20180902
MISSION PRESUPPOSES
THAT WE HAVE ENCOUNTERED THE WORD AS GOOD NEWS IN CHRIST
02 SEPTEMBER,
2018, Sunday, 22nd Week, Ordinary Time
Readings at Mass
Liturgical Colour:
Green.
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First reading
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Deuteronomy 4:1-2,6-8 ©
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Observe these laws and customs, that you
may have life
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Moses said to the people: ‘Now, Israel,
take notice of the laws and customs that I teach you today, and observe them,
that you may have life and may enter and take possession of the land that the
Lord the God of your fathers is giving you. You must add nothing to what I
command you, and take nothing from it, but keep the commandments of the Lord
your God just as I lay them down for you. Keep them, observe them, and they
will demonstrate to the peoples your wisdom and understanding. When they come
to know of all these laws they will exclaim, “No other people is as wise and
prudent as this great nation.” And indeed, what great nation is there that has
its gods so near as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call to him? And what
great nation is there that has laws and customs to match this whole Law that I
put before you today?’
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Responsorial Psalm
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Psalm 14(15):2-5 ©
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The just will live in
the presence of the Lord.
Lord, who shall dwell on your holy
mountain?
He who walks without fault;
he who acts with justice
and speaks the truth from his heart;
he who does not slander with his tongue.
The just will live in
the presence of the Lord.
He who does no wrong to his brother,
who casts no slur on his neighbour,
who holds the godless in disdain,
but honours those who fear the Lord.
The just will live in
the presence of the Lord.
He who keeps his pledge, come what may;
who takes no interest on a loan
and accepts no bribes against the
innocent.
Such a man will stand firm for ever.
The just will live in
the presence of the Lord.
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Second reading
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James 1:17-18,21-22,27 ©
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Accept and submit to the word
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It is all that is good, everything that is
perfect, which is given us from above; it comes down from the Father of all
light; with him there is no such thing as alteration, no shadow of a change. By
his own choice he made us his children by the message of the truth so that we
should be a sort of first-fruits of all that he had created.
Accept
and submit to the word which has been planted in you and can save your souls.
But you must do what the word tells you, and not just listen to it and deceive
yourselves.
Pure,
unspoilt religion, in the eyes of God our Father is this: coming to the help of
orphans and widows when they need it, and keeping oneself uncontaminated by the
world.
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Gospel Acclamation
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cf.Jn6:63,68
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Alleluia, alleluia!
Your words are spirit, Lord, and they are
life;
you have the message of eternal life.
Alleluia!
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Or:
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James1:18
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Alleluia, alleluia!
By his own choice the Father made us his
children
by the message of the truth,
so that we should be a sort of
first-fruits
of all that he created.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23 ©
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You put aside the commandment of God, to
cling to human traditions
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The Pharisees and some of the scribes who
had come from Jerusalem gathered round Jesus, and they noticed that some of his
disciples were eating with unclean hands, that is, without washing them. For
the Pharisees, and the Jews in general, follow the tradition of the elders and
never eat without washing their arms as far as the elbow; and on returning from
the market place they never eat without first sprinkling themselves. There are
also many other observances which have been handed down to them concerning the
washing of cups and pots and bronze dishes. So these Pharisees and scribes
asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not respect the tradition of the elders but
eat their food with unclean hands?’ He answered, ‘It was of you hypocrites that
Isaiah so rightly prophesied in this passage of scripture:
This people honours me only with
lip-service,
while their hearts are far from me.
The worship they offer me is worthless,
the doctrines they teach are only human
regulations.
You put aside the commandment of God to cling
to human traditions.’ He called the people to him again and said, ‘Listen to
me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that goes into a man from outside can
make him unclean; it is the things that come out of a man that make him
unclean. For it is from within, from men’s hearts, that evil intentions emerge:
fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, malice, deceit, indecency, envy,
slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within and make a man
unclean.’
MISSION PRESUPPOSES THAT WE HAVE
ENCOUNTERED THE WORD AS GOOD NEWS IN CHRIST
The vision of the
archdiocese is to build a vibrant, evangelistic and missionary Church. But this vision cannot be realized
unless Catholics are first evangelized. The truth is that many of
our Catholics are indifferent to the mission of the Church; much less zealous
about the vision of the local archdiocesan Church.
We cannot speak of
mission unless we have been evangelized. How can we be evangelized? We must first
hear the Good News. We must listen to the Word of God. Of course,
hearing the Good News is more than simply hearing the message but to experience
the message as real and as a person. That is why when we say “this is the
gospel of the Lord” we are not referring to the gospel literally, but Jesus as
the Good News. Hence, if the Good News is not experienced as Good News
and as a personal encounter with Jesus Christ, then there is nothing to
proclaim.
Indeed, the Israelites
boasted, “what great nation is there that has its gods so near as the Lord our
God is to us whenever we call to him? And
what great nation is there that has laws and customs to match this whole Law
that I put before you today?” It is clear that through their experience
of the nearness of God in their lives, history and through the laws, they knew
that God is love. Hence, they considered themselves truly a privileged
people because they were then nobody, only slaves in Egypt. Such an
experience of God’s love and mercy for them was so overwhelming that they could
never forget that experience.
But Christianity goes
beyond Judaism in saying that God is not only involved in our history but has
become part of our history by becoming man at the incarnation. So the Good News for us Christians
is not simply that the Word of God is given to us, but that the Word of God was
made flesh and incarnated in our lives. Not only was He made man, but the
cross of Jesus tells us that this God in Christ Jesus would even go to the
extent of sharing the consequences of our sins and be nailed to the cross for
our sake, not because we are good but when we were still sinners. The
love of God for us is therefore not simply a word or a promise but concretized
in our lives.
Consequently, faith in God cannot
be dissociated from life. Faith can only exist in culture and in
life. To strive for a deep faith, is to know God’s love so deeply in
Christ that we can live our lives meaningfully and enthusiastically. To
have heard the Good News means that we have experienced the love and mercy of
God concretely in our daily life. If Christian faith does not promote
life and love, then this is not faith but legalism or religion. St James
defines “pure, unspoilt religion, in the eyes of God our Father is coming to
the help of orphans and widows when they need it, and keeping oneself
uncontaminated by the world.” It is clear therefore that the Good News
which we have heard and received, must now be incarnated in our lives. We
are called to celebrate the Word of God given to us and to express it in our
lives in a radical way by living out the Word ethically in our lives in love
and service. The heart of religion ultimately is love since the heart of
God is love. If we fail in love, then all our beautiful liturgy and lofty
doctrines are meaningless.
Indeed, Jesus warns us
of the danger of mere external observance of the laws and traditions without
love and understanding.
He lamented, “This people honours me only with lip-service, while their hearts
are far from me. The worship they offer me is worthless, the doctrines they
teach are only human regulations.” So we can be fulfilling the commandments of
God and the Church to the letter. We can observe abstinence from meat on
Fridays, fulfill our Sunday obligation and even our prayers, yet we still have
not heard the Good News. For faith to be Good News, it must be expressed in our
lives. Our love for God must lead us to an authentic love for our
neighbours and a deeper appreciation of the true meaning of life, which is
service. We cannot be evangelizers unless our life as Christians is founded on
community, spirituality and service.
We have to ask ourselves how we have concretely played our
part in the lives of our Christian community, our society and the world at
large. Have we been involved in the lives of our fellow
Christians? Are we concerned about our Catholic neighours? Do we
visit them when they are sick or in bereavement? Have we volunteered to
help our neighbours who are in need of help? Do we try to mediate the love and
compassion of Christ to our fellow brothers and sisters?
Most of all, do we
practice mercy and forgiveness in the Christian community when Church leaders
or fellow Catholics fail in their Christian life, or do we find every occasion
to condemn them? Unfortunately,
when you expect to find love, understanding, forgiveness, tolerance, acceptance
and generosity in the Christian community, quite often all we find is
condemnation, destructive criticism and judgmentalism. This is ironical
because we ourselves are sinners in the first place, and God has forgiven us
unconditionally. But we would not give to others what we have received
from God. If there is no experience of love and forgiveness and support
in the Christian community, then the Good News is not experienced as a reality.
However, we cannot be
contented even if we have a large number of Catholics coming to church because
we are called to be witnesses of Christ in the world at large. We do not make ourselves into
little enclaves as our experience of His love is for the sake of the
world. How do we do this? By not allowing ourselves to be contaminated by
the world! In a larger context, we are called to play our part in society and
the world. This is what it means to be witnesses of Christ in the
world. This is ultimately our mission, which is to proclaim Christ in the
world. We must take upon ourselves the duty to promote the dignity of
humanity and the rights of the individual. We must speak out against a
prevalent culture of death, a culture that does not respect the dignity of life
from birth until death. We too must enlighten the world that moral values
are not relative but that they are founded on the absolute, which we give the
name “God”.
Indeed, to speak of the
Good News today means that we are called to proclaim to the world not only
Jesus as the Saviour of humankind but
the Good News of liberation and authentic life that He has come to
offer us. Catholics are called to proclaim the Gospel directly by an
explicit proclamation of Christ as Saviour and Lord; and indirectly by infusing
the values of the Gospel through the purification and enrichment of our
cultures. It is our duty as Catholics to enlighten our society on the
reasons for the Church’s position on the dignity of human life, a vision that
is rooted in the very nature of the human person and not so much a case of
imposing on non-believers a vision based on faith alone. Christian
charity demands that we be of service to culture, politics, the economy and the
family, so that the fundamental principles upon which the destiny of human
beings and the future of civilization depend will be respected everywhere.
Indeed, Christians must
be at the forefront of society, giving witness
in the areas of culture, politics, the economy and the family. We
are called to interpret the social realities of our day in the light of the
gospel. We must avoid the temptation of a privatized and individualistic
spirituality, which contradicts “the demands of charity, to say nothing of the
implications of the incarnation.” Finally, we must remember that the Christian
message does not inhibit us from building up the world, or make us
disinterested in the welfare of our fellow human beings. On the
contrary, we are to be more committed to the world and the lives of our fellow
human beings.
The liturgy puts forth this challenge
to us. Will you be part of the mission of the archdiocese so that you
can share the mission of the whole Church? As Christians, we are called
to be the first fruits of the new creation. We are called to be the
witnesses of God’s word in our lives so that others who come to know what God
has done for us and with us will desire to come to know Him too, and so become
His children as well. We are called to walk in the light so that
others can see the light and come to know Christ. The final test of our missionary
effectiveness and fidelity to our Christian life would be the number of people
we have brought to Christ. If we are serious about this mission, then we
must be imbued with the word of God, the truths that Christ has revealed to
us. Most of all, we must discover in Him, truly the Good News in our
lives. Only when we live the gospel life in its entirety, can we be the
children of the Father, as St James tells us.
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All
Rights Reserved
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