1.  
    Year B / Ordinary Time / Solemnity of the Holy Trinity
    Readings: Deuteronomy 4.32-34, 39-40 / Psalm 32. 4-5, 6 and 9, 18-19, 20 and 22 (R/v 12b) / Romans 8.14-17 / Matthew 28.16-20


    Sisters and brothers, how do you make sense of a mystery? Do you read up on it, or ask around for answers? Or, do analyze and problem solve it?
    Today we celebrate the mystery of the Holy Trinity. The mystery of One God yet three persons as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Church tells us they are united, co-equal and living in perfect communion. “What does this mean?” many often ask. Hence, our myriad questions about the Holy Trinity. Almost always, no question is ever adequately answered in catechism or theology, in homilies or prayer, or through art, music or literature.
    The readings remind us this is so; they do not solve the mystery of the Holy Trinity. They can’t because God is truly mystery; He will always be. As His creation, we cannot be arrogant that we can solve this mystery. Rather, to understand, we must humble ourselves to hear this invitation the readings make: for us to experience God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit who want to share life and love with us.
     
    So, let’s do this by reflecting on Andrei Rublev’s icon of the Holy Trinity.  It presents the Three Divine Persons sitting around a table, feasting and celebrating together. Before them, there is also an open space. It is from here that we look at them, and we see nothing less than the beauty of them being One God.
    But this is an icon, not a painting. We look at a painting, admiring it. With an icon, however, we pray. Contemplating Rublev’s icon draws us into the mystery of God as Father, Son and Spirit. Each divine person acknowledges the other with the tilt of his head. Such is the interior life of the Holy Trinity: a mutuality of life and love, of support and intimacy shared selflessly, generously with each other.
     
    Together, they turn their faces outwards to you and me, inviting us to step into that empty space in front of them. In their graciousness, they call us to complete the circle and be one with them. They are drawing us into the mystery of the Trinity and to live with them. We hear this in our gospel reading when Jesus commands: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”.  
     
    What does it mean to baptize them? For us, the sacrament of baptism we received as a baby or as an adult through RCIA comes to mind. The Greek word for baptize means “dip” or “immerse.” This reminds us that Baptism is about being immersed into the life of the Holy Trinity who dwells in us and lives with us.
     
    This is why I find Rublev’s icon comforting, hope-filled and life giving. Here is God who is the Holy Trinity inviting us to come together. To sit together. To share life together. To be one together. To receive God’s love as much as I desire to share my love with God. Simply, to be immersed in God alone. 
     
    Today God is inviting you and me to be immersed into the goodness of His love. "Come," He says. St Paul reminds us that when we do, we will discover God's life in us is not something abstract but a relationship of children to God, our Father. Isn’t this why the Holy Trinity's favourite dwelling place is each of our human hearts, not all the beautiful churches and the many golden tabernacles in the world? Truly God immerses himself into our lives. As the Father, who created us in love and always forgives mercifully every time to save us. As the Son, who shows us how to live in love with Abba, God and with one another. As the Holy Spirit, who transforms us from sinfulness into fullness of life as God’s saintly people. This is how God as the Holy Trinity is one with each of us. 
     
    Today Jesus is asking us to join the apostles and share the goodness of His relationship with even many more: “go forth to proclaim Good News and baptize all nations.” Who are these nations? All the countries of the world, to be sure. But also those metaphorical "nations" closer to us: our own families and friends, our classmates and co-workers, here with one another – indeed, everyone who is part of our lives.
     
    And what are we sent to do? To draw them into the circle of the Holy Trinity’s life and love, as we’ve been drawn into it. Into this circle to savour the fullness of God’s goodness. Into this circle, this relationship, to experience the Trinity’s loving embrace. 

    Our baptism empowers us to do this because this sacrament makes us God’s presence among the “nations.” Yes, we are the visible sign of Jesus' promise: “I am with you always.”
     
    We truly are when we imitate God and live for others, not ourselves. So live like Father, who gives everything that all might have God’s life to the full. And like the Son, who teaches, forgives and heals that all may be one with God and each other. And like the Holy Spirit, who transforms our hard hearts into hearts of flesh to love God and neighbour.
     
    When we live in these ways, we say “yes” to being in relationship with the Holy Trinity. Then, we will live in the Trinity, dialogue with the Trinity, listen to the Trinity and love everyone like the Trinity.

    This is why the three Divine Persons invite us to step into that open, empty space in front of them. Then, we can join hands with them, close the circle and become part of their life and mission to create, save and sanctify.
     
    When we dare do this – and I believe God hopes we will –  our response to today’s responsorial psalm makes God’s promise come alive. Listen again: “Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own”. You and I are God’s blessed. We are God’s own. Indeed, together we are God's chosen ones because God dwells in every one of us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. What a joy to know this!
    Don’t we want this joy now and always?

    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart
    Photo by Wyron A on Unsplash
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  2.  
    Year B / Eastertide / Pentecost 
    Readings: Acts 2.1-11 / Psalm 104 (R/v 30) / 1 Cor 12.3b-7, 12-13 / John 20.19-23
    There is nothing like an embrace. 
    An embrace tells us how much we are welcomed or accepted, forgiven or affirmed. Yes, an embrace whispers the truth of how much you and I are really loved by our spouse or significant other, by family members or friends, even by those who forgive us for the hurt we have caused them. In return, our embrace tells others how much we love and care for them. Indeed every embrace betrays the intention of our hearts for one another.
    Pentecost is also about an embrace: God embracing us in the Holy Spirit. This divine embrace has three characteristics: it is infinitely wide and boundless; it is ever present; it is always life-giving.
    The evangelist Luke captures this truth about God’s embrace in the Spirit in the first reading. In telling us about the first Pentecost, he describes the apostles, speaking in Hebrew, proclaiming God and God’s saving action in Jesus. However, all who hear their message understand it in their native tongues because they come from different lands and cultures. Here is Luke emphasizing how the Holy Spirit, working through the apostles, gathers all God’s peoples together. 
    Hearing and accepting the Good News; this is a theme in the first readings throughout the Masses in the Easter season. We heard about how the Good News was proclaimed and accepted by many beyond Jerusalem and the Jewish world. Recall how the apostle Philip taught the Scriptures to the eunuch and baptized him. Remember how Paul’s missionary journeys led to the conversion of the first Christians when they heard about Jesus and accepted him as Saviour. 

    Pentecost reveals that the Holy Spirit knows no limits or boundaries when He gathers God’s people. Isn’t this true about our gathering here at Mass? In spite of our struggles to live the Christian life well, and no matter our state of grace, here we are again. The answer is clear.
    Truly, God’s embrace in the Spirit is infinitely wide and boundless.

    The divine embrace that Pentecost reveals directs us to look, once again, at Jesus on Cross; there he embodied it most visibly. There, “He stretched out his hand as He endured the Passion so as to break the bond of death and manifest the resurrection” (Eucharistic Prayer II). His outstretched arms enfold us into God’s loving, merciful embrace. When we dare allow ourselves to rest in it, we experience God’s forgiveness and welcome. Such is God’s love for saints and sinners alike, and for us too who are sinners yet called to sainthood.

    This promise is true; we can believe it. Consider how today’s gospel reading reminds us that Jesus embraces us beyond the Cross. For “on that evening of the first day of the week” the risen Jesus came and stood in the midst of his apostles, downcast and heartbroken; and he embraced them with his forgiveness and his peace. 

    Nothing makes this clearer than Jesus breathing onto the apostles and saying: “Receive the Holy Spirit; for those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven” (John 20.23). Jesus does the same for us. He gives us the Holy Spirit to forgive one another. Pentecost demands we go to another, forgive him and embrace each other as Jesus did with the apostles. 

    Truly, God’s embrace in the Spirit continues to be ever present in our lives today.

    How can we enfold one another into God’s embrace daily? What must we do to make God’s way of loving and forgiving our way, when it so often seems impossible to accomplish it on our own? 
    Pentecost assures us that the Holy Spirit is for everyone. This is why we can forgive, love and draw one another into God’s expansive embrace, if we want to. The choice is ours. 

    St Paul teaches us how to live Spirit-filled lives in the second reading. By recognising and celebrating our giftedness in the Holy Spirit. Each of us receives a gift from the Spirit, and it is for the particular service Jesus wants us to do. It is the Spirit who draws to live and work, to pray and play in diverse yet complementary ways because we are one in God even as we are different from each other.

    For Paul, our respective giftedness are meant for this one purpose only: to build up the Christian community; then, together to build the Kingdom of God. This is our mission as baptized Christians.

    We are in fact experiencing this call to build community and kingdom at this Mass. Consider. Our greeters welcome. Our choir sings. Our lectors proclaim God’s Word and our servers serve at God’s altar. Our Eucharistic Ministers bring communion to you, and your prayers and worship bring us all ever closer into God’s presence. And I come to serve you. 

    It is the Holy Spirit who gathers us together with our rich and varied gifts. The Spirit empowers us to share them and make the Eucharist come alive and real, even as God transforms us into the one Body of Christ. This is how we are blessed, broken and given to each other and many more to have life in God’s hands. As all this is happening, God wondrously lifts us into his embrace. There, we experience the fullness of life and love that Jesus promised us.

    Truly, God’s embrace in the Spirit is always life-giving.

    Indeed the Holy Spirit reveals the love of God. It is infinitely wide and boundless, ever present and always life-giving. These are the three ways God embraces us into His divine life. This is the reality of our Christian life; Pentecost Sunday reminds us of this.  It is therefore good and right that we end our Easter season on this hope-filled note. What joy Pentecost is because the Holy Spirit comes and will always come to be with us. 

    So, take a deep breath now, tomorrow, all this week, everyday of our lives, and listen. Listen to and listen for the Spirit of God breathing on us, breathing into us. Yes, breathing and whispering to each one of us these words of God's embrace, "Truly, you are my beloved; on you my favour rests.”
    Can you hear Him? Hear God’s Spirit saying this? Can you?



    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart
    Photo by David Cajilima on     Unsplash




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  3. Devotion to the Sacred Heart 
    Reflection based on Luke 23.35-43

    To love and to be loved. This is a basic human need we all have; we struggle to do it well. Perhaps, a more fundamental need we want is to feel safe. 

    When we are hurt, we look for someone to comfort and care for us. When we are troubled, we turn to a counsellor or therapist to help us sort ourselves. When we are lost and cannot find our way home in a foreign land, we turn to another, hopefully, to someone who speaks English, so that we can return safely to our accommodation. 

    As people of faith, we turn to God repeatedly with our needs, concerns and hopes. We do because we believe He is the refuge and protection we need to live, even more, the salvation we desire for eternal life.

    In today’s gospel reading, the crucified Jesus is indeed that refuge for the good thief. We hear this when he turns and pleads, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He speaks these words in that brief, almost insignificant conversation we witness between the two thieves and Jesus, each hanging on their own cross.  This is in fact an intimate conversation. There is vulnerability to ask; that is what the good thief does. There is compassion to still love; that is what Jesus does in spite of being grievously betrayed and hurt, and now facing death.

    Indeed, here is Jesus speaking not in parables or saying things that are difficult to understand. Rather, he is speaking plainly, and with great love. His words are most tender, filled with selfless compassion and genuine mercy for the thief.  

    So where is the protection and refuge in this most painful of moments? Protection and refuge are found by being one with Jesus as Jesus is with God. In this cruel moment, Jesus is one with God because he trusts he is doing the Father’s will, even as he cries out, “My God, my God, why have your deserted me.” No one can make this cry unless he recognises God will hear; it is an implicit, unspoken trust. Indeed, in this moment Jesus truly and fully presents himself to all as “The Way.”  Our  “Way” to God, to the Kingdom, and to spreading the Good News of God’s love.

    How does this relate to our lives? Simply put, God wants us to be His intimate other, the beloved, or the child running into the arms of a parent. And yes, that thief too who asks to be remembered and admitted into God’s kingdom.  

    In theory it sounds great to rely on God totally, but when the weight of the world is crashing upon us or when lies and deception are pointed at us, it is difficult to trust God.  Haven’t we all hang from crosses we never asked to carry or crosses that have been forced onto our shoulders to bear, and uttered, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” 

    It is precisely when we have to carry those crosses, even more, when we are metaphorically nailed to them, hanging from them, that we’ll come to know these moments as graced. They are indeed a test of faith. Do you and I really trust that God will create goodness and love out of painful situations? No one can answer this question but each of us. 

    We can when we choose to appreciate it with the eyes of faith. When we do, the difficult, painful, despairing situations are potentially graced-filled situations. They are nothing less than God’s gift of a perfect time to have an intimate conversation with Him. Even more, to stay close to the loving providence that Jesus’ salvation is. Tonight we are intimately drawn into Jesus’ conversation with the thief on the cross; in fact, it is really His conversation with you and me.
    God’s love will make a difference in our lives and whatever difficult situations we encounter.  The outcome may still be hurtful or unjust, but through our intimate conversations with Jesus, we can experience God’s endless love; it alone will sustain us through the troubled times. Shall we turn to Jesus and say, “Remember me, Lord'?"




    Shared at the Church of the Sacred Heart


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  4.  

    Year B / Eastertide / Week 7 / Sunday

    Readings: Acts 1.15-17, 20a, 20c-26 / Psalm 102.1-2, 11-12, 19-20ab (R/v 19a) / 1 John 4-11-16 / John 17.11b-19



    Jesus prayed, “Holy Father, keep those you have given me true  to your name, so that they may be one like us” (John 17.11)


    Here is Jesus praying that the Father will consecrate his disciples to be his continuing presence in the world. It is not easy to be such a presence. To be in the world yet not of the world. To be hated for believing in God yet finding joy in God alone. To be tempted by evil yet protected from the evil one. 


    We know this difficulty. It is our Christian struggle in this world. Sometimes, this experience overwhelms and paralyzes us. What gets us through this? People of faith, like you and me, will confess the power of prayer – especially, prayers said for us.


    Jesus knows this. He prays for the disciples and us. Not that life will be easy. It won't because our sins spoil our world. It brings about scarcity instead of abundance, fear instead of courage, injustice instead of fairness, and selfishness instead of sacrificial love.  


    What Jesus prays for is that God will be with us. Jesus also prays that God will keep us one with himself so that we can share in his joy completely.


    Jesus’s prayer should encourage us. Though we struggle with sin, we strive to live good Christian lives for God and neighbour. This does not eliminate the tension of living in the world as Christians. It in fact heightens it. This is why Jesus prays: we need God to live in the world as his continuing presence. Hence, he prays that we be one with God and consecrated to God. 


    We fulfil Jesus’s prayer when God’s ways of loving, forgiving and reconciling become our own way of living with one another. Listen again to St John teaching us this lesson today: “as long as we love one another God will live in us and his love will be complete in us” (1 John 4.12).  This is how Jesus lived, loved and served while on earth. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus commands us to do the same. God’s love, he reveals and teaches, empowers us to live Christ-like lives for everyone.

     

    Human goodness compels us to live such lives but oftentimes our pride, unkindness and hurts get in the way.  Isn’t this why we are consoled and encouraged when others pray for us? “I prayed for you.” “I will pray for you.” “You are in our prayers.”


    Whether it is family or friends, intercessory groups or religious, those who love us or those who we’ve hurt, their prayers for us echo Jesus’s prayer for his disciples – that God protects us, be one with us and reveals Himself to us.


    Such is the goodness of prayer – God’s nearness to us. I imagine the disciples experiencing this as Jesus prayed for them at the Last Supper. Realizing Jesus would soon be taken away to suffer and die, no teaching, miracle, or healing could make a difference. Jesus’s prayer did.


    Like them, knowing that someone is praying for us gives us hope. It consoles us in our pains, eases our burdens, lessens our anxieties and brightens our darkness. We can soar on their generous prayers to God who always stoops down to meet us daily. 


    I wonder if something more is also happening in prayer. More than our petitioning and God listening, and if He wishes, answering. Perhaps this. “Prayer is a mystery that begins in God. Our prayer is always in response to God’s initiative. It is God who has caught our attention. Mysteriously, in our prayer for others, we complete a triangle with God, our own self, and these other persons for whom we pray” (Br. Curtis Almquist, SSJE). 


    Our prayers and petitions might more rightly be drawing all of us into the shelter of God’s loving and safe embrace, of being one with Him and each other. It’s about  communion. About being a family that cares for all, looking out especially for those who struggle in life or with faith, even more for those who cannot pray or have no one to pray for them.


    We know this line from Scripture: “In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you” (Matthew 1.12). Those who pray for us join Jesus who prayed for his disciples. Their prayers assure us of God’s faithfulness, even more, of how God embraces each of us into His life and love so that we can do the same for others. So, let us do likewise for others whenever we pray for them – be it daily, over a hospital bed or with a handwritten petition, when we say the rosary at night or with a grace before meals.


    This week, prayers will be said for you and me. Family and friends will pray for us. Perhaps, those we are not close to will also pray for us; they do because they care. And dare I say, there will even be those we have hurt; they will pray because they still love us. We don’t earn their prayers. We don't deserve them. We may not even have asked for them. But all these good people will pray for us. When they do, they will simply imitate Jesus praying for his disciples. Each of their prayers seeks only God’s best for us.  How should we respond? Simply with a “thank you” to them, even more, a “thanks be to God” for them.


    Truly, we all need prayers. Isn’t praying for another then a good deed you and I must also do for someone else? Who is God asking us to pray for today and in the coming days?



    Preached at Church of the Sacred Heart
    Photo: www.quora.com


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  5. Year C / Eastertide / Week 6 / Sunday 
    Readings: Acts 10:25-26,34-35,44-48/ Psalm: 98:1, 2-3, 3-4 (R/v cf 2b) / 1 John 4.7-10 / John 15.9-17


    “You are my friends”
     
    Here is Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, telling us how special we are to Him. We are not just his disciples and followers; we are his friends. When He said this for the first time to the apostles at the Last Supper, it changed their relationship profoundly: it became intimate.
     
    To drive home this truth, Jesus used the same pronoun to address them as He does God: “my friends,” “my Father.” Even more, He shares the very best he has, the love of God. Listen again: “I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father.”
     
    Throughout the gospels, Jesus mediates God’s love in the way he loves his disciples. He wants them — and wants us — to abide, remain, dwell in this same love. This enables us to follow Him, to keep his commandments, namely the commandment to love, to love one another as the Lord has loved us.
     
    Such love is risky; it will involve sacrifice, even suffering. That’s what love does. Love always demands something of us. Love calls and frees. It also enables us to do the seemingly impossible, like laying down one’s life for one’s friends. This is how Jesus loves us. Doesn’t this just take our breath away?
     
    By calling His disciples and us “my friends,” Jesus reminds us how remarkable this intimacy is. These days the word “friend” is so easily, carelessly bandied around that it could mean nothing at all. Those of us with Facebook or Instagram accounts know this. How many of our online friends and followers are really friends? They are probably acquaintances, friends of friends, even curious busybodies.
     
    True friendship is a gift. Some would confess it is ”rare,” “precious” and “to be treasured.” We can count such friends on the fingers of our hand. Of course, friendships change throughout our lives; they wax and wane. Each has their particular season of being close or being distant. Some last for a lifetime. Others are sometimes remembered. Those that matter most to us are renewed. Quite a number are lost to the mist of yesteryears.
     
    I believe when Jesus calls his disciples “my friends,” He is offering them a deep relationship. It is a partnership rooted in mutual appreciation, nurtured on a particular virtue and a shared vision. Many such partnerships are built through the shared task of making Jesus’ command to love real and alive. 

    Not for Jesus the kind of accidental friendships based on utility and pleasure many have and exploit. His friendships are marked by considerable honour and respect for the other. Do we treat our friends similarly, especially those we’ve declared special to them in whatever manner we mean? Treat them like Jesus would?
     
    When I think of friendship, I remember a scene from one of my favourite books, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Written originally in French, many view it as a children’s book. It was, however, written for adults. It’s a reflection about meaning, life and human nature. The story follows a young prince who visits various planets in space, including Earth, and it explores the themes of loneliness, friendship, love, and loss.
     
    The scene I cherish is when the little prince meets a wild fox who is looking for a friend. “Come and play with me….I am so unhappy,” the little prince says. The fox replies, “I cannot play with you,…I am not tamed.”  The little prince doesn’t understand the meaning of the word ‘tame.’ He gets frustrated and says, “I am looking for friends….What does that mean—‘tame,’” he asks.  “It is an act too often neglected,” said the fox. “It means to establish ties.”
     
    In English, “tame” has connotations of dominance and control; this isn’t what the fox means. Rather, he is describing that more loving and reciprocal manner friendships come to be, as in its original French, apprivoiser. So, when the fox asks the little prince to tame him, he is referring to a process of building friendship that unfolds with time, effort, patience, gratitude, and love. The fox explains, “If you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world.” The fox adds, “One only understands the things that one tames.”

    “What must I do, to tame you?” asks the little prince. “You must be very patient,” replied the fox. “First you will sit down at a little distance from me—like that—in the grass.  I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day.” 

    Yes, sit side-by-side, closer every day, looking forward yet conscious of the other’s presence at one’s side. Companions to be tamed and become friends.
     
    Looking forward as friends. Oftentimes, we think that friends must look longingly at each other. For the author,  C.S. Lewis, “True friends don’t spend time gazing into each other’s eyes. They may show great tenderness towards each other, but they face in the same direction — toward common projects, goals — above all, towards a common Lord…What draws people to be friends is that they see the same truth. They share it…and their eyes look ahead” (The Four Loves).

    Isn’t this how the disciples learned to become Jesus’ friends? He teaches them to stand side by side with Him and to look ahead to building the Kingdom of God. Called by Jesus to do this as friends after His heart: to show great tenderness toward one another. All the while, standing shoulder to shoulder with Him. Not just to look toward Jesus but to stand with Jesus.
     
    Here we are, like those disciples, standing with Jesus, standing with Him as friends facing the same direction: in His way of love. Partners in God’s mission to love the world and to “bear fruit, fruit that will last” (Jn. 15:16). Indeed, this is how we are to be friends to each other — always with Jesus, beside us, loving one another as He has loved us.  

    Shall we?




    Preached at Church of the Sacred Heart
    Photo: 'autumn shades' ©adrian danker, chestnut hill, boston, october, 2011
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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
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

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