20181010
HOW WE SEE OURSELVES
DETERMINES HOW WE RELATE WITH OTHERS
10 OCTOBER,
2018, Wednesday, 27th Week, Ordinary Time
Readings at Mass
Liturgical Colour:
Green.
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First reading
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Galatians 2:1-2,7-14 ©
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They recognised the grace that God had
given me
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It was not till fourteen years had passed
that I went up to Jerusalem again. I went with Barnabas and took Titus with me.
I went there as the result of a revelation, and privately I laid before the
leading men the Good News as I proclaim it among the pagans; I did so for fear
the course I was adopting or had already adopted would not be allowed. On the
contrary, they recognised that I had been commissioned to preach the Good News
to the uncircumcised just as Peter had been commissioned to preach it to the circumcised.
The same person whose action had made Peter the apostle of the circumcised had
given me a similar mission to the pagans. So, James, Cephas and John, these
leaders, these pillars, shook hands with Barnabas and me as a sign of
partnership: we were to go to the pagans and they to the circumcised. The only
thing they insisted on was that we should remember to help the poor, as indeed
I was anxious to do.
When
Cephas came to Antioch, however, I opposed him to his face, since he was
manifestly in the wrong. His custom had been to eat with the pagans, but after
certain friends of James arrived he stopped doing this and kept away from them
altogether for fear of the group that insisted on circumcision. The other Jews
joined him in this pretence, and even Barnabas felt himself obliged to copy
their behaviour.
When
I saw they were not respecting the true meaning of the Good News, I said to
Cephas in front of everyone, ‘In spite of being a Jew, you live like the pagans
and not like the Jews, so you have no right to make the pagans copy Jewish
ways.’
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Responsorial Psalm
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Psalm 116(117) ©
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Go out to the whole
world and proclaim the Good News.
O praise the Lord, all you nations,
acclaim him all you peoples!
Go out to the whole
world and proclaim the Good News.
Strong is his love for us;
he is faithful for ever.
Go out to the whole
world and proclaim the Good News.
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Gospel Acclamation
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Ps118:24
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Alleluia, alleluia!
Train me, Lord, to observe your law,
to keep it with my heart.
Alleluia!
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Or:
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Rm8:15
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Alleluia, alleluia!
The spirit you received is the spirit of
sons,
and it makes us cry out, ‘Abba, Father!’
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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Luke 11:1-4 ©
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How to pray
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Once Jesus was in a certain place praying,
and when he had finished, one of his disciples said, ‘Lord, teach us to pray,
just as John taught his disciples.’
He
said to them, ‘Say this when you pray:
‘“Father, may your name be held holy,
your kingdom come;
give us each day our daily bread,
and forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive each one who is
in debt to us.
And do not put us to the test.”’
HOW WE SEE OURSELVES DETERMINES HOW WE
RELATE WITH OTHERS
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ GALATIANS 2:1-2.7-14; LUKE 11:1-4 ]
There is a close relationship
between ‘being’ and ‘doing’. What we do is determined by who we
are. Identity therefore presupposes mission. Otherwise, what
we do will lack direction. The corollary of this principle is that how we
see ourselves will determine how we conduct ourselves. Knowing one’s
identity will influence the way we behave and conduct ourselves with
others. If we see ourselves as a Catholic, then in all that we do, we are
mindful of our identity as a Catholic. If we are conscious of our
identity as a child of God, then we will relate with God as a child to his
Father.
However, the danger is
that today we underscore what we do rather than who we are. We find our identity through our
functions. We see ourselves as a PhD degree holder. We see ourselves
as a CEO, manager, leader etc. We give more emphasis to the role
that we have been bestowed than to our identity. As a consequence, we
find our self-esteem through the different roles we play at home, at work, in
Church or in the community we belong. As such, we tend to relate to
others according to the role we play. Consciousness of one’s role will
influence the way we relate with others. If I see myself as a teacher,
then I regard you as a student. If I see myself principally as a
medical doctor, then I regard you as my patient.
Vice versa, how we view a person
in his or her office will determine our relationship with him or her as
well. If we see someone as a man of God, then we will trust that person
and become receptive to his or her guidance. But if we see a person
as our superior, then we hold the person with respect and with a certain amount
of fear because of his authority. So how we see a person will determine very
much our sentiments towards that person. If you are a doctor, hopefully
when you return home, your children will see you as their daddy or mummy.
Or, if you are a judge and you come back to your family after work, hopefully
you will forget your role as a judge and simply be a father or mother.
It is therefore
important that we do not allow our function or role in life to determine how we
behave. Functions and
roles do not last. We can change functions and roles but identity is
something more permanent and lasting. Our happiness in life cannot be
dependent on our functions as sooner or later, we would have to give up our
office and positions in life. But the position of a father or mother
remains forever. This is a permanent identity. Similarly, our
identity as the child of God remains forever and will never change in time.
Identity is a constant
but not our roles. Persons
cannot be reduced to functions. We are loved for who we are, not
what we do. This explains why the Church defends the dignity of
every human person regardless of his or her contribution to society, whether it
is a defenceless embryo, a disadvantaged child or a cancer patient. They are
all deserving of our love and care simply because they bear the image of
God. A person is not a thing but a creature of God.
We must imitate the example of St Paul.
Why was St Paul so concerned for the gentiles? He received the divine
revelation to proclaim Christ to the gentiles. His mission was also to
proclaim God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ to all of humanity.
He made no discrimination between gentiles and Jews because they all belonged
to the one Father. In the understanding of St Paul, we are Christians and
therefore adopted sons and daughters in Christ. As such, Christians are
not bound to Jewish laws and practices, especially those concerned with Jewish
dietary regulations and other customary practices e.g. circumcision. Such
customs cannot be binding for the Christians. What are binding would be
the moral laws including the Ten Commandments which are different from cultural
practices.
After meeting the Centurion, Cornelius, St
Peter declared, “God has no favorites.” However, under pressure, St Peter did
not abide by his conviction for fear of offending his fellow Jews. Thus St Paul
admonished St Peter for being inconsistent in his conduct with the gentiles.
He forgot their identity as children of the same Father. Hence, He gave
in to the pressure of Jewish customs by not eating with the Gentiles. St
Paul could love all as his brothers only because he experienced God as the
Father of all humanity. With the death of Christ, St Paul saw all as his
brothers and sisters, regardless of race and status.
Similarly, Jesus took upon our
infirmity and our body to feel our humanity in His incarnation, but
especially in His passion and death on the cross. He assumed all our sins
in Himself and identified Himself with us in our sinfulness. His
solidarity with us makes Him the just and merciful judge. If Jesus does
not condemn us in our sinfulness but justifies us instead, it is because Jesus
is so identified with us in our humanity except sin. Nevertheless, He too
was tempted like us. His identification with us even led Him to address
us as His brothers. The letter of Hebrews states in no uncertain terms,
“He openly calls them brothers.” (Heb 4:12)
In order to recover our
true identity as the brother of Jesus and the adopted son of the Father, we
must come to recognize God as our Father. Who, then, can show us the face of the Father
if not Jesus Himself? Jesus was one with the Father. He knew the Father
intimately. That was why He had the heart and compassion of the Father.
Indeed, the disciples saw how intimate Jesus was with His Father when He was
praying that they asked Him to teach them to relate to God as their Father the
way Jesus did.
To know the Father we
must enter into the mind and heart of Jesus’ prayer. We must first experience our
sonship before we can identify with the Fatherhood of God. When Jesus
told us to call God, “Father”, He was speaking of a childlike trust in
Him. He invites us to enter into the same spirit and confidence He had in
His relationship with the Father. If Jesus could live a life of love and
freedom, it was because of His consciousness of His identity as the unique Son
of the Father. His role and mission sprang from this consciousness of His
divine sonship. He knew that His mission was to reveal the face of His
Father. Being true to His identity was to be true to His Mission and vice
versa because in Jesus, identity and mission were identical.
We must be conscious of
our identity as God’s adopted sons and daughters if we are to relate with the
Father in a childlike faith.
Our attitude towards God is captured in the Lord’s Prayer. And so when we
pray “may your name be held holy”, we are asking in the first place that the
Father be true to His name by bestowing us His love and providential
care. In the second place, we are saying that we desire to reflect
Him in our lives so that by our lives, all will know that God is our
Father. Every child sees His Father as His mentor. When we
pray, “your kingdom come”, we are asking that we be open to whatever He wants
to give us. Like a child, we want to be open to what God wants to give
us. Most of all, we want God to rule our lives and we want our lives to
be governed by the values of the kingdom. When we pray, “give us each day
our daily bread”, we pray with faith that the Father will provide us our needs,
especially the Bread of Life and the Eucharist. And when we pray,
“forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive each one who is in debt to us”
we are praying that we be like the Father, always forgiving and that unity
among ourselves is the desire of our heavenly Father. And finally when we
pray, “And do not put us to the test” we are praying that the Father will
preserve us from all evil because He is faithful to us and that He will not
allow Satan to overcome us. Indeed, if we know the Father’s love
personally, then we can act and live as a true son or daughter to the Father, a
brother and sister to each other.
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All
Rights Reserved
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