20141031 GROWING IN HOLINESS COMES FROM SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND
PERCEPTION
First
reading
Philippians
1:1-11 ©
From
Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus,
together with their presiding elders and deacons. We wish you the grace and
peace of God our Father and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I thank my God whenever I think of you; and
every time I pray for all of you, I pray with joy, remembering how you have
helped to spread the Good News from the day you first heard it right up to the
present. I am quite certain that the One who began this good work in you will
see that it is finished when the Day of Christ Jesus comes. It is only natural
that I should feel like this towards you all, since you have shared the
privileges which have been mine: both my chains and my work defending and
establishing the gospel. You have a permanent place in my heart, and God knows
how much I miss you all, loving you as Christ Jesus loves you. My prayer is
that your love for each other may increase more and more and never stop
improving your knowledge and deepening your perception so that you can always
recognise what is best. This will help you to become pure and blameless, and
prepare you for the Day of Christ, when you will reach the perfect goodness
which Jesus Christ produces in us for the glory and praise of God.
Psalm Psalm 110:1-6 ©
Great
are the works of the Lord.
or
Alleluia!
I
will thank the Lord with all my heart
in the meeting of the just and their
assembly.
Great
are the works of the Lord,
to be pondered by all who love them.
Great
are the works of the Lord.
or
Alleluia!
Majestic
and glorious his work,
his justice stands firm for ever.
He
makes us remember his wonders.
The Lord is compassion and love.
Great
are the works of the Lord.
or
Alleluia!
He
gives food to those who fear him;
keeps his covenant ever in mind.
He
has shown his might to his people
by giving them the lands of the nations.
Great
are the works of the Lord.
or
Alleluia!
Gospel
Acclamation cf.1Th2:13
Alleluia,
alleluia!
Accept
God’s message for what it really is:
God’s
message, and not some human thinking.
Alleluia!
Or Jn10:27
Alleluia,
alleluia!
The
sheep that belong to me listen to my voice,
says
the Lord,
I
know them and they follow me.
Alleluia!
Gospel Luke 14:1-6 ©
On
a sabbath day Jesus had gone for a meal to the house of one of the leading
Pharisees; and they watched him closely. ‘There in front of him was a man with
dropsy, and Jesus addressed the lawyers and Pharisees. ‘Is it against the law’
he asked ‘to cure a man on the sabbath, or not?’ But they remained silent, so
he took the man and cured him and sent him away. Then he said to them, ‘Which
of you here, if his son falls into a well, or his ox, will not pull him out on
a sabbath day without hesitation?’ And to this they could find no answer.
GROWING
IN HOLINESS COMES FROM SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND PERCEPTION
SCRIPTURE
READINGS: PH 1:1-11; LK 14:1-6
Christians
are called saints in Christ. This was how St Paul addressed the
early Christians when he said, “From Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ
Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus, together with their presiding elders
and deacons.” To be a saint is to be holy. The basic idea of
holiness is to be different and to be set apart. So to be holy requires
us to stand out from the world in the way we live.
Holiness
means that, like Jesus, we have the capacity to love freely and selflessly.
Holiness without a life of love is not holiness. To the extent we are
capable of love, to that degree we have become more like Christ. Indeed,
according to St Paul, this is the way to “prepare us for the Day of Christ”,
when we will reach “the perfect goodness which Christ Jesus produces in us for
the glory and praise of God.”
However,
love is not a simple reality. For most of us, our love is not
pure. Quite often, our love is blind. Many times, we love with
ulterior motives. We might think that we are loving people when in fact,
we are not. At most, our love is a pagan love, which is a love directed
at those who love us. Pure love is rare, and only those who have attained
a high degree of authentic self-love and selflessness can love unconditionally.
Hence, St Paul urges us “never stop improving your knowledge and deepening your
perception so that you can always recognize what is best” so that we can
“become pure and blameless.”
So, if
we are to grow in love, we need to grow in knowledge and perception or
clarity. There is a need to grow firstly in knowledge of ourselves.
We must have the courage to look not simply at what we do, but more
importantly, we must consider the motives for what we do. The ‘what’ is not as
important as the ‘why’, for God judges not the action but the intentions of the
heart. So only those who know themselves are capable of love.
The
Pharisees in today’s gospel did not know themselves. They were
more concerned about keeping the Laws so that they can “save” themselves by
appearing holy and righteous before God and man. Their motives for observing
the Sabbath were not rooted in the love of God and the love of man but on
pride.
For
true love to take place, we must also be aware of others. If we
love anything or any person, then we would want to know more and more about the
object of our love. True love is to be sensitive to the needs of the
person. We must be more attuned to the hearts of those whom we
love. If we love blindly and insensitively, we will hurt those we seek to
love because we have no regard for their feelings. If we choose to love
in the way we want to love and not the way the person wants to be loved, then
we are not practising true love. Without knowledge of others, we might
end up serving ourselves rather than serving them. It is like giving
gifts. Quite often we give the kind of gifts we ourselves like to
receive, rather than what we think our recipients want to receive. This
is also very true when it comes to serving God. Often we do the work for
God, but not the work of God, because we dictate how we are to serve Him, and
not how He would have us serve Him. So although we appear to be serving God, in
truth, we are serving ourselves, since the work we do pleases us rather than
God Himself.
Here
again, the Pharisees were not aware of the needs of the man suffering
from dropsy. Instead of looking at his needs, they were making use of him
for their own purpose. As a consequence, they lost their objectivity.
They could not differentiate between the need to save a life versus the purpose
of observing the Law. They were only intent on catching Jesus. They were
oblivious to the man who desperately needed help. Quite often, we too lose our
sense of proportion. We fight over petty matters and neglect the more
important things of life. We insist that certain rules be kept but
overlook the weightier matters.
Thus,
we adopt double standards in applying the laws. We excuse people whom we
know and love, but towards our enemies or strangers, we apply the letter of the
law. Why? Because they do not affect our happiness or increase our
happiness! We can be sure that if that sick man was a family member, the
Pharisees would not act in that manner, but would surely want Jesus to save
him, Sabbath notwithstanding.
Finally,
if we want to love rightly, we must know God. The Pharisees did
not know God and His love and therefore were legalistic. They were
actually good people trying to observe the Covenantal laws. But they
misinterpreted the nature and heart of God. Obedience to the laws of
course is necessary. But the Sabbath law is made for man, not man for the
Sabbath. As a result, they placed obedience to the laws before love of
neigbour.
Thus,
true love can only come from our love for Christ. Unless we have a
deeper perception of the love of Christ and the truth about Jesus, we cannot
grow in love for Jesus and experience His love. So besides growing in knowledge
and perception of ourselves and those whom we love, we must seek to deepen our
knowledge of Christ. In this way, we will grow in pure love. Without an
understanding of the mind of Christ, without contemplating on the love of
Christ, we can never grow in authentic love for others. How can we give
to others what we ourselves do not have? So only in Christ, can we love
purely and rightly!
If we
are different in the way we live, it is because of our union and
relationship with Christ. Indeed, Christians, as St Paul says, are
saints in Christ Jesus. In other words, if we are different from the rest
of the world, it is because we live in Christ and are filled with the presence
of Christ in all that we say, do or think. It is this consciousness of
Christ’s presence in our hearts and in our lives that make us act differently
in the world. Thus, holiness is being consecrated to Christ in such a way
that we belong to Christ through our special relationship with Him.
We have
Jesus as the model of one who is capable of love. Jesus was a
man who knew Himself. For this reason, even though He was under the
scrutiny of His enemies, He behaved normally. Many of us would have lost
our nerve if we were always under constant and critical scrutiny. But
because Jesus was always true to Himself, He was able to remain calm and centered,
even when He was under the public eye. Hence, to know oneself is to know
who we are and behave accordingly. Only when we know ourselves, our
strength and weakness, are we then capable of love.
Secondly,
Jesus demonstrated His capacity to love unconditionally by choosing to
reach out to His enemies. He accepted the Pharisee’s invitation, even
though He knew He was putting Himself at risk. But for Jesus, no one is
lost and should be considered hopeless. He had come to win over His
enemies; not to love only those who loved Him. What better way to clarify
Himself and explain His stand on the Sabbath than to go to His enemy’s house
personally. Truly, we can never win over our enemies if we are closed to
dialogue and communication.
St Paul
invites us “to become pure and blameless” so that we can “reach the perfect
goodness which Christ Jesus produces in us for the glory and praise of
God.” Holiness is to become the glory of God in us. We are
called to purge all evil from our lives. Purity in love and clarity in
knowledge go together. Without knowledge and love, we will cause people
to stumble, or we hurt them by not loving them rightly or not loving them at
all. But in our goodness, we will attract people to Christ and the
Christian way of life. Our hope is that, in seeing our way of life, they
will be directed to the glory of God in us made possible in Christ. Then
they, too, can be the saints of God.
WRITTEN BY THE MOST REV
WILLIAM GOH
ARCHBISHOP
OF SINGAPORE
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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