll know His precious love for us: it’s honestly intimate.
     
    Now, isn’t this Good News?




    Preached at Church of the Sacred Heart
    Photo by Xavier Mouton Photographie on Unsplash



    Posted by
    Labels: Breaking Open God's Word
    0

    Add a comment

"Bukas Palad"
"Bukas Palad"
is Filipino for open palms
Greetings!
Greetings!
Peace and welcome, dear friend.
I hope you will find in these posts something that speaks to you of the God who loves us all and who always holds us in the palm of his hand. Blessings!
The Liturgical Calendar / Year C
The Liturgical Calendar / Year C
Faith & Spirituality
Faith & Spirituality
Tagged as...
Tagged as...
Blog Archive
Blog Archive
Fall in Love, Stay in Love
Fall in Love, Stay in Love

"Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute way final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything."

Pedro Arrupe, sj, Superior General, 1965 - 1983

About Me
About Me
My Photo
is a 50something Catholic who resides in Singapore and works for the Church. He is a priest of the Roman Catholic Church.
Disclaimer
Disclaimer
©adrian.danker.sj, 2006-2018

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