LIVING A LIFE OF INTEGRITY ENTAILS A RELATIONSHIP WITH THE LORD

20151218 LIVING A LIFE OF INTEGRITY ENTAILS A RELATIONSHIP WITH THE LORD

Readings at Mass

First reading

Jeremiah 23:5-8 ©

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.”

Psalm

Psalm 71:1-2,12-13,18-19 ©

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.

Gospel Acclamation

Alleluia, alleluia!

Ruler of the House of Israel,

who gave the law to Moses on Sinai,

come and save us with outstretched arm.

Alleluia!

Gospel

Matthew 1:18-24 ©

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 on 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 fulfilling 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

Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore

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