20141106 THE JOY OF BEING FOUND
First
reading
Philippians
3:3-8 ©
We
are the real people of the circumcision, we who worship in accordance with the
Spirit of God; we have our own glory from Christ Jesus without having to rely
on a physical operation. If it came to relying on physical evidence, I should
be fully qualified myself. Take any man who thinks he can rely on what is
physical: I am even better qualified. I was born of the race of Israel and of
the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrew parents, and I was circumcised
when I was eight days old. As for the Law, I was a Pharisee; as for working for
religion, I was a persecutor of the Church; as far as the Law can make you
perfect, I was faultless. But because of Christ, I have come to consider all
these advantages that I had as disadvantages. Not only that, but I believe
nothing can happen that will outweigh the supreme advantage of knowing Christ
Jesus my Lord.
Psalm Psalm 104:2-7 ©
Let
the hearts that seek the Lord rejoice.
or
Alleluia!
O
sing to the Lord, sing his praise;
tell all his wonderful works!
Be
proud of his holy name,
let the hearts that seek the Lord rejoice.
Let
the hearts that seek the Lord rejoice.
or
Alleluia!
Consider
the Lord and his strength;
constantly seek his face.
Remember
the wonders he has done,
his miracles, the judgements he spoke.
Let
the hearts that seek the Lord rejoice.
or
Alleluia!
O
children of Abraham, his servant,
O sons of the Jacob he chose.
He,
the Lord, is our God:
his judgements prevail in all the earth.
Let
the hearts that seek the Lord rejoice.
or
Alleluia!
Gospel
Acclamation cf.Ps129:5
Alleluia,
alleluia!
My
soul is waiting for the Lord,
I
count on his word.
Alleluia!
Or Mt11:28
Alleluia,
alleluia!
Come
to me, all you who labour and are overburdened,
and
I will give you rest, says the Lord.
Alleluia!
Gospel Luke 15:1-10 ©
The
tax collectors and the sinners were all seeking the company of Jesus to hear
what he had to say, and the Pharisees and the scribes complained. ‘This man’
they said ‘welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ So he spoke this parable to
them:
‘What man among you with a hundred sheep,
losing one, would not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the
missing one till he found it? And when he found it, would he not joyfully take
it on his shoulders and then, when he got home, call together his friends and
neighbours? “Rejoice with me,” he would say “I have found my sheep that was
lost.” In the same way, I tell you, there will be more rejoicing in heaven over
one repentant sinner than over ninety-nine virtuous men who have no need of
repentance.
‘Or again, what woman with ten drachmas would
not, if she lost one, light a lamp and sweep out the house and search
thoroughly till she found it? And then, when she had found it, call together
her friends and neighbours? “Rejoice with me,” she would say “I have found the
drachma I lost.” In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing among the
angels of God over one repentant sinner.’
THE
JOY OF BEING FOUND
SCRIPTURE
READINGS:PHIL 3:3-8; LK 15:1-10
Most of
us at times in our lives can feel quite lost. Life seems to be
meaningless. Quite often too, we feel that God is missing. Deep
in our hearts there is no doubt that all of us are seeking God and meaning in
our lives. Unfortunately, the more we search for Him, the further away He
appears to be. We look for Him among our friends, only to find them so
disappointing; we look for Him in our achievements, only to find that they are
so temporal and empty. Where then can we find Him?
Perhaps,
we need not look for Him. What we need to do is to allow ourselves
to be found by Him. Indeed, one of the most consoling words in the gospel
is to be told that God is seeking us out. Very often we think we
that we have to search for God when in fact God is looking for us.
Indeed, if God had not first found us, we would never have been able to find
Him in the first place. Both parables in today’s gospel speak of this God
who is constantly looking for us. We are just like the lost sheep and the
lost coin. God has always loved us, and every one of us is immensely
important to Him. This is equally true for Paul, the initial persecutor
of the Church. He did not find Christ, but Christ found him. He was
looking for a means to justify himself through his observance of the laws.
Ironically, his qualifications disqualified him.
This is what grace is
all about. The
Church’s teaching about grace is that God takes the initiative; on our
part we only need to respond. To speak about seeking God seems to
impute the act of finding Him as more due to our efforts than God’s
grace. If we try to find God through our efforts we will never find Him
because it will be a contradiction. Emphasis on human efforts alone makes
us proud of ourselves. Of course, a proud man can never know God.
He will only despise others and make demands on God. God can only be
found in those who have humble hearts.
So what the scriptures want
to tell us is that we must allow God to find us. For it is only when
God finds us that we can really experience His love and presence as grace.
Only such an experience will change us radically. Even in daily life, we
do not feel so grateful for things that we have acquired through our own
effort, but we feel grateful when things are given to us in spite of our
unworthiness. What is true in life is also true in our relationship with
God. The reason why many of us are not thrilled about our faith is because
somehow we feel that we have earned it. Many of us are not thrilled about
our vocation because we somehow feel that we have earned it. We do not
see that everything we are and have, were made possible by the grace of God and
not by our human effort. We think it is because of our efforts and
discipline that God loves us.
Yes, it is only when we
receive His gift freely and undeservingly that we realize the extent of God’s
love for us. This was the case of Paul in today’s second
reading. If Paul was elated about God in Jesus, it was because his
credentials did not make him worthy of experiencing God’s love. Rather,
it was in his sinfulness and his persecution of the Church and Christ Himself
that he found God’s love. Christ loved him not because he was worthy, and it
was precisely because of that that Paul was changed radically. He had
nothing to boast about. The Pharisees and the scribes on the other hand,
had everything to boast about, since fulfilling the Torah depended more on their
efforts than on God’s grace. Hence, when “the tax collectors and the sinners
were all seeking the company of Jesus to hear what he had to say, the Pharisees
and the scribes complained. ‘This man’ they said ‘welcomes sinners and eats
with them.’” This caused St Paul to declare, “we are the real people of
the circumcision, we who worship in accordance with the Spirit of God; we have
our own glory from Christ Jesus without having to rely on a physical
operation.”
In a similar vein, St Paul
said “I have come to rate all as loss in the light of the surpassing knowledge
of my Lord Jesus Christ.” In other words, it was when he realized that finding
God is not something that we can earn but a gift from Him, that he began to
understand the meaning of God’s love for him. True repentance
happens only when we realize that God loves us unconditionally. True joy
is to know that there is someone who loves us unconditionally.
Perhaps, it is very difficult to find such a person in real life, but at least
we know that God loves us unconditionally. How wonderful it is to know
that God would personally seek us out, as individuals, like the shepherd who
went in search of the lost sheep. Above all, how He rejoices over us when
we are found. He loves each one of us like His very own. Such
thoughts as these should give us the strength to go through life.
How then are we supposed to allow
ourselves to be found by Him? Firstly, we must stop seeking
Him actively using our merits, for that will make us proud and self-righteous.
But it does not mean we do nothing. We can make ourselves available
and docile – that is, by making ourselves available to Him in prayer, in
relationships, in studies, in activities. But all the time we must
not think that these are means to find Him, but that these are the means to
allow Him to find us. It is a question of attitude. One leads
to pride, the other leads to humility and openness.
More importantly, we must
open our inner eyes to see the presence of God in all things and events in our
daily life. But as to when the Lord appears, it is solely dependent on
grace. This is why mystical writers often remind us that spiritual
desolation during the dark night of the spirit underscores the fact that the
experience of God cannot be brought about by human will alone. It depends
on grace. Otherwise, we can at will choose to make God appear and
disappear. Conversely, many people encounter God unexpectedly and in
surprising ways when they least expect. Such dramatic encounters often
change their lives radically. Such experiences of God’s love and action
in their lives are often labeled as “Conversion experiences.” When such a
person is found by God, his life will never be the same again, as was the case
of St Paul.
WRITTEN BY THE MOST REV
WILLIAM GOH
ARCHBISHOP
OF SINGAPORE
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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