20150809
SHARING THE JOY OF THE NATION BY BEING THE LIGHT OF
THE WORLD FOR SINGAPORE 50TH NATIONAL DAY
Readings at Mass
Is 42 : 5-7, 10-12
5 Thus
says God, Yahweh, who created the heavens and spread them out, who hammered
into shape the earth and what comes from it, who gave breath to the people on
it, and spirit
to those who walk on it:
6 I,
Yahweh, have called you in saving justice, I have grasped you by the hand and
shaped you; I have made you a covenant of the people and light to the nations,
7 to
open the eyes of the blind, to free captives from prison, and those who live in
darkness from the dungeon. 10 Sing a new
song to Yahweh! Let his praise be sung from remotest parts of the earth by
those who sail the sea and by everything in it, by the coasts and islands and
those who inhabit them.
11 Let
the desert
and its cities raise their voices, the encampments where Kedar lives. Let the
inhabitants of the Rock cry aloud for joy and shout from the mountain tops.
Responsorial Psalms
Psalms 67
May God
show kindness and bless us, and make his face shine on us.Pause
2 Then
the earth will
acknowledge your ways, and all nations your power to save.
3 Let
the nations praise you, God, let all the nations praise you.
4 Let
the nations rejoice and sing for joy, for you judge the world with justice, you
judge the peoples with fairness, you guide the nations on earth.Pause
5 Let
the nations praise you, God, let all the nations praise you.
6 The
earth has yielded its produce; God, our God
has blessed us.
7 May God
continue to bless us, and be revered by the whole wide world.
Gal 5:13-18, 22-25
13
After all, brothers, you were called to be free; do not use your freedom as an
opening for self-indulgence, but be servants to one another in love,
14
since the whole of the Law
is summarised in the one commandment: You must love your neighbour as yourself.
15 If
you go snapping at one another and tearing one another to pieces, take care:
you will
be eaten up by one another.
16
Instead, I tell you, be guided by the Spirit, and you will
no longer yield to self-indulgence.
17 The
desires of self-indulgence are always in opposition to the Spirit, and the
desires of the Spirit
are in opposition to self-indulgence: they are opposites, one against the
other; that is how you are prevented from doing the things that you want to.
18 But
when you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. 22 On the other hand
the fruit of the Spirit
is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness,
23
gentleness and self-control; no law
can touch such things as these.
25 Since we are living by the Spirit, let our behaviour be
guided by the Spirit
Gospel
John 15:4-5, 9-12, 16-17
4
Remain in me, as I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit all by itself, unless
it remains part of the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me.
5 I am
the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears
fruit in plenty; for cut off from me you can do nothing. 9 I have loved you just as the Father has
loved me. Remain in my love.
10 If
you keep my commandments you will
remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in
his love.
11 I
have told you this so that my own joy may be in you and your joy be complete.
12 This
is my commandment: love one another, as I have loved you. 16 You did not choose me, no, I chose you;
and I commissioned you to go out and to bear fruit, fruit that will
last; so that the Father will
give you anything you ask him in my name.
17 My command to you is to love one another.
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SHARING THE JOY OF THE NATION BY BEING THE LIGHT OF THE
WORLD
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Are you
happy in life? Are you living a full life? Or do you find your life
empty, meaningless and unfulfilled? If you are just drifting through
life, you do not have a life; just a body. Neither are you alive.
Why is
it that you feel aimless and frustrated in life? The answer is simple
because you are not living but merely existing on the animal level. A
human person has a mind and a heart. He needs to feed his intellect and
his heart. Just living on sensual pleasure alone cannot change him
adequately. After some pleasures, he gets satiated and everything turns
flat. There is a limit to what we can eat and drink. There is a
limit to the pleasures of this earthly life. There is a limit even to
enjoying sex.
So
those who live on the level of physical, material and sensual needs will find
life boring and aimless. This explains why such people go from one high
to another high, hoping to stay high but always falling flat. They become
nervous and anxious, always seeking for new things to play with, new gadgets,
new toys, and new sexual partners. The moment they are satiated, they
look for something else. This was what Jesus told the Jews, “Your fathers
ate the manna in the desert and they are dead.” It did not bring them
life.
So what
is needed? The truth is that we need attention from people. That is
why we are egoistic. We want to be loved, to be known, to be famous and
popular. And so, some people seek attention through ambition, success and
work. They need to feel needed. They work hard to be
successful. They think that having an ambition will sustain them.
Yet, this is another form of slavery. Unlike those who are enslaved by
their sensual passions, such people are enslaved by their pride and ego.
They need to prove themselves.
This
was the case of Elijah in the first reading. He was fed up with God
because He did not destroy Jezebel who sought to have him killed after he
slayed the false prophets after a dramatic performance at Mount Carmel.
Now they were after his life, and he was fleeing from his persecutors. He
was now on the run. He was angry because he did the right thing and for
the good of his people, but instead of being grateful, they sought to have him
killed in spite of the fact that he demonstrated to them beyond doubt that
Yahweh is the only Lord and God of Israel. Tired and disillusioned, angry
and disappointed because of the anti-climax to his victory at Mount Carmel, he
wished he were dead!
Indeed,
this is the same disillusionment we all feel even when we work for the Church
or help the poor. After giving of ourselves, our resources and time, all
we receive is ingratitude and, sometimes, false accusations, destructive
criticisms and slander. When we feel our ego is wounded, we become
reactive and retaliate. We bear grudges, harbor anger and resentment in
our hearts. Whether we serve the Church for free or work at our ambition,
we face the same struggles. We make enemies in the process, especially
when we want to get things done. Some people will not like us and will
not be happy with us. Some feel we are a threat to their status quo and comfort.
As a consequence, there is division, quarrels, jealousy, backbiting and
politicking. How can we be happy when we have so many enemies in our
lives, whether we do good or evil? How can we be at peace? So, like
Elijah, we want to throw in the towel! What is the use of doing good, we
ask. As a result, we withdraw into our shell, but withdrawing only makes
us fall into further depression.
St Paul
makes it clear that when such things happen, we make the Holy Spirit sad. “Do
not grieve the Holy Spirit of God who has marked you with his seal for you to
be set free when the day comes. Never have grudges against others, or lose your
temper, or raise your voice to anybody, or call each other names, or allow any
sort of spitefulness.” A person with so much anger and hatred cannot be happy
no matter where he is. His life is always full of bitterness, suspicion
and fears. The past events continue to haunt him because he could not let
go and forgive. This is why St Paul urges us, “Be friends with one another,
and kind, forgiving each other as readily as God forgave you in Christ.”
How,
then, can we live a happy, fulfilling life even in the face of rejection,
hostility and the lack of appreciation? We need to purify our
motives. We must stop living for ourselves, our ambition, our material
needs, or for the pleasures of this world and, least of all, for our ego and
pride. St Paul wrote, “Try, then, to imitate God, as children of his that
he loves, and follow Christ by loving as he loved you, giving himself up in our
place as a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God.” We need to live for
God and for our fellowmen, not for ourselves. We are called to follow
Christ to make ourselves as a living sacrifice to others. This means
giving up ourselves, our vested interests and security for others.
In
other words, we are called to be the bread of life for others, just as Jesus is
for us. He declares, “I am the bread of life. I am the
living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will
live forever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the
world.” Indeed, Jesus has come to give us the fullness of life by
offering Himself, and His life for our salvation. He has come to show us
the way to the fullness of life which is to lay down our lives for the service
of God and humanity. In life, it is immaterial what we do but what
matters is whether what we are doing is truly for the service of God and
humanity and not for ourselves. UT Vivant! “I come that they
may have life and life abundantly.” (Jn 10:10) Like
the grain of wheat, we too must die so that others can live.
Everyone,
regardless of his or her vocation, must exist to serve God and humanity.
Our task is to make this world a better place to live in, to foster harmony and
mutual love; and most of all, to live a virtuous life according to the values
of the gospel. In this way, humanity will become one brotherhood in love
and one big family of God with Him as our Father, Jesus, our brother, and all
sharing in the one common Spirit.
But we
cannot serve Him and our fellowmen selflessly unless we come to Him to draw
nourishment for our body and soul, mind and heart. Hence, Jesus today is
urging us to come to Him as He is the bread of life. As the manna from
heaven, He knows the mind of the Father, and through the Word of God especially
in the celebration of the Eucharist, He comes to enlighten our intellect, grant
us the wisdom to see the deeper joys of life; and the understanding to grasp
the truths of God and life that human reason cannot penetrate. When our
minds are enlightened in the truth, we find true liberation of self and fear
from the changing realities of life because we know that our lives will end in
God who is eternal truth.
We are
to come to Jesus who not only nourishes our minds but also our hearts. He
comes to us in the flesh, first as a human being but now personally in the
Eucharist. He said, “Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and the
bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.”
When we receive Him in Holy Communion, we experience His presence in a most
tangible way because of His true presence in the bread and wine. By
receiving Him sacramentally, our hearts feel His presence and love.
In the
Eucharist, we taste and see the Lord. This is what the responsorial psalm
says to us. Only when we have tasted and seen the Lord ourselves, can we give
ourselves completely like Jesus to others. His Spirit must live in us
just as the Father’s Spirit lives in Jesus and empowered Him in His ministry
and, most of all, at His death on the cross when He surrendered His Spirit to
the Lord. This is what the Lord instructed Elijah as well. He sent the
angel to tell him, “’Get up and eat.’ He looked round, and there at his head
was a scone baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then
lay down again. But the angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched
him and said, ‘Get up and eat, or the journey will be too long for you.’”
Our
journey too is long. Working and serving the Lord and His people is
always challenging and often involved much pains and heartbreaking
disappointments. But if we come to the Lord often, feeding from His table,
the Word of God and the Eucharist, He will enlighten us, encourage us,
strengthen and empower us by His wisdom and love. And indeed, we read,
“So he got up and ate and drank, and strengthened by that food he walked for
forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.” With
Jesus in our hearts, as we go about serving Him and our fellowmen, regardless
of whether we are successful or otherwise, we will always be fill with joy,
purpose and meaning because we know that it is the Lord we serve ultimately,
not man. And when our hearts and minds are joined to the Lord, we
find fulfillment, joy and freedom.
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh
Roman
Catholic Archbishop of Singapore
© All Rights Reserved
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