3rd Ordinary Sunday, Year A, 26.01.2014

Isaiah 8:23-9:3/ 1 Corinthians 1:10-13, 17/ Matthew 4:12-23

Standing at the beach and looking at the sea and hearing the sound of the waves can be quite relaxing and it also calms the mind.

The sea also gives a feeling of mystery and adventure.

And we also know of those songs written about the sea: “I am Sailing” (Rod Steward); “Beyond the Sea” (Bobby Darin).

For most of us, we know about the sea at surface level.

We see ships sailing on the sea; we see people surfing on the waves; we may have tried out the sea sports like water-skiing and para-sailing.

We know what is the sea, and what happens on the surface of the sea.

Beneath the surface of the sea is another world – the underwater world.

And considering the fact that about 70% of the earth is covered with water, then we are talking about quite a big world. Yes, it’s a big world down there.

Some have gone for scuba-diving to see what this underwater world is about. Others want to go deeper and submarines have been invented to do so.

Well, let’s see how much we know about the underwater world and see if you can answer these underwater riddles.

What did the sardine call the submarine?  - A can of people.

What song did the boy octopus sing to the girl octopus? – I wanna hold your hand hand hand hand hand hand hand hand.

Yes, the sea and what is in the underwater world, is full of mystery, can also be a bit funny, and yet, it is also quite similar to our world on the dry land.

It is interesting to note that when Jesus began His ministry it was at the lakeside town of Capernaum, as the gospel tells us.

We are told that Capernaum is a lakeside town on the borders of Zebulun and Naphtali.

It was there at Capernaum that the prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled: “The people that lived in darkness has seen a great light; on those who dwell in the land and shadow of death, a light has dawned.”

And it was from that lakeside town of Capernaum that Jesus began His preaching with the message: Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is close at hand.

Jesus seemed to draw a lot of inspiration from the sea.

In fact, His first few disciples were people who were connected to the sea – they were fishermen, and they earned their living from the sea.

He called them from the sea, to leave their boats behind, but it is also with their knowledge of the sea that Jesus is going to teach them to be fishers of men.

So, let us just imagine the sea, and the underwater world. And yet the underwater world is so similar to our dry-land world.

For example, down there it is big fish eat small fish. Up here it is big boys bullying the weak boys. What happens down there also happens up here.

In the sea, one of the feared predators is the shark. On dry land, there is an equivalent called the loanshark, which is equally fearsome and troublesome.

Yes, the underwater world is very much like our dry land world. 

Maybe that is why Jesus chose fishermen as His first disciples to make the connection.

And He said to them: Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.

So, the mission seems to be quite straight forward – they do the catching and Jesus will do the cleaning.

But there may be something more than this, just as how we can only look at the surface of the sea but there is much more beneath it.

In order to be “fishers of men”, Jesus is going to teach His disciples to be “fishes for men”.

As fishermen, they catch fish for a living. But as disciples of Jesus, they will have to be the fish.

In other words, where once they catch fish for they livelihood, now they are to be the fish for the life of the world.

Hence, it is not surprising that one of the earliest symbols of Christianity is the fish.

Fish, in Greek is called ICHTHUS. It is also an acronym to mean “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior”.

Jesus called His disciples to be fishers of men. Yet, like Himself, they are to be the fish for men, the fish for the life of the world.

Jesus allowed Himself to be caught and killed in order to save us from our sin.

In order to be the “Fisher of men”, Jesus had to be the fish for men.

Likewise, as His disciples, in order to be fishers of men, we too have to be the fish for men, we too have to be the fish for the life of the world.

We become the fish when we offer ourselves in love and service to others, especially those who hunger for the love of God.

We become the fish for others when we love our enemies and pray for those who do wrong to us.

We become the fish for others when we offer care and compassion, forgiveness and reconciliation.

May we allow ourselves to be caught by the love of Jesus, in order to be the fish for men, so that in turn we can be fishers of men.

2nd Ordinary Sunday, Year A, 19.01.2014

Isaiah 49:3,5-6/ 1 Corinthians 1:1-3/ John 1:29-34

The act of kneeling, to say the least, is a very profound act.

In the religious sense, the act of kneeling expresses the worship and adoration in the presence of the divine.

We may remember that on the feast of the Epiphany, the wise men came from the east and when they finally found the Child Jesus, they fell to their knees and did Him homage.

Indeed, we kneel only to the holy and the divine. It is an act of submission and reverence.

Just like when we came to the Church, and before we go to our seat at the pew, we would at least genuflect (going down on one knee) because we acknowledge the presence of God in Church.

It may seem to be like some kind of exercise for the knees, but it is typically Catholic, and maybe even habitually Catholic.

It may be so typical and habitual that some people might see it as comical.

They say that you will know when a Catholic goes for a movie in the cinema. 

He will walk down the aisle, genuflect and then go to his seat (Catholics are also creature of habit).

Nonetheless, the act of kneeling is a powerful sign of witnessing in the worshipping of the divine.

Yes, when we kneel, we lower ourselves before God and we acknowledge that God is our Creator and we are His creatures. We are nothing without Him.

So it is only right and proper that we go to God and not expect Him to come to us.

We lower ourselves before God and certainly not the other way around. We don’t expect God to lower Himself to us.

Yet in the gospel, we heard that Jesus came to John the Baptist.

And in some religious art about the baptism of Jesus, we see Jesus kneeling before John the Baptist for baptism.

Or at least Jesus stands lower than John the Baptist for His baptism.

The baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist had been a difficult issue for the early Church.

Why must Jesus, the Son of God, the sinless one, be baptized by John?

And yet the baptism of Jesus is recorded in all four gospels.

Certainly, there must be something about Jesus that the gospels want to tell us.

In today’s gospel, that something about Jesus is revealed by John the Baptist when he said, “Look, there is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

Jesus has many titles “Saviour”, “Teacher”, “Healer”. But it was John the Baptist who called Jesus the “Lamb of God”.

And Jesus the Lamb of God had a specific mission – to take away the sin of the world.

Indeed, the ways of God are rather strange. To take away the sin of the world, He didn’t send a mighty army of angels or warriors, or use an arsenal of powerful devastating weapons to exterminate the wicked and the evil.

Even if it comes to using animals as a symbol, a more mighty or powerful one can be used, eg, eagle or lion.

But it is the symbol of the meek and gentle lamb, that is silent before its shearers, and does not put up a resistance when it is lead to the slaughter house that takes away the sin of the world.

Yes, Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

And He showed us how to do it. We may remember that after the Last Supper and before He was arrested, He and His disciples went to the Garden of Gethsemane.

There Jesus prayed and underwent great distress in what we call the “Agony of the Garden”.

There was a gesture that He made during His prayer. The gospel of Luke said that Jesus knelt and prayed.

The gospels of Matthew and Mark said that Jesus fell prostrate on the ground as He prayed.

Yes, Jesus knelt and lowered Himself so that He could take away the sin of the world.

And before we can look at the sin of the world, we have to look at the sin of the Church.

Last Thursday, the Catholic Church was slammed at the United Nations on how the Church had handled the cases of sex abuse by the clergy.

Pope Francis denounced the sex abuse as the “Shame of the Church”. Yes, this is the sin of the Church.

We, the Church have to kneel and fall prostrate on the ground to beg for God’s mercy to take away this sin of the Church even before we can address the sin of the world.

God has made the Church the light of the nations so that His salvation may reach to the ends of the world.

But we have failed; we have sinned; we need to be saved first; we need to have our sin taken away.

So, we must kneel, we must even fall prostrate on the ground and beg for mercy and forgiveness.

Then we can become lambs of God who will take away the sin of the world.

Baptism of the Lord, Year A, 12.01.2014

Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7/ Acts 10:34-38/ Matthew 3:13-17

There is one day in our life that we will always remember, one day that we will not forget, unless of course, our memory begins to fail.

Some would make this day special with a big celebration, while others would just spend it quietly.

That day is none other than our birthday.

Yes, that’s our special day and every year we would take note of it, or others will remind us of it.

There is this joke about celebrating birthdays. A group of friends wanted to spring a birthday surprise for one of their shy friends.

But of all places, they decided to do it at Mass.

So before Mass, one of them approached the priest to ask if he would say or do something for the birthday boy.

The priest, a prim and proper traditionalist, gave this reply: We will see how.

Now, during Mass, the priest said nothing about the birthday.

After the final blessing and just before the choir sang the final hymn, the priest said: Is there someone here celebrating his birthday today?

So his friends gleefully prodded the shy birthday boy to raise his hand.

And then the priest said, “Well, we don’t have a birthday cake for you, but since it is your birthday today…” and then he pointed to the altar, “then you can blow out the candles.”

Well, it is still a privilege to do something for the altar, even if it is just blowing out the candles!

So, in big or small ways, birthdays are remembered because they are as special as each of us is special.

But, there is another special day for us which we seldom take note of, or even bother to remember.

That special day is none other than the day of our baptism.

Some of us may remember the day of our baptism, but by and large, we don’t usually take note of that day.

Just in case we do not know when the day of our baptism was, we can find it in our baptism certificate.

And just in case we do not know where our baptism certificate is, then it is better start finding. We might need it when we want to book a niche in the Church columbarium.

Our baptism day is just as important as our birthday, maybe even more important, when considered in the religious sense.

Just as we celebrate the birth of Jesus at Christmas, today we celebrate His baptism.

The baptism of Jesus is as important an event as our baptism, although it is different in essence.

Our baptism cleanses away the stain of original sin and immerses us into the identity of Christ and that is why it is only with baptism that we can be identified as Christians.

The baptism of Jesus identifies Him as the beloved Son of God who came to take away the sins of the world.

Hence, the baptism of Jesus marks the beginning as well as the commitment to His mission as Saviour.

Similarly, our baptism marks the beginning of our life in God, our spiritual life.

If our birthday marks the beginning of our existence, then our baptism marks the beginning of our union with God.

That union is essentially and fundamentally expressed in a life of faithfulness to God.

And there will be plenty of temptations to challenge our faithfulness to God.

Even Jesus after His baptism was tempted by the devil in the desert. But of course he overcame the temptations.

We too, are subjected to many temptations. So how have we done so far?

This feast of the Baptism of the Lord not only reminds us of the day of our baptism, but also reminds us that it is time for a spiritual check-up and a spiritual assessment.

Sometimes, we may be tempted to think that if we were not baptized, then we might have it easier and have more freedom.

We can sleep in on Sundays, don’t have to come to Church, do anything we like without feeling guilty and we do not have to go for confession.

But even though we are baptized, even though we are Catholics, we are already losing, or maybe even lost, the sense of sin.

For example, committing adultery is now called having an affair, stealing is called shop-lifting.

Yes, we are tempted to go easy on ourselves and not to take life too hard. After all, how bad have we been?

We are not playing with black magic or anything satanic so we can’t be that bad, isn’t it?

Yet, there is one aspect of the spiritual life that is called spiritual warfare, which we don’t mention often.

Just as Jesus came to fight evil and sin, we now continue the fight, and we fight with confidence in our faithfulness to God.

But there are distractions that can make us lose focus.

We may remember the story of the battle of Troy, a classic example of the art of war.

In the story, the Greeks laid siege on the city of Troy.

But they could not break the defenders of the city because the Trojans were united in their commitment to their city, so the Greeks decided to use deception.

They pretended to retreat and sail off, but they left behind a big horse-like structure, which we call the Trojan Horse.

The people of Troy unsuspectingly pulled the Trojan Horse into they city as their war trophy and began rejoicing and celebrating too soon.

When everyone was drunk on celebration and with their guard totally down, the Greek soldiers hiding inside the Trojan Horse came out and opened the city gates for the Greek army that sailed back and were waiting outside the city.

That was how the city of Troy fell, all because they lost focus on their safety and security, and were deceived by something curious.

It was a classical example of deception and temptation in the art of war.

The Bible gives us this warning in 1 Cor 10:12 “The man who thinks he is safe must be careful not to fall.”

In God is our safety and security, He is our God and we are His beloved people.

This is the covenant that is sealed by our baptism.

God has already given us everything to help us feel safe and secure. He even gave us His Son. What more do we want?

We might like to have some excitement in life, but we are risking our safety and security.

Because there are Trojan Horses waiting at our gates.

But they can’t come in, unless we want to pull them in, and then the Horse will be our loss.

So as we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord, and as we recall our own baptism, let us recommit ourselves in faithfulness to the Lord, and do the good, and the right and loving thing always.

Let us fight the good fight, and be faithful to the Lord always.

Epiphany, Year A, 05.01.2013

Isaiah 60:1-6/ Ephesians 3:2-3, 5-6/ Matthew 2:1-12

Most of us may still remember some of the stories and fairy tales that we heard during our childhood and primary school days.

But as we grow up and face the real world, we also leave the idealistic fairy tales behind.

But say what we like, fairy tales may teach us a thing or two about the real world.

One fairy tale that we would have heard before is “Cinderella”. We would vaguely remember the story.

The story begins with this beautiful young girl who had a proud and haughty step-mother, who had two daughters of her own who were equally vain and selfish.

The step-mother and her two daughters forced the young girl to be their maid and ill-treated her day and night.

When her chores were done for the day, she would go back to her cold and barren room and curl up before the fireplace in order to stay warm.

She would often be covered by cinders from the fire place and the step-mother and step-sisters would mock her by calling her “Cinderella”. (That’s how she got her name.)

One day, the Prince invited all the young ladies to a ball and he planned to choose a wife from amongst them.

The two step-sisters planned to go for the ball but Cinderella would have to stay behind to do the household chores.

After they left for the ball, and as Cinderella was working at the miserable chores, her fairy godmother appeared and transformed Cinderella into the beautiful young girl that she was, so that she could go to the ball.

Cinderella’s rags were turned into a beautiful gown and she even had a delicate pair of glass slippers.

The fairy godmother told her to enjoy the ball but she must return by midnight when everything will go back to normal.

At the ball, Cinderella entranced everyone especially the Prince but she remembered to get back home before midnight.

Another ball was held the next evening and Cinderella again attended with the fairy godmother’s help.

But she got so absorbed dancing with the Prince that she lost track of time and only rushed out at the stroke of midnight, leaving behind one of her glass slippers.

The Prince kept that glass slipper and was determined to look for her because he wanted to marry her.

He ordered all the young ladies to come and try out the slipper but of course none of them could fit into it.

Finally, Cinderella appeared and slipped her foot into it and had the other slipper to prove that she was that beautiful girl at the ball. 

And of course in the end, the Prince and Cinderella got married and lived happily ever after.

There can be a moral to the fairy tale - goodness will prevail and it will overcome all obstacles with some divine intervention. 

Today as we celebrate the feast of Epiphany, we see the appearance of the wise men, or the Magis, or the three kings, at the Nativity Crib.

These three kings are like some exotic figures from some fairy tale. 

Their clothes were rich and elegant and their gifts are by no means ordinary.

As we have heard from the gospel, they came from the east and they were led by the star in search of the new born king of the Jews.

So their journey began even before Christmas and they had to cross the desert sands with all its challenges and difficulties.

So we can imagine that they were sun-scorched, dusty, smelly and sounding a bit crazy as they came to Jerusalem asking where was the new born king of the Jews.

And that’s where the drama began. King Herod was perturbed and so was the whole of Jerusalem.

The chief priests and the scribes were called in and after some checking, they said that it was not here in Jerusalem but there in Bethlehem.

And then Herod thought of an evil plot to use the wise men as his unsuspecting agents to search out the new born king.

So off they went to Bethlehem and again led by the star, they found the child and paid homage to Him.

And then warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their own country by another way.

Yes, we are all familiar with the story of the wise men.

Sounds like a fairy tale, and we can even end it off by saying that the wise men lived happily ever after.

Well, the wise men were wise in the ways of God, but they may not be that wise when it comes to the ways of the world.

They were used for evil intentions, but that also stirred up the divine interventions. Yes, in the end, goodness will prevail.

Does that sound like some fairy tale or should we believe that it is for real?

The feast of the Epiphany means that the birth of Christ was revealed to all the nations and the wise men who were non-Jews are the representatives.

But another underlying aspect is that the revelation of Christ will also be met with evil resistance and evil intentions.

And here is another revelation: in the face of evil intentions, there will be divine intervention. Goodness will prevail over evil; God will prevail over evil.

During World War II, when the Jews were rounded up and sent to the gas chambers, there is this true story of one remarkable man who outwitted the Nazis to save about 1200 Jews from certain death.

That story was made into a movie “Schindler’s List” (1993). That man was Oscar Schindler, a German industrialist, who used his flair for presentation, bribery, and grand gestures to risk his life in order to save the Jews who were working for him.

For the 1200 Jews, Oscar Schindler was all that stood between them and certain death.

Oscar Schindler was a man full of flaws like the rest of us, an ordinary man who in the worst of circumstances did extraordinary things.

In the shadow of Auschwitz, he kept the Nazis out and those 1200 Jews alive.

He was the instrument of divine intervention in the midst of evil intentions and actions.

He may not be a wise man but he certainly was a good and courageous man.

We live in a world where the ways of the world are often at odds with the ways of God.

We want to do the good and right thing, but there will be the “Herods” who will want to sabotage us and make us trip and fall.

They may even want to use us to carry out their evil intentions, just like how Herod used the wise men.

Today’s feast of the Epiphany reveals Christ to the world and it also reveals another truth: God’s intervention in the face of evil intentions.

So like the wise men that followed the star and found Jesus despite all the dangers and snares, may we continue to follow the ways of God.

He will show us His help and intervention. That is not a fairy tale, that is God’s revelation.