1.  
    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

    Posted by
    Labels: Breaking Open God's Word
    0

    Add a comment

  2. 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
    Posted by
    Labels: Breaking Open God's Word
    0

    Add a comment

  3.  
    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





    Posted by
    Labels: Breaking Open God's Word
    0

    Add a comment

  4.  
    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
    Photo: www.caremark.co.uk
    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