20170101 PEACE IS POSSIBLE WHEN WE SEE THE FACE OF GOD IN MAN
Readings at Mass
Liturgical
Colour: White.
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First reading
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Numbers 6:22-27 ©
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The Lord spoke to
Moses and said, ‘Say this to Aaron and his sons: “This is how you are to bless
the sons of Israel. You shall say to them:
May the Lord bless
you and keep you.
May the Lord let his
face shine on you and be gracious to you.
May the Lord uncover
his face to you and bring you peace.”
This is how they are
to call down my name on the sons of Israel, and I will bless them.’
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Responsorial
Psalm
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Psalm
66(67):2-3,5,6,8 ©
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O God, be gracious
and bless us.
O God, be gracious
and bless us
and let
your face shed its light upon us.
So will your ways be
known upon earth
and all
nations learn your saving help.
O God, be gracious
and bless us.
Let the nations be
glad and exult
for you
rule the world with justice.
With fairness you
rule the peoples,
you guide
the nations on earth.
O God, be gracious
and bless us.
Let the peoples
praise you, O God;
let all
the peoples praise you.
May God still give us
his blessing
till the
ends of the earth revere him.
O God, be gracious
and bless us.
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Second reading
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Galatians 4:4-7 ©
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When the appointed
time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born a subject of the Law, to
redeem the subjects of the Law and to enable us to be adopted as sons. The
proof that you are sons is that God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our
hearts: the Spirit that cries, ‘Abba, Father’, and it is this that makes you a
son, you are not a slave any more; and if God has made you son, then he has
made you heir.
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Gospel
Acclamation
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Heb1:1-2
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Alleluia, alleluia!
At various times in
the past
and in various different
ways,
God spoke to our
ancestors through the prophets;
but in our own time,
the last days,
he has spoken to us
through his Son.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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Luke 2:16-21 ©
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The shepherds hurried
away to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger.
When they saw the child they repeated what they had been told about him, and
everyone who heard it was astonished at what the shepherds had to say. As for Mary,
she treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart. And the
shepherds went back glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and
seen; it was exactly as they had been told.
When
the eighth day came and the child was to be circumcised, they gave him the name
Jesus, the name the angel had given him before his conception.
PEACE
IS POSSIBLE WHEN WE SEE THE FACE OF GOD IN MAN
SCRIPTURE
READINGS: [NUM 6:22-27; GAL 4:4-7; LK 2:16-21 ]
Today,
we celebrate World Day of Peace. This day is celebrated because there is
no peace! We are living in troubled times. There is so much tension
in the world. We hear of religious fundamentalist groups killing people
mercilessly in the name of God. We hear of political and cultural divide
in many countries. There is always the danger of civil war because of
injustices, corruption and political oppression. There is also the
economic divide that separates the rich from the poorer countries.
What is
the cause of injustice? Why do human beings discriminate their fellowmen
when we all have a shared humanity? Aren’t we the same in everything
except the role we play in life? All of us have the same emotional,
physical, material and spiritual needs. We need love and to be
accepted. We need to be respected and given dignity. All of us need
food, accommodation, clothing, education and some luxuries in life.
Most of all, we need freedom to express ourselves, a freedom of course that
does not impinge on the rights of others. Surely, we all know what it
means to lose our loved ones, what it means to be hungry or sick or
unwanted! We all know what grief we will suffer if our loved ones are
killed innocently. Yet, why is it then, that we who have the same needs
and suffer the same wants lack compassion for our brothers and sisters?
How could terrorists kill so many people without thinking that those very
people they killed could be their loved ones or their relatives and
friends? Have we forgotten that we are all of the same stock, called
humanity?
There
is no peace in the world because man is not at peace within himself. Humanity
is divided only because the individual is divided within. He is not at
peace. This is because he lives in fear of others. He is afraid to
suffer or to die. So the natural instinct in all animals including human
beings is to protect oneself from others. All others are seen as competitors
and enemies. In our insecurity, we tend to grab more and more of the
world’s resources for ourselves. We are not generous in sharing our
abundance with others. Anyone who stands in our way, we seek to
eliminate. We seek power for fear that others will dominate us. We
seek control over others so that we can be free to do what we want. In
truth, the more we seek to possess, the more we seek to control others, the
more insecure we become. Misers are most miserable and the world’s most
powerful, rich and influential people are those without real freedom in the
world.
How can
man be at peace within himself? He needs to see the face of God! It is
significant that the first reading speaks of God’s blessings on the People of
Israel through seeing the face of God. “This is how you are to bless the
sons of Israel. You shall say to them: May the Lord bless you and keep you. May
the Lord let his face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord uncover
his face to you and bring you peace.” Twice, God told Moses that
unless He revealed His face to the people and let His face shine on them, they
would not be blessed.
So if
we want to peace and security in the midst of this passing world, we need to
see God’s face in the first place. When we see God as the ultimate
truth in life and the goal of every human person, then we will no longer be
afraid of death. In seeing God, we find our goal and destiny.
God is our fulfillment. A man of God does not fear death. In fact,
he welcomes death as his entry into the fullness of life. He knows that
this world is transient. He does not hoard. He does not live for
this world alone. He lives the life of God here and now. In seeing the
face of God, he finds a certain peace.
But how
can we see God’s face? It seems that only Moses was given the great
privilege of speaking to God face to face as a friend. (cf Ex 33:11) Even
then, no one can see the face of God and live. (cf Ex 33:20) The Good
News is that in Christ, we see the face of God. In the face of Christ,
who is truly man, we see the face of God who is pure Spirit. In
celebrating the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God, we are celebrating the
face of God in Christ Jesus that Mary brought us. Indeed, Mary was
the first to gaze on the face of God in Jesus. In giving birth to Jesus,
the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, we can now see the face of God veiled in
man. So much so that Jesus told Philip that “to see me is to see the
Father.” (Jn 14:9)
Consequently,
to see the face of Jesus is to see God! Jesus is the face of God for
us. At His birth, we saw the innocent and vulnerable face of God in the
baby Jesus. As He grew up, we saw the face of God in the child Jesus, the
way He lived out His childhood days in obedience to His earthly parents.
In His public ministry, we saw more and more the face of God in His works of
compassion, miracles of healing and exorcism. Most of all, it was in His
passion, crucifixion, death and resurrection that we saw the full glory of God
in Christ Jesus crucified. In His weakness and lowliness, humility and
vulnerability, we saw the face of God. Indeed, that was how all the
people saw Him. Already at His birth, they gave Him the name ‘Jesus’,
which means ‘God saves’.
In
seeing Jesus as the face of God, we recognize His face also in our fellowmen
because by assuming our humanity, He became one with us. It also means
that God is identified with us. “The proof that you are sons is that God
has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts: the Spirit that cries,
‘Abba, Father’.” In Christ, we have become God’s adopted children of our
heavenly Father. Our dignity therefore is that we are all children of
God. We belong to God and no one has a right over the life of others,
except God alone. This is the basis of human rights and respect for
others.
Only
when we realize what it means to be an adopted son and daughter of God and the
brother and sister of our Lord Jesus Christ, can we begin to treat our
fellowmen with respect and dignity. Every one, regardless whether we are
rich or poor, ordinary or influential, young or old, healthy or sick, is a
child of God and therefore we are brothers and sisters to each other.
When we see the face of Christ in our fellowmen, then we will refrain from
doing harm to them because to hurt them is to hurt our Lord, for He said,
“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and
sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Mt 25:40)
It is
for this reason that this feast in honour of the divine motherhood of Mary is
so important to the Church, to proclaim that Christ who is divine has become
man. The dogma of Mary as the Mother of God, the theotokos is not
primarily a statement about Mary but about Christ who is one person with two
natures, divine and human. Because there is only one person in Christ,
there can be no division in Him. Both the divine and human nature
although distinct and yet inseparable are contained in the one person, Jesus
Christ. When the Council of Chalcedon proclaimed Mary as the Mother of
God, it intended to underscore that Mary is the mother of the whole person,
called Jesus, who is truly man born of her and yet truly divine as the Second
Person of the Holy Trinity.
Indeed,
Christ is the future of humanity. He shows us our true identity as
children of God. He assures us that our destiny is with God, here and
hereafter. By His death, He shows that love is greater than hatred,
forgiveness, not violence, is the way to win over our enemies, compassion is
the way to be identified with our brothers and sisters, and eternal life is
life with God in the world to come. With Christ overcoming suffering and
death, we should no longer live in fear or anxiety about this world. All
we need to do is to live out our humanity in solidarity with our fellow
brothers and sisters, identifying with them in their joys and sorrows, reaching
out to them in compassionate love and selfless service. By so doing, we
would have entered the life of God and found peace, joy, love and happiness on
this earth.
What is
asked of us today is that like Mary, we contemplate on the face of God in
Christ Jesus. This is what Mary did. “As for Mary, she treasured all
these things and pondered them in her heart.” It is not enough to be
amazed when we see something so wonderful and let it pass. In the case of
Mary, she continued to ponder all that happened and drew out the depth of this
great mystery of the Incarnation for herself and humanity. We too must
continue to ponder the meaning and implication of the incarnation. If God
has become man for us and lives with us, how should we regard each other?
Yes, we are exhorted to speak to God, face to face, for by so doing, we will be
transformed in His likeness and image. We will then be at peace within
ourselves because we know that God loves us, have forgiven us in Christ and
continues to provide for us. Only then can others see the face of God in
us; and we in them. May our contemplation with Mary on this feast
of the Mother of God bring us closer to our Lord and our brothers and sisters.
Written by The Most Rev William Goh Roman Catholic Archbishop of
Singapore © All Rights Reserved
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