20210907 SYNCRETISM
07 September, 2021, Tuesday, 23rd Week, Ordinary Time
First reading |
Colossians 2:6-15 © |
The Lord has brought you to life with him
You must live your whole life according to the Christ you have received – Jesus the Lord; you must be rooted in him and built on him and held firm by the faith you have been taught, and full of thanksgiving.
Make sure that no one traps you and deprives you of your freedom by some second-hand, empty, rational philosophy based on the principles of this world instead of on Christ.
In his body lives the fullness of divinity, and in him you too find your own fulfilment, in the one who is the head of every Sovereignty and Power.
In him you have been circumcised, with a circumcision not performed by human hand, but by the complete stripping of your body of flesh. This is circumcision according to Christ. You have been buried with him, when you were baptised; and by baptism, too, you have been raised up with him through your belief in the power of God who raised him from the dead. You were dead, because you were sinners and had not been circumcised: he has brought you to life with him, he has forgiven us all our sins.
He has overridden the Law, and cancelled every record of the debt that we had to pay; he has done away with it by nailing it to the cross; and so he got rid of the Sovereignties and the Powers, and paraded them in public, behind him in his triumphal procession.
Responsorial Psalm |
Psalm 144(145):1-2,8-11 © |
How good is the Lord to all.
I will give you glory, O God my king,
I will bless your name for ever.
I will bless you day after day
and praise your name for ever.
How good is the Lord to all.
The Lord is kind and full of compassion,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
How good is the Lord to all,
compassionate to all his creatures.
How good is the Lord to all.
All your creatures shall thank you, O Lord,
and your friends shall repeat their blessing.
They shall speak of the glory of your reign
and declare your might, O God.
How good is the Lord to all.
Gospel Acclamation | Ph2:15-16 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
You will shine in the world like bright stars
because you are offering it the word of life.
Alleluia!
Or: | cf.Jn15:16 |
Alleluia, alleluia!
I chose you from the world
to go out and bear fruit,
fruit that will last,
says the Lord.
Alleluia!
Gospel | Luke 6:12-19 © |
Jesus chooses his twelve apostles
Jesus went out into the hills to pray; and he spent the whole night in prayer to God. When day came he summoned his disciples and picked out twelve of them; he called them ‘apostles’: Simon whom he called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot who became a traitor.
He then came down with them and stopped at a piece of level ground where there was a large gathering of his disciples with a great crowd of people from all parts of Judaea and from Jerusalem and from the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon who had come to hear him and to be cured of their diseases. People tormented by unclean spirits were also cured, and everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him because power came out of him that cured them all.
SYNCRETISM
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ Col 2:6-15; Ps 145:1-2,8-11; Lk 6:12-19]
In the gospel, we read of how Jesus’ mission was radically rooted in His Father. He was clear that He was sent by the Father to do His will. Hence, His entire life and mission were centred on His Father’s love and His plan for humanity. Jesus would spend hours in prayer to the Father, consulting Him in whatever He wanted to do. And for more significant decisions, He would spend the whole night in prayer. “Jesus went out into the hills to pray; and he spent the whole night in prayer to God. When day came he summoned his disciples and picked out twelve of them; he called them ‘apostles’.” Whenever the Lord was unsettled, as in the case of the death of John the Baptist, He would withdraw and spend time in solitude with His Father. (Mk 6:46) Before His departure from this world, He prayed for His disciples, and as He agonized on His imminent passion, “In his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground.” (Lk 22:44)
Because Jesus was connected with His Father, He drew strength from His Father in His ministry. He was effective in radiating the healing presence and power of God to those who came to Him. “He then came down with them and stopped at a piece of level ground where there was a large gathering of his disciples with a great crowd of people from all parts of Judaea and from Jerusalem and from the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon who had come to hear him and to be cured of their diseases. People tormented by unclean spirits were also cured, and everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him because power came out of him that cured them all.” The only secret to finding power in the ministry is to follow Jesus by being connected with God in prayer, in intimacy and in love.
The apostles and disciples of Jesus in turn drew the Father’s strength through Jesus. “He appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, and to have authority to cast out demons.” (Mk 3:14f) Indeed, our authority as Christians comes from Christ alone. This is what St Paul told the Colossians, “You must live your whole life according to the Christ you have received – Jesus the Lord; you must be rooted to him and built on him and held firm by the faith you have been taught, and full of thanksgiving.” Being rooted in Christ and building ourselves in Him is the only way to ensure that we walk in truth and in love. To the Ephesians, St Paul wrote, “we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.” (Eph 4:15f)
Unfortunately, many Catholics, like the Christians in Colossians and Ephesus, are not firm in the faith that they had received from the apostles. We are like children, “tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.” (Eph 4:14) Because we are drawn to all kinds of “second-hand, empty, rational philosophy based on the principles of this world instead of on Christ”, we are misled, trapped and have lost our true freedom in Christ. The danger of being seduced by the philosophies of the world are so real today because of the accessibility to all kinds of knowledge on the internet. Many of us are undiscerning about what we read. But the most insidious danger is not that these philosophies are teaching complete falsehood, but half-truths. This makes it so attractive to the human mind. The New Age Movement is one of those current trends that attract the modern man because it is a syncretism of the esoteric religions of the ancient world combined with modern philosophy and psychology. Syncretism is also prevalent among many Christian churches who seek to combine Christianity with other religious beliefs and practices, making it more acceptable and palatable to all, regardless of religion.
Syncretism was what St Paul was seeking to protect the Christians in Colossae from. There were Christians then who sought to assimilate Christianity with Judaism, Gnosticism and pagan worship of the universe, namely the elements such as water, fire, light, rain and the planets. By so doing, they were saying Christ was not sufficient to save them. They needed the circumcision of Judaism to be saved. They also need to be mystically enlightened through some password, as taught in Gnosticism. This explains why in today’s first reading, St Paul insisted that Christ was sufficient for our salvation. There is no need for any combination or for Christ to be completed by taking some ideas from Gnosticism, paganism and the practices of Judaism. This has often been sounded out by the Church in recent times in the document, “Jesus Christ The Bearer Of The Water Of Life” (2003) and the Letter “Placuit Deo” (22 February 2018) cautioning us on the dangers of the New Age Movement and syncretism.
St Paul in no uncertain terms wrote, “In his body lives the fullness of divinity, and in him you too find your own fulfilment, in the one who is the head of every Sovereignty and Power.” In these words, Paul summed up the full identity of Jesus who is not just fully human but divine. In Christ, we see the fullness of God’s presence. He is therefore the revealer of the Father, the Way, the Truth and the Life. (Jn 14:6-10) “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12) St Paul was just reiterating what he wrote earlier when he expounded on the supremacy of Christ. “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers … in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things.” (Col 1:15-20)
Salvation depends on whether we are rooted in Christ, aligned with His Body the Church. It is not through physical circumcision that we are saved but through baptism, which is how we belong to Christ and His Church. But it is more than mere external baptism alone, it requires us to be buried with Him so that we can be raised up with Him. Hence, we do not need to depend on some elemental spirits of the universe to lead us to God because by His death, our sins are forgiven and we have been reconciled with God. “He has overridden the Law, and cancelled every record of the debt that we had to pay; he has done away with it by nailing it to the cross; and so he got rid of the Sovereignties and the Powers.”
Consequently, we must not compromise or dilute our faith in Christ as our Saviour and revealer. The Church teaching with respect to Christ as all sufficient is clearly brought out in Dei Verbum, “Jesus perfected revelation by fulfilling it through his whole work of making Himself present and manifesting Himself: through His words and deeds, His signs and wonders, but especially through His death and glorious resurrection from the dead and final sending of the Spirit of truth. The Christian dispensation, therefore, as the new and definitive covenant, will never pass away and we now await no further new public revelation before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Whilst inter-religious dialogue is helpful in promoting mutual understanding and respect, it does not mean that we are required to import alien doctrines and practices from other religions into ours. Certainly “the Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men. Indeed, she proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ ‘the way, the truth, and the life’ (John 14:6), in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself.” (Nostra Aetate, 2) Again, knowing the religions of others can challenge us to look deeper into our own faith, whether in the way we understand our doctrines or the way we live our Christian life. But we need to make a distinction between illegitimate and legitimate inculturation of faith. We can import some practices of faith of other cultures and religions but not the theology or philosophy behind these practices, as this would mean syncretism.
Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved.
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