Year C / End of the Christmas Season / Baptism of the Lord 
Readings: Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7 / Ps 103. 1-4, 24-25,27-28, 29-30 (R/v 1) / Acts 10:34-38 / Luke 3:15-16, 21-22


Many of us begin the new year with good wishes to one another and prayers to God for a better future. We also do by writing new year resolutions to change our old ways, become kinder, live happier and hopefully come closer to God.

When I was younger a childhood friend and I made resolutions for the new year together. We wrote them down and signed off at the bottom of the list. Then, we did that gesture of commitment, a pinky promise, and we tucked that piece of paper away for future reference. 

At the end of that year, we looked back and we fell short of many of those resolutions. But we still got through the year together. Now, I know what more that the pinky promise was all about. This: that we’d try to be there for each other, for good or ill, no matter what happened. It’s the sort of promise that is stronger than any failure because it is rooted in friendship.

Isn’t friendship what Jesus also desires with us? “I call you friends,” he declares to the apostles and to us. I wonder if we did make resolutions with Jesus as friends would we share a pinky promise. If we did, would we feel overwhelmed that we’ve a checklist to complete? And if we didn’t, would we judge ourselves not good enough and unworthy to be his friend?

Yet everything Christianity proclaims in scripture and prayer, worship and practice, is simply this Gospel message: that with Jesus, God’s love comes first, always. 

We need to hear this message because we are always busy, easily distracted, and often forgetful that we don’t value enough how unshakeable God’s love for all of us is. We hear this truth when St Paul tells Titus in the second reading that in Jesus, “God’s grace has been revealed, and it has made salvation possible for the whole human race.” And as Isaiah prophesied in the first reading: “‘Here is your God”: he is the shepherd who gathers, feeds and leads his flock.

The world’s way is different. Its contracts and conditional promises, careful measurements and demarcations insist that membership has its privileges, you are either in or out. Some Christians, even amongst us, also hold this view; they police who are worthy Christians, who should receive communion, who God will save. 

So, hear this again: God’s promise is that he loves everyone and everything and this is more enduring than any sin. Truly, you and I can do nothing to alter or diminish this. For Jesus, there is no other way to love but God’s way – foolishly, indiscriminately, without calculation or agenda, expectation or condition. And, to let ourselves be loved in that same way. 

I'd like to suggest this is a message the Baptism of Jesus has for us. 

Jesus comes to the River Jordan a simple, humble man, ordinary like everyone else with their failed resolutions and unfulfilled hopes. He is eager to love, to serve, to be among us. I wonder what John the Baptist thought and felt that the powerful, mighty Messiah he proclaimed all his life now submits himself to baptism that cleanses from sin and failure. 

But Jesus is no ordinary human; he is God with us. By stepping into the water, he submerges into our human frailties, saying, “I love you as you are, not as I am.” Even more, Jesus’ action assures us that God is together with us, in the best and worst of days, in holy times or sinful moments.

Jesus himself hears this when he emerges from the waters: “You are my son, the Beloved, my favour rests on you.” His belovedness is at the very core of who he is – the father’s own. It doesn’t depend on his failure or success. His belovedness moves him forward into everything that will follow, toward every person he will meet and onward in every response he will make — be it the temptations or miracles, the outcasts or his disciples, even his enemies, and every daily moment. I believe that Jesus’ recognition that he is the Father’s beloved sustains him when things get hard, when things fall apart, when he suffers and dies. 

Belovedness is the Good News Jesus proclaimed in word and deed. In flesh, Jesus shows us what this looks like, More so, he enables us to really know that we are God’s beloved. Into belovedness we are baptised. Truly, belovedness is our birthright; claim it we must. 

As Jesus does this for us, his friends, so must we share belovedness with one another; this is our life purpose. Henri Nouwen explains: “The greatest gift my friendship can give to you is the gift of your Belovedness. I can give that gift only insofar as I have claimed it for myself. Isn’t that what friendship is all about: giving to each other the gift of our Belovedness?”*

The unimaginable scandal of God’s love is that we are his beloved and because we are, our belovedness is very good. Try as we might, nothing will change this. And once we realize this essential truth, we must begin to live in a new way. With confidence that no one needs to prove themselves worthy. With tender understanding that there’s real goodness about ourselves and everyone else. With the mercy that we can be kind and be friends with God and one another.

I don’t think we accept this easily. If we do, it’s because we believe in God. In his goodness that no matter how we reach the finishing line this year or at the end of our lives, sprinting or crawling across, or even if we’re still in the messiness of our lives, He will still be there, saying, “you are my child, the beloved, and we’ve always been in this together.”

Today we celebrate this truth – yes, God has stepped down into the river of life with us. He has been with us when we succeeded and failed. He will be with us in everything we try and are afraid to try, even our efforts at keeping this year’s resolutions. Yes, he will walk beside us. And we can only walk with him if we recognise our faith gives us hope to persevere because we are his beloved. 

Indeed, we are. Perhaps, then, the only pinky promise that truly matters is this - his and ours.  




* Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved


Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart
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  1. Year C / Lent / Week 1 / Sunday
    Readings: Deuteronomy 26.4-10 / Psalm 90-.1-2, 1-11, 12-13, 14-15 / Romans 10.8-13 / Luke 4.1-13


    “The Lord brought us out of Egypt with mighty hand and outstretched arm…He brought us here and gave us this land…where milk and honey flowed.”

    Here is Moses speaking to his fellow Israelites. He reminds them of God’s faithfulness as they journeyed from being slaves under the Egyptians to God’s freed and chosen. It is good we hear this assurance for here we are, about to go further on in our Lenten journey. 

    To do this, we need an effective roadmap to walk with Jesus to the Cross and into his Resurrection that is God’s Easter promise for you and me.  We need this roadmap because Lent – if we seriously let its grace work – will draw us into the wilderness within. Into that space of our failures and regrets, our barrenness and desolation. That space wherein we’ll honestly know how lonely and empty we are. That space of spiritual dryness. One we create and perpetuate with our bad habits, poor choices and sinful living. 

    This roadmap will guide us through the wilderness within where God will meet us in our temptations and sinfulness. There, God will help crack open our hearts for conversion, that grace Lent offers us.

    Ours readings today offer such a roadmap. Let’s us consider it and how it will enable us to navigate our way through Lent to Easter, through the darkness of sinfulness to the light of conversion.  Three parts make up this roadmap.

    First, God’s faithfulness. Today we hear Moses speaking to his own people of God’s fidelity. It is strong and constant for God has always walked with them throughout their history. Moses calls them to pause and reflect upon how God has carried them through adversity, sheltered them from danger, and raised them to new life.

    Lent also calls us to do the same – to pause and reflect on God’s presence in our lives. I wonder if doing this enable us to better understand that God’s faithfulness is the sure foundation for us to journey through Lent. That we are not going through Lent alone, on our own, but that God is with us. Doing this will help us to value how faithful God has been in the rush of our everyday life, the burdens we carried, the regrets we had and the sinfulness we struggled with. When we recognise God’s faithfulness, we might we begin Lent differently – not beating ourselves up as are bad and unworthy but that God is with us, even in our sinfulness, because we are His own.

    St Mark tells us Jesus went into the wilderness after God said: “You are my beloved with whom I am well pleased.” We too are God’s beloved. Let’s not just settle into Lent with this same truth; let’s let our belovedness draw us into God who converts us.

    Second, God’s trustworthiness. The responsorial psalm proclaims this message. We can indeed turn to God for his help.  Yes, His angels will protect us. Yes, His love is upon us. Yes, He himself will rescue and protect us. Indeed, when we cry out, He says. “I am with you.” 

    Isn’t this assurance we need to return to God in Lent? On Ash Wednesday, God, speaking through the Prophet Joel, called out to us, “Come back to me with all your heart.” We all  to but don’t we fear going into the wilderness of our lives and there, see how disfigured we are because of sin? Yet God invites us to trust his mercy that forgives. Even more, to trust his saving love that will lead us through the wilderness to safety, even more, to conversion this Lent, if we choose it.

    Third, God’s Word is our life. In our second reading, St Paul focuses us on the Word of God. He teaches, “The Word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.”  We hear this echoed in the Gospel Acclamation: “One does not live on bread alone, but on every Word that comes forth from the mouth of God.”  Truly the Word of God, Jesus himself, gives us life. In Lent, we’re to focus on Jesus, God’s Word made flesh because shows us how we pray, fast and give alms. Will we make time to focus on Him who is proclaimed in the Scriptures and speaks in our hearts, and so, contemplate God’s love and His will in our lives?

    God is faithful. God is trustworthy. God’s Word is our life. These make up the roadmap for our Lenten journey. They point us to Jesus, whose very name means, “God saves.” He comes to do battle with all that continues to enslave us:  the power of sin, the power of Satan and the power of death itself. He can do battle because of how God is in his life – faithful, trustworthy and life-giving.

    In the wilderness, the three temptations that Jesus battles with the devil are the same temptations to which every human heart — yours and mine too — is vulnerable. 

    “Turn these stones into bread” is the temptation to live depending on material things as the only source of life.  “I shall give you all this power and glory” is the temptation to amass reputation and wealth as false gods. “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down” is the very subtle temptation to presume no responsibility for our actions, since “God will take care of everything.” 

    Through these, the devil is tempting the man Jesus to put aside his humanity and act like God. Jesus resists by fully embracing his humanity and depending on God alone. He shows us that there is no other way to make our Lenten journey than to be be ourselves, human, vulnerable, and ever dependent on God. 

    So let us bring our hearts and lives before God this Lent, especially those places within us that are still held captive to sin. Let us do this by trusting that Jesus remains the God who saves us, who continues to do battle on our behalf so that when Easter comes we will no longer be slaves to sin but set free for the fullness of life God. 

    Now isn’t this good news to carry on our Lenten journey?




    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart
    Photo: www.jewishpolicycenter.org
     
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  2. I presented the following remarks to open the Archdiocesan Assembly on Saturday, 1 March 2025. It is one of three. The other two were made by our Archbishop, William Cardinal God and my co-chair, Kwek Mean Luck


    Archdiocesan Assembly 2025: "With faith, in hope, let us"
    Opening Remarks

    Good morning, Your Eminence, my brother priests, our religious sisters and brothers, dear friends.

    Here we are as Church. Whether we chose to come or were nominated here, no other than God gathers us. 

    God also gathered the Magi to find Jesus. They journeyed with faith in the hope of finding Him. Their story reminds me of ‘gift’ and ‘task.’ Jesus was God’s gift to them, and by retelling their story, a gift to many more, even beyond the faith. Their journey to seek Jesus was the task. 

    Like the Magi, we’re here to make a journey of faith in hope. For Fr Andrew Lin, “The Archdiocesan Assembly is a gathering of the voices of the people. God is using the voices of the people to show us where and how to move forward."  Indeed, ‘gift’ and ‘task’ help us value what this day is about. 

    Gift, because God has a plan for us to move our Church forward. 

    Task, because God calls us to discern how our diocese can fulfill His plan; we can by listening to the Holy Spirit as we converse and co-discern the proposed pastoral directions and priorities in the Schema.

    To prepare for today, the APC has had similar conversations on the Schema with different groups in the Church. They feel it is dynamic, hope-filled and life-giving; this suggests a newness God is inviting us to glimpse as His hope to renew our diocese. Many support its direction and the pastoral priorities proposed. Others are concerned whether the pastoral priorities will be implemented and how. 

    Perhaps we’re like the Magi as we begin. They must have been excited, eager, to begin the journey because the star pointed them to a promise. However, they must have also been anxious, concerned, even hesitant to start. Yet the star beckoned them onward with hope.

    Today, we are not beginning a journey as we’re continuing it. Over the past two years, we have considered the gift of God’s call to renew our pastoral plan and we’ve participated in the collective task of discerning it.  

    Gathered here, we might be grappling with differing thoughts and feelings about the Schema, contrasting concerns and dreams about our future. This simply reflects our assembly –  the richness of our myriad hopes and our shared goodwill to hope together.

    What must matter now is that we acknowledge the consolations from God along this journey thus far, even more, value them. They will encourage us to continue this journey of faith in hope. Let us join the Magi and find God in all things along this journey for these will lead us to Jesus with whom we can build the kingdom of God. To help us do this during this assembly, let me suggest three pointers: one, being led by lights, not shadows; two, being together; and three, staying focussed.

    Lights, not shadows - The Magi  were led by a star. Its light consoled them in the dark, even as it drew them onward and guided their direction. Like them, God’s light has guided our journey and illuminated the conversations along the way. Even as we honestly confessed what is lacking, what needs improving and what we must honestly review, God’s light has enabled us to see more clearly the good that is already happening in our diocese. 

    Like these: parishes combining to run Confirmation Camps and sharing their facilities with non-parish groups; OFC partnering CFL and Clarity to help our catechists understand mental wellbeing to better support our young; and the efforts many parishes make to care for our seniors. 

    These shine; they are lights calling us to look up and about, and to celebrate God laboring to care for us all, even renewing the Church pastorally. In our conversations today, let us also look for these lights, not the shadows and dark. We must because they assure us we can make the journey onward with hope. Even more, they assure us as being the hope God promises - that is, as a Church, we light up the world.

    Together, not alone -  The Magi came together from different places to journey to Jesus. We are the same: here with different agendas and aspirations for our Church’s future.  Yet we’re to pray, dialogue and discern as that one body of Christ – to think with the mind of Christ, to put on the love of Christ, to act in the way of Christ. 

    In almost every conversation the APC has had, there’s a resounding recognition that coming together as Church is very good – at the district level among the PPCs, or when ONE brings the parishes, offices and organizations to reflect on the call to be missionary parishes and a vibrant and evangelizing Church, or, even when we priests with our Archbishop have time at the presbyterium to converse about the care and salvation of souls. 

    If we take for granted such experiences of being church together – expressed so well in how we welcomed, learned from and worshipped with Pope Francis last year – we will lose sight of the “unity and hope” that is already present, and which calls us to more. I wonder if the Magi had disagreed, argued and gone their separate ways, might they have lost hope, gone astray, failed in their journey, and not find Jesus? 

    Stay focussed, not distracted – Besides their encounter with Herod, the story of the Magi doesn’t say much about the challenges they must have faced, like changing terrain, weather and cultures, even misreading their maps. Our journey to this Assembly has been challenging too. Different groups invited us to reflect, rethink and rewrite parts of the Schema for better. Some clergy asked about awakening the faith of nominal Catholics. Some youth asked how our Church can be synodal and co-responsible yet one, holy and apostolic. Some religious, asked about the Church’s social mission to all peoples, especially the marginalized like the poor and migrant workers. 

    These deepened our commitment to listen more attentively to God and stay the course. Whatever the challenges, I believe the Magi found Jesus by focussing on the star. We are also called to stay focused as we discern how we will build the kingdom of God, individually and together, with Christ.

    For me, these reflections are God’s consolations that He has walked faithfully with us to this assembly and, more significantly, He will continue to because this task, this work is His. I wonder if the Magi were wise not because they were just learned about prophecies, clever to read the stars, smart to navigate the journey. Rather, they were wise because they understood the star that beckoned, the impulse to seek, the courage to respond were somehow for them God’s work. So, they let God draw them to Jesus. And because they did, God could labour to transform them from seekers to believers.

    Perhaps, this is how God is also inviting us to enter today’s assembly – wise enough to let go and let God lead. Wiser too that we bring ourselves as a gift to Jesus and let Him renew us as His disciples and His Church. 

    Let’s do this  by committing ourselves – not others – to God’s plan, not because we have to but because we want to. Even more, let us be open to receive the gift of God himself, through Christ, who is waiting to especially encounter us today in each other and as His body. So join me to entrust ourselves and the task before us into God’s hands, with faith that is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11.1).  We do this because God first loved us to love one another, for as Pope Francis said to us at the National Stadium, “without love, we are nothing.” Shall we?




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  3. Year C / Ordinary Time / Week 8 / Sunday
    Readings: Sirach 27:4-7 / Psalm 92:2-3, 13-14, 15-16 (R/v cf 2a) / 1 Corinthians 15:54-58 / Luke 6:39-45


    Sisters and brothers, don’t we all want to be known for our goodness, especially when we have passed on and others speak about us and the life we’ve led? Who doesn’t want others to judge our actions good, value our good character, and praise our good self?

    When we experience these positive ways others value us in life, I believe we celebrate the goodness of our being human. I hope you’ve counted your blessings each time this has happened in your lives.

    However there are times when we are less than human in our interactions with others. Like these. When we judge another unworthy, we deny his personhood. When we judge another’s actions to be suspect, we reject her goodness. When we judge others for their faults, failings and sins, we condemn them as inhuman.

    Many of us are familiar with the message of today’s Gospel reading; we associate it with Jesus’ teaching his disciples about hypocrisy. About how we judge others for their sins, when we ourselves are sinners. This is because we hear Jesus’ call to stop seeing the splinters in another’s eye while ignoring the wooden beams in ours. 

    His message is also for us to hear. Many are uncomfortable when we hear this because we know Jesus is calling us out. But let’s stop and consider the grace Jesus is offering us when He does this – for us to also see the truth that the other whom we judge is as good as we are in our sinfulness. 

    Here is Jesus teaching us to value each other as the sum of all our parts, that is, the humanness of my brothers and sisters and the humanness of myself. Let me explain: when we look at another  and judge him bad, deviant, or sinful, we fixate ourselves on individual moments of difference, of contradiction, of dismay, of disappointment, not the person who is more than that fault, failing or sin.

    Today Jesus is calling, even challenging, us to remember that each of us is a complex mix. Of good and bad. Of words that inspire another and mouths that put down one we dislike. Of hearts that uplift another and hands that tear down the other’s dignity.

    Isn’t this the ironic beauty of who someone else is, even more, who you and I really are? This is the same beauty God sees in us; even more, He still values us for and delights in us as we are.

    Throughout His ministry, Jesus teaches us that God does not just see the flawed, the weak and the sinful selves that we are. He also sees the goodness, the kindness and the graciousness that we are too. More significantly, God sees the hopeful promise in each of us to become better.  Isn't it true that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future?

    This is the glint in our humanity that seizes God’s gaze, and captures, maybe even, captivates, His attention. What God sees and values is the human potential to transcend our lesser selves. Isn’t this why Jesus reached out to save the adulterous woman, to include Matthew the tax collector among his disciples, and to forgive Peter for his betrayal?

    With each of these persons, and in so many more examples of Jesus in the Gospels, we see how God is so enchanted with humankind that He cannot help but to seek out and recover, forgive and reconcile with, uplift and save.

    I think God’s enchantment has everything to do with our goodness, even more, with that innate capacity in us to become a better version of ourselves, if we want to. And God loves us when we do. 

    And so, we might want to reflect today not only on Jesus' call that we stop being hypocrites but also on the saving grace that everyone of us can be better. So look again. We will do this well when we are prepared to appreciate that who my brother and sister are is nothing less than the totality of their being fully human, that is, the tapestry of lights and shadows, good and bad, saintliness and sinfulness each of us is. 

    If we dare do this, then we might better understand what Jesus means when he says at the end of the gospel reading: “A good man draws from what is good from the store of goodness in his heart; a bad man draws from what is bad from the store of badness.”

    Truly how we look, judge but most of all, value each other, whether in our speech or deed, flows from what fills our hearts. 

    Sisters and brothers, what fills your heart? 





    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
    Photo by Edi Libedinsky on Unsplash

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  4. Year C / Ordinary Time / Week 6 / Sunday
    Readings: Jeremiah 17:5-8 / Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6 / 1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20 / Luke 6:17, 20-26


    Sisters and brothers, what does it take for someone to get through challenging, even trying, times and thrive?

    In 2018, John Seow, a student of mine at St Joseph’s Institution, shared with parents how they could support their sons to do well for the O Level examinations. He spoke about exam strategies and teacher support, parents’ love and self-care. Then, surprisingly, he spoke about turning to God during the exams. He ended saying, “Pray, hope, and don't worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.”

    For many present, this was key message of John’s sharing: we need to anchor ourselves, even better stay rooted, in God, no matter what.

    The first reading invites us to also root ourselves in God. If you have walked along a river or stream you might have noticed how big, how leafy, how green the trees on its banks are. The prophet Jeremiah uses this image to describe the person who trusts in God: “Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose hope in the Lord. He is like a tree planted beside the waters that stretch out its roots to the stream” (Jeremiah 17.5-8). 

    Water is the secret to the tree’s growth, stability, and strength. Water makes it flourish. The trees thirst for it. 

    We thirst for water too. Even more, we thirst for God.  Isn’t this why we come Sunday after Sunday to be nourished by God in Word and Eucharist? We turn to God to forgive our sins. We pray for God’s help in difficult times. Yes, we need God.

    Jeremiah’s message insists that like the tree rooted in water, we too must always stay rooted in God if we want our life to be fruitful, our faith to flourish and our wellbeing safeguarded. Listen again to Jeremiah’s wisdom about the metaphor of the tree by running water for our Christian lives: “not fear when the heat come; its leaves are always green; in the year of drought he shows no distress, but still bears fruit.” 

    I believe we all want to live like this. But are we immersing our lives in God’s life every day to live like this? Jeremiah's reaching about the tree insists we acknowledge that it is not enough to be with God once a week at Sunday Mass, pray when we need Him or reconcile with Him only at Lent or Advent.

    Immersing ourselves in God every day is hard work but it is necessary. When challenges come or we think God doesn’t our prayers, we struggle to believe in God. When other attractions catch our fancy, fulfil our wants, and make us feel superior, we question why God and God’s ways are boring, unfulfilling and inferior. When there are more pleasurable things to do, we easily excuse ourselves from God.  

    In these moments, we would be wise to recall Jeremiah’s words that “the tree fears not the heat when it comes” because its roots are securely in the water.

    Don’t we want this same fearlessness when challenges and difficulties, sufferings and disappointments confront us? If we do, we must choose to root ourselves in God every day. We need to because He is our strength and hope. 

    Prayer is one way to do this. The gospels describe the intimate relationship Jesus had with prayer. He always prays to God. He prays to God when He heals, does miracles, makes important decisions, even before He eats. Through prayer, He invites God into his life. Prayer enables Jesus to immerse himself in God. Do we?

    We see the power of prayer in Jesus at Gethsemane. When Judas and the soldiers come to arrest Him by calling out for Jesus of Nazareth, he steps forward courageously and pronounces “I am He.” He has no fear doing this and entering His passion because His prayer binds Him to God. Having a daily prayer life with God does the same: it will form and shape us to be more and more like Jesus. 

    This happens because in prayer we are gently broken in God’s loving hands and formed anew. In prayer, our laziness is broken, so we can go the extra mile. Our sinfulness is broken, so we can live better. Our self-centered plans are broken, so we can care for others more selflessly. Our hard hearts are especially broken to become tender and bighearted for everyone.

    Most of all, it is in prayer that Jesus comes to know the love of God and live it selfless by serving everyone This is the source of his happiness. To be truly happy, you and I must also choose God and his sacrificial way of loving.

    Jesus makes the same demand in the gospel reading. He offers us a choice. There are the Beatitudes, the ‘Happy indeed are those who…’ statement that call us to be happy by living in God’s ways. There are also the ‘Alas for you…” statements that can take us away from God if we fail to heed them.

    As Christians, the choice is obvious. Be assured we can make that right choice because Jesus’ death and resurrection empower us to choose God and eternal life with God. This is St Paul’s hope-filled message today. 

    This is indeed the long view we must keep in mind as Jesus’ disciples. John Seow knew this. He practiced it by keeping God at the center of his life even as he prepared and sat for his O Level examinations. His prayer life helped him do this. 

    Let us do what John Seow did: strive to stay close to Jesus, especially in the heat of things not going right in our lives. When we do,  we need not fear because God is with us. Then, our lives will flourish like that fruitful tree by the flowing waters because He will prosper our lives. If you agree with me that this is how God loves us to give us life to the full, then, our response must simply be this — to stay rooted ourselves in Jesus.  Shall we?




    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart
    Photo: seekingalpha.com


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  5. Year C / Ordinary Time / Week 5 / Sunday

    Readings: Isaiah 6:1-2a, 3-8/ Ps 138:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 7-8 (R/V 1c) / 1 Corinthians 15:1-11  / Luke 5.1-11

     

     

    “...what matters is that I preached what they preach and this is what you all believed” (1 Corinthians 15.11)

     

    This is how St Paul closes his teaching to the Corinthians in today’s second reading. His words describe the essence of his mission: to proclaim the Good News that Jesus Christ preached and the apostles handed on. Throughout history Christians imitated St Pau; many heard and believed the Good News. We have received this Good News too, and we believe. Our Christian task is to hand it on to others.

     

    St Paul’s words remind me of this instruction to deacons: “Believe what you read, teach what you believe, and practise what you teach.” The ordaining bishop says it to them at their ordination. They are ordained not just to proclaim the Good News; they are to live Jesus’ way of life – for service.

     

    The call to service is the message in today’s readings. Serve the Lord by serving His people. This call is for you and me, as it is for deacons and those first Christians St Paul addressed at Corinth.  We know this call. Today God repeats it to us. Are we hearing God?

     

    St Paul preaches Jesus, God-with-us, loving and saving us. He preaches with words, even more, with his life. He does with a selfless ‘yes’ to the Lord.

     

    We also want to say ‘yes’ to the Lord. We want to echo Isaiah and say, “Here I am, send me.” This is our holy intention because we want our Christian life to count for something.  

     

    The honest truth is that we all struggle to do this. Like Isaiah, we know how wretched, how lost, and how unclean we are when we sin. Even more, we know it when we look into the face of God and encounter his immeasurable goodness and love. For many of us, God’s mercy to forgive overwhelms, and we want to run away from God and hide.

     

    Run away: this is how the Evil One seduces us. Tempting us that we are never good enough. Never good enough especially for God.

     

    Today, Jesus’ words and actions remind us that we are more than good enough to stay with Him and live His call to serve. Stay and serve with him on mission. With Him beside us. With Him who – first of all – steps into the boats our lives are.

     

    In the gospel reading, Jesus steps into Peter’s boat. He does not ask permission. He takes Peter’s place in the boat. From here, He preaches and teaches God’s people with authority. Indeed, Jesus steps into Peter’s boat and the people’s lives as the Good Shepherd who looks out for His own and cares for them. 

     
    To hear God’s Word, and then to trust and follow it. This is how the miracle of the surprising, plentiful catch of fish happens. By stepping into Peter's boat, Jesus makes out of the emptiness of our lives much good. A wasted night of fishing nothing is no more. Now there is an overflowing abundance that even spills into the other boat. All this happens because Peter listens, trusts and follows Jesus’ instruction. 

     

    Even more, it happens because Jesus’s bold, even impertinent, act of stepping into the empty boat changes everything. Peter does not lose his boat nor does Jesus possess it. Rather, both enter into friendship and this makes Peter’s faith, life and service come alive and flourish. 

     

    Jesus wants to do the same for us; He is inviting us to partner him, and as our friend He will let our lives flourish by serving others. If we do, the empty nets in our lives will be filled, often with excess beyond our imagination. There will be fish for the catch, food for nourishment and life in abundance instead of emptiness or lack. 

     

    What we don’t have, Jesus will provide, often with much more that we can possibly imagine.  When we don’t have, Jesus will turn up and give, always surprising us. This miracle of something more and better out of nothing is Jesus’ assurance that God keeps his promise to be with us and for us. 

     

    Again and again, Jesus reminds us what God’s expectation is: that we share generously, even better, that we do it selflessly. Many others need this goodness that sustains and nourishes, refreshes and remakes us and our lives. Once again, Jesus calls us to share what we receive from Him through lives of service. Are we?

     

    Right here, right now, Jesus is indeed stepping into the boats of our lives. However fragile, broken, shabby, unsightly, even ill-fitted for the open waters, we are, Jesus is stepping into our lives through today’s readings, today's Eucharist. 

     

    Stepping into our lives because Jesus chooses us to join Him and  serve everyone. His love is bighearted that where we see our unworthiness, he values us worthy.  Worthy, and, even more, worth His while and His love to be His. 

     

    Indeed, our life becomes His boat  -- wide and deep enough to include and shelter many. A boat sturdy and strong enough to brave stormy seas to bring all to safety.  With Him in the boat of our life, He will lead us far and wide across the waters to those in need at the horizons. Indeed, we are truly His vessel to carry the lifesaving cargo of the Good News to all peoples.

     
    You know how true this is when you live in God’s Spirit and let Him shape your life for the good of others. Can you recall a moment when you made a difference for others? Now that’s how good your partnership with Jesus can be for someone else.

     

    Jesus does this for everyone through us and with us because He wants to. He desires so very much to step into our lives and set himself up in order to transfigure us for better. He will do this by forming us to:

     

    believe what we read in Scripture,

    teach what we believe to everyone,

    practise what we teach in our lives.

     

    Today we have every right to be joyful because Jesus wants to make us better to serve Him by serving others. We can help Jesus make this happen by cooperating with Him in our lives. Let us begin by responding, not just hearing, this instruction He says to us, as he once said to Peter, “put out into deep water and pay out your nets for a catch.”

     

    Shall we? Dare we?

     



     

    Preached at Church of the Church of the Sacred Heart

    Photo by shayan abedi on Unsplash



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  6. Year C / Ordinary Time / Week 2 / Sunday
    Readings: Isaiah 62.1-5 / Ps 95.1-2a.2b-3, 7-8a, 9-10a,c (R/v 3) / 1 Corinthians 12.4-11 /John 2.1-11


    “O sing a new song to the Lord, sing to the Lord, all the earth. O sing to the Lord, bless his name.”

    This is the psalmist’s call to everyone. It invites us to thank the Lord for His goodness to us. It also exhorts us to praise the Lord for who He is in our lives. Indeed, hasn’t the Lord worked wonders for us as we began this new year? Like beginning well, having good health, perhaps, starting a new job or simply being happy? And, don’t we believe He will continue to do more going forward?

    Indeed, sing a new song to the Lord we must be. Particularly for Jesus’ baptism last Sunday when, with Jesus, we heard God declare him the Beloved. Thereafter, Jesus went into the ordinary, everydayness of his life and ministry making every encounter he had extraordinary. Think of his ‘come and see’ welcome to John the Baptist’s disciples, his merciful forgiveness of the adulterous woman, his trust to call fishermen to become fishers of men and his audacious invitation to eat at Zacchaeus’ house. For us, the grace of Jesus’ teaching and healing, his forgiveness and loving that others do to us are His blessings in daily life. It reveals that we too are God’s beloved.

    So look around as we continue onward into 2025. If we pay attention, we’ll begin to sense this: change is in the air. Yes, change that God is bringing about. Can we see its promise? Do you smell its freshness? Will you taste its goodness? What might these be for you? For my nephew, Daniel, it is hope as he begins secondary school. 

    In the First Reading we hear about the new names by which God will be calling Israel.  Instead of former names of abandoned and forsaken, Her new name will be “My Delight” and “The Wedded.” These names signify great change. They tell us God is doing something wondrous, even life-giving. He is changing how the people understand themselves. As their bridegroom He recognises them as his Beloved, even with their sins. God wants to do the same for all peoples, including you and me. We are all His Beloved. 

    In today’ Gospel we join Jesus, his mother, the stewards and guests at that wedding at Cana. We’re there to celebrate a marriage. There is prayer, feasting, drinking, even dancing. Surely, love is in the air. 

    Then, the unexpected happens; there’s no more wine. Now, there’s dismay amongst the guests. For the groom and his wife, panic, frustration, anger. For the servants, blame and fear. Simply put, there’s chaos.

    Now there’s change in the air too;  a miracle is about to happen. Water is brought to Jesus. Water, that image of chaos in the Creation story, is poured into six stone jars. Six, the number of days God created life, meaning and order out of chaos. Jesus changes water into wine. Now, the guests begin drinking from those six jars of wine, "the best that is kept to the end." No more chaos; now, life to the full, joy overbrimming. Truly a new song is sung. It must be for they celebrate not just a marriage but a reenactment of creation.

    What is created? Change, really. The kind of change God wants for his people. More than turning water into wine, Jesus’ miracle changes them. Their negative feelings when there was no wine is transformed into delight with the best wine. Now, what they experience is Jesus’ gracious care for them. Even though this was not yet the time for his glory to be seen, Jesus is the Christ who saves them. He wants to for they are His beloved.

    For St John the Evangelist, Jesus’ miracle of changing water into wine reveals more than His glory. It is God’s invitation for us to have life to the full. Indeed, through Jesus’ life and teachings, his miracles and healing, we will be saved for life with God.  

    This is the gift of God’s relationship with us, His beloved own, even with our sins. No one can deny us this truth. Nothing can take it away. If you agree, then we have to fulfil God's task to us: to change our minds about ourselves, about others and then about all of creation, because we can no long see, think or understand, even live and love, in any other way than how God values us – precious and cherished. 

    This change takes time – like water into wine, like seed into fruit, like beloved from disowned. It happens nowhere else but in the ordinariness of everyday life, its pace often slow, repetitive, seemingly, going nowhere; for many, a banal waiting. Yet it is happening even now for Jesus is with us and nothing is impossible again.

    We hear this in the second reading. St Paul teaches us that no matter how different each of us are and how varied our gifts may be, the Holy Spirit who gathers everyone to serve the one Lord and one another. Truly, the grace of living, working, playing and praying as Christians is God gathering individuals into one community, and enriched by everyone’s gift, for life with God and one another. This is how we can do great things that witness God’s saving love in the world.

    If you and I choose to do this and let God’s glory shine through us, we are like Mary cooperating with God to fulfil his plan for salvation. The Jesuit Fr Larry Gillick explains: “In a strange way, the history of God’s revelation is a study in punctuation. Creation begins as an exclamation point. Human response is a question mark. God continues the conversation with commas and semicolons, always hinting that there was more to be said.  With Jesus there are more definite statements ending with periods and more rearranging which end where God began, with double exclamation points.  With Jesus, God is saying ‘yes!’”*

    Will we say ‘yes’ too, and sing that new song to the Lord, and bless His holy name?




    *Adapted from the writings of Fr Larry Gillick, SJ

    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Singapore
    Photo by Edward Cisneros on Unsplash

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  7.  
    Year C / End of the Christmas Season / Baptism of the Lord 
    Readings: Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7 / Ps 103. 1-4, 24-25,27-28, 29-30 (R/v 1) / Acts 10:34-38 / Luke 3:15-16, 21-22


    Many of us begin the new year with good wishes to one another and prayers to God for a better future. We also do by writing new year resolutions to change our old ways, become kinder, live happier and hopefully come closer to God.

    When I was younger a childhood friend and I made resolutions for the new year together. We wrote them down and signed off at the bottom of the list. Then, we did that gesture of commitment, a pinky promise, and we tucked that piece of paper away for future reference. 

    At the end of that year, we looked back and we fell short of many of those resolutions. But we still got through the year together. Now, I know what more that the pinky promise was all about. This: that we’d try to be there for each other, for good or ill, no matter what happened. It’s the sort of promise that is stronger than any failure because it is rooted in friendship.

    Isn’t friendship what Jesus also desires with us? “I call you friends,” he declares to the apostles and to us. I wonder if we did make resolutions with Jesus as friends would we share a pinky promise. If we did, would we feel overwhelmed that we’ve a checklist to complete? And if we didn’t, would we judge ourselves not good enough and unworthy to be his friend?

    Yet everything Christianity proclaims in scripture and prayer, worship and practice, is simply this Gospel message: that with Jesus, God’s love comes first, always. 

    We need to hear this message because we are always busy, easily distracted, and often forgetful that we don’t value enough how unshakeable God’s love for all of us is. We hear this truth when St Paul tells Titus in the second reading that in Jesus, “God’s grace has been revealed, and it has made salvation possible for the whole human race.” And as Isaiah prophesied in the first reading: “‘Here is your God”: he is the shepherd who gathers, feeds and leads his flock.

    The world’s way is different. Its contracts and conditional promises, careful measurements and demarcations insist that membership has its privileges, you are either in or out. Some Christians, even amongst us, also hold this view; they police who are worthy Christians, who should receive communion, who God will save. 

    So, hear this again: God’s promise is that he loves everyone and everything and this is more enduring than any sin. Truly, you and I can do nothing to alter or diminish this. For Jesus, there is no other way to love but God’s way – foolishly, indiscriminately, without calculation or agenda, expectation or condition. And, to let ourselves be loved in that same way. 

    I'd like to suggest this is a message the Baptism of Jesus has for us. 

    Jesus comes to the River Jordan a simple, humble man, ordinary like everyone else with their failed resolutions and unfulfilled hopes. He is eager to love, to serve, to be among us. I wonder what John the Baptist thought and felt that the powerful, mighty Messiah he proclaimed all his life now submits himself to baptism that cleanses from sin and failure. 

    But Jesus is no ordinary human; he is God with us. By stepping into the water, he submerges into our human frailties, saying, “I love you as you are, not as I am.” Even more, Jesus’ action assures us that God is together with us, in the best and worst of days, in holy times or sinful moments.

    Jesus himself hears this when he emerges from the waters: “You are my son, the Beloved, my favour rests on you.” His belovedness is at the very core of who he is – the father’s own. It doesn’t depend on his failure or success. His belovedness moves him forward into everything that will follow, toward every person he will meet and onward in every response he will make — be it the temptations or miracles, the outcasts or his disciples, even his enemies, and every daily moment. I believe that Jesus’ recognition that he is the Father’s beloved sustains him when things get hard, when things fall apart, when he suffers and dies. 

    Belovedness is the Good News Jesus proclaimed in word and deed. In flesh, Jesus shows us what this looks like, More so, he enables us to really know that we are God’s beloved. Into belovedness we are baptised. Truly, belovedness is our birthright; claim it we must. 

    As Jesus does this for us, his friends, so must we share belovedness with one another; this is our life purpose. Henri Nouwen explains: “The greatest gift my friendship can give to you is the gift of your Belovedness. I can give that gift only insofar as I have claimed it for myself. Isn’t that what friendship is all about: giving to each other the gift of our Belovedness?”*

    The unimaginable scandal of God’s love is that we are his beloved and because we are, our belovedness is very good. Try as we might, nothing will change this. And once we realize this essential truth, we must begin to live in a new way. With confidence that no one needs to prove themselves worthy. With tender understanding that there’s real goodness about ourselves and everyone else. With the mercy that we can be kind and be friends with God and one another.

    I don’t think we accept this easily. If we do, it’s because we believe in God. In his goodness that no matter how we reach the finishing line this year or at the end of our lives, sprinting or crawling across, or even if we’re still in the messiness of our lives, He will still be there, saying, “you are my child, the beloved, and we’ve always been in this together.”

    Today we celebrate this truth – yes, God has stepped down into the river of life with us. He has been with us when we succeeded and failed. He will be with us in everything we try and are afraid to try, even our efforts at keeping this year’s resolutions. Yes, he will walk beside us. And we can only walk with him if we recognise our faith gives us hope to persevere because we are his beloved. 

    Indeed, we are. Perhaps, then, the only pinky promise that truly matters is this - his and ours.  




    * Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved


    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart
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  8. Year C / Christmastide / Solemnity of the Epiphany
    Readings: Isaiah 60.1-6 / Responsorial Psalm 71.2, 7-8, 20-11, 12-13 (R/v cf 11) / Ephesians 3.2-3a, 5-6 / Matthew 2.1-12


    “Arise, shine out, Jerusalem, for your light has come.”

    Isaiah declares this to the Israelites in the first reading. It’s his invitation to them to wake up from sleep, to gather in the holy places and to pay homage to God. Simply put, Isaiah challenges them to respond to God’s desire to know and be known by us. Today, Isaiah demands we do the same.

    Isaiah uses metaphors of light and darkness to help us understand and speak of Jesus as God’s radiance that dispels the darkness in us and around us. They help Him explain how an Incarnate God is present among us. Even more, how God is revealed to us in Jesus, just as the day is revealed by its dawning. The Scriptures and Church tradition also use these metaphors to do the same. And they help our finite minds make sense of an infinite God come down to us.

    The wise men do likewise; they speak of a star that guides them to Jesus. “We saw his star as it rose and have come to do him homage,” they say in the gospel reading. I imagine how the light of this star tells that even the galaxies are caught up in the wondrous story of God gifting Jesus to us. Even more, this light, this star, reveals the faith God has given us – it leads us to Him who Jesus alone reveals.

    Indeed didn’t our faith helped us make the Advent journey to the only manger God desires: our hearts? Is He really dwelling in our hearts?

    Jesus also wants to dwell in everyone’s hearts. In the second reading St Paul reminds the Ephesians and us that God makes this same promise to Christians and non-Christians alike: that in Jesus, all peoples are saved. 

    How then are all of us to navigate the myriad valleys, plateaus and peaks of today’s world and find our way to Jesus? We must consider because these can distract us from finding Jesus or delay our journey toward Him or draw us into the darkness of sin and death, blinding us from following that star to Him.

    The wise men can be our guides to Jesus. They have three dispositions to make this journey; we need them too. 

    First, fervour. These wise men are foreigners, led through the night by wonder and hope. They come to Jesus eagerly following the path fixed in the stars (which, of course, can only be seen in the dark). Do we approach Jesus with equal wonder and hope? How eager are we to encounter Jesus? 

    Second, freedom. The wise men are not bound by Herod’s political machinations. Neither are they beholden to anyone wanting to dominate or exploit them. I imagine them safeguarding their freedom to let the star be their only guide to Jesus. Yes, they faithfully, even obediently, followed God’s light. How free are we to let go and let God lead us to Jesus? What obstacles block us onward?

    Third, faithfulness. To reach Jesus, the wise men are guided by dreams and visions, by the wisdom of hidden roads, by attentiveness to the signs around them. With faith, they say ‘yes’ to  God’s invitation to come and see. Today, God wants to do the same for us. Is our individual, even collective, faith equally strong to go wherever God wants to take us and meet Him there?

    Fervour. Freedom. Faithfulness. These God-given dispositions can lead us, like the wise men, to that place of our collective longing: to gaze upon God’s hidden face in Jesus and through Jesus, to know that He is gazing back at us. What would we see reflected in his eyes?

    Maybe this. Wise men, kingly in stature, prostrating and doing Him homage as the infant king of all the nations. Shepherds, lowly, poor, and socially outcast, but the first to come and adore him. Mary and Joseph looking back at Him tenderly, loving Him who is God-with-us.

    What else can all this be but the revelation that Jesus’ coming as the Christ turns everything upside down. The mighty are made low; the poor are uplifted. The hungry are fed; the rich sent away empty. Yes, all that Mary sung about in her Magnificat comes to life when Jesus is born; because of him, nothing will ever be the same again.

    If we squint our eyes and look a little more attentively into Jesus’ eyes, we might see ourselves reflected back. See our thankful faces that Jesus is born and is with us. Then, we might just realise that it doesn't matter how small we think we are – how insignificant, not worthy or broken – because here we are rejoicing with the angels on high and singing with Mary about the great big love story God wrote that first Christmas and is still writing now. And yes, that we are doing this alongside the wise men, the shepherds and everyone else, regardless of race, language or religion.

    All of this is unbelievably possible because God so loved the world that He sent us Jesus, his only Son, and whoever believes in him  will have everlasting life. This is why the world is now upside down for everyone. Even more, topsy-turvy for us Christians because God’s salvation isn’t just for you and me. It is for all peoples: yes, the pagans but also for every sinner, for everyone who’s hurt us, for everyone we disagree with, ignore or hate. Today’s feast celebrates this Christmas joy.

    We cannot truly grasp the profound depth, breadth and height of this joy unless we understand how different our journey to Jesus could possibly have been if we had dared to choose to let God  guide us like those wise men. It means we would have travelled “by another road.” One on which we might have recognised our limited ways of appreciating Christmas, including our lamentable attitude towards Jesus. Perhaps, then God could have pushed us beyond them to dream what more Jesus’ coming could be in our lives. If this wasn’t our journey to Jesus this Christmas, don’t worry; there’s always the next Advent and the new journey it offers.

    Till then, we have to journey through this year. Let’s ask for the grace to do this with renewed faith. We can because Christ has come; with him, we can more clearly see God in all things. So like those shepherds who adored him and those wise mind who prostrated themselves before him, let’s journey onwards into 2025 singing praise, even more, by a different route, for Christ is with us and we are better for Him.  Shall we?




    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart, Singapore
    Photo by Gaurav K on Unsplash


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  9. 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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  10.  
    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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    Labels: Breaking Open God's Word Christmas
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Fall in Love, Stay in Love
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"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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