20191203
REBUILD
MY CHURCH, RESTORE MY PEOPLE
03 DECEMBER,
2019, Tuesday, Feast of St Francis Xavier
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First reading
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1 Corinthians 9:16-19,22-23 ©
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I should be punished if I did not preach the Gospel
I do not boast of
preaching the gospel, since it is a duty which has been laid on me; I should be
punished if I did not preach it! If I had chosen this work myself, I might have
been paid for it, but as I have not, it is a responsibility which has been put
into my hands. Do you know what my reward is? It is this: in my preaching, to
be able to offer the Good News free, and not insist on the rights which the
gospel gives me.
So
though I am not a slave of any man I have made myself the slave of everyone so as
to win as many as I could. I made myself all things to all men in order to save
some at any cost; and I still do this, for the sake of the gospel, to have a
share in its blessings.
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Responsorial
Psalm
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Psalm 116(117):1-2 ©
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Go
out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News.
or
Alleluia!
O
praise the Lord, all you nations,
acclaim
him all you peoples!
Go
out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News.
or
Alleluia!
Strong
is his love for us;
he
is faithful for ever.
Go
out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News.
or
Alleluia!
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Gospel
Acclamation
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Mt28:19,20
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Alleluia,
alleluia!
Go,
make disciples of all the nations.
I am
with you always; yes, to the end of time.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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Mark 16:15-20 ©
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Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News
Jesus showed
himself to the Eleven and said to them:
‘Go
out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News to all creation. He who believes
and is baptised will be saved; he who does not believe will be condemned. These
are the signs that will be associated with believers: in my name they will cast
out devils; they will have the gift of tongues; they will pick up snakes in
their hands, and be unharmed should they drink deadly poison; they will lay
their hands on the sick, who will recover.’
And
so the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven: there
at the right hand of God he took his place, while they, going out, preached
everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word by the signs
that accompanied it.
REBUILD MY
CHURCH, RESTORE MY PEOPLE
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [1 COR 9:16-19, 22-23; PS 117:1-2; MARK 16:15-20 ]
Today, we celebrate with
great joy, the Feast of St Francis Xavier, the patron for missionaries. We are invited
to continue the work of the missionaries. They have planted the
Catholic Faith in our land. Most of our churches are full every Sunday in spite of
having 5 to 8 services in each of our parishes. It shows that our people
are hungering for the Word of God. That is why it is urgent that more
attention be paid to the spiritual and doctrinal formation of our
people. The urgent task of the Church is to build up the people of
God and to reach out to the world.
Community and mission
are the clearest signs that we are truly disciples of the Lord. Indeed, an indication that we have a weak,
superficial and lukewarm faith is when we are not inserted more and more into
the community and are lacking a sense of mission. Truly, if we love
Jesus, we will love His body the Church, not in spite of the fact that the
Church is wounded, but because she is so deeply wounded. And if we love
Jesus, we will also have a sense of mission as well.
Anyone who has fallen in
love with Jesus, sees Him as the treasure and gem of his life, or found in Him
the answer to all the riddles and mysteries of life, and believes that He is
“the Way, the Truth and the Life”, would not be able to keep quiet about Jesus. The fact that we are not sharing
means that Jesus and the gospel have not struck us deeply and that He has not
made a real difference in our lives, or given us the fullness of life. We
will not be able to confess with St Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have
the words of eternal life; and we have believed, and have come to know,
that you are the Holy One of God.” (Jn 6:68f)
Hence, mission is
obligatory for all baptized Catholics.
In the gospel Jesus said to the Eleven, “Go out to the whole world; proclaim
the Good News to all creation.” Every disciple of our Lord is charged
with the responsibility of proclaiming the Gospel to everyone they meet.
But we should not conceive of obligation in the sense that it is a law imposed
on us from without, as if it is something we have to do and do reluctantly out
of fear or duty. This is not what St Paul meant when he said, “I do not
boast of preaching the gospel, since it is a duty which has been laid on me; I
should be punished if I did not preach it! If I had chosen this work myself, I
might have been paid for it … it is a responsibility which has been put into my
hands.”
This obligation is not a
reluctant obligation but a joyful responsibility. It comes from a personal
encounter with the Lord. The zeal to restore the Church and His people must
come from a personal conviction, an inner compulsion arising from our encounter
with the Risen Lord. It is the case of St Paul and all the prophets and
apostles. The obligation comes from a sense of gratitude. St Paul,
having received the Good News freely from God who chose him to be His apostle,
could not do otherwise but to respond to His love and mercy. He said, “Do
you know what my reward is? It is this: in my preaching, to be able to offer
the Good News free, and not insist on the rights which the gospel gives
me.” In the gospel, the Lord reminded the apostles, “Heal the sick, raise
the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without pay, give
without pay.” We who have received the gospel of Christ gratuitously from
the Lord, and also His gift of the many talents and resources, should not keep
them for ourselves but share and bless others with them. Indeed, when one
is blessed by God either with a mystical encounter, a vision, or personal
blessings of health, joy, wealth and positions of influence in life, one is
meant to use them for blessing others and never to keep them for
ourselves.
Truly, without a
personal encounter with the Lord, there can be no question of mission. If we are in ministry but have not
had a personal encounter with the Lord, our motives for serving are not likely
to be pure. More likely, we would be serving out of ambition and personal
interests rather than truly working for God and His Church. This explains
the infighting and quarrelling among ministry members, not so much because of
their concerns with the larger interests of the mission of the Church but over
who is right, who is the best and whether their opinions and suggestions are
received and implemented.
However, a personal
encounter is not sufficient to make us missionaries for Christ. We
must be missionary disciples. One cannot be a good soldier of Christ
unless one is trained. Otherwise
we will hurt not just ourselves but our fellow soldiers in the battle against
Satan and his angels. We might find ourselves being made use of by Satan
to divide the community and hinder the mission of the Church because of our
pride, egoism, self-centeredness and selfishness.
The weakness of the
Catholic Church is not that many are not taking the responsibility of
announcing the Good News, but the greatest weakness is that many of our
Catholics are not disciples.
We are not just members of the Church but we are disciples. Who are the
disciples of Christ if not those who are learning to grow in their spiritual
life and deepening their faith through the study and sharing of the Word of
God, receiving the sacraments, are faithful to their personal prayer life and
helping fellow Catholics to grow in faith.
Discipleship happens
within the community. We do not form ourselves as individuals but within
the confines of a community of disciples. We are baptized not as individuals but
into the Body of Christ with Christ as our Head. Because we belong to the
Body of Christ and are part of it, we are called to build each other up. St
Paul told the Ephesians that God has equipped us with various gifts, “for the
work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain
to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature
manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” (cf Eph 4:12-16)
Indeed, the failure of
the Church to build communities is the reason why the Community cannot grow in
faith and in strength, not just in numbers but in quality as well. This is particularly true not just
for the young people who need to have a community to journey and grow in their
faith, but the adults as well. We all need to mentor each other. This is
what it means by disciples making disciples. Unless we support each other
in faith, in love, in life and in our struggles to be authentic in our faith
and faithful disciples of our Lord, we will lose the little faith that has been
planted in us. Indeed, being identified with each other is the way to
provide strength to one another, as St Paul shared, “So though I am not a slave
of any man I have made myself the slave of everyone so as to win as many as I
could. For the weak I made myself weak. I made myself all things to all men in
order to save some at any cost; and I still do this, for the sake of the
gospel, to have a share in its blessings.”
However, we cannot speak
of building communities without providing the proper structure and support. Many churches tried to build
communities but failed, whether among youth groups or neighbourhood groups
because they did not form leaders to form the members and to lead
them. What is urgent, therefore, is that parishes must be ready to
invest in the formation of leaders. We need to form leaders to mentor the
newer ones so that we will never be without leaders. We need to employ
more pastoral workers to assist the priests in the work of formation because
the priests can no longer do this work by themselves alone. Unless,
we have this change of mindset, the Church cannot grow because we lack teachers
to guide and form our people.
So let us continue to
build and restore our archdiocese so
that we can revive the faith of the two thirds of Catholics unaccounted for in
the Church and the 85% of church-goers who have not yet fallen in love with
Jesus. Our mission remains urgent, which is to build a vibrant,
evangelizing and missionary Church. We must do it, not just for our sake but
the sake of our children and our children’s children. The future of
humanity and this planet depends on whether they are grounded in the gospel of
truth and love. So let us go out and preach everywhere. The Lord
will work with us as He did with His disciples and confirm “the word by the
signs that accompanied it.”
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All
Rights Reserved
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