20150601 NEVER GROW TIRED OF DOING WHAT IS RIGHT AND GOOD

20150601 NEVER GROW TIRED OF DOING WHAT IS RIGHT AND GOOD

Readings at Mass

First reading

Tobit 1:3,2:1-8 ©

I, Tobit, have walked in paths of truth and in good works all the days of my life. I have given much in alms to my brothers and fellow countrymen, exiled like me to Nineveh in the country of Assyria.

  In the reign of Esarhaddon I returned home, and my wife Anna was restored to me with my son Tobias. At our feast of Pentecost (the feast of Weeks) there was a good dinner. I took my place for the meal; the table was brought to me and various dishes were brought. Then I said to my son Tobias, ‘Go, my child, and seek out some poor, loyal-hearted man among our brothers exiled in Nineveh, and bring him to share my meal. I will wait until you come back, my child.’ So Tobias went out to look for some poor man among our brothers, but he came back again and said, ‘Father!’ I answered, ‘What is it, my child?’ He went on, ‘Father, one of our nation has just been murdered; he has been strangled and then thrown down in the market place; he is there still.’ I sprang up at once, left my meal untouched, took the man from the market place and laid him in one of my rooms, waiting until sunset to bury him. I came in again and washed myself and ate my bread in sorrow, remembering the words of the prophet Amos concerning Bethel:

Your feasts will be turned to mourning,

and all your songs to lamentation.

And I wept. When the sun was down, I went and dug a grave and buried him. My neighbours laughed and said, ‘See! He is not afraid any more.’ (You must remember that a price had been set on my head earlier for this very thing.) ‘The time before this he had to flee, yet here he is, beginning to bury the dead again.’

Psalm

Psalm 111:1-2,3-6 ©

Happy the man who fears the Lord.

or

Alleluia!

Happy the man who fears the Lord,

  who takes delight in all his commands.

His sons will be powerful on earth;

  the children of the upright are blessed.

Happy the man who fears the Lord.

or

Alleluia!

  his justice stands firm for ever.

He is a light in the darkness for the upright:

  he is generous, merciful and just.

Happy the man who fears the Lord.

or

Alleluia!

The good man takes pity and lends,

  he conducts his affairs with honour.

The just man will never waver:

  he will be remembered for ever.

Happy the man who fears the Lord.

or

Alleluia!

Gospel Acclamation

cf.Col3:16a,17

Alleluia, alleluia!

Let the message of Christ, in all its richness,

find a home with you;

through him give thanks to God the Father.

Alleluia!

Or

cf.Rv1:5

Alleluia, alleluia!

You, O Christ, are the faithful witness,

the First-born from the dead;

you have loved us and have washed away our sins with your blood.

Alleluia!

Gospel

Mark 12:1-12 ©

Jesus went on to speak to the chief priests, the scribes and the elders in parables: ‘A man planted a vineyard; he fenced it round, dug out a trough for the winepress and built a tower; then he leased it to tenants and went abroad. When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them his share of the produce from the vineyard. But they seized the man, thrashed him and sent him away empty-handed. Next he sent another servant to them; him they beat about the head and treated shamefully. And he sent another and him they killed; then a number of others, and they thrashed some and killed the rest. He had still someone left: his beloved son. He sent him to them last of all. “They will respect my son” he said. But those tenants said to each other, “This is the heir. Come on, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.” So they seized him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. Now what will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and make an end of the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this text of scripture:

It was the stone rejected by the builders

that became the keystone.

This was the Lord’s doing

and it is wonderful to see?

And they would have liked to arrest him, because they realised that the parable was aimed at them, but they were afraid of the crowds. So they left him alone and went away.

NEVER GROW TIRED OF DOING WHAT IS RIGHT AND GOOD

SCRIPTURE READINGS: TOBIT 1:3; 2:1-8; MARK 12:1-12

Today’s first reading is so inspiring for all of us.  What is most exemplary about Tobit is his commitment to doing what is right.  His mission statement is spelt out in his introduction, “I, Tobit, have walked in paths of truth and in good works all the days of my life.  I have given much in alms to my brothers and fellow countrymen, exiled like me to Nineveh in the country of Assyria.”

Certainly, most of us cannot compare with him in his faith in God, his generosity and compassion for his fellowmen.  He shared his food with the poor.  He put the needs of his compatriots before his own.  When he heard that one of them was murdered, he left his food behind immediately, and brought the dead man to his house for burial in the evening.  He did so even at the risk of getting into trouble with the law again.  Furthermore, he remained firm in helping others in need, even when his neighbours and his loved ones, including his wife, passed sarcastic remarks about him. He persevered in doing good even though he suffered misfortune for such acts, as in the case of his being blinded by the droppings of the pigeons.  In all these trials and difficulties, he never complained against God or cursed Him.

In contrast, the gospel tells us that the Jewish religious leaders only thought of their interests and protecting their position and status. They were greedy in spite of the generosity of God in choosing them.  In His kindness and compassion, God sent prophets to help them come to realization of their sinfulness.  Instead, they saw God’s messengers as a threat to their status quo and had them killed.  So blinded were they by their selfishness that they even murdered God’s only personal representative, His only Son!

What about us? Do we always do what is right and good?   Are we better than the Jewish leaders when it comes to being courageous in doing the right thing?  How often have we shrunk from doing good, doing what is right, or speaking the truth, because of fear of what others might say or how they would react?  We too want to protect our convenience and interests.  Such instances abound in community living, at the workplace, even in the family and in the parish.  We dare not act when we see scandals committed before our eyes, because it may bring us trouble.  We dare not speak the truth for fear that we may be challenged.  We refrain from doing good because others might question our motives, or we fear being taken advantage of.  We want to remain as the nice guy who offends no one at all costs, compromising even our principles so as to please others.

What is the secret of Tobit’s firmness in doing the right thing?   He was a man who feared God and observed His commandments.   But this fear of God must not be understood wrongly.  This fear of God was not one of servitude but of admiration, awe and reverence. For Tobit, having encountered this powerful and merciful God, he could not but be grateful to Him.  He knew that his position as an administrator to the king was due to God’s blessings.  Unlike the Jewish leaders, he felt that having been blessed by God, he should use his wealth, good fortune and position to help his weaker and poorer brothers.

Consequently, it must be noted that his compassion for his fellow brothers was motivated by the prior experience of God’s merciful love for him.  He was grateful to God and he manifested that gratitude by using his blessings to bless others.  What about us? Are we grateful to God for His blessings and are we willing to repay His kindness by being generous with others, using our talents and skills for the service of our weaker brothers and sisters?  Not to do so would be to behave like the Jewish religious leaders who not only did not pay their rent for the use of the vineyard but were greedy and even manipulative.  God gives us gifts, whether personal talents or wealth, not for ourselves only but so that we can be good stewards of His by distributing His gifts to others.

What then is the key to cultivating the courage to do good and the right thing, in the footsteps of Tobit? We too must fear God, awed by His love and mercy for us.  Our compassion for our brothers and sisters must not be simply an outflow of humanistic love, which is limiting, but rather, we must be moved by our own experience of God’s compassion for us.  Unless we come to realize that all we have, our health, our talents, our work and wealth come from Him alone, we will tend to think that we deserve them for ourselves because of our hard work.

Hence, we contemplate on the mercy and love of God as reflected in the person of Jesus Christ.  St John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict encourage us to contemplate on the face of Christ.  Only through the contemplation of His humanity and divinity, as the Apostolic letter Novo Millennio Ineunte reminds us, can we come to understand the heart and love of God for us.  Only through contemplating His passion, death and resurrection, can we know the power of love and forgiveness.  Yes, we must not be so foolish as to place our efforts in love and service on ourselves, but we must find them in Christ who is the awesomeness of God’s presence for us.  Jesus, who was rich became poor for our sake, is our cornerstone of righteous, courageous and victorious living.

To contemplate on His face would also require us to contemplate on the Eucharist as well, for it is in the Eucharist that we see both the face of Christ’s humanity and divinity.  For in the Eucharist, Jesus, truly divine and human, is present in the bread and wine.  It is the means by which we continue to relive His passion, death and resurrection.  Indeed, in the Eucharist, the heart of God’s love is found.  For this reason too, after the celebration of the Feast of Corpus Christi, the Church follows up immediately with the celebration of the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart.  Both feasts which are rooted in the humanity and divinity of Jesus, present to us the love of God, which is the basis for our fear and reverence for Him, and the source of our power to love our neighbours.

Let us follow Mother Teresa in love and service, especially her secret of spending an hour or more before the Lord, present in the Eucharist each day, so that we can consecrate our day and our apostolate and activities to the Lord.  Only He can give us the strength to purify our motives in service.  Only He can give us the patience, courage, humility and perseverance to do good even when we are ridiculed and misunderstood.

Written by The Most Rev William Goh

Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore

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