Friday 31 July 2020

THE PUNISHMENT OF SIN

20200801 THE PUNISHMENT OF SIN

01 August, 2020, Saturday, 17th Week, Ordinary Time

Readings at Mass

Liturgical Colour: White.

These are the readings for the feria

First reading

Jeremiah 26:11-16,24 ©

'This man has spoken to us in the name of the Lord'

The priests and prophets addressed the officials and all the people, ‘This man deserves to die, since he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your own ears.’

Jeremiah, however, replied to the people as follows:

‘The Lord himself sent me to say all the things you have heard against this Temple and this city. So now amend your behaviour and actions, listen to the voice of the Lord your God: if you do, he will relent and not bring down on you the disaster he has pronounced against you. For myself, I am as you see in your hands. Do whatever you please or think right with me. But be sure of this, that if you put me to death, you will be bringing innocent blood on yourselves, on this city and on its citizens, since the Lord has truly sent me to you to say all these words in your hearing.’

The officials and all the people then said to the priests and prophets, ‘This man does not deserve to die: he has spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God.’

Jeremiah had a protector in Ahikam son of Shaphan, so he was not handed over to the people to be put to death.

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 68(69):15-16,30-31,33-34 ©

In your great love, answer me, O God.

Rescue me from sinking in the mud;

save me from my foes.

Save me from the waters of the deep

lest the waves overwhelm me.

Do not let the deep engulf me

nor death close its mouth on me.

In your great love, answer me, O God.

As for me in my poverty and pain

let your help, O God, lift me up.

I will praise God’s name with a song;

I will glorify him with thanksgiving.

In your great love, answer me, O God.

The poor when they see it will be glad

and God-seeking hearts will revive;

for the Lord listens to the needy

and does not spurn his servants in their chains.

In your great love, answer me, O God.

Gospel Acclamation

cf.Lk8:15

Alleluia, alleluia!

Blessed are those who,

with a noble and generous heart,

take the word of God to themselves

and yield a harvest through their perseverance.

Alleluia!

Or:

Mt5:10

Alleluia, alleluia!

Happy those who are persecuted

in the cause of right,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Alleluia!

Gospel

Matthew 14:1-12 ©

The beheading of John the Baptist

Herod the tetrarch heard about the reputation of Jesus, and said to his court, ‘This is John the Baptist himself; he has risen from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.’

Now it was Herod who had arrested John, chained him up and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife. For John had told him, ‘It is against the Law for you to have her.’ He had wanted to kill him but was afraid of the people, who regarded John as a prophet. Then, during the celebrations for Herod’s birthday, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company, and so delighted Herod that he promised on oath to give her anything she asked. Prompted by her mother she said, ‘Give me John the Baptist’s head, here, on a dish.’ The king was distressed but, thinking of the oaths he had sworn and of his guests, he ordered it to be given her, and sent and had John beheaded in the prison. The head was brought in on a dish and given to the girl, who took it to her mother. John’s disciples came and took the body and buried it; then they went off to tell Jesus.

THE PUNISHMENT OF SIN

SCRIPTURE READINGS: [JER 26:11-16, 24; MT 14:1-12 ]

Quite often, when people meet with tragedies in life, failures, illness and sufferings, their immediate conclusion is that God is punishing them for their sins. This is not true because God does not desire us to suffer. He is not a vindictive God. Rather, He is a most compassionate and forgiving God. The Lord said, “Repent and turn from all your transgressions; otherwise iniquity will be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God. Turn, then, and live.” (Ez 18:30-32) In John’s gospel, Jesus said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (Jn 3:16) So it is not true that God wants to inflict suffering on us. Rather, He wants to spare us from the punishment of sin.

When we sin, it is not so much that God is punishing us but sin that punishes us. St Paul wrote, “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit.” (Gal 6:7f) Suffering is the consequence of our sins because it follows natural laws. As the Lord taught in the Sermon on the Mount, “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.” (Mt 7:12)

Jeremiah was sent by the Lord to warn his people of the imminent destruction of the Temple and the land if they did not repent. He repeated what he said earlier at the Temple, “The Lord himself sent me to say all the things you have heard against this Temple and this city. So now amend your behaviour and actions, listen to the voice of the Lord your God: if you do, he will relent and not bring down on you the disaster he has pronounced against you.” It was not true what the priests and prophets were accusing him of cursing the Temple and the city. He only warned them of the consequences so that if they repented, they would avoid the disasters. However, the religious leaders only focused on the bad news but not on the call to repentance. True enough, the Temple was eventually destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BC and the priests and the prophets became beggars as they lost their positions.

King Herod Antipas also had to pay a huge price for his adulterous relationship with Herodias. By marrying Herodias, he brought a vicious woman into his life. The irony was that the woman he loved would be the woman who would ruin his life. By marrying her, he broke not just the law of the indissolubility of marriage; he broke the Mosaic Law of incest. (cf Lev 18:16; 20:21) Furthermore, by stealing his brother’s wife, he incurred the wrath both of the legal wife’s family and his brother as well. His wife, being a Nabatean Arab princess whom he married for political alliance to secure loyalty from the Nabatean subjects within his territory of Perea, now turned against him. He angered his father-in-law, the powerful Nabatean King Aretas. A war ensued and Herod was eventually defeated.

Most of all, Herod paid the price of a guilty conscience. When he heard about the influential ministry of Jesus, he said, “This is John the Baptist himself; he has risen from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.” The guilt of beheading a prophet of God whom he knew and recognized lay heavy on his shoulders. He carried this guilt all his life and it caused him to imagine that John the Baptist had come back to life to take revenge on him. Perhaps it could also be that John the Baptist, being the cousin of our Lord, also resembled Jesus and thus the confusion of identity. Regardless, it was his guilt that made him live in fear of punishment from God and retaliation from John.

We too are like King Herod. We have to pay a price for our sins and negligence. When we are irresponsible with our lives, we have to bear the consequences, whether it is with our studies, work or family life. When we do not study hard, all our peers will move forward in life whilst we are left behind. When we are negligent and slipshod in our work, we cannot expect to be promoted or have our salary increased. In fact, if the company does not dismiss us, we should be grateful for the compassion of our boss. However, saddest of all is that when we are irresponsible in our marriage and family life, we cause our family to break up and our spouse and children to leave us. This would be the most unforgivable mistake in our life. Above all, we will carry a guilty conscience for the rest of our life, unable to forgive ourselves because of what we have done or failed to do. We live in fear of God’s punishment and our conscience will have no peace even though we might try to suppress it. As a result, we hurt those whom we love besides ourselves.

However, this is not yet the biggest punishment for our sins. If we are carrying the consequences of our sins, and we learn from them, then the punishment has done us good. Indeed, as the author of Hebrews tells us, “Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children; for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share his holiness. Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” (Heb 12:7,10,11)

The real punishment of sin is sin itself. We grow in sinfulness if we do nothing to stop it. When we are blind, we will end up doing more harmful things to ourselves because we cannot see. So too when sin enters our heart, has a foothold in us, like cancer cells, it will grow from strength to strength. A person who denies God will only have himself to rely on. He becomes insecure and trusts no one but himself. This leads him to commit more crimes. He seeks to justify himself and rationalizes his evil deeds. Eventually, he becomes hostile to God and blind to the truth. We see this happening in the world. Secularism which denies God leads to relativism of values. This leads to materialism and a hedonistic life. Eventually, so consumed by the world and our sensuality, we forget that our spirit thirsts for fulfillment. It leads us to self-destruction and self-annihilation, the final step to take to end our misery.

We see this in Herod and Herodias, how one sin led to another sin. From his adulterous marriage with Herodias, he lived in guilt and shame. John the Baptist constantly reprimanded him for his immoral misconduct. This also caused tension in his relationship with Herodias on one hand, and tension with the first wife’s family. He failed to realize that Herodias was a vicious woman who could not tolerate the public shame that John the Baptist had done to her. She planned and connived with her daughter, Salome, to shamelessly dance before the King on his birthday. Herod was taken by surprise and was amused at the outrageous suggestive dancing of his step-daughter that he promised her any request she made. Instigated by her mother she said, “Give me John the Baptist’s head, here, on a dish.” Again, King Herod could have rejected the immoral request but he was a weak king with no values. He was more worried about how people might gauge him than whether he was doing the right thing. So “he ordered it to be given her, and sent and had John beheaded in the prison.”

The moral of today’s scripture lesson is that if we commit sin, we will have to bear the consequences of our sins. If we do not learn from the mistakes we have made, then our sins will cause us to sin even further, leading us from the frying pan into the fire. Perhaps the other great lesson we can learn is never to destroy the person whom we love. Herodias loved Herod but her love for Herod led her to cause Herod to sin further because of her vindictiveness. If we love someone, we must protect the person we love, that our love will not destroy him or her. This is true of parental love for their children and our love for our loved ones. By spoiling them, they do not grow in maturity and in love. We must love them rightly.

Thursday 30 July 2020

OVERCOMING OUR PREJUDICES

20200731 OVERCOMING OUR PREJUDICES

31 July, 2020, Friday, 17th Week, Ordinary Time

Readings at Mass

Liturgical Colour: White.

These are the readings for the feria

First reading

Jeremiah 26:1-9 ©

Jeremiah preaches in the Temple of the Lord and is threatened with death

At the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word was addressed to Jeremiah by the Lord, ‘The Lord says this: Stand in the court of the Temple of the Lord. To all the people of the towns of Judah who come to worship in the Temple of the Lord you must speak all the words I have commanded you to tell them; do not omit one syllable. Perhaps they will listen and each turn from his evil way: if so, I shall relent and not bring the disaster on them which I intended for their misdeeds. Say to them, “The Lord says this: If you will not listen to me by following my Law which I put before you, by paying attention to the words of my servants the prophets whom I send so persistently to you, without your ever listening to them, I will treat this Temple as I treated Shiloh, and make this city a curse for all the nations of the earth.”’

The priests and prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah say these words in the Temple of the Lord. When Jeremiah had finished saying everything that the Lord had ordered him to say to all the people, the priests and prophets seized hold of him and said, ‘You shall die! Why have you made this prophecy in the name of the Lord, “This Temple will be like Shiloh, and this city will be desolate, and uninhabited”?’ And the people were all crowding round Jeremiah in the Temple of the Lord.

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 68(69):5,8-10,14 ©

In your great love, answer me, O God.

More numerous than the hairs on my head

are those who hate me without cause.

Those who attack me with lies

are too much for my strength.

How can I restore

what I have never stolen?

In your great love, answer me, O God.

It is for you that I suffer taunts,

that shame covers my face,

that I have become a stranger to my brothers,

an alien to my own mother’s sons.

I burn with zeal for your house

and taunts against you fall on me.

In your great love, answer me, O God.

This is my prayer to you,

my prayer for your favour.

In your great love, answer me, O God,

with your help that never fails.

In your great love, answer me, O God.

Gospel Acclamation

cf.1Th2:13

Alleluia, alleluia!

Accept God’s message for what it really is:

God’s message, and not some human thinking.

Alleluia!

Or:

1P1:25

Alleluia, alleluia!

The word of the Lord remains for ever:

What is this word?

It is the Good News that has been brought to you.

Alleluia!

Gospel

Matthew 13:54-58 ©

A prophet is only despised in his own country

Coming to his home town, Jesus taught the people in their synagogue in such a way that they were astonished and said, ‘Where did the man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? This is the carpenter’s son, surely? Is not his mother the woman called Mary, and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Jude? His sisters, too, are they not all here with us? So where did the man get it all?’ And they would not accept him. But Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is only despised in his own country and in his own house’, and he did not work many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

OVERCOMING OUR PREJUDICES

SCRIPTURE READINGS: [JER 26:1-9; MT 13:54-58 ]

The personality and happiness of a person are more dependent on what he experiences in life, the interpretation of these experiences and the memories that hold them than his character. Understandably, most of us are prejudiced in our views of life and events. To be prejudiced means that we pre-judge a situation or something based on our inherited ideas and views formed by our upbringing and most of all our past experiences. These memories are deeply embedded more in our unconscious than our conscious. Future events are interpreted from the memories of our past.

Indeed, prejudices are formed because of experiences and memories of some past events in our life. Memories of positive experiences will help us to interpret some events of this nature positively. Conversely, memories of negative experiences will condition us to interpret similar events negatively. So what we were taught when we were young, what we learnt, how we were raised, the values that we were brought up with, all these determine how we look at new experiences and events. So for most of us, our minds are already fixed or made up.

This was the case of the prophets and priests during the time of Jeremiah and the townsfolk of our Lord. Their minds were already made up. As far as they were concerned, their message did not fit their fixated views. Indeed, after delivering the prophecy, “the priests and prophets seized hold of him and said, ‘You shall die! Why have you made this prophecy in the name of the Lord, ‘This Temple will be like Shiloh, and this city will be desolate, and uninhabited’?” In their minds, it was unthinkable that the Temple in Jerusalem would suffer the same fate as what happened in Shiloh when the Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant and destroyed the sanctuary. So, too, the townsfolk of our Lord said, “Where did the man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? This is the carpenter’s son, surely? Is not his mother the woman called Mary, and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Jude? His sisters, too, are they not all here with us? So where did the man get it all?” In their view, how could Jesus whom they knew so well speak so eloquently and teach with wisdom?

Hence, we can understand why both our Lord and the prophet Jeremiah were rejected, not only by the people at large but mostly by their peers. His own family rejected Jeremiah like Jesus’ family. God said, “For even your kinsfolk and your own family, even they have dealt treacherously with you; they are in full cry after you; do not believe them, though they speak friendly words to you.” (Jer 12:6) St John wrote poignantly, “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.” (Jn 1:10f) In today’s gospel, Matthew noted, “And they would not accept him.”

Jesus said to them, “A prophet is only despised in his own country and in his own house.” This is very true in daily life. The most difficult people to win over are our own kind, our peers and our family. Organizations will pay lots of money to invite a speaker from abroad even when they have better speakers at home. However, because they are not “international speakers”, what they say are not fairly valued. Then again, it is very daunting and intimidating for a fellow doctor or a lawyer to speak to his colleagues, or religious leader to fellow leaders. Everyone thinks that he knows the answer and he knows more than what the other person has to say. Moreover, if they do listen at all, they are listening not with the disposition to understand or to learn. Like the scribes and Pharisees, they are waiting to find fault so that they can put them down.

However, even if our past conditions us, it does not mean that we are condemned to our past and that we cannot break out of our past conditioning. We do not have to be fossilized in our history but we can recreate history and a new future. It all depends on whether we are humble enough to learn from others and new experiences in life. If we are humble and conscious of our limitations in life and especially our conditioning from our past and upbringing, we will be ready to hear the experiences and viewpoints of others without prejudging. Only when there is sincere readiness to enter into the worldview of someone else, looking at life and situations through their lenses, can our perception of the situation expand and grow. This was what the Lord said at the end of the parables, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” (Mt 13:52) Unfortunately, the townsfolks of our Lord could not accept the new. Their minds were stuck in the past about what they knew of Jesus.

The greatest obstacle to the removal of prejudices is our ego and pride. We feel threatened most of all by our peers. This is partly because when we were young, our parents would always compare us with our siblings and peers. We were always told that they were better than us and that we were not good enough. This kind of upbringing has bred much insecurity in us, so much so that we are always seeking for affirmation. We feel that we must not lose out to our peers. We must be number one. When someone seems to sing, speak, teach or preach better than us, our defence mechanisms will find ways to put them down. We need to exalt ourselves and feel that we are better than them. This explains why it is easier to accept outsiders because they do not belong to the same class. So there is lesser need to compete since we are not on the same turf. Foreigners come and go but our peers remain with us to compete with us.

The second obstacle to listening is our selfish interests. The priests and the prophets were incensed at the suggestion that God would allow the Temple to be destroyed like the sanctuary at Shiloh. For the priests and the prophets, their power, their status and their rice bowl were dependent on the Temple. This was where they got the power to control the people and the rulers. Without the Temple, they would lose their security, their benefits and power. Ironically, whilst the religious authorities rejected the message, the princes and the people took heed of the message. “The officials and all the people said to the priests and the prophets, ‘This man does not deserve the sentence of death, for he has spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God.'” (Jer 26:16)

Today, there is a warning as well for allowing our prejudice to take over our judgment. The evangelist noted, “He did not work many miracles there because of their lack of faith.” The prophets and priests in rejecting Jeremiah eventually suffered the fate that they dreaded. The Babylonians destroyed the temple. They were stripped of everything. So too the townsfolk of our Lord, they were deprived of seeing the miracles at work in their little town simply because they could not believe that a prophet could come from Nazareth, an insignificant village. (cf Jn 7:41) When we lack faith in a person who has something good to offer us, to enrich our lives and help us to grow, we deprive ourselves of that grace given to us. Indeed, this is true not just on the individual level but also in society and internationally. When races are prejudiced against each other; when nations label other nations to be rogue, dictatorial, untrustworthy, they lose what these other nations can offer; and when religions close themselves to other religious traditions, they lose the opportunity to deepen their faith. So when we react to a person, an organization or a community, we must search deeply into our motives to see whether it is from pride. It could be due to perceived threats to our vested interests. By not taking the steps to remove our prejudices, we will be the ones who will be the loser.

Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved. The contents of this page may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission from the Archbishop’s Office. This includes extracts, quotations, and summaries.

Wednesday 29 July 2020

IMPERFECT PERFECT CHURCH

20200730 IMPERFECT PERFECT CHURCH

30 July, 2020, Thursday, 17th Week, Ordinary Time

Readings at Mass

Liturgical Colour: Green.

First reading

Jeremiah 18:1-6 ©

When the clay goes wrong, the potter starts afresh

The word that was addressed to Jeremiah by the Lord, ‘Get up and make your way down to the potter’s house; there I shall let you hear what I have to say.’ So I went down to the potter’s house; and there he was, working at the wheel. And whenever the vessel he was making came out wrong, as happens with the clay handled by potters, he would start afresh and work it into another vessel, as potters do. Then this word of the Lord was addressed to me, ‘House of Israel, can not I do to you what this potter does? – it is the Lord who speaks. Yes, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so you are in mine, House of Israel.’

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 145(146):2-6 ©

He is happy who is helped by Jacob’s God.

Alleluia!

My soul, give praise to the Lord.

I will praise the Lord all my days,

make music to my God while I live.

He is happy who is helped by Jacob’s God.

Alleluia!

Put no trust in princes,

In mortal men in whom there is no help.

Take their breath, they return to clay

and their plans that day come to nothing.

He is happy who is helped by Jacob’s God.

Alleluia!

He is happy who is helped by Jacob’s God,

whose hope is in the Lord his God,

who alone made heaven and earth,

the seas and all they contain.

He is happy who is helped by Jacob’s God.

Alleluia!

Gospel Acclamation

Jn15:15

Alleluia, alleluia!

I call you friends, says the Lord,

because I have made known to you

everything I have learnt from my Father.

Alleluia!

Or:

cf.Ac16:14

Alleluia, alleluia!

Open our heart, O Lord,

to accept the words of your Son.

Alleluia!

Gospel

Matthew 13:47-53 ©

The fishermen collect the good fish and throw away those that are no use

Jesus said to the crowds: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea that brings in a haul of all kinds. When it is full, the fishermen haul it ashore; then, sitting down, they collect the good ones in a basket and throw away those that are no use. This is how it will be at the end of time: the angels will appear and separate the wicked from the just to throw them into the blazing furnace where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.

‘Have you understood all this?’ They said, ‘Yes.’ And he said to them, ‘Well then, every scribe who becomes a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out from his storeroom things both new and old.’

IMPERFECT PERFECT CHURCH

SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ JER 18:1-6; MT 13:47-53 ]

Many of us expect the Church to be a holy place where members are all saintly. This is because we are all supposed to subscribe to the teachings of Christ in the gospel. We are to live an upright, holy and virtuous life. When we are in Church, we expect everyone to be nice, polite, caring, helpful, considerate and forgiving, just like us! More often than not, we meet very selfish worshippers who would reserve seats for their loved ones or prevent others from sitting on the same bench even if there was a space. We get impatient drivers who would shout and scold our car park wardens. Of course, we have equally rude, arrogant and sarcastic ministry members as well, including some priests! When that happens, they get hurt and leave the Church, calling everyone a hypocrite.

However, the truth is that if we are so perfect, then we should be more exemplary by being polite even when others are rude to us, charitable even when others are selfish, compassionate even when others lack tolerance. If we are equally self-righteous, impatient, unkind and retaliate against those whom we cannot tolerate, we are in truth no better than them. Like them, we are also imperfect and have our faults as well. So as the Lord said, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?” (Mt 7:1-3)

We must be careful that we are not advocating a perfect and exclusive Church only for the saints. Some Catholics think the Church is only for holy and saintly people, forgetting that we are equally sinners. If we reserve the Church only for the saints, we will have hardly any members. At any rate, if we are all so saintly, we do not need Christ or the Church to help us grow in holiness. We have already canonized ourselves. No Church has perfect members. Otherwise, we will be like the world, subscribing to spiritual eugenics, that is, only those who have the saintly genes will be allowed to live and those with wicked genes will be eliminated. We will be on the way to producing a superhuman race without moral defects. Those who are less than perfect would be deemed to be unfit for the Church.

The parable of the dragnet reminds us that the Church, the Kingdom of God on earth is constituted of all kinds of people. This is why the Church is called Catholic, universal, and open to all of humanity. It cuts across genders, races, cultures and languages. Whether one is poor or rich, educated or uneducated, ordinary or people with status and position, good or bad, saint or sinner, all belong to the Church. Like the dragnet that catches all kinds of fishes, the Kingdom of God embraces all categories of people without exception. As such, we can expect to encounter all sorts of people in the Church with their eccentricities, different levels of spiritual growth, diverse backgrounds, temperaments, experiences, prejudices and mindsets. Being Catholic means being united in diversity; not united in uniformity. Unless the Church embraces all kinds of people, the Church cannot be said to be a refuge for sinners, a sanctuary for the brokenhearted and a sacrament of love and unity. The Church is holy and yet the members are sinful.

The only requirement to be a member of the Church is our desire to grow in faith, love and charity. The only prerequisite is that we recognize we are sinners ourselves. If we are sincere in wanting to grow in holiness and to become more Christ-like, then we are worthy to be in the Church of Christ, not in spite of but because of our imperfections in faith and charity. God welcomes us into His Church so that we can be given the right ambience and opportunity to listen to the Word of God and journey with the rest of God’s people in faith.

The Church is a place where each one of us is given the ambience, the opportunity and grace to grow in Christ-likeness. Through the proclamation of the gospel, the teaching of scriptures, worship and prayers, the celebration of the sacraments, especially the Eucharist and Reconciliation, reflection on the Word of God, the sharing of the gospel and Christian fellowship, we grow in maturity in Christ. St Paul says that the gifts of the Spirit are to “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.” (Eph 4:12-14)

In the Christian community, since the beginning of the Church, there will always be members who will fall short of the standards of the gospel. Since the early Church, we read of members who fell into sin like Ananias and Sapphira who lied about the proceeds of a property they sold. (Acts 5:1-11) We read of the apparent discrimination of the Greek-speaking widows against the Hebrew-speaking widows. (Acts 6:1-6) So there will also always be shortcomings in every Christian community, including those living in consecrated life and our clergy. We are all sinners but we are purifying ourselves in love and faith.

This was the case of the Israelites in today’s first reading on the parable of the potter and the clay. God told the Israelites that He is sovereign in His power and will. God is the potter and we are the clay. Like the potter, He can do what He wills with us because we are the clay. However, this God who is the potter is always giving us chances to be remoulded and refashioned. He knows that we are imperfect and so He allows us to be perfected over time. He never gives up on us. The only problem is when we give up on ourselves by refusing to change. Following today’s text, the Lord said, “Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.” (Jer 18:11) Unfortunately, Israel was stubborn. They said, “It is no use! We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of our evil will.” (Jer 18:12) Indeed, we will ultimately have to face the judgment of God if we do not repent from doing evil. The Lord said, “This is how it will be at the end of time; the angels will appear and separate the wicked from the just to throw them into the blazing furnace where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.”

In the meantime, God is giving us time to repent. “The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.” (2 Pt 3:9) How does He do it? Precisely by allowing the good and evil, the strong and the weak, the traditionalists and the progressives, the conservatives and the liberals, the rich and the poor to interact with each other! We are mutually helping each other to grow in perfection in charity and faith. The poor test the rich in generosity. The poor give joy to the rich when they accept their help graciously and gratefully. The weak and sickly test the patience of those who are strong and healthy. Conversely, the strong help the weak and make them feel good and useful. Sinners test the saints to grow in patience, acceptance and forgiveness. The saintly people edify sinners in love, compassion and charity. So we are all mutual spiritual benefactors to each other.

Regardless, whether we are saints or sinners, we build each other up for better or for worse. The choice is ours. We can be negative and take the imperfections of the Church with resentment and discouragement. Alternatively, we can be positive and accept the imperfections of the Church as a stepping-stone for us to grow in charity and patience, in compassion and love. Indeed, at the end of the parables, Jesus gave us good advice to bring the old and the new together. “A disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his storeroom things both new and old.” We must not discard whatever is old or take whatever is new. From the strength of each, we use them for the greater good of all. We must be discerning. But we leave the final judgment to God.

HOSPITALITY AND FRIENDSHIP

20200729 HOSPITALITY AND FRIENDSHIP

29 July, 2020, Wednesday, St Martha

First reading

1 John 4:7-16 ©

Let us love one another, since love comes from God

My dear people,

let us love one another

since love comes from God

and everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.

Anyone who fails to love can never have known God,

because God is love.

God’s love for us was revealed

when God sent into the world his only Son

so that we could have life through him;

this is the love I mean:

not our love for God,

but God’s love for us when he sent his Son

to be the sacrifice that takes our sins away.

My dear people,

since God has loved us so much,

we too should love one another.

No one has ever seen God;

but as long as we love one another

God will live in us

and his love will be complete in us.

We can know that we are living in him

and he is living in us

because he lets us share his Spirit.

We ourselves saw and we testify

that the Father sent his Son

as saviour of the world.

If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God,

God lives in him, and he in God.

We ourselves have known and put our faith in

God’s love towards ourselves.

God is love

and anyone who lives in love lives in God,

and God lives in him.

Responsorial Psalm

I will bless the Lord at all times.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

I will bless the Lord at all times,

his praise always on my lips;

in the Lord my soul shall make its boast.

The humble shall hear and be glad.

I will bless the Lord at all times.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Glorify the Lord with me.

Together let us praise his name.

I sought the Lord and he answered me;

from all my terrors he set me free.

I will bless the Lord at all times.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Look towards him and be radiant;

let your faces not be abashed.

This poor man called, the Lord heard him

and rescued him from all his distress.

I will bless the Lord at all times.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

The angel of the Lord is encamped

around those who revere him, to rescue them.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

He is happy who seeks refuge in him.

I will bless the Lord at all times.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Revere the Lord, you his saints.

They lack nothing, those who revere him.

Strong lions suffer want and go hungry

but those who seek the Lord lack no blessing.

I will bless the Lord at all times.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Gospel Acclamation

Jn8:12

Alleluia, alleluia!

I am the light of the world, says the Lord;

anyone who follows me will have the light of life.

Alleluia!

Gospel

I am the resurrection and the life

Many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to sympathise with them over their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus had come she went to meet him. Mary remained sitting in the house. Martha said to Jesus, ‘If you had been here, my brother would not have died, but I know that, even now, whatever you ask of God, he will grant you.’ ‘Your brother’ said Jesus to her ‘will rise again.’ Martha said, ‘I know he will rise again at the resurrection on the last day.’ Jesus said:

‘I am the resurrection and the life.

If anyone believes in me, even though he dies he will live,

and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.

Do you believe this?’

‘Yes, Lord,’ she said ‘I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who was to come into this world.’

HOSPITALITY AND FRIENDSHIP

SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ 1 JOHN 4:7-16; JOHN 11:19-27 OR Lk 10:38-42 ]

One of the most human aspects of Jesus was His capacity to have friends. We read in the gospel that Jesus was very close to Lazarus, Mary and Martha. When Lazarus was dying, Mary and Martha sent a message to our Lord, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” (Jn 11:30). And when Lazarus died, Jesus called him as His friend. He told the apostles, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” (Jn 11:11) It is significant that at a time of weariness on His way to Jerusalem, he would stop by to stay in the house of Martha and Mary. Clearly, from the gospel, we can see the intimate friendship they had from the way they spoke with Him.

Mary “sat down at the Lord’s feet and listened to him speaking.” She was attentive to the Lord, paying attention to what He was saying, feeling and thinking. Jesus felt the need to be understood and the desire to share perhaps His anxieties over His passion. Jesus, being human, knew the importance of friendship, of confiding in His friends. Indeed, we all need mutual encouragement, attentive listening, and feeling with and for each other. We can be sure that Mary was all attentive and all ears as she listened to our Lord. For Mary, at this point, she gave her whole heart and attention to the Lord and nothing else could take her away from Him. This gave the Lord joy and encouragement. He felt loved and understood by her.

Indeed, true hospitality is more than welcoming a person to one’s house but it is the reception we give to the person that is even more important. We all have this experience of feeling abandoned when we visit someone at home. Instead of spending time conversing with us, they either leave us alone with the television, or make us watch television with them. Surely, we have a television set in our own home. When we visit a home, we want to get to know the occupants better. We seek to converse and share our pains, sorrows, joys, questions, etc. Only through fraternal sharing, will we get to know each other better, hence the deeper the sharing, the deeper the reflections, the more meaningful the conversation, the more enriching the friendship. Of course, sometimes, such conversations might take a more light-hearted form such as jokes, laughter, singing and fun, especially during celebration.

However, for Martha, her way to make Jesus feel loved and welcome was to attend to His needs. She was busy preparing food and making the place comfortable for Him. This is also an important aspect of showing hospitality. I am sure we all feel very honored when people take the trouble to prepare food for us and make the place comfortable for us if we are staying in their home. Those of us in the kitchen will appreciate that preparing food takes many hours of labour of love, thinking about what to cook, going to the market, shopping for groceries, cooking and cleaning up after the meal. So we can appreciate why Martha was a bit annoyed that Mary was sitting before our Lord whilst she was left to do all the chores herself. She complained, “Lord, do you not care that my sister is leaving me to do the serving all by myself? Please tell her to help me.” I am sure we will feel that way if we were Martha trying to get things done for our guests.

However, this complaint of Martha also shows their familiarity with Jesus. Even if family members have differences, we would not allow our guests to know of our disagreement. We do not wash our dirty linen in public. The fact that Martha could openly complain to our Lord about Mary implies that they were very at ease with our Lord. They knew Him well and the Lord must have been to their house many times before in His travels. Martha was frank and open enough to let Jesus know her feelings, her frustrations and resentment at seeing Mary seemingly enjoying the better part of the hospitality service whilst she was left to do the grunt work. Indeed, the Lord did confirm her perception when He said, “Martha, Martha, you worry and fret about so many things, and yet few are needed, indeed only one. It is Mary who has chosen the better part; it is not to be taken from her.” It was a choice that Mary and Martha made, not by the Lord.

Was the Lord wrong in recognizing Mary over Martha? The Lord was not siding with Mary over Martha. It was Martha who failed to sense the need of Jesus. In her view, she must make the place suitable for our Lord and prepare Him a good meal. That was the way she knew how to show her love and hospitality. However, the Lord was not so much hungry as he was pensive, and felt the need to talk and to share His life with His close friends. This is an important lesson for us in providing hospitality. We must know our guests well enough to give them what they truly desire. Very often, friends gather not so much for the food but just to be together to share their life. Of course, there are other occasions when they want to celebrate and make merry, then food becomes an important aspect of the celebration.

Being hospitable to our guests requires us to be sensitive, like Mary to the needs of our Lord. She sensed that our Lord simply wanted her company and was not so much concerned with the other mundane needs. For hospitality, we must understand our guests well enough to make them feel welcome. Hosts normally would try to find out what their guests like so that they can prepare for their visit. Otherwise, we might impose what we like on our guests, presuming that they like what we like. The more we know the person, the easier it is to serve the person. This is true as well in buying gifts. When we do not know the person well enough, often the gifts we give are not well appreciated because what we give is not what they like or need but what we would like to receive ourselves.

In the final analysis, true hospitality is to strengthen the bonds of friendship. There are many times during my home visitations when I feel like I have wasted my time and that of the host’s, because I left feeling like I have not come to know them a bit better, or that they have come to know me more. They might have given me good food and displayed their culinary skills. But beyond impressing me with their beautiful house and good food, I felt empty and hungry as my heart was not touched and my mind unenlightened. True friendship is about sharing life, love and joy.

From human friendship, we can learn to apply this same principle to our relationship with God. We can learn from Mary the importance of having a contemplative heart. The highest form of prayer is contemplative prayer when two hearts beat as one. Contemplative prayer requires us to focus our eyes and our heart on the Lord. It does not require us to speak much but simply to feel with the Lord and for the Lord. Of course, contemplative prayer cannot be artificially simulated as some forms of meditation seek to do. Rather, it is preceded by vocal, discursive and affective prayer. To arrive at contemplation, one must first listen to the Word of God, dwell on it and transform insights and ideas into feelings of love and intimacy. Only when we have arrived at silence, does contemplation commence! It is a natural movement from one level to another level.

The fruit of contemplative prayer is love in action. St Teresa of Calcutta once said, “The fruit of silence is prayer. The fruit of prayer is faith. The fruit of faith is love. The fruit of love is service. The fruit of service is peace.” If we want our service to be genuine and motivated by pure love for God and our fellowmen, not by some kind of ideology or a need to make use of people to find our sense of usefulness and meaning, then our actions must be motivated by the love of God in us. This is what St John reminds us, “Let us love one another since love comes from God and everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Anyone who fails to love can never have known God, because God is love.” Only when we are loved by God can we love like Him. “God has loved us so much, we too should love one another. God will live in us and his love will be complete in us.”