20141218 LIVING A LIFE OF INTEGRITY ENTAILS A RELATIONSHIP WITH
THE LORD
Readings at Mass
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First reading
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Jeremiah 23:5-8 ©
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See, the days are
coming – it is the Lord who speaks –
when I will raise a
virtuous Branch for David,
who will reign as
true king and be wise,
practising honesty
and integrity in the land.
In his days Judah
will be saved
and Israel dwell in
confidence.
And this is the name
he will be called:
The-Lord-our-integrity.
So, then, the days
are coming – it is the Lord who speaks – when people will no longer
say, “As the Lord lives who brought the sons of Israel out of the land of
Egypt!” but, “As the Lord lives who led back and brought home the descendants
of the House of Israel out of the land of the North and from all the countries
to which he had dispersed them, to live on their own soil.”
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Psalm
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Psalm
71:1-2,12-13,18-19 ©
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In his days
justice shall flourish, and peace until the moon fails.
O God, give your
judgement to the king,
to a
king’s son your justice,
that he may judge
your people in justice
and your
poor in right judgement.
In his days
justice shall flourish, and peace until the moon fails.
For he shall save the
poor when they cry
and the
needy who are helpless.
He will have pity on
the weak
and save
the lives of the poor.
In his days
justice shall flourish, and peace until the moon fails.
Blessed be the Lord,
God of Israel,
who alone
works wonders,
ever blessed his
glorious name.
Let his
glory fill the earth.
Amen! Amen!
In his days
justice shall flourish, and peace until the moon fails.
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Gospel
Acclamation
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Alleluia, alleluia!
Ruler of the House of
Israel,
who gave the law to
Moses on Sinai,
come and save us with
outstretched arm.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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Matthew 1:18-24 ©
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This is how Jesus Christ
came to be born. His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph; but before they came
to live together she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Her
husband Joseph; being a man of honour and wanting to spare her publicity,
decided to divorce her informally. He had made up his mind to do this when the
angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do
not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because she has conceived what is
in her by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you must name him
Jesus, because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins.’ Now
all this took place to fulfil the words spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
The virgin will
conceive and give birth to a son
and they will call
him Emmanuel,
a
name which means ‘God-is-with-us.’ When Joseph woke up he did what the angel of
the Lord had told him to do: he took his wife to his home.
LIVING
A LIFE OF INTEGRITY ENTAILS A RELATIONSHIP WITH THE LORD
SCRIPTURE
READINGS: JER 23:5-6; MT 1:18-24
Peace and joy have often been associated with
Christmas. It is the hope of the world that with the coming of Christ,
there will be true peace and joy. Yet peace can only come about when
we live integrated lives. Indeed, the real reason for the lack of
peace within ourselves is the lack of integrity in our lives. By this I
do not mean so much moral integrity but personal integrity. In other
words, we live fragmented lives. We allow our lives to be dictated by
endless demands made upon us, and then we get stressed and lose our sense of
direction. We become so caught up in our work, which seems never ending,
so much so that we do not even have time for prayer. When we are in this
situation, then we are just like the Israelites in exile in Babylon to whom the
prophecy was addressed. Like them, we feel dispersed and scattered.
We are not at home, not living in our own soil, so to speak. We become
shaken and lose our confidence just like them.
How then can we regain
our peace? The
answer is clear in today’s scripture readings. The motif that prevails in
both readings is the theme of integrity. We need to live an integrated
life. But what does it mean to live such a kind of life? This is
where we are called to reflect on Joseph who was portrayed in today’s
gospel reading as the just man.
We are told that he was a
just man and a man of honour. He did not want to do anything that
would offend God. Consequently when he found that Mary was with
child, he understood that he could not be the father of the child. He wanted
to put Mary away not so much to protect her from an apparent wrong doing.
If that were so, then he would have been an accomplice to the crime since under
the law, the penalty for adultery was stoning. This would surely not be
consistent with a just man like Joseph. No, in his case, he felt that he
was unworthy to be the father of Jesus.
It was this fear that the
angel tried to allay by assuring him that he had a role to play in the
messianic redemption. He was to be the foster-father of Jesus and he had
to name Him Jesus. He was called to accept Jesus as a gift from
God. But more importantly, he was called to adopt Jesus as his
son. To speak of adoption, of course, is to speak about a relationship.
Joseph was called in a special way to relate with Jesus as His
foster-father. It is fundamentally a relationship of love and care.
By so doing, Joseph proved himself to be truly a just man. He did what
God wanted him to do. Like Mary, Joseph was faithful to God in every
way. In this way, Jesus truly was born of the lineage of the Davidic
dynasty and thus fulfilled the prophecy that the Messiah would come from a
virtuous branch of the throne of David.
In a similar way, we can
dare to posit that like Mary, who conceived Jesus in her heart and in her womb,
Joseph too conceived Jesus in his heart. In both Joseph and Mary,
we can say that the Emmanuel was real for them. Emmanuel, which means God
is with us, was truly with them in a special way. And because God was
with them, they too were saved by Jesus, the name which means ‘God
saves’. And this was possible only because Joseph and Mary both lived
lives of integrity. They were one with God. Conversely, Jesus was
also one with them. Jesus also lived a life of integrity, as Jeremiah
prophesied of the future Messiah. Jesus was both faithful to His divinity
and humanity. He wants to save us by being with us. He wants to
be with us so that we can be one with God.
Now what is true of
Joseph and Jesus, is also true of those of us who are in leadership or in
positions of authority. What is the role of a leader or of parents
if not to maintain the unity and integrity of those individuals and groups
under their care? The task of a leader is not so much to dominate
others, but simply to serve the interests of everyone and to guard the
common good of the organization he or she is heading. Hence, those in
authority would require the gifts of wisdom, honesty and integrity in order to
act as true leaders of unity, like the messianic king Himself.
And in order to gain
credibility and respect from those who are placed under our charge, we must
first live lives of integrity. This is what the prophet has to say
about the messianic king ”who will reign as true king and be wise, practising
honesty and integrity in the land.” Only when leaders are living lives of
integrity, can they earn respect and trust from those under their care.
This is what the prophet says, “In his days Judah will be saved and Israel
dwell in confidence. And this is the name he will be called: The
Lord-our-integrity.”
Secondly, those in
positions of authority must be one with their members. This was the way of Joseph and
Jesus. The former was one with God whereas the latter was one with
us. Only in this way could a real relationship of love, understanding and
care be forged. Without this mutual identification, it would indeed be
very difficult to speak of a loving and trusting relationship between authority
and subordinates. There can be neither trust nor confidence without
mutual understanding. Consequently, the leader would not be seen as
the Emmanuel of God, but a tyrant and a dictator of the community
instead. Hence like the psalmist, it is important to pray for our leaders
that God will endow them with justice, so that they can govern with fairness
and integrity. Of course what is said of the leader applies equally to
the rest of the members as well. All of us are called in our own way
to live an integrated life, guided by those who are responsible for the overall
unity of the organization and our commitment to God’s will.
In the final analysis, all
these can only make sense when we are all one in mind in doing God’s will and
searching for God’s will together. The problem comes only when our
will becomes more important than His. Let us pray during this Advent
season of grace that we might have the attitude of Joseph and Mary in their
utter fidelity to God’s plan for them in their lives. Once we have such
an attitude, then we can be sure that our family, and whichever organization we
are in, will be united and that we will all live in peace and integrity.
In such a house and community, we can truly say that God is with us – Emmanuel!
WRITTEN BY THE MOST REV
WILLIAM GOH
ARCHBISHOP
OF SINGAPORE
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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