2nd Sunday of Easter, Year C, 27.04.2019

Acts 5:12-16 / Apocalypse 1:9-13, 17-19 / John 20:19-31
It has been a week since we celebrated Easter Sunday. It would certainly be nice to take a break and have a little rest.

Because Lent is a spiritually packed season, with a sharp emphasis on prayer, penance and almsgiving, along with the Way of the Cross, Confessions, etc.

All that reaches its peak with Holy Week and especially at the Holy Triduum, where Maundy Thursday moves on to Good Friday and into Easter Vigil and then Easter Sunday.

We can imagine the physical state of the priests on Easter Sunday evening, almost like a state of spiritual comatose. It was a long week with a busy weekend.

There is this so-called Easter joke, of a boy who came home after a long day at school. He told his mother that he has a stomach ache.

His mother told him, “That’s because there is nothing in your stomach. You’ve got to put something in it.” And she quickly prepared some food which he ate and he felt better. 

On Easter Sunday, the boy went with his parents for the evening Mass. After Mass, they met the priest at the entrance. The priest shared with them that it was a long and tiring weekend and that he was having a headache.

Then the boy remembered what his mother told him and he said to the priest, “Father, you are having a headache because there is nothing in your head. You need to put something into your head.”

Stomach ache or headache or backache, if it’s not serious, can be cured and we can get better quickly if there is the correct medicine.

But there are some pains that are difficult to cure. It is not so much a physical pain like a headache or stomachache, but rather spiritual, like a heartache.

Heartaches are difficult to cure because there is no medication for it, and what is needed is not so much a cure but more of a healing.

It can be said that the disciples in the gospel were suffering heartaches from a number of causes. There was guilt from betraying and denying and deserting Jesus, there was the fear of the Jews, their faith was broken and the future was just blank hopelessness.

It was a heartache that no medicine can cure because it was more than a physical pain – it was a spiritual pain that required a spiritual healing. 

It was in this state of utter despair that the Risen Lord Jesus came and stood among them, and His first words were “Peace be with you”. 

And that was what the disciples needed most. Jesus came not to settle scores but to sooth the sore and painful hearts that were broken with guilt and pain.

And Jesus even came back again eight days later just for Thomas, who had said, “Unless I see the holes that the nails made in His hands and can put my finger into the holes they made, and unless I can put my hand into His side, I refuse to believe.”

We can understand how the disciples and especially Thomas felt. With a shattered faith and blank hopelessness, it was very difficult to believe, especially in something like the Resurrection.

Just a week ago, on Easter Sunday, when the whole Church was celebrating the joy of the Resurrection, terrorists attacked and bombed three churches and four luxury hotels in Sri Lanka, leaving more than 250 people dead.

One of the targets of the horrendous Easter Sunday bombings was St. Anthony’s Church, which is renowned as a place of worship open to all faiths. But the bombings have shut its doors for now. For the first time in its 175-year history, people can’t go into the church. In fact, all worship services have been suspended throughout Sri Lanka.

The church is fondly called a “miracle church” because her patron, St. Anthony, has a reputation of a “miracle worker”, and no prayer request, no matter how big or small or strangely specific, is left unanswered by St. Anthony, as the people would testify.

But on Monday, despite the church grounds being cordoned off and no one was allowed to enter the church, still a large crowd gathered around the perimeter, staring at the building, praying perhaps. Faith is shaken and broken, like the disciples in the gospel.

They have witnessed horrendous carnage and the loss of innocent lives. So will the horror erode the people’s faith in the power of God and of the Church?

Fr. Leo Perera, a Sri Lankan priest has this to say: You cannot keep people away from here just because of something like this. They will keep coming back because this is the time they need the presence of God in their lives. In no way this will affect the state of the Church and the faith of her believers.

Maybe this explains why many people still came together to stand in front of the church. Yes, they come to express sadness and horror at what took place at the church. Yet they came to express hope.

In the darkness of the hour, the church continues to be a symbol of hope, with many Sri Lankans choosing to stand together despite the terror and horror that have unfolded before their eyes.

And with the church closed and worship services suspended for the time being, the Risen Lord Jesus now goes out to stand amongst the people.

The Risen Lord Jesus stands among them to heal their heartaches and despair and to bring them peace.

We too must stand with the Church and the people of Sri Lanka and to offer prayer for them, since they can’t even go to church to pray.

And let us also learn from them and see how the Risen Lord Jesus will heal their heartaches with His peace. 

Their heartaches are also a mirror of our own heartaches. Their healing will also give us hope that our own heartaches will be healed.

That is the power of the Risen Lord Jesus. His peace and His mercy is what is needed to heal our heartaches and the heartache of the world.

Easter Sunday, Year C, 21.04.2019

Acts 10:34, 37-43 / Col 3:1-4 or 1 Cor 5:6-8 / John 20:1-9
Whenever we are told that “what you see is what you get”, the meaning is almost as clear as the sentence.

What we see is almost all that we get to see and there is nothing more to it and we don’t expect anything more than it.

For example, a 5-room flat is a 5-room flat. There are no hidden rooms or extra rooms. A $10 bill is a $10 bill and there is no extra hidden value to it.

But as much as what you see is what you get, there is also the other side of things, and that is “there is more than meets the eye”.

The so-called reality that we see before us may not be all that it is. Because in everything, there is a mystery, in the broadest sense of the word.

And this mystery reveals the reality to what the eye can see, and yet this mystery may also have something more to reveal, such that the mind may take a while to comprehend and to understand.

In the mystery of the Incarnation, God became man in the person of Jesus, people saw Jesus in the flesh, the outward reality.
The people, as well as His disciples, saw how He suffered and died on the cross, as we heard in the readings on Good Friday.

And then in the Resurrection accounts, no one really saw the Risen Jesus. There were accounts of the stone that was rolled away from the tomb and it was an empty tomb.

There were accounts of angels telling the women not to look among the dead for the one who is alive.
The women ran back to tell the apostles but their story was dismissed as pure nonsense and no one believed them.

And then Peter ran to the tomb, saw the binding cloths, but nothing else, and he was just amazed.
Till then, the disciples failed to understand that Jesus must rise from the dead.

And as we gather to celebrate this great feast of Easter, the mystery of the Resurrection comes to us, just as it came to the disciples in the gospel accounts.

We too did not see the Risen Jesus, but we believe from the gospel accounts that He is risen. And blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.
And for the 11 candidates for baptism, they too believe and they are requesting for baptism, and to join us in the family of faith.

Yet the mystery of the Resurrection continues to unfold and to reveal to us who believe that Jesus is risen from the dead.

These 11 candidates for baptism will be baptized with water, and after that when we renew our baptismal promises, we too will be sprinkled with holy water.

The outward sign is that we are sprinkled with holy water, but the inward reality and mystery is that the Risen Jesus comes to wash and cleanse our hearts of all sin and defilement so that we too can rise with Jesus to new life and a higher life.

An imagery that can help in understanding this is that we are like ducks in the pond. On the surface everything is calm and graceful.

But under the water, the duck’s feet are paddling furiously to keep it floating and going.

So there is nothing dramatic about being baptized with holy water or being sprinkled with holy water.
It is all smiles, and everything is peaceful and graceful.
But in our hearts, the Risen Jesus is stirring and waking us up from the slumber of sin and shining the light of His Resurrection into our hearts so that we can turn away from sin and rise with Him to the new life.

That is the reality and the mystery of the Resurrection. Let us believe and we will be amazed at what the Risen Jesus can do for us.

Palm Sunday, Year C, 14.04.2019

Isaiah 50:4-7 / Philippians 2:6-11 / Luke 22:14 – 23:56
The full title of today’s liturgical celebration is: “Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord”.

So it is not just Palm Sunday or just Passion Sunday. It is both, with one leading to the other.

We began with the Palm Sunday gospel passage of the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.

Then we heard a long gospel passage about the suffering and death of Jesus.

The contrast between the two passages is obvious.

And as we think about it, so are our lives – there is joy as well as sorrow, success as well as failure, peace as well as chaos, health as well as sickness.

So the contrast between the two gospel passages of today is also a reflection of our experience of life.

But as much as there is a contrast, there is also a similarity.

When Jesus made His triumphant entry into Jerusalem, the people hailed him as king.

When He was crucified on the cross, there was a notice with an inscription: This is the King of the Jews. 

So in life and in death, Jesus held on to His identity as the King of kings.

And in our contrasting experiences of life, may we always have our eyes fixed on Jesus, so that we know who we are and that we belong to Him and that He will always be with us.

For now, let us be with Jesus and be with Him in His suffering and death, and keep faith in Him as we await for Him to raise us to new life. 

5th Sunday of Lent, Year C, 07.04.2019

Isaiah 43:16-21 / Philippians 3:8-14 / John 8:1-11
To say that someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed is to mean that he had a bad day and probably was still having a bad day.

Come to think of it, waking up on the wrong side of the bed is still better than waking up on the floor and in shock. Yes, waking up on the wrong side of the bed is still better than falling off from the bed.

Whatever it might be, a good king-size bed can assure us of a good night’s sleep with no worries of falling off the bed.

But what happens when we wake up and get out of bed can be quite another story. We don’t know what kind of day awaits us.

A priest celebrated Mass with a big plaster on his chin. He told the people that he was thinking about the homily while he was shaving and accidentally cut his chin, hence the plaster. It was a careless start to the day.
When the priest got back to his office, there was an email in the computer that read: Dear Father, please be careful. In future, think about your shaving and cut the homily!
We know that it is one of those bad days when we expected to get sympathy and some people turn our misery into a comedy.

And some people will even say that if we think we are having a bad day, we better be prepared that it might just get worse. What a consolation when we are in our desolation!

Of course we can prepare ourselves for a bad day, but we won’t know when it will happen and we won’t know what to expect.

In the gospel, it seemed to be just another day for Jesus. He was at the Mount of Olives, a popular place for prayer and meditation. Then at daybreak, He appeared in the Temple and as the people came to Him, He sat down and began to teach them.

All seemed well, until the scribes and Pharisees dragged in a woman who had been caught committing adultery. In full view of everybody, they asked Jesus for His judgement on her. And as the Gospel added, they asked Him this as a test, looking for something to use against Him.

Whenever the scribes and the Pharisees appear, they bring bad news, and it seems like it’s going to be another bad day for Jesus. So how is He going to handle this tricky situation?
We should know by now that not every day is a good day, but there is something good in every day. 
And that is what Jesus wants to teach us. Every day He had to face the plotting of the scribes and Pharisees, and yet through it all, He teaches us something good.

And in this instance, Jesus taught us that He was not too concerned about the trickery of the scribes and the Pharisees and the trouble that He was facing.

Rather His concern was for that woman caught for committing adultery, shamed in public, and probably would be executed by stoning. It was a bad day for that woman and seems like it was only going to get worse.

But if her day was bad, her life was probably tragic. How did she end up in such a bad state, and now she is being used to trap Jesus and after that she will be disposed of. Hers was a sad life and coming to a sad end.

But Jesus took up the sinfulness of that woman and brought out the sinfulness of the others when He said, “If there is one of you who have not sinned, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”

And just as that statement stopped them in their tracks, that statement should also stop us at our thoughts.

When things go wrong and turn bad, are we the first to throw stones? Or are we going to drop the stones to do something good?

Last week there was this story of an aircraft that was forced to make an emergency landing in a remote small airport that was 100 miles away from the destination.

Stranded in an empty airport, in the middle of nowhere, many passengers became irritated (who wouldn’t?) with the crew and airline staff. They were going to throw stones.

Among the passengers was this well-known actor, Keanu Reeves. While the airline staff was trying to solve the problem, Keanu decided to do what he could to keep the situation under control.

He kept the passengers updated about the situation, and he was cool and furthest thing from being upset.
He told the passengers where to pick up their luggage, and the travel options to get to their destination. He even advised them to take the shuttle bus instead of waiting for the plane to be fixed.

In between, he posed for pictures with the passengers at the airport and made it a moment to be remembered.

As much as he had the means to arrange for private transportation, he took the shuttle bus provided by the airline for the stranded passengers and he turned it into a fun ride for everyone on board, with trivia games and all.

The passengers were amazed at how Keanu Reeves would think of ways to keep people engaged and entertained. More than just a good actor, Keanu Reeves is a down-to-earth person who tries to bring out the good in a bad situation. May God bless him for that.

This reminds us that not every day is a good day but there is something good in every day.

Just as in the gospel scene, not everyone in it is a good person, but Jesus brought out that something good in each person - the woman caught in adultery, the scribes and Pharisees, the crowds.

And through this gospel passage, Jesus also wants to bring out the goodness in each of us.

Then we will truly understand what Jesus meant when He said: If there is one of you who had not sinned, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.