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Saturday, April 19, 2014

Easter Sunday, Year A, 20.04.2014

The celebration of Easter is often called the greatest celebration of the Church.

But that does not mean that the other great feasts of the Church like Christmas and the Annunciation and Holy Thursday are not that great a feast.

The greatness that is meant here is that it is the high-point and the climax of the celebrations of our faith.

And Easter also sheds light as well as reveals the subtle meanings of the other feasts.

For example, at Easter, we celebrate the Resurrection – Jesus rose from the dead and conquered sin and death.

The Resurrection showed that Jesus is divine – He rose from the dead.

But it also points to His humanity – He suffered, died and was buried.

And that is what we celebrate at Christmas – that Jesus, the Word of God was made flesh; divinity also took on the nature of humanity.

So Easter sheds light and also reveals the subtle meanings of the other celebrations of our faith.

Easter is also the greatest feast of our faith because when we truly understand the meaning of Easter, we will also begin to understand what our faith is all about.

In the gospel, we heard about the empty tomb. Mary of Magdala came to the tomb and she saw that the stone had been rolled away and she ran to tell Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved.

They ran to the tomb. They saw the linen cloths on the ground, and the cloth that had been over His head.

The gospel ended off by saying that till then, they had failed to understand the teachings of scripture, that He must rise from the dead. But later on, they would understand.

Today we had 13 infants who are to be baptized soon in this Mass.
We see the ordinary signs of our faith being used: water for baptism, oil for anointing, baptism garment and the baptism candles.

We hear prayers and see the ritual gestures being performed.

In all this, are we able to grasp the deeper meanings of our faith, especially in the Resurrection of Jesus?

Jesus rose from the dead and He has given us new life and He will also give new life to these 13 infants through baptism.

And later on we will renew our baptismal promises and we will be sprinkled with holy water.

And for this Easter, the Church is giving you a bottle of holy water. 

We want to emphasize that it is holy water that is being given and its put into a respectable and dignified holy water bottle.

When we truly understand the meaning of holy water, then we won’t put holy water in a reused mineral water bottle.

Because holy water reminds us of our baptism into Christ and by His suffering, death and Resurrection, He has saved us and will lead us to understand the deeper mysteries of our faith.

So bring the holy water home and bless the home with it, because the home is the first place where we will live out our baptismal promises and make it a holy dwelling for God.

Bring it to your workplace and bless your work-station, because it is there that we will offer up the work of our hands for the glory of God.

And of course, let us use the holy water to bless ourselves and our children, so that we will set our hearts on the things of above even while in the midst of the things of earth.

And may we be that holy and consecrated people who are redeemed by Christ, to proclaim the marvelous works of God.

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Palm Sunday, Year A, 13.04.2014

Isaiah 50:4-7/ Philippians/ Matthew 26:14-27:66

Life is like a cycle of ups and downs.

And as it is always said, what goes up must come down, and what goes down must come up.

Hence, we can say that nothing stays up always, and nothing stays down always.

Today’s liturgy has two opposite and contrasting moods.

We began the liturgy with the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.

The crowds spread their garments on the road and shouted: Hosanna in the highest!  (Praise God and his Messiah, we are saved) 

As we recalled that gospel scene, we too waved the palm branches in remembrance of that glorious moment when Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem.

But as we move on into the liturgy, the mood begins to swing drastically.

From “Hosanna in the highest”, we hear of human drama in the darkest and lowest.

We hear of betrayal, desertion, abandonment and crucifixion.

Within a span of an hour, we hear of glory tumbling down into agony.

The scripture readings have compressed for us that week in the life of Jesus in which we see a cycle of a high plunging down to a low, an up plummeting straight down.

And in that cycle of glory and agony, we are invited to see our lives in that one week of the life of Jesus.

We too had our days of glory when we walk with sunshine confidence and everything seems to be going right and under control.

But within a week, or even a day, or even in a matter of hours, things start crumbling and tumbling down.

And this is where we are invited to share in that moment of glory-to-agony experience of Jesus.

The readings prepare us for what is to come on Good Friday. 

At the same time, the readings also prepare us for our own Good Fridays when we feel the agony of a sudden serious illness, the death of a loved one, the loss of a friendship, failure and disappointment, heartaches and distress.

Yes, in a short time and maybe even overnight, we plunge from glory to agony, and fall into the darkness of the tomb.

The gospel also ended with Jesus buried in the tomb. But with Jesus we wait. 

Because what goes down must come up.

Agony will be turned into glory. But we must wait.

With faith and hope in the power and love of God, we wait till the agony of darkness will give way to the glory of light.

Saturday, April 5, 2014

5th Sunday of Lent, Year A, 06.04.2014

Ezekiel 37:12-14/ Romans 8:8-11/ John 11:1-45

No matter what we want to say about appearances, we can’t deny that looks are important.

We may not be that vain as to want to look gorgeous or glamorous, but in all modesty, we would want to look pleasant.

So, if we have the “plain Jane” kind of looks, we certainly won’t let it remain like that.

Otherwise, the beauticians will be out of work, and the beauty and skincare product companies will go out of business.

So, to maintain the looks, going for facial and hairdressing are like the minimum requirements. 

And it is not just the ladies who go for such things.

The men are catching up. Gone are the days when the “rock-face” is in. That era belongs to actors like Charles Bronson. 

The “in” looks belong to actors like Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom and Tom Cruise, with smooth looks, as well as great hairstyles like David Beckham.

So, it’s like “I live, therefore I must look good”. And it is not just when we are alive and well that we want to look good.

Even in death, we would also like to look presentable for others when they come to pay their respects. 

So, when we are alive, we need beauticians; when we are dead, we need morticians. In any case, both will make us look good.

But for the Lazarus that we heard about in the gospel, he didn’t have to look good upon his death. (Maybe there were no morticians around at that time)

The dead person was wrapped up, the hands and feet bound with bands of cloth, with a cloth around the face. That was how it was described in the gospel.

The reality of death was traumatic (and it still is) and hence all signs of death must be concealed and wrapped up.

There is nothing good to look at in death. It only evokes grief and pain and sorrow.

But when Jesus called out to Lazarus and when he came out of the tomb, Jesus said to the people: Unbind him, let him go free.

Obviously, to show that Lazarus had come back to life, not only his hands and feet must be free from the binds of cloth, his face must be uncovered.

It was not just to show people that he looked good even after four days in the tomb; it was for the look of life, that Lazarus was raised from the dead and was alive.

Jesus was not some kind of skilled mortician that made a dead man look good and alive.

Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead; Jesus raised Lazarus to life!

Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life. And He said: If anyone believes in me, even though he dies, he will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.

So, do we believe this? Can we believe this? And if we believe this, then what does it mean for us?

Back in 2008, there was this Japanese movie titled “Okuribito” or “Departures” (of course there are English sub-titles)

The movie is about the historic Japanese “encoffining” ceremony in which professional morticians ritually clean, dress and prepare the bodies before they are placed in the coffin.

Morticians and undertakers are a necessary occupation, though not necessary a preferred one, whether in Japan or elsewhere.

The story is about an unemployed cellist who went back to his hometown with his wife and through some confusion and desperation took on the job as a mortician, though he initially detested it.

He was beset with nausea, and he was also humiliated when strangers on the bus detect a stench on him.

Even his wife rejected him when she found out about his profession, because she didn't want to be touched by a man who touched the dead.

But he knew he had to continue. He realized that he was providing a service that had become meaningful to him.

It was a sense of fulfillment as he saw the relatives of the deceased feeling the consolation and having a closure with death and moving on in their lives.

One particular scene that was profound was how the face of the deceased was made up with exquisite attention to detail.

In some ways, that movie portrayed the mortician as someone who prepares the deceased in a dignified and respectable way for the afterlife.

So if we truly believe in Jesus as the Resurrection and the Life, then we would want to let Him prepare us for the afterlife by the way we live in this life.

And that means we have to face the ugliness and brokenness that we see in ourselves and in others.

Yes, the wages of sin is a slow spiritual death that is expressed in the ugliness and brokenness of our lives.

But Jesus calls out to us, heals our ugliness and brokenness and He unbinds us and frees us from the fear of death.

And like the mortician in the movie “Departures” we are also called to give people respect and dignity and help them rise to a life of meaning and fulfillment and to look at life with hope.

Yes, the Lord has forgiven us our sins and heals us and calls us to live a life in Him.

Let us celebrate this new life in Christ and may that new life be also shown on our faces.