31st Ordinary Sunday, Year C, 30.10.2016

Wisdom 11:22 – 12:2 / 2 Thes 1:11 – 2:2 / Luke 19:1-10

There is a fruit that is peculiar to this part of the world. The characteristics of this fruit are these: it has a strong smell, it has a hard spiky shell, but its flesh is soft and a bit sticky to the fingers.
Yes, the fruit that we are talking about is the durian! Some will die for it, but some might die from it. 

And it’s all because of the smell. It is said that the durian  "smells like hell but tastes like heaven". Again that is also debatable. For some it smells like heaven and tastes like heaven; for others it smells like hell and tastes like hell.

Another peculiarity about the durian is that it cannot be plucked. When it is ripe, the spiky hard-shell fruit will fall off naturally from the tree.

Durian die-hard fans will even wait for the fruit to fall in order to get their prize. The yellowish flesh of the durian is almost worth its weight in gold.

But waiting for the durian to fall from the tree can be a risky business. Let’s say, if a bowling ball, a coconut, and a durian all fall down and hit your head. Which one hurts the most? 



Answer: Your head!

The lesson from nature about the durian is that fruits taste best when they are ripe. But most of the fruits from the shops and supermarket were plucked when they are half-ripe so that they still can have a shelf-life.

Although the difference might just be a few days or a few weeks, yet it makes a lot of difference when it comes to a naturally ripe taste and a forced ripe taste.

In today’s gospel, we heard of a wealthy senior tax collector called Zacchaeus who climbed a sycamore tree in order to have a look at Jesus.

He was anxious to see what kind of man Jesus was, so he climbed on the tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus who was to pass that way.
When Jesus came to that spot, he looked up and said to him: Zacchaeus, come down; hurry because I must stay at your house today.

It seemed that all of a sudden, things happened so fast for Zacchaeus. But things happened for a reason, and a good reason.

In the first place, why was Zacchaeus curious about Jesus? Maybe because he heard that one of his followers was Matthew, the former tax collector.

Maybe he heard how Jesus was friendly with tax collectors and sinners and those despised and rejected by society.

Zacchaeus may be materially rich, yet he also longed to be spiritually fulfilled. He may have realized that he had material riches but not true riches.

And Zacchaeus may not have realized it but when he climbed the sycamore tree, he was already ripening.

He was just ready to be called by Jesus to begin the road of conversion and repentance. It may have taken some time, but it’s all in the Lord’s time.

And the 1st reading has this to say about God’s mercy: Little by little therefore, You correct those who offend. You are merciful to all, because You can do all things and overlook men’s sins so that they can repent.

So when Jesus reached the spot He looked up and spoke to him: “Zacchaeus, come down. Hurry, because I must stay at your house today.” And he hurried down the tree and welcomed Jesus joyfully.

When Zacchaeus came down from the tree, it was like the durian falling to the ground. But it was also a ground shaking moment, because that was the moment when the sinner fell into the mercy of God. But all this happens in God’s time and when it happens it is wonderful to see.

There is a story about an elephant and a dog that became pregnant at same time. Three months down the line the dog gave birth to six puppies. Six months later the dog was pregnant again, and nine months on, it gave birth to another dozen puppies. The pattern continued.

On the eighteenth month the dog approached the elephant questioning, "Are you sure that you are pregnant? We became pregnant on the same date, I have given birth three times to a dozen puppies and they are now grown to become big dogs, yet you are still pregnant. What’s going on?"

The elephant replied, "There is something that you must understand. What I am carrying is not a puppy but an elephant. I only give birth to one in two years. When my baby hits the ground, the earth feels it. When my baby crosses the road, human beings stop and watch in admiration. What I carry draws attention. So what I'm carrying is mighty and great."

Indeed what the pregnant elephant is carrying is mighty and great, and when the time comes for its birth, and when it hits the ground, the earth feels it. Because weighing about 110kg at birth, the earth certainly feels it.

When Zacchaeus came down from the sycamore tree, the earth felt it.

Jesus had waited for this moment, and hence He came to seek out and save what was lost.

The durian fruit matures roughly three months after pollination. The gestation period of a baby elephant is about 23 months.

As for the appointed time of mercy to turn a person back to God, that is in God’s hands and in God’s time.

Meanwhile as we pray for the conversion of sinners and those who do evil, let us be patient and trust in the Lord.

When the time is ripe, people will climb trees just to look for Jesus.

When they come down, may we also receive them with arms of compassion and kindness.

May we continue the mission of Jesus to seek out and to save what was lost.

May we also realize that we too are sinners, and may the ground-shaking mercy of God open our hearts to conversion and repentance.

Mission Sunday, Year C, 23.10.2016

Isaiah 2:1-5 / Ephesians 3:2-12 / Mark 16:15-20

At the beginning of the week, we gathered all Mass offering envelopes that were in the boxes and we began recording the Mass offerings.


While we were going through the Mass offering envelopes, there was one particular envelope that we thought was rather peculiar. 

The Mass was for thanksgiving, and it was offered for a taxi driver.

The person who offered the Mass did not write down his or her name. There were no other details in the Mass offering envelope.

That sparked off a discussion about why the Mass is offered. We wondered if the taxi driver had asked the person to offer a Mass. 

Or could it be that the taxi driver had went out of his way to serve the person and so the person offered a thanksgiving Mass for him.

Whatever it is, it inspired us to pray for that taxi driver and all taxi drivers and their passengers safe on the road.

That might also bring to mind a joke about a taxi driver and a priest who died and went to heaven. The angel greeted them. He takes the taxi driver to a large mansion, then takes the priest to a smaller house. "Wait," said the priest, "Why does the taxi driver get a nicer house than me?" The angel looked at his book and said, "It says here that when you preached, people slept, but when he drove, people prayed!"  : )

Well, let us also pray for taxi drivers who bring us safely to our destinations.

Taxi drivers have this responsibility and mission to give us a comfortable ride and bring us safely to our destination.

And when we think about it, then we as Christians also have a responsibility and a mission.

Today the Church celebrates Mission Sunday and we are reminded of this responsibility and mission. And it is none other than Jesus who reminds us of this.

We heard Him say in the gospel: Go out to the whole world, proclaim the Good News to all creation.

And He continues with this: These are the signs that will be associated with believers: in my name they will cast out devils; they will have the gift of tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and be unharmed should they drink deadly poison; they will lay their hands on the sick, who will recover.

As much as it may sound exciting, we may just end up wishing, wishing that we could see these signs, wishing that we can also perform these signs. And it is rather embarrassing to say that we may not have even accomplished any one of those signs.

For example, we pray for the sick and lay our hands on them. We can only hope they recover. And if they don’t then we just shrug our shoulders and we leave it at that.

But can there be more than that? Because Jesus tells us to go out to the whole world and proclaim the Good News. 

And the essence of the Good News is that we must believe the good that God has planted in us and it is with this goodness in us that we can give a Christian response to evil and danger and sickness.

There is this story on the television program “60 minutes”. It was about a family with a religiously devout mother, a rather shy father, and their 10 year-old daughter who was wheelchair bound due to some spinal deformity.

Every year, the family make a pilgrimage to Lourdes, where healing is reported to occur. They were being interviewed by a reporter who was a typical sophisticated, secular man, and he was giving the family a hard time for being so gullible to miracles.

At one point, the reporter turned to the little girl and asked: When you pray, what do you pray for?

She replied: I pray for my daddy that he won’t be so shy because it makes him quite lonely.

That stopped the reporter for a few seconds, but he pressed on ahead, questioning the family’s purpose, and saying to the mother that they spend so much money every year going to Lourdes and there is still no miracle.

Then looking at her husband and her daughter, the mother answered: Oh you don’t get it. We have our miracle.

So do we get it? Do we know what miracle the mother is talking about? Or are we like the reporter who doesn’t seem to get it?

When we think about it, the good that God has planted in us is the miracle, and it is with the goodness that is within that we proclaim the Good News.

Today, we have 17 young children who will be receiving Holy Communion for the first time.

For these 17 young children, they will receive Jesus into their hearts and be filled with the goodness of God.

Indeed, a miracle is happening to them, and a miracle is also happening to us as we too receive Holy Communion.

We too are being filled with the goodness of God so that we can see the good in everything and give thanks for everything.

Yes, we give thanks to the parents and catechists who prepared these children for their First Holy Communion.

We give thanks that even in our struggles and difficulties and sickness, we can still see the miracles that God is working in us and through us.

We give thanks for simple things like taxi drivers who give us a comfortable ride and bring us safely to our destination.

It is in giving thanks that the Good News is proclaimed.

So let us proclaim the Good News at all times, use words if necessary, but give thanks always, because that is what is Good News is all about.

29th Ordinary Sunday, Year C, 16.10.2016

Exodus 17:8-13 / 2 Tim 3:14 – 4:2 / Luke 18:1-8

There is one thing that we all know how to do even though we were not taught how to do it.

In fact, we don’t even need to learn how to do it, because it comes instinctively. The thing that we are talking about is that we all know how to complain.

We not only know how to complain, we seem to enjoy doing it, and we also seem to enjoy doing nothing about it.

Anyway, if we are not doing anything to make it right, then why do we keep complaining about it being wrong.

Maybe that was what came into the mind of Moses when the Amalekites came and attacked Israel at Rephidim as we heard in the 1st reading.

Israel had just come out of slavery in Egypt and they were in no state whatsoever to fight with anyone, and there came the Amalekites intending to make minced meat out of them.

The Amalekites’ unrelenting brutality towards the Israelites began with an attack at Rephidim. This is recounted in Deuteronomy (25:17–19) with this admonition: “Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt. When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and attacked all who were lagging behind (typically women and children): they had no fear of God. When the LORD your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land He is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!”

So instead of complaining about why God brought the Israelites out of Egypt only to be butchered by the enemy, Moses ordered Joshua to march out to engage the enemy, while he will stand on the hilltop with the staff of God in his hand.

So Moses kept his arms raised with the staff of God in his hands while Israel fought the Amalekites. But when he let his arms fall, Israel also began to lose the battle.

So he sat on a stone, with Aaron and Hur supporting his arms till sunset, and Israel defeated the Amakelites. 

So instead of complaining and succumbing to despair, Moses lifted up his hands to invoke the help of God, and when his arms grew tired, he had support from Aaron and Hur, till Israel prevailed over the enemy.

So the lesson that we can learn from this is: If we want to complain, then complain to the one who can help us. Moses raised up his hands to God to invoke His help.

The Responsorial Psalm begins with this: I lift up my eyes to the mountains; from where shall come my help? My help shall come from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

In the Mass, the priest says this: Lift up your hearts; we respond with: We lift them up to the Lord.

Yes, we lift up our hearts with all our burdens and our complains, and the priest continues with: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God, and we respond with: It is right and just.

When we lift up our eyes to heaven and lift up our hearts to the Lord, the Lord God will do what is right and just for us, so that when we overcome our burdens, then we will give thanks to God.

And instead of giving in to complain, which is futile, we will be a consolation for others so that they will know that God will bless them with enough.

And that is what the gospel parable is telling us – the need to pray continually and never lose heart, and that God will console us.

The widow seems to be complaining and pestering the judge who neither fears God nor respects man. But it was her persistence for what is right and just that prevailed over the unjust judge.

And Jesus taught us this – Will not God see justice done to His chosen ones who cry to Him day and night even when He delays to help them? I promise you, He will see justice done to them and done speedily.

Yes, that is what Jesus promised us, that God will see justice done and done speedily, so that instead of complaining which is futile, we will have the consolation from God.

The following story is a narration and the tag line is “I WISH YOU ENOUGH” and the narration goes like this: 

Recently, I overheard a mother and daughter in their last moments together at the airport as the daughter's departure had been announced. Standing near the security gate, they hugged and the mother said: "I love you and I wish you enough."

The daughter replied, "Mom, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Mom." They kissed and the daughter left.

The mother walked over to the window where I sat. Standing there, I could see she wanted and needed to cry.

I tried not to intrude on her privacy but she welcomed me in by asking, "Did you ever say good-bye to someone knowing it would be forever?" 

"Yes, I have," I replied. "Forgive me for asking but why is this a “forever” good-bye?"

"I am old and she lives so far away. I have challenges ahead and the reality is her next trip back will be for my funeral," she said.

When you were saying good-bye, I heard you say, "I wish you enough." May I ask what that means?" 

She began to smile. "That's a wish that has been handed down from the generations. My parents used to say it to everyone." She paused a moment and looked up as if trying to remember it in detail and she smiled even more.

"When we said 'I wish you enough' we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them". Then turning toward me, she shared the following, reciting it from memory.

"I wish you enough sunshine to keep your attitude bright.
I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more.
I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive.
I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger.
I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.
I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.
I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye."

Her tears welled up in her eyes but she was able to smile as she walked away.

Indeed we will have enough of consolation from the Lord and may that stop us from complaining about life.

Instead, may the consolation we receive make us raise our eyes to heaven and lift our hearts to the Lord in thanksgiving.

And may we also share that consolation with others and may they also give thanks to God.

28th Ordinary Sunday, Year C, 09.10.2016

2 Kings 5:14-17 / 2 Tim 2:8-13 / Luke 17:11-19

Whenever we go for a holiday overseas, there is one thing that we would most likely do.

Of course besides taking many photos, we would most likely want to get a souvenir from that place.

So if we were to go to Paris, we would probably get a miniature figure of the Eiffel Tower.

Or if we were to go to New York in the US, we would probably get a miniature figure of the Statue of Liberty.

And if tourists were to get a souvenir from Singapore, what do we think it would be? Would it be a figure of a merlion? Which can be quite strange because unlike the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty, the merlion does not exist in reality.

Yet, the merlion symbolizes a reality. The body symbolizes Singapore's humble beginnings as a fishing village when it was called Temasek, meaning 'sea town' in Old Javanese. Its head represents Singapore's original name, Singapura, or 'lion city' in Malay.

Hence the merlion is a popular souvenir for tourist when they visit Singapore. Besides being a unique symbol of Singapore, it also looks like some mystical creature that has a story to tell.

It is also a meaningful gift to present to visitors from overseas. It would be a uniquely Singaporean souvenir.

In the 1st reading, we heard of Naaman, the commander of the army of Syria, who was cured of his leprosy when he immersed himself seven times in the river Jordan.

Certainly he was overjoyed and he returned to see Elisha to thank him and to present him a gift. But Elisha refused to accept the gift, which was presumably some material reward.

And then Naaman made a rather strange request. He asked Elisha for permission to be given as much earth as two mules may carry.
We may wonder, why earth (or soil)? Why not ask for the waters of the river Jordan, since he had immersed himself in it and was cured of his leprosy? 

One reason could be that the earth reminded him of his mortality. 

Naaman came to the land of Israel as a leper looking for a cure, and it was in the land of Israel that he found hope and was cured of the dreadful disease.

But more than that, as he stood before Elisha, he said this: Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in lsrael.

And he continued: I will no longer offer holocaust or sacrifice to any god except the Lord.

So more than just wanting to get a souvenir from the land of Israel, which would become just a memory, Naaman wanted the earth from the land of Israel because it was there that he had an experience of the God of Israel.

For Naaman, the earth from the land of Israel would be a living reminder of the God of Israel whom he will worship from then on.

That would make us think about the pilgrimages that we have made to the Holy Land or to the holy sites like Lourdes and Fatima.

We may have brought back souvenirs like religious objects made of olive wood, or statues of Our Lady of Fatima or Lourdes water.

Are these objects just reminders of our trips to these places, or are they objects of experiences which continue to live in our lives and deepen our faith in God?

In the gospel, we heard of the ten lepers who came to Jesus and called out to Him to have pity on them.

Jesus told them to go and show themselves to the priests. As they were on their way, they found themselves cleansed and cured of their leprosy.

Finding himself cured, one of them turned back praising God at the top of his voice and threw himself at the feet of Jesus and thanked Him. 

That made Jesus ask this disturbing question: Were not all ten made clean? The other nine, where are they?

The other nine, where were they? Maybe for those nine, now that they are cleansed and cured, they can go on with their lives. 

For them, Jesus was an encounter (and a souvenir) and it probably stopped there. Their lives can now go on without Jesus. 

And Jesus even had to make this comment: It seems that no one has come back to give praise to God, except this foreigner (who was a Samaritan).

So to put it bluntly, Jesus expects us to give thanks and to be grateful. 

And we express that thanks and gratefulness by doing reparation and expiation for our sins and for the sins of others.

This coming Thursday is the 13th October. That date, 13th October, reminds us of the last apparition of Our Lady at Fatima in 1917.

An account of that day went like this – the three children were surrounded by a crowd of 70,000 persons under a torrential rain. 
Lucy asked again of the Lady: "What do you want from me?" She answered: "I am the Lady of the Rosary, I desire here a chapel in my honor to be built, that people continue to recite the Rosary every day. The war is going to end (WW I), and the soldiers will soon return to their homes." Then Lucy asked: "May I ask you for cures and conversions, will you grant them?". The Lady answered: "Some yes, others no. It is necessary that they ask pardon for their sins, that they don't offend God our Lord, and that He is already too much offended."

This is just an excerpt from the accounts of the apparition of Our Lady at Fatima.

The gist of the message of the apparition of our Lady at Fatima is essentially to make reparation and to offer sacrifices for the conversion of sinners.

And for us who are in the parish that is dedicated to the Sacred Heart, the devotion to the Sacred Heart compels us to make reparation for our sins and to offer sacrifices for the conversion of sinners. Many souls are lost because there is no one to pray for them.

By making reparation for our sins and offering sacrifices for the conversion of sinners, we express our gratitude to Jesus, and at Mass we give thanks to God for loving us and saving us.

Let us give thanks and be grateful so that like Naaman and the Samaritan, our faith will lead us and others to salvation.

27th Ordinary Sunday, Year C, 02.10.2016

Habakkuk 1:2-3; 2:2-4 / 2 Tim 1:6-8, 13-14 / Luke 17:5-10

The Bible is a collection of sacred books, 73 to be exact, 46 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament.

A section of these are called the “Prophetic Books” and they bear the names of the prophets of the Old Testament, like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

But some of those names of the prophets are so unique (or odd) that we won’t find them anywhere else except in the Bible.

For example, there is Obadiah, Nahum, Zephaniah, names that sound like characters from the Star Wars movie.

Today’s 1st reading is taken from a prophet that also has an exotic sounding name, and that is Habakkuk.

That is certainly not a common or a popular name to begin with. A check on the meaning and etymology of that name does not reveal much, other than it probably means “embrace”.

But that 1st reading from the prophet Habakkuk certainly resonates with us in our experiences of life and how we feel about prayer, especially when it comes to how we feel about God answering our prayer.

Habakkuk said this: How long, Lord, am I to cry for help while you will not listen; to cry “Oppression” in your ear and you will not save? 

He goes on with his lamentation about injustice and tyranny, outrage and violence, contention and discord.

We can feel that Habakkuk is complaining and lamenting, and that he is angry with God for not answering his prayer and doing nothing about the evil that was happening.

And then the Lord answered with this: Write the vision down, inscribe it on tablets to be easily read; eager for its own fulfillment, it does not deceive; if it comes slowly, wait, for come it will, without fail. See how he flags, he whose soul is not at rights, but the upright man will live by his faithfulness.

God is saying that He will answer prayers, especially the cries of distress, and that He is faithful to His promises.

But on our part, we must believe that God listens to our prayers and trust that He will answer our prayers. And we also must keep our faith in Him.

In the gospel, the apostles said to Jesus: Increase our faith. Jesus replied: Were your faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea” and it would obey you.

Yes, if only our faith were the size of a mustard seed, which is among the smallest of seeds. We don’t need to see trees being uprooted and planted in the sea. 

We just need to know that God listens to our prayers and that He will send help from on high. We just need to keep faith and wait for the Lord.

But actually we need to wait no longer because God has already sent help from on high!

Today, the 2nd of October, if it is not a Sunday, the Church would celebrate the feast of the Guardian Angels.

We should know that simple nursery rhyme prayer to our guardian angel – Angel of God my guardian dear, to whom His love commits me here, ever this day be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen.

It is a simple and yet powerful prayer to our guardian angel because the Church teaches us that from the moment of our existence in our mothers’ womb, God has already sent each of us an angel to guard us and guide us.


We only need to call upon our guardian angels because they are the help that God is sending from on high. The following story will show us this reality.

The famous Wailing Wall or Western Wall is a great architectural monument and one of the holiest sites of Judaism and Jerusalem. 

Every day, the Wailing Wall is visited by thousands of tourists and pilgrims from all over the world, and they will compose a prayer and leave a note with their wishes inside the Wall’s cracks. For nearly 2000 years the Wailing Wall by the Temple Mount in Jerusalem has been a great mystery.

The Western Wall is the surviving part of the Second Temple, which was destroyed by Romans in 70 AD. There are several legends about the Wall’s origin. 

The Temple was built to be the most beautiful and sturdiest building in the world. On the night before the construction began, an angel came to Solomon, instructing him to entrust the Temple’s construction to the people instead of hired workers. That way, the rich, the poor, the old and the young – everyone can make their contribution according to their ability.

King Solomon divided the Temple’s construction into four equal parts, to symbolize the four sides of the world. And he entrusted the construction of each side to a different social class: the Eastern side to the wealthy, the Northern side to the statesmen, the Southern side to clergymen, and the Western side to poor people.

The upper classes began working with great enthusiasm, hiring the best workers, while the poor did the difficult construction work with their own hands, together with their wives and children. The wealthy class finished their part of the Temple first, followed by the ministers and clergymen, and the poor were the last to finish building the Western Wall.

But a miracle happened when the construction was completed: the Spirit of God descended on the Temple and blessed the work of the poor: “The labour of the poor is dear to Me, and it shall have My blessing.”

Many years went by. The Temple was destroyed by enemies and only the Western Wall survived. Legend has it than an angel came down to it, wrapped his wings around it to protect it from destruction, and said, “The Western Wall was built by the poor, and destruction will not touch it…”.

Hundreds of years have passed, but the Western Wall is still indestructible. The poor were faithful to their duty, the Lord God blessed the work of their hands, and the Western Wall stands today as a witness of God’s protection.

Yes, God will protect the humble and lowly and He will answer their prayers when they cry out to Him.

When we use a humble and simple prayer like the Guardian Angel prayer, we are actually calling upon power from on high, and that power will come.

So let us have faith in the humble and simple prayer to our Guardian Angels. And let us also teach that prayer to our children. 
It is our duty to do so. 

And just as the angel wrapped his wings around the Western Wall to protect it from destruction, our guardian angel will wrap his wings around us to protect us and embrace us with God’s love.