20200227
WHERE
DOES YOUR SECURITY LIE?
27 February,
2020, Thursday After Ash Wednesday
Readings at Mass
Liturgical
Colour: Violet.
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First reading
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Deuteronomy 30:15-20 ©
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I set before you today life or death, blessing or curse
Moses said to the
people: ‘See, today I set before you life and prosperity, death and disaster.
If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I enjoin on you today,
if you love the Lord your God and follow his ways, if you keep his
commandments, his laws, his customs, you will live and increase, and the Lord
your God will bless you in the land which you are entering to make your own.
But if your heart strays, if you refuse to listen, if you let yourself be drawn
into worshipping other gods and serving them, I tell you today, you will most
certainly perish; you will not live long in the land you are crossing the
Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you
today: I set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so
that you and your descendants may live, in the love of the Lord your God,
obeying his voice, clinging to him; for in this your life consists, and on this
depends your long stay in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob he would give them.’
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Responsorial
Psalm
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Psalm 1:1-4,6 ©
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Happy
the man who has placed his trust in the Lord.
Happy
indeed is the man
who
follows not the counsel of the wicked;
nor
lingers in the way of sinners
nor
sits in the company of scorners,
but
whose delight is the law of the Lord
and
who ponders his law day and night.
Happy
the man who has placed his trust in the Lord.
He is
like a tree that is planted
beside
the flowing waters,
that
yields its fruit in due season
and
whose leaves shall never fade;
and
all that he does shall prosper.
Happy
the man who has placed his trust in the Lord.
Not
so are the wicked, not so!
For
they like winnowed chaff
shall
be driven away by the wind:
for
the Lord guards the way of the just
but
the way of the wicked leads to doom.
Happy
the man who has placed his trust in the Lord.
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Gospel
Acclamation
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Ps50:12,14
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Praise
and honour to you, Lord Jesus!
A
pure heart create for me, O God,
and
give me again the joy of your help.
Praise
and honour to you, Lord Jesus!
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Or:
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Mt4:17
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Praise
and honour to you, Lord Jesus!
Repent,
says the Lord,
for
the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.
Praise
and honour to you, Lord Jesus!
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Gospel
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Luke 9:22-25 ©
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Whoever loses his life for my sake will save it
Jesus said to his
disciples:
‘The
Son of Man is destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and
chief priests and scribes and to be put to death, and to be raised up on the
third day.’
Then
to all he said:
‘If
anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his
cross every day and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose
it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, that man will save it. What
gain, then, is it for a man to have won the whole world and to have lost or
ruined his very self?’
WHERE DOES YOUR
SECURITY LIE?
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [Dt 30:15-20; Ps 1:1-4,6; Lk 9:22-25 ]
Moses said to the people,
“See, today I set before you, life and prosperity, death and disaster.” Indeed, this challenge remains true
every day of our life. At every moment of the day and every day, we are
faced with having to make decisions. Every decision we make can be for
life or for death, for blessings or for evil. That is why we must be
discerning in the choices we make. God has granted us this freedom to
choose life or death.
Of course, it seems the
choice is so obvious. Who wants to choose death and disaster? We all desire fullness of life and lots of
blessings. But this is where the irony of human beings is. Although
God offers us life, prosperity and blessings, man instead chooses suffering,
death and evil. How strange man behaves! His choices seem to
contradict what he really wants in life. What, then, could be the reasons
for this contradictory response of man?
Firstly, man is
ignorant. This is the real truth. We are blinded by our insecurity, pride and
selfishness. This was why when the Lord was hanging on the cross, He was
not angry with His enemies. On the contrary, He felt sorry for
them. On the cross, He cried out to His Father, “Father, forgive them; for
they do not know what they are doing.” (Lk 23:34) Indeed, most of us cannot tell what
is right from wrong and what is good from evil. More so, in a world of
relativism where everything now seems a matter of preference. There is no
longer any objective truth or evil. So the decision is always a pragmatic
choice. Often they are made for today without due consideration for the
future of humanity, family or society. It is about the present generation
enjoying as much as they can on this earth.
Yet, the world is blind
because if we look at the consequences of the choices the secular world is
making, the world has become a more unsafe place than ever before. We see the consequences of a
selfish and prideful humanity. It has led to a denial of God, a denial of
objective truth. The consequences are relativism, materialism,
consumerism, war, economic, military war and civil, discrimination, climate
warming, drug trafficking and growing consumption, promiscuity and sex crimes,
like pornography, molestation, rape and pedophilia. Families and
marriages are breaking apart because marriage is no longer held sacred;
same-sex union is promoted and marriage is viewed as just a social event.
It is not meant to last since divorce is easily obtained. The young no
longer know their identity, whether they are male, female, binary, transgender
or trans-sexual. Life has lost its sacredness. One just lives for
this life. If life is difficult, there is no reason to continue. So
euthanasia is promoted.
Secondly, man is
insecure. He is afraid of death and pain. Since he thinks that he
has only one life to live, he is always afraid of death. He wrongly believes that once he is
dead, everything is annihilated. As such, he seeks to preserve his
life. In order to live, others must die. He makes himself the focus
and the center of everything. He worships himself as if he were
god. He finds others a threat to his existence and happiness in
life. He wants to grab more and more for himself, believing that with
money, he can enjoy all the good things of life; and with power, he can control
his destiny.
Alas, how foolish for
man to think in this manner.
Jesus asked us, “What gain, then, is it for a man to have the whole world
and to have lost or ruined his very self?” By seeking life for ourselves,
we lose it. Jesus says, “For anyone who wants to save his life will lose
it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, that man will save it.”
The more we try to save our life, the more we will lose it because when we live
just for ourselves, we cannot find real happiness in life. Happiness is
ours only when we give our lives for the service of our brothers and sisters,
and loving them inclusively.
How do you find life and
prosperity? Moses told the people that the commandments of God must be
the basis for us to discern what is truly good and what is evil. “If you obey the commandments of
the Lord your God that I enjoin on you today, if you love the Lord your God and
follow his ways, if you keep his commandments, his laws, his customs, you will
live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you
are entering to make your own.” God has shown us the way, revealed
to us how we should live our lives. He has given us the commandments to
guide us so that we can we walk in the way of truth and love. There is no
place for relativism for those who seek to walk the way of truth. Only
those who do not know God walk in relativism. But we who know Him, must
walk according to the truths that He has revealed to us in the scriptures.
Nevertheless, knowing
the truth might not be a sufficient motivation for us to carry out the laws of
God unless we love Him.
Obeying laws are always difficult when they are imposed on us.
Nevertheless, when we love someone, it is always easy. When we love, we
always obey. This explains why Moses said, “If you love the
Lord.” Without love for the Lord, we will find ways to circumvent the
laws, even though we know that what we do will cause us to suffer. A
married man commits adultery knowing that it would cause his marriage to break
up and his family destroyed. Yet he goes ahead because he is tempted by
the pleasure he gets from the extra-marital relationship. He does not
think far enough but only his immediate desire for self-gratification.
Indeed, what can prevent
a man from committing sin if not for love of God. A married man will not
commit adultery when he loves his wife more than himself. If we love God and we love our
neighbour, then we would not do anything that causes them to be sad or
hurt. We put their interests and happiness before our own. This is
why, St Paul wrote, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church
and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her
with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to
himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind – yes,
so that she may be holy and without blemish. In the same way,
husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his
wife loves himself.” (Eph 5:25-28)
However, clearly, we
cannot love God unless He first loves us. This is what St John wrote, “In this is love,
not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning
sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought
to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God
lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.” (1Jn 4:10-12) Sometimes when
relationships fail, and adultery happens in marriage life, it is easy to put
the blame on the one who commits adultery. But in truth we must ask
ourselves why our partner or our spouse goes for someone else. Often,
underlying infidelity in relationships is the fact that one party does not feel
the love or get the attention that he or she needs. Hence, when
someone else pays the person attention and shows him or her love, that person
is overwhelmed and enters into a relationship with him or her.
This explains the point
of departure in fulfilling God’s love, which is the love of God for His people. He said, “I call heaven and earth
to witness against you today: so that you and your descendants may live in the
love of the Lord your God, obeying his voice, clinging to him; for in this your
life consists, and on this depends your long stay in the land which the Lord
swore to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob he would give them.” The
truth is that God had shown His love for Israel. He had brought them out
of Egypt, delivering them from the slavery of the Egyptians. The
lives of the Israelites totally depended on God’s graciousness.
Moses reminded the people, “It was not because you were more numerous than any
other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you – for
you were the fewest of all peoples. It was because
the Lord loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors,
that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed
you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.”
(Dt 7:7f)
Jesus came precisely to
reaffirm His Father’s unconditional love for us by His death on the cross. Jesus said to His disciples, “The
Son of Man is destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and
chief priests and scribes and to be put to death, and to be raised up on the
third day.” We must take this path if we want to find life.
There is no other way, except the path of selfless giving to others. “If
anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his
cross every day and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will
lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, that man will save it.”
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All
Rights Reserved
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