SPIRITUALITY OF SPONTANEOUS RESPONSIBILITY

20150904 SPIRITUALITY OF SPONTANEOUS RESPONSIBILITY

Readings at Mass

First reading

Colossians 1:15-20 ©

Christ Jesus is the image of the unseen God

and the first-born of all creation,

for in him were created

all things in heaven and on earth:

everything visible and everything invisible,

Thrones, Dominations, Sovereignties, Powers –

all things were created through him and for him.

Before anything was created, he existed,

and he holds all things in unity.

Now the Church is his body,

he is its head.

As he is the Beginning,

he was first to be born from the dead,

so that he should be first in every way;

because God wanted all perfection

to be found in him

and all things to be reconciled through him and for him,

everything in heaven and everything on earth,

when he made peace

by his death on the cross.

Psalm

Psalm 99:2-5 ©

Come before the Lord, singing for joy.

  Serve the Lord with gladness.

  Come before him, singing for joy.

Come before the Lord, singing for joy.

Know that he, the Lord, is God.

  He made us, we belong to him,

  we are his people, the sheep of his flock.

Come before the Lord, singing for joy.

Go within his gates, giving thanks.

  Enter his courts with songs of praise.

  Give thanks to him and bless his name.

Come before the Lord, singing for joy.

Indeed, how good is the Lord,

  eternal his merciful love.

  He is faithful from age to age.

Come before the Lord, singing for joy.

Gospel Acclamation

cf.Ps18:9

Alleluia, alleluia!

Your words gladden the heart, O Lord,

they give light to the eyes.

Alleluia!

Or

Jn8:12

Alleluia, alleluia!

I am the light of the world, says the Lord;

anyone who follows me will have the light of life.

Alleluia!

Gospel

Luke 5:33-39 ©

The Pharisees and scribes said to Jesus, ‘John’s disciples are always fasting and saying prayers, and the disciples of the Pharisees too, but yours go on eating and drinking.’ Jesus replied, ‘Surely you cannot make the bridegroom’s attendants fast while the bridegroom is still with them? But the time will come, the time for the bridegroom to be taken away from them; that will be the time when they will fast.’

  He also told them this parable, ‘No one tears a piece from a new cloak to put it on an old cloak; if he does, not only will he have torn the new one, but the piece taken from the new will not match the old.

  ‘And nobody puts new wine into old skins; if he does, the new wine will burst the skins and then run out, and the skins will be lost. No; new wine must be put into fresh skins. And nobody who has been drinking old wine wants new. “The old is good” he says.’

SPIRITUALITY OF SPONTANEOUS RESPONSIBILITY

SCRIPTURE READINGS: COL 1:15-20; LK 5: 33-39

The first reading from St Paul speaks of the unity that Christ has come to bring.  He is the source of unity and He brings us all into unity, both within ourselves and with the whole of creation and all things that exist.  His death on the cross, that is, His whole life was lived for the sake of reconciliation.  As St Paul puts it, so that “all things are reconciled through Him and for Him.

Yet, when we look into our lives, we find there is not only disunity within us.  We do not live in peace with others.  There is so much division in our lives with our fellowmen.  Of course, the real source of this disunity springs from within us, because we are not one within ourselves.  We are not in touch with our center, with our ground of being.

To overcome this lack of unity within us, we resort to discipline and laws.  We make laws for the country, for institutions, for our society, etc so that we will all behave correctly and not cause disruption and disunity.  This was what the Jews did, this was what the disciples of John did, and this is still the traditional Catholic spirituality, with its emphasis on obedience to the laws of God and the Church.

Unfortunately, the laws for many of us have become the end in themselves.  We observe the laws faithfully but without love or insight.  We do not know how to bend the laws because we want to play it safe.  So we will throw away our food on Fridays because we are required to abstain from meat.  Oh yes, we keep many laws, we go to Church on Sundays, we observe celibacy in the priesthood, we pray our Lauds and Vespers – all these because the law says so.  But by observing them, do they make us more loving and more human?

Today, in the gospel, Jesus gives us a new spirituality.  But He is offering us a dangerous spirituality.  It is not meant for the unenlightened, the uninitiated.  No it is for only for those who are aware of themselves and who they are.  Jesus was a rebel, a deviant in His day.  He was a non-conformist.  He did not always follow the laws and customs of His day.  He did not conduct Himself according to how a rabbi should behave.  That was why He was considered a dangerous man, a nuisance to the peace and harmony of society.  Hence, He was crucified.

What is this new spirituality all about?  He tells us in today’s gospel to act according to our nature – our true nature, that is.  So we do not fast when the bridegroom is with us, only when he is taken away.  We do not use a piece from a new cloak to put it on an old cloak; we do not put new wine into old skins.  In other words, Jesus is saying: respond to the situation in a natural way.  Be coherent.

Hence, if we are tired, then we sleep; if we are hungry, then we eat; if we are lacking in knowledge, then we study and read more; if we have to preach, then we prepare our homily well; if we want to be a spiritual person, then we pray more.

But we must not misunderstand Him.  He is against discipline and laws.  But Jesus is not advocating lawlessness.  He is advocating spontaneous responsibility – actions that spring from the depths of our being.  The fact is that many of us do not behave according to our nature.  We eat more than we should, we eat less than we could, we sleep more than is needed, we rest and recreate more than is necessary, we work ourselves to death.  Now, that is lawlessness.  We are not true to ourselves.

For this reason, I said earlier that the spirituality Jesus is giving us is dangerous.  Not everyone is ready to live that way – only those who are true to themselves, those who are aware of themselves – if not we will end up in lawlessness.  That is why we still need the laws for the time being because we have not yet learnt to exercise spontaneous responsibility.  We still need the laws to guide and help us to maintain some kind of unity within ourselves and others.

But if we want to grow in deep spirituality, we have to transcend the laws.  We have to go beyond the laws.  We must act according to the Spirit in us.  That kind of person is truly a free man, a liberated man in Christ – a man who is truly in touch with his center – a man who can be said to be in touch with God. Let us pray that as we deepen our spiritual life, we will one day be able to cultivate this kind of spontaneous responsibility that Jesus Himself lived.

Written by The Most Rev William Goh

Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore

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